Aside from managing the immediate financial crisis, I agree that energy independence is probably the most urgent item on the economic agenda. But a return to fiscal responsibility is a close second. As exciting as this election season was, I was disturbed that neither candidate would seriously discuss the discipline and deep sacrifices it would take to ensure the future solvency of this country.

American debt - both private and public - will be one of the defining challenges of our time. Balancing the books of American households and the American government is more important than almost everything else. Other than war and environmental degradation, I can't think of a worse transfer of consequences to descendants.

There are structural AND cultural obstacles to fiscal health. The Obama administration needs to address both. We have not been consuming and saving at sustainable levels for a long time, but the private and public sectors continue to feed off of each other's recklessness.

The government borrows and spends far more than it can, accumulating more than 10 trillion dollars of national debt. Financial institutions take outrageous risks, leveraging their assets at a 30:1, 60:1, sometimes even 100:1 ratio. And citizens spend every penny they make, a savings rate of ZERO - the lowest since the Depression.

The foreclosures and financial meltdown have shown us the consequences of this recklessness in the private sector. And now there are indications that the other shoe is about to drop. Just today there were warnings that the United States "may be on course to lose its 'AAA' rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated," according to CNBC (http://www.cnbc.com/id/27641538).

It's all related. The irresponsible culture in Washington spreads to Wall Street and then to Main Street. Our leaders have been grossly negligent, so the Obama administration will really have to step up. And Americans have to wake up and take the debate about fiscal health off the pages of the business section and into their living rooms. This may not be as sexy as the green revolution, but the fight for this cause should be as passionate.

Posted by Danny Moldovan on 11/12/2008 @ 02:57PM PST

Secretary Paulson's new plan for dealing with the Financial Crisis involves lending money to financial institutions in order to encourage them to lend to consumers. The current White House Administration has to be careful not to create another situation where struggling citizens take out loans which they cannot repay, thereby putting us in the same situation 2 or 3 years down the road. Any lending of money, must be tied to loan rates which are capped at a certain low level. High interest rates will only continue the problem or postpone it for a year or two. The ONLY way we are going to get out of this mess is if EVERYONE quits being greedy and tries to start working together. If banks and financial institutions won't start lending to customers at reasonable rates(for the actual value of homes,not the inflated values) then the government should. The Government can undercut the banks and financial institutions and lend directly to citizens if these lenders won't do it at a reasonable level. This would allow the Government to get a reasonable return on it's (taxpayers) money and slowly start to solve the problem of unsold houses which is the primary cause of the problem.

Posted by Jeff Kohut on 11/13/2008 @ 06:04AM PST

I think an important and under recognized need as we think about a sustainable economy, is finding a way to grow the economy in a less land consuming way.  For half a century economic development has been synonymous with a new cloverleaf off-ramp, surrounded by a new town center, five miles form the nearest town.  Not only is this kind of growth not sustainable environmentally but I strongly suspect that we will see this type of development hid hard by the economic bloodbath that will hit the retail sector in the coming months.    If we’re serious about sustainable economic development, we need to start by understanding that economic development and good planning go hand in hand.  A “green” Wal-mart is an oxymoron if it is only accessible by single occupancy vehicle, from a free way off-ramp that connects to nothing else.  The daily amount of energy wasted to get there, and the amount of carbon generated by that traffic, negates any sustainable value saved by building a “green” building.  And the economic value of this type of development is often at least partially negated by the economic relocation of dollars that were being spent elsewhere within the nearby communities.   Instead we should be talking about how to stimulate reinvestment in those areas of our communities where infrastructure already exists but is underperforming economically.  Places like traditional downtowns that have been largely vacated over the last half a century, but still have some of the highest concentration of existing usable infrastructure.     These traditional downtowns and neighborhood districts are often surrounded by and connected to walkable neighborhoods, and are close to community schools, social services, and civic institutions.  They were in most cases, designed for a density and mix of uses that is ideal for supporting public transit and a mix of multimodal transportation choices.    Perhaps most importantly these traditional downtowns and neighborhood business districts have been home to local entrepreneurs and small business owners who live in the communities and reinvest a disproportionally larger percentage of their profits back into those communities.    I believe that the most important step that the Obama administration or any administration can take in terms of building a more sustainable economy is to change the discussion from one of economic development, to one of reinvestment and revitalization.    We have, in nearly every community across this country an abundance of underused infrastructure, vacant buildings, and struggling small businesses.  Another 50 years of building new town centers farther and farther away from town will not be any more sustainable than the last 50 years of this development pattern.    I believe that sustainable economies must start at the local level and should focus on the best utilization of existing assets and resources.  One key to that effort is to focus on the revitalization and adaptive reuse of our existing downtowns and neighborhood business districts. 

Posted by Timothy Bishop, CMSM on 11/13/2008 @ 08:43PM PST

I am not an economist or a businessman, but as a common man, having a perspective of world outside of America, I feel that america has spent a lot on the defense sector and wars.  It is more of a destructive expenditure than of a constructive one.

Hope Obama again puts America back to its place where it was and even further. 

Posted by Mohammed Abdul Wajid on 11/15/2008 @ 03:44AM PST