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Dec 6 2008, 8:46 PM EST (current) jimmiller5417 1 word added, 1 word deleted
Dec 6 2008, 8:43 PM EST jimmiller5417 938 words added

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INSTANT JOBS – save energy and our economy

To: Obama Transition Team – Office of Public Liaison
From: Jim Miller, jimmiller5417@yahoo.com
December 5, 2008

  • Expand Americorps to include:
    • Teaching permaculture to gardeners and farmers
    • Corps members who, on appointment, visits homes, do an energy survey and suggest ways to save energy.
    • Senior assistants. Corps members are trained and then sent on assignment to assist senior citizens who are partially disabled or are in need of assistance in daily living chores.
    • Help home owners with home repairs
    • Help renters deal with slumlords.
    • Help applicants deal with government bureaucracy.
    • Help homeless find survival resources.
    • Help unemployed find jobs – a personal career trainer.
  • Small business
    • Empower federally chartered credit unions to invest in equity of small businesses for start-ups and grow-ups. The equity is redeemed after company is profitable sufficiently to redeem the equity, say 3 to 5 years.
    • Support experiments which are likely to produce commercially viable products or services, including feasibility studies and pilot projects, via both loans and equity positions.
    • Purchase defaulted loans made to small businesses and assign a SBA SCORE volunteer to develop a workout plan.
  • Housing:
    • Purchase defaulted home loans, suspend payment and assign a competent Americorps person to develop a workout plan.
    • Purchase defaulted apartment house loans and assign a local housing authority or Americorp specialist to help the owner with a workout.
    • Purchase foreclosed apartment house property from the lender and offer the property to 501.c.4 co-housing groups or government housing authorities. 503.c.3 housing charities could also participate.
    • Purchase foreclosed retail commercial centers and create homeless shelters run by cities, counties, for-profit an non-profit organizations.
    • Empower and fund HUD to make direct loans to homeowners who build homes with straw bales and other energy efficient materials.
  • Education:
    • Remove many of the stupid restrictions on Stafford loans.
    • More funding of student guaranteed loans.
    • Allow unemployed graduates to “work-off” the loans by doing volunteer work or work for Americorps, on a ratio of $10.00 for each hour worked.
    • Directly support hands-on educational courses by community colleges and high schools in agriculture, especially home kitchen and community gardens.
Science and engineering:
  • Get serious about renewable energy and cut-back on the greenwashing.
  • Support R & D for syngas fueled Combined Heat and Power gensets. See: http://algaloildiesel.wetpaint.com/page/SYNGAS+AND+BIOCHAR
  • Support early development and tooling for U.S. Based manufacturing plants which make syngas fueled CHP units, with a premium for companies which rehabilitate abandoned or idle factories in the Rust Belt.
  • Allow all tax credits to pass through to investors in green technologies.
  • Support retooling of Chrysler as an electric car manufacturer under new management installed as a result of bankruptcy or purchase of controlling equity interest by the Federal Government, with the eventual sale of the US equity to the workers at Chrysler. See: http://chyslerelectricautocompany.wetpaint.com/
  • Allow/promote General Motors to file a Chapter 11 proceeding, then negotiate with the Trustee in Bankruptcy to appoint totally different management team, after which, make a bridge loan to keep the company in transition to electric vehicles. The final plan of arrangement should consider selling the equity to the workers of GM. See: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/DEMOCRACY+IN+THE+WORKPLACE
  • Ford Motor Co. should change management so that electric car retooling is the main focus, and only then provide funds to support the retooling.
  • Direct Department of Energy to select the most promising ten best bioenergy technologies and fund pilot plants to commercialize them. See: PROSPECTS FOR THE BIODIESEL INDUSTRY: http://chyslerelectricautocompany.wetpaint.com/
Community:



Please inform me which of the above suggestions have been or will be adopted by the Obama administration. Regards, Jim Miller