I have traveled outside of the United States my entire life. Every passport that I have ever had, has required additional pages for entry stamps and visas. I have also lived twice outside in the United States. First I lived in Dublin, Ireland in 1997, and then I moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2003. As I have traveled throughout the world, I meet with many other world travelers and all of us agree. The dollar has gone in the toilet.

When I was in Ireland in 1997, the dollar was the envy of the world. That was back before the Euro, but the dollar was significantly stronger than the Irish pound and the British sterling. As I recall, it was like 1.4 British sterling to the dollar, and 1.3 Irish pounds to the dollar.

Better yet, when I purchased my apartment in Rio de Janeiro, the dollar was close to 3 Brazilian reals to the dollar. It is a great great feeling when you are the owner of such a strong currency. When you travel internationally, everything seems cheaper. It made me feel very proud to be an American and all that it means.

But now, in such a short period of time, the dollar has gone from being the envy of the world to one of the weakest. To be clear, the dollar is now a lot weaker than the British Pound and the Euro. More importantly to me personally, the dollar has fallen close to 50% against the Brazilian real in the last 8 years.

The root of this problem is one and only one thing. The Federal Reserve. Just to be clear, the Federal Reserve is total bullshit because it is not federal nor is it reserve. It was invented in 1913, and given its name to give it an air of importance but let’s be clear. The Federal Reserve controls the American money supply and the dollar, but it has no direct reporting back to the federal government. Furthermore, they hold no reserves. In the past twenty years, there have been two retards running the Fed, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. In that time, they have managed to ruin the country and destroy the dollar.

Let me try and explain. First, let’s start with the basics. America is the greatest society that ever existed on the face of the planet. American innovation has driven the world for the last 150 years. The list is staggering but I’ll name a few. The automobile, the telephone, the radio, the airplane, the copy machine, the motion picture industry, the camera, the computer, the internet. These are the technologies that improve the productivity of society and the quality of all our lives. Not just in America but for the entire world. Then of course, we won both World War 1 and World War 2. For well over 100 years, the United States could do no wrong! And that is why the dollar has been so strong. The dollar represents the greatest country in the world.

Then Alan Greenspan decides sometime after 9/11 that he was God. He started printing money and dumping dollars on the world. (Note: Grreenspan did not seek nor did he need Bush or Congress’s approval to do this, he just did it.) This drove down interest rates and made the entire housing bubble possible. This stupidity also created our current economic mess. The news media keep referring to our economic situation as the worst since the Great Depression. Here’s the problem. The Great Depression is over, and our current situation is not. It can still get a lot worse, and my bet is that it will.

One of the reasons why I am soooo frustrated is that no progress is being made to fix this problem. Obama promised Hope and Change but when it comes to this issue, we are getting exactly the same. To be clear, the same people that advised Bush are advising Obama. Not one change has been made. Furthermore, the Republicans want to blame the Democrats, and the Democrats want to blame the Republicans. They are so busy bickering that they cannot work together to fight the largest threat to the American way of life. That would be Ben Bernanke and the Fed.

Back to basic economics. The problem with the American economy is that the Fed has been printing dollars out of thin air. Imagine in your mind, a magic printing press that just prints dollars whenever Bernanke snaps his fingers. Whenever our government goes into debt which it has a strong propensity to do, then rather than borrow money the Fed instead just prints money out of thin air. When the Fed does this, it has a broad impact on all of us. Here are the impacts:

1. Artificially low interest rates. For the people that like to save money, it hurts us a alot. We now need to save even more money to make the same interest. This also helps Wall Street, because if you want to make a decent return on your savings, then you need to take the money out of your savings account and fork it to a Wall Street brokerage firm. This of course makes stocks go up and exposes your savings to much higher risk.
2. Inflation. When the Fed prints money out of nothing, then it puts upward pressure on prices. All prices. In addition, the American government has undergone a consistent program to remove things from the inflation index often called the Consumer Price Index. For example things like health care costs and energy prices are excluded from the CPI. But it is not hard to see inflation all around us. Just keep price of the foods that you buy on a regular basis and you can’t help but notice that prices are going up. If the Fed did not do this, inflation would be under control.
3. Weaker dollar. A weak dollar impacts me more than most since I live in a foreign country. But a weak dollar impacts every American of every race, sex and age. A weaker dollar makes the price of all American imports go up. America’s biggest import is oil and the weak dollar makes it go up. Let’s not forget that oil is also the needed to make plastics and all those goods rise in cost as well. More on this later. But suffice it to say that all of our imported goods get more expensive.
4. Speculation. When interest rates go to zero, then money is cheap. At least for the banks that is. So one thing that banks now do is speculate on commodoties. The price of gasoline at the pump is rising not because of supply/demand imbalance but because of massive speculation. It is estimated that over 80% of the oil trading volume is related to speculation rather than use for airplanes, cars, and air conditioning. Oil is the most obvious speculation but the speculation is for all major commodoties such as wheat, sugar, live stock and so on.

Perhaps the thing that pisses me off most is that I am sure that the reason for the current economic collapse is Greenspan and Bernanke. It is NOT Obama and it is NOT Bush. We as a country are blaming the wrong people. The reality is that Greenspan pushed interest so low, and it resulted in a massive misallocation or resources into the housing industry. This is social engineering at its worst. Cheap money also enabled the Iraq War and tons of other BS both Republican and Democrat. Then of course, because of this misallocation of resources, the Federal government had to bail out the very banks that created the mess. Talk about a double whammy.

So I am FED up. Americans want jobs. The reason that we have poor employment has to do with the Feds pandering to Wall Street rather than to the needs of the American people. I have blogged before that Wall Street and the Dow Jones are not a proxy for the economy as a whole. No, far from it, and it is more evident now than ever before.

I watched Obama’s speech last week and frankly I was disappointed. It was a nice speech, but in my view, Obama missed the key issue that will fix our economy from a death spiral. That issue is Wall Street.

We all agree that Wall Street and the Fed are the underlying reason behind the greatest economic depression since the Great Depression. BTW. Why do people call our current crisis the worst since the Great Depression? They have been calling it that for years at this point. The Great Depression is over and it was bad. Our current crisis is not over, and so therefore, we cannot compare one against the other.

Back to Wall Street. So these guys are making record profits. They are making money hand over fist during this economic crisis. While unemployment remains high and the rest of America suffers, these guys are raking it in. Why is that? I think I know.

Last year, I called my banker and I considered getting a loan for my business. We did not need the money but I was more curious. He told me that my interest rate would be 5%. I told him that sounded high. In fact, that was the same interest rate I would have received before the economic crisis. He agreed but that was the rate. So here is the issue. Before the crisis, banks could buy from the Fed at let’s say 3%, and then they would sell that same money to me at 5%. They net 2%. Now, they can buy from the Fed at 0%, but they are still selling at 5%. They now net 5%. Their profits have more than doubled because their costs have gone down. They are making so much money that they don’t need to make any more loans, they can just milk it.

Of course, this was not the intention. When the Fed reduced the rate, they wanted to give more people access to capital. Let’s just say the entire zero percent interest thing has been a miserable failure and the only ones that have benefited have been the bankers.

But this is not the reason I am blogging today. I view the fundamental issue that we must defeat in America is the amount of control that bankers have over our lives and the impact it has on our well being. I plan to demonstrate that what is good for Wall Street is quite often in direct conflict for what is good for Main Street.

Before I begin, I have a lot of friends in the financial sector and they are all doing fabulously well. This is not a personal attack. These are my observations about the system and not the people in it.

Illegal Immigration

There is no dispute that Wall Street was behind the huge housing crisis. We all know the history. They created the bubble and when it popped they were screwed and so the taxpayers bailed them out to tune of over a trillion dollars. But there is another story. During this bubble, the entire immigration issue heated up.

Here in Myrtle Beach it was particularly pronounced. Suddenly, the dominant language in Walmart and Circuit City was Spanish rather than English. I am not complaining. I speak Spanish. I am just using this as a barometer of change. Also now a days, I don’t hear that much Spanish being spoken.

Anyways, the point is that all of these companies building the houses like Lennar, etc are large publicly traded companies. They all use illegal immigrants and we know it. So does Wall Street. What happens when a company such as Lennar begins to use illegal immigrants? First, their costs go down. Also immigrant workers have less rights and there is no chance they will ever form a union. Good docile workers just like Wall Street likes them. The labor costs go down, but also payroll taxes go down. Insurance costs go down. Medical costs and so on. Once their costs go down, they have a choice. They can pass the savings on to customers or they can increase profits. Guess which one Wall Street prefers? PROFITS.

So Lennar announces improved profits, and Wall Street rewards the executives at Lennar by running up their stock price. Since all executives have stock or stock options, these guys are now filthy rich. Not because they are smart, but because they were willing to break the law.

But the problem gets worse. Other executives at other home builders see that their colleagues at Lennar are getting filthy rich and they jump on the bandwagon. Before you know it, all home builders think that the only way to build a house is using illegal immigrants. And that’s where things stand today.

Pensions

As I get older, a lot of my friends are getting older as well. I actually have a very close friend that is 55 years old. He works for a hospital in California. We were having beers and he tells me that he turns 60, he is going to get 80% of his salary and full medical benefits for his pension. I was really really happy for him, but then it made me sad. I quickly began to realize that very few of my friends have pensions. Some are very financially healthy and have no worries, but to be honest, I would say that 1/2 of my friends are essentially fucked. They will never have enough money to retire and they will work until they die. I am not a sociologist but I believe that their life expectancy is not good.

Even when I talk to my friends that have pensions, they are quick to point out how lucky they are. Without exception, these pensions are being discontinued. My friends and relatives hit a certain pension window, but it is safe to say that my children will never have a pension. They either save a lot of money, or they will work until they die.

Wall Street does not like pensions. I really don’t think they can relate. They make more in 6 months than most people make their entire lives. Of course no one on Wall Street needs a pension. They make so much money that their children’s children’s children will not have to work if they don’t want to. Pensions are bad for profits and bad for stock prices.

Outsourcing

When I worked at Gateway from 1991-1999, one of our primary functions were call centers. We handled everything on the telephone. Sales, customer service, technical support, returned parts, customer accounting and so on. Furthermore, every single one of these tens of thousands of jobs were legal Americans. In less than ten years, all of those jobs are gone. They are all in India and the Phillipines best I can tell.

If you talk to just about anyone, there is not one of us consumers that like talking to non Americans. It is not like there is some advantage to talking to an Indian person to get a refund on my credit card. It is the opposite. Sometimes their accents are not intelligible and quite often they are ill trained to boot.

If you go and look at what companies are outsourcing you will find the vast majority are publicly traded companies. By and large small businesses like my company, we still answer our phones.

Note: By the time that Gateway began outsourcing, I had already left, but I definitely voiced my concerns. My reasoning had nothing to do with cost. You want your points of contact to the customer linked to your operations. Customer service also gives valuable feedback to operations on what they are doing wrong. Outsourcing breaks that link. In fact the opposite occurs. The Indian call center wants more calls, not less. So the last thing they want is to eliminate the problem at the root. Outsourcing promotes inefficiency in the long run.

Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that when a publicly traded company began outsourcing jobs that Wall Street rewarded them with an increased stock price?

Monopolies

Here is one of the scariest trends that I see in America. Wall Street loves monopolies. By monopoly, I mean a company that has enough market share so that if they want to increase their profits, all they need to do is raise their prices. This is definitely a Bush thing. Not that I agree with this, but Clinton went after Microsoft as a monopoly. Way back long before any of were born, it was a Republican named Teddy Roosevelt that decided that corporations were destroying the American way of life. He ran on a platform of busting the trusts, and he actually won and that’s what he did.

It is not clear whether the monopolies and trusts are more powerful now than then, but one thing is clear. Powerful companies today have a lot more leverage in federal government.

We can see it all around us. Just look at the airlines. They are all in the process of consolidating, eliminating routes and jobs, and increasing prices. I was shocked when I paid over $7000 for my family of four to return from Rio de Janeiro to the United States. That’s a lot of dough. I used to pay less than $500 a person less than 5 years ago. Then think about your TV and internet provider. What true options do you really have? There is no competition and over time, our internet and television bills have slowly gone up.

These price increases just pad the corporate bottom lines and then Wall Street knocks up the stock price. The increased stock prices allow upper management to retire early and filthy rich.

Let’s make a note. People want to blame this entire situation on greed. I disagree. I am not a greedy guy, but if I were in their shoes, I would do the exact same thing. It is the rationale thing to do. It is not the players. It is the system itself that is flawed.

Made In America

We see it all around us. Made in China. Nothing is made in America anymore. I think there should be a law where the flag of the country of the manufacturer should be prominently displayed on the front of the box. You shouldn’t have to pick up the box and figure out where they hid the disclosure.

If you look at all the companies that are manufacturing in China, by and large they are all publicly traded companies. They have Wall Street’s seal of approval. There is one thing that is clear. Wall Street does not care about American jobs.

Conclusion

It was over 100 years ago that Teddy Roosevelt was president, but we seem to be at the same point again. I disagree with the TEA party on one key fact. The only solution to this problem is for our government to stand up to Big Business and Wall Street. The sad reality is that no one in our government has the balls to stand up and the problem keeps getting worse and worse. I think myself as well as many Americans hoped that Obama would be different. It is obvious to see that Obama is more like George W Bush than Teddy Roosevelt.

There is certainly no easy way to put it. You got your ass kicked in the mid term elections. Well, I got some good news now. As I already told you in 2008, your presidency is going to be about the economy. You did not choose these circumstances, but they are yours to manage. You did not make the economy your #1 priority. It is not clear that it was even your second priority. From the looks of your first two years, I would say that your first two priorities were health care and the war in Afghanistan. Whether I am right or wrong, jobs were certainly not your first priority.

On top of that, you trusted the wrong people. There is no dispute by anyone that Wall Street is the reason behind this economic crisis. Yet you continue to listen to them almost exclusively and unemployment still hangs at 10% even with interest rates stuck at 0% for the foreseeable future. You guys sit around now that interest rates are at a floor and figure out how to “stimulate” the economy. They call it quantitative easing and I call it bullshit. There is a saying that if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. If all you trust is Wall Street, then all you are going to get is the Fed printing more money and deficit spending. On the surface, I agree that borrowing money from the Chinese creates American jobs, but at what expense? Let’s just say that you have made a mess of it. It’s not too late, but you have to first realize that it is a mess and you’ve made it worse in your 2 years. You didn’t create it all, not even close, but it is your role to fix it, not make it worse.

I got some really good news for you, Barack. The Republicans are more lost than you are. Remember the golden lesson. It is about JOBS. The reason that the Republicans won was JOBS. If unemployment was at 6% as opposed to 10%, Democrats would not have lost the house. Yet, now that the Republicans have the house, the Republicans are talking about repudiating socialism, repealing the health care bill and tax cuts and so on. None of these measures, including the tax cuts, will create jobs.

So it looks like it is a race between you, Barack Obama, and the Republicans to figure out that what the American people want is low unemployment. They don’t want lip service, they don’t want this issue falling back seat to some stupid war. They don’t want fear mongering. They want a fucking job! Is that so hard to understand? I am hoping not. In fact, I think that you, Barack Obama, will figure out before the Republicans. They are still drunk from their election day victory. They haven’t even had the hangover yet.

So the rest of the article will focus on what Barack should do to get jobs rolling in a short 24 months. That’s not a lot of time.

Legal Immigration

Everyone is focused on illegal immigration, but focus on legal immigration. Make it easier for people to visit our country legally. You don’t have to pass a bill, just do it. Did you know that the most difficult country in the world to visit is the United States of America? My mother in law would love to visit the United States. When my family and I visit, it would be great to have her along. She is a woman of modest means, but she has no desire to live in the United States legally or illegally. She has now tried 5 times without success. This is not an isolated incident.

There are probably millions of deserving people that want to visit the US and cannot. If you let those people into the country, the stimulus would be immediate. Everything associated with tourism would take off immediately. The airline industry, the hotel industry, the restaurant industry and so on.

The dollar is now incredibly weak. I think that it is the weakest that I have seen in my life time and I am over 50 years old. This makes tourism attractive and lots of foreigners will come to the US because it is so cheap. If we let them.

Trade Deficit

The beautiful thing about this plan is that it begins to address a horrible trend in the United States – the trade deficit. It is probably one of the largest problems with our economy. It is either government deficit spending (thanks Wall Street) or the trade deficit. IMO, it’s the trade deficit. Why didn’t all the stimulus work? After all, it worked for Bush and Clinton before him. What went wrong?

Go back 15 years, and the year is 1995. Let’s say that the stimulus is to build a hospital. And every desk at the hospital requires a computer. In 1995, as an ex SVP at Gateway Computers, I can tell you that every computer was built in the United States by American blue collar workers. Then, if you had any problem with that computer, the billing, a replacement part, etc, you talked to an American white collar worker. Fast forward 15 years, and that same hospital and those same computers. Now every one of those computers are built in China. Worse yet, if you have a problem, you are talking to someone in India or the Phillipines.

This one issue is hurting the American economy more than you can imagine. I am not suggesting going back in time, but you should work on the trade deficit.

Marijuana

So thinking through the trade deficit, here’s something Americans import heavily – Marijuana. Not only are we importing this crop in large quantities, no one along the food chain pays any taxes. We need to legalize marijuana, but that is not enough. If we just legalize it, then we will get a flood of imports. At the same time that we legalize it, we need to ban marijuana imports. Foreign marijuana will no longer be allowed in the US. All those Mexican drug lord dirtballs making money hand over fist will need to find a real job. Do not back down to these A Holes.

It should not stop there either. Once we begin consuming what we make, we should make more. Lots more and start exporting. If the United States can become the #1 manufacturer of tobacco in the world, how different can it be for marijuana?

It gets one step better because another side product of marijuana is a hemp industry. If you are making scores of money from the marijuana, then the hemp is amost free, a by product, if you will. This will lower the cost of lots of products from rope, string etc. Then we should start exporting this as well.

Automate the Government

As part of the tech sector, I have to say that our federal government is an embarrassment. We have the most brilliant minds in the world of software, databases, and automation, but we use none of that brain power to make a better government. The same as many of our software companies, the United States government should be the envy of the world in using technology to reduce cost and increase transparency. Computers are great at following rules if you have the right programmers doing it. The government should be attracting some of the best new young software programmers and will have to pay some of the best salaries. It will create new demand in a market that is one of our best anyhow. Barack, if you listen to one thing. Do not outsource this project to India. We want to develop these skills in house.

Bust the Trusts

In the United States, it is clear to me that we are on the road to monopolism. We have created an environment that no longer fosters competition. Instead, the formula to riches is to go public. Then with Wall Street’s money, you buy out all of your competition. Your competition is happy becaue they make a killing and retire. Once they become a true monopoly, then they start increasing prices. Each time, they increase prices, their stock goes up. Instead of retiring as millionaires, they have become billionaires.

It is happening right under our noses, and it is obvious for us all to see. Back in the late 1800’s, this issue of monopolization was much more severe. It took a unique and strong president to win a US election based on “trust busting”. His name was Teddy Roosevelt. Barack, do you have these types of leadership skills. Can you lead a fight against special interests that only a one of a kind president can lead? I don’t know the answer, but I hope so. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think that Sarah Palin is up to the task either. She seems to be attracted to money like a bee to honey.

If you are successful, it will create a new era of competitiveness. New horizons for small businesses will suddenly open as the monopolies release their stranglehold on commerce. Consumers will win as company’s are actually competing for our business. Products will get better faster, and markets will evolve more agilely and most importantly prices will come down.

End the War in Afganistan

Maybe I should say change the mission. As an American, I want Osama Bin Laden’s head on a stick. I want you to murder him in a very public way, and then we should create a national holiday for us to remember 9/11 and the day we got our revenge. Heck, I want to forget 9/11, and the only way for me is for the US to murder this MF.

Back to economics. The war in Afghanistan is a drain on the economy. Remember that hospital I talked about earlier? Now you are stimulating everyone’s economy but our own. The only possible downside is that the troops in Afghanistan will suddenly be unemployed. But you can reemploy them. If they are building bridges in Afghanistan, then they can build bridges in Alaska. Hell even Sarah Palin’s bridge to nowhere creates more jobs than an Afghani bridge.

Stay Focused

There are many more ideas, but the underlying point is the same. You need ideas that focus on jobs. J-O-B-S. Nothing else. Nothing more and nothing less. It’s called focus.

Thanks for your time, Barack.

Your Home Boy in Rio de Janeiro,

Rob

It has been over 6 months, since George Bush went in front of the entire nation and told us all that we are all screwed. He succeeded in putting the nation into a panic setting the stage for an unprecedented flurry of government spending. After 1/2 a year of spending, none of the stimulus has had any impact whatsoever. Employment continues to rise, housing prices plummet, and GDP is still shrinking.

The underlying theory behind the “shop til you drop” stimulus plan is Keynesian economics which became popular during the last depression. Unfortunately, Keynesian economics will nor work this time. The primary reason is that the United States is broke. In the last 50 years, our great country has been transformed from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation. We are broke, and we are addicted to spending more money than we have. Addicted is the only appropriate word, and like an addict, there is only one solution. We must wean ourselves from the addiction, rather than borrow more money. Obama and Bush have been feeding the addiction.

Rather than harp on our addiction and the root causes, there are actually practical measures that can be done to give the economy true economic stimulus.

Legal Immigration

America is perhaps the most desireable country to visit in the entire world. American movies and music extends the American brand throughout every nook and cranny in the world. At a very early age, no matter what country, children are exposed to America. There are millions of foreigners that would love to visit the United States. DisneyLand is the on top of many of the lists.

This is balanced by the fact that the United States is perhaps the most difficult country in the world to visit. We are returning to the United States for 4 months in April and we wanted my mother in law to come as well. We tried to get a tourist visa for her, but she was denied. Note: my wife was denied twice before she was allowed to enter the country. Here in Brazil, I literally know dozens of people that have been denied tourist visas. I really do not think that I am unusual and it easy to imagine millions and millions of people that would like to visit our country.

So my first proposal is to significantly expand the tour visa program. This is true economic stimulus. The tourists come to the country to do one thing. Spend money. Tourism can be viewed as an export that will be exchanging their home currency for dollars. It will help the airline industry, the rental car industry, hotel industry and on and on.

I am not saying we should throw the baby out with the bath water. There are legitimate reasons why the restrictions on tourists visas are so tight, but it is too tight. There are just too many legitimate people being denied that only want to spend money in our country. Let’s let them, and the stimulus will be immediate.

Hemp and Marijuana Production

Hemp is one of the most durable and flexible substances in the world. But in the United States, hemp production is illegal. Hemp can be used to make paper, rope, fuel (yes energy!), plastic, etc. Hemp is also one of the lowest cost substances to grow and nurture. Its maturation period is low, and it is resistant many types of insects and diseases that plague many other crops. The benefits of industrial hemp production would be enormous.

Furthermore the stimulus would be enormous. The US would begin to build the infrastructure to produce useful products from one of the world’s strongest and plentiful crops. It would make many products more affordable, and put the United States on a more level playing field with more progressive nations that have been producing and exporting hemp based products for centuries.

It all seems ludicrous, but there is one thing holding us back. Paranoia about marijuana. I think paranoia is the right word because our hesitance is irrational and certainly not based on fact. Unlike legal substances such as alcohol and nicotine, marijuana is non addictive. Furthermore, the health effects of abuse of marijuana are minor when compares to those of its legal brethren. On top of all of this, we as a society have already determined the inconsistencies in our laws. Surveys show that over 1/2 of Americans have smoked marijuana at some time in their lives. That’s right, more people have smoked marijuana than have smoked cigarettes.

Because marijuana use is so widespread, and yet remains illegal, our government spends huge amounts of money keeping up the charade of illegality. Literally millions and millions of dollars are wasted in a futile attempt to sustain marijuana’s illegal image. Worse yet, this story has made a huge turn for the worse. Due the widespread use of marijuana, billions of dollars are being spent outside of the system, and landing in the hands of truly lawless drug lords. The violence has escalated to unfathomable levels, where literally dozens of people are killed in horrific and very public manners.

There is only one intelligent solution to all of this. We need to make marijuana legal. If we have the wisdom and consistency to fight the irrational religious right, this one act could potentially turn around the entire economy. Allowing hemp to be a true crop will open up many new industries. Allowing marijuana to be purchased legally will allow our police to refocus on the truly pressing issues related to our safety. Furthermore, the revenues from marijuana would be moved from soulless thugs to law abiding citizens. Furthermore, the taxes from marijuana would signficantly eat into the federal and local government deficits.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, the country needs real stimulus. The Bush/Obama plan is artificial at best and at worst misguided. Look how much money taxpayers have already lost on AIG executive bonuses. If we have the political will, we can change our country for true stimulus and take the first step toward prosperity.