To me, it's not a question of action or inaction, but more of what will actually correct the problem, shorterm and longterm. Right action, in other words. Can clever financial engineering and sage economic policy alter the natural expansion and contraction of economies without horrific side effects? Color me skeptical. My thumb nail version of events is that against a backdrop of global arbitrage (where the vast wealth of America, primarily in the middle class, is transferred elsewhere over the last several decades notably to countries like China and members of OPEC), is that Sir Alan Greenspan, unlike Paul Volcker (former Fed Chair now working for Obama) failed to take away the punchbowl in the late 1990s and raise rates to cool the economy and the stock market. He made a speech on irrational exuberance and that was it.

When the tech bubble popped, rather than letting the market normally digest events, Greenspan again passed out the Everclear and moved rates to historic lows and kept them there far too long. He only started raising them after giving low information 'consumers' bad advice about using Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMS) instead of fixed rate products. That gave us zero percent financing for junk and cheap housing mortgages, leading to a monster bubble in real estate. And it helped put the least knowledgeable and sophisticated investor (the average homebuyer with his/her ARM) on the wrong side of the inevitable series of interest rate hikes

So I think a large part of our current predicament is cheap and easy money that led to asset inflation. Given that, how is more cheap and easy money, by itself, going to fix the problem? It's like giving a heroin addict a fix to stop the shakes. Of course he's going to feel better. But he's still addicted and still in deep doo.

And given our geo-political situation, I don't think we can consider the issuing of large quantities of debt risk free. The Chinese and OPEC already own far too much of our debt, and our status as the global reserve currency is under assault. Many economists still scoff at that barbarous relic, gold. But the fact that it is up 400% over the last few years is not a vote of confidence.

To me, our best bet is infrastructure re-investment, and alternative energy. We need to do both anyways, and each can pay off big time, down the road. But they are just bets, not a sure thing. We need to lose that sure thing mentality.

The thing about the draft is that it tends to focus the minds of the citizenry on the question of whether or not a war is really needed. That is what I see as the biggest drawback of our volunteer army. We've lost a vital feedback loop between the people and the politicians and the soldiers sent to fight.

With a draft we would had a lot more political discussion about whether or not Iraq was truly an eminent danger to the United States. Politician's asses would have been on the line, because the lives of everyday Americans outside the military would also be on the line. A lot of the intelligence marketed by the Bush Administration as the gold standard (like Curveball), would have shown up earlier, before we went to fight, as less than credible.

Instead of the draft, we've hired hundreds of thousands of mercenaries and have decimated our National Guard, which is supposed to be used for national emergencies. Was that really a good trade?

We should remember that it just wasn't Shinseki looking for more troops. Tommy Franks also wanted more troops, but he wasn't so public in his objections and eventually knuckled under to Rumsfeld.

With more troops, it is also easy to be an armchair general and make the point that we could have prevented a lot of the social disintegration (looting, militias, etc) and not created an opening for Al-Qeada in Iraq.

Instead, the Bush Administration chose to engage on the political cheap, spending billions of dollars badly needed elsewhere and trashing our military effectiveness and damaging our reputation for kicking ass and taking names.

The Pharaoh of Salonoa. Good to see you around. We're gonna see if Obama can step up to the plate and knock one out.

It's easy to say, let the world defend itself. It's less clear what would happen to the world economy if we took that approach.

I'm just looking at the numbers for the average American taxpayer. We're losing money being Team America World Police (F Yeah!). Sure, it may be working out for the oil barons, the multinationals, our best buds in the middle east (A shout out to rocky: You do know that the House of Bush has deeper ties to the house of Saud than Obama ever did?), and our friends, the Europeans, the Japanese and the Koreans. But not for us. If we are good little capitalists, we should make a profit.

What I don't understand from your proposals is how the Average American competes/participates. If (s)he doesn't have much capital and/or intellectual property through training or creation of marketable content, then that person is in a world of hurt. Which is where we are now.

And the whole supply chain here is a lot more expensive, which you haven't addressed either. Middle class Chinese in Bejing are happy to make under 10,000 a year. So just importing cheap labor won't do the trick.

And I think alternative energy technology is a lot closer to market than many think. And it could work. Look how the Clean Air Act spawned a whole new line of industry. And business in American didn't implode either. Of course, we have to weed out crap like the corn ethanol boondoogle.

A lot of Islamic extremists are funded via petrodollars. So if we're willing to spend 100 of billions on JDAMS and cruise missles, why not a few hundred on an attempt to drain the swamp?