Afghanistan

From My point of view here is what we should do in Afghanistan.

I am constantly hearing how we should be pulling out of there especially now that we have had over 100 dead. This country has just stated to get back on it feet after first the invasion by the Soviets and then being abandoned by the west so that the Taliban could take over and oppress the populous. We abandoned them, we now need to help them until they are stable enough to help themselves. That means we should have an open ended alliance with the afghan government with no end predetermined end date.

To facilitate this support we need to increase the number of troops we have over there. I believe that we need to increase the total number by 2 to 3 divisions. Canada alone should contribute double its contingent. These troops should be used to take fortify and defend the land. The major highways between the cities should not covered with Taliban road blocks and IEDs. We need to increase the presence of militry and police on these roads to prevent this.

But military responce is not the only thing that needs to be done. Far more important is the building of infrastucture. Schools, hospitals, and clean water will do more to reduce the threat of the Taliban then any long term military action. If we can educate the afgan people especialy the girls then we go along way to eliminating the Taliban. The farmers and the poor citizens of the country side need to see the benifits of the central govermanet. If their children are given the opertunity to advance and they have clean water, with free medical care they will work closer to except the goverment. The Taliban use fear, food and propoganda to recuit new soldiers . If we can remove the food and proganda then the fear will have no teeth.

This has been my point of veiw as a arm chair general and politician.

The Big Three American Auto Companies

Lets start this blog by giving my view on the auto bailout

The bailout of the big three American auto companies is a catch 22 situation. Here are three companies ran by a bunch of over paid executives who have no real business insight. They have not been able to respond or adapt to the market trends fast enough, partly because of there own arrogance, partly because of the business size, and partly because of the Union. Yes the union is a big part of this. Here again is a bunch of over paid people who care only about there own greed. They do not want to reduce their income, do not want to change their job, but whine if they loose there job because nobodies buying the product. Why, knowing this, should I as a tax payer support these bloated companies which are ran by these greedy, self centered people who can not change and adapt to market needs. We did not bailout the lumber industry, who in the last couple of years has lost 60,000 jobs. This loss of jobs have devastated many of the one industry towns that grew up around these lumber mills and logging camps. What did the lumber industry do? it adapted and has learned to operate leaner then they ever have. It may be time that some of these old western auto companies also learn how to run lean.

On the other side of the catch 22 is all of the jobs that are supported by the Auto industry. There are many parts suppliers who will be affected by any changes in the industry. Again is this bad? maybe not, these companies also need to improve there production processes. But it could lead to hundreds of thousands of layoffs. This would greatly hurt the economy more then what is happening now.

So what is the answer to this delema. My solution is that we should provide loans to these companies that have to be paid back in 10 years. We need to add many conditions on these loans. all employees, executives, managers and union, need to cut there wages by 30% to 40%. They need to close the unprofitable product lines and develop more low emission vehicles. They also need to reduce the size of management reducing the redundancy and overlap.

This is my point of view on the Auto industry bailout