(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20231019-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
This week’s report takes on the ignorance, cowardliness, and insanity that has, for the past 50 years, characterizes the thinking and policy in regard to the economy, banking and the building of infrastructure among political leaders and planners, both nationally and in California especially.
Following the U.S. Drought Monitor, is an example of the policy to actually solve the North American continent for centuries. That policy was proposed during the John Kennedy presidency in the early 1960s.
For most I am sure this is the first time you have heard of the North American Water and Power Alliance. Four articles and videos are provided.
The next article is on the threat of a real disaster in California if a large earthquake strikes in the San Francisco Delta area is featured in this article: “Major earthquake in the Delta could be disastrous for California’s water supply.” The problem addressed of the need to strengthen the levies protecting hundreds of thousands of residents from flooding, and the water supply for most of the state, has been an issue for decades. While the state spends hundreds of billions on protecting the environment from mankind’s “destruction,” and promoting “equity,” funding for this critical infrastructure project languishes as an afterthought.
There are two articles on the topic of the Colorado River this week. The first is on the present conditions of Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
The second is another example of how political leaders and water managers do exactly what I referred to above– all they know is crisis management, not crisis solution. The article is from the Bureau of Reclamation, titled: “Biden-Harris Administration Advances Long-Term Planning Efforts to Protect the Colorado River System.” The article, being from the Biden administration, is full of praise for Biden’s “Build Back Better” program of spending hundreds of billions protecting nature and promoting equity rather than doing what Americans do best: Solve the damn crisis with gigantic projects that provide something inspirational, as did Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.
And if the nation is going to do that once again, then we must restore also a National Bank, wiping out the speculative insanity of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street. That is the topic of this week’s Feature. The article is titled, “How the National Bank Will Work.” It is written by my colleague Michael Carr.
Here are the first two paragraphs of his article:
“As is the case with any power—whether fire, knowledge, dynamite, or fission—such power may be used for good or ill. This is also the case with banking. When Alexander Hamilton first proposed his National Bank, part of the opposition he faced was simply based upon the bad experiences people had had with banks in the past. On the other hand, had he proposed the same institution by another name, he would have faced the problem that people would have been even more clueless about his idea. And Hamilton’s National Bank was completely different from any bank which had ever been created before.
“Today, we have the benefit of the experience from his First National Bank, then the Second National Bank, the Lincoln Greenback and National Banking System, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. So let’s try to avoid words with contradictory meanings and look at what we have, and how we will use what we have to get where we are going.”
