Author’s Note: Many different subjects will be covered in this essay.
I have explained the “why” of using your excess wealth to improve society, be it your community or country, mainly to have a more fulfilling, rewarding, and productive life.
In this essay I will explain the what and the how. Mainly, how to use your excess for what projects. I wrote a list in the introduction of this book, but in reality, the list is endless. You can use your imagination on what you might want to accomplish.
In three previous essays, I have covered rebuilding and upgrading our infrastructure. Here, I meant roads, bridges, railroads, and water-piping systems, and in one essay, I gave one example, covering the present problems of Flint, Michigan, but all this applies to the whole country. I will cover a wide variety of subjects in this essay, and it is long.
You’ve no doubt seen in the news towns and cities flooding from the East coast to the Midwest. You’ve also seen drought stricken areas from the Mid-western farm belt all the way to California.
I propose to build a nationwide spillway system. There is one in existence in New Orleans. That city is below sea level. Whenever water on the Mississippi River reaches flood, two gates in the river are opened, releasing the water to flow elsewhere, preventing the city from being flooded. Unfortunately, the water flows to other towns, flooding them instead of New Orleans. That’s just passing the problem from one town to another.
The very first project can be to extend this spillway system to Texas, providing much needed water to drought prone areas, especially farms. This would both prevent New Orleans and other Louisiana towns from being flooded and provide water to Texas in times of drought. Should Texas be susceptible to heavy rains, extend the spillway system all the way to Los Angeles. Along the way, water will be needed, right to L.A.
From here, build a web of spillway systems to channel flood water from any flood prone town to any drought stricken town, all the way to California, to provide water for lakes, reservoirs, and farms, not to mention water to put out massive fires.
Money would be saved from flood damage and drought. Tens of thousands of people would be employed, if only temporarily.
Paying for a massive project like this cannot be done be private money alone. However, if this project is proposed, and the plans are laid out, with private money invested, the government and other entities, perhaps money from corporations, and other countries, as an example, would all step in to subsidize it in one form or another.
I proposed a project like this in a book like this simply to tell you that there are projects not yet proposed that can solve badly needed problems, and should enough private wealth can be acquired from enough people in that category, we just might be on the way to not only dealing with a major disaster like flooding, and perhaps fires, but hoarded wealth could be put to good use…and produce more wealth. The government certainly would not have to deal with major flood disasters, and how much money would that save the government? In a multiplier effect, there would also be employment, more tax money to be paid from the jobs this would create, and water available to drought stricken areas, and that would save the government, and taxpayer, even more money. Projects like this produce a positive chain reaction, sort of a massive eucatastrophe.
The other major project would be to upgrade our electric grid into a smart grid, where electricity would be guided by computers to go where ever it is needed, in the event of a massive blackout in some area. Our old grid is in the need of an upgrade, and there are already proposals in upgrading it.
New businesses, using new sources of energy, need to be established. We know of solar and wind, but there are presently little known discoveries of new, clean energy sources. In one instance, someone discovered a way to generate electricity using nuclear waste. The waste problem is well known and, as previously mention, there would be a multiplier effect should this new technology be utilized. Nuclear waste would be reduced, more electricity would be generated without the use of coal or oil, more devices, such as computers and electric cars would be powered, less oil would be imported, and you can continue from here.
This is just one example, but the point is to find these inventors, examine their projects to see if they are feasible and how they can benefit society, and if they are, mass produce them and get them on the market. Many of these inventors face many obstacles and never get their inventions on the market, which is a great loss for society.
Incidentally, should these inventions prove valuable, whoever invests in them will increase their wealth, along with the inventors (and you must give him his share of the wealth, which, for him, should be huge).
Other inventions or discoveries can be funded and brought to market. Fund research, from physics and energy to finding a cure for diseases, especially for newly discovered ones. Cancer is being conquered, slowly but surely, and more needs to be invested in that.
In this case, one can build a laboratory at a university, establish a new college, university, hospital, or build a hospital at a well-established university centered around finding cures for diseases. The patients having these sicknesses are out there.
New schools are always needed, especially with America’s increasing population. In the inner cities, from New York to Los Angeles, public schools, in all levels, are greatly deteriorating from the rotting of the building itself, complete with mold, pests (insects and rats), and rusting water pipes, to the quality of the education each student is receiving.
Many Hollywood actors (I’ll use these as an example, but this can apply to anyone) already warm up to causes, such as Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio on protecting the environment. Many others especially many child stars, from their careers, receive more money than they can handle. That, combined with unlimited freedom, becomes a very bad mix.
What if they could be guided to help fix the educational system in their area?! To start, have them focus on one school per person, be it elementary, middle, or high. Renovate the school, replace the plumbing, improve the entire building. If necessary, raze it and put up a new building, with state of the art technology.
Fix the academic programs to challenge these students, starting with firing bad teachers (if that is permitted. Otherwise, retrain them.) Hire new ones, quality teachers who are willing to work with inner city and underprivileged children, teachers that will give them an incentive to be willing to work hard and improve their lot in life.
From this, offer after school programs, be it in technology, vocational jobs such as carpentry, plumbing, or being an electrician. If a student of oriented towards the arts, offer theater, music, and dance.
When, in an elementary school, the child discovers who he or she is, or what they want, there could be separate magnet schools, one a performing arts school, another a vocational school, and another for other disciplines (name one).
Other schools for adolescent teens should be established. Technical schools leading to STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, or at another, Performing Arts.
Any of these schools could lead a promising student to college, with a scholarship. There are already philanthropists providing scholarships and grants. There simply needs to be a program, perhaps in the guidance offices of these schools, to do a computer search for them.
There are already colleges and universities across the U.S., but what I feel we need are more community colleges. They can be used for the first two years of college, leading to more advanced institutions of higher learning. This would be college more accessible to these communities, especially the inner cities.
With other countries surpassing us in many new technologies, one should invest in these very technologies to catch up and surpass these other countries, or work in cooperation with them, making the U.S. once again a leader in the field of research.
Much of these new technologies presently being developed can be the source of new industries, and new companies that those with excess wealth can establish.
Space development has come into its own. New space missions to Mars can be privately funded, along with the mining of an asteroid, the building of a new space station/space factory, or the construction of a solar power satellite, beaming energy down to Earth.
Another new technology includes nanotechnology, attaching nano machines or devices to molecules or atoms to manipulate them in building a complex device, a building, or manipulating cells to treat an illness or injury in a human. The list is endless, and I cannot name any more right now. You will read about them not listed in this essay.
Should you decide to invest in these new technologies, you would help to create new industries, and your wealth would increase exponentially, for you to invest even more money in more technologies, or wherever you wish to invest.
There are a few more suggestions I would like to include; helping your community, city, or state out of debt is the first.
There won’t be a profit here, but you can have a say on how the budget should be spent in the future. Help to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and set an example to other local and state governments as a whole.
Select a city or region and first clean up the pollution on land and in the waterways. If there is toxic waste poisoning a community, clean it up and try and make use of the toxic waste, or find a way to permanently dispose of it. Yes, it’s easier said than done, but with new technologies, a possibility just might be on the horizon.
Plant new forests, either in the U.S, or in other countries. One could replant jungles in Africa and South America to help clean Earth’s atmosphere of excess Carbon Dioxide and other pollutants. Jungles need to have fertile ground, and much of it was washed away as these jungles were deforested, but new technologies can be discovered in replenishing the soil and replant these jungles lost.
There are many problems in all walks of life that can catch the interest of any and all peoples, no matter who they are, what they have, or from where they came.
Those of you with excess wealth have a badly needed tool the can fit any major interest you may have, should you decide to put your heart and mind to it. A good number of these projects can even generate more wealth, to be reinvested in your present project, or start a new one.
Granted, every problem and solution listed here cannot be done with private money alone, even if every immensely wealthy person in the world invested their full wealth and energies into them. Additional funds can be acquired; by other people interested in investing or donating, by the government, once they see what projects are feasible, worthwhile, and working, by wealthy immigrants coming into this country, and we should encourage them to come and invest, by companies and corporations should any of these projects fit their interests, and by the projects themselves, should these projects generate more money for reinvestment.
All these projects, and many this author hasn’t mentioned or even imagined, are badly needed if the U.S. is to reemerge as a great and prosperous country (we’re no longer that, but we can be again), and it need contributions of not only the wealthy, but all its citizens.
The U.S. government cannot do it alone.
Alastair Browne
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