If we just put the trillion in the bank at 4% interest rate, you would get 40 billion dollars a year, It could pay 1 million people 40K a year. None of these projects ever create even a large fraction of a million jobs. Even if it uses the money to hire half million people to dig a trench and the other half to close it up it would provide greater economic impact to the economy than such boondongles.
But one sure fire way to keep their customers tied to the grid is to encourage electric cars. If every home is charging two or three cars overnight they might not be able to ditch the grid. Since night load for the utilities is just 66% to 70% of peak day time load they can serve this market without additional investment in power plants.
Peeling off a large customer base from gasoline companies to the grid would be in the long term interests of the electric utilities. Why aren't they doing it?
Helping a big part of American car owners to switch to electric cars would create a huge market segment for the gas car rental companies. Why aren't they doing it?
Even with training most people could not paint a simple landscape or compose new music or even come up with an original joke. So why should everyone be "empowered" to be programmers? Who is stopping them anyway? Heck we don't even have the equivalent of AMA that can sue people for programming without a license. In fact that rant would have more validity against the legally chartered professional organizations that have the monopoly in issuing credentials and stopping people from practicing law, medicine, accounting etc without license.
Joking aside, your post here clearly shows that you belong to the all time great people list. People with good name recognition who are not jerks are quite rare.
I saw another Tamil movie of a murder victim reincarnating as a house fly to take revenge. The kind of graphics and CGI done by them is incredible.
There is a threat to Hollywood dominance too. Bollywood, the Indian cinema was the only one that withstood the assault of Hollywood while the French, German movie industries collapsed. Bollywood movies are as silly as the Hollywood ones but it connects with the Eastern audience well. Another movie by the Superstar, called Muthu, is a cornier than the farmlands of Iowa. Friendship, sacrifice, moral values, suffering while taking the high road... it got it all. That became a super hit in Japan! Got rave reviews contrasting the great inspiring storyline of that cornfest with the triteness of Hollywood.
Even Hollywood would not save America's bacon for long
The the 9% machinery operators and the 10% riot suppressors have children who might not make it to the 9% or the 10%. They are the ones who will provide aid, logistics, intelligence to the mass of 80%. But if the social machinery operating and the riot suppressing become hereditary, then the situation becomes stable. Children of 1% stay in 1%. Children of the 9% and 10% stay in their "station", since they realize how lucky they are for not being in the 80%, and they fear being dropped into the unwashed masses, they enforce the system with great vigor. That is exactly how caste system in India and the mandarin system in China and the feudal system in Europe survived for centuries.
Among the 9% machinery operators, the top one advice the 1%. They already are pushing the society to a less socially mobile system. Inherited wealth outstrips earning your way into the system. By calling estate duty death tax they are able to pass wealth down the generation more with less attrition. The super high tuition rates is merely an identification system to distinguish the 9% and 1% from the rest so that they are on the track to get the jobs. Basically we are setting up the stage for a few centuries of rule by the 1% with the help of the riot suppressors and the social machinery operators.
. Technological innovation usually leads to increased employment, as lower manufacturing costs lead to increased production, and expansion of non-automated jobs.
1. People who lose jobs are not the ones who are going to get the newly created jobs.
2. World population finally seems to have started stabilizing. It took longer to add the last billion than the previous billion. We are still adding but heading towards 9.5 billion rather than 12 billion. So number of new jobs created is less than the number of jobs being lost to automation.
3. Most people can only do regular humdrum routine jobs. We evolved to hunt/gather do routine things. Not be on an ever accelerating treadmill of productivity and intellectual labor. I have performed at the top 1% of intellectual labor treadmill for 30 years now. Frankly I am tired. It ain't as much fun as people make it out to be. It is not sour grapes or anything, I got adequate returns for the labor. Still, I now realize routine humdrum jobs are the staple for humanity.
At some point, there will not be enough people with money to continue buying their stuff. It will happen.
It has happened already. First time it is lapping up the shores of the West. Transferring wealth from countries that could protect themselves in economic warfare (India, China) to military nations. Then from parts of European nations to others. Then from the lower economic strata of the rich countries to the richer people, in the last 35 years. Now finally there is no one left to sustain a productive economy. And the rich people are sitting on piles and piles of cash. Natural next step is the middle class of G7 nations waking up to the reality they are going to be thrown off the ship too.
So, naturally, the next step is to fire all those people who would no longer have something to contribute. As a purely added bonus all these people fresh out of things to contribute happen to be with years and years of experience, which means seniority and high pay.
The mid level bean counter would think, "well, I should be able to fire at least 20 of them. Savings of 2 million on pay, another million in benefits, almost 10 mill over three years. Even if I have to let the SOBs CEO and CFO grab a mill each, I should be able to get at least 250 K for myself. Time to fire up power point, 'Work Force Optimization due to the increased Efficiency achieved by the AI system. By Gottah Avemyb Onus, Sr Vice President, Hatchet Division'"
But it would be impossible to hold the owners of these four wells accountable for anything. There are "experts" available for hire whose specialization is to muddy the waters and raise enough reasonable doubt among the jury and the public. There is so much of money to be made by fracking and it has so much of political support it would be difficult to do anything. By the time their power wanes and something could be done the real culprits would have cashed their shares and moved on to the next venture.
We want to create puppets that pull their own strings. - Ann Marion