No deregulation magic wand for Trump. Regulation on business is often local. Case in point, water worries in Waitsburg, WA.

People, like Donald Trump, say there could be an economic boom if the federal regulators and Obama would just get out of the way of business. Well, I think most of the thicket or regulation that can stifle business doesn't come from the federal government. It comes from local governments and people all across America. Neighborhood associations, local zoning and so forth. Some of the restrictions are needed to protect quality of life and the environment. Others might be just "not in my backyard" ism. A case in point is a controversy about a proposed bottled water plant in Waitsburg, WA. I heared about on NPR. Not far from where I grew up in Pullman, WA.

Bottled water can create jobs, but it does seem like a useless product. In most localities, tap water is sufficient. Why spend all that fossil fuel on shipping water bottled in plastic? I know, there is a market for it, but what's best for the big picture?

World Space Week kickoff October 4

My attempt at a graphic depicts "think outside the box" implying the earth as the box. World Space Week is said to be kicked off October 4 on the anniversary of USSR's Sputnik launch in 1957. Pictured in my graphic is not Sputnik, but Voyager 1 spacecraft along with Earth.

Humans need to think outside the box and expand our horizons beyond this limited earth.

Exploration and scientific discovery is a good start. Maybe someday mining asteroids and more? Also, the images of Earth, that we have gotten from space, has given us a new perspective of our limited spaceship - Earth.

As we keep expanding, we need to protect Earth. Maybe we need to learn how to stop growing? This seems unlikely, but we can learn how to achieve sustainability. Reducing population growth, the most important factor.

We can use technology and miniaturization to cram more social sophistication into limited spaces, but eventually we will likely take more steps beyond Earth. Miniaturization can be done with changing culture and technology, but even doing this is inspired by looking at the "big picture," so to speak. Getting beyond small minded thinking. A big part of what inspires big picture thinking is the view of our entire earth from space.

Are the wealthy and business hoarding their money because too many restrictions or not enough market or both?

If the wealthy were to invest more in job creating activities, rather than just hoarding money, the economy would work better.

I'll add that people on the right tend to blame government and environmental restrictions. These things can prevent business expansion so the wealthy and corporations just sit on their money; rather than investing it in expansion. That could be true, but do we want to repeal restrictions? Some restrictions are there for good reasons like for safety and protecting the environment. It's one of the factors living on a limited planet.

Liberals tend to say that the lack of demand for products prevents business from investing in increasing the supply of goods and services. Workers can't afford to buy things anymore. Less middle class means less market demand. Also a valid point. To some extent, less demand can be good for the environment, but hard on an economy that is dependent on growth. An ultimate goal is to grow the economy in a way that does not harm the environment. At least grow the economy to keep up with population growth, but try to curb population growth as well.

Also, I might add, when the wealthy just hoard their money, they often put it in so called "safe haven" investments. One of the primary safe havens is US Government debt. So the rich are investing in US government debt and then many of them are turning around and complaining that the government is borrowing too much money. Go figure.

National Republicans can't stop restrictions on business at local level

2012 Republican convention is filling my radio with rhetoric about a new era of jobs and prosperity from lifiting restrictions on business. Effective slogans to get crowds at the convention hall cheering, but this is not an easy task. Many of the restrictions on business are imposed at the local level. State, city and county governments. Also there are strong constituencies for keeping restrictions in place.

One example is the proposed coal port near Bellingham. A proposal to build a large coal port north of Bellingham for exporting coal to China. Constructing such a port would create well over 1,000 temporary construction jobs, though less perminent jobs operating the facility. Opposition to this proposal is fearce. Final decisions are most likely made at the county council level wich holds the responsibility for zoning such a facility. Also state Department of Ecology is involved. Other entities as well, but those are the main ones, from my understanding. This siting process will take years allowing for public input, environmental impact studies and so forth.

This kind of story is repeated in local regions all over the country where business expansions both large and small are proposed. We are in one anothers' back yards, so to speak and no one, short of a dictator, at the Federal level can really accomplish that much waving a magic wand to lift restrictions on business. Quite a few of those restrictions are there for good reason with large groups of citizens supporting them. It's just the nature of our society these days. Different from the 19th century when there was more elbow room for the "robber barons." Those were the days that libertarians often point to when lots of progress was made in society from the private sector. Progress is still happening today, but we face a totally different environment.

Here in Washington State, there is one initiative that can be seen as lifting a restriction. The proposal to legalize marajuana. Not only would that save encarceration and law enforcement costs, but it could also open up a new field of commerce selling pot, similar to the way alcohol is now regulated. That's one example of deregulation, but except for the Ron Paul libertarians, I haven't heard people discussing that at the Republican convention.

Deregulating business is another empty promise because it would be very hard to implement at the various levels of society where it occures.

Facebook: too big to grow?

You've heard of banks that are too big to fail. How about corporations that are too big to grow? Less talked about, but possibly a telling issue as people discuss the need to grow our economy and create jobs.

Little doubt that Facebook has been an extremely sucessful company. 800 million users worldwide, influential in social change, a household word. All this before Facebook started trading on the stockmarket. Can they top what they've already accomplished? Did Facebook wait too long before their ipo? Did their stock go public just in time for them to reach market saturation? Is there anymore room to grow?

This is an issue facing many larger than life corporations as well as our economy as a whole. Is there more room for expansion or are many of our corporations just too large? No room to grow and thus facing stagnation. Where will the new jobs come from?

Another problem has to do with the transition toward what is called an "information economy." Futurist author Alan Toffler talks about civilization going through various transformations. We've gone from the stoneage to the agricultural age. From the agricultural age, we've progressed into the industrial era. Now we are headed into the information age. Each transition brings economic disruption as old jobs die while new jobs and ways of doing business emerge.

The information age seems to be a tough one for figuring out how to make money, or, to put it a better way, "monetize the activity." No wonder Facebook stock dropped as soon as it went on the market. There is a lot of enthusiasm and activity on Facebook with people posting worldwide, but does that energy translate into money?

I see this as an analogy for the information age. An era when our old modles of business that were developed for the industrial age are less useful today. Newspapers are struggling in the same way. Does journalism still pay, or is it being somewhat replaced by what is often called "crowd sourcing?" Seems like we are entering a golden era for volunteerism and grassroots networking on the internet, but meanwhile, how do we pay for food and rent as well as other things that are still influenced by our industrial mindset.

Reader board at Carver Gym on WWU campus.

How many widgets do we have to make to pay the bills and are the widgets we make being properly compensated? Tangible products are the easiest to measure in terms of GDP. Do we need all the material posessions we buy and sell in order to create our economy? Can the Earth support all the billions of new families entering middle class life in places as far flung as India and China in an economy measured with the flow of goods and to some extent services?

These are important questions to ponder as we transition toward what could be a golden era of information trading. Like a global conversation, we're doing it, but there is an old phrase that says "talk is cheap."

It's time for some new thinking about our economy.

Can't have unlimited economic growth on a limited planet? How about asteroid mining?

Lots of talk in the media about some private firms exploring the idea of asteroid mining. Might be the start of a way to expand our economy beyond the confines of Earth in the really long term.

New house construction

Rare to see new house construction, but not that rare. With all the news about housing in the toilet, there's always been quite a trickle still around Bellingham. This one by Lake Samish. I'm surprised there's still any build able lakefront lots there.

Or, maybe they tore a house down to build this newer one?

There's construction here and there. Seems like usually folks building their retirement home. Probably not enough to employ all the idled contractors, realtors and other job seekers around.

That's the problem. Anemic recovery and if the recovery does pick up steam, here is the question. Is there enough land, not to mention ideal "lakefront" land, to allow for a robust recovery without people grumbling again about turning the lake into a toilet?

And now think about gas prices. When the economy picks up steam, they go up due to limited supply and demand.

That's why we need some major paradigm shifts. We need new ways to grow and improve the economy in sustainable ways.

People often say that they thought New York City couldn't grow any larger than it was in the late 1800s because there was an "absolute limit" to urban growth, due to the horse manure it generated.

We'll, we made it past that, but we had to be open to change.

Unemployment too high, our economy is like a growing plant that's become pot bound

We're getting so efficient at what we do that if everyone was working full tilt, there would be be no more room on Earth for all the products, services and new developments being created. Our economy is like a growing plant that's become pot bound. There's little place to grow, without running into environmental concern.

Growth is like a journey, a narrative. It gives the economy purpose and direction. It provides an understandable focus. Building the new landscape. Without it, we're floundering.

What's America's purpose for the next 10 years? Where are we going?

A new frontier to expand into makes that question easier to answer. Without it, we have to figure out a new way to justify our endeavours.

Part of the problem is that population keeps expanding and billions of folks around the world are being lifted out of poverty. Is there enough space on Earth for every one's aspirations?

Here are some possible answers to this dilemma.

Create a focus of transitioning to a greener more sustainable economy. President Obama talks about this quite often. This includes the things people keep hearing about like green energy, green cars (which may be an oxymoron), clean coal (carbon sequestration) solar power, wind, and even nuclear power.

This could keep us busy, but it's hard to get the fires of green energy lighted, especially using the matches of free market economics. Will wind power pay when dirty coal is still cheaper?

Green energy is kind of like green wood. It's hard to get the fire lit.

This transition goes beyond just green energy. Back in the 1990s, the internet opened up a frontier of information technology. Suddenly there were new jobs in services such as Google that no one had heard of before.

New types of products and services that have lower footprints on the environment are coming from the advances of science. We are seeing the miniaturization of things. Libraries that once filled entire buildings can now be stuffed into flash memory and placed on one bookshelf. Less footprint.

Still, many of these technologies will also make us more efficient, thus eliminating jobs. For instance more "pro summer" opportunities. Instead of using a travel agent, people can book their own travels via web sites.

Big changes need to come to our culture as well. Maybe we should learn to put less emphasis on economic wealth and value other things that can bring a different kind of value to life. More free time, for instance. Possibly not striving to produce so much in terms of marketable goods and services, but other qualities in life like friendships and contemplation. Learning how to let the grass grow under our wheels.

Maybe that's what our goal should be. Learn to let grass grow under wheels. In some ways, it could be almost as important as inventing the wheel.

I don't want people to think I'm just a lazy hippie, so I can also suggest finding a new frontier. How about building more stuff in space? There's plenty of room.

As we outgrow Earth, how about building things in space that can keep us employed.

Keep us busy.

Now we have things like GPS, thanks to satellites in space. We can figure out more stuff to do using space. Large telescopes to satisfy our couriosity about the universe. More jobs for college graduates. More topics to write papers on.

Still, can the free market pay for this? We are building the James Webb Telescope, but it's still "government work" and we need a lot more of this to keep all our minds active.

With long term unemployment as high as it is, we need to think about where we are going next for the new jobs and opportunities. If we had another earth to expand into, the answer to that question would be more straight forward.

Without a new Earth, we need to think creatively. No one solution will do it all. It's a combination of things. Greening of our economy, new frontiers in science, space, but also new frontiers in culture, like learning that it's not a crime to slow down. It will take a combination of all these things. This may seem contradictory, but one size doesn't fit all 7 billion folks on Earth.

We just have to start thinking about unemployment in terms of how do we go beyond the pot bound economy.