Prosperity for Rhode Island

Two days ago Governor Carcieri in his State of the State called for more jobs, without saying where they will come from.  Last night President Obama in his State of the Union did the same thing.  The reason neither man was able to offer suggestions as to where the jobs will come from is that they continue to believe in the same failed model of economic development.  They believe that on this small finite planet we can have infinite growth.  Not going to happen.

The road to prosperity and job creation is in using less stuff and more people power.  Dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, use clean renewable energy, grow food locally, compost all of the organic materials that we now throw away, build fish ladders.  In other words heal our ecosystems and use more people intensive ways to do it rather than continually innovate our way to no jobs.

Another supposed source of jobs is the bio tech industries.  The agricultural part of bio tech is designed to put small farmers out of business and replace soil with poisonous chemicals.  Genetically engineered foods have not stopped hunger, and have lead to millions of farmers losing their farms.  On the medical side of bio tech, the more biotech jobs you create, the less affordable health care is, so it defeats the purpose of job creation by harming many other businesses.

I am not holding my breath waiting for RI to create jobs using the old methodology and based on the old ideology.  When our politicians start to understand that healing ecosystems is the road to prosperity I will believe we are beginning to turn the corner.

Greg Gerritt

My name is Greg Gerritt.  I am the founder of a small think tank, Prosperity for RI, which focuses on the ecology economy interface, and the difference between prosperity and growth.  Its tag line is: You can not end poverty without healing ecosystems, you can not heal ecosystems without ending poverty.

As a public policy think tank our approach  is that the role of government is to give voice to those who can not afford to buy a voice, the poor and the planet.  Anyone who can pay a lobbyist to get the government to do things that make them richer, give them a larger piece of the pie, does not need the help of the government. The job of representatives is to listen to all, but give voice and vote to the needs of the voiceless.

In looking for how to achieve a greater prosperity for Rhode Island there are several key  things I think you should focus on. I can only give the bullet point version in my three minutes, but would be happy at any time to discuss this further with any of you.

1. Health care.  As long as we try to use health care as a tool of economic development health care will become less affordable.  More of our money will be tied up in producing profits in health care, fewer people will get health care.
2. Housing.  A big problem for RI has been the unaffordability of housing for young people seeking to come here to work.  But we continually hear people cheerleading for higher housing prices.  Housing prices need to come down significantly in order for housing to be affordable for people making RI wages.  It appears the powers that be want housing prices to go up so as to prop up the financial industries, but in doing so it tears down the productive part of the economy.
   

3.  You can not have infinite growth on a finite planet.   As peak oil and climate change become more and more                        apparent each year the smart approach is  to equitably and intelligently shrink the economy so that it fits what                   the earth can actually handle.

4. The only real growth available to RI that will help us prepare for peak oil, climate change, and the shrinking of               the  global economy is local oriented agriculture, a field in which the number of people employed has grown 42%             in  the last   7 years.  Further development of our agricultural potential will require us to produce much more                     compost, which we can do by stopping the landfilling of our food waste.  Compost is likely to be the most useful               field  RI can invest  in if it wants to take care of its people in the coming years.