[Number 3]

I like your inspiration, but there are fewer and fewer products the world wants or needs at our labor rates. But there are plenty of things we could do just for ourselves. My thought was High Speed Rail. Infrastructure jobs, maintanance, manufacturing of engines, train cars. Many permanent jobs not just jobs that run out when the stimulus package runs dry.

Buy also you mentioned Shoes and that's a hot button with me. You see we Americans find it accpetable for Nike (among others not to just pick on them) to pay their athletes 100's of millions if not billions a year for endorsement deals. Tiger Woods alone I think gets some ridiculous $20 Million a year. Yet the shoes are built somewhere in some cheap labor country that probably pays less than a buck an hour. Let's just take Tiger's money. $20 Million divided by $30,000 ($15 an hour annual labor rate). Well that's 650 or so Americans that could be working. But instead of demanding Nike make shoes here, we applaud Tiger and buy more Nike stuff because of who has the endorsement deal. This is something that we as Americans could just simply not participate in. But we do and will.

By the way, did you know that the electronics sold in Japan are built in Japan, but the same model sold here is made in Thailand, China or Korea? I know a guy that always buys his electronics when he travels to Japan. They protect their home turf. Americans? We just gladdly look for the cheapest thing we can find regardless of where it is made.

So no we don't need a stimulus package to do what you want. We just have to stand up as Americans for Americans. No money needed.

Sorry.....putting soap box away now.