Tampa Businessman Releases Stimulus Plan For U.S. Economy

The U.S. economy, sputtering over the past several months, was hit with a double whammy Friday when the Labor Department announced 63,000 non-farm jobs were eliminated in February, which hit an already dreadful week on Wall Street with the ring of a 146 point Dow Jones industrial average plunge.  "The question appears no longer to  be are we going into a recession but how long and deep it will be," said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors Ind in Holland, Pennsylvania.  Yet on an otherwise dark and dreary day for the U.S. economy Charles Caro, a Tampa, Florida businessman  with a background in information technology and political science, released a bold stimulus plan that he claims will not only push the U.S. economy towards a rapid and full recovery but also provide the means for workers to save time and energy in getting to their workplace.

The stimulus plan proposed by Mr. Caro is based on the creation of what he has labeled "Community Commerce Centers", which would reduce the commute for office workers to a maximum 3-5 miles regardless of their current workplace location.  The Community Commerce Centers provide all of the amenities of the typical corporate workplace and more, but the space at each Community Commerce Center is allocated according to the worker's proximity to the Community Commerce Center, which means that employees representing many different employers would occupy the same workplace environment while still be fully connected to every other employee working for any individual employer.  The Community Commerce Center organization is made possible using existing technology.

The core stimulus mechanism in the plan is in the combination of the benefits accomplished in the renovation of existing structures and in the construction of new facilities to become Community Commerce Centers coupled with the fuel savings achieved when workers have in many cases less than half the distance to commute from their home to their workplace.  Every dollar put into the creation and staffing of a new Community Commerce Center stimulates the economy.  The fact that workers would no longer be tied to a location within a traditional commute range means there would be new jobs created in many parts of the U.S. where the impact of a sluggish economy is most severe.  Local governments across the U.S. benefit by having previously vacant properties put back on the active tax rolls. In addition, governments at every level experience benefits through the savings realized by reduced need for new roads.

Moving employees to Community Commerce Center from traditional workplace environments increases employee productivity, reduces employee stress, increases employee retention, and reduces or eliminates employee relocation expenses.  The introduction of Community Commerce Centers is also very good for the planet because each employee going to a Community Commerce Center rather than a traditional workplace saves fifty percent or more on fuel costs.  In addition, when Community Commerce Centers are constructed using green building standards an additional energy benefit is realized.

The most immediate advantage to full implementation of the Community Commerce Center plan is that the technology needed to ensure success is already available.  With virtually every other plan either to get the U.S. economy on the move or to reduce the impact of climate change there is some key element of technology that is not yet fully developed.  Indeed, the advantage of full implementation of the Community Commerce Center plan is not limited to only the U.S. economy.  Virtually any economy that has a workforce commuting to work or moving to a new location for job opportunities would benefit.

Mr. Caro has gone so far as to say, "If you accept that Al Gore provided the diagnose for climate change in his "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary, the Community Commerce Center provides the prescription for recovery not only for climate change but also any sluggish economy."  Mr. Caro adds, "In its present form the Internet still operates in the realm of a child's 'show and tell' exercise when it could be operating in the grownup realm of active and integral part of the business workplace.  Moving to full implementation of the Community Commerce Center utilization puts the Internet into the grownup realm of being an active and integral part of the workplace."

It is clear that the most significant benefit derived from implementation of the Community Commerce Center plan will come to those that more forward first, but even those going forward later will receive benefit when implementing the Community Commerce Center plan.  The Community Commerce Center plan has the potential for not only bringing the U.S. economy out of a recession but also providing the engine to keep the U.S. economy out of a recession for perhaps the next twenty to thirty years at a minimum while also providing a key factor in reducing the rate of climate change.

A more detailed description of Community Commerce Center background and implementation is available online in the form of an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file.  The file is available at the following:

  http://www.caro.cc/download/communitycommercecenters.pdf