..if that 70% was pushed up to 100% or nearly so.

Like building houses...no follow up work. Just operations, maintenance....

Firstly, there are the ops and maintenance jobs, however many they may be. Secondly, it would last long enough to give the US economy a good firm kick. Thirdly, the US could become an exporter.

Because cheap energy would lower the cost of everything, thus freeing up resources for domestic manufacturing. Service work would also become more profitable if gas didn't cost nearly $4/gallon and we could drive and ship electric instead of gas and diesel.

And all of this would mean funds to rebuild the infrastructure and to go green in other aspects of our economy. Those jobs could go on for two generations, probably, if not more....that's how far behind we are.

And then, there would be the ultimate infrastructure/green/domestic work: recycling landfills, cleaning up toxic dumps, radiation, etc. Restoring the ecosystem will take more than a couple of generations, and it will require either outlawing or redefining corporations to be domestic servants, not global exploiters and destroyers of nations and people.

Somewhere along teh line, you'll need to build a national healthcare system (the fact that teh richest country in the world doesn't have one is, frankly, barbaric). That creates more jobs and those jobs are independent of the economy.

Incidently, $4 a gallon is still cheap. Here (UK), we'd be paying about $10 a gallon.

And stop plunging into Third World status.

Here, we're trying to stop the Tories (who have passed beyond incompetence into outright vandalism) from privatising the NHS as they're hellbent on doing.

(sorry about that...a low blow on my part)

The Tories have already made savage cuts to welfare (including my disability money) and are looking to make even more. If I shared my wishes for them, this post would be (rightly) removed.