How to Rebuild our infrastructure

This post summarizes earlier work and lays out a concept for how to rebuild and sustain our infrastructure better.

"We must repair our infrastructure. This is a critical capability that has to be fixed. According to the Society of Engineers We must spend 3.6 Trillion dollars by 2020 to fix our infrastructure to the point where it is minimally serviceable. [see details] This is a security issue more important than Al Qaeda or ISIS as they have nothing to attack if we let our bridges collapse from neglect. And it is a jobs program both in the direct sense that it requires labor to fund, design, build and sustain; and in the direct sense that infrastructure is what enables a civilization and the communication that makes it possible to thrive. The Cons will tell you that their programs are jobs programs but as we've seen most of them represent Jobs in China.

Summary of Demands:

Demand 1: Must invest minimum of 50 billion per year and 250 billion total for infrastructure over next 5 years.

Demand 1a: Should create an Infrastructure Finance Authority to Fund and regulate Infrastructure projects

Demand 1b: Should make Membership in that Finance Authority a State & Local Role to ensure that spending reflects community needs.

Demand 1c: Should create an Infrastructure Trust fund to manage SuperFund monies and other Federal investments in strategic cooperation with EPA and State Branch authorities.

Infrastructure Investment a Critical Need

Repairs Needed

1. Dams: 21 billion Total needed, 4.2 billion per year over 5 years needed.
2. Water Infrastructure Safety requires a minimum of 1.25 billion per year total of 7.5 billion $ over 5 years.

"At the dawn of the 21st century, much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the United States. Assuming every pipe would need to be replaced (or at the minimum relined), the cost over the coming decades could reach more than $1 trillion, according to the American Water Works Association (AWWA)."

3. Environmental Projects Superfund needs a 500 Million Dollar Refresh to meet needs.
4. Report also talks about roads, rails, and bridges needing repairs. The infrastructure Authority contributes to that.

Infrastructure Finance Authority Critical to Sustainability

We need to make all existing Infrastructure Authorities and states automatic members of the Infrastructure Finance Authority unless they opt out. It costs more to fix a broken system than to sustain it and without both support and oversight from the Federal Government local authorities are liable to engage in poor long term strategy for spending on infrastructure projects. The role of the Federal Government in infrastructure is rightly a General one; advising, guiding, regulating, overseeing and imposing standards. But the role of localities is equally important and the requirements for a functional system require that localities have maximum local authority and accountability; and a say in overall budgeting and allocation through the representation process.

Any infrastructure Authority should have representation for requirements & budgeting in the form of a "legislative advisory body" organized in a bottom up manner to ensure that funding decisions are both representative (through bottom up representation) and strategic, through being vetted up a selection hierarchy and then reviewed by Congress and executive officials before being allocated to branches. Such a body can help keep the body less bureaucratic and also more representative.

Infrastructure Trust Fund

An infrastructure Trust fund is necessary to replace and extend the role currently played by specialized funds such as the Superfund that is being used to clean-up poisonous environments so people and our food supply don't get sick. The advantage of doing this in a Finance Authority associated with the Treasury is that it can be allowed to issue notes and pay bills based on future revenues. And because an Infrastructure Trust fund can be dedicated to projects within a large scale framework that are already needed. Short term appropriations are 2 years usually, but a Trust fund can hold funds authorized in advance for years of sustained efforts. And Such an authority can be made semi-self funding if it is chartered the right way and has the proper Republican features (legislative, access to ordinary courts, and separation of powers).

This is for those who want more details

Sourcees and details:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/demanding-infrastructure-spending.html

Engineers Report:

Report:http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

Report Card:http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/documents/2013-Report-Card.pdf

It also builds on some Articles that lay out the challenges:

Bernie Sanders 12 Points:

Lakoff:

http://georgelakoff.com/2014/11/13/democratic-strategies-lost-big-heres-why-and-how-to-fix-it/

William Donhoff "Who Rules America:

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_freshstart.html

Common Dreams, The real Reason Cons Win:

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/22-12

Disciples and Rebels

One of the things I learned from 30 years with the Gakkai/NSA was an important lesson: That lesson is that to be true to a teacher one must be true to the truth of what that teacher is teaching.

Loyalty to Law or Dharma

Personal loyalty is part of the path of a disciple but it is separate from loyalty to "dharma" or Law/truth/reality. Buddhist teachings (and western literature) are full of stories of the "loyal rebel" -- a person who has to rebel against a beloved Father (King Lear) or King (King Richard the Lionhearted in Robin Hood Legend for example) in order to be true to the principles that back the person's honor or integrity.

None of us gets it perfect

It's a theme of tragedy and farce that teachers, sages, religious founders are still human beings and are fallible. My favorite teacher, a Japanese Buddhist named Nichiren spent a lot of time criticizing people who, it turns out, had been the sources of much of what he was teaching himself. He emphasized "follow the dharma, not persons" and he himself had squabbling disciples who have squabbled ever since because they don't know how to make a distinction between loyalty to principle and loyalty to person. And so when they realize a person is gray, not perfect, they tend to desert his side and attack him. The history of religion and politics is a history of folks who were once intensely loyal like guard dogs, turning on their masters like attack dogs who never knew them.

Revolution becomes evil when it rebels too much

That is not the way. Even Martin Luther in the end, still considered himself a (reform) Catholic. He turned on his own disciples when they started burning Churches and becoming extremists. He turned loose "his" nobles on a purge of them. Lutherism was still Trinitarian Christianity, even though it defined it's initial orthodoxy from the work of Martin Luther. Paul famous confrontation with his own Rabbi, led to that Rabbi not being part of the later Jewish work of the Pirkei Avot, they mention Gamliel II but not the original. But even there Paul in his deliberate provocation of bringing Timothy to the Temple and letting the people assume he was uncircumcised (a capital crime according to the Torah) his last meeting with his Rabbi ended with the Rabbi letting him go alive. He had broken with his own faith in order to pursue a new one. He would imprint his own spin on the new Church and in the end that would supplant and override the message of his new Master's own disciples. He was like Esau, his hand raised against both fellow Christians (in his mission to the non-Jewish Nations he was in conflict with Jews) and his fellow Jews. Some of that may reflect later conflicts written into the narrative but he felt he was being true to the Law and that gave him license to betray his own masters.

Come to think of it, I apologize because I am criticizing these people. I feel they rebelled too much. Their critiques transgressed the boundaries of loving criticism to rejection of alternative paths. For both Paul and Luther it was "my way or the highway." Despite evidence that neither was exactly a perfect saint (Saul had been a ruthless killer), they claimed to speak for the ineffable one while claiming to be disciples of people whose views weren't exactly as theirs. That is the danger of rebellion. Rebels aren't perfect either. Sometimes I think the ineffable is speaking through me. I don't agree 100% with all my teachers either. But I don't borrow their authority and seek fame and power either. I think that becomes the real issue. Even people who seek fame and power often have something important and true to say. It's just power corrupts that message and every religious teacher who sought authority over others has been corrupted by that power. Except in myth of course.

An Alternative path of Loving Thinking Reading

I'm not a thorough expert in either Martin Luther or Paul/Saul. My concept of what happened could change in a moment with revised facts. Rather I'm suggesting that all teachers, and rebels, bet taken in their own context with a supreme awareness that they are human beings first. Then one realizes that one doesn't want to turn the wheel too far until people are out of the way of it's path. A turning wheel can run over a foot, or even people. A wheel turns too much and it comes back to where it started. We want improvement not destruction and revolution because when we reject a master or a teacher we tend to throw out the water with the baby and kill the "baby" of wisdom that they might be passing on. We can learn from bad teachers what not to do ourselves. But they typically teach much worth listening to. Moreover, every teaching can be understood on a variety of levels. Taking them as offered (Peshat/Literalism). Taking their lessons as the lessons teach (Reshit (allegory/figurative meaning). Finding deeper meanings through struggling with them and then using that meaning to guide others (Drash/Sermons). And then we have our own insights based on that struggle (Sot or moments of enlightenment/inspiration). Religion inspires us, and even teachers whose teachings we might not fully agree with later deserve respect and loving analysis. Throwing ink pots at the Devil may not be the most productive way to excise demons from this world, but such writings can motivate revolutions in thinking and positive unintended consequences. Without the Protestant Reformation Europe would have remained moribund and if it broke out of the dark ages, might have been an even more nasty colonial power than it was as multiple contending states. The religious conflicts between Orthodox and Catholic, protestant and catholic gave ordinary people little cracks they could take refuge in from the tyranny and oppression of authoritarianism and paternalism. The enlightenment was as much a product of the exhaustion of 16th century wars of religion as of the Renaissance. If one king hated a thinker he often would take refuge in the Kings Rival in another country. That is what Kept Luther alive. And it also kept Luther's enemies alive.

Rebels and Critics

I also spent the last 12 years involved in Judaism. I learned that Judaism and Jews are not as portrayed in the Bible or Christian literature. And that has prepared me to look at other religions and see the echoes of long ago personal fights in exaggerated consequences. Paul rejected Gamliel and his teachings were the germ for non-Jews to reject Judaism and Jewish Christians, which meant that eventually Jews were forced to reject Gamliel and Paul. They never really rejected Jesus. He just wasn't the promised Savior as portrayed in the literature. When Christians talk of a Second Coming they are referring to the same prophesies. Jews do reject the notion of Jesus as God. One of my teachers tells me that the notion of people being filled with the "wind" or "spirit" of the divine is one thing. Jesus being God, contradicts 90% of the Torah and Haftorah ("Old Testament"). Indeed the myths around Jesus are identical to those around the Baal worship depicted in Kings and Chronicles. Modern Christians worship the Bull of the Market. Unconsciously they are practicing the religion of Canaan. For Some, Jesus is an intermediary and image of the supreme Being, but then for ancient Israelis, so was Ba'al (and the Asherah). Maybe the conversation needed to be had, but the ultimate answers were bigger than any of the partisans. Pagan Judaism lives as Christianity. Hence Jews refer to Christians as "Esau" (which also means "Red". I still talk to Jesus, (and G-d, my late wife and the walls) but I don't see him as God. Just a semi mythical guy who said some really cool and true things.

Coming at it from Light and Honesty

But it's all Good when we come at it with light and honesty. The Prophets might have been criticizing paganism, but it was from a devotional community who wanted people to accept the Ecstatic God that all mystics "feel" when they feel the unity of all things. And it was from the POV of a community constantly distressed by a majority that was pagan. That is enough for now. The point is that one can and should admire all teachers, while being ready to argue with them and struggle with what they had to say. When confronted with paradoxes and contradictions; "Maybe both are true and once I understand it I'll understand how it can be true and that the real problem before was my faulty understanding." That leads different views. In the end the issue is that usually they are talking about different things. Some truths are provisional and contextual. Others are figurative. Some are about human laws or promises we need to keep for our own sakes and others. And some truths are about this material world and are like clay that can be used either to build a house with or a prison. It makes no difference to the clay. It does to us.

And finally, at the core of all spiritual quest is that faith in the ultimate existence of some kind of ultimate "being" and truth is not incompatible with the profound humility of the four words: "I could be wrong."

Laughing

Christopher H. Holte

Wall Street's Long Con swindle of America

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4519019/pension-cuts-2015-federal-spending-bill

I saw the reports of the changes in the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, before today. They were overshadowed by the swindle of Wall Street (Citibank lobbyists) putting in language making Tax Payers responsible for Bank bets. But they are part of the same long swindle that has been going on for more than 30 years. Back in 2009 I wrote about the PBGC in a Blog entry titled "Boomers and Our Grandparents". In that long ago blog entry I recounted the history of bucket shops:

"In the late 19th century and early 20th century ordinary people were encouraged to invest in the Stock Market through “Bucket shops” scattered all over the country. People also invested indirectly by depositing their money in banks, and the banks would invest in stocks or where-ever they thought they could maximize risk. There was no thought about risk. Some of this was through Bucket Shops. The way a bucket shop worked is that a local salesman would sell a derived security that allowed a number of investors to pool together to buy a security on wall street. This allowed ordinary people to play the stock market, and was sold as a way to protect their investments. Unfortunately the same stock could be sold 10 times and the profit pocketed by rich and well connected con men 9 times before anyone caught on. Some bucket shops actually bought stocks, but many of them turned into simply cons. And eventually even “legitimate” bucket shops would get caught short when the stock market did something expected and didn’t perform as expected. As a result of tens of thousands of people being scammed bucket shops were outlawed." [boomers and our grandparents]

These Bucket shops were a long con run by the giant banks with help from con artists around the country. Now we have another long con involving banksters who are happily transferring wealth from ordinary citizens to themselves.

"Even after the bucket shops were exposed, ordinary people were still encouraged to invest in the stock market. Worse, most people put their money in banks, and many of those banks over-leveraged (borrowed more than they had assets to cover) or invested in the Stock market. Eventually the stock market crashed, the banks closed. And ordinary folks realized that this whole idea was stupid, they’d been had. Meanwhile unemployment levels went to 30% while the rich, many of whom had created the casino in the first place, continued to live a life of inconsiderate luxury."

I was hoping that Obama was going to champion law and order and prosecute the latest round of swindles. I didn't expect that Wall Street would continue it's long term plans and just lie low until his last years. But that seems to be what they are doing. In the 20's Wall Street hoodwinked ordinary people directly. They had to have hucksters out there actually selling their worthless securities. Congress eventually passed Glass Steagle and other laws to ban these practices because they were fraudulent and risky. Wall Street was offloading risk so that they would have loaded coins. Like Batman's frenemy Two-face. It's Heads they win, Tails you lose. And I warned of what was happening with the PBGC in 2009:

"What most people didn’t understand is that getting people to invest in a casino is only good for the casino owners. As a result most of us now have inadequate 401K’s and Keogh’s and no pension plan. Those of us with pensions have them in the able hands of the PBGC, which usually has to cut benefits to keep them solvent. And we are facing a demographic disaster. And what are people doing? Blaming themselves. Well to a certain extent we deserve some blame. We are the ones who didn’t pay attention in history class." [boomers and our grandparents]

I was referring to a Washington Post article written by David Ignatious named The Baby Boomers' Retirement Bummer where David Ignatious was warning about what was about to happen:

"People have accused the baby boomers of being whiners almost since we were born. But just wait until we get to retirement age and discover that we don't have nearly enough money to take care of our "golden years." That's going to be the ultimate generational bummer." [The Baby Boomers' Retirement Bummer]

In 2009 PBGC was cutting future benefits. I thought that was wrong then. Wall Street and comfortable folks were fine with it because it wasn't their work being stolen and their future being swindled by the CEOs and investor class. It was the workers fault that the companies they work for won't pay them the worth of their labor. It's the retirees fault that companies chose to recklessly convert pensions to the pockets of insiders and CEOs -- according to Wall Street and savvy "pundits" who serve them. That was bad enough. What is different now is that they are cutting present benefits also thanks to the influence and clout of Wall Street money which the corrupt SCOTUS legalized in Citizens United. Either those benefits get cut, or Wall Street has to be forced to pay for it's privilege and power. In our current corrupt times which do you think will prevail? Well as Ignatious noted back in 2009 and it's only gotten worse since then:

"Let's start with the basic fact that only about half of Americans have any employer-sponsored retirement plan at all. The other folks will have to depend on Social Security. For a typical boomer worker, that would mean a monthly benefit of about $2,400 at a retirement age of 66 in 2020. On that, you won't be able to afford many Starbucks lattes."

So at least our corrupt congress is an equal opportunity economic stiffer. They are only stiffing about 1.5 million people. The rest of us have already been stiffed through direct theft from 401K and IRA accounts and simply not getting paid enough to have a surplus we can save. David predicted what is happening in 2009, when he noted:

"What's going to happen? Certainly, people will try to save more. But my guess, knowing my generational cohort, is that we'll want a government bailout to supplement our too-meager retirement savings. Unfortunately, the Treasury won't have enough money to fund our Medicare benefits, let alone a top-up in Social Security." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603322.html]

All Part of a Long Con

I suspect what our elites have done is that they saw these provisions, publicly pay lip service to protecting the retirement of baby boomers, while privately agreeing with the investor class that it's our own fault and Wall Street gets a pass.

But the problem is that Treasury has plenty of money through the Federal Reserve to bail out Wall Street thefts, such as the Derivative fraud, but is owned by Wall Street and so has a double standard.

Wall Street crooks are running a long con. They snuck this provision in the same bill to protect themselves from bad bets that could quickly dwarf the entire amount of Baby Boom pensions. Our 1% was born with silver spoons in their mouths but will be darned if they will even let the rest of us folks keep the pewter ones the rest of us are stuck with.

"if there's another economic downturn, they can count on a taxpayer bailout of their derivatives trading business." [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists]

It's a long con folks. The fix is in, and we can only fight it -- by Fighting it

Further reading:

History of the Bailout Swindle of 2008 from Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104?page=2

Mother Jones Article:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists

Crooks and Liars

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/co-president-dimon-whips-votes-shameful

We lived in a Democracy

We lived in a democracy

until we decided to end it.

We anointed someone to call himself the decider

because we failed to see that we had failed

to understand and live by democratic rules

So we let him decide for us.

 

You hear them deride the constitution

you hear them deride the people.

You hear them if you listen to them

But they don't live in a democracy

and neither do we.

 

The Politburo and it's decider

fly over us from coast to coast

and they extract confessions by torture

while blaming a single city

But really the decisions are made in secret chambers.

and we are expected to go about our labors

and salute their grand old flag

 

Christopher H. Holte 2005

A Fractal Universe

A Fractal Universe

It's a Fractal Universe

suspended between pure chaos

and boring order

 

Look at it from above

as we fall towards the sea

the level of detail we can see

stays the same

 

almost order,

patterns that never exactly repeat

changes that never ever are exactly the same

Endless chaos

Fractal Animals

We are crazy fractal animals

living in an almost sane world

a sequence of cartoonist panels

that seem to think thoughts

and therefore think they are alive.

Descartes Cartoon

captions over a half drunk cartoonist panel

Is that God?

A panel over my image says "I think therefore I am.

 

If God speaks to me

Is it a cartoonist speech

Done with pencil and eraser?

Is my life like a cartoon?

The end the last frame he feels like drawing?

Yet I feel the painful traumas

Of the cartoonists strange set of humors.

 

What do I see?

and is it really there?

 

It's not even a proper vision

Though it roils in turbulence like a tornado

with a vacuum cleaner roar

 

No angelic music

No thumping heart beat

Unless my mind can imagine it

and fine some other existence

at some point this distance is gone.

not even a song.

 

Just as it ever was

dancing patterns,

a chemical burn

electrons vibrating and singing

keeping each other company

Thoughts

A Gate moves open here

A pattern that says something

Do we really understand what?

A code that seems to say life

But also says death.

Either/Or

Creaking, seeking, freaking, tweeking

We live the illusion we call mind.

We seem to see things

but this is the brain talking to itself

all the time

Crazy monkeys who talk to ourselves.

 

We dream of better things

But our dreams lack imagination

They fire in chemical sweeps from overstimulated neurons.

We live in a bounded universe

Up, Down, left, right, forward and back

Stop and Go

All bounded by these boundaries we call time

 

And what do we know of time?

That one day it collapses

Suspended in dust?

All it's particles an illusion

What seemed solid, magnified by the mind

Collapse and shrink into a darkened "not"

No possessions left, just a puff, a nothingness.

 

And what do we know of time?

We express sequences,

but do we know them?

The serpentine crimes of travelling time

Chronons might travel backwards, but we would never know it.

For us we experience time travel only one way.

With inevitable death waiting.

And Death?

One day he was among us

Now he is not.

That is all we know...

and the certainty that one day

others will experience each of us passing that way

though we will not.

 

I won't feel anymore

I am already numb

The reality of the moment

makes me feel dumb

I have nothing more to say

 

Nothing to say

Nothing can cushion

this ultimate illusion

this destroyer of delusion

when all the myths collapse

Into speculative megillahs

furies fall to dust

and hope is finally gone.

But so is fear

 

A chasm below

Is there a heaven above?

In our imagination, yes;

We can move up, down, forward, back, left right

Forever in endless circles

and we can experience endless pain and suffering

We are circling around a hole in time

Certainly heaven can be somewhere in there, with hell

in that whirlwind singularity called the end.

Christopher H. Holte written 2005

Demands Related to Election Reform

This wasn't on Bernies list but it is a priority for everyone and should be for any reformers of our party. It should be a multi-partisan, non-partisan issue. But it isn't. The outlines of fair and just elections are visible to anyone who looks at the issue. We should demand of all our political candidates at all levels the following reforms:

Per Article One Section 4 and Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution, Congress mandates that all elections follow basic rules of balloting as necessary for the proper function of a Republican form of Government:

1. All voting machines must produce a clear readable permanent indelible record that includes an original under the control of a local election judge who cannot be an active participant in any election except as an election judge.
2. The Ballot produced must be uniform, readable and verifiable to the voter who has prepared it as part of voting and to election personnel who must count the ballots.
3. Election places shall ID voters in a reasonable fashion and arbitrary ID rules may not be used to bar a registered voter from casting a vote.
4. The Ballot once cast must be anonymous and any link to the Voters actual ID use a random number to preserve anonymity unless the vote has been contested for cause.
5. No vote may be contested without cause.
6. Purely electronic machines must be scrapped immediately.
7. Electronic tallying may be retained, but all evidence of voting must be hand countable and it should be possible to count the ballots after the election under the guardianship of non-partisan election judges and representatives from each party, if there is any dispute about the outcome of the election or the tally. Moreover records shall be preserved so that they can be recounted or audited if necessary.
8. The same procedure must be used to review ballots before they are prepared and published.
9. Either Election day must be a Holiday or provision be made for workers, persons with odd hours and for all voters to be able to vote with maximum ease and assuredness before the day of the election, preferably up to a week or more and on weekends.
10. Tampering with, altering, or interfering with the ballots or voter access to voting shall be a federal crime with a fine of no less than $5000 dollars or 6 months in jail for each count. Evidence of Election fraud shall be grounds for requiring a new election and candidates convicted of election fraud shall be barred from Federal Office or Federal Contracts.

I don't even have to look these up

Demands related to Jobs, and Job Fairness

Create Jobs!

The goal of creating jobs is directly related to all the other goals and demands we Democrats have and is part of a key positive right that everyone should have the ability to earn an income sufficient to provide a livelihood. In practice we need to make sure we have the resources allocated to ensure that everyone who needs a job can get one and that those jobs are good ones. For that reason "Creating Jobs" is directly related to raising the Wage and Pay Equity. And it is indirectly related to other key goals in Bernie's list.

The goal of 'creating jobs' is regularly cited in RW plots to override pollution controls, seize our public properties and reallocate wealth to the wealthy, but all those programs destroy more jobs than they create, as does unfair trade laws and tax benefits to the already wealthy. On the contrary our demands all tend to create sustainable jobs.

1. Fix our Infrastructure, Build Green Energy, Fight Climate Change

Bernie's #1, #2 and most of the rest of our list, all contribute to creating jobs! A Healthy economy has demand up jobs and invites investment.

In addition we should:

2. Make the Unemployment Program an Employment Program -- Bring Back Hiring Halls

Currently the unemployment office often does good work of helping folks who are unemployed get through to their next job. But thanks to budget cutbacks, when there are severe economic hard times it cuts off unemployment insurance just when a person is finding it hardest to find a job, and there are no provisions for folks with age, disability or other long term unemployment issues to find employment that they can handle. We have a multitude of underfunded welfare offices to help people with these problems, but most of them are inadequate and many veterans, aged people, people with physical or psychological issues get poorly served.

At one time a person who was unemployed could go to a Union or other Hiring hall and get placed with a job. We should bring back something similar. There has to be a public/private partnership to keep people working and provide a source of employment at last resort and Hiring halls that pay people a minimum wage for being on call and pay them better if someone needs day labor or a permanent hire would fill that bill.

The Unemployment program should become an "Employment Program" and pay people a minimum until they get a job -- and also provide employment services. It should be run at State, County, Municipal and neighborhood level and not treat unemployment as if they are criminals. Local government must be the employer of last resort both from the Worker's point of view and private employers point of view.

The enabling Legislation would include model bills for adoption at the State and local Level. Every person attending a hiring hall would be paid the minimum living wage for 8 hours of work, and additional if actually hired.

3. Use Hiring Halls to access Free Education, Training and Apprenticeships

In addition to providing or sponsoring local hiring halls with Large Employers, local Government or Unions sponsoring them, the Government should ensure that people are properly educated and trained for work. This means that not only should there be hiring halls for workers, but those places should provide training, apprenticeship opportunities, volunteer work and education opportunities to folks in the hiring hall while being paid a minimum wage. They should be free to the laborer and the student. A college campus would not only be free to the students attending there, but the government would pay students to attend school as long as their Grade Point and performance justified it. And of course workers would be available to perform University related work while attending.

4. Make the Minimum wage = a Living Wage. And raise that to a threshold of 10$ an hour.

The minimum wage should equal the wage necessary for a person to not be poor anymore if they work 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year. It should be defined the poverty level (yearly) for a family of four divided by 2000 hours. And when there is inflation the minimum wage should change as the poverty level changes.

An even higher "standard" wage should apply and equal the average wage for a working person. This should apply to those who have a full time or part time job in any industry. If businesses can't afford to pay their employees they should have to explain why.

Even more important, taxes should be on income that is higher than that needed to compensate labor for their work. If a businessman has expenses; food, energy, drive time, input expenses, the businessman can deduct them from his/her business earnings. Employees should not be taxed on that part of their compensation that is necessary for them to eat, get to work, clothe themselves and educate themselves and their children. That is why it is called "wage compensation." It shouldn't be taxed.

5. Democrats may support Corporate Welfare to help struggling employers

If employers can't afford to pay the minimum wage or a standard wage, then the hiring halls should have the authority to pay hirees a living wage and run a tab of the difference for employers to be paid out of eventual profits if the employer can stay in business. It should be on businessmen to justify why they can't stay in business unless they pay oppressive wages.

6. All Democratic candidates shall support Fair Trade Provisions

If an employer hires employees outside the country at less than what the exchange rate would calculate as a fair minimum wage for a US worker in the same job in the USA than the employer shall pay a duty on the difference in value added from those employees when the goods are imported or the services are rendered. If they can't afford the duty then the Government shall remove their import license.

An employer cannot export capital goods if it means terminating local employees. No export license shall be granted for any employer exporting capital goods if that export means termination of the local employees.

7. All Democratic candidates shall support the letter and spirit of the Lily Ledbetter Act.

The Lily Ledbetter Act already talks about Pay equity.

8. All Persons Employed by any employer doing business in interstate commerce, with more than 50 employees or doing business with the Government shall have the right to assemble at such times convenient to them, to discuss any issue freely during such assembly, to select representatives and to petition the government of such employer with grievances or demands.

9. Workplace Democracy as a Right

   All Persons employed by any employer whatsoever shall have the right to be consulted by that employer when major decisions are made and to be informed of changes in compensation, employment term, or benefits.

   This list is a "threshold" list. The last two items may sound radical but they are basic to principles of republicanism and good function.

   This list is a strawman and a draft. I hope that others will like the idea and run with it.

   This list relates to Demand #3 on Bernie's list "Create Jobs". Read: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-common-plank.html

More Reading (and this list will get longer):

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/demanding-infrastructure-spending.html