Restoring Commonwealth requires Republican Corporations

As usual I find I get my examples for what to do from what the wealthy and connected are opposed to, and my examples for what not to do from their looting and depredations. I also get my models from history, from analyzing the ideas of the right. In an article called "The GOP and ALEC -- ALEC's war on the cities" The author notes:

"Few ideas are more powerful in U.S. politics than local control. The South rallied around states’ rights during the Civil War. Conservatives rage at the federal government for meddling in local matters." [http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities]

A writer named George Will has carried on about the Concept of "Subsidiarity" where specific power is delegated to the most local person for good reason.

"Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority." [See Post: Subsidiarity and Fascism]

The concept is well developed in Fascist literature, and also in more communitarian democratic literature. Elinor Ostrom also talked about the importance of keeping control over common properties local in her "8 principles of managing a commons." You would think, with all the talk from both left and right about concepts like Subsidiarity you'd think everyone would be on board.

Sadly, the Con Artist Grifters of the Right are after loot, respect and power; not the common good. And their model is still the "plantation" not democracy. In a plantation organization one person rules the plantation, and everyone works for or is directed by them. As I pointed out in my recent post "Constitutional Tyranny", the Southern States, organized as they were around plantations as extensions of the British Crown, and later as extensions of State Capitals, were organized around a hierarchical counterfeit of liberty that has come to be known as "libertarianism" in our time that reified the planters and amplified the power of hereditary wealth and connections. I quoted the historians David and Jeanne Heidler:

"Plantation agriculture kept the region rural; town meetings didn't occur because there were precious few towns. Instead, southerners relied on hierarchical relationships with planters at the top of a social structure too vertically linear to be described as even pyramidal. A mass of poor whites was at it's base, and slaves were completely under it."

For the right the State (starting with The County) is based on King-like Judges with lifetime tenure,

"County Courts with lifetime judges reflected the will of the upper class, and slavery made white unity and consensus imperative."

Counties that were like little kingdoms, and Sheriffs, and is a model that is excellent for ruling over a mass of poor and dispossessed. If Democracy is confined to easily rigged elections then Subsidiarity in a plantation mentality means that the power is with the local landlord -- the plantation owner and his supervisors. They are overseen by legislative and executive Councils who represent the plantation owners. Something similar has been the pattern for Banana Republics around the world. Change the term "Sheriff" or "County Executive" to "President", "El Caudillo" or "El Jefe" and you have the structure for any Oligarchic Republic from the USSR to Chile.

This plantation model was something the South loved. It was a strict hierarchy that was modeled on the Feudal model of old, which in turn was modeled on the Byzantine Military Model. Essentially a plantation is an army model planted on top of and controlling a base of slaves. Indeed when the Generals of the Union Army won the Civil War they found that model to be excellent and applied it to creating companies that made the plantation conceptual. A "President" who presides over a hierarchy of soldiers on top, yes, an army of slaves. This is a model that contrasts with that of Civility and Democratic Republicans. The Union may have won the war, but the Generals who fought it were converted to a plantation model of running their business. And this contrasts with the concept of Civility.

The US Right Wing Imposing this Atomized Liberty vision on the Country

Southern and Businessmen Caudillos are so comfortable with their model of a strictly authoritarian and oppressive public order that they call the alternative "collective" even when they are talking about the original model for Republics and Democracy -- the City, Town, Village Government. As the South Changes city people and townsmen aren't satisfied with hereditary judges and Governors. They want the real thing. And Democracy is "messy and has to be limited. Thus you get incongruities such as Abbot calling the exercise of Municipal Democracy "collectivism". Abbot claims:

“city-level bans on plastic bags, fracking and tree-cutting” ... “form a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations,” Abbott said, “that are eroding the Texas model” and turning the state into California." [http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities]

Something he terms "collectivism" and thus he's pushing on the Texas legislature "pre-emptive" laws to prevent such a horrific possibility. Heaven help Texas if it should "turn into California."

"Texas legislators have responded with proposals to preempt local laws, including a bill that would prevent local governments from issuing any ordinance that “conflicts with or is more stringent than a state statute or rule.”" [http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities]

But it isn't just Texas doing this. The "Southernization" and "corporatism" of the North is proceeding apace. And pre-empting "subsidiarity" and local democracy has become their response to "wild" civility:

"Such bills blocking progressive laws are growing in popularity across the United States, especially in GOP-controlled legislatures. Last year, for example, when Oklahoma City debated raising its minimum wage to $10.10, the state legislature passed a law preventing cities from enacting wage increases." [http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities]

This is an assault on the concept of civility itself. And this battle. This battle for the soul of the United States is a battle between a future that resembles the past and one that builds on the past. It is a battle between the founding vision of "civility" and the counterfeit vision of authoritarian hierarchy. Between whether we embrace a founding vision of civility and common good or of libertarian "do what you will" individual freedom to be local tyrants over others. In one the people feel free because the only check on their own power to do as they please is the Sheriff and County Judge and of course, the local landlord or boss. In the other people participate in their own fate. And it only has to be nipped in the blood:

"Progressive muscle-flexing by urban America on the minimum wage, fracking and other key economic and environmental issues poses a serious challenge to the GOP’s program of obstruction in Congress. It also threatens the deep bias of our national politics toward red states and conservative ideology. That makes subverting the power of cities an urgent task for conservatives, even if it means becoming “meddling bureaucrats” themselves." [http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities]

A Corporate Model of Civility as "Collectivism" versus Caudillo-ism

I believe that what they really fear is not "collectivism" but that people will catch on to their "caudillo-ism" and resist. Plastic bag laws and other restrictions on public behavior can infringe on the "personal liberty" of people to do as they please no matter how crazy or short-sighted, but what they really represent is a growing sense of empowerment and a return of:

"Civic Virtue: corporate exercise involving church elders, town aldermen, even congressional delegations, all working in concert to advance the common interest." [http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities]

The fact is that we already have an alternative corporate model to the tyrannical, hierarchical caudillo model of corporate governance. And it is the Republican model. Why a party named "The Republican Party" would be obsessed with poisoning and reducing it's original version would escape me, except that that is the vision of the Party of Lincoln. The New England Town Hall, with it's direct Democratic forms, limited executive, enfranchised citizens and civic virtues was a model developed over time by people devoted to principles developed from classical times to the present in the face of tyranny. The Republicans, seduced by a different, militarized model fear it. They have to stop it.

Rather than conceding power to tyrannical corporations, gerrymandered districting and Senates and Houses that rabidly attack the very principles of Democracy. We need governments that replicate the principles of the constitution and not in cynical counterfeits of their forms. We should be pushing for a model of governance of our common systems that is networked, deconflicts powers for the common benefit and has bottom up representation. Yes, the executive should be "top down" but each level should have to stand election, and have citizen oversight. We shouldn't have standing armies standing on the necks of ordinary citizens, but local order. We shouldn't have giant companies that pay hundreds of millions to their CEOs while ignoring the pleas of householders for an extra day to pay. Instead our national companies should be run under Republican principles. At the same time we need giant organizations to govern and direct our national networks. These should be governed with a legislature from below and an executive that consults subdivisions. Privatizing public utilities grants their revenues to caudillos. Often for the foreseeable future.

These ought to be principles of good governance. It shouldn't be up to a cabal whether plastic bags are supplied free by companies or are taxed. The power of legislatures over purse, requirements and law is the power of good government and is a principle our ancestors fought for over a 500 year period. The antidote to excessive bureaucracy and top down dictatorship is neither in the Caudillo style government nor in Caudillo Corporations but in the vision of Democracy established, first in the North and later in the Constitution, there are three branches of government each independent and each limited with separation of powers. But it's not so easy.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand,” Frederick Douglass wrote. Injustice and wrongdoing will, as Douglass put it, “continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.” Cities are beginning to demand an end to our national political paralysis and to implement policies that most of us agree on. Conservatives are pushing back. The evidence suggests that the war between urban America and a political system radically rigged against it is just beginning." http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities

http://inthesetimes.com/article/17928/the-gop-and-alecs-war-on-cities

Their Families have a right to Mourn them

I mourn the death of my brother man,

Their families have the right to Mourn them.

...they didn't die in vain.

When I come to understand,

They shed the blood of sacrifice to erase a stain

and an evil spell, a dream,

we needed to wake up from.

That "all men are created equal"

means only some.

 

They arose to fight from beneath a stoney hierarchy

to emerge to run in wild abandon, shouting their rebel yell.

across green fields angry, spiteful and fell.

reaping death in waves across the open fields.

Against the stone of righteousness that awaited them.

Their blind bravery only proving,

that might doesn't make right,

and reality is not shaped by delusion.

They sought Glory,

But they found only pain

Poor and Rich, Masters and Slaves, died side by side.

But not for the same cause.

 

They proved that their vision of slavery as paradise

was an evil and a cruel illusion

for while they marched, the Union Army Camps,

were swelled by hordes of slaves who freed themselves,

as their chains lay neglected in the mud and blood,

of their masters lunatic war.

They rose, they fought, they died, they threw their weapons down.

And the conquering armies let them pick them up and go home.

 

Christopher H. Holte 5/25/2015

Further Reading

And the living honored the dead, by giving them a proper burial.

http://newsone.com/3117042/the-one-thing-african-americans-need-to-know-about-memorial-day/?omcamp=sf_N1TW

Constitutional Tyranny

I've been reading the book "Washington's Circle" by David S., and Jeanne, Heidler. The very first chapter had some gems of quotes about government that I need to analyze. Our founding fathers were divided mostly on sectional grounds, with the Northern delegates having a clear vision of the country as a developed place and the Southern delegates ironically pre-occupied with both slavery and "liberty." The result was a National Government that took 70 years, and a bitter civil war, to end slavery. That war, completed, we found ourselves ruled by oligarchy and a trust and corporate nightmare. Well the reason for that turns out to be hidden in our constitution. We setup a government that was based more on the Southern Plantation style government then on the Northern Town Charter government.

Our Founders setup a government premised on certain Northern Principles:

"Civic Virtue" [as a] "corporate exercise involving church elders, town aldermen, even congressional delegations, all working in concert to advance the common interest." [From "Washington's Circle" see below]

In that vision the Nation was to be an:

"organic creature, the body entire, and preserving its health was simply another obligation, the appropriate province of Government."

But he notes that Southerners didn't see government the same way.

"Plantation agriculture kept the region rural; town meetings didn't occur because there were precious few towns. Instead, southerners relied on hierarchical relationships with planters at the top of a social structure too vertically linear to be described as even pyramidal. A mass of poor whites was at it's base, and slaves were completely under it."

The genesis of this was in colonialism. The Early Crown colonies tried to replicate the tyrannical forms the Admiralty had found successful in Britain. They weren't able to export all of them to the United States because they needed a mass of free people and at least the illusion of opportunity to populate the country. In the North the Yeomen farmers replicated their own ideas about governance from a tradition of local rebellion against top down rule. But in the South the Brits were more successful in exporting tyranny through:

"County Courts with lifetime judges reflected the will of the upper class, and slavery made white unity and consensus imperative."

Sheriffs and the few elected officials represented this hierarchy, and fear of slaves, phantom outside enemies, or whatever the local leadership could drum up as the enemy of the week kept the south together despite the reality of oppression. Because the poor sometimes owned their own land and were told they were free, they supported the hierarchy. Because they were left alone in their misery as long as they didn't challenge this order the result was the illusion of personal liberty. Slave owners were free to oppress slaves, and the poor were free to do what they needed to do to get by. A sense of civic order, duty and common purpose was absent from this order. The attitude in the south was "leave me alone", and that is not conducive towards democracy because democracy depends on "stepping up" (Hoi Bollomenos) and involvement. That attitude has infected most of the country since then.

But the real coup is that the Founders grafted the Southern legal system into the National Government. We have a supreme court that "reflect[s] the will of the upper class" and increasingly our representatives reflect a southern Libertarian attitude ("leave me alone to practice pedaphilia and beat up my wife") versus a civil and liberal attitude ("I participate in my own government to secure my liberties and exercise my duty to my fellow man"). As a country we do Counties and Southern Style courts well, but civic virtue is under assault along with cities and towns. Ironically as the South has the population to support real civic structures, those are being trampled on from Boston to Detroit, to Washington D.C. We need to strengthen, restore and (in much of the country) recreate civic structures to restore and redirect our corporate structures to a more civic attitude.

And of course the point is, that in parts of the country, we never had those civic values in the first place. That is the real weakness of our Constitution.

Quotes from "Washington's Circle" by David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler:

http://www.amazon.com/Washingtons-Circle-The-Creation-President/dp/1400069270

My copy is from the Public library. I'm referring to some other books I'm reading too, but those aren't quoted.

How the Defenders of the Trans Pacific Partnership have me supporting Warren

Authoritarianism and Democracy

I love President Obama. Not in the sense that one would love a lover, but because I like his personality, refreshing amount of honesty, and his decisions have been mostly ones I could support. If I can criticize him it's not for lack of trying. If he can't roll back the Security-Military-Police State single-handedly that is a three fingered thing. I've been frightened of where our country was going for a long time. I was afraid when he was elected in 2008 that his Presidency would be an interregnum between truly vile people. George Walker Bush and his administration were truly vile people and I'm afraid the Cons have transmogrified the GOP from a party that had reformers and progressives in it to a truly vile party.

Authoritarianism and the President

Obama still thinks these trade agreements are a good thing. He thought Afghanistan was our "Good War" and while he had criticisms of our Spy State, he seems to think we can keep the spy state and our civil liberties too. As long as there is a legal process then blowing people away without even a warrant for their arrest is okay with him. He wasn't "allowed" to close Guantanamo, so he didn't. All of the things he's wrong on I think he's sincerely, and consistently, wrong on. So I don't like making it personal about him. He's been wrong about what he's been wrong on from the beginning. And where he seems to have changed it was, maybe, because his original position came to seem to him to have been unreasonable. I sincerely believe that the "powers that be" took him aside on his inauguration night and read him a riots act on what he can and can't do. Since then I've watched people working for him defy him, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency. Others, like Eric Holder, were good choices on some issues, but not so good in other realms

Authoritarianism amplifies problems

Authoritarianism is the reification of authority. It is the support of people and policies, laws and violence, purely on the say-so of authorities. An authority originally was an author, but authorities are also the people who interpret what is written and rule in the name of their power to author decisions. When Bush said "I'm the decider" he was referring to his power to grant or deny life or death, torture or personal destruction; with the stroke of a pen. That is authority. Deifying authorities and persons gives us authorities. When people accept the word of someone over even the written word or their own reason -- that is authoritarianism. And sadly we Democrats suffer from authoritarianism too. We tacitly accept unacceptable things, use pretzel logic to ratify awful decisions and go along with what turn out to be the 'private, separate interest' of scoundrels, instead of holding soundly to our own principles and reason. Obama is great, but he has authoritarian followers and he too sometimes tells us "trust me I know, I'm the authority on this." And it's on us when we buy it. Nobody is perfect. Not even me. [that was an attempt at humor]

Support TPP or else!

Authoritarian people amplify the problems associated with hierarchy and the abuse of power. And they turn good ideas into bad ones. TPP is an example.

I've heard people lately tell me that if I question TPP I'm being played by the Right Wing. These are the same people who tell me that Snowden is evil because he's a libertarian and ignore the evidence we have of abuses of police and spy power. Anyway, I explained my reasons for questioning TPP in two past posts. My Previous blog on the Trans Pacific Partnership:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/05/why-opposition-to-trans-pacific.html

Obama criticized Elizabeth Warren a few weeks ago. He and his administration have been focusing on the "straw argument" on Free Trade:

"The administration’s main analytical defense of the trade deal came earlier this month, in a report from the Council of Economic Advisers. Strangely, however, the report didn’t actually analyze the Pacific trade pact. Instead, it was a paean to the virtues of free trade, which was irrelevant to the question at hand." [Krugman Article]

And it is irrelevant to the questions we have! And we have more questions. Do we really need to turn 'intellectual property' into a lifetime sinecure? Krugman notes:

"On intellectual property: patents and copyrights are how we reward innovation. But do we need to increase those rewards at consumers’ expense? Big Pharma and Hollywood think so, but you can also see why, for example, Doctors Without Borders is worried that the deal would make medicines unaffordable in developing countries. That’s a serious concern, and it’s one that the pact’s supporters haven’t addressed in any satisfying way." [Krugman Article]

Krugman refers to the ISDS provisions. Krugman refers to the Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions:

"On dispute settlement: a leaked draft chapter shows that the deal would create a system under which multinational corporations could sue governments over alleged violations of the agreement, and have the cases judged by partially privatized tribunals. Critics like Senator Elizabeth Warren warn that this could compromise the independence of U.S. domestic policy — that these tribunals could, for example, be used to attack and undermine financial reform." [Krugman Article]

I already noted, that while we hear the earlier draft has been moderated, the articles at the ISDS website still advertise the ISDS as described in the leaks. Obama went so far as to criticize Warren telling us that the ISDS was now going to protect labor and that the TPP wouldn't have all those flaws we've been talking about. But as everyone has noted, he talks about Free Trade as if the alternative to this TPP would be high tariffs and trade wars. Which ignores the untrustworthy elements of the monopolistic attitude embodied in TPP for Investors. And worse, even more than what I described in my previous blog, as Alternet notes:

"The office puts out an annual report on “foreign trade barriers” around the world, going country by country to list complaints the U.S. government has about their laws with respect to commerce. If you read the 2015 report, you'll quickly see that many of the complaints are about laws designed to promote environment, labor, and anti-monopolistic practices – and relate only vaguely to the larger issue of trade and tariffs. The complaints seem more focused around opposing regulations that restrict the rights of multi-national corporations and their investors." [alternet:elizabeth-warren-right-about-tpp]

So essentially our suspicion that the TPP is mostly about putting a leash on US, is probably right!

If the "Pro-TPP" folks want my support they have to do better than play the authoritarian card

"Instead of addressing real concerns, however, the Obama administration has been dismissive, trying to portray skeptics as uninformed hacks who don’t understand the virtues of trade. But they’re not: the skeptics have on balance been more right than wrong about issues like dispute settlement, and the only really hackish economics I’ve seen in this debate is coming from supporters of the trade pact." [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/opinion/paul-krugman-trade-and-trust.html?_r=0]

This is more a review than an effort to write a case for opposing TPP. I have grave doubts on these two subjects particularly and grave doubts that any of the promises made by the President and the Trade Authority are **in fact** true. And those doubts are amplified by the comments of Authoritarian supporters of the the TPP and the President's comments.

Post Script

I just found this article in Politico and it seems to cover the subject better than I can (not being able to read the draft):

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/tpp-elizabeth-warren-labor-118068.html#.VWM4NE9Vikp

He writes:

"So-called “cleared advisors” like me are prohibited from sharing publicly the criticisms we’ve lodged about specific proposals and approaches. The government has created a perfect Catch 22: The law prohibits us from talking about the specifics of what we’ve seen, allowing the president to criticize us for not being specific. Instead of simply admitting that he disagrees with me—and with many other cleared advisors—about the merits of the TPP, the president instead pretends that our specific, pointed criticisms don’t exist." [Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/tpp-elizabeth-warren-labor-118068.html#ixzz3bA91RVDS]

And he concludes:

"Congress should refuse to pass fast track trade negotiating authority until the partnership between the branches, and the trust of the American people is restored. That will require a lot of fence mending and disclosure of exactly what the TPP will do. That begins by sharing the final text of the TPP with those of us who won’t simply rubber-stamp it. [Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/tpp-elizabeth-warren-labor-118068.html#ixzz3bAA6hNF0]

Great Position Paper to Read:

https://www.isglobal.org/documents/10179/25254/Transnational+Transparency/c419eb1e-731d-4bee-86ff-a783ef5eedcb

Alternet Article:

http://www.alternet.org/obscure-government-document-shows-elizabeth-warren-right-about-tpp

Paul Krugman/Washington Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/opinion/paul-krugman-trade-and-trust.html?_r=0

Reforms that the Banking System Needs

Reuters reports that "Global banks admit guilt in forex probe, fined nearly $6 billion". Loretta Lynch, the new Attorney General announced today that:

“Today’s historic resolutions are the latest in our ongoing efforts to investigate and prosecute financial crimes, and they serve as a stark reminder that this Department of Justice intends to vigorously prosecute all those who tilt the economic system in their favor; who subvert our marketplaces; and who enrich themselves at the expense of American consumers,” said Attorney General Lynch. “The penalty these banks will now pay is fitting considering the long-running and egregious nature of their anticompetitive conduct. It is commensurate with the pervasive harm done. And it should deter competitors in the future from chasing profits without regard to fairness, to the law, or to the public welfare.” [http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/five-major-banks-agree-parent-level-guilty-pleas]

Except it's not. If Loretta Lynch really wants to do something about Banker Fraud she has to start prosecuting individuals. And if we want some permanent changes we need to hold individuals and their management accountable for their actions. As someone said on the Ed Show today [paraphrasing] if we start frog marching management the rank and file will stop breaking the law. I believe that all bonuses, stock options, etc... should be put up against a Bond for Good Behavior for all officers of company doing business with the Government or having government powers over other people's money. Then when something like this happens the Taxpayer gets back his and her money from those bonuses instead of the thief conning the Government to give him/her more bonuses to fix the fraud he or she had committed. An article in US News notes:

“The sheer volume of contracts based on LIBOR defies the imagination. Estimates vary, but $500 trillion seems reasonable. Even if the banks lied by as little as one-tenth of 1 percent, that percentage applied to $500 trillion multiplied by the six years of the fraud comes to $3 trillion stolen from customers. Cutting that amount in half to allow for the fact that some customers benefited from the fraud while others lost still gives implied damages of $1.5 trillion, greater than the combined capital of all of the too-big-too-fail banks in the United States. Taken to the full extent of the law, these damages are enough to render a large segment of the global banking system insolvent. These damages will be pursued not by regulators, but in private lawsuits by class action lawyers.” [http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/07/23/libor-fraud-may-be-the-mother-of-all-bank-scandals]

5 Billion to settle 3 Trillion in damages is that "cost of doing business" that the Banksters talk about openly when they are telling their employees to commit fraud and break the law. They will continue breaking the law until they start being frog marched. And some of them will continue to do so until we stop rewarding them for their fraud and letting them pocket profits they never earned.

Real Reforms

Every person with a job that gives them control over Other People's Money, or supervisory power over such people, should be bonded for the amount of money they are handling. They should pay an insurance premium based on the risk of their portfolio. That bond should be owned by an organization (company or agency) with power to make good any losses from their behavior from that bond and to raise or lower the premium on the bond. Every one of those bonds should be secured by any promises of bonuses, stock options, etc.... and the bonding agency have the power to freeze, seize or put a lien on those securities. And when that person breaks the law unless the supervisor reports the infraction to the bonding agency and takes disciplinary action both the employee and the supervisory should be subject to action from the bonding agency. Want a safe secure system? That would do it as long as the bonding agency isn't "owned" by the executive wall street body handling people's money but is owned by the people of the country and/or the customers of the Financial Industry. A law can be crafted to that effect. It would be one that finally would have real teeth. Every employee or supervisor involved in the Financial Industry would sign an agreement binding him or her to the terms of this oversight and to pay premiums based on the risk of their portfolio. And the bonding agency would arbitrate disputes between investors and consumers, etc... If customers don't agree they can take them to court. Only the employees and supervisors would be bound by such arbitration agreements, not the customers. This is the reverse of how they operate now where they mostly stiff their less powerful customers -- such as pension plans.

Further Reading

I've been writing on this for several years now. So here are some related blog entries:

Corruption American Style

Hightower on our Corrupt system

Wall Street's Long Con Swindle of America

Freebooters Stealing Homes

Our Officers earned a Black Spot

Occupy Coordinated

Why Summers and Wall Street should not run the Federal Reserve

General Material (and fixes) on the subject:

Satans Usury

Depreciation Stock Sustainability

Postal Banking, Stamp Scripts and Fixing the Economy

Saving Europe

Hamilton's 1781 Bank Plan

Irving Fisher and Stamp Script

Organizing Communities Around the Post Office

Hamilton's Revenge II

Zuckerman Speaks or Why our privateers should stay out of politics

Mortimer Zuckerman wades into the policy debate, and in the process demonstrates why he and fellow executives need to stop interfering with US politics and trying to make themselves Oligarchs. All but one of his 5 suggestions either are the result of laws passed by Corporate Lobbyists in the past, out of touch with what mainstream America needs, or are downright opposite of what the country needs. Still some of his suggestions make sense and some make a great segue to real suggestions.

All References here come from:

US News Article: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/slideshows/five-sure-fire-ways-to-create-more-jobs/1

Education

Education in the USA (and America in General) has problems for three reasons that have nothing to do with the line of bull we are getting from our oligarchs. He would say we need to:

"Arrest and reverse the decline in American education that has left a workforce less able to compete in the new world. Skills, not muscle, are the only reliable path to high-wage jobs in an era when technology and globalization allow companies to make new investments in regions where labor is cheap and the newly emerging middle classes are eager for their products. We have let the education of our young people slide. America’s university graduation rates have slipped from near the top of the world to the middle."

Demented HR

But the trouble is that we still produce millions of graduates with thinking skills and education. If they lack specific skills that is as much due to our faulty policies towards training and hiring as their "lack of education." Zuckerman and company make a big deal of educating "new" programmers, while people with those educations can't get a job because they don't have the "latest and greatest" credentials demanded by poor quality Human Resources Departments who prefer to hire abroad anyway because the Government gives them benefits for doing so and they can send immigrants back home if they ask for too much money. I know a lot of older workers with the training to do those jobs if they won't hire younger people -- and HR Departments won't hire them! Zuckerman confuses getting an education with learning the skills for a particular job. A well educated person can work anywhere. Yet our companies prefer not to hire them, train them, or keep them. And that has nothing to do with their education, but with our demented HR departments.

Corporations are unwilling to train employees

In former times training new employees was a responsibility of employers. Folks would learn their jobs. In our country folks are sent to colleges where they pay thousands of jobs to learn skills that the HR departments then reject because they aren't a 100% match for the opening. The HR folks then hire foreign folks who sometimes are no better than their US counterparts but come highly recommended and with training tailored to the job. That is what we need here. Not deprecation of our people. Our people can learn if the resources are devoted to the schools so they can do so.

Make Education Free to the Student

For years now our privateering companies (including the one Zuckerman started) have been paying their pet politicians to defund public education and "privatize it", which means that education has gone from a public service model to a profit centered model. The result is schools that bilk parents, taxpayers, students and employers alike for the sake of salaries and profits. The growth in education costs has mainly occurred in "overhead" and that "overhead" has mostly been in the form of increased numbers of "managers" rather than teachers and private profits. Jefferson dreamed of education as a public right for all young students capable of passing entrance exams or passing the classes.

His next one is the reason he deprecates US schools:

Visas

"Approve many more H-1B visas to permit highly educated graduate students in the hard sciences to work in engineering and technology. Contrary to popular perception of immigrants, these are people who would create more jobs rather than cost jobs. And make it easier, too, for tourists to get visas, as these are people who increase consumer spending here in the United States. In theory, skilled workers in America should benefit from globalization, given their skills and what they produce. But as countries like China rapidly upgrade their workforces through education, we find workers competing with those who get much lower pay."

Foreign countries also limit US visas to their own countries. So there is no quid pro quo. And the H-1B programs are universally abused. I've been used for proposals from companies I later found out did all their hiring from abroad. It's a way of getting cheap labor. No more. If the program is restricted to actual scientists and very smart people maybe it would have some integrity. But this is just Mort's desire for cheap labor being expressed.

His next recommendation is the product of laws written by corporations 20 years ago that now need to be reformed such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which made it easier for companies to sue people for even the most honest uses of content from others. He'd like to do create similar monopolies with patents so that it would be easier for companies to use frivolous lawsuits to enforce monopolies.

Patents

"Rationalize the stumbling process of certifying patents, which could and would unleash thousands of start-ups, the single greatest source of new employment."

We grant too many patents as it is, and for too long. They are more a stumbling block than the innovation is, since too many products get sued for having someone elses old patent as part of the design.

Eliminate Uncertainty

Code for do away with the ACA and other social programs:

"The elimination of a negative impact of policy uncertainty would also help the economy. A metric devised by economists at Stanford University and the University of Chicago shows that policy uncertainty accounts for about 2.5 million jobs lost. For example, they assert there is a widespread view in business that the healthcare bill makes it burdensome to hire and underscores how political uncertainty has made it much more difficult to plan ahead, a key need for every business. The National Federation of Independent Business asked small businesses their biggest problem. Sixteen percent of small businesses cited "government requirements and red tape."

But it is an argument for single payer.

His final proposal is the only one that makes sense:

Infrastructure

"Invest in a national infrastructure bank. Investing in overdue maintenance and repairs would create jobs in the short term and raise the efficiency of our private sector economy. Some infrastructure projects could be tolled so that the users would ultimately pay for them, and the projects should be chosen based on merit rather than on patronage. We ought to undertake new projects of the kind that built America. But we are not even keeping up with repairs, which means it will cost much more when our bridges, roads, dams, schools, and sewage and water systems collapse.

The key here is that we need a revised Federal Reserve that includes an infrastructure bank. But this has to be owned by the people of the USA and the benefits of returns from such investments rebated to ordinary citizens. We could pay for all our infrastructure with fiat money backed by notes and retire the notes with paper money from the economic stimulus.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has spelled out the need in convincing detail, but investment is now called that dirty word “spending.” So while millions sit idle and interest rates are historically low, the air is filled not with the sound of men at work but with fatuous slogans. We look askance at the Europeans fiddling while Rome burns, and maybe Madrid and Paris next, but Washington is the graveyard of American dreams."

Such a bank should be a cooperative chartered bank, run under republican principles with 52+ member state Infrastructure Banks and branches in every county and municipality.

Pardes/Paradise/The Treasure Tower

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