Re: State of the Union

[Michael Bindner <bindner@IowaFiscalEquity.net>]

Lynn,

 

One final thing.  Regardless of what happens with Social Security, the AFL-CIO could try to bring more "ownership" into its investment operation (by directly investing in proportion to the employment of its members) and then making voting decisions with an eye to profit rather than simply protecting workers.  United is failing partly because its board treated ownership like a glorified union contract, while Southwestern is succeeding because they do the opposite. 

 

I have made several suggestions on both management structure and PAY EQUITY that I think will help.  Tell the folks at the investment office to disregard what I say on social security (except for detailing the impact on workers of the way Bush proposes the stock be voted) and look at what can be done as far as these topics.  See

http://www.christianleft.net/21stCentury/unionowned.html

http://www.christianleft.net/21stCentury/PayEquity.html

 

There is no reason that union owned firms can't insist that managers be elected by the rank and file, or that innovation compensation be moved from salary to bonuses (both cash and stock) reflecting actual adjuricated results.

 

Mike

LynnRWilliams@aol.com wrote:

 

Marc -

 

I am sure that you know, but should there be any confusion, the labor movement is unalterably opposed to the privatization of the social security system.  It has been and is by far the most important and effective antipoverty program in the United States.

 

The "crisis" is being engineered by those who want Wall St. to have an enormous opportunity to move into the system for its own enrichment, and those in the U.S. to whom the Administration has been giving back their taxes and who have lost whatever sense of social responsibility they may once have had.

 

There are many ways to solve the "crisis".   Removing the income cap on those who contribute is one direct way.  Seeing what happens with economic growth is another.  Those who make the dire predictions do so on the basis that there will be little or no economic growth but economist Paul Krugman has pointed out this week that the same people, in predicting the great succes of private accounts, use estimates of stock market growth that have never been remotely achieved.  If those same growth rates are used in predicting the future of the present system, Krugman says, there will be no "crisis" for generations to come.

 

The wealth being generated by dramatic increases in productivity is being distributed far too inequitably.  Were it being shared more equally, the present level of payroll taxation would obviously provide a much more substantial income for the social security system.

 

I do not think we should be looking to the destruction of social programs as the basis on which to build an emloyee ownership based economic structure.

 

Lynn

Michael Bindner

http://www.iowafiscalequity.net
http://www.christianleft.net
http://xianleft.blogspot.com