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COG
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Social Insurance Reform Discussion |
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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] SOCIAL_INS: Re: OWNERSHIP: Re: OWNERSHIPsleight-of-hand, with smoke andmirrors
Mbindnerdc@aol.com wrote: Dan,Mike, I would abandon the fractional reserve system in favor of a 100% reserve system (the Chicago Plan advocated during the depression) where all money would be asset-backed, making the entire monetary system of a binary economy flexible according to the system's full productive capacity. Clearly the reserve requirements on the rest of money would have to be changed. The more money created by BE loans, the less would have to be allowed for other loans.Not true, Mike. Money for productive self-liquidating assets would come out of the Fed's "pure credit" powers and repaid out of "future savings", escaping the artificial barrier of previously accumulated savings. In the meanwhile, non-productive loans (i.e., loans that do not generate income to pay for themselves) would tap into the accumulated savings reservoir and be charged whatever interest rates the market would determine is appropriate for competitive yields for such savings. The other possible consequence is that all borrowers will attempt to get BE funding. Of course the essence of Capital Homesteading is the automatic e!But only to the extent that feasible, self-liquidating projects need to be financed. The demand would follow feasible projects. The level of credit extended will determine how much the money supply grows. This would also change how most people borrow. Most people borrow for educations, home mortgages and credit cards - although some due borrow to play the market.I support the use of BE financing for housing because housing is a long-term investment and is supported by the imputed rental value of the space. Other incomes generated from higher capital and wage incomes earned in a faster-growing, non-inflationary BE economy will make it easier to make payments to cover those shelter costs, as well as education, health, etc. BE would change the mix in what many would consider a pretty top-down way.Just the opposite, Mike. The people have to demand control over their own legal system and change it to work from the bottom-up. Even after passage, it will take huge cultural change to get individuals to agree to use such credit and for banks to provide service to neighborhoods where today they do not for the most unsavory reasons (both because they underwrite check cashing service payroll loans at high interest and because some of them at best believe that they can never earn enough by serving certain people and at worst are overtly racially discriminatory). To make BE work, you must change the minds of nearly everyone.No, Mike, ordinary people want a more just system. Elitist deprive people of the knowledge that the system can be changed to give them more equality of opportunity and more freedom of choice. I trust the ability of ordinary people to be able to discern right from wrong, the simplicity of truth rather than the confusion dished out from the top today, what would empower them and not disrespect them, power that goes directly to them rather than through their leaders. People would rather be owners rather than wage slaves, and independent and self-reliant, rather than dependent on the goodness of politicians and bureaucrats. If you see things differently, then you should say so. What I am proposing only requires that organized labor see the advantage of what I propose and that they make sure that no social security privatization occur without it - and that privatization itself passes.You might be happy with the quality and effectiveness of organized labor. Having worked for a great labor leader, Walter Reuther, I'm not impressed with organized labor today. And that why private workers are no longer flocking to organized labor today. Back in the 1950s and 1960s Reuther was calling for revitalization of the labor movement and started to support Kelso's idea before he died in an airplane accident. I hope organized labor adopts binary economics and pushed for Capital Homesteading, for its own sake as well as that of their members. In fact, I'm working with some people who came out of the labor movement and are now working to organize workers and consumers as capital homesteaders. Put yourselves in the shoes of a worker, especially one making less than the median income. You can pay a flat rate tax and receive credit to purchase stock in your employers firm or a diversified stock fund, with the loan to be repaid with the profits of these firms, and further dividends going to you and your children (who also get loans) or you can pay no income taxes (which you may not be paying anyway), receive a tax credit from your employer for each of your dependents, and own shares, free and clear, from your employer and a diversified stock fund paid for by a higher employer contribution to social security and the various funds, as well as your contribution to FICA, with dividends from these funds going into the ESOP fund or stock fund to purchase more shares and with voting power of these shares voted by your union or professional association on your behalf (and with you having the right to elect those who would do so).Mike, neither option states the Capital Homesteading option, so I would reject both. Read again How to Save the Social Security System or http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm And I will close with a suggestion that you compare our alternative systems in terms of human liberation and empowerment. I oppose any system that makes any adult individual subservient or economically dependent on others. Do you join me in opposition to concentrated economic power as the ultimate social source of human exploitation, abuse and corruption. A Quick Comparison of Capitalism, Socialism and CESJ's "Third Way." or http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm Norm Kurland
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