Re: Funding Priorities to Please Us All

["ÁÎ×Ó¹â HenryC.K.Liu ¹ù¤l¥ú" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

Let me try the new socialism for the new economy.

A case can be made that growth produces a non zero sum game of
distribution.

Let us recognize that while poverty is an absolute enemy, wealth is not
at all an enemy.

It is not revolutionary to make anyone poor, including the rich.
The purpose of even the most radical revolution is not to create more
poor people by making the rich poor.

Back to the liberal 60s when there was some brief acceptance that
poverty does not have to be the result of some one getting more than
others getting less (although at the moment that is the case, it does
not have to be).  Poverty may be a pathological condition of
underdevelopment.

There are two ways to redistribute wealth.  One is the Robin Hood way:
taking from the rich to give to the poor, without changing the
structural causes of poverty.  Another way is to make the poor as rich
as the rich.

To achieve this second way, economics has to abandon the principle of
scarcity and adopt a principle of abundance.

Let's start with the concept of a universal birth right of wealth: every
individual is born with a credit from the central banks of say $1
million and is required by law to die with zero assets.

Right now, individuals are generally born with zero credit and dies with
a substantial estate that does him no good.

Now, we know that money is created by credit. Purchasing power is then
tied to population increase.  In an age of technological production, the
ready existence of demand will generate an ever expanding economy and
supply is taken care of by technology and increased efficiency between
input and output  (Greenspan's favorite theme - less for more).

We may have to pass laws to punish under consumption, as the Japanese
government is currently contemplating because the Japanese public while
being awash with cash is simply not spending out of fear of being
indigent in the future, and the Japanese nation, one of the richest in
the world in terms of assets, is in a protracted slump.

Once we get started on the game of abundance, the possibilities are
endless.

Henry


John Gelles wrote:

>     -- Yes, I would be in favor of a  "wealth tax"  to fund
>         education at all levels, (head start, etc.), and to
>         reform regulatory agencies, that now cater to
>         business interests, to instead see to the needs of
>         workers and communities (like OSHA, EPA, etc.).
>         I would also be in favor of some kind of social wage
>         "law," tying the wages of labor to management's
>         total compensation.   Then there's campaign
>         finance reform to funded, as well.--
>             -- Stolen from Ted Schmidt's last message
>
>             I can agree with all the above, suggesting only
>             that "wealth tax" be considered as but one way
>             to fund the enumerated national priorities.
>
>             There may be a better way.
>
>             After all, a wealth tax has been suggested for
>             decades, but has yet to gain popular appeal.
>
>             What started as income tax against only the
>             wealthy has ended up as payroll, income and
>             death tax that are a mere pin-pricks to their
>             wealthy avoiders, but which keep down the
>             middle class and people far too poor to pay
>             them (or find their way around them).
>
>             I am suggesting a relative redistribution of
>             wealth, in that the pie of total output would rise
>             dramatically, (as government made growth in
>             production and distribution of modern necessities,
>             (of which the poor are often severely deprived),
>             and of modern tools to "green" our industries
>             and our lives.
>                         The pie would grow as government
>             funded national priorities in a way similar to the
>             way we fund defense in wartime:  That is funded
>             not with money in someone's pocket at the
>             beginning of a production cycle, but with money
>             created by the cycle itself.
>
>             Such Keynesian funding does not require a
>             "wealth tax", yet it raises the bottom very high up
>             the economic ladder -- in effect accomplishing
>             a painless but gigantic relative redistribution of
>             power and wealth.
>                         It gives to all, "you don't own me"
>             money, to end wage slavery forever. (Often this
>             "money in the bank" type independence is called
>             "---- --- money" which carries its real power to
>             our anglo-saxon verbal imaginations.)
>                         And this method of funding priorities
>             recognizes the Abba Lerner corollary to this
>             fundamental Keynesian rule:
>
>                     Government can spend ahead of its
>                     revenues all that it takes to ensure
>                     full employment and real prosperity
>                     in a fair-to-labor democratic market
>                     economy -- up to the point where
>                     cheap money loses its power to
>                     motivate work.
>
>                     Whereupon the resulting money in
>                     use must be re-captured in part to
>                     restore money's attractiveness to
>                     workers and owners of saleable
>                     assets.
>
>             As I have written countless times, we need the
>             anxious rich, as well as the exploited poor, to
>             see personal advantage in the above-type
>             green democratic economic growth.
>
>             It posits the recapture process mentioned
>             above as including savings accounts whose
>             deposits can't be lent to anyone but government
>             -- and then only to raise supply in the fight against
>             inflation in the price of modern necessities.
>
>             The above plan would see the Lerner function
>             of taxes, i.e., to prevent hyperinflation in the
>             price of necessities, taken over by luxury
>             industries. They would raise the price of luxury
>             high enough to reduce its use of our time to a
>             minimum.
>
>             To make sure we are not robbed of our time,
>             we of middle class lives, I would adopt Ted
>             Schmidt's formulation above:
>
>                     We must include in any individual estate
>                     account (IEA) plan, a social wage
>                     law, tying the wages of labor to
>                     management's total compensation.
>
>             Where does this now leave the super-rich?
>             The share-holder who founds a company and
>             is worth a billion dollars on paper?  It leaves him
>             where he is. With a billion dollars as a counter
>             force to men in politics and families of older
>             entrenched wealth.
>
>             Hit him for anti-trust, if he is as unlawful as
>             William Gates. Let him try to improve the world,
>             if his hero is Andrew Carnegie.
>                         But before I would tax him down
>             to my level I would want to be sure that a
>             modern industrial nation is better off without
>             the super-rich but, possibly,  under the spell
>             of the super powerful voice who corrals police
>             power to maintain order, or even the super
>             powerful liar, like Newt Gingrich, who corrals
>             legislative power in its moment of weakness.
>
>             End taxes.  End poverty.  Impose fair labor
>             standards.  Apply indexed IEA's to fight
>             inflation, and contingency taxes if necessary.
>             Then notice that the top one percent of the
>             population will have, perhaps, ten not forty
>             percent of the wealth.
>                         But none of what they had in
>             absolute wealth will have been distrurbed.
>             Let them be rich Croesus and live among us
>             who are far from poor.
>                         How good can they play tennis?
>             Can they carry a tune?  Do they really like
>             other people?
>
>                 John Gelles
>                  email    1944@xxxxxxxx
>                      url    http://1944.org