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Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and Competent Spending ·
Investment for Productivity ·
Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental Protection and Energy ·
Security and Equal Rights ·
Justice and Peace Everywhere ·
International Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives
oppose all of these Let’s End Our National Nightmare Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More
on Conservative opposition to our American Dream Washington State’s 4 Major Needs Federal Funding for Health
and Education ·
A
Progressive Income Tax ·
Replacing
Republican Legislators Quote of the Week Be Prepared. Boy Scout Motto An Ounce of Prevention Is
Worth a Pound of Cure. Never Cross a Bridge until
You Come to It.
Calendar of Events
Friday, December 5
at 6:30 PM at the Rainier UU Center (
Tuesday, December 9
at 5 PM at
December 13 and 14: Sign up to host
or attend a Barack Obama sponsored ‘Change is Coming’ house meeting.
Communication, Opportunities and Petitions
Communication with Our Members and Feedback
Who are Our Members?
Based upon national
statistics and my acquaintance with many members, I estimate that of our 2800
Liberal members, 1700 consider themselves Democrats and 1100 consider
themselves Independents, or in a few cases members of one of our smaller
parties. I guess that our Independents
are as consistently Liberal as are our Democrats. Some Independents may consider the Democrats
to be too consistently Liberal. Others
may consider the Democrats to be not consistently Liberal enough. Many may believe that Democrats are
incompetent and ineffective.
Of the 1700 Democrats, I
estimate that 500 are active. These
include legislators, party officers, and others who participate in party
meetings and events. The other 1200 are
inactive, although many are be politically passionate.
I am sure that most of our
members seldom vote for Republicans.
Relevant to electing Democrats, it doesn’t matter if they are Democrats
or Independents. But our Democratic Party
will be stronger when it can appeal to Independents, such that they become
Democrats.
Our Democratic Party will
better appeal to politically passionate Liberals, when they express clearly
their values and their priorities. When
they identify politically passionate Liberals.
When they regularly communicate with them. Listen to them as well as inform them. We need a WashChange.Gov similar to our
national Change.Gov which is our extension of the Barack Obama Campaign. More
on this in our last week’s newsletter.
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download
Michael Moore’s latest movie ‘Slacker Uprising’ for free.
Sign up for a free
Brave New Films subscription to inform more people about the Real John McCain.
Download
Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer ‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
Wellstone
Actions tools of election protection.
Sightline Institute wants to hire a news editor.
Participate
in Obama’s transition team’s discussion of health care.
Petitions and Donations
What’s your vision for Obama’s first 100 days? Submit your 100 words to Alternet.
Use
Change.gov to tell Obama’s transition team your ideas for stimulating economic
recovery.
Commentaries From Our Members
Rich Austin: Our State Democratic Chair Should
Respond to Our Grassroots
It is my opinion that the rank and file is largely ignored except around election time. Take our Party Platform as an example. It is the product of efforts that began at the precinct caucus level. Now that’s rank and file participation! After winding its way through several levels of party structure, it is passed at a state convention, and perhaps later augmented by the WSDCC at its meetings. Thereafter it is…largely ignored by lawmakers. So much for the myth of grassroots-style democracy.
It is my further opinion that we the people are not adequately represented in Congress. We are instead usurped by backers of secret agendas bearing little semblance to the will of the people as expressed in our Platform. (Example: Poll after poll show that 66% of the American people favor publicly financed, privately delivered single-payer health care. Our State Platform also calls for the enactment of such a health care delivery system. Yet, 4/5 of Congress, and all but one Democrat in WA, is ignoring what 2/3 of the people want! How can that possibly be construed as “representative government”?
How do we break through and get the attention of lawmakers? So far our Platform hasn’t done the job. And “town hall meetings” are largely exercises in futility. There is no real give and take at those meetings, and the agendas are more often than not vague, and usually take the form of a “report” to constituents. In other words, we are talked to, but seldom listened to.
How does this tie-in with selecting a Party Chair? Here’s how: Granted, a Chair must be able to effectively administer the State Party apparatus. A Chair must administer but not try to dictate. A Chair must represent the grass roots while doing its best to mollify lawmakers. In addition to being able to administer, it seems to me there are at least two other important considerations for choosing a Chair:
1) Candidates for the Chair must have very visibly and publicly supported the following planks in our State Platform:
·
Getting out of
· National, single-payer health care
· Creation of jobs that pay family-sustaining wages.
· Strong support for public education
· Affordable housing
· Protection of our environment
(There may be four or five additional issues that can be added to the list.)
2) Candidates must pledge that once elected they will be advocates for our Platform. One hackneyed old phrase goes something like this: “Platforms are ‘feel good’ documents, but we cannot expect lawmakers to follow them”. The origin of that phrase is suspect at best, but we can rest assured that it did not come from the grass roots. That being the case, why give it life? Why repeat it? Why take it as gospel? Why not demand that Platforms are guiding principles that we expect lawmakers to follow?
We have some
responsibilities too. Platforms cannot
be all things to all people. Why should
planks or resolutions dealing with spaghetti farming in Republic, or possum
shearing in
In addition, we the people must set the agendas (five or six issues) for town hall meetings. We can correspond with lawmakers in advance and let them know what we want to discuss.
Should we choose to elect a Chair that has publicly advocated for the issues set forth in 1) above, we must make sure that the reasons for our selection are known far and wide. That will send a message to lawmakers. So will an abbreviated Platform. If the grass roots fails to demand change, we will continue getting what we’ve been getting: Ignored.
Perhaps I am spoiled. I am a Life Member of a progressive, militant, activist union wherein the rank and file call the shots. I’ve seen true democracy in action, and it feels good! Rich Austin
David Iles: Barack Obama Should
Reduce Our Military
Hello. Hello, Thank you for putting this newsletter
together. I recently had this Viewpoint
published in the south Whidbey record i thought it might be of interest to you.
It is such a pleasure to have a new president waiting to
face the difficult challenges ahead of us. As I listened to President-elect
Obama’s very moving acceptance speech, I found myself thinking that this would
be a proud day for Benjamin Franklin, the only founding father who worked his
way up from modest means and held to the belief throughout his life that all
people were created equal. I think he would have loved to see President Obama.
For me, the moment was emotionally complex. I had read
Obama’s military policy and I knew in this respect we were likely to continue
with what I consider to be one of the most dangerous paths we are on. Obama’s campaign website (see Obama for
Obama’s campaign website states that he will rebuild our
military for 21st century tasks and he pledges to get another 92,000
soldiers on the ground. He wants to fully equip these troops with the latest
technology, as well as “Preserve Global Reach in the Air,” “Maintain Power
Projection at Sea,” and continue with missile defense (Star wars). For more. This says to me
that the military occupation of our own government will continue and that we
will move from one war that has created many more people who have reason to
hate the
The idea that we need to rebuild a military establishment
that we currently spend a trillion dollars on annually - equaling over half of
the world’s entire military spending - is chilling to me. The thought that we
will have another hundred thousand people doing the life-changing, mind-warping
job of fighting wars of occupation means that we saddle our children with the
twin debt of outrageous financial costs and the deep psychological damage that
these kinds of wars have brought us in the past. For more. For more.
The
The
Note also: There are currently 31 areas of conflict. Ten are considered major wars. The others have more then a 1,000 deaths per
year. For more. There are 30
million refuges in the world because of armed conflict. 24.5 million people are internally displaced
with another 6 million that are externally displaced. For more. Over a million
civilians have been killed in
On the other side of the Obama policy is his interest in
promoting dialogue, his willingness to engage in it, and his understanding that
“the world shares a common security and a common humanity.” The new
administration says it will build its diplomatic core, double aid spending in
support of the United Nations Millennium Development goals and talk with
everyone, friend or foe.
I suggest that we as a community of concerned citizens
take our lead from this openness and join together to magnify our individual
voices. Now is our time to lobby and inspire our politicians to step up to the
braided problems of protecting the earth’s ecosystems, building a responsive
representative democracy and fulfilling the founding promise of our country
that all men are created equal, which today certainly includes all the people
of the world. Now may be the best opportunity we will have in our lifetimes to
make ourselves heard. I suggest that we organize ourselves.
The vitality of our democracy depends now on the town
meeting, which could be the foundation of a new system. Let’s meet, talk
together and organize larger meetings. Let’s find the time in our busy lives to
sign ourselves up for the causes of a healthy planet and universal human rights
by dedicating ourselves to the demilitarizing of our economy as well as our
foreign policy. As the nation that consistently outsells the rest of the world
in weapons and has been instrumental in much of the warfare of the late
twentieth century and the early twenty-first, we have a special responsibility
to this cause. Together we can change our culture away from the corporitization
of warfare and government and toward the deep understanding of the universal
rights of life. We could base our new economy on sustainable energy and healthy
food production, the localization movement, unlimited educational
opportunities, and a recognition of the inherent benefits of well made
beautiful and useful production that will add real value to ours and our
children’s lives. For more.
The author Alice Walker said in a recent interview, "We
are the ones we have been waiting for.” David Iles
I greatly appreciate David Iles for doing the research to
provide this review of the negative consequences of our military
activities. He comprehensively addresses
one of my major concerns: that Barack Obama will maintain an unnecessary huge
military-industrial complex, instead of leading the world to global
responsibility for maintaining justice and peace among nations and protecting
people from tyranny within nations. My
other concern is that Obama will unnecessarily delay the adoption of a single
payer Medicare for all health access system.
I hope that now that Obama is elected and hopefully getting advice from
people who agree with David Iles and me, he will implement what he hasn’t
adequately expressed so far. Dave Thomas
Ray McBain: Obama Should Reduce Our Military
Read this. Scary talk
about the military side of the
As a
start, we should push Obama to remove many
Liberals and Democrats
State Level
Liberal Infrastructure Enables Democratic Victories
State level Liberal efforts
(including think tanks, issue advocacy groups and political issue consensus
building played a major role in turning various red states to blue states. These allowed Barack Obama to spend fewer
resources there, spending them instead on more competitive states.
Liberal infrastructure at the state level helps elect Liberal governors and legislators who will be major partners in the implementation Obama’s agenda. In addition, state level infrastructure is a major factor in organizing and educating our grassroots movement, which will also facilitate the change we need. You should also read.
Here in
Barack Obama’s Campaign
and Governing Strategy
One of the major changes that
Barack Obama has already made is the carefully prepared strategic campaign that
he ran. Unlike other contemporary and
previous candidates, he did not pour most of his resources into creating
momentum following his
Obama instead adopted and implemented a long term strategy of continually broadening his base of support. Starting with a base of younger and better educated Liberal Democrats, he attracted African Americans, and then rural voters in caucus states. After winning the nomination, he reached out to white, working class Democrats and women who had supported Hillary Clinton. He attracted Hispanic and Jewish voters. After John McCain’s foolish impetuous decisions, Obama even attracted sensible Republicans. At various times, Obama was criticized for not making more of a media splash. But based upon his experience as a community organizer, he continued his coalition building. His victory indicates that he was right and his critics were wrong. Your must also read.
We can anticipate that Barack Obama
as President will continue this same strategy of coalition building. He will be
faced with jillions of proposed agendas by various Liberal groups. His executive and legislative priorities will
be to solidify his base, then add one group after another to it. Beginning with jobs which has wide
appeal. Teaching jobs can provide the
basis for other educational measures that appeal to educators and parents. Conservation and alternative energy jobs can
provide the basis for other environmental measures that appeal to
environmentalists. Similarly, coalition
building can be the basis for addressing health care, unionization and fair
trade and other issues. The same
approach to foreign policy will begin with withdrawing from
Critics will say he must move faster on various issues. But faster is not faster, if success on one measure results in an inability to proceed further and in setting back progress on other measures. Understanding Obama’s strategic priorities will make it easier and less painful to watch and participate in the changes we need. Of course, coalition building is not everything. Some issues are so important, that political capital must be expended. But before expending political capital, Barack Obama must first earn it.
Note that for years, Grover Norquist successfully implemented a similar strategy of coalition building. President Bush destroyed his effectiveness by deciding to use his ‘political capital’ to destroy social security. We should know our opponents such as Ronald Reagan, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich and President Bush. When they use strategies and tactics that can be used to effective realize our priorities and vision, we should adopt them, with modifications as appropriate.
Building political support does not just depend upon the sequence in which issues are addressed. It also depends upon the way issues are framed. Notice how Barack Obama framed making our income tax more progressive as offering a tax cut to the overwhelming majority of tax payers. Barack Obama is also an expert on framing, making so few mistakes that first Hillary Clinton and then the John McCain-Sarah Palin team could hardly find a target for their attacks.
Smart Government: Another Example of Barack Obama’s Framing
For decades, Conservatives have been strongly advocating less government. Less regulation. Less Taxation. Arguing against ‘tax and spend’ Liberals and Democrats. But hypocritically, Republicans have increased spending. Their spending and tax cuts largely oriented to high income people have caused huge deficits and increases in our debt. Thus deferring taxes to later generations.
Instead of allowing Conservatives to frame his progressive taxes (which bring in more revenue) as tax increases, he has framed them as tax decreases for the great majority of Americans. Similarly, he has reframed the size of government issue: “It isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about building a smarter government which focuses upon what works.”
Cap and Trade
Legislation Is Not the Best Strategy
Legislating and implementing cap and trade legislation will make carbon based fuels more expensive, resulting in reduced usage. This is already occurring to some extent in response to recently high oil prices. But as our financial crisis has threatened incomes and prices have continued to increase, public opinion will oppose anything that increases gasoline and electric energy prices. Especially now, it is unlikely that our congress will improve cap and trade legislation. If they do, it will be a politically expensive victory.
A better alternative for the time being may be to make non-carbon based (alternate) energies less expensive. Our government can subsidize consumers who use alternative energy and companies which develop and supply it. This will be done as the green jobs part of our economic stimulus and redevelopment package. For more. Once our economy recovers, we can then adopt cap and trade legislation.
Is It Time for
Our Harold and Louise Ads?
In 1993, our private health
insurance industry presented television ads in which Harold and Louise
discussed dangers of government-provided health insurance. These stimulated the public to react
negatively to the
Our Barack Obama campaign has demonstrated that we can raise large amounts of money to further our causes. Why don’t we preempt private insurance opposition to our forthcoming health coverage proposals by using money raised by Change.Gov to present Harold and Louise ads in opposition to private health insurance coverage.
For example, Harold and Louise could worry about not being covered due to pre-existing conditions, not being covered for various illnesses they might incur, not being covered for various treatments, insurance company staff overruling physicians’ opinions, excessive paperwork, insurance companies not honoring their commitments, confusing and misleading advertising for health insurance policies, large deductibles and co-pays, small limits, non-portability, arbitrary increases in cost or cancellation, additions to the cost of cars and other products, and more. Wouldn’t such ads resonate with our public? Wouldn’t such ads inhibit insurance companies from effectively presenting ads like they did in 1993?
You can’t win by only playing defense. Let’s do it. Dave Thomas
LGBT Rights Is a
Civil Rights Issue, Not a Cultural Issue
In spite of our many victorious Liberal candidates, our
culture wars are not dead. Same sex
marriage bans passed in
To win, same sex marriage must be reframed as a civil rights issue. The issue isn’t “what is marriage?” The issue is equality and fairness. As it has been with our racial issue, our argument must be that rights are guaranteed, not that everyone will be comfortable with the result.
Framing it as a civil rights issue, we don’t have to wait for people to approve of same sex marriage. We have to insist that it is never to soon to provide equal rights and fairness. For more.
Let’s All
Support Jason Osgood for King Co. Director of Elections
Given their track record of corruption, we can’t afford to
have a Republican Director of Elections in
Here’s the Beef
Increase voter participation through universal voter registration.
Will MoveOn blindly support Obama’s initiatives or provide independent input?
Barack Obama defends choosing experienced top staff, saying he will direct change.
We seem Obama making some welcome changes. Will he make others that we need?
Will Obama make the changes that community organizers are promoting?
In Search of Progressive America presents 10 essays about Liberal issues and alternatives.
How much emphasis should Barack Obama give short term stimulus vs. long term investment? More.
What’s your vision for Obama’s first 100 days? Submit your 100 words to Alternet.
Barack Obama should quickly sign treaty banning cluster bombs. For more.
Barack Obama will seek Senate ratification of long stalled international treaties.
Barack Obama shifts foreign policy from military superiority to broadly based sustainable security.
Liberals should notice that Iraq has forced our U.S. to agree to withdraw.
Can Barack Obama significantly reduce our military spending?
Obama’s National Security Advisor James Jones has questionable green energy record. For more.
A carbon tax, cap and trade system or simply subsidizing alternative energies. The debate begins.
Western governors ask Obama to fund green energy research and development.
Our recession makes it easier to pass global warming legislation, which creates green jobs.
Will Andrew Cuomo replace Hillary Clinton as New York senator.
67% of Republicans want Sarah Palin to run for president in 2012. Let’s hope she does.
President Bush wants to allow health providers use their consciences to refuse to provide services.
Before being replaced, President Bush is weakening regulations which protect workers and consumers.
State and Local
Ranking
King County Legislative Districts by PCOs
LD #Pre #PCO %PCO
34 204 150 74
11 125 85 68
36 238 154 65
46 212 132 62
41 186 94 51
43 207 102 49
45 162 72 44
37 161 57 35
30 137 47 34
5 177 47 27
33 140 38 27
47 148 37 25
48 178 40 22
Having PCOs for a high percentage of precincts is only important if they organize their precincts, especially canvassing to identify likely Democratic voters. My experience is that many PCOs don’t canvass.
In my experience, it is difficult to motivate one lonely PCO to canvass a precinct. To manage canvassing and motivate canvassers, legislative districts need to identify precinct clusters, each containing 10 – 20 precincts. Then identify potential members of cluster teams. Then appoint team leaders and hold training sessions. Cluster teams must then meet to make canvassing assignments and distribute materials.
Canvassing should result in identifying most likely Democratic voters, arranging regular communication with the 25% most active ones, and recruiting 3 or more monitors for each precinct to help get out the vote. Experienced canvassers can then be encouraged to become PCOs.
Labor (including
Teachers): Private or Public Interest
Corporations are clearly private interests, often advocating government actions which will benefit them at the expense of our general public. What about labor unions (Washington State Labor Council and King County Labor Council) and teacher associations (Washington Education Association). Conservatives view them as special interests. They clearly have special interests, focused upon helping their members. But since their interests are often similar to those of our general public, Liberals often view them similarly to such public interest organizations as our League of Women Voters, Municipal League, Common Cause and American Civil Liberties Union.
To what extent do labor unions and teacher’s associations focus upon the specific interests of their members compared to focusing upon the interests of our broader public. In Washington State, the major obstacles to our public interest are the lack of adequate federal funding of health and education, our regressive tax system which produces too little income (at least as long as federal funding is inadequate), private campaign financing and the election of Republicans who promote regressive taxation which doesn’t allow adequate funding of public services. These obstacles particularly affect public employees (who are unionized), including teachers.
Yet labor unions and teachers’ associations have demonstrated little concern for these issues. They promote job security and wage and benefit increases within our present tax and political system. These organizations have often joined various advocacy coalitions, including the secretive Allies, Tax Fairness Coalition and the recently formed Sound Alliance. But these coalitions are also not addressing the major obstacles to our public interest.
They have given little support to Washington Public Campaigns, which seeks to reduce the influence of special interest lobbyists backed by private campaign contributions. They endorse those Republicans who support some of their private interests, even though these Republicans oppose the tax reforms which would help labor and the general public more. These labor and teachers’ organizations are clearly putting their special interests ahead of our public interests. Dave Thomas
What Will Our
Congressmembers Do to Reclaim Our American Dream?
Barack Obama has identified five priorities:
1. Providing jobs to relieve our economic crisis.
2. Withdrawing
our military from
3. Access for all to quality health care.
4. Access for all to quality education.
5. Shifting to sustainable energy sources which don’t contribute to global warming.
What will our Democratic congressmembers do to further these priorities? More specifically:
1. Will they support public investment instead of ever-popular tax rebates, which are an inefficient way to stimulate our economy, and promote private consumption instead of public investment?
2. Will they support reducing the size of our military-industrial complex instead of increasing it, with an emphasis upon strengthening global governance to respond militarily to aggression and oppression?
3. Will they support shifting to a single payer health system which eliminates employer paid health insurance which renders them uncompetitive and inhibits employment. And eliminates unaffordable private insurance from providing basic health coverage?
4. Will they support increased federal funding of education to enable all children to have equal access to quality education?
5. Will they support investing in conservation and stimulating shifts to non-polluting energy sources, through subsidies and tax incentives? And perhaps the implementation of ‘cap and trade systems which reduce carbon-based energy usage through making it more expensive?
The websites of our two Democratic senators (Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell) and our six Democratic representatives (Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Jay Inslee, Rick Larson, Jim McDermott and Adam Smith)
reveal primarily the committees
they serve on and the particular issues which they emphasize. Unfortunately, these websites seldom address
their positions on Barack Obama’s agenda.
Brian Baird and Adam Smith do the most to address our major issues. Patty Murray has discussed
green jobs stimulus legislation. We
have just had an election for change. What
will our congressmembers contribute to the changes we need? We need to know our congressmembers vision
for
Here’s the Beef
Will Seattle area voters tax themselves to clean up Puget Sound?
Governor Gregoire commits to cleaning up Puget Sound in spite of revenue difficulties. Others agree.
Puget Sound Partnership’s Action Agenda for Puget Sound
Recovering Puget Sound will stimulate our economy through creating jobs.
Transit riders continue to use transit in spite of falling gasoline prices.
Nation
and World
How Can We
Measure Our Progress toward Needed Change?
We need to return
from our Borrow, Consume and Speculate to our Earn, Conserve and
Invest mindset and activities, which we had during the 25 years following
World War II. How can we measure where
we need to go, the progress we have made and the distance we still have to go?
Earning versus Borrowing
How many people are
employed? (Unemployment is a less
reliable indication due to its not including discouraged workers who aren’t
seeking work and workers who are working less than they want to.) Have we provided and stimulated an
appropriate number of jobs? Have we
provided training and other assistance to people who shift jobs or careers?
How much are workers
earning in proportion to their contribution to productivity? Does our legal system and its enforcement
stimulate unionization and other factors which promote fair earnings. Do our tax policies encourage earning and
discourage borrowing. Do we encourage
appropriate competition in various markets which allow and encourage
appropriate wages?
How much are people and
organizations borrowing? How much are
they saving? Does our legal system and
its implementation discourage excessive borrowing? Are down payments required? Is fraudulent borrowing policed? Are interest rates high on borrowed money?
Conserving versus Consuming
Do our tax policies
encourage conservation and discourage consumption? Do we offer programs which make it easy to
reduce, reuse and recycle? Do we make it
more expensive to consume? Such as
including resource replacement and recycling costs? Are we discouraging commercial advertising
which encourages excessive consumption. Do we tax money borrowed for consumption? And money spent for consumption? Are we building affordable houses, cars and
other products? Are we discouraging the
production and use of luxuries by some while others cannot afford needed goods
and services?
Investment and Speculation
Do we make public
investments in infrastructure, including research and development of needed new
technologies?
Do we encourage entrepreneurship
and private investment through tax breaks and other subsidies. Do we discourage speculation in homes,
stocks, commodities or other items through margin requirements and other
restrictions on leverage, requirements for loans which allow transparency and
pay back?
See also our Recommended Books below.
What Is Infrastructure?
We often think of Infrastructure as our physical infrastructure of roads, railroads, utilities, dams, buildings and more. We should also think of our social infrastructure of educated and trained workers, media, legal and other institutions which facilitate our economy. Beyond that we should think of our cultural infrastructure of values (justice, competence, trust, compassion, cooperation and more). All of these forms of infrastructure form the basis for our economy. All of them need to be maintained and enhanced.
Maintaining and enhancing our infrastructure doesn’t require just or primarily engineers and construction workers. It requires lawyers, teachers and social workers. It requires all of us. We can each ask, “What can I personally do to enhance our economy, through my attitudes and activities.
Note also that improving our economy requires plenty of jobs, which can replace the those of our financial and other jobs that are not contributing to our economy. Investing in our future can provide as many jobs as excessive consumption and speculation have provided.
Appropriate Regulation: Businesses, Industries, Markets
Market Fundamentalism
Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have believed that the goal of business enterprises should be the bottom line of maximizing profits for owners. As owners seek to competitively maximize their profits, the most effective and efficient production results. Due to competition, successful businesses will be ones which adopt best practices with respect to their production and distribution and to their treatment of consumers, workers, suppliers, lenders, communities, our environment and the owners themselves. Regulation is not needed and interferes with business and market efficiency. So does any redistributive taxation.
These market fundamentalists ignore abundant evidence that businesses seek to avoid competition, often by eliminating, absorbing or merging with their competitors. Businesses often treat consumers, workers, suppliers, lenders, communities and our environment as externalities to be exploited, such that these factors of production subsidize the businesses. Making profits a priority, especially in the short run, ends up destroying both markets and the businesses in the long run. And it imposes large costs on others.
Many Stakeholders Besides Providers of Capital
Peter Drucker has presented an alternative view. He believes the goal (which justifies the existence) of business enterprises is the sustainable production and/or distribution of products and/or services to consumers. This requires that businesses seek to earn enough to fairly pay for their capital, labor, supplies, and local and broader infrastructure, plus be able to fund research and development of new products, without imposing unpaid costs (externalities) on others. There are many stakeholders, beginning with the consumer, then with all of the factors of present and future production and with communities and environments which may be negatively affected.
One frequently overlooked factor of production is our social heritage, including our physical and social infrastructure and our cultural heritage. Our transportation, communication, and energy facilities, our health and educational services, our legal system and our culture of trust greatly facilitate our productivity. Just as previous generations have invested to maintain and build this social heritage, so our businesses and individuals who benefit from it should invest to maintain and enhance it for future generations. This may be done through a value added tax on production. Or by progressive income and estate taxes, which better tax those who benefit the most.
The Case for Regulation
Businesses are typically controlled by their owners, who seek profits at the expense of other stakeholders. Regulation is required to protect all the stakeholders. The types of regulation which are appropriate for various types of businesses, industries and markets depend upon the specific opportunities and temptations which they encounter.
Regulations may ban certain practices and processes. Limits may be set to pollution, leaving the means to the polluters. Or increase the price of pollution to discourage pollution. One form of increasing the price of pollution is a cap and trade system, which allows less polluting producers to sell limited credits to more polluting producers.
Some businesses produce products and services which are difficult for consumers to evaluate, requiring regulation of product claims. Some products pose more dangers to workers and consumers, requiring regulation of their production and use. Some businesses have more power with respect to their employees, requiring more regulation of their treatment of employees. Similarly, businesses and industries differ in their impacts upon communities and the environment. Thus, the set of regulations appropriate to any business or industry is specific to its features.
Too Little Competition
Efficient industries and markets produce revenues which enable them to fairly compensate all of their factors of production, pay for research and development of future products and mitigate all of their externalities. But many industries and markets tend toward too little competition or too much competition. Too little competition enables businesses to raise prices above those needed to produce the revenues they fairly need. To counteract under-competition, governments may regulate prices, pursue anti-trust policies, encourage imports,
Too Much Competition
Some industries and markets tend toward too much competition, such as farming, fishing and cab-driving. To reduce competition, government may set production quotas, license an appropriate number of producers, or pay producers for not producing.
The question is not whether or not to regulate. Regulations define property and rights of ownership, contracts between people and other features necessary to defining businesses, industries and markets. The question is what types of regulations are needed. The answer depends upon the specific features of businesses, industries and markets.
We Now Need Appropriate Regulations
Given the fierce opposition of special interests to regulations which force them to behave and cost them unwarranted income, it is difficult to perform the non-political analytic tasks of producing regulations appropriate to various businesses, industries and markets. But after 30 years of increasing deregulation, we must now develop, implement and enforce appropriate regulations.
Eating Beef Is a
Major Contributor to Global Warming
Beyond local pollution from animal waste and chemical use, animal agriculture is responsible for and for greenhouse emissions from the energy-intensive process of growing feed and raising livestock. From the replacement of forests which absorb carbon dioxide by pastures. And especially in the case of grass (and grain) eating cows, from the release of methane that is up to 30 times more damaging that carbon dioxide released from burning carbon fuels. For more.
Our international livestock industry emits 18% of all greenhouse gases. More than our transportation industry. We find it difficult to reduce our driving. Isn’t it much easier to reduce our beef consumption.
Why Did the
Chicken Cross the Road?
BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The
chicken wanted change!
JOHN MCCAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road
because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all
the chickens on the other side of the road.
SARAH PALIN: You betcha he crossed the road, but let's not
talk about that, let's talk about energy policy, and how gosh darn hard it is
for a middle-class hockey mom to manage the budget of the only state in America
with a massive surplus, especially while surrounded by countless Russian and
Canadian chickens we have to keep an eye on.
HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that
little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified
to ensure - right from Day One! - that every chicken in this country gets the
chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.
GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the
road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not.
The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.
DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?
COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly
see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.
BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that
chicken...What is your definition of crossing?
JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the
road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled
about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against
it.
AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some
black chickens.
OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having
problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having
the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life,
I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road
and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's
guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking
American.
DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it
with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not
been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain... alone.
JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people
see the plain truth? That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends,
that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay, too. I
say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal
media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side.' That
chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.
GRANDPA: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed
the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good
enough.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing
roads together, in peace.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did
the road move beneath the chicken?
COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?
Here’s
the Beef
Consumption fueled by borrowing against speculative gains is now down as gains have been lost. More.
Deflation (declining prices) motivates people to delay purchases, causing recession.
Most of our financial messes were anticipated by some media. But no one paid attention.
Some needed criteria for bailouts.
We can’t afford to bail out our many insolvent finance companies. Time for a Roosevelt bank holiday.
David Suzuki says $4 trillion bailout money could be much better spent.
Participate in Obama’s transition team’s discussion of health
care.
Health Care for America Now is a huge coalition pushing for universal health care. HCAN
Is single payer public health insurance politically viable? For more.
Growing consensus for universal health care preserves private insurance coverage.
Private health insurers are trying to encourage changes which preserve their role.
A campaign is mounted to reduce or eliminate commercials directed to children.
This Christmas, celebrate without shopping.
Plug-ins and hybrids are expensive due to battery and power train costs.
Small farmers and organic farming could be an important strategy for reducing global warming.
Varying local strategies for curbing global warming. What a mess!
Could number of spotted owls be declining be partly due to invasion of barred owls?
Our Liberal Spirit
Preparation: Too Little. Too Much
Jillions of quotations and slogans address the issue of preparation. Our Boy Scouts advise us to be prepared. Presumably to cope with threats and disaster as well as to take advantage of opportunities. We are told to be proactive, preventing crises instead of just responding to them. Benjamin Franklin advised us long ago that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But note that much of what we attempt to prevent, wouldn’t have occurred anyway. Enough ounces of prevention can weigh more than a pound of cure.
I am reminded of the young boy which always chose a penny, when his older brother and others offered him the choice between a dime and a penny. Noticing this, his father asked whether he knew that a dime was worth ten pennies. The boy replied, “Yes, but if I take the dime, they will quit offering me the choice and I already have 23 pennies.”
On the other hand we are warned, “What good does it do you to save for the morrow, if you should die tonight?” We are told not to cross our bridges before coming to them. A beat poet informed us that life is for living, not sociologizing. John Lennon (Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)"1980, video) sang “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”
And we have the serenity prayer which cautions us to know the difference between what we should accept and what we should change. I like the short form sang by Kenny Rodgers which says, “You’ve got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them.
In recommending speculation strategies, so-called investment counselors advise us to diversify our portfolios as insurance against major losses. Similarly, we might be ready for both a short and a long future. We might take care to enjoy ourselves each day, while also investing some to ease possible tomorrows.
For many years, I have avoided scheduling more than 8 hours of tasks in a day. I can then spend 4 hours responding to a new opportunity or threat. I can enjoy my day. Or I can do some unscheduled tasks, with a sense of freedom instead of responsibility. I usually avoid the displeasure that comes from failing to complete my scheduled tasks. Planning is great when we are sure we will follow through. Before that, it is better to just imagine the major features of a plan, enough to get it off to a good start if and when it is needed. Dave Thomas
Recommended Books – See our list of books for
liberals
Haynes Johnson, 1991, Sleepwalking
through
Although this book doesn’t focus upon the transition from an Earn, Conserve and Invest Economy to a Borrow, Consume and Speculate Economy, it offers many glimpses of the early years of this transition. Increased competition from women and Blacks lowered wages. Foreign competition eliminated many manufacturing jobs. Reagan’s attacks upon unionization helped lower earnings as a proportion of production. Under Reagan, public investment declined in favor of military spending, initiating a pattern of under funding our infrastructure which has persisted until the present.
Tax cuts and increased military spending increased our federal deficits such that for the first time since World War II, our federal debt grew faster than our oil shocked stagflation economy. Tax changes favored debt financing compared to equity financing, leading to junk bonds, ruinous takeovers of solid companies and business debt which grew faster than government debt.
The removal of restrictions on television advertising and increased product fashions and obsolescence stimulated purchasing and consumption. With stagnant wages and wives already employed, households depended upon borrowing to pay for their purchases. Increased availability of credit cards and tax deductions for home mortgage and credit card interest eased borrowing.
Deregulation enabled the growth of our Savings and Loan bubble. A rising stock market and tax deferred 401(k) plans encouraged more people to speculate with stocks in hopes of funding their retirement.
Covering only the Reagan years, this book describes the speculative Savings and Loan bubble, but not the later much larger dot.com, housing and financial bubbles. Now we are experiencing the pain of the collapse of these bubbles, so necessary for us to return to our Earn, Conserve and Invest Economy which prevailed prior to Reagan. Some will say that we shouldn’t return, but should proceed to some new type of economy. But there is no basic alternative. We must make the transition that occurred under Franklin Roosevelt.
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