[GJM] #22 John Gelles on Wes Burt's Optimum Policy (TOP)

[wesburt at juno.com]

Good day again folks,

#21 evoked serious responses from two old friends, Jonathan Warner on
list TOP and John Gelles on list FixGov.

Jonathan cautioned me "to look closely at the performance of Alberta's
Social Credit government, and its falling-out with Douglas, before you
advocate for it too strongly!"  

No danger of that. I have been well rehearsed in the structural defects
shared by Social Credit and most other monetary reform proposals. Money
flows like water, and we cannot prevent people from drowning by reforming
water. We should instead teach the people how to swim.

John, in his message below, eloquently and concisely states how the
thirty century old Judeo-Christian Principle of Subsidiarity has been
reduced to practice in the United States since the 1890s.  The expense of
capital development in our private sector is 100% capitalized (or
socialized) and charged to the public as a markup on the cost of all
goods and services produced, while the expense of human development in
our public sector is only 50% socialized (or capitalized).  That is to
say, that the other 50% of the expense of human development is loaded on
parenting families as a head tax of $5,000/child. 

There is no better scheme for manufacturing debt, poverty, unemployment,
and sustained inflation as shown in Figures 10c and 10e on Curtiss
Priest's web site below.  Parenting families have proudly assumed this
burden since the beginning of history, and the rest of humanity; gay men,
lesbian women, celibate priests, and our WHIPs save 3% on their tax rate
and laugh all the way to the bank.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded message ~~~~~~~~~~~
From: john.gelles at gmail.com>
To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 01:31:12 -0000
Subject: [FixGov] Wes Burt's solutions

Wes Burt says, as I read him, the Federal Government must assign a social
security number to children at birth or when legally admitted to live in
America as resident aliens.

In addition to the SS number, there must be an address and a bank account
for each child (with legal guardian/parents authorized to use it until
the child is emancipated -- say at age 14 when the kid gets working
papers).

The Federal Government must then pay to the child a subsistence allowance
for all its needs.

It sounds good to me. If we cannot afford it for all, the allowance could
be paid to those whose parents who have the least money of their own to
support their children.

If we want to discourage over-population, the allowance could be paid for
mothers with two children, Extra children could be excluded or even used
to penalize the allowances for its siblings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ End John Gelles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Ron Morrison(UK), in his essay "Keynes Without Debt" also concisely
states our present condition when he writes in part:

"As the power of 'free market' Capitalism – or more precisely, the power
of money, takes even deeper root in our 21st century, so also does the
human vice of greed undermine our societies.  

Where once there were standards of behaviour and conduct whereby the
democratic process would maintain some crude balance between
self-interest and social responsibility, now our governments, ably
abetted by a burgeoning 'middle class' seem intent upon dividing the
world into 'haves' with even more and 'have-nots' with ever less.  Such
injustice is the fellow traveller of discontent, generating terrorism and
disruption."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End Ron Morrison ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let's review again the sixth grade arithmetic of human development.  To
assure the full development of each child, the required investment
consists of seventeen years of subsistence at $5,000/head and twelve
years of public education at $6,500/head.  The USA became an exceptional
agrarian nation early in the nineteenth century because private property
in land was widely distributed and US local governments supported
universal public education.  We are now a century and a half beyond the
industrial revolution and we have not yet even begun to discuss the
benefits of capitalizing the other half of the necessary investment in
human development.

In further support of the benefits of capitalizing the other half, Howard
Karger, professor of social work at the University of Houston, concludes
his article on the Fringe Economy (somewhere between the real economy and
the speculative economy) as follows:
"Lastly, low and stagnant wages make it difficult, if not impossible, for
the working poor to make ends meet without resorting to debt. A
significant increase in wages would likely result in a significant
decline in the fringe economy. In the end, several concerted strategies
will be required to restrain this growing and out-of-control economic
beast. 
Howard Karger is professor of social work at the University of Houston,
and author of Shortchanged: Life and Debt in the Fringe Economy
(Berrett-Koehler, 2005). 
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/45813/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End Howard Karger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As Raleigh Myers so often reminds us on list cyber-Soc: "If what we are
contemplating is not fair to our progeny we have a failed event in
retrospect--Raleigh.
So once again, folks.  There is no better scheme than TWP, which dates
from 975 B.C., for manufacturing debt, poverty, unemployment, and
sustained inflation as shown in the figures on Curtiss Priest's web site
below.
Kind regards,

Wes Burt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               TOP and TWP are cognoscible on
                Dr. W. Curtiss Priest's web site at:
       <http://www.epie.org/cyber-soc/default.htm>
                 TOP is GOOD --- TWP is EVIL
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