[GJM] #35 Toward A Balance Between The Few And The Many

[wesburt at juno.com]

Dear old and new friends,

Since #34 on 13 March 2007, my favorite mail lists 
have over flowed with politically correct commentary  
addressing every aspect of our present condition, 
except the thirty centuries old structural defect which 
directed the evolution of our present condition.  
Consider how consistently the following FIVE politically 
correct comments evade the central question of our 
time. That question is: Why has this imbalance, between 
the few and the many, remained uncorrected, not even 
discussed, since Richard T. Ely, Henry Carter Adams, 
and the American Economic Association abandoned 
their founding principles at the 1898 annual meeting?  

Three of the five comments below invited my humble 
opinion in the format: [WSB  MHO  WSB].

~~~~~ 1 of 5 ~~~~~~
On list Worldcit, Rob Wheeler wrote,in part:

(DE - Could you forward this to the lists that I am not on)
 
Dear Wes, Dick, Doug and friends.
 
Really the “economic or financial defects of our 
modern industrial national economies” are not so 
hard to understand. The wealthy “power elite” 
have absconded with the land, wealth, and 
resources of planet earth and then they charge 
all of the rest of us for the use of it, when it ought 
to be the other way around. Henry George wrote 
and spoke about this about a hundred years ago.
 
In other words, the wealthy top 5% or so own 95% 
of the land. Those that run the corporations make 
more than 400 times as much as their workers.
The top 300 or so people have as much wealth 
as half of the people on the planet, etc. I pay a 
thousand dollars a year on old student loans 
and all it does is cover the interest; it doesn’t 
draw down the principal one penny – thus they 
can keep charging me the interest forever. 

[WSB 
I sincerely thank Rob Wheeler for reminding us of 
the 1942 G. I. Bill which paid college tuition and a 
$65.00/month stipend to veterans of my generation, 
but was converted by Congress to a student loan 
program to sink the next generation, of Rob and my 
children, in debt before they became self-sufficient. 
This act of Congress and capping the Social Security 
payroll tax at 12.4% below the cap and zero % on 
income above the cap are two of three major 
Congressional contributions to the imbalance 
between the few and the many. WSB]

~~~~~~ 2 of 5 ~~~~~
In reply to Rob's comment, Mikael Stenborg wrote 
to list Worldcit:

I made a proposal about this that was ratified by 
the World Parliament Experiment.  You can read it on: 
>http://worldparliament.wiki-site.com/index.php/Economy#Equal_property_ri
ghts_
in_natural_resources<.

The conclusion of Mikael's proposal reads:

"I therefore suggest that the world parliament 
shall control these resources pay every person 
in the world a dividend and charge those who 
wish to use these resources sufficient to cover 
the cost of the dividend."

[WSB 
I also thank Mikael Stenborg for reminding all of  
us that a dividend paid to every person in the world 
is the technically perfect financial mechanism for 
ending poverty and a seldom mentioned key feature 
of C. H. Douglas' Social Credit proposal. Recall that 
the dividend would be paid to three quite different 
groups of people: nonproductive young people 25%, 
productive members of the work force 56%, and non-
productive elderly people 19%, like John Gelles 
and I.  It is our misfortune that President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt gave the dividend to the nonproductive 
elderly, instead of to the nonproductive young people 
as Douglas MacArthur and John J. McCloy did for 
Japan and Germany, respectively, to effect their 
"economic miracles" after World War II.  Money alone 
does not produce "economic miracles."  WSB]

~~~~~ 3 of 5 ~~~~~~
On list VOW (Victory Over Want) James Cumes 
replies, in part, to John Gelles on US foreign 
policy in Latin America:

"The "decline in US prestige" which Bush is trying - 
rather half-heartedly - to stop or slow is damaging 
to America's friends everywhere, as well as to the 
Latin Americans; but, above all, it is damaging to 
the United States itself - to its interests in virtually 
every field and that emphatically includes the 
political and strategic as well as the economic 
and financial."

~~~~~~~~ 4 of 5 ~~~~~~~
On list simpolicies-general, Doug Everingham 
introduces Edward Gloucester from list humanist 
on the Subject: [CAHS] "The Windsors' Global 
Food Cartel: Instrument for Starvation," by Richard 
Freeman.  This article appeared as part of a 
feature in the December 8, 1995 issue of Executive 
Intelligence Review. See: >http://www.larouchepub. 
com/other/1995/2249_windsor_food.html<,  and 
concluded with these words:

"But the Anglo-Dutch-Swiss cartel is playing for 
high stakes—the ability to constrain the supply 
of raw materials, and above all, food, to turn 
back the clock of history, and reduce mankind 
from the 5.6 billion population it currently enjoys 
to the state of a few hundred million semi-literate 
souls scratching out a bare existence.

That assault cannot be fought timidly. The full 
truth about the food cartel must be known."

~~~~~~~~ 5 of 5 ~~~~~~~~~
On list FixGov, John Gelles brings to our attention 
the importance of markets, global and local:

"The Western World (and all the rest of the planet who are today joined
to it by way of the Global Market) follow their faith in shopping
decisions which are felt in the Market with great impact -- while faith
in global parliaments (and the reasoned debate we encounter in books and
all other media) is relatively weak.

Why is this? Why cannot ideas about what to spend the most on -- like on
water, food, shelter, care and education, etc., -- trump the spending
priorities established by Markets and their associated money, shopping,
tax, and parliamentary national and international budgets?

You might say that because parliaments are included at the end of the
above chain of priority determiners, we do not need to worry about the
power of the Market. But I do worry. The Market -- based on shopping --
is no magic synthesizer of common wisdom. It is simpler than debate. But
it is also sure to be wrong.

In war we cast aside the market and put all our marbles in the game
driven by a conscious search for strategic necessity.

Why can't we do the same in the current war against pollution and
poverty?

[WSB  Because since 1898, US employers have 
terminated the employment of every economist, 
engineer, or mechanic who attempted a public 
disclosure of Adam Smith's First Maxim Of 
Taxation, 1776, which reads:  "The expense of 
government to the individuals of a great nation 
are like the expense of management to the joint 
tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to 
contribute in proportion to their respective interests 
in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this 
maxim consists, what is called the equality or 
inequality of taxation.  Of course, US employers 
are Johnny Come Lately in the practice of 
inequality of taxation.  The Jews have done it 
since "The Folly Of Rehoboam, B.C. 975.  The 
Romans have done it since they adopted 
Christianity. The Protestants have done it since 
Henry the Eighth separated England from Rome.  
Adam Smith was a little ahead of the curve.  WSB]
~~~~~~~ End Five Politically Correct Comments ~~~~~~~
Notice that in each of the five comments above 
as well as elsewhere on the Internet and in the 
media our attention is directed to the excessive 
wealth and power of corporations and governments.  
>From that perspective, the only changes that can occur 
peacefully are changes desired by corporations and 
governments to increase their wealth and power.  
There is another possible perspective from which 
we could address the imbalance between rich 
and poor.  That is to direct public attention to 
the fact that the imbalance in most industrial 
economies are the result; not of the excessive 
wealth and power of the few, but of a cruel 
injustice inflicted on the many parenting households 
by capitalizing the expense of 12 years of education 
($6,500) for each child, while allowing the expense 
of 17 years of subsistence ($5,000/year) for each 
child to fall in the budget of parenting households.
The imbalance amounts to about 3% of GDP 
which appears in our affairs as: sustained 2.3 -
4.0% inflation, 4.0% or more unemployment, a 
3% shortage of effective demand in the local 
market, and a 3% excess of purchasing power 
at upper income levels that face a shortage of 
profitable investment opportunities in the real 
productive economy.
Surely we all agree on the need to reverse the 
trends of the last one hundred and nine years.
Who would object if we propose reversing those 
trends by doing justice to those who build our 
future by raising the next generation?
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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