Why do I know what will
happen and you don’t?
The Cost
Conundrum
What a Texas
town can teach us about health care.
“The explosive trend in American medical costs seems to have occurred
here in an especially intense form. Our country’s health care is by far the
most expensive in the world. In Washington,
the aim of health-care reform is not just to extend medical coverage to
everybody but also to bring costs under control. Spending on doctors,
hospitals, drugs, and the like now consumes more than one of every six dollars
we earn. The financial burden has damaged the global competitiveness of
American businesses and bankrupted millions of families, even those with
insurance. It’s also devouring our government. “The greatest threat to America’s
fiscal health is not Social Security,” President Barack Obama said in a March
speech at the White House. “It’s not the investments that we’ve made to rescue
our economy during this crisis. By a wide margin, the biggest threat to our
nation’s balance sheet is the skyrocketing cost of health care. It’s not even
close.”
The question we’re now frantically grappling with is how this came to be,
and what can be done about it. McAllen, Texas, the most expensive town in the
most expensive country for health care in the world, seemed a good place to
look for some answers”.
The problem is the role of money in medicine – in most countries doctors
are on salary or per capita – only in America does money play such a big
role in the practice of medicine.
What do we do? Atul doesn’t
say but implies per capital payments rather than “fee for service” which is the
CRITICAL issue. It was in 1965 Medicare when “standard and usual” was replaced
for fair and reasonable. The public programs (Medicare, Medicaid, the public
option, of line VA benefits, state and local government employees etc.) have to
offer and ONLY offer per capital fees – $3,000, $5,000 per client to a NETWORK,
cooperative, HMO, that provides primary and secondary care. The client has a
choice (in most markets) so there will be competition; client will migrate to
networks that provide good service. Organizations will be motivated to control
costs because it comes out of their pay and profits. 1000 clients at $5,000
each is 5 million, and networks need 10,000 to be effective and provide a range
of services. (50 million) The network centers on a hospital with a link to
clinics and primary care doctors. The networks will be open to the public and
could be run by insurance companies, for profit hospital, public hospitals,
charities, et al.
Third level care is in
another network centered on research hospitals mostly with medical
schools. There would be a pool for catastrophic care. Doctors in these
institutions are professors and on salary so there is less motivation based on
money.
Foreign doctors are shocked
by the role of money in American medicine and the core of the problem. I
knew this is the 1950’s as did our family doctor. The joke was “Two doctors
meet in the hall. “I just had a successful operation” what was it for? $5000.00
– what did the patient have? $5000”
As we get down into the
details of health reform it becomes clear that there has to be major tax reform
at the same time. There are two primary functions of taxes: first,
support of public goods, those common functions that can’t be paid for by
individuals but are by nature collective, defense, quality control of food and
drugs, regulation, the money supply, et al. Some public goods can charge fees
such as parks and universities but there must be arrangements for means
testing. These public goods need to be funded by a VAT, national sales tax so
everyone who benefits pays something. The ‘fair tax” is too complex but a
national VAT of 10% plus a state and local tax of 6% gives a 16% VAT well in
line with other industrial countries. It will make exports more competitive
since VAT is refunded on exports. It is a big difference – see Sen. Luger’s
arguments.
http://www.wiredbrain.com/salestax.htm
Google: reform site:www.wiredbrain.com
The second function are
entitlements, individual benefits, the social contract that protects people
form personal disasters and provides retirement, unemployment, disability, which
is call the “safety net”. At the end of the 19th century Otto
Von Bismarck and the social democrats agreed on the basic social protection,
the conservatives to out flank the socialist and communist, and the democrats
to share in power.
These functions need to be
paid by individuals to benefit other individuals – or a
income transfer to provide for more equality and social stability. The people
who get benefits support them; middle class support them for human reasons, and
part of the enlightened rich to protect their privileges against populist
rabble rousers – demigods has been a basic fault in democracy since ancient Athens.
The key element in health
care reform is the “delivery system” – There has to be a switch from “fee for
practice” to per capita base payments with re-insurance of catastrophic claims.
The Nixon plans of regional planning and HMO’s was cut to pieces by everyone
wanting everything. As in welfare reform the 10 federal regional councils were
given the job of coordination and making wavers. There was an attempt to
shift power from DC to regional commissioners who were part of the Whitehouse
staff. (Fred Malek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Malek
) With welfare reform the councils were used to manage change. Executive
Order 11647: Federal Regional Councils
Since this is a big FEDERAL
republic the health delivery system will be hard to change. Thousands of small
businesses, hospitals, clinics, labs, drug companies, et al the regional
councils with wide waver powers over Medicare, Medicaid, Co-ops, PPP,
HMO’s, and the new open public option, will bribe states to act, and force
marginal changes by “nagging” Nudging the market to promote the collective
practice of medicine such as Kaiser Permanente, Mayo, et al
Entitlements and tax reform:
For years I have argued that
the tax and benefit system are part of a whole – collect money and distribute benefits.
There has to be a “fair Tax” VAT to support a modern social contract. Each
house hold would be ranked by their position on the income stream. Those above
median income pay in starting at a small percentage which increases (1/2 % each
addition 1% above the median) until the top incomes pay 25% .
All benefits – retirement, health, unemployment, are accounts with minimum
benefits and a choice to add more to get more. Those under median income get
support of ½% for each percent they are under until at bottom they pay nothing.
The 45th percentile get a support of 2.5 % ; at 10 % get support of
20% and those at 55% pay 2.5 % -
Health care will pay a basic
per capita fee to a coop, HMO, collective practice of medicine – say $3000 –
Those at the top pat 100% and at the bottom 25% $750
http://www.wiredbrain.com/reform.htm
http://www.wiredbrain.com/bigissues.htm
Nixon administration
Malek served in
the Nixon administration in several different roles, including Deputy Under
Secretary of Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare under Secretary Robert
Finch, as special assistant from 1970-73 and deputy director of Nixon's
re-election campaign. [2]
As an efficiency expert to
Nixon, Malek helped restructure Nixon's staff and
officials and streamline the bureaucracy.[3]
In his memoirs, Nixon described Malek as a
"tough young businessman whose specialty was organization and
management."[4]
Malek was sworn
in as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget on February 2,
1973 and served until 1975 when he resigned to re-enter the private sector.
The way out
of the fix:
Social
security and medical insurance reform depend on the tax and payroll system.
This does not make it more difficult but actually easier. It does require a
paradigm shift. The basic issue is to promote savings and investments, to
help and require people buy insurance for life's risk, health, retirement,
disability, unemployment, and big one time expenditures such as education, home
buying or other needs. People should be encouraged to have reserves and build
wealth.
Since there
are transfer payments from those with more to those with less the benefits
should compensate those better off through the tax system. Tax credits and
having payments into health and retirement plans be pre-tax (come off adjusted
gross income) is very important for political as well as economic reasons.
There has to be a meaningful income tax rate or 20% or so. Most of the money to
pay benefits to those who contribute less than their true cost has to come from
a VAT or sales tax. Since the less well off pay a higher rate of sales taxes
(higher proportion of their income goes into consumption) it then becomes fairer
that they receive more subsidies to pay for those benefits.
The paradigm
shift is to see payroll deductions as partly paid by the individual (includes
the employer contribution) and partly subsided for low income or supported by
credits for better income people. For higher incomes there are tax advantages
for low incomes direct payments from entitlement funds. All accounts are
private accounts but managed by licensed providers. For retirement and health
funds there is a minimum contribution (about 15% of total wages) if this is is still less than required for the basic plans an addition
amount is paid in by earned income tax credits or negative income tax. Those
that have more can buy better plans and pay for it with pre tax income.
There is no large bureaucracy but
freedom of choice. All health, retirement, disability insurance, unemployment,
and retirement, educational, home buying, savings are pre tax and their returns
are tax free. Plan are approved and supervised but private
such as on the federal employees system. People under 40 have their
current value in social security available for transfer to personal accounts at
the choice of the individual. People just entering the labor force only have
personal accounts. Medicaid can't be included but Medicare could with a credit
of several thousand dollars into private plans to be replaced over time by
saving in the health plans of younger workers. Additional benefits require
additional costs. One can hope that real competition can increase efficiency.
American medical delivery system need long term reform to become a healthily
systems of network providers working on a per capita basis rather than the more
services the more fees paid by a third party that can't control the purchases
or prices.
Investment vs. consumption:
As people and households we
know the difference between investments and consumption. Most business knows
the difference but World Com charges expenses as capital to fudge the books. In
the public sector there are investments that have a return – a ROI a return on
investments. Infrastructure (transportation, communications, institution
building, education, public health, science and technology) make the economy
more efficient and raise incomes and welfare. Consumption of military
equipment, money used by beneficiates to consume, subsidies that are
likely negative (making distortion in the effective allocation of resources)
tax breaks that encourage less than optional investment decisions do not add to
future welfare but do gather votes and political money. When we spend billions
producing .70 cents cotton, or peanuts, or sugar when the world market is less
than ½ that consumers have less real income in buying goods at higher prices so
able to buy less than otherwise.
Entitlements are income
transfers. Workers pay FICA taxes (larger than they know because employer
contributions are hidden) that goes into checks for beneficiary recipients.
Workers can buy less while people getting checks can buy more. The economic
effects have a small effect in discoursing work and saving increasing debt and
consumption. The fundamentals of government economic policy should be to
encourage work and saving. VAT or sales taxes encourage investment over
consumption if saving are tax advantaged while consumer prices are higher.
The 19th
and 20th century economic problem was the business cycle. Free
market economies suffer from “irrational exuberance” based on greed during
booms and virtuous cycles, and excessive fear during the following busts
preventing investments and creating an evil cycle of lay off, disinvestment and
hopelessness. We have more to fear than fear itself. “So, first of all, let me
assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts
to convert retreat into advance.” http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
read the whole speech.
Marx called this the
“surplus product” not in the sense we are too rich but only that the market
produces more than can be consumed by effective demand. By producing income and
consumption by paying people to produce goods that do not enter the market or
income transfer sucks up the surplus. War generates a lot of income but no
goods on the market. Benefits create buyers that don’t produce anything. It is
not clear that a global service economy has quite the same level of over
production, boom and bust.
Real reserves would provide
“pump priming” without the hangover of debt. A revenue and fiscal system based
on investment and limiting the damage done by income transfers (from the
productive to the retired and unproductive) would solve the business cycle
issue. The Federal Reserve and treasury could increase demand in down times
(beyond interest rate effects) by increasing investments (using reserves to
build roads, schools, new technologies, utilities and labor intensive projects
in parks, public works, low interest bonds to rebuild the electric grid, more
efficient power plants etc.) In booms increasing consumption taxes and
collecting on construction bonds, replace reserves and cool over heating.
By making payroll (and other
income) taxes go mainly into transfers which are a form of insurance. Health
insurance, retirement is saving, education saving, house buying, are subsided
for the bottom half and paid for by the top half.
Really powerful
"capitalist" understand the need to "rationalize" the
market. From Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan with GE and US steel, Dupont
and Slone with GM, Bill Gates to OPEC and the seven sisters create a
system of cartels to control prices and supplies so that "cut throat"
price competition drive profits down to a low average return. (in cotton, beer, cigarettes, peanuts, sugar etc.) Global
economics makes this more difficult so capital formation is slowed unless
public managed investments pick up some of the slack as in Japan and China.
Solving the social security
problem:
And the health insurance and
taxing issues – a set of simple solutions to complex problems. If the
population changes and there are fewer workers and more people drawing
retirement and health benefits the percentage of GDP going to transfer payments
will have to increase – there are fewer paying in and more taking out. Transfer
payments have to include some element of redistribution – some pay more than
they get out and some get more out than they contribute. There is no way out of
these hard facts. God so loved the poor he made a lot of them and giving
benefits to the rich is a bit distasteful.
The issue is to increase freedom
and choice, to run the system with efficiency and fairness, and to maintain a
large majority support for social security – The Social Security Act, SSA
includes retirement, Medicare, Medicaid, disability, survivor protection,
unemployment, welfare, with the idea of a social safety net first set up by
Bismarck in the 1890’s to cut off the growing socialist, in American by the new
deal, England after WWII with the NHS, and now in all modern nations.
There are five elements in a
system for the 21st century.
1.) The payroll
deduction system
2.) Choice of
extra tax advantaged saving, insurance, education, health plans
3.) Income and
VAT taxes
4.)
Redistribution – credits
5.) Individual
plans and management systems
The federal pay stub shows
all the deductions as do many state and private pay systems. The FICA shows
only the employee contribution which is just a slide of hand to hide the true
cost. The employer contribution is just as much part of the cost of labor as
cash. Health and retirement plays do not reflect in taxable income or part of
the total employment compensation package and is income in every sense.
Fairness in wages
would require (over time) that everything going in and coming out is regularly
reported.
1.) Then the
employee or individual can add to parts of their plan – more and better
retirement, savings, health, educational savings, etc. The more they pay the
more they get. The choices are on a menu for the buyer not the employer.
2.) The state
and federal government provide a basic set of benefits – retirement and health
plans. Beyond these basics it subsidies add on a diminishing scale. Low income people are encouraged to have saving with incentives,
credits, and subsidies.
The income tax is reduced
and made very simple. People below the 50th percentiles (median) do
not pay income taxes but have means tested earned income benefits to pay part
of health care and private retirement accounts.
3.) If the top
rate of Income Tax is 20% for the 99% percentile (top 1% of all incomes) it is
reduced by ½% by each group until the 50% goes to 0. By setting the tax as
percentile it adjusts for inflation and by setting the top rate and the revenue
required the math is quite simple. It is like setting local property
rates to balance revenue and expenses.
4.) The broad
base of needed revenue has to be raised by a VAT – sales tax so the whole
system floats for ever. The tax credits and benefits for health and
savings equalizes the issue of low income people paying more of their income in
VAT so the net effect is positive for low income and does require a fair
contribution from those better off.
5.) The management of the
individual accounts would be by contracts – in social security the current
system becomes a basic plan with subsidies for the poor especially for health
insurance and tax advantages for the rich who pay more and get more. More can
be added into a variety of retirement options and saving plans.
Financial Times Current
projections over future years is 44.2 trillion debt in current
dollars if current benefits are to be paid to the next generation
(unfunded liabilities) - interest costs alone would be greater than
current total budget of 2 trillion - clearly a banana republic - clearly forces
high interest rates - but the scheme is to "starve the beast" forcing
big cuts in benefits - see
http://www.wiredbrain.net/reserves.htm
http://www.wiredbrain.net/politicaleconomics.htm
http://www.wiredbrain.net/reform.htm
An administration official said the
study was designed as a thought-piece for internal discussion - one among many
left every year on the cutting-room floor - and noted the budget's extensive
discussion of projected, 75-year Social Security and Medicare shortfalls.
The study's analysis of future
deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is
roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of US economic output or more than 94 per cent of
all US
household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned
what he called Washington's
"deafening" silence about the future crunch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2946552.stm
http://news.ft.com/home/us
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1051390392975&p=1012571727088
The Bush administration has shelved
a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of
chronic federal budget deficits totaling at least $44,200bn (that's 44.2
trillion) in current US dollars.
The study asserts that sharp tax
increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if
the US
is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing
the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 per cent
across-the-board income tax increase.
The study was being circulated as
an independent working paper among Washington think-tanks as President George
W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a 10-year, $350bn tax-cut package he
welcomed as a victory for hard-working Americans and the economy.
The analysis was spearheaded by
Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant
secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury. Mr. Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal
Reserve, said: "When we were conducting the study, my impression was that
it was slated to appear [in the Budget]. At some point, the momentum builds and
you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren't
part of the prospective budget."
Mr. O'Neill, who was fired last
December, refused to comment.
The study's analysis of future
deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is
roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of US economic output or more than 94 per cent of
all US
household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned
what he called Washington's
"deafening" silence about the future crunch.
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2004ar/2004ar.pdf
A budget deficit in no way
reduces the portion of the national pie that goes to Americans. As long as
other countries and their citizens have no net ownership of the U.S. , 100% of our country’s output belongs to our citizens
under any budget scenario, even one involving a huge deficit.
As a rich “family” awash in
goods, Americans will argue through their legislators as to how government
should redistribute the national output – that is who pays taxes and who
receives governmental benefits. If “entitlement” promises from an earlier day
have to be reexamined, “family members” will angrily debate among themselves as
to who feels the pain. Maybe taxes will go up; maybe promises will be modified;
maybe more internal debt will be issued. But when the fight is finished, all of
the family’s huge pie remains available for its members, however it is divided.
No slice must be sent abroad.
Large and persisting current
account deficits produce an entirely different result. As time passes, and as
claims against us grow, we own less and less of what we produce. In effect, the
rest of the world enjoys an ever-growing royalty on American output. Here, we
are like a family that consistently overspends its income. As time passes, the
family finds that it is working more and more for the “finance company” and
less for itself.
Should we continue to run
current account deficits comparable to those now prevailing, the net ownership
of the U.S.
by other countries and their citizens a decade from now will amount to roughly
$11 trillion. And, if foreign investors were to earn only 5% on that net
holding, we would need to send a net of $.55 trillion of goods and services
abroad every year merely to service the U.S. investments then held by
foreigners. At that date, a decade out, our GDP would probably total about $18
trillion (assuming low inflation, which is far from a sure thing). Therefore,
our U.S.
“family” would then be delivering 3% of its annual output to the rest of the
world simply as tribute for the overindulgences of the past. In this case,
unlike that involving budget deficits, the sons would
truly pay for the sins of their fathers.
This annual royalty paid the
world – which would not disappear unless the U.S. massively underconsumed
and began to run consistent and large trade surpluses – would undoubtedly
produce significant political unrest in the U.S. Americans would still be
living very well, indeed better than now because of the growth in our economy.
But they would chafe at the idea of perpetually paying tribute to their
creditors and owners abroad. A country that is now aspiring to an “Ownership
Society” will not find happiness in – and I’ll use hyperbole here for emphasis
– a “Sharecropper’s Society.” But that’s precisely where our trade policies,
supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, are taking us.
Many prominent U.S. financial
figures, both in and out of government, have stated that our current-account
deficits cannot persist. For instance, the minutes of the Federal Reserve Open
Market Committee of June 29-30, 2004 say: “The staff noted that outsized
external deficits could not be sustained indefinitely.” But, despite the
constant handwringing by luminaries, they offer no
substantive suggestions to tame the burgeoning imbalance.
In the article I wrote for
Fortune 16 months ago, I warned that “a gently declining dollar would not
provide the answer.” And so far it hasn’t. Yet policymakers continue to hope
for a “soft landing,” meanwhile counseling other countries to stimulate (read
“inflate”) their economies and Americans to save more. In my view these
admonitions miss the mark: There are deep-rooted structural problems that will
cause America
to continue to run a huge current-account deficit unless trade policies either
change materially or the dollar declines by a degree that could prove
unsettling to financial markets.
Proponents of the trade
status quo are fond of quoting Adam Smith: “What is prudence in the conduct of
every family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign
country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it,
better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry,
employed in a way in which we have some advantage.”
I agree. Note, however, that
Mr. Smith’s statement refers to trade of product for product, not of wealth for
product as our country is doing to the tune of $.6 trillion annually. Moreover,
I am sure that he would never have suggested that “prudence” consisted of his
“family” selling off part of its farm every day
Choice about Price and quality in Health care:
A simple principle to rule a complex system:
Consumer choice in a free market works through competition works a lot
better than regulation or publicly provided services. Current health
insurance programs are anything but clear on consumer choice -
doctors select services for patients paid for by third parties.
A set of choices for insurance, tax advantaged saving, retirement could
be offered to individuals and families such as they are to federal employees -
efficient network services would provide more for less and be competitive
relative to fee-for-practice systems. Low income people would require
subsidies, higher income tax advantages. In order to pay for tax credits and
income subsidies there needs to be tax reform - which is an economic good it
itself.
The total cost of health care would go down while the quality will
go up under free market conditions. Everyone could be covered for basic
services within the 1.4 trillion health budget. There is 25% paperwork waste
and 25% unnecessary over treatment so a improvement of
50% of 50% is a lot.
The core idea of a free market is a set of accounts kept for
individuals and families by financial institutions. Payroll deductions,
employer contributions and subsidies would be reported in each account for each
person's Social Security, Health Insurance, retirement funds,
educational and other tax advantaged or supported activities. People can
spend these funds from these accounts on the purposes intended with any
approved provider. If they want more they can pay for more. If they just
want basic coverage they have choices of fee-for-service bill paying insurance
or provider networks paid on a per capita basis. They see where the money comes
from and where it goes.
GSO (government sponsored organizations such as fanny mae) would help finance some
medical networks but they would be run under contract by professionals. I would
see a few dozen or less national General Health organizations with
economies of scale competing for quality services at a fair price. Each market
should have more than three - not quite an HMO, not quite a Mayo Clinic, but
creative providers of complex care with many sub-contracts and services under a
single management information system. Expensive In-patient care and emergency
room care could become a minor part of the system and
hospital space greatly reduced even with an aging population and increased
types of care.
General Health Inc, American Health Corp., National Health Services,
Inc., Continual Health etc. would be formed under the National Health Services
delivery act – as an amendment to the Public Health legislations. States
or groups of states would form Health Delivery Boards with are like public
service commissions to promote free markets.
What prevents a open market in health
care?
Providers must negotiate with employers; unions rather than sell to
individuals and get paid from a complex set of funds. If individuals can select
from a handful of National Organizations the whole playing field would change
over time. Big buyers would be a counter force to big providers.
http://www.healthfutures.net/pdf/w-ushcs.pdf
The Changing Role of the Hospital
As treatment advances divert large
numbers of patients from the inpatient hospital setting, and
as
life-support and maintenance technologies enable patients to carry on their
lives away from
hospitals and
nursing homes, the hospitalized population will shrink to perhaps half its
current
size by the
early part of the next century, despite an aging population. Even though
hospital costs
have continued
to increase, per capita inpatient hospital use in the United States
peaked in 1975,
and has since
declined by almost 25%2. Some metropolitan areas such as San
Diego and Portland,
Ore (despite
large elderly populations), have inpatient use rates almost a third lower than
the
1985 US average, and are continuing
to decline in per capita use3. These communities present
compelling evidence
of further potential for contraction of inpatient use nationally.
The hospital of the future will be
transformed into the critical care hub of a dispersed network
of smaller
clinical facilities, physician offices, and remote care sites that may stretch
out as far as
200 miles (320 km) from the core
facility, connected by air and ground critical care transport and
integrated by
clinical information and patient monitoring systems.
Health and Taxes:
The political rhetoric and
practical programs don’t meet up. The big goals of universal health care
must involve tax reform. The two are connected in ways that cannot be separated
and both face a demographic crisis of retirement income. Neither the
health delivery system nor the social security system can be fixed without
fundamental tax reform based on a VAT.
Be brave – it can be done –
first some simple principles:
FIRST: Health care has to be
a market (not state provided) and public benefits should not replace private
insurance shifting private programs to public programs. Politicians should not
be setting benefits or fees for reason that are all
too obvious.
The issue is the quality of
the market. Let the market get the delivery system right – not by regulation
but by being more efficient. The market doesn’t work now because people don’t
know what is paid and what they get. The consumer is the doctor while the
patient is the material to be worked on but have few or no choices. Disclosure
is critical to free markets. There is up to 40% waste in the system – paperwork
and over treatment so really efficient providers should really be able to
compete. The market can work – the model used is the public employee benefit
plans. Everyone cannot have everything – there is no Santa Claus.
SECOND: The package of
benefits – insurance, health care, unemployment, disability, savings,
retirement should be provided as a regular report to the individual or family
with the payments from wages, employers, and public accounts along with
expenditures on or into savings accounts, (IRA, 401K) paying for health
insurance, and payments into social security. The consumer needs to know what
is paid and what is received. That people don’t know what they pay, what is an employment benefit, and how expensive the whole
package is – makes them poor consumers. The person needs to select what policy
they want (not the government or the company).
Third – the responsibility
of the state for low-income people is limited to basic packages – people who
have more pay more and get more. Grow up that’s the way it is, has been and
always will be. It is the only way markets work.
OK if we accept market
principles and individual informed choice and differences based on interest and
ability to pay.
Now the federal program have to pay subsidies to low income people – and get
taxes from high-income people – it is called income transfer but only for basic
safety nets. Now how to put together a package were there are lots more winners
and few losers. Here is where the VAT comes in –
With a VAT (about 15%
federal plus 5% state) is a hard sell - but if the top income tax could be 25%
or so, corporate taxes 10% low capital gains, (very good economics is to limit
the amount of unnecessary messing with markets by tax policy or regulation)
most people end up not paying income taxes at all (no loopholes) and the budget
in balance. (The idea of real reserves to use in bad times and add to in good
times has made sense since ancient Egypt) BUT sales taxes are
regressive so the benefit subsidy pays back low-income people for sales taxes
they must pay and justifies basic health care services for all (And low income
tax credits) GET it!
http://www.wiredbrain.net/
How to get out of this mess?
In a series of telephone interviews
yesterday, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E.
Daniels Jr. said the deficits for 2003 and 2004 would approach 3 percent of the
economy, or more than $300 billion a year. That would surpass the 1992 record
deficit of $290 billion, even before the cost of a possible war with Iraq is
factored in. It would also be nearly triple the $109 billion deficit for 2003
that was forecast by the White House six months ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57024-2003Jan28.html
The republicans want lower taxes,
smaller more effective government, and more freedom and open markets. So should
everyone in his or her right mind. But the strategy of starving the central
government with debt is plain stupid and harmful. There is another way –
decentralization.
The OMB under Nixon developed
federal regional councils and passed program approval powers to local
commissioners appointed by the white house. They bypassed the liberal control
of the Washington
establishment – bureaucracy and committee chairmen so they hated it. The
reason for the abuse of power in Washington is
excessive power in Washington
– no one gives up power without a fight. Leaders in congress can grant
favors and gain rewards and cash to be reelected. The iron triangle of special
interests (for example insurance companies) – the congressional leadership and
the Federal Agency (HHS) prevents any meaningful reform.
In some of the proposed regions
they could come up with lower cost, higher quality health delivery systems
without much trouble. The idea is simple – you have to get away from fee for
service and toward a per capital (HMO) system. You can do this my letting the
market work not by politicians or regulators or insurance companies make
decisions on who gets what and who pays what. Everyone should be able to open a
page as see his or her health options just like federal employees and get what
they are willing and able to pay for.
The employer, the Medicare, the
Medicaid, unemployment insurance – whatever contributes so many dollars and for
that they can buy plans from the A list at low cost (or in the case of Medicare
or Medicaid no cost). Plans on the B list cost more – per person per month –
and so up the scale. All plans are paid per person – so fee for service
plans will cost a lot more under a really competitive free market (quantity and
quality determined by the market and evidence based IT not by regulation) – so
if people want to go to any doctor, not pay for any service, have free (to
them) drugs, glasses, teeth, have any test any doctor wants, undergo any
treatment or service, it will cost a lot more. If they take the free or low
cost plan they have to accept they will go to company doctors, share hospital
rooms, get those services that the doctors believe to be necessary and cost
effective, so be very limited in benefits
Low cost medicine is just as good
in outcomes in fact better than expensive medicine – less medicine is good
medicine – the risk of over, unnecessary treatments are far greater than the
risk of under or no treatment, is not what people believe or want but true – A strange idea is that (after a mimimum point) you get less heath when you pay for more
medicine. Miami
spends 10 times what low cost areas spend and has poorer results. The
amount of treatment is a result of the amount of doctors not the health of the
population. Doctors buy health services patients are just the media upon which
the services are performed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57024-2003Jan28.html
Let's think of some real governmental reform:
The first federal government:
The American governmental plan that was framed in the Constitution was
a federal idea where there would be a "weak" central authority
limited to maintaining a common market, assure domestic security from
rebellions, and keep independence from Foreign
intervention. We needed a Navy, customs, treasury, foreign affairs (State Dept)
and a framework for interstate arrangements negotiated by the states
represented by the Senate (then appointed by the state legislatures) the
people, more equably represented in the house and a chief executive reflecting
a national interest.
In the written constitutional structure most public activity was
to take place in the states - health, education, welfare, transportation, law
enforcement and public order would be maintained with the local militia, which
has become the National Guard and reserves. This was the concept but the first
Government but has been overwhelmed by the second, third and fourth
governments.
The second government is the standing military something the founding
fathers tried to avoid. The framework broke down over the issue of
slavery. The grand army of the republic was necessary to preserve the
union. Internal taxes are required to pay for a huge military. The
military industrial complex has become a large and powerful global second
government. With bases in most countries around the world, diplomatic
relationships, connections with industry, labor than reach into every part of
the country.
The Third federal government: regulation
The framework was not designed for a continual nation of fifty states
and 300 million people. Modern economics required a railroad building program,
Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanical arts, (A&M land grant colleges)
labor laws, food and drug administration, federal reserve, Securities and
Exchange Commission and dozens of regulations making a third government of
semi-independent agencies.
The fourth federal government: the money and lobby power
In World War I and II central planning required a high level of
industrial structure - energy, transportation, material resources, production
that make trade associations the foundation of a "fourth"
government of interest group representatives - 1000's of trade groups,
lobbyists, and political finance. The fourth estates - or media - are entangled
into the special interest politics and campaign management.
The reform agenda must try to reorganize federal government with the
original intent but structured for the 21st century. Smaller,
faster, smarter - doing only what must be done from the center - modern
management ideology is decentralized, task orientated, and held to high quality
and performance standards enforced by active and powerful competition.
How?
Regional governments –
Divide the nation into ten regional governments of about 30 million
people. (Something like the existing federal regional
councils) – the Regional republic
of California – Texas,
New York, Denver,
Atlanta, Chicago,
New England, Mid-south – mid-west – and
decentralize everything that can be decentralized. The senators and
congress-people would meet as regional chambers with the Governors and state
legislative members. The OMB would nominate regional commissioners for
federal agencies – Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Environmental, Health
Education and Social services, labor, homeland defense, FBI and other law enforcement,
and the dozens of agencies and programs. Only programs that must be national
are left in Washington D.C. – and the authority to develop budgets,
rules and authorize expenditures is passed to the regional authorities.
They can develop local taxes and become more independent of the center.
The regional plans would still have to pass congress – but there could be an
agreement that if the regional councils pass something the federal congress
should go along with the will of the people on the ground. The budgets would be
required to be balanced.
http://www.wiredbrain.net/reserves.htm
Only a national constitutional convention could change basic structure
to create strong intermediate structures between the states and the federal
government. Fifty states are too many and most are too small while – one big
central government is not working.
In other modern industrial countries they have universal health care,
(at half the cost) quality education through university, good public
transportation, better land use planning and environmental protections, in
short a more civilized organized society. Most of these services are provided
locally with general rules set at the center or by multilateral organizations
such as the European Union. Our government is a mess because it is over
centralized, and because the second government (military) is so powerful, the
third government (regulation) so influenced by the fourth government of special
interests. Ten regional governments would be more focused on results and less
subject to these forces.
The military needs to be reduced to just a navy (with Marines and
Airpower) which is about ½ of the current structure. The bulk of Army land
forces (not special forces that could be merged with the Marines and Seals)
traditional heavy units should be returned to the reserves and National Guard
in the unlikely case we need a large land army with tanks and cannon.
(Repositioned stocks around the world)
The Navy and marines are closer to being an integrated strike force
under the idea of advanced Warfighting capacities.
(Transformation to IT command and control of smart weapons used by flexible and
smart people on the spot, observe, analyze, and target in one real time motion,
with the right resources, training and structure: being faster, more mobile,
more deadly and more creative than the other side thereby messing up his mind
and plans, just like football) – we could save a bunch
of money for tax cuts – real tax cuts from real reductions in the size and real
improvements in the performance of government.
While the third government of regulation must remain a common market
function the implementation could be more local and sensitive to local
conditions.
The special interests and money politics would be weaken by not controlled
by decentralization. Democratic reforms of initiative and even proportional
representation might help.
What will happen
tomorrow that effects your life today. News about
what's happening and for updates use GlobalVillage
Excite NewsSearch ????
States are
suffering from a real "double
whammy" in the current economic slowdown, which has reduced revenues
sharply (especially in the many states that depend mainly on retail-sensitive
sales tax collections), while boosting demands on state programs aimed at
helping people who are unemployed or living in or near poverty -- particularly
the Medicaid program, the top expenditure category in nearly
every state. A majority of states, moreover, have constitutional or
statutory prohibitions on deficit spending, so shortfalls much be closed
quickly. The new responsibilities states are already beginning to face
for homeland security and increased law enforcement generally will not help the
fiscal picture at all.
http://www.neweconomyindex.org/states/strategies.html
Since recessions
follow booms as winter follows summer maybe we should expect down turns and
make plans. This is called counter cycle activity - the most natural approach
is to have reserves, saving which can be called into play when needed - such as
some states, countries, firms and individual have a rainy day funds because it
will rain. Now it is harder to fix the roof when it is raining but it still
needs to be fixed.
Since states and
local government (utilities, communications and other firms)
make the problem worse by cutting back during recessions - the
federal reserves should help hold up their expenditures up - http://www.wiredbrain.net/salestax.htm
thereby demand, income and reelection.
Since increasing
federal debt raises interests rates and creates long term problems for
social security - a off budget debt and payback scheme will help better
than traditional deficits - the states and local governments pay back the loans
with a federal sales tax on the internet - states and local governments give up
their claims and a flat national rate is added to interstate sales - In good
times the money is used to build up reserves (actual investments in CD's, state
and local bonds, foreign bonds, index funds, as well as treasuries) in
down turns it is used to prime the old pump. The same could be done with SS
trust funds, highway TRUST funds, water and waste management, airports,
utilities, communications, pipelines, grids, et al) The NRA (National Reserves
Administration) could have trillions ready to pump into a sagging economy
without increasing long term debt and actually could be making money on
investments.
If
you want more of something you support it, if you want less you tax it. We tax
work, income and investments - we support debt with equity loan credits. We
should support work, savings and investments and tax consumption and be neutral
on debt. Sales taxes are regressive so they have to include redistribution
programs. If everyone over the middle (median) income paid taxes at .5 of each
percentage over the middle 50 % - from 1% to a high of 25 % - the 75th
percentile would pay 12.5 % then each income could be adjusted for sales taxes
with credits. To encourage savings and retirement those below 50% would get supports
those over 50 % get credits - the same for health insurance, and other payroll
protections, unemployment, disability, and old age insurance.
If
the person in the middle (50 percentile) pays 15 % in payroll taxes - then
those over would pay more and those under would pay less. The benefits for the
poor would be supported from sales taxes - the richer would get credits on
their income tax for having more saving, better retirement, and health care -
as they do now with IRA and other tax free saving and health insurance, the
poor would have matching funds - save two dollar we match it with one - scaled
by percentile income group - those at the bottom get 100% benefit - those in the
middle none. (benefits reduce 2 X each percentile) - at 25th percentile benefits are down 50 % - get it?
This
IRA would help the retirement and health care crisis with private accounts,
insurance and savings - Real reserve funds will keep us out of recessions,
promote growth, government revenues and save the nation. Any
questions?
The Educational Reform
Act of 2001:
The several states and
territories are hereby entitled to reimbursement for the same proportion of the
salaries and benefits of qualified classroom teachers for those professional
engaged in basic instruction, the federal government will contribute that same
share of these employment costs as the teachers’ students are eligible for the
free school lunch program.
The states and
territories will be reimbursed based on approved plans and estimates of the
numbers and costs with the U.S. Secretary of Education, who may approve
definitions of basic instruction, classroom teachers, teacher qualifications,
salary programs, and any incentive pay upon which the secretary may authorize
quarterly advances and adjustments.
The states may include
teachers from charter schools, schools being run by a contractor and non-public
schools within an improved plan only in so far as these serve the eligible population.About $15,000 for a million teachers - some with
a small amount some at 100 % = 15 billion - not much more than title I and
within range - even if twice that - If the feds pay teachers resources are free
for other critical needs.
Then we can move toward
a realistic salary - working conditions - qualifications - promotion and
specialization system - professionals are the critical in education - then with
this base things can really be improved.
The American Public and
both parties say that education is their top priority but school reform has
become so complex that no one understands what is going on - or is the story
reported. Incremental is natural but has a PR problem when there is the
complete lack of focus.
The bills them-self are
endless - there needs to be a clear focus - something beyond testing because
tests do not create solutions only let us know what we already know - a lot of
children are not up to grade level.
The only meaningful
answer is competition - charter schools if not vouchers - the charter
provisions in the current bill are grants and information to state education
agencies - or the fox gets the grants for the chickens or
http://www.wiredbrain.net/public-policy.htm for a restructured with the feds
taking a major responsibility for instruction. ( State
and local build building, transportation, overhead and administration ) All
this sound and fury will not do much - but then something is better than
nothing.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:S.1.PCS
original bill to extend programs and activities under the
·
Elementary and Secondary Education
Act or S.1 H.R.1
·
No Child Left Behind Act of
2001S.303
·
Three R's Act Better Education for
Students and Teachers Act
·
Better Education for Students and
Teachers Act
·
Alaska
Native Educational Equity, Support, and Assistance Act
·
Native Hawaiian Education Act
·
Access to High Standards Act
·
Rural Education Achievement Program
·
Education Flexibility Partnership
Act of 2001
·
Pro-Children Act of 2001
·
Bilingual Education Act
·
Teacher Mobility Act
·
Dropout Prevention Act
·
21st Century Community Learning
Centers Act
·
Helping Children Succeed by Fully
Funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (Introduced in
the Senate)[S.466.IS]
·
Public School Repair and Renovation
Act of 2001 (Introduced in the Senate)[S.471.IS]
·
Educational
·
Excellence for All Learners Act of
2001 (Introduced in the Senate)[S.7.IS]
Under a
tentative agreement between Democrats and the White House, the Senate bill
would require mandatory student testing, help children learn to read by the
third grade and give states more leeway in spending federal education funds --
signature issues for Bush during the presidential campaign.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010426/pl/congress_education_dc_11.html
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title04/0423.htm
Using language similar to that for social services in the SS Act.. From the sums appropriated ( or by entitlement as it used
to be ) and the allotment under this subpart, subject to the conditions set
forth in this section, the Secretary ( DOE ) shall from time to time pay to
each State that has a plan developed in accordance with regulations an amount
equal to 75 per centime of the total sum expended under the plan in meeting the
costs of State, district, county, or other local basic educational
instructional services.
The federal government
will pay 75 % of teachers salaries and benefits ( involved in direct
instruction = about 2.5 million teachers @ $ 30,000 = 75 billion ) and left to
the states and local school boards, all the other costs - administration,
football, transportation, construction, utilities, then: We could become a
modern civilized society with a world class school system, social justice,
economic growth, and political democracy.
There could be
substantial tax relief on property taxes - standards set for teacher
certification - much better salaries for some low paid teachers and salary
grades for high performing teachers tied to the GS federal scales:http://www.seemyad.com/gov/salary.htm
The big problems in
American Public education are:
There is no career
stream for classroom teachers - pay is only based on seniority and there is not
much difference if you stay in instruction from start to finish.
Basic Education as a
federal responsibility
:
The national interest
and general welfare require a large federal role in public compulsory
education. This was not as true in the last centuries but is clearly one of the
most important if not the most important federal function. "A 2000
PricewaterhouseCoopers report found that intellectual assets now account for 78
percent of the total value of American S&P 500 companies."
"According to a
2000 OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] report, since
1985, the expansion of knowledge-based industries has outpaced gross domestic
product (GDP) growth in the developed countries. Knowledge-based industries now
account for more than half of OECD-wide GDP." Welcome, to the Knowledge Age.BUT since we are a federal system and have a long
history of local school boards we can not just start from scratch.Each
state with consultations with local school system should come up with a plan to
provide basic education - reading ( the nation reads ) writing ( the nation
writes ) algebra and other math ( the nation reasons and calculates ) students
knows geography, history, government, humanities, the sciences and the
scientific methods - all standards and evaluations set by the states.
Then there is a
calculation of what the direct provision of these educational services cost.
Then the application
for expected expenditures for the next quarter of 75 % of the costs as a entitlement - with adjustments for over and under payments
from the last payment.
The states should
report how much would be used for property tax relief - how much for salaries ( and if there would be a state wide pay scales with steps -
grades like the GS system ).
These costs should not
include support, administration, transportation, athletics, construction,
maintenance, bureaucracy, etc.
Because
these costs remain state and local responsibility and are too much a can of
worms.
The national estimated
cost per student for instruction could be fairly clear at about $ 2,500 for
elementary and $ 4,500 for secondary ( half the total cost ) x 50 million
students ( 1 million x $ 1000 = 1 billion ) so 50 million x $ 3,500 = $ 175
Billion x 75 % = $ 132 billion.
There has been a vast
growth in administrative overhead from 15 % in the 1960's to 50 % today so
increases in resources are absorbed by overhead. In the last decade there has
been a vast underhanded growth in ESE ( special
education ) from 5 % of population to 25 % and a jungle of paperwork without
functional outcomes.
The labeling of
students make standards even harder - ESE students are not counted or counted
differently - so if someone doesn't learn they are learning disabled and
labeled - given more resources - and excluded from the testing of school
outcomes.
There has been for
decades weak support for standards - support in general but backing off when
the tire hits the road and students actually FLUNK and are held back! Standards
means that teachers have to teach content - multiplication tables, spelling,
parts of speech, geography, algebra - not always fun and often hard - and
student have to do their homework.Teachers can be
tied to the GS 4 to GS 12 depending on performance - and the DOD ( Military
base schools ) teacher pay scales as a base with districts able to do add ons.
suggestions:
FIRST:
The list of companies
in tele-communications
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title04/0423.htm
Using language similar to that for social services in the SS Act..
Basic Education as a
federal responsibility
:
The national interest
and general welfare require a large federal role in public compulsory
education. This was not as true in the last centuries but is clearly one of the
most important if not the most important federal function. "A 2000
PricewaterhouseCoopers report found that intellectual assets now account for 78
percent of the total value of American S&P 500 companies." "According
to a 2000 OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] report,
since 1985, the expansion of knowledge-based industries has outpaced gross
domestic product (GDP) growth in the developed countries. Knowledge-based
industries now account for more than half of OECD-wide GDP." Welcome, to
the Knowledge Age.BUT since we are a federal system
and have a long history of local school boards we can not just start from scratch.Each state with consultations with local school
system should come up with a plan to provide basic education - reading ( the
nation reads ) writing ( the nation writes ) algebra and other math ( the
nation reasons and calculates ) students knows geography, history, government,
humanities, the sciences and the scientific methods - all standards and
evaluations set by the states.
Then there is a
calculation of what the direct provision of these educational services cost.
Then the application
for expected expenditures for the next quarter of 75 % of the costs as a entitlement - with adjustments for over and under payments
from the last payment.
The states should
report how much would be used for property tax relief - how much for salaries ( and if there would be a state wide pay scales with steps -
grades like the GS system ).
These costs should not
include support, administration, transportation, athletics, construction,
maintenance, bureaucracy, etc. Because these costs remain
state and local responsibility and are too much a can of worms.
The national estimated
cost per student for instruction could be fairly clear at about $ 2,500 for
elementary and $ 4,500 for secondary ( half the total cost ) x 50 million
students ( 1 million x $ 1000 = 1 billion ) so 50 million x $ 3,500 = $ 175
Billion x 75 % = $ 132 billion. From the sums appropriated ( or by entitlement
as it used to be ) and the allotment under this subpart, subject to the
conditions set forth in this section, the Secretary ( DOE ) shall from time to
time pay to each State that has a plan developed in accordance with regulations
an amount equal to 75 per centime of the total sum expended under the plan in
meeting the costs of State, district, county, or other local basic educational
instructional services.
The federal government
will pay 75 % of teachers salaries and benefits ( involved in direct
instruction = about 2.5 million teachers @ $ 30,000 = 75 billion ) and left to
the states and local school boards, all the other costs - administration,
football, transportation, construction, utilities, then: We could become a
modern civilized society with a world class school system, social justice,
economic growth, and political democracy.
There could be
substantial tax relief on property taxes - standards set for teacher
certification - much better salaries for some low paid teachers and salary
grades for high performing teachers tied to the GS federal
scales:http://www.seemyad.com/gov/salary.htm
The big problems in
American Public education are:
There is no career
stream for classroom teachers - pay is only based on seniority and there is not
much difference if you stay in instruction from start to finish.
There has been a vast
growth in administrative overhead from 15 % in the 1960's to 50 % today so
increases in resources are absorbed by overhead. In the last decade there has
been a vast underhanded growth in ESE ( special
education ) from 5 % of population to 25 % and a jungle of paperwork without
functional outcomes.
The labeling of
students make standards even harder - ESE students are not counted or counted
differently - so if someone doesn't learn they are learning disabled and
labeled - given more resources - and excluded from the testing of school
outcomes.
There has been for
decades weak support for standards - support in general but backing off when
the tire hits the road and students actually FLUNK and are held back! Standards
means that teachers have to teach content - mu
We have to adjust to
the new political realities - mass marketing of characters as products.Electoral choice is a weak choice for most people.
People care more about household products such as toothpaste or breakfast
cereal than their congress person.
There are a minority
who project on politics their passions and loves and hates that have little
political meaning - Some have been harmed by change - industrial or cultural -
some have guilt, shame or projections - anti-foreign, protection, abortion,
anti-establishment conspiracies - the Clinton's case ( reverse of the Nixon
Case )
The base of politics
today is emotion and sediment ( largely negative ) - as you see every day in
the media - commercials are founded on the "hook" or how to tie the
image of a product to a passion - sex, greed, shame, hope, hype - and the
billions spent on commercials must work. Cars are creating status and exciting
for drivers, products make you happy, sexy and smart, "you get inside it -
and it gets inside you". So we have maybe 10 % interested in issues - real
choices based on interests - 20 % concerned with psycho-dynamics ( how does it feel ? What do I like or hate - true believer
who projects their passions on the open screen ) - 30
% on transit and superficial reasons - talk shows, appearances and
"character". makes 60 % who even pay
attention and the rest don't care and don't vote at all.
If there was a depression
or war or real civil unrest ( such as in the civil
rights, Vietnam
case ) maybe people would care and pay attention. We do not have ideological
politics or do people carry little consistent theories in their heads - they
have optioning that are generated by the moment and a moment latter could be
different. That's the way it is - so why blame political campaigns for doing
what they have to do to win ? Our constitution was set
up with the idea that Republican government depends on rational elites - better
educated, better motivated, with an sense of civic virtue, civilly minded,
public-spirited, community-minded - and a model of opinion where the leaders
ideas are passed down. Real issues for real people can not be left to mass
politics.
The problems such as
Social Security is too complex - of course "they" just want more for
less or nothing -
The real problem is the
decline in the elite caused by economic change and the rise of the sunbelt and Wild West.
There is a weak media
elite, weak academic leadership, weak economic leadership (
lost in a tangle of special interest )
The reason congress
spends more time in ideological showmanship because the establishment is so
fractured. In the old days there would be power brokers to make them behave. ( Bankers, editors, older politicians, party leaders - could
control wild rhetoric and excessive patrician passions ) Both Clinton and Newt are outsiders without proper
credentials and behavior did not conform to expected standards.
We have to adjust to
the new realities - mass marketing of " characters
" as products. It ends up as their ad agencies vs. our ad agencies, their
commercials vs. our commercials - the selling of the presidency. Not beautiful,
not wise, not true - but that's the way it is and why money matters- better ads
and better coverage -
A landslide:
The central theme in
21st century politics is the way or how public services are delivered.
The scope of services
is important but delivery systems is critical.
The decline of the EURO
and slow growth in Europe is due in large
measure to the drag on the economy of poorly run public services and excessive
drain on saving and investment due to taxes, deficits, and entitlements. As the
population ages the issue becomes even more severe as it reaches critical mass.
In a generation 85 % of public spending and 20 % of all income will go to
support the income and health of the retired if there is no change.
The only way, the third
way, the new way is to introduce competition and free markets into the public
sector. It is NOT the old conservative, less government more freedom ( mainly
for the successful and rich by letting the old starve and die " are there
not poor houses enough" said Mr. Scrooge ) but focused on the individual
as the producer of all wealth and enterprise - without much concern for the
environment, the common organic whole, social justice, racial harmony,
liberation, the rights of property over equity and justice ( torts and
restitution ) and the winner takes all philosophy - or the tax and spend ( tax
the rich and spend on the less rich so there is little return on work and
investment and a large dependent welfare class which bankrupts the society so
we could end up like the Russians without the spirit of enterprise ) the
anti-business beliefs of the old liberal - socialist ideologies without a
strategy of growth and prosperity. Wealth can not be created by the state or
state enterprises.
The issue is the right,
rational, practical public sector - pro business - pro growth - limited and
rational - not anti-government or pro-government but the necessary public
services well delivered. In this way George W. is closer to Tony Blair than
Gore, and Lieberman and the Progressive Policy Institute is closer to
Republican than the stated program of the democrats. Of course, what they say
and what they do has a very tenuous connection but... If the issues are joined
- social security and Medicare, education partly privatized and privately run
but publicly supported even if the democrats resist in public - they will
change and find a compromise. It is new and somewhat dangerous grounds -
entitlement and educational reform - and people are not willing to be pioneers.
I remember a paper on intranets, and corporate information systems. Clearly the
high cost and limited private networks with dedicated leased lines, was going
to be replaced and/or supplemented by internet systems with wider access and
linkages to clients, suppliers, et al.
The systems managers
with knowledge in Novell and other limited systems were unhappy about learning
and applying a new technology. New systems are a headache and breakdown and
cause a systems manager all kinds of grief. One said "
pioneers get arrows in their backs ". True - maybe you can wait
until the bugs are all worked out. All the i’s dotted
and the t’s crossed or maybe you will be left behind ? It is a very difficult question and the most
important business issue facing everyfirm from the
smallest to the largest. Big firms used to be able to wait - and then buy up
what worked without going through the pain of trying many options and finding
the solutions for themselves. No new system works painlessly - but no pain no
gain !Public sector services become a blend of private and public - health,
education, training and labor , welfare, postal and then military readiness,
police, domestic security, fire, national parks and land, agricultural,
international relations and NGO, non-profits, private global enterprises and
government all and all will change - services will be networks of privatized
and subsidized public services, vouchers, contracted agencies, leased
facilities, capitalized public goods, each analysis for benefit /costs -
rationalized - made above politics into practical modern del
Wiredbrain
Future new news and private research service by GlobalVillages provides
research on and the future ???
Don't be blind to what others are doing and what they know about what you are
up to AT FROM:
pflaupflaupflaupflaump@cfl.rr.com:p>
Example:
http://www.zdnet.com/ferret/images/ferret3.gif
Ferret finds 1500 Wiredbrain "pflaump"
web pages
COPERNIC searches all
the main engines very quickly
Make PORTALS your home page and use
"wiredbrain" password "synergy"
for set-up start pages.
Alltheweb
does as it claims to be fast and large
Most search engines
now find about 30 % of the 350 million pages. So you need to check many
engines. 
Web Hosting
>
Individual development,
organizational change, and In the computer industry,
power comes not from the barrel of a gun but from the interface of a
Protocol:
He
who controls the interface controls the system.
Continued on - please
let me know about errors ! Some of these pages date
back up to 10 years ( 1992 ) and have been through
many editors and transfers. News about what's happening and for updates use GlobalVillage Excite NewsSearch -
pflapflapflapflaump@cfl.rr.com/www.wiredbrain.net/
Globalization:
The real issues of our
times ( again ) is not being talked about or does the
political process clarify the choices about the future. We desperately need to
better understand who we are and where we are going.
The mundane and almost
evil issues of greed, benefits, character narrowly defined, are out of any
context as to the purposes, goals, missions, or tasks of a modern civilized
society and changing national global realities.
There are four steps to
modern progressive global societies. Self-government -
Personal responsibilities and initiative - the idea of self government both as
a personal and political system and with economic open markets.
Competition produces both prosperity and inequality, the rich get richer but
the poor need not get poorer if the second condition is enlivened - limits on
personal or family greed - electoral reform is a minor reflection of a much
greater issue of freedom, democracy when power and money is widely unequal.Responsibility, because of inequality and the
danger of corruption by concentrations of power of money and military, there is
a clear need for social dependability of individual and corporations who have
developed civic duties and responsibilities beyond themselves - including
supporting the rule of law and public goods purchased through government to
create and maintain a civilized public culture.
The moral or family issues is a thin reflection of the great issues of duty and
responsibility. Social consciousness comes from the third condition - Trust -
building confidence over time and space between groups, races, societies,
companies requires an open and honest methods of
resolving disputes. Trust is required to do business beyond a few friends and
family and does not come easily.
The religion, race and
class divides are a weak reflection of the great issues of faith and trust in neighborhoods,
communities, cities, states, nations, and beyond our borders.
The third condition
sums it all up - Humanism - Ecology - Environment - Expanding intellectual,
spiritual, and technical capacities of the individuals in a global society
including developing institution as linkages between peoples, companies,
non-profits, foundations ( NGO s ) governments, associations, panels,
conferences, professional groups, media companies, educational institutions,
the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, Churches, women’s groups, environmental
groups, and the other of thousands of connections. GreenPeace,
Doctors without Borders, need to be matched by alliances concerned about the
great majority of people who suffer, mainly women and children. A Global Agenda:Expand the institutions of democracy - on a local
basis by public finance and regulation of elections, and global support for the
civic culture - the media, education, small business, internet access, rather
than military intervention which should only be the last resort.Expand
international law on corruption, massive civic crime, human rights abuse, and
on a local basis getting over the learning gap - black 17 year olds performing
as white 13 year olds - by what even means necessary - smaller, better, more competitive
schools. Restoring Faith in institutions, public and private by serious reforms
-
The model is
integration of labor, management, and the public as official members of
community.
The various European
models of joint committees and structures should be useful. This is what was
called industrial democracy.Re thinking welfare and
social programs with a focus on women and children using new public private
non-profit models.
There are only three or
four issues that have dominated Western then Global Politics for the last few
centuries.
The desire for liberty ( freedom from excessive state control ) led to the need for
self government. Since we don’t want kings, priest and tribal chiefs to tell us
what to do and how to think and behave we have to do more thinking on our own
and make more complex value judgments. This is the first modern political issue
- now taking the form of the corruption by money of politics, the talk about
big corporations, media and money having excessive control over our lives.
The second issue is due
to the fact that God so loved the poor he made a lot of them. Equity is an
ancient issue that arose in the first popular government in Greece and
repeats itself in many forms.
The poor majorities
under the leadership of a demigod or tyrant will pander to the mob to
redistribute the wealth, forgive debts ( or inflate the currency to make debts
payable in cheap money ) and pander to the passions, the desire for bread and
circuses, and foster other popular superstitions. Now this is called class
warfare or the needs of the needy vs. the greed of the greedy. Benefits paid
for by the rich for the benefit of the poor, public welfare bribes are offered
to buy votes.
Therefore, the third
issue is how to protect and expand freedom from the dangers of Democratic
systems - positive freedom is the ability to make WISE choices unlike a passive
liberty which is the negative freedom from coercion and the right to be wrong.
There is no positive
freedom in ignorance, superstition, prejudice, and in short in being stupid.
Therefore a civic state
depends on education and a civic culture. Otherwise it become
popular tyranny either of the right or left. This issue now takes the form of
education and mobility. If we can really teach poor children to gain skills we
can also teach them to behave and act like other middle class responsible
people.
The last issue is the
global vs. national views - the role of humanity and transcendental values over
day to day benefits and who gets what, when and how. Now this issue comes out
as having goals greater than ourselves, the uses of riches, the nature of the
environment, social responsibility, family values, and the proper respect for
the opinions of mankind and the moral standards of a community of nations.
Real Reform.com
American Association
for Constitutional Reform
The issue of structural
reform does not appear as an issue any where I can find - even in third
parties. As I see the issue is the 18th century electoral structure can not
cope with a system of mass marketing and the money required to win in a big
country.
The reform that is
needed is to change the structure of the elections - a change from independent
single member districts (
The Senate can not be
changed in the current constitution ) to a system with
clear party responsibility.
The parties need to be
clearly a national franchise - with duties and responsibilities OVER their
candidates and office holders. Being a Republican or Democrat has to mean
something. If you run on a ticket there should be some implied contract. Many
candidates do not even mention their party at all.
The national parties
are now a committee of the states - equal representative by states so 15 % of
the population has a majority.
There are many
alternatives to achieve a responsible party system - some commitment to the
platform and some disciple by members elected as members of a party.
Then there could be
some control over money and have shorter and cleaner campaigns as in the rest
of the civilized world.
The congress has become
535 independent small business people without much discipline or policy. All
this talk about issues is hollow because the talk does not relate to what
happens. In England
for example the parties have a "manifesto" or platform that will predict
how they will govern. We don't. So it's mostly verbiage and marketing. Promises
her anything but what will be done after she is seduced ?
People know that elections don't connect to policy - that
policy is made by the iron triangle - Interest groups - the money that funds
congressional reelection - and the agencies the congress funds and regulate. If
you follow the money trail it goes to congress and then congress funds programs
and give benefits - regulation, tax and subsidies - to
those who fund their election.
The single ballot ( President and congress on the same check mark ) so there
is some connection between executive and congressional authority is one
suggestion. An amendment to make clear the federal power to
regulate federal elections or just a statue taking control over federal office
holders.
The only way to get to
structural reform is via a convention called by the states since congress will
not reform itself.
Real Reform: Restore
confidence and pride in the Institutions of democracy:
Article II - electors
and electoral college - is a time bomb - and needs to
be replaced by new simple language - and a national orderly rational process of
federal elections. Federal elections need to be federal - not a scramble of
state rules, antique dysfunctional regulations and court decisions along with
the changing results of infighting within fractional political parties.
The right to control
federal elections by federal law should not be in doubt - this does now effect the bill of rights - but only the structure of he
process of running elections.
In the electronic age
we don’t need a horse and buggy system - it can be much fairer, faster,
representative, and honest. Elections are the core of democracy - they can
never be perfect but a dysfunctional system undermines the foundations of
freedom and representative government.
Federal Elections in
the Constitution:
In order to assure
democracy and the faith of the people in their elected representatives; federal
elections shall be conducted in a brief, honest, open, and equal manner that
assure impartiality to both incumbents and their opposition and limit the undue
influence of money. Congress shall prescribe by law for the election of all
federal officials by the majority votes of federally qualified citizens of the
congressional districts for the House of Representatives, the separate states
for the Senate, and of the Citizens of United States for President and
Vice-president.
The certification of
results, the qualifications of voters and candidates, the times and dates of
primaries and elections, the certification of recognized Political parties and
their candidates and the conduct of campaigns financed by publicly regulated
expenditures shall be prescribed by law to assure freedom of political speech,
competition, and the free expression of the will of the people in the selection
of their Government. Where no candidate has a majority a run off shall be
quickly conducted.
Upon enactment, This amendment become the supreme law of the land, not
withstanding any prior constitutional or other legal decisions and past
circumstances.
(
replaces: Article I section 2 on the House
section 3 and Amendment 17 on the Senate, Article II and Amendment 12 on the
President and Vice-president )
Federal Laws and
Constitutional Amendments:
Congress shall
prescribe the terms and conditions for citizen initiative, or congressional
referendum to be placed on the ballots of federal elections, as proposals for
amendments under Article V, sent to the states, or laws to be enacted or as
advisory to the states, the people and to congress.
This leaves to congress
to control federal elections. I would like an election on the second Tuesday in
November with a run off if necessary in the middle of November - with campaigns
to start on labor day including the nomination process
that could be done in 4 to 6 weeks.
The primaries could be
done nationally in early September with a run off in the last week of September
with conventions ( not really necessary ) during
October (Enough is enough ) Federal campaigns would be publicly financed and
limited in their expenditures.
Chairman of the Board:
Imagine you are the
Chairman of the Board of the Party. Your business is in winning elections.
Victory means increased market share, higher earning, more respect and power
i.e. success.
The market is shared by
the other party.
They compete for many
of the same customers and almost all the markets.
The market is
essentially a dialogue or biopoly like Coke and
Pepsi. You both have an interest in the total market size and conditions but it
still is a zero sum game - they win you lose - you win they lose.
What are your assets -
what is your ability to sell product for money thereby raising the cash
necessary to make more investments which have a good rate of return, overall
growth, and better future prospects ?
The communications
bill, the banking, insurance, financial markets bill, the tax bills, farm
supports, import export bank and supports, military procurements, are some of
the best sources of money. If you have the committee Chairs that can help or
hurt these great centers of wealth, both by legislation and in control of the
agencies they fund, the cash will flow in, you will be able to hire the best
marketing people, target the audience, develop the strategies, find their hot
buttons, find the weakness of the other side, pay for the ads, and win.
What is your strategy ? First be sure there are enough big buck issues
out there ? Second be sure you can deliver. Since you
take money from all sides be sure both sides get some of what they want -
bankers and brokers, pharmacies and drug companies, doctors and lawyers,
remember an honest bribe is where the person stays bought - also there is
little difference between a shake down and a bribe if value is exchanged for
money.
The rest is just
marketing. If people want to be really involved in the process they must do so
with groups and cash - power brokers - Older Americans via NARP, teachers with
NEA or AFT, or the 1000’s of industry or company PACs. Since 1 % of the actual
voters pay for political access they don’t count.
They are courted and
flattered, they are manipulated and induced, but the promises, the rhetoric is
hollow - meaningless - because there is no commitment to actually deliver. Promise
them anything - a free lunch, retirement, health care, safety, family values,
God and Country - wave the flag - it doesn’t matter it is just commercials.
There is no requirement
for truth in advertising - you are completely protected by the first amendment.
The
An even longer view:
There have been only
four critical issues in the History of the American Republic
-
Self rule -
The heavy handed use of
force by the British - based on their colonial experience in Ireland - help
drive the colonies into rebellion and to form a union.
The current form of
this issue is the great power of money in politics because of the high cost of
mass marketing.
Since there are more
debtors than creditors the protection of property requires a balance of power,
protection of minorities, and the complex federal system that keeps majorities
of the working classes and poor and their political leaders from taxing the
rich for more benefits for populist programs. A
effective mass party of the workers and farmers was prevented by regional,
ethnic and racial divisions.
The current form of the
issue of electoral reform is the control by big money in the mass marketing of
politics. Neither party is strong on reform, even the reform party. Reform
requires restructuring of the political parties and federal election so there
would be more common interest rather than 535 independent representatives and
senators. Federal financing, a federal party charter and regulation by an
independent commission ( not a bi-party lobby ) could
require some sort of order and discipline in the political process.
Race - and the Civil
War - keeps coming back to renew itself but slowly recedes. Regional and Class
conflict is made more complex because of race, ethnic and religious divisions.
Since the protection of property ( liberty and justice ) depended on a divided
government, concurrent majorities are hard to come by - only the traumatic
events such as the great depression or the civil rights movement can create a
clean mandate and overwhelming majority that could act in a timely and decisive
manner. Otherwise political action is slow, stumbling, fragmented, and
frustrating.
The current issue of
race is beginning to disappear as a difference between parties.
Equality - more Liberty for the rich ( absence or constraints on Governmental control ) does not
mean more freedom for the poor ( ability to make choices and have control over
your own life ) since liberty produces great inequality in power. Liberty allows the rich
and powerful to become more rich and powerful - after all they have advantages
they can pass on to their children and corporations have great long term
influence over state authority.
The growth of private
power reduces the freedom of those with little or no power because it changes
who pays and who benefits from public action. Poor kids go to poor schools
because poor people have less power as well as less money. Rich people live in
rich neighborhoods with better schools and more influence on school policy.
Liberation of the slaves did not give them freedom in most ways.
The plantation share
cropping system kept them in economic bondage. Freedom comes from opportunity
to learn and grow and gain insights and not be oppressed by false belief,
superstition, manipulation, debts and obligations, that
can turn into a virtual serfdom. Labor unions and third parties have been a
response to inequalities of wealth and control. Gore is trying to maintain the idea
that Republicans are the party of Big Business and wealth and Bush is trying to
avoid that issue.
The tax cut is the only
real issue that divides the parties because the democrats argue that it will
prevent new benefits and rewards the rich ( who pay
most of the taxes ) at the cost of the benefits of the elderly, middle class
and poor.
World order -
The American myth
includes a special role as a secular Zion " A City on the Hill" - and
all the problems of Zionism - nationalism, national consciousness, race
consciousness, chauvinism, jingoism, expansionism, imperialism, colonialism
play a role with prejudice against foreigners, immigrants, and use of military
power. This was played out in Vietnam - neither party has a clear idea of the
role of the last super power or is there a big difference in the confusion over
that role of maintaining a world order good for business, economic stability,
and common standards of conduct.
A current history:
When Lyndon Johnson
pushed the Civil Rights Act in 1960’s he knew he was giving the South to the
other side. It was an act of courage and statesmanship. Over the rest of the
60’s and 70’s and finally in the 80’s the Republican Southern Strategy worked
to take over the Solid South and the angry white male vote and make a working
majority.
The war in Vietnam and the
anti-war movement were also moral crusades, while a Democratic War, became a
Republican issue with Nixon. McGovern worked to clean the party of it’s moral responsibility for the war but lost the crusade
for a more limited role of the American enterprise.
Political realities put
the conservatives in a morally questionable position on the use of military
power and race. All the `moral majority` talk could
not overcome their deficiencies on the great civic issues of the century, race
and the use military power to promote business interests. Bill
Clinton’s solid emotional commitment to civil rights is real, long term and
important. His use of force has been more difficult in Haiti, Somalia,
Iran
and the Balkans. Bush is trying to correct the parties
moral position without giving up all the traditional racist and militarist
imperialist vote. Pat can some of it but not all !
The Cold War with
anti-Communist was the issue that tied together racism, anti immigrant,
militarism, big business, southern strategy, Christian fundamentalism and made
the republican majority.
The Reagan triad was to
cut taxes for the rich, build the military for industry, and defend the social
order against the anti-war "radicals", integrationist, hippies and
women’s liberation all under the slogan of social issues, right to life and
school prayer, for the unwashed masses. Liberals were labeled as anti God, soft
on Communist, environmental extremist, women libbers, affirmative action ( integrationist ), pro foreigners and immigrants, big
government, big spenders, and the negatives worked for awhile. Clinton’s sexual problems
is a stand in for these social issues. Rush Limbaugh,
Newt Gingrish, a majority of house Republicans and
Pat Buchanan all agreed on the negative attacks and tax, military and social
issues.
They only disagreed on
trade issues and the level of rhetorical extremism.
Clinton and the new
democrats, DLC, democratic leadership conference, took over the great center
and pushed the other side to appear extreme thanks to Pat and his crew. Baby
boomers are not moved by the older racist, militarist, social conservative
rhetoric. One can hope that racism has declined in the South and elsewhere but
it is not gone by any means - only politically incorrect.
Bush can not clear the
Republicans of their historic positions so quickly and easily.
The tax, defense and
social issues will haunt the election. Gore only has to take the high ground -
there are four stages in any election campaign -
First name recognition
( Gore had it sort of also Bush because of his father ) and second to strike
positive connections with popular issues - against crime, for peace, prosperity
and security, social security, good government, clean air and water, and other
positive issues.
The third stage is to
raise doubts about the other side - they threaten peace and security, are in
favor of pollution, are immoral and weak and dishonest.
The last stage in a
return to the positive - the vision thing - the hero on a white horse and leave
the other side left in the dropping.
The agenda: the victory
of moderation
Just below the smoke
and mirrors, under the cloud of media hysteria, talking heads and fashion shows
there is a common global agenda.
There is no right wing
or left wing policy only policy that work.
There is no cold war, there are no ideology or inimitable principals only
practical policies.
The argument that
History is no longer a struggle for domination, empire, conquest and ideology
is mirrored in the end of "politics" as class warfare, the cold war,
the search for ideological purity, utopian schemes and totalitarian solutions
by the extreme left or right. Moderation through political compromise is a
virtue, Extremism in the defense or attacks on religion, ideology, civil
rights, foreigners, and social liberation are all vices. At Delphi
Oracle the first gate held the words "Know thyself", the second " Moderation in all things".
At the G8 the
industrial nations have a common agenda.
The growth of the
welfare state since the great depression and the war had created a central
state that began to sap the energy of the economy. Excessive public activity
due to real crisis’s in the past, began to squeeze
private saving, investment therefore productivity, raising interest rates
creating stagflation, inflation and low growth. Aging populations and a flood
of new expensive medical technology has threaten to
bankrupt many health and retirement schemes. Europe and Japan still have a lot
of work on growth and currency issues but agree with the theme of free markets,
privatization, expanded trade, less regulation and more open systems leading to
higher productivity, greater competition and growth.
The domination of New
Democrats,
The Democratic
Leadership Conference, New Labour, New Social
Democrats, called the Third Way
is now global.
The central theme is to
change the policy and image of tax and spend liberals, with socialist leaning,
to practical, PRUDENT and moderate programs that works.
The policy involved
cutting expenses and raising taxes. No one in America wanted to face the 900
pound guerrilla of debt and deficits except Ross Parot.
A campaign of raising taxes and cutting benefits looked too tough to sell but
that was the agenda nevertheless and it worked.
The Compassion of the
New Conservatives, Tories, Christian Democrats, is to shed their image of being
the party of the rich and powerful with a cruel or mean streak ( anti foreign,
minority, black, women and gay liberation ) into a populist agenda. One stratagem anti-communism and the use of religious conservatives
by the verbal support of various moral issues that attracted lower class voters.
The move was toward
"absolute truth" and fundamental principles vs. Amoral or immoral
humanist, relativist liberals with loose morality as reflected in the media.
Therefore the personal
vendetta against Mr. Clinton became a central activity of house republicans and
their allies. He should have been more careful but the personal attacks did not
achieve their objective of making people believe that the Tax and Spend
Socialist left now could be blamed on all the evils of modern society.
Nationalism and
militarism also reflect this traditional ideology. Tax cuts were sold as a issue of "freedom" and liberty of individual
rights vs.
The liberal ( socialist ) leveling state.
They have had problems
with an affirmative program but have depended on attack and negative campaigns
which have worked here and there. New Conservative look
to Disraeli, Lincoln,
McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and other progressive elements on the right as model
of "popular" conservative ideologies.
They can move to more
or less the same practical politics as the opposition with less dogmatism and
more relativism. Political convergence is a fact of life. Political parties
have to go with what works or enter the trash can of history. Continual losses
while maintaining ideological purity is not an option. In GB there are the
Social Democrats more to the center in America there is no need ( yet ) for new moderate center parties and all the third
parties are on the fringe.
There is a need for the
"greens’ and the progressive minority is less reflected in the Democrats -
Gore is working hard on "Which side are you on" theme - trying to
make a difference between his own moderate position and that of his moderate
opposition.
There is a need for the
right wing " Reform " or libertarians as the
Republicans back off ideological fundamentalism. Congressional control by
either side is going to be very close, with no real working majority, so they
will have to be moderate as well. Thus the victory of
moderation.
Certainly traditional
conservatives believe in Prudence and cost cutting reducing debt, opening
private markets, free trade and lower interests rates
to helping produce a remarkable increase in productivity, employment and living
standards.
The "new
economy" driven by information science greatly magnified the effects of
practical fiscal and monetary policies.
Maybe the need to
pander to the religious right and big money donors,
and the ideological fundamentalist makes it difficult to move Republicans to
the center. It doesn’t seem more difficult as the left had with it’s traditional labor and socialist wings.
The second part of the
New Liberal policy is "investment" in infrastructure: first and most
important human resources. Growth in productivity in greatly
increased by the "quality" of inputs relative to production.
Smarter people create smarter machines and systems.
There is a large
unexplained residual between the growth explained by more investment and more
people is due to this improvement due to
"restricting" and technology. Large companies had become blotted
along with government and needed to cut costs and increase revenues in an
increasing competitive global market. New technologies and smarter, better
educated people are critical in this systems update and setting in motion a process
of continual improvement.
Public investments can
make the economy more efficient.
The British are making
up for years of neglect and resource limits in education, health,
transportation and communications.
The right wants tax
cuts and the left wants new public expenditures and debt reduction. Investments vs. taxes becomes the center of this cycle of
election with "prudence" and the welfare benefits in an aging
population lurking in the background. http://www.dlcppi.org/ppi/3way/3way.htm
The core principles and
ideas of this "Third Way"
movement are set fourth in
The New Progressive
Declaration: A Political Philosophy for the Information Age. http://www.dlcppi.org/texts/pflib/progsum.htm
Americans are ready for the challenge. Most have ceased believing that the
solutions to today's problems are to be found in a larger, stronger central
government--a course still supported by traditional liberals. Nor do they buy
the conservative argument that the federal government is the source of our
problems and that dismantling it will solve them.
America
needs a third choice that replaces the left's reflexive defense of the
bureaucratic status quo and counters the right's destructive bid to simply
dismantle government. Such a "new progressive" governing philosophy
sees government as society's servant, not its master--as a catalyst for a
broader civic enterprise controlled by and responsive to the needs of citizens
and the communities where they live and work.
Second Thoughts:
Do we really want him
to be president :
All the Dirt on All the
Candidates - Because character DOES matter
You've come to the
right place for dirt, attitude and opinionated character reviews of all the
Presidential Candidates.
While
I would like to support McCain in the primaries because of his reform program.
I think he would return "power to the people" but..
what about the rest - he wants to be a financial
conservative - again a major factor is our new found prosperity - but .. maybe if there is real structural reform then education, (
really a state and local issue ) health and other national issue could move
forward ?
Should I change ( if I can ) my registration from Democrat, a family and
regional tradition, to Republican which whom I don’t agree with when they hang
right - from Goldwater to the contract on America.. Otherwise they are the
same middle of the road party as the other one .
http://www.wiredbrain.net/reform.htm
I guess I am a liberal
libertarian - a prudent liberal - like Tony Blair -
The issue was and maybe
is a rational budget policy.
The use of entitlements
- services and benefits to buy votes and hold power will bankrupt any state
over time. Balanced budgets are a key to economic health and growth. Since Alan
Greenspan and almost everyone knows that reducing the debt is better than tax
breaks - it will be impossible to sell tax cuts as a central theme of a party
platform.
McCain draws from a
very wide spectrum -that is the road to victory !
The establishment hates
McCain with a passion - reform would hurt the Republican Right which believes
it needs it's money as the road to power - actually it will make very little
difference - he also call them by name to account - Some of his behavior in the
Senate is quite radical in going into who took what then did what for whom.
Just as important, Mr.
McCain will be able to draw independent voters towards the Republican Party.
This was the key to much of his success in New Hampshire. Registered independents now
account for 15% of America’s
electorate.
The Jesse Ventura
phenomenon, ( As Ross Parot
before him ) whereby another celebrated anti-politician was elected governor of
Minnesota,
shows that they have power. But they are not inevitably opposed to the two main
parties: given a candidate who shows spirit and piques their interest, as Mr.
McCain does, they will vote for him despite his Republican label. http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/index_ld5140.html
And win the election in
a time when people want CHANGE - but not much -
He is also a
conservative Republican, lest that be forgotten, with a perfect voting record
in the Senate on issues dear to conservatives’ hearts. Although voters may not
particularly care to notice, Mr. McCain is the antithesis of Mr. Clinton not
just in terms of character, but on issues such as deregulation (fiercely for
it) and abortion (guardedly against it). He differs markedly on foreign policy,
too. Where Mr. Clinton, at least until the past year or so, had to be prodded
to take a reluctant interest in what the outside world was doing,
I enjoy seeing the
Republican establishment come apart as the Bush people are trying to make
McCain into a liberal ? Even Rush Limbaugh is coming
to pieces as he tries to hold on the a party line that doesn't have one except
an old mantra Less Government, More Freedom - lower taxes - social bla-bla doesn't work anymore and George W. is no Ronald
Reagan that can turn almost nothing into something that sounds good. !
As we all know there is
REAL power and money involved.
There is a real threat
to the real permeate establishment - well maybe ?
Message from Bill
Bradley-- On to the National Race
As for the Democrats -
does it matter ? After a remarkable turnaround in New
Hampshire, where we overcame a 17-point deficit to finish in the closest
Democratic primary in that state's history, my campaign is now preparing for
the critical battle ahead. A staggering 29 states will hold primaries or
caucuses during the week of March 7-14, including California,
New York, Florida,
Ohio, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Georgia
and Michigan.
Government should be
limited to public goods - I favor educational vouchers (
because it is good for Public Schools to have competition ) - and
private free markets and competition - free trade - capitalism when ever
possible. But in public goods an active and clever state action on common
interests that can not be left to private interests - parks, zoos, museums, and
planning land use growth control, environmental regulation, national health
plan using free market methods. Government is part of the solution not the
enemy.
The reform that is
needed is making a firm connection between elections and policy. I like the
British system - you elect a government and they do what they promised, if you
don’t like it, elect the other side. In America we have a strange and
screwy system - maybe because we are a strange and screwy country - or because
we are stuck in a history trap.
The American people
aren't Stupid.
They know that money
matters.
They feel that
"special interests" and their paid lobbyist control what happens or
doesn't. This was the core of the Parot reform party
uprising.
The first issue is
REFORM - some change in the SYSTEM where the majority feel
they have a fair chance to realistically participate in the collective decision
that effect their lives. For 50 years there has been a clear desire for
national health care - but the outcome was controlled by the AMA for decades,
now the insurance industry. What McCain says is basic reform in Taxes,
Education, ( a state and local issue ) Health can’t be
done because of veto groups and their money.
Open secrets .org
center for responsible politics
Center for Responsive
Politics,
"
The influence of money
is corrupting our ability to address the problems that directly affect the
lives of every American. Without reining in soft money and reducing the role of
money in politics we will never have a government that works as hard for the
average American as it does for the special interests."
His speeches in the
Senate have detailed contributions and the votes of his
colleagues
so they are more than unhappy with him. He has been very specific on the last
tax bill and billion dollar favors grated as quid pro quo for money paid. (
The bill was designed
to go no where but be a fund raiser ) He has done the
same on the Communications bill, the Banking Bill, the Defense appropriations
bill.
"Nothing breaks
down trust in our democracy as much as big money. Money is like a wall between
elected leaders and the people, preventing leaders from hearing voters' hopes
and concerns."
The ideas on the table
may help - may not - the history of reform has tended
to make things worse. If there is money that wants to go into politics, and their are politicians that need money the two will get
together - Independent Committees can not be banded under our First Amendment
to the constitution.
The Germany
experience is a case in point.
The only way to remove
money from politics is party discipline - the individual members don’t have a
lot of choices in following the party program - become back benchers rather
than independent businessmen and women and the pie is removed - simple tax
systems, fixed budgeted requirements - remove members pork and provide free TV
with a short campaign season .
The Iron Triangle is
made up of committee chairmen in Congress, the real focus of political power in
this country - what Wilson
called "Congressional Government" at the end of the 19th Century.
The other arms of the triangle is the interest groups - over 3000
organized constitutes and business groups that employ a large group of lobbyist
and give money at the fund raising events.
The third arm is the
Agencies and Departments which make up Federal, State and Local governments.
The military industrial
complex is only one of these families of interests.
A traditional model
would be the road lobby - the transport committees and the appropriations
subcommittees, the dept. of transportation, state road boards - concrete,
construction equipment, auto and trucking interests, gas and oil companies and
the unions in these industries. A one point in the last 50’s and 60’s a fifth
of the GNP was involved with gas run road transportation.
Religion and theology
[1] Though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding
brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
Reminds
me of the republican "Christian cops" debate.
Religion is one area of
human experience, theology is another, Politics is one part of our lives,
Ideology another, we tend to get them confused.
Religion is an experience, theology is an idea; politics is about power,
Ideology about beliefs.
We tend to get
experience, feeling, passions confused with ideas, theories, thoughts and
positions. Gestalt is a psychological practice that works to make the
separation clear by the direct experience of feeling. To understand the
difference is very useful in getting control of choices in life, government,
education, health and science.
People and communities
can’t work hard and progress to a place they don’t understand and have never
experienced.
They never have been on
the mountain top and don’t care. You can’t create a great school if you never
experience a great school - all is flat gray and dull. You can’t create a great
company if there is no occurrence of greatness, you can’t create a great
society without the image, the vision of greatness.
Politics is one thing,
ideology is another.
Thoughts are about
power. We use our minds to get ahead, influence others, get
a sense or feeling of control. But without passion, desire, feeling there is a
hollow or emptiness in pure knowledge. Pure passion is wayward or dangerous and
we feel the need to control or feeling with reason. Thus an internal conflict
between what we desire and what we do.
Theology is about power
in the church as an institution - Rome
or Henry VIII - by social control of feelings and people and institutions.
Ideology is about
control of social power by law and police and military force.
The God police of the
Christian activists would control the bedrooms and doctors offices,
The green Cops of the
Mullahs, Neighbor watch committees of China,
The
KGB, CIA, FBI or DEA.
Religion is an
experience of the holy ghost. You can have religious
experience. You can know when someone is genuinely spiritual or just using God
talk to get ahead or change the power balance. Commercial are expert in
connecting feeling to product in order to create actions - sell the product.
Commercial give the illusion of ideas but are pure feeling. Politics often does
the same - the illusion of policy designed to connect feeling - positive and
negative to people and parties in order to sell the product which is power,
control, favors, winners and losers.
OUT of the box -
In order for people,
institutions, and societies to advance to the next level - ( Blue, Red, yellow,
brown, white, green, black and gold ) the difference between passion or feeling
( the colors are different levels of spiritual awareness ) and ideas that gain
power, control, progress and win - they must directly experience the difference
- since otherwise it’s an ideas about feeling not feeling, or an idea about
religion not spiritual, or an idea about love not love, or an idea about health
not health, or an idea about a more perfect society not an experience of a more
perfect union.
People and communities
can’t work hard and progress to a place they don’t understand and have never
experienced.
They never have been on
the mountain top and don’t care. You can’t create a great school if you never
experience a great school - all is flat gray and dull. You can’t create a great
company if there is no occurrence of greatness, you can’t create a great
society without the image, the vision of greatness.
· 1Cor.13
· [1]
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am
become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
· [2]
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all
knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and
have not love, I am nothing.
· [3]
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to
be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me
nothing.
· [4]
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up,
· [5]
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own,
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
· [6]
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth
in the truth;
· [7]
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things.
· [8]
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be
knowledge, it shall vanish away.
· [9]
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
· [10]
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be
done away.
· [11]
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
things.
· [12]
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in
part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
· [13]
And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but
the greatest of these is love.
· 1Cor.8
· [1]
Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge.
Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.
· [2]
And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
· [3]
But if any man love God, the same is known of him.
· 1Cor.10
· [1]
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
· [2]
And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
· [3]
And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
· [4]
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual
Rock that followed them: and that
· Rock
was Christ.
· (12)
[4] Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
· [5]
And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
· [6]
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
· [7]
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
· [8]
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of
knowledge by the same Spirit;
· [9]
To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the
same Spirit;
FDR as the man of the
centuries:
The end of the 1900’s -
The ghost in the
Machine - Hiroshima
and FDR I have a few reflections - I get stuck on the idea of management of
social affairs. Social planning, engineering, governance - what I have been
into for 40 years - Since FDR the man of the century because he saw beyond his
times - but have seen little progress on this side of the water since the new
deal.
The EU is a beacon of
reason in a sea of vaporous passions and historical ghosts.
The issue of self
governance
The issue of the next
century is social and technical control of the process of change. Can human
society govern itself ?
The rise of the
industrial state and self government
is
several centuries old but takes on new urgencies and forms. It is time to get
serious about social management and institutions of political control. We will
be in for big trouble if we continue to use 18th and 19th century political
system to mismanage a 21st century civilization. From Roman times the
population doubled from 500 million, 125 million in the Empire, to a billion
around the turn of this century. When I was born it had grown to 2 billion and
US to 125 million. By the time of my first born it had doubled to 4 billion and
US at 200 million ( 1960’s ) and now stands at 6 billion, US at 275 million (
not the 8 it would have if the rate from the 60’s had not declined from 2.75 %
to under 2 % annual compounded growth )
Americans simply are
not being practical or rational about systems of governance. Popular culture is
full of anti-government sentiment and the naive belief that individuals and
free markets can manage on their own - without guidance and control from
outside - and that government is just in the way. Nothing could be more wrong
and more dangerous - especially to the social classes where the old ideologies
persist. As FDR saved the capitalist from their own misplaced ideologies,
business is most dependent on social order and stability. Business people have
most to loose by social unrest and revolutions. Social stability can not just
be maintained by "law and order" police tactics. Society must express
"synergy" the sharing of benefits of participation widely.
The natural desire not
to pay taxes and have it all your own way should not obscure real
responsibilities to contribute to human progress, better communities, cultural
development and civilization through collective action.
First, self government
was only for white property owning males, English, French, Dutch, Scandinavian
or Swiss.
Then in the 19th century
the popular franchise spread across Europe and
the social classes.
In the 20th century the
franchise expanded to included women and non-whites. People now believe in the
inevitable spread of popular government, civil liberty, commercial law and
industrial capitalism to all parts of the globe. But we pay little or no
attention to how, in what form, by what means, and plan for social and
political participation. It may not just happen by itself. Europe and other
international organization from the Olympics, the Red Cross, NATO to the United
Nations, are involved in the invention of new forms of society and social
management. This has to be the pattern for the rest of the world -
transitional, experimental, trans-national, rational systems of governance.
The American system of
government is hopelessly inadequate to met the
challenges of the next century. Its terrible structural faults are partly
hidden by a mostly prosperous society that manages despite the system. Our good
luck may not last much longer.
The social costs are
adding up in family breakdown, crime, education, health and welfare -
infrastructure - traffic - environmental, and cultural degradation.
Why do we have more of
our population in jail than almost any other society ?
Why in some populations are there more young men in jail than in school ? OK, donut pay attention - your all right Jack ?
Modern economic and
political institutions may now encompass more than half of the peoples of the
planet. Which means that about half live under older traditional or mixed
social economic systems - democracy and capitalism is not established in much
of China, Russia, much of the tropics from South Asia and the middle east, or
in most of Africa; but we assume progress will come in time.
Popular democracy is
assumed to be more rational, peaceful, and prosperous. We have a lot to learn
about popular government and economics. We have NOT solved the issues of self
rule and economic policy. New global depressions, wars, famines, and other man
made ecological or natural disasters have NOT been removed from the future as
they were not absent in the past.
The need for smart,
stable and swift collective institutions has not diminished but increased.
The only way to improve
institutions is by invention and experiments. If we just worship the ancient
order we wont create the new order. NOVUS ORDO
SECLORUM, Hunt noted an allusion to line 5 of Virgil's ECLOGUE IV, which read
in an eighteenth-century edition : "MAGNUS AB
INTEGRO SECLORUM NASITUR ORDO". Hunt translated this line as "
The great series of
ages begins anew" and translated the motto as "a new order of
centuries." More recently, "a new order of the
ages." See below
The century marks are
used to organize our ideas of history.
The theme of the 20th century
will be seen as the flowering of the machine age - from steel and steam to
electrical and chemical, in a every faster growing technological society
getting more and more out of control as institutions of leadership cant keep up
with the pace of change.
Public heath causes a
population explosion without much response in terms of family planning, advanced technology benefited some but is marked
by the image of Hiroshima.
The automobile
increases mobility but also urban sprawl and global warming, communications -
electrify and telephone, radio, television, sparked vast economic expansions
and are the center pieces of our times. But, what is popular television except
a great cultural wasteland, the opium of the masses, and it was an airplane
that delivered the bomb to Japan
opening the Atomic age.
The 20th century opened
with a great faith in human progress.
The world was
controlled by Europeans and the English with a great colonial empire.
Technological superiority translated into military, social and political power.
The century was marked
by two great European Wars. Technology turned evil, causing terrible crimes
among the most advanced cultures. Germany, a center of culture and
technological masterpieces, acted as a barbarian horde bring the very idea of
progress into doubt.
We have just returned
to a faith in progress, in history with direction - not a tale told by an
idiot, sound and fury signifying nothing.
The quick summary of
the 1900’s would have to center on social morals and advanced technology. We
have not been very good at bring either a rational system of social control to
advanced technology or our own behavior.
The methods of the past
are in decline ( the thesis ) the new world order has yet to form ( antithesis
) thus the century is one of transition - either to new and greater chaos -
family and moral deterioration, marginal religion, loss of ethic and nation
identify, crime and social unrest brought on by population pressure, urban
decay, and economic inequalities, Or peace and freedom in a wealthy and
democratic global order, if we choose to get serious about social management.
If the hope and hype
for human progress is going to have meaning for the global six billion then new
experiments and invention in governments are more important than new
technology, of which we all ready have more than we know how to control.
We started the century
with about one billion poor souls on planet earth.
In 1900 the USA not yet
over 100 million in population, with just over 50 % urban, most people lived in
stable clans, ethic, religious and national families - and with a fairly clear
establishment or ruling class. We end the century with almost 300 million, most
quite well off, an amorphous ruling class of property owners and managers,
ruled by technocrats and professional politicians, the emulsification of
cultures from mass media and global economics, and not all that certain of a
new and bright future. http://www.fi.edu/qa98/musing12/musing12.html
People of the Great
Seal Franklin Delano
Roosevelt
FDR Puts the Great Seal
on the One-Dollar Bill in 1935
The story of how
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to put both sides of the Great Seal
on the back of the one-dollar bill is recorded in a letter from then Secretary
of Agriculture (and later Vice President) Henry A Wallace. On February 6, 1951,
Wallace wrote: In 1934 when I was Sec. of Agriculture I was waiting in the
outer office of Secretary [of State Cordell] Hull and as I waited I amused
myself by picking up a State Department publication which was on a stand there
entitled, "
The
History of the Seal of the United
States."
Turning to page 53 I noted the colored reproduction of the reverse side of the
Seal.
The Latin phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum
impressed me as meaning the New Deal of the Ages.
Therefore I took the
publication to President Roosevelt and suggested a coin be put out with the
obverse and reverse sides of the Seal. Roosevelt
as he looked at the colored reproduction of the Seal was first struck with the
representation of the "All-Seeing Eye," a Masonic representation of
The
Great Architect of the Universe. Next he was impressed
with the idea that the foundation for the new order of the ages had been laid
in 1776 but that it would be completed only under the eye of the Great
Architect. Roosevelt like myself
was a 32nd degree Mason.
He suggested that the
Seal be put on the dollar bill rather than a coin and took the matter up with
the Secretary of the Treasury. When the first draft came back from the Treasury
the obverse side was on the left of the bill as is heraldic practice.
Roosevelt insisted that
the order be reversed so that the phrase "of the United States"
would be under the obverse side of the Seal. I believe he was also responsible
for introducing the word "Great" in the phrase
"
The Great Seal" as
it is found under the reverse side of the Seal on the left of our dollar bills.
Roosevelt was a great stickler for details and loved playing with them, no
matter whether it involved the architecture of a house, a post office or a
dollar bill.
In a 1955 letter,
Wallace added some further details to the story: I was struck by the fact that
the reverse side of the Great Seal had never been used. I called it to Roosevelt's attention. He brought it up in Cabinet
meeting and asked James Farley [Postmaster General and a Roman Catholic] if he
thought the Catholics would have any objection to the "All-Seeing
Eye" which he as a Mason looked on as a Masonic symbol of Deity. Farley
said "no, there would be no objection."
According to its
official history, the Great Seal was not designed by Masons. And according to
the Masons themselves, the Great Seal is not a Masonic symbol. Back of the 1934
one-dollar bill Reference:
The Eagle and the
Shield, by Richard S. Patterson & Richardson
Dougall, published in 1976 by the Office of the
Historian, Department of State. FDR's annotated dollar proof
courtesy of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. a
short monodrama commemorating the occasion of FDR's death
The true story of how
the Eagle and the Pyramid got on the Great Seal: http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/fdr1935.html
©1999-2000 John D. MacArthur
The Pyramid on the
Great Seal of the United States From THE EAGLE AND THE SHIELD - A History of
the Great Seal of the United States (1976), page 75, we find Charles Thomson's
notes on his design - A pyramid unfinished
In the Zenith an Eye in
a triangle ...
Over the Eye these
words Annuit coeptis ...
and underneath [the pyramid] these words Novus Ordo seclorum."
The pyramid was taken
from an earlier design of William Barton (shown on page 67) that had a
different motto DEO FAVENTE (God favoring) PERENNIS (through the years). This,
in turn, was similar to the design of a Fifty Dollar bill designed by Francis Hopkinson. Thomson wrote the following:
"
The pyramid signifies
Strength and Duration:
The Eye over it &
Motto allude to the many signal interposition's of
providence in favor of the American cause.
The date underneath is
that of the Declaration of Independence
and the words under it signify the beginnings of the New American Era, which
commences from that date." P85.
P89. "
The two mottoes which
Thomson suggested, and Congress adapted, for the
reverse ... can be traced more definitely to the poetry of Virgil. Gaillard Hunt, in the Department of States first publisher
on the seal in 1892, took official notice .... Annuit Coeptis, was described by
Hunt as an allusion to line 625 of book IX of the Aeneid
JUPITER OMNIPOTES, AUDACIBUS ANNUE COEPTIS (All-powerful Jupiter favor [my]
daring undertakings).
The last three words appear
also in Virgil's GEORGICS, book I, line 40: DA FACILEM
CURSUM, ATQUE AUDACIBUS ANNUE COEPTIS (Give [me] an easy course, and favor [my]
daring undertakings). Thompson changed the imperative ANNUE to ANNUIT, the
third person singular form of the same verb in either the present tense of the
perfect tense.
The the
motto ANNUIT COEPTIS the subject of the verb must be supplied, and the
translator must also choose the tense. In his 1892 brochure, Hunt suggested
that the missing subject was in effect the eye at the apex of the pyramid ...
and he translated the motto-in the present tense- as "it (the Eye of Providence) is favorable
to our undertakings." In later publication the missing subject of the verb
ANNUIT was construed to be God, and the motto has been translated in more
recent Department publication- in the perfect tense- as "He (God) has
favored our undertakings".
P90. NOVUS ORDO
SECLORUM, Hunt noted an allusion to line 5 of Virgil's ECLOGUE IV, which read
in an eighteenth-century edition : "MAGNUS AB
INTEGRO SECLORUM NASITUR ORDO". Hunt translated this line as "
The great series of
ages begins anew" and translated the motto as "a new order of
centuries." More recently, "a new order of the
ages." P91. Hunt stated that the words ANNUIT COEPTIS NOVUS ORDO
SECLORUM had "commonly been taken as one motto, meaning 'the new series of
ages is favorable to our undertakings'", but he pointed out that it was
evident from Thomson's comments that the "intention was to have two
mottoes."
P529 - Did Freemasonry
Influence the Great Seal Design? Because membership records for the
Revolutionary period are scattered and imperfect, it is not possible to
ascertain with certainty which persons among the 14 who participated in the
designing of the Great Seal were Masons and which were not. Conrad Hahn, Ex Sec
of the MSA of the US
has furnished the following.
· 1.
Definitely a Mason: Bro. Ben Franklin.
· 2.
Definitely not: John Adams and Charles Thomson
· 3.
No firm evidence of a Masonic connection, although allegations of
· such a connection have been noted:
Jefferson, Lovell, Hopkinson,
· Middleton,
Rutledge.
· 4.
No record at all,
so
presumably not Masons: Du Simitiere,
Scott, Houston, Lee, Boudinot, and William Barton
(although he has at times been confused with another William Barton who was a
Mason). Although Washington
was a Mason, he played no role in designing the Great Seal. And although
Franklin, a Mason, was a member of the first seal committee, his proposal (P14)
had no influence on the final designs, and he was in France when those designs were
drawn up.
The only individual
listed who has been said to be a Mason (with no firm evidence) is Hopkinson, whose pyramid design for the
Continental currency's $50 bill clearly influenced the final reverse of
the Great Seal.
The pyramid, the eye,
and the radiant triangle have often been considered to be of Masonic origin.
Writers who are Masons have also seen Masonic symbolism in the eagle, in the
number of feathers on the eagle's wings, etc. It should perhaps be noted that
some of the details studied and interpreted by these writers are those of
comparatively recent realizations of the Great Seal, details which are not
stated in the blazon itself and are not to be found in the Great Seal die of
1782.
Without questioning the
fact that element of the Great Seal design are also to be found as Masonic
symbols, one may question whether the designers of the seal intended it to be
given a specifically Masonic interpretation. Since there is no evidence that
either Thomson or Barton was a Mason, and as they were the two individuals
responsible for the final design, the presumption would be that they did not
intend their work to be given a Masonic interpretation.
Were there
sources other that FreeMasonry from which symbols
such as the all-seeing eye and the unfinished pyramid could have been taken?
The answer is yes. Use
of the eye in art forms, including medallion art, as a symbol for an omniscient
and ubiquitous Deity was a well established artistic convention quite apart
from Masonic symbolism, and Du Simitiere,
an artist would have been aware of this. As to the Pyramid, there was
widespread interest in Egypt
in the 18th century.
There was a detailed
work entitled Pyramidographia which would have been
available to both Hopkinson and Barton. This work
included a drawing of the "First Pyramid", which was stepped, did not
come to a complete point, and had an entrance in the center on the ground
level- a detail also in Hopkinson's design.
While these points are
not conclusive, it seems likely that the designers of the Great Seal and the
Masons took their symbols from parallel sources, and unlikely that the seal
designers consciously copied Masonic symbols with the intention of incorporating
Masonic
Symbolism
into the national Coat of Arms.
Use of the motto
"In God We Trust" - P518From the House Committee on the Judiciary
(3/28/1956) This joint resolution establishes "In
God We Trust" as the national motto of the U.S. At present the U.S. has no
national motto. It is most appropriate that "In God We Trust" be so
designated.... Further recognition of this motto was given by the adoption of
the Star-Spangled Banner as our national anthem. One stanza ... is as follows:
"And this be our motto -- 'In God is our trust.'" Maybe it is just
coincidence, but I believe I remember that Francis Scott Key was a FreeMason.
People of the Great
Seal Franklin Delano
Roosevelt
FDR Puts the Great Seal
on the One-Dollar Bill in 1935
The story of how
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to put both sides of the Great Seal
on the back of the one-dollar bill is recorded in a letter from then Secretary
of Agriculture (and later Vice President) Henry A Wallace. On February 6, 1951,
Wallace wrote: In 1934 when I was Sec. of Agriculture I was waiting in the
outer office of Secretary [of State Cordell] Hull and as I waited I amused
myself by picking up a State Department publication which was on a stand there
entitled, "
The
History of the Seal of the United
States."
Turning to page 53 I noted the colored reproduction of the reverse side of the
Seal.
The Latin phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum
impressed me as meaning the New Deal of the Ages.
Therefore I took the
publication to President Roosevelt and suggested a coin be put out with the
obverse and reverse sides of the Seal. Roosevelt
as he looked at the colored reproduction of the Seal was first struck with the
representation of the "All-Seeing Eye," a Masonic representation of
The
Great Architect of the Universe. Next he was impressed
with the idea that the foundation for the new order of the ages had been laid
in 1776 but that it would be completed only under the eye of the Great
Architect. Roosevelt like myself
was a 32nd degree Mason.
He suggested that the
Seal be put on the dollar bill rather than a coin and took the matter up with
the Secretary of the Treasury. When the first draft came back from the Treasury
the obverse side was on the left of the bill as is heraldic practice.
Roosevelt insisted that
the order be reversed so that the phrase "of the United States"
would be under the obverse side of the Seal. I believe he was also responsible
for introducing the word "Great" in the phrase
"
The Great Seal" as
it is found under the reverse side of the Seal on the left of our dollar bills.
Roosevelt was a great stickler for details and loved playing with them, no
matter whether it involved the architecture of a house, a post office or a
dollar bill.
In a 1955 letter,
Wallace added some further details to the story: I was struck by the fact that
the reverse side of the Great Seal had never been used. I called it to Roosevelt's attention. He brought it up in Cabinet
meeting and asked James Farley [Postmaster General and a Roman Catholic] if he
thought the Catholics would have any objection to the "All-Seeing
Eye" which he as a Mason looked on as a Masonic symbol of Deity. Farley
said "no, there would be no objection."
According to its
official history, the Great Seal was not designed by Masons. And according to
the Masons themselves, the Great Seal is not a Masonic symbol. Back of the 1934
one-dollar bill Reference:
The Eagle and the
Shield, by Richard S. Patterson & Richardson
Dougall, published in 1976 by the Office of the
Historian, Department of State. FDR's annotated dollar proof
courtesy of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. a
short monodrama commemorating the occasion of FDR's death
The true story of how
the Eagle and the Pyramid got on the Great Seal: http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/fdr1935.html
©1999-2000 John D. MacArthur
The Pyramid on the
Great Seal of the United States From THE EAGLE AND THE SHIELD - A History of
the Great Seal of the United States (1976), page 75, we find Charles Thomson's
notes on his design - A pyramid unfinished - In the Zenith an Eye in a triangle
... Over the Eye these words Annuit coeptis ... and underneath [the pyramid] these words Novus Ordo seclorum."
The pyramid was taken
from an earlier design of William Barton (shown on page 67) that had a
different motto DEO FAVENTE (God favoring) PERENNIS (through the years). This,
in turn, was similar to the design of a Fifty Dollar bill designed by Francis Hopkinson. Thomson wrote the following:
"
The pyramid signifies
Strength and Duration:
The Eye over it &
Motto allude to the many signal interposition's of
providence in favor of the American cause.
The date underneath is
that of the Declaration of Independence
and the words under it signify the beginnings of the New American Era, which
commences from that date." P85.
P89. "
The two mottoes which
Thomson suggested, and Congress adapted, for the
reverse ... can be traced more definitely to the poetry of Virgil. Gaillard Hunt, in the Department of States first publisher
on the seal in 1892, took official notice .... Annuit Coeptis, was described by
Hunt as an allusion to line 625 of book IX of the Aeneid
JUPITER OMNIPOTES, AUDACIBUS ANNUE COEPTIS (All-powerful Jupiter favor [my]
daring undertakings).
The last three words
appear also in Virgil's GEORGICS, book I, line 40: DA
FACILEM CURSUM, ATQUE AUDACIBUS ANNUE COEPTIS (Give [me] an easy course, and
favor [my] daring undertakings). Thompson changed the imperative ANNUE to
ANNUIT, the third person singular form of the same verb in either the present
tense of the perfect tense.
The the
motto ANNUIT COEPTIS the subject of the verb must be supplied, and the
translator must also choose the tense. In his 1892 brochure, Hunt suggested
that the missing subject was in effect the eye at the apex of the pyramid ...
and he translated the motto-in the present tense- as "it (the Eye of Providence) is favorable
to our undertakings." In later publication the missing subject of the verb
ANNUIT was construed to be God, and the motto has been translated in more
recent Department publication- in the perfect tense- as "He (God) has
favored our undertakings".
P90. NOVUS ORDO
SECLORUM, Hunt noted an allusion to line 5 of Virgil's ECLOGUE IV, which read
in an eighteenth-century edition : "MAGNUS AB
INTEGRO SECLORUM NASITUR ORDO". Hunt translated this line as "
The great series of
ages begins anew" and translated the motto as "a new order of
centuries." More recently, "a new order of the
ages." P91. Hunt stated that the words ANNUIT COEPTIS NOVUS ORDO
SECLORUM had "commonly been taken as one motto, meaning 'the new series of
ages is favorable to our undertakings'", but he pointed out that it was
evident from Thomson's comments that the "intention was to have two
mottoes."
P529 - Did Freemasonry
Influence the Great Seal Design? Because membership records for the
Revolutionary period are scattered and imperfect, it is not possible to
ascertain with certainty which persons among the 14 who participated in the
designing of the Great Seal were Masons and which were not. Conrad Hahn, Ex Sec
of the MSA of the US
has furnished the following. 1. Definitely a Mason: Bro. Ben Franklin.
2. Definitely
not: John Adams and Charles Thomson
3. No firm evidence of
a Masonic connection, although allegations of such a connection have been
noted: Jefferson, Lovell, Hopkinson, Middleton,
Rutledge.
4. No record at all, so presumably not Masons: Du
Simitiere, Scott, Houston, Lee, Boudinot,
and William Barton (although he has at times been confused with another William
Barton who was a Mason). Although Washington
was a Mason, he played no role in designing the Great Seal. And although
Franklin, a Mason, was a member of the first seal committee, his proposal (P14)
had no influence on the final designs, and he was in France when those designs were
drawn up.
The only individual
listed who has been said to be a Mason (with no firm evidence) is Hopkinson, whose pyramid design for the
Continental currency's $50 bill clearly influenced the final reverse of
the Great Seal.
The pyramid, the eye,
and the radiant triangle have often been considered to be of Masonic origin.
Writers who are Masons have also seen Masonic symbolism in the eagle, in the
number of feathers on the eagle's wings, etc. It should perhaps be noted that
some of the details studied and interpreted by these writers are those of
comparatively recent realizations of the Great Seal, details which are not
stated in the blazon itself and are not to be found in the Great Seal die of
1782. Without questioning the fact that element of the Great Seal design are
also to be found as Masonic symbols, one may question whether the designers of
the seal intended it to be given a specifically Masonic interpretation. Since
there is no evidence that either Thomson or Barton was a Mason, and as they
were the two individuals responsible for the final design, the presumption
would be that they did not intend their work to be given a Masonic
interpretation. Were there sources other that FreeMasonry
from which symbols such as the all-seeing eye and the unfinished pyramid could
have been taken?
The answer is yes. Use
of the eye in art forms, including medallion art, as a symbol for an omniscient
and ubiquitous Deity was a well established artistic convention quite apart
from Masonic symbolism, and Du Simitiere,
an artist would have been aware of this. As to the Pyramid, there was
widespread interest in Egypt
in the 18th century.
There was a detailed
work entitled Pyramidographia which would have been
available to both Hopkinson and Barton. This work
included a drawing of the "First Pyramid", which was stepped, did not
come to a complete point, and had an entrance in the center on the ground
level- a detail also in Hopkinson's design.
While these points are
not conclusive, it seems likely that the designers of the Great Seal and the
Masons took their symbols from parallel sources, and unlikely that the seal
designers consciously copied Masonic symbols with the intention of incorporating
Masonic Symbolism into the national Coat of Arms.
Use of the motto
"In God We Trust" - P518 From the House
Committee on the Judiciary (3/28/1956) This joint resolution establishes
"In God We Trust" as the national motto of the U.S. At present
the U.S.
has no national motto. It is most appropriate that "In God We Trust"
be so designated.... Further recognition of this motto was given by the
adoption of the Star-Spangled Banner as our national anthem. One stanza ... is
as follows: "And this be our motto -- 'In God is our trust.'" Maybe
it is just coincidence, but I believe I remember that Francis Scott Key was a FreeMason. -- pflaump@usa.com Dr. Peter E. Pflaum,
GlobalVillages http://www.wiredbrain.net/ pflpflpflpflaump@cfl.rr.comBox
2176 New Smyrna
Beach FL. 32170386428 9609 FAX386428 7924
And
it's free
Http
copies of SYNERGY JOURNALS write to pfpfpfpflaump@cfl.rr.comter
E. Pflaum Ph.D. , Headmaster GLOBAL_VILLAGE_SCHOOLHOUSE 225 Robinson Road, New
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