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bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
52. Another "modest" proposal for the wealth of our nation
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 10:33 AM
Feb 2012

http://www.alternet.org/economy/154192/it%27s_time_we_get_to_cash_in_as_equity_owners_of_our_common_wealth/?page=entire

It's Time We Get to Cash in as Equity Owners of Our Common Wealth

... So why don’t we pay everyone some non-labor income — you know, the kind of money that flows disproportionally to the rich? I’m not talking about redistribution here, I’m talking about paying dividends to equity owners in good old capitalist fashion. Except that the equity owners in question aren’t owners of private wealth, they’re owners of common wealth. Which is to say, all of us.

One state—Alaska—already does this. The Alaska Permanent Fund uses revenue from state oil leases to invest in stocks, bonds and similar assets, and from those investments pays equal dividends to every resident ... It’s therefore no accident that, compared to other states, Alaska has the third highest median income and the second highest income equality.

... A major source of revenue could be clean air, nature’s gift to us all. Polluters have been freely dumping ever-increasing amounts of gunk into our air, contributing to ill-health, acid rain and climate change. But what if we required polluters to bid for and pay for permits to pollute our air, and decreased the number of permits every year? Pollution would decrease, and as it did, pollution prices would rise. Less pollution would yield more revenue. Over time, trillions of dollars would be available for dividends.


Goes on to talk about "dividends" from our banking system, airway rights, etc.

It's not that his idea is so terrible - for sure, our air/water/airwaves/land (think of all those cheap leases out west for grazing)/mines are part of our "Commons" and rightly our common wealth. But the article assumes that we can continue indefinitely "extracting" wealth one way or another from our "commons" - it notices no limits to growth, assumes we have plenty of time to clean up our air, and pretty much assumes that things will go on as they are. Nor, I think, does it touch real inequality - Bill Gates would still be stratospherically rich! Hurrah for him - no "class warfare here!"

To illustrate to what degree this proposal actually supports the status quo, he touts Alaska for it's "second highest income equality" but Alaska's Gini coefficient is about 0.422 while NY's is about 0.499 - sorry, I don't think that's a huge difference (I say "about" because I used WIKI for the Ginis). For a real difference, look at the Gini for the Scandinavian countries, which is in the 0.20's, while the US is in the 0.40's.

There is one more radical idea buried in the article:

Banks are another large recipient of our collective largesse. I’m not talking about bail-out funds; I’m talking about the hugely valuable right we give banks to create money out of nothing. Banks do this (with our generous permission) by lending roughly seven times the money customers deposit (this is called ‘fractional reserve banking’); they then charge interest on these magically minted dollars. This gift to banks is justified on the grounds that it injects needed cash into the economy, but a comparable boost could be achieved by giving people new government-issued dollars — for example, by wiring money to their bank accounts — and limiting bank lending to money actually on deposit. Fresh money would then trickle up through households rather than down through banks.


This rather echoes something I think every time Obama comes out with another of his boring proposals for more tax breaks for the Corps if they just will "do the right thing" - whatever the version of the right thing is today: the Corps are already sitting on huge profits - why not just give money to the people instead of the Corps, so the people can buy some of the things they need? (To my mind there's nothing more telling about what a true 1%er the Big O is than his constant prostrations before the all-holy "Market" and seemingly infinite willingness to hand over more and more of our $$ to the Corporate Masters of the Universe.)

This would, at least, have the virtue of alleviating some of the hardship down here in the 99% short-term. But it's no real solution - it too, presupposes we have time and lots of it to "fix" the death of the earth our insane consumption has caused - and we don't. (It also strikes me that the old usage of "Consumption" to denote TB is a good metaphor for our "consumption&quot

You know, thinking of this article and the one Demeter posted earlier that I replied to, it strikes me that a few of the more intelligent and aware of at least the conventional "Liberals" among TPTB are starting to get a little scared? Starting to think that we need to do something about the raw gaping wounds oozing on the rabble? Maybe more on that thought later.


NO BANK FAILURES THIS WEEKEND Demeter Feb 2012 #1
Court Overturns Conviction of Ex-Goldman Programmer Demeter Feb 2012 #2
ha,,,,,,,,,thanks n/t Celebration Feb 2012 #19
Very interesting indeed. dixiegrrrrl Feb 2012 #53
When Models Trump Common Sense Demeter Feb 2012 #3
Bill Gates pressures Obama over new mining and energy anti-corruption laws Demeter Feb 2012 #4
Anarchism Is Not What You Think It Is -- And There's a Whole Lot We Can Learn from It Demeter Feb 2012 #5
KROPOTKIN'S COLLECTED WORKS Demeter Feb 2012 #6
Wow..that IS a tresure chest of goodies. dixiegrrrrl Feb 2012 #54
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #7
Good Choice! Demeter Feb 2012 #10
Does College Make Us Less Equipped to Change the World? Demeter Feb 2012 #8
Of course, the hope at one time was snot Feb 2012 #34
Moyers: Meet the Shameless Plutocrats Choking What's Left of Our Democracy Demeter Feb 2012 #9
5 Brave Religious Leaders Who Fought Christian Theocracy in America Demeter Feb 2012 #11
Noam Chomsky: The Decline of American Empire (Part 2) Demeter Feb 2012 #12
Ben Franklin was already worried pscot Feb 2012 #16
Severe Conservative Syndrome By PAUL KRUGMAN Demeter Feb 2012 #13
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #14
Another excellent choice! Demeter Feb 2012 #20
Why Going 'Back To Normal' Is No Longer An Option for the American Economy -- And Where We're Headed Demeter Feb 2012 #15
The Book of Jobs By Joseph E. Stiglitz Demeter Feb 2012 #17
Goodnight for now, see you Saturday! Demeter Feb 2012 #18
Runaway Greed Is Destroying America: Should There Be a Lid on How Much Someone Can Make? Demeter Feb 2012 #21
Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself. Demeter Feb 2012 #22
How Does the 1 Percent Exploit America? Find Out in One Minute (Videos) Demeter Feb 2012 #24
This is a "modest" proposal - a `la Swift bread_and_roses Feb 2012 #35
Four Recent Victories Signal Hard Truth About Rebuilding Labor Movement Demeter Feb 2012 #23
In Europe, Great Depression Was Bad; This Is Worse by: Paul Krugman Demeter Feb 2012 #25
Capitalism, the Infernal Machine: An Interview With Fredric Jameson Demeter Feb 2012 #26
Why Our Currency Will Fail cmartenson Demeter Feb 2012 #27
PART 2: Surviving a Currency Crisis Demeter Feb 2012 #28
I STILL have difficulty watching the "disbelief and inaction" dixiegrrrrl Feb 2012 #56
Have a good Saturday...see you soon! Post Music! Post News! Post Commentary! Demeter Feb 2012 #29
nice and sunny morning! xchrom Feb 2012 #30
It is really pretty in Ohio today! DemReadingDU Feb 2012 #31
I have no hope. I see no future. Hotler Feb 2012 #32
+++ DemReadingDU Feb 2012 #36
Goldman reportedly delays samurai bond due to possible downgrade xchrom Feb 2012 #33
"Samurai" is better than "Kamikazi" Demeter Feb 2012 #42
China Cuts Bank Reserve Reqs; Exports ’Grim’ xchrom Feb 2012 #37
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #38
Right-on! n/t Hotler Feb 2012 #39
Excellent animated documentary about the unsustainability of our world DemReadingDU Feb 2012 #40
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #41
Farage, and interesting voice Po_d Mainiac Feb 2012 #43
Truer words were never spoken Demeter Feb 2012 #60
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #44
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #45
Musical Interlude hamerfan Feb 2012 #46
rainy this morning -- probably gonna turn to snow...can't put 2 nice days in a row together xchrom Feb 2012 #47
ECB 'played role' in Irish crisis xchrom Feb 2012 #48
Egypt-U.S. Rift May Imperil IMF Funding as Reserves Threaten Currency Run xchrom Feb 2012 #49
The Unvarnished Truth About Corporations from Dilbert Demeter Feb 2012 #50
Yesterday, My 93-year-old client remarked to me: Demeter Feb 2012 #51
Another "modest" proposal for the wealth of our nation bread_and_roses Feb 2012 #52
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WOW Demeter Feb 2012 #61
You're the only person - other than me - who xchrom Feb 2012 #65
Japan, China to coordinate on IMF efforts on euro zone xchrom Feb 2012 #57
The gods of technology have cascaded upon me Demeter Feb 2012 #58
the Laundromat is outrageous DemReadingDU Feb 2012 #59
Thank you! Thank you all! Demeter Feb 2012 #62
Thank you, Demeter! hamerfan Feb 2012 #63
I don't know about sanity, but we do try for truth Demeter Feb 2012 #67
Big weekend developments in China and Europe girl gone mad Feb 2012 #64
Since Monday is a Legal Holiday for SOME People Demeter Feb 2012 #66
are our Limosine Liberals getting scared of the simmering hoi polloi? bread_and_roses Feb 2012 #68
All of my money, time and energy now goes to the Occupy movement. girl gone mad Feb 2012 #69
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