Just Say Why

What are the Commons and why should we care?
by
David Schlecht

We’ve discussed the concerns over our Commons in previous posts, specifically on Reinventing Capitalism.

The Commons were originally defined as the parts of the property of a society that all or most of the people shared. As an example, a small tribe may need nearby grazing lands where they can allow their horses to graze.

As long as the tribe is small and as long as none of the tribe members decides to make a profit off the commons, everything works perfectly. But sooner or later someone will find a way to make money off allowing his cattle to graze and the more cattle he can use to exploit the free commons, the more money he can make at the expense of the rest of the tribe.

This situation typically leads to an agreement (law) that the commons are for everyone equally and nobody should make a profit at the expense of anyone else.

When humans weren’t over-populating the earth, many argued that the commons were limitless and we could always move to a new land once we’ve exhausted the current commons. Back when America was young, we could dump all our waste in the rivers and it would just mysteriously disappear, or so we thought.

This misconception that the commons were limitless caused America’s forefathers to overlook the immense need to protect the commons. They didn’t say we shouldn’t protect the commons but they didn’t explicitly protect them to the level we need today with our over population problems.

Today we are beginning to realize that everything provided by the earth should reasonably be considered the commons and protected as such. Automobile manufacturers are making profits by building cars that spew their waste into our limited atmosphere and not paying to clean it up. Eventually there won’t be any clean air left unless we protect our commons.

Many industries are making a profit while they dump their poisonous waste into our rivers and streams. Eventually there will be no more clean water unless we start protecting our commons.

Many more industries are treating our earth as a dumping ground for their toxic waste, and then moving on to new land when the run out of room. Eventually we will run out of land unless we start protecting our commons.

In present times, we consider our commons to include things like our airwaves. Also, utilities that have a right-of-way across our properties are also reasonably society’s commons.

Another kind of common is that which is required for a successful society. This includes education, the press (or specifically newspapers as defined by America’s founding fathers). Some argue that reasonable medical services are required for a successful society and should also be treated as our commons. That is a whole other topic for a post of another day.

America felt that phones where required for a functioning society so American tax dollars were spent to ensure that everyone could get phone service. The same applied to the supply of energy. These are also commons. That’s not to say that nobody can make money off them, but that no one can have such a strangle hold on them that people die so big business can make more money. Sounds like America’s medical system, doesn’t it?

Protecting the commons is the only way, I repeat, the only way that society can survive.

As we’ve seen, commons can change over time. What is required for a society to flourish today is not the same as what will be needed in the future.

Free Market Madness
by
David Schlecht

The next time someone tries telling you how wonderful the “free market” is and how it will solve all our problems, I suggest you stop and take a breath and really question it. Here’s why.

Though I’ve discussed the silliness of the supply side economics, or voodoo economics as it’s called, the “free market” is also based on outright lies.

Going all the way back to Econ 101, let’s revisit the economic structure of the robber barons. A middle class in an economy is something that does not grow or survive without political regulations and pressures. It’s that simple. Without regulations (in other word, a free market) pay for the working class will always reduce to subsistence levels. Always!

In a truly free economy, there are a few wealthy leeching off the misfortune of the rest of society. And then there are the working poor. There is basically nobody in between. In other words, no middle class.

Sure, there is a very small percentage of small business owners, but they are barely a step away from the working poor. Ever read any of Dickens’ stories? That is exactly how England’s free market worked in the 19th century; it’s how any free market works over time. Been to Somalia lately?

Other than the stinking and unethical rich, who would ever want such a society? Well, obviously someone is doing a great job of convincing the uneducated or naive that “free markets” are in our best interests.

There is no shortage of “think tanks” funded by the rich, whose sole job is to fool the gullible amongst us.

A “free market” society is an imoral society. Don’t believe the lies. It only causes disaster for anyone but the elite.

Finding the Right Balance
by
David Schlecht

The American Conservatives are working overtime trying to scare America about being socialist. They even go so far as to equate socialism with Communism. Firstly, it’s immoral and really sad to see a political party taking advantage of the ignorance of our fellow Americans. It only takes a few seconds to research the meaning of the two and one realizes that they are not equivalent. Shame on those Conservatives for taking advantage of the less fortunate.

Let’s talk about socialism, here. In simple terms, socialism is when a society unites together to ensure that certain needs are fulfilled. A good example of the dreaded socialism is our local police departments. We combine our tax dollars to ensure that everyone is protected by our socialist police departments. Personally, I like our socialist police departments. It was a good idea.

Our fire departments are socialist, as well. We have all combined our taxes to ensure that the fires will be put out, no matter whose house or whose neighborhood is on fire. Yes, a very good socialist idea, indeed.

Basically, almost everything about the services we collectively provide for each other through our taxes is socialism. And, all this socialism works quite well, until the Republicans get in power and privatize our social programs. Once profit is the primary purpose, the social value is lost.

Nobody really wants a social automobile industry, or computer industry. But, we do all agree that certain needs must be guaranteed, certain needs as defined by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. A good place to start is “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Is that where we want to draw the line? Or should we do like the Republicans want, and throw away the social programs our forefathers have put in place for us and our country?

Is socialism bad and evil like the Conservatives would like you to believe? Imagine a country without social programs. Somolia comes to mind. That’s the kind of country the Conservatives want us to become: the ultra rich feeding off the poor, sick, and dying. It really makes you want to vote in another Republican, doesn’t it?

So, I think we can all agree that we want some level of socialism in our country, at least we know the country’s founding fathers did. So, how much is the right amount?

Again, getting back to the words of our founding fathers:

• Life
• Liberty
• and the Pursuit of Happiness

Should we have a national health care system? This is so very obvious that it’s the first item on the list. Without a national helath care system, there is no life. Without an education and without our legal systems, there would be no liberty. And, without education, and a national financial system, there is no guarantee of the pursuit of happiness.

Simply put, the bare minimum that our founding fathers wanted for our citizens is:

• National Health Care, available to all (for the slower among us, that means free)
• Police and legal protection, available to all.
• Education, again free to all.

Now there are obviously numerous considerations that our founding fathers didn’t think of. For example 200 years ago, there wasn’t much thought of environmental protections, but without the EPA, today, there is no way to stop the greedy (Conservative-donating) corporations from destroying the world around us.

This short list of social programs that we don’t have contains services provided for free or almost free in all the other industrialized nations. In other words, the minimum requirements as put forth by our founding fathers are provided by all the first-world countries EXCEPT America.

How did this happen? You can thank the Conservatives.

Now, let me be fair. The Republican Party has not always been like this. Only in the post Reagan era have the Corrupt Conservatives been in total control of the Republican party. And, now that America is seeing exactly what the Conservatives have to sell, they’re abandoning the Republican Party in droves.

This is bad.

If we are going to have political parties, we need more than one. But, as we all see, the Republican Party marches in lock-step opposing all the things America’s founding fathers fought and died for.

How do we get the unhealthy conservative bent out of our political discourse? Now that the Democrats are in charge, the corrupt corporate conservatives are working overtime trying to corrupt the Democrats as well and we can guarantee that they will have some level of success, but hopefully, not the kind of success they’ve had with the Republican Party.

It’s time for the Republicans to retake control of their party and it’s time for America to kick out the caustic Conservative memes. Some level of socialism, as envisioned by our forefathers is a good thing. Now we only need to decide how much is enough.

What’s With the Thomas Paine Lies?
by
David Schlecht

I’ve seen numerous posts over the years questioning the sickness of unending deceit coming out of the Republican Party. Today is no different. Why would any political party want to lie about the political leanings of one of America’s Founding Fathers?

The new video out pushing the Tea Party features a Thomas Paine impersonator. I just don’t understand why a party would choose one of the more progressive forefathers and make him up to look like he would, in some remote way, support what the Republican Party stands for.

There is no question that the Republican Party relies heavily on the failure of their followers to question their motives, or to even possess a grade school education.

Thomas Paine was for taxing the rich, and ensuring that aristocracies don’t take root in our country. He was all for “stakes” which were his program for scholarships which would be given to the young to allow them to get educated and start businesses, by taxing the rich.

For those who didn’t pay attention in elementary school, the Tea Party was really a revolt against big business, with the name of The Honorable East Indian Trading Company. It was a revolt because this mega-corporation, like Wal-mart, was given unfair tax breaks that threatened to destroy New England’s tea houses. It was a revolt against all the things the Republican Party stands for.

Thomas Paine wrote extensively about building a social safety-net, like Social Security, to protect the people. Check out Rights of Man.

Simply put, Thomas Paine was for all the things that this Tea Party is against. The purpose of this Tea Party is to revolt against taxes on the rich, the same taxes they were paying before Reagan screwed up our country. Thomas Paine was for estate taxes. Yes, those exact taxes the organizers of the Tea Party are opposing.

The billion-dollar families in America have united to create the Tea Party and they’re relying on the ignorance of the Republican followers. How can they expect such stupidity? Well, because they haven’t been let down, yet. Will they this time?

Senate Votes to Bankrupt America
by
David Schlecht

Last week our Senate representatives voted 51 to 48 to further reduce taxes on the overly-wealthy, thusly putting our country further in debt. The taxes on the wealthy have been reduced over the past 30 years, just like the last great depression, and we wonder why we’re looking at another great depression. How can our representatives really vote this way? It’s not rocket science.

Here’s a list of who voted against it:

Congratulations to all of them for doing the right thing. Do you see anything missing from this list? That’s right. There’s not a single Republican that voted against this bill. Not a single one. The party that lies to us about fiscal responsibility is at their finest, here, further expanding our debt while paying off their rich contributors. Why does anyone still vote Republican? Obviously if you’re the 1/10 of 1% of the richest greediest scumbags of the country, I can see why you vote that way. The rest of us, there’s just no excuse.

This stupidity couldn’t have passed without a few sick Democrats enabling the Corrupt Conservatives.Who were these sickos? They should be removed from office, TODAY! Here’s the list:

Now, I also see Nevada’s Ensing voting for this, but then there’s never been any question who Ensing thinks he is supposed to represent, and it certainly isn’t the Nevada public.

Had enough Conservative Corruption yet? It’s time to weed out the corruption, Democrats and Republicans, alike.

The True Cost of Doing Business
by
David Schlecht

While walking around our neighborhood, today, I noticed a business driving around tossing out little plastic packets of coupons, leaving them in the gutters, on the sidewalks, in our driveways, on our lawns, in our flowerbeds, and who know where else. In a “reasonable” society, this would be fined as littering. In our world, this is considered “doing business”.

This particular business has arranged to have the neighbors and the tax payers pay to puck up the by-product or the cost of doing business. What a deal. If you and I decided we could save a couple bucks throwing our trash on the businesses properties and driveways and homes, we would be hauled off to jail, so why can they get away with it?

This is only one very simple example of businesses sloughing off the cost of doing business onto society. In the case of this particular business model, the tax structure for the business must include the cost of cleaning up after the business, or better yet, requiring that the business clean up after itself. They should also be required to reimburse the society for the time and cost they put into the cleanup process. Sure, it’s only a couple dollars per packet, but it would better define the success of the business model if they had to clean up after themselves.

We can take this example to the next level. There was a gravel pit up the road where a construction company was mining out gravel for doing some nearby road work. Now that the road work is done, the gravel mine is abandoned and the damage from the strip mining gapes like an open wound at the drivers who pass by, on the newly repaired roadway. The construction business, like any mining operation is causing damage to the environment that they should be repairing. First off, the businesses should be required to repair the damage they do and the tax structure should be set up so that regulation of these repairs is paid by the business, not the rest of society.

Let’s look at this topic from a higher perspective. All businesses should be required to retain the environment in a pristine condition. Costs to the environment must be taxed to the businesses, and those taxes must be used to restore from the damage. Where else does society pay for the cost of doing business? Let’s list just a few.

1. Regulatory agencies for policing the businesses
2. Infrastructure for providing access and services in and out of the business
3. Legal infrastructure for providing a means of redressing grievances with and between businesses. This, of course means the cost of police services, fire services, legal services, laws, courts and such.
4. Medical services to those affected by the businesses. In the case of nuclear power plants, surrounding neighborhoods pay for centuries after a nuclear power plant fails. This also includes the cost of medical services to heal the millions who become sick each year from the sale and burning of gasoline, ethanol, coal and other fuels.
5. The cost of cleaning all the carbon out of the environment.

This short list obviously only addresses a small fraction of the costs that businesses should bear but that are pushed off on society instead.

Why do we let this happen? If  businesses can’t remain profitable while cleaning up after themselves, they shouldn’t be in business. It’s that simple.

Now that we’re in the process of cleaning up our financial system, maybe it’s time we started requring businesses to pay their won costs of doing business.