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Imagination is . . .
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein
Albert also wisely observed that we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. With these two thoughts in mind, here are some suggestions to improve things.
- Eliminate taxes entirely. We think taxes are necessary because we’ve never known anything else but do we really need them to make things work? No, we don’t. Taking money from the private sector to pay for the public sector makes both sides feel cheated. Besides, this is no longer possible because the private sector can no longer pay for the huge number of government workers. The money just isn’t there and that isn’t going to change. We’ve no choice but to find a new way.
- Set up our own Bank of Oregon. We all know what banks do but never stop to consider what they could do with a little imagination. If we had our own state bank everyone could have a job guarantee, with paychecks and benefits like government workers. In a democracy, majority rules so if we wanted we could just change the way things are paid for. That doesn’t mean everyone would become a public employee but it would mean that everyone has a good wage regardless of what kind of work they do. Bargaining could set pay scales, just as is done now in Germany. Everyone would have an account in our bank and a debit card. Deposits would be entered monthly with an accounting notation, just like money is created in private banks (out of thin air).
- Put moms on the payroll. We forget, in our constant scrambling to earn a living, just what the real product of our society is – the next generation. Do you think a mother doesn’t deserve an income for this most precious and backbreaking work? And what of the elderly who deserve a rest after a lifetime of labor? We should measure economic success in everyone being provided for, every able-bodied person having training and a job contributing to the public weal. We just need a new accounting trick. The old trick isn’t working anymore.
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THE TEA PARTY CROWD:
“I have several “tea bagger” friends, and they are funny. They are against big government but support the creation of the Homeland Security Department and the Transportation Security Administration for $62 billion annually.
They are against deficit spending but support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, projected to cost $3 trillion.
They are against “Wall Street” and “Fat Cats” but they support the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which rescinded key protections within the Glass-Steagall Act, enabling the current financial crisis. They are also against the Federal Reserve (and are clueless as to its purpose) but complain about lack of lending.
They are strict constitutionalists, but they are in favor of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, suspending of habeas corpus, torture, extraordinary rendition, and other Bill of Rights abuses. They are against government control and intrusion, but they support the Patriot Act.
Tea-baggers are amazingly self-contradictory and they really don’t know what they are mad about.
There are no simple solutions to any of the issues we face. However, there are rational approaches that can work with a concerted effort. Sadly, ignorance always has a price.”
Dr. Steve Belovich, Richfield, OH.,
Letter to the editor, The Progressive, March 2010
Can’t add anything to this…
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The government we deserve…
When we condemn congress we’re really just condemning ourselves. We have always had a government for sale to everything but the public interest. Lincoln above all understood this and we’ve been governed by executive orders ever since. The President can do anything his heart desires without the consent of congress, the courts, the constitution or even the people’s will. If we don’t like it we can impeach him but until then, he’s the boss. Most states, Oregon included, grant their governors the “executive power.” The reason is obvious – every ship needs a Captain in time of trouble. If you don’t think Oregon and the rest of the country is in trouble you haven’t been paying attention.
I have made my intent clear, that if elected I will issue several executive orders my first day in office. Our legislature in Salem is as gridlocked by stubborn ideology as is the one in Washington, DC and therefore, useless. I intend to mostly ignore them and simply do what needs to be done. Here again is the list:
- Pardon all persons ever convicted of a consensual crime.
- Institute publicly funded elections and ban all contributions/gifts to office holders and candidates.
- Found a state bank to make zero interest loans to develop Oregon’s infrastructure. http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/but_governor.php
- Institute single-payer healthcare and single-payer legal.
- Fund engaging new interactive PC teaching courses on all subjects to improve learning, starting with math and civics.
- Re-empower juries to judge the law.
- Ban Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).
- Legalize Hemp.
- Eliminate all taxes and fees on businesses. (Businesses don’t pay taxes, they collect them).
- Castrate violent criminals in lieu of prison. (First the good news, you’re getting out of prison!) ha
That should fix things nicely. I think you deserve it, seriously.
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A conversation with my old high school buddies
A conversation with my old high school buddies, six against one as usual.
Why am I always the one in the minority? I am a bit comforted by the old saws, “Everything you know is wrong!” And, “The minority is always right.” Anyway, here’s a recent missive I sent to my debate group of redneck Texas friends. We don’t let politics get in the way of friendship. No one would have ANY friends if they did…
You rotten bastards…
…for whom I have a profound esteem, I know we’ve gone round and round about single-payer but here’s the main reason I think it would improve things remarkably: I read a Reader’s Digest article years ago. A journalist went to a university dental school to find out exactly what work he needed. With this information in hand, he sought out 50 different dentists all over the eastern U.S. One dentist got it right. One other dental school got it right (with a professor supervising). The other 48 dentists had bids ranging from $4,500 to over $40,000 to “fix” his teeth (he had one small cavity). It occurred to me after reading this that physicians couldn’t be any more ethical than dentists as a general rule. I’ve read that up to 85% of surgical procedures are unnecessary. No idea how many prescriptions are also. I’m always hearing of some doctor having his patient bring in all his prescription drugs only to have the doctor throw them all away.
While I believe all should be handsomely rewarded, free enterprise is not a game physicians or dentists should be playing, lawyers either in my book. This all makes me happy that firemen are socialized; otherwise they’d be out setting fires to make more money.
Peace,
Jerry
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Public employee unions take notice…
If elected I will disband public employee unions in Oregon by Executive Order. You exempt yourselves from legal accountability. You systematically loot the public treasury with your gold-plated salaries, perks, pensions and “pay to play” fees. You bribe the legislature to jeopardize the finances of both the state and local governments, not to mention the finances of your employer, the taxpayers. If not constrained you will ruin us as assuredly as the United Auto Workers ruined American auto companies.
I will tie your pay scales and benefits to match the private sector, about a 34% reduction in pay and a 70% reduction in benefits. You will be treated like taxpayers in every way. You can get promoted, demoted, hired and fired on merit, just like everyone else.
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Don’t Talk to the Police!
Professor James Duane explains why innocent people should never talk to the police.
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What are we waiting for???
Back in ’92, as a Chief Petitioner on an Oregon Initiative to close the Trojan Nuclear Plant, I published a full-page treatise in the New York Times and all Oregon newspapers calling for the U.S. to build a solar power infrastructure based on a McDonnell Douglas invention called a GenSet. Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque has been tinkering with it for years to make it slightly more efficient but we could have been installing these things 20 years ago to supply 100% of the nation’s power – at one-tenth the cost of the Middle East wars for oil. Our shuttered auto factories could have been mass-producing these things. Detroit would not have a 50% unemployment rate and we could have eliminated our biggest national security threat, the radioactive fuel pools at commercial nuclear plants.
Oil companies weren’t too keen on this renewable fuel idea since these GenSets can also produce hydrogen gas for our cars and trucks and to heat our homes. Thanks to our lobbyist-controlled government, the public interest doesn’t always coincide with private interest. You can read more on this in Chapters 21 & 22 of my autobiography. Click on the book cover on the right.
A national Apollo type program to create a solar/hydrogen infrastructure would save us from the impending and certain economic collapse of our currency and economy. Worth doing, eh!
It’s time to email your congressman. Send them these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUvxtwJ1OM&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95kmrb-5Ugw&feature=channel
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2008/solargrid.html
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Government by Ponzi
The U.S. budget deficit for 2009 is $1,400,000,000,000. That’s not the budget, that’s the DEFICIT! $1.4 Trillion is $12,600 per family. The interest on this borrowing will cost another $2.8 Trillion over the life of a 30-year T-Bill. This year’s deficit alone will cost our kids and us $37,800; more than the average family earned in 2009. The 2010 deficit is going to be even bigger.
Is this nuts or what? Almost all the deficit spending went to military adventures and government employees. A tiny fraction was put into infrastructure capital, the remainder wasted, gone forever. Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus, we should follow his example and kick over the moneychanger’s table. Our moneychanger is the Federal Reserve; that privately owned franchise to legalize usury. Why are we paying interest on our own money! It’s unconstitutional of course but the constitution is whatever the judge says it is even when it says exactly the opposite! Judges, like the politicians who appoint them, watch the election returns. These elections are brought to us courtesy of the Republican and Democratic National Committees who dictate the candidates we’re allowed to choose between. This is no democracy. It’s a Ponzi scheme.
Yeah, but what can one person do about it? Well, you can vote for me. If elected I will establish (by executive order) a state bank to make interest free loans to develop and expand Oregon infrastructure projects and fund new sustainable manufactures. I will also (by executive order) ban political contributions (bribes) to office seekers and office holders. I’m a Chief Petitioner on an upcoming statewide initiative calling for campaign finance reform. What can one person do?
Quite a bit actually, like this man: “The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” Benjamin Franklin
Or this man: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies…if the American people ever allow private banks to control the currency…the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson
Uh oh, we have both a private bank and a huge standing army.
Viva la revolución!
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The Death Penalty and Why I’m For It
Oregon has 32 psychopaths languishing on death row, at great public expense, one of them having been waited on hand and foot for 19 years! I intend to put an end to their anguish as well as the anguish of the relatives and friends of their victims who have been denied justice. What is so difficult about signing a Death Warrant? Lots, actually, but that is the Governor’s job, unpleasant as it may be.
What mercy could one possibly extend to Cesar Barone? A former cellmate of Ted Bundy, no one knows how many women have been brutally murdered by this homicidal maniac. Reading this man’s rap sheet makes one wonder why he wasn’t hung at 19 after raping and murdering a 71-year-old neighbor in her bed. Or before that when he choked and beat his own grandmother with a rolling pin – for ten dollars! Why do we even have the death penalty if no governor has the political will to enforce it?
The arguments against the death penalty have merit but those arguments are far outweighed by the practical considerations of self-protection. No police officer, no one’s wife, mother or child is safe while these deranged killers live, nor are the guards who watch them as evidenced by the attack on a female guard by Cesar Barone.
I have no thirst for blood; indeed, I’m pretty much a pacifist – until it comes time to defend my own. Am I any different from you? Really?
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Why Johnnie Won’t Read
One third of high school graduates never read a book after graduation. Forty-two percent of COLLEGE GRADUATES never read a book after graduation! This is the outcome from an education system that consumes $10,000 per year per student of taxpayer money. Kitzhaber, Bradbury and the other candidates continue to foster the illusion that MORE money spent on education would solve our problems.
You must read this, then tell me more money spent on a Prussian military school system like ours will ever improve anything: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm
If we want to improve education we need only copy the system that produces the highest per capita income in the world, Switzerland’s. And while we’re in a copying mode, let’s adopt France’s healthcare system, also the best in the world. And if we want to get our budget under control we can copy Costa Rica and outlaw armies; that alone would cut our workweek in half with no loss of wages! We keep trying to re-invent the wheel when the obvious answers are available on the shelf.
Personally, I’m convinced the only alternative when a government like ours loses all moral authority is to secede and start over. It’s either that or bankruptcy, chaos and anarchy. We’ve reached that point. Of course, since most will never read this blog I may as well be talking to a fencepost. Nevertheless, one must do what one can.
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