If We Were Emperor!

by jan howard “wombat” finder

[“If We were Emperor” is the style I am using in order to frame my opinions.   I do not advocate the overthrow of the current US government or the Constitution.]

There are several things We would do in order to get the country and economy back on track:

Taxes: 

1. Repeal the two big tax cuts instituted by President Bush, in 2001 and in 2003.
2. Stimulus plan:  A cheque for $5,000 to everyone who has filed a 1040-based tax return in 2011.  [Assuming 150 million taxpayers, corporations NOT included, this would cost $750 Billion.] This would put the money into the hands of those who would give a boost to the economy, the consumers, by buying durable goods, paying down mortgages, etc. It would do what The President Bush said we should do, just after Sept 11, “go out and spend money”; it was said to individuals, not to corporations.
3. Boost for Lower and Middle-classes:  Raise the personal deduction to $7,500, indexed to the Cost of Living.
4. Cap the amount of taxable deduction for interest on home mortgages to $25,000 to $50,000 per year.  The interest cap could be indexed to the Cost of Living Index for that area.
5. Cap other governmental agencies at current spending levels for 5 years.

Education:

1. Grants: We would expand grants to students attending accredited institutions of higher education.
2. Loans: Students would pay off the Federally Funded Student Loans either: (a)    by paying a percentage of  their GROSS income, 1%, 2%, or other suitable percentage. This allows graduates to accept a lower paying job of their choice rather than be forced to accept a job that will not advance their careers.  (b)   or a standard loan agreement over 10 years at the Prime Rate plus 1%, payment to start one year after graduation.
3. Tuition Rebates: We would set up tuition rebates for students in Mathematics, Sciences, and Engineering at accredited institutions of higher education who achieve a cumulative 3.5 GPA or better by the end of their 3^rd academic year.  The rebate would be up to $10,000 or $20,000 in tuition rebates for the 3^rd and 4^th academic years.  This tuition rebate would also apply to Graduate Students.

Energy:

1. Energy Production: Accelerated depreciation [5 years on a plant designed to last 40 years.] on the Capital Costs of creating non-fossil fuel energy production assets, e.g., Wind turbines, Photovoltaic cells, Solar Updraft Towers, Hydrothermal plants, etc.
2. Equipment Installation: 100% deduction, depreciated over 3 years, for equipment and installation of alternate energy producing units by individuals and businesses in the tax year of installation.

Transportation:

1. Increase Federal gas tax: Add a10 cent a gallon increase in the Federal tax on petroleum products with the money going to maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure. NO NEW CONSTRUCTION! The Federal tax is earmarked for existing roads and bridges. We would add up to 10 cents every year for 5 years.  Each one cent [0.01] increase brings in about $1 billion dollars in revenue.  This is equivalent about 25,000 new jobs.  Each new job will bring in about 2 or 3 additional jobs into the market.  The 10 cent a gallon or equivalent increase in the Federal tax on petroleum products could result in approximately 500, 000 and 1 million new jobs.
2. State gas tax fund: Require states to put state gasoline taxes into a separate fund, to be spent on roads, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure. Most state gasoline taxes go into the General Fund and never get spent on infrastructure.
3. State funding: All states would be required to spend, not allocate, a minimum of 90% of the previous year’s road transportation budget or lose ALL Federal DoT funding the following year.
4. The cost of the increase in the tax is about $48 a year to the motorist who drives 12,000 miles a year and gets 25 mpg.  If one drives less and or has a more fuel efficient vehicle, the cost would be less.  What is the cost of a new tire, wheel alignment, wheel balancing, shock absorber, ball joints, etc.? The US’s poor infrastructure costs motorists $67 Billion a year.  [Taken from an ad by Audi.]

Social Security:

Raise the taxable limit for Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax to $250,000.  Increase this to $500,000 24 months after the previous increase.

Currently, someone who earns $102,000 pays 6.2%.  Someone who earns $250,000 pays 6.2% on the first $102,000, and pays 0% on the remaining $148,000.  Someone who makes $500,000 pays 6.2% of the first $102,000, and 0% on the remaining $398,000.

The first change would mean:  Someone who earns $250,000 pays 6.2%.  Someone who makes $500,000 pays 6.2% of the first $250,000, and 0% on the remaining $250,000.

6.2% of that $148,000 is significant. When the limit moves to $500,000:  Someone who earns $500,000 pays 6.2%.  Someone who makes $750,000 pays 6.2% of the first $500,000, and 0% on the remaining $250,000.

If someone currently making $102,000 or less can pay 6.2% of their income to FICA, certainly someone making $250,000 or more can manage.

Health:

1. Medicare/Medicaid: All Medicare, Medicaid, etc., payments would be frozen at current levels for 5 years.
2. Health Insurance:  Any US citizen would be allowed to sign up for The Federal Employees Health Benefits [FEHB] plan, the plan that is available to all federal government  employees. (It’s the same one members of Congress use.)  This would be a “Public Option.”  The Federal Government would pay approximate 75% of the premium and the individual-family would pay the other 25%.  The insured would be free to choose any of the several private insurance plans in the insured’s area: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, or in my case for example, the Capital District Physician’s Health Plan [CDPHP].  I get to choose my doctors [I easily switched urologists recently]. 

Department of Defense

1. A 5% across the board increase in pay and benefits for all Military Service personnel.  They don’t get anywhere near what they deserve.
2. The DoD budget would be frozen for 5 years.  While research would be encouraged, development would be limited to proof of concept prototypes.
3. DARPA would be encouraged to expand  its challenge programs: Set standards and let private inventors meet the challenge.  Sort of small X-Prize offer.
4. Decrease the DoD budget, potentially 5% a year or more, for 5 years:
   1. by evaluating the necessity of building expensive equipment simply because it’s “new”, when existing equipment is more than adequate for current and near-future projections of enemy capabilities (we’re not fighting the Soviets any more);
   2. by evaluating the necessity of building more of the expensive equipment that no longer meets the operational needs against current and near-future enemies (how many aircraft carriers do we need to fight, or support fights, in small towns in the Middle East?);
   3. and by bringing our service personnel and materiel back home. The ability to mobilize quickly, to transport personnel and materiel needed for quick strike missions, no longer requires the tremendous expenditures of overseas bases.

X-Prizes:

We would set up a series of Federally funded X-Prizes in areas of  need, i.e., energy, space exploration, engineering challenges.  The money would go to the winning teams, not to the institutions for whom they may work.  X-prize funds are not paid out until the established goals are met!

[This is my opinion.  I encourage you to write your own screed.]

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This is Mary again. It’s an interesting proposal. I think an open debate would probably not decrease the DoD budget, most of which goes to pensions, as I understand it. And if we want to encourage R&D, in my humble opinion we need to invest in it, not offer prizes to be awarded when the work is done, since it may never be economically possible to provide a proof of concept.  Still, lots of these things are good ideas.  Your thoughts?

While I’m on the topic, if you do a Google Images search for “jan howard finder” you will find lots of photos from Science Fiction conventions and other places which are the natural habitat for wombats. The lower case spelling is traditional for jan, although they have it wrong on Wikipedia. But then they didn’t mention jan as fan guest of honor at a Sci-Fi convention in Metz, France, either… when Robert Bloch was the guest of honor… or lots of other things, so maybe he’ll write a memoir!

I looked thru it quickly. And I actually agree with him on just about everything.  HOWEVER, having said that… please allow me to quote from one of my favorite movies of all time, Men In Black:

Kay: We do not discharge our weapons in view of the public!
Jay: Man, we ain’t got time for this cover-up bullshit! I don’t know whether or not you’ve forgotten, but there’s an Arquillian Battle Cruiser that’s about to…
Kay: There’s always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!

Now then, throughout time there has always been an Arquillian Battle Cruiser posed to destroy the earth, mankind, or the economy.  And yet somehow we’ve survived for hundreds of thousands of years.  For thousands of generations.  While it is true that we now have the technology to theoretically enable one person or a small group of people to destroy all life on this planet (or the planet itself)… I am reminded of the Nazi general (Dietrich von Choltitz) who refused to destroy Paris. Maybe people will restrain themselves from destroying life as we know it.  On the other hand, Dietrich von Choltitz did destroy Rotterdam, which was arguably an important military target. (Still, my husband was born there, so we’re a bit touchy on the subject.)

This is one of those YES, but ON THE OTHER HAND type of things.  I don’t know which economic story is right.  I see economic disaster all around us.  But disaster has always been there and always been a possibility.  I see “advances” in technology that can make bad people more powerful than in the past.  I see social patterns that weaken the majority of people economically and intellectually.  But I still wonder that maybe we ARE like cockroaches… very hard to kill.  I’m not sure, but I cling to a hope that things will straighten out, that our politicians will right some wrongs eventually, that a leader will emerge with the cojones to put us back on the right track, for a while, until the next mess.  As dear, sheltered, Emily Dickenson wrote:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

I can’t give up hope.  I still fill the hummingbird feeder.

That addresses the emotional content of these economic disaster newsletters, but the harsh reality is that maybe capitalism doesn’t work so well.  It harnesses so many aspects of human nature, that it seems like it should work. And democracy seems like it should work.  In theory it appeals to our better nature. But when you put the two of them together, we observe corporations buying politicians, buying the Supreme Court, Congress, and certainly influencing the White House.  The Supreme Court saying it’s ok for corporations to spend money to influence their best interests in elections? Come on. I don’t think the founding fathers had that in mind.  I hope that US citizens in their late teens, twenties, and older will take back the country.

Looking around the net for places where folks are considering the topics of democracy and capitalism, I found some fascinating things. I am reminded that the internet provides us with this wonderful, open communications medium to discuss our concerns, refute questionable facts, and share ideas. I’m still not convinced of what caused the “Arab Spring” this year, but if the answer is young, educated, unemployed citizens, the topic of democracy and capitalism deserves a whole lot of consideration.  It may be time for a serious adjustment. Mind you I love my country, but I don’t believe we’ve been on a constructive track since Bill Clinton was president.  And we need to think it over. What has made us successful in the past and what will make us successful in the future?

Some links to others considering the topic:  

The first interesting article I’ll mention is  Democracy and Capitalism, Why in the end the two are incompatible.  This is a British blog (Socialist Standard), and I don’t think Socialism is the answer, but the piece makes some good points and is worth reading.

Now here’s a url for you:  http://anticap.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/capitalist-democracy-as-organized-combat/

Anyone whose WordPress blog is titled ANTICAP may be a bit predictable, but you have to check out the great editorial cartoon on this page!  It’s the lead-in to a short blog titled ‘Capitalist democracy as “organized combat” ‘.  The focus is on  the links between inequality and the current economic crisis in the United States with pointers to the work of Jacob S. Hacker (of Yale) and Paul Pierson (of Berkeley), full article HERE.  (It requires some effort to get to the full article, so I’ve linked to it directly.) It is true enough that while economists have noted the increasing wealth disparity in the US, “students of American politics” have been remarkably quiet on the topic. (And that’s why I’m collecting and writing this, of course.) It’s a long, detailed read, but the best analysis of the current US economic and political situation I’ve seen.

Then there’s Henry Lamb on Capitalism’s Impending Demise. The point here is that there is no longer a free market economy in the US. It begins something like this: “Labor unions and government regulations have put an end to that era.” and goes on to bemoan the loss of streets paved with gold due to the evil Democrats. Yeah. Labor union membership has been declining every year since the government started keeping records, bozo, so you are – shall we say – full of it. But then my convictions are to support labor.  Organized labor IS part of a free market economy, guys.  The US Dept of Labor Statistics supplies this information: “In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1%, and there were 17.7 million union workers.” and this: “In 2010, the union membership rate — the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union — was 11.9%, down from 12.3% a year earlier.” More than half of current union members are public sector employees, by the way.  Draw your own conclusion about that.

The Economist in June 2003 ran an issue with the cover article: Capitalism and Democracy, which article I found on Bill Emmott’s website, as he is the author and editor of The Economist. If you have the time and patience to read it, it’s fantastically good.  He agrees that however dark it looks, somehow good times seem to recur eventually.  This time the abuses from inside the financial system have been worse than usual and the political backlash has not hit as strongly as one might expect yet. And that was written in 2003. Where’s the backlash? I don’t know, but the question is excellent.

Then there are some blogs which would appear to be fermenting the next American Revolution.  Worth looking at (great layout and illustrations):   Norman D. Livergood’s Completing the American Revolution. I don’t agree with everything here by any means, and I don’t think Obama is a fraud, BUT democracy and capitalism don’t seem to be working for the majority of people in the US.  At the very end of the piece, he admits that the US government provides more freedoms than other governments and has done some very good things.  So I present this as another “ON the one hand, ON the other hand” state of human/US affairs.

The Daily Kos has a blog entry titled Why Capitalism Is Evil, which might better be titled Capitalism can be proved Evil beyond a reasonable doubt.  It’s lengthy, but well argued and well researched with pointers to other books as well as Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story.  I admire the effort here and agree with much of it, but like most such excellent pieces, I am left wondering …. what do we do now? If we agree that capitalism, as practiced, does not work, keeping in mind that it did create the greatest nation on the planet, what do we try next?

I’m amused that a right wing website called NewsBusters which has the subtitle Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias (I could write a whole book on that topic alone, summary: balderdash) write what they consider a scathing review of Michael Moore’s Capitalism and it reads as a fairly great review. Their complaints don’t ring as bad things. Until the last sentence which attempts to dismiss Moore entirely. I don’t particularly recommend reading this piece, except to note that it quotes Michael Moore as saying he doesn’t have the answer to what’s next, either.

Last reading assignment (ha… are you still with me here?) is a short blog entry in a blog titled PEACE IS POSSIBLE. Simple statement of why capitalism is not equal to democracy.  Amen.

While I don’t have the answers, the questions and the people considering them are important.  I’m a fan of  Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations.   Peace.

As a young person, my parents thought it would be good for me to learn to play the piano, more specifically my grandmother’s Steinway which had taken up residence in our living room.  So, when I was old enough, I began years of piano lessons from the good Benedictine nuns.  Piano seemed an especially great instrument to me because I could sing as I played.  And I enjoyed that.  I also enjoyed learning fast, complex pieces because, when you play like that, your fingers actually blur before your eyes and it has a sort of psychedelic effect with the music and all.  In time I moved out of my parents home and pretty much let piano playing drift away.  I tried a guitar for a bit, and again found a delightful

instrument that could be played while you sing.  I  played a steel string Goya, and I did love it, but I never considered myself a musician.  And my fingers never seemed to retain the requisite calluses for a steel string guitar.  (It looked a bit like the one above.)  Another brief attempt at keyboards involved a

KORG 01/W which I bought in 1993 along with a super little plug-in cartridge that could change the sound from a concert grand to an upright to a honky tonk, and several other very cool alternatives.  (I have always wished that Frank Zappa had stayed around long enough to play with the next generation of electronic instruments, but it was not to be.)  The KORG is still in my basement.  That didn’t “take” either. So today I play the radio.  And my iPod.

To quote Dennis Miller: “How many times am I going to have to buy the White Album?” I have lived through several music formats and find myself switching pretty much – make that completely – to digital these days.  Digital takes less storage space.  It’s hard to abandon the old vinyl or cassettes or CDs.  But vinyl singles and albums sit in the basement taking up space alongside cases of cassettes and CDs and the “massive” electronics that support them… including an imposing set of Advent speakers.  Can’t even move those things at a yard sale these days.  An MP3 player is just so much lighter and easier to manage.  (Then there’s the battery operated boom boxes without which we would be completely cut off during power failures.)  I think the family at one time had 3 Sony cassette based Walkmans (all Sport models).  Nobody’s touched them in years. They were great for skiing in their day.  Huey Lewis is the best ski music, IMHO.  You do your turns with the beat.  Yeah.  (Toto’s AFRICA will also get you moving to the beat.  Heck, R&R just does that.)

That reminds me, housekeeping note, while vinyl and CDs are fairly long lived media, cassettes need to be played or wound and unwound every now and then or they get muddy.  The IRS learned years ago that the magnetic media they stored tax information on would bleed ones and zeros into each other after maybe 10 to 25 years.  If you have something you love on tape, either convert it to digital or do the wind and unwind thing to keep the tape alive.  Or, of course, you can keep buying the White Album.  But often things we all have on tape or even vinyl aren’t available digitally, so keep your own counsel on that matter.  Once a tape is gone, it’s gone for good.  (The same is true for old family videos on 8mm film.)

Now then, hubby claims that guitars are going out of favor these days because rap music doesn’t use guitars.  That would be sad.  Music keeps evolving, so I hope something musically interesting will develop to replace rap.

Which brings me to the point of this post: something I read once  left more of an impact on me than I anticipated at the time or I would have made a note of who wrote it and where I found it.  (Sorry.)  The underlying message was that music has evolved around the increasing dominance of rhythm.  I liked the Roman High Mass, Gregorian Chant, and all manner of simple, ancient music with minimal melodies and gentle rhythmic chanting.  Secular folk music evolved melodies more complex than that of Church music, still a gentle rhythm. Then there’s so called classical music with the exploration of more complex melody and rhythm by folks like Vivaldi, Mozart, Hayden and so on. This traditional music has strict underlying rhythms to coordinate musicians and choirs.  Jazz is a melodic riff on traditional melodies but uses similar disciplined rhythms I think.  (I have a serious fondness for the orchestral version of Vaughn Williams’ The Lark Ascending.)  Showtunes have strong melodies and simple rhythms.  The goal was to have folks leave the theater singing, after all.

Eventually we come to Rock and Roll, the heart of which – according to both The Beatles and Huey Lewis – is the beat.  Melody and a strong back beat.  If music truly evolves to stronger rhythms, is it only natural then that the next step would be rap…. mostly beat and modest if any melody?  Maybe it had to progress that way.  What’s interesting to me is that African drums, and music derived from them, are wildly physical and wonderful.  Drums are all beat, and

the beat makes you move.  African drums (and Mickey Hart) make the very bones in your body vibrate.  You have to move to drum music.  It’s not optional.  But loud rap music is boring and flat.  Why is that?

PS:  I wrote the above on May 23, 2011. Very shortly thereafter my 2001 Prius blew its big battery, prompting me to evaluate spending as much as the car was worth to repair it and knowing this would have been the beginning of several expensive repairs to come. Long story short, I now have a Nissan Cube. It is a great deal of fun.  And it came with a 3 month free subscription to XM Satellite Radio.  Although this is not something I normally would have considered, I chanced upon a series of radio stations, one of which plays music from the  1950′s, followed by one playing 60′s, then 70′s, then 80′s.  There may be more in that vein, but it’s been very interesting switching between them and listening to samples from the playlists. I can hear jazzy swing influences in the 50′s and am surprised to discover it’s my favorite station.  I’ll partly explain that by admitting to a secret love for doo wop music.  60′s are a real grab bag of different influences,  the 70′s often have a hard heavy metal sound, and the 80′s get very whiny at times.  Well those are observations from flipping through XM’s playlists, so take it for the simplistic statement it is.  I listen to see where melody begins to fail and the beat takes over.  It is there.  I don’t know if I would have stated it that way had I not read that article some time back. Interesting.  I’d love to hear the opinion of somebody who knows more about music and music history than I do.

I’m not so sure. It certainly was true for a long time. I’m beginning to think we’re all getting a little tired of “new”.  If the new “new thing” is something we want or need, well, fine. But changing logos, changing the NECN early morning news anchors, and change for no good reason — is just plain irritating.  Fortunately there are people who agree with me, which makes me sound a bit less grumpy.  Wharton just published an article on how people are responding to the NEW Starbucks logo.  And the answer is: not all that well.

The Ford logo, like the Starbucks logo, has evolved over the years:

But, frankly, guys… during my lifetime and yours it’s pretty much stayed the same.  Would I respond well to a Ford Motor logo change?  I don’t think so.  A logo is meant to persist in your memory.  If it doesn’t do that, what’s the point?

Hey?  (I had a Mercury Capri in a copper metallic color years ago that I had painted bright yellow.  So I like bright yellow.)  But still…

Early in a company’s history a corporate logo evolves.  At some point a standard for the logo, including a color, is adopted.  A longstanding, consistent logo becomes associated with a company and its products.  When somebody decides to change it, they create an immediate cost to replace signage, stationary, and all printed marketing materials, as well as the cost to update all on-line appearances.  Some amount of negative reaction among long term customers is to be expected.  We all cope with a great deal of change in our modern world.  (Way too much?)  Being a point of comfortable stability for people can increase the value of your logo.

Something to consider:  If you feel a crying need to modernize a logo, consider the minimal-change approach used by the NFL:

Now then, that didn’t hurt, did it? Modernized?  Definitely. Negative reactions? Nope.  Might not even have noticed.  Contrast that to the Starbucks changes:

The newest Starbucks logo has the advantage of being a single color which reduces printing costs, but losing the company name as part of the logo would not have been my choice.  I might not have put the corporate name in the logo to begin with, but once it was there, and the company was successful using it, I would not change it.

Does the word “new” still have advertising power? Probably, though that power may be less than it once was, due to an overabundance of change these days.   And the “new look” of a logo may not be a good idea if it costs you a comfortable relationship with a longstanding customer base.

It’s time for another Amendment to the US Constitution.  I do believe this.  And I like everything in the proposal below.  See what you think and you are more than welcome to copy and forward it to your friends and Congresscritters.  It will take a huge amount of effort to get this passed because it is not in the best economic interests of the members of Congress.  But it’s worth raising the possibility.

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”  –Theodore Roosevelt

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” –Theodore Roosevelt

The rest of this post is the content of that email:

“The 26th Amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months and 8 days to be ratified.  Why?  Simple!  The people demanded it.  That was in 1971… before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

“Of the 27 Amendments to the US Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land… all because of public pressure.

“I’m asking you to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on your address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

“In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.  This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits.

An elected Congressperson may serve a maximum of 12 years only, defined as one of the possible options below:

A. Two 6-year Senate terms

B. Six 2-year House terms

C. One 6-year Senate term and three 2-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressperson collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3.  Congress (past, present, and future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.

Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congresspersons are void effective 1/1/11.

“The American people did not make the current contract with members of Congress.  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

“Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

“If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive this message.

“MUCH OF WHAT WE FACE IN TERMS OF PRIVILEGE AND SELFISHNESS IN THIS COUNTRY MIGHT BEST BE CHANGED STARTING FROM THE TOP DOWN.”

Me again.  I poked around on the web and found the organization which is working to make this happen.  Amendment to Reform Congress is on Facebook.  And their website is here. In my humble opinion it’s time we got together and agreed on some, most, or all of these changes to our representative government.  The current approach creates a divide between the governed and the government which is hurting our country.  With this Amendment can can continue to be a government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people.

It’s time to align the self-interest of Congress with that of the American people and not with that of lobbyists.