Sometimes I worry that people my age - high school and college students – only know a divided America. We’ve watched heroes rise among us, but we’ve been distracted by cowards. I worry that when America achieves some semblance of unity people will be so shocked they will not know how to react!
Education means something to my generation; we live it every day and witness, first hand, its shortcomings. We all know somebody – friends, family, and others – that don’t have the healthcare they need. We are hardly anxious to inherit an over 8 trillion dollar national debt. We constantly observe our parents and grandparents struggle with the gloomy future of social security.
We do care about what matters in America. Yet, what we care about is not being discussed - so how can anyone blame us for our lack of interest? The future of America is at risk, and nobody in power seems to care or to recognize it.
A few years ago, when I was in high school, I worked for a student-led civics organization whose sole purpose was to ask Americans of all ages to vote. There were times during this effort when I thought I recognized a united America; I watched students wow adults with their passion for politics and for their country. And yet, all I needed to do was turn on the television – watch politicians exploit their constituents – and the thought of a united America vanished.
That program proved to me, and to countless other adults, how much young people do care. I will never forget the sense of empowerment earned through civic engagement, or the respect we earned from many adults. Voting was tangible; we knew what it meant and we understood its ramifications in just the same way we understand the importance of healthcare, education and social security.
Some people have asked why young people have a stake in Unity08, and why we should be included. My answer is that we have a lot at stake. In fact, we have the most at stake. Our futures – and those of our children and our grandchildren – hang in the balance. We have reached a point where we can no longer sit silently and allow our leaders to continue to hinder progress as they have. Unity08 calls on my generation to stand up, united in our cause to bring politics back to the issues that affect us—the issues that matter. Maybe a precedent of apathy precedes us; I believe that only serves as one more reason to take the future of our country seriously.
Walking the monuments of Washington, D.C. – being a tourist, I suppose – is one of the most refreshing things that I have done this summer. Our monuments are not red and they are not blue. Their pale stone represents achievement and progress in American history. When I ascend Lincoln’s memorial I am overwhelmed by the notion of one man’s contributions to this country - and not the divisive nature of his decisions. In my mind, these monuments – devoid of red and blue – represent America and should define Washington, D.C.
My generation knows two Americas; we know red and we know blue. The greatest challenge that we face is to reconcile and unite the two Americas we grew up with.
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You say " we understood its ramifications in just the same way we understand the importance of healthcare, education and social security." I assume that you meant that these free benefits should continue forever. Well, apparently you did not understand the ramifications. You must realize now that you (and your high school/college signups)broke the bank. There is a large difference between what we would like to have and what we can afford to have. Unfortunately we took the wrong path on these and many more MTV agenda items and now your debt laden.
Do tell, how does a generation that is composed of people under the age of 25 "break the bank?" You say, "we took the wrong path on these," as in your generation I assume and yet the internet generation broke the bank? It sounds to me that the wrong path was lead by the depends agenda and now *we are all* debt laden.
Are you suggesting that we cut out healthcare, social security, or education? Perhaps all? That would probably be a bit inconvenient since I'm guessing you will soon be the age where two out of three of those are going to be necessary. The last was apparently completely wasted in your case.
As corporations represent a hefty chunk of the largest economies in the world, we, as American citizens, should consider what such a wealthy country can afford its people. Education, health care and a secure retirement are not too much to ask. Of course these benefits are not 'free' to Americans. We all pay. But, it’s a cost well worth it if the population is healthier, better educated and confident in its future, which is more than can be said for many countries.
Benefits Are Hardly Free
Bipartisanship is the New Black on June 23, 2024 - 3:54pm
Sure we can.. easy .. we just keep borrowing. With $8 trillion in debt and increasing, $1.2 billion in balance of payments, social security going broke in 17 years, medicare/aid even in larger trouble, our industral manufacturing base diminished, wages shrinking due to illegals and outsourcing, interest rates rising, corporations migrating overseas and your worried about kyoto being signed and government supplied day care. Sure, we can afford it. lol
I don't know if I read Anonymous's comments right, but he seems to be insinuating that it is the high school/college student's fault that "the bank" has been broken.
If so, that may just be one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. If anything, the younger generation is going to have to pay for the irresponsibility and overindulgence of their predecessors- particularly the Baby Boomers, who are single-handedly going to drive Medicare and Social Security into the ground.
Don't blame the current generation for the irresponsibility of its predecessors.
Dear Young People,
My grandchildren are near your ages (19 and 22). You have spoken for them.
Comments below from cynics are not worth even reading. If you're not a cynic than don't take offense -- its not you who wrote them.
There is no way for you to inherit debt without wanting it. If it represents a burden not a benefit, pay it off with cash. The law states on it face -- all our bonds are payabe in cash. And all our cash is what your generation says it is.
As to your future, Unity may be have some answers. Join me in this adventure -- write email to john.gelles@gmail.com -- and we'll get to the bottom of what's to be done to make yours the greatest generation ever. That's the least that you can be if you care.
.
John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
Bravo to Cristopher Nulty
johngelles on June 23, 2024 - 6:10pm
john, you are exactly correct. "all our bonds are payabe in cash. And all our cash is what your generation says it is". Your bonds will be paid in full - but in inflation adjusted dollars. That is the historic method of dilluting unpayable debt and with all probably what will happen this time as well. Your bank accounts will decrease in the value of cheap dollars - perhaps 50 cents on the dollar. Foreign debt holders will dump dollars and cause chaos in the financial markets- perhaps leading to a world wide recession. It will crush the poor. The middle class will be trying to maintain status quo - but lose as prices explode and adjustable morgage interest rates max out putting impossible demands on fixed salaries. Credit card loan defaults will be prevalent causing unprecidented bankruptcies. Unemployment will sky rocket. The elderly relying on Social Security will fall destitute but for the 3% inflation kicker that will cause evermore increasing inflation in a downward spiral. There will be riots as in Argentina in 1990's and may provoke war as it did in germany in the mid 30's.
Dear Young People,
Goto Google and look for Ray Kurzweil, futurist, and his speech to the Foreign Policy Association on The Singularity and the information revolution, biotech revolution and nanotech revolution.
Kurzweil is the Edison of our day. He predicts that artificial intelligence will equal human intelligence son. He predicts exponential increase in solutions over problems. He is a genius and he is right.
Go to Google and look for FDR's Second Bill of Rights. It will tell you what your rights are. Unnecessary destructive inflation will not be your fate.
Both these readings are on my site as well: www.tiea.us
If link here does not work, Google the same URL.
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John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
Correction to Kurzweil:
Should be Kurzweil to Counil on Foreign Relations on the Singularity
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9334/exponentially_expanding_future_from_exponentially_shrinking_technology.html
Also at www.tiea.us/singularity.htm
John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
Correction on Kurzweil
johngelles on June 23, 2024 - 9:01pm
I don't know about this cult thing you got going mr. gelles. FDR died 60 years ago, and what his disciple lydon johnson didn't distroy his other wannabe jimmy c did.
Barry Goldwater, for whom I never voted, was famous for his line, "Extremism in defense of Liberty is no sin (or something like that)."
Anon. and others here are extreme pessimists. Anon is polite -- he put a mr. in front Gelles the senior citizen (and old fart -- my word -- not his).
Anon. seems to think functional finance, economic rights, FDR, Keynes, et. al, represent a cult -- and that he represents main stream wisdom.
He does not. He represents extreme pessimism -- which is as bad as the extreme distraction of non-issues we are trying to fight against.
If you don't believe in America go to Europe, Russia, China, India, Japan, or Brazil. They are big and on their way to sharing power with America -- if only we can keep civilization in one piece.
If you're not an optimist, why waste your time trying to improve democracy with grass roots electioneering?
I invited Anon. to try to make a single point he thinks America will respond to. He offers Immigration? Deficit hawk?
OK. Manage one of them. I demand, if he does, that he give voice to opinions he may not share: like the Latino vote is important, as is the work immigrants do here in California: without them we could not EAT !!!
Deficit hawk? OK. But my opposite view that agrees with Chaney "deficits mean nothing", has to be presented too.
My point, that he sees as unimportant, is that without brevity, pointedness, and simplicity -- that collaborators might develop -- we are condemned to the massive content of boards, blogs, and pointless postings, that will make recruiting to Unity totally dependent on the charisma or the pocketbook of a candidate we can entice into paying us critical attention.
The young people who own this particular blog topic are entitled to the great American nation we have created for them. Its future is not the one Europe sees from their guilty past which cost us all the wars and dictatorships prior to Gulf War I. It may be the one that Asia sees -- which eagerly copies us today and hopes to be us in the future.
Kids, forget Anon. and any of his ilk -- not cult. They are pissed off but have no clue about your rights as FDR defined them in 1944, sixty-two years ago. FDR said then, if we wanted peace in the world we would have to enforce human rights. He was right.
The war today is proof that he was right. It may even be proof of what we have to do to justify Unity06 and Unity 08.
John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
Looking over your TIEA website I'm afraid I have to take issue with a few things on it.
The bits about FDR and the computer managed economy really sound like socialism-borderline-communism to me. You can save people from some amount of bad luck, but you can't save them from the consequences of bad decisions. To do so invites disaster as more and more people decide it pays to be irresponsible.
You cannot structure society to guarantee success. The best you can do is structure it to guarantee opportunity as much as possible and let your citizens do the rest.
From your site http://www.tiea.us/003.htm :
"Ordering its central bank to add money to the government's checking account is the same as coining new money. The money is coined from what amounts to digital gold. Digital gold is better than real gold — IF, in the near and long term, prices remain stable and living standards improve."
Sure, except that history has shown again and again that when you create money in excess of real productivity growth, prices do not remain stable. There is no free lunch.
Elsewhere on your site you suggest that government spending can drive the rest of the economy. This has merit in an emergency, but under normal circumstances I don't think it is a good thing. If the government's budget is that central to the economy, then you no longer have a country; you're just one big huge corporation -- again, communism by another name.
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Toddpw wants Christopher to know we are the land of opportunity -- and he is right.
Todd goes on to question how much security the greatest nation on earth can afford. He is also not sure just how much of an emergency we are in.
My website, www.tiea.us , argues that from January 11, 1944, months before D Day in Europe, until today and tomorrow, peace in the future hung and hangs on security in the future of those who will be alive after the defeat of totalitarianism.
The emergency conditions that command nations to protect their citizens are upon us.
Communism and totalitarianism are no longer in charge in Russia, Eastern Europe, or China. They were never what animated America in peace or America in war.
My plans for America are not to be confused with Unity's answers to Christopher Nulty. I am far to the left of the Democrats in demanding immediate implementation of FDR's Second Bill of Rights.
I am far to the right of some Republicans in recognizing the emergency of the war and the absolute need to lead a non-partisan wartime government in pursuit of our President's announced goals of security and defeat of terrorism with a global reach.
Whether Toddpw will ever again be right, that this nation can afford to fail and pretend that shopping at Walmart is our purpose, because peace surrounds us, Asia and Europe are prostrate, and the Hydrogen bomb was never produced, is for time to tell -- but his vision is contrary to factual possibility
As I see it, war surrounds us, Asia and Europe need a leader who understands what Lincoln and FDR faced when they financed victories for freedom and liberty.
We have not only to secure a future for Nulty's generation, but we must let him know how he too must defend that future with his life and all our money.
There is no luxury of endless time for trial and error for failure.
Today we must rescue our manufacturing base, rescue the pensions that may fail, retool our educational plant, lead in the style of Theodore Roosevelt, not Joseph Stalin.
Toddpw may be afraid of American leadership and responsibility. He may want the market to re-arrange our challenges from friendly now-capitalist rivals and unfriendly now terrorsist enemies.
I do not look on an opportunistic market for the future of my grandchildren. I look to the continentals that finaced liberty when we were born, the greenbacks that financed freedom when Lincoln was our leader, the government that financed the arsenal of democracy against Hitler, and the government that paid for the cold war and perhaps should have paid more to avoid the wars that came after it.
Wake up Toddpw. While you may have worried we were becoming communists, as China and Russia gave that up to become like America, there were others in failed states and sick societies who wanted to kill people so they might go to Paradise in style.
Have no fear that at the end of the road we are on, described well by Ray Kurzweil at www.tiea.us/singularity.htm there is a communist beckonning all to quit work and lie down to sleep.
There is no such communist outside your fears. There is the information revolution, biotech revolution, nanotech revolution, a robot to help pay General Motors pension obligations, computers to compute cost price where market price won't hack it, and American genius for doing what Europe could only imagine -- when it was sober and off imperial war.
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Extremism in favor of America and Optimism is OK
johngelles on June 24, 2024 - 12:06am
Mr. Gelles. You should have voted for Barry Goldwater, Instead you voted for LBJ and got viet nam the most disasterous war in american history. In addition you got the great society, a tragic joke with a $5T ($5,000,000,000,000) debt legacy. His insidious war on poverty with its mammoth social welfare entitlements which set the stage for the welfare mentality that caused enormous damage to the people it was supposed to help and to the fabric of society as a whole. LBJ, an FDR, desciple effectively resigned in disgrace.
Its not a matter of being optimistic or being pessimistic. Its a state of mind free of denial, being reality based if you will.
Our youth are idealistic and enthuastic as it has been and should be, however all youth are susceptible to misinformation and ideologs like yourself and are easily persuaded to track in wrong directions. Witness the youth driven clamshell alliance which set efficient and clean nuclear power back in this country for three decades. Did anyone inform the youth which went to the streets a month ago to protest for citizen status for illegal immigrants of the economic consequences? Probably not. However, it doesn't erase the fact that if accomplished, this act would burden the youth with a cost exceeding $trillions as 20,000,000 new beneficiaries would be enrolled in our social programs and compete in our affirmative action programs. *News to youth .. you are the ones that will be left to pay, not the seniors.*
As for FDR's new bill of rights. This was a political speech made to shore up his base and has no grounds in the constitution and not taken serious then or since. No one recognizes these as rights, but mearly targets for a better society.
Remember, it was FDR which interned the japanese and sold eastern europe to the tolatitaian socialist regimes at Yalta. So much for his human rights.
The best thing we can do for our youth is to be honest with them and give them the opportunity not to repeat the mistakes of the two generations before them. This is obviously not part of your Mao little red book cult that your presenting here.
Dear Anon,
You are the most mis-informed disinformation source imaginable.
1. FDR's speech was the Sate of the Union address to Congress.
2. The current book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever", by Cass R. Sunstein, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, explains this -- you owe yourself a good reading of it.
3. The Vietnam War was supported, not by me at the time, but by most conservative voices who wanted to stop communism there. Today, perhaps in part due to our sacrifices, communism is dead everywhere.
4. Totalitarianism has been greatly reduced. Islamic totalitarian inspired terrorism is the current enemy -- and former communist nations, now closer to our own values, may in future keep clear of the worst abuses of human rights for which they were once so well known,
5. Lyndon Baines Johnson was never disgraced -- he bowed to the will of the people and did not run for a second elective term. I was one of the public he bowed to. In later years, as Vietnam and the rest of Asia moved away from communism's worst hours, I came to respect what the Democrats had hoped for when they tried to stop the spread of communism in that place at that time. There is a lot to regret after the Senate prevented our joining the League of Nations in 1920: it was then that seeds were sown for totalitarianism that still is a threat. Johnson, on balance, was a great President; and the war on poverty is our present goal via the best aspect of a United Nations (otherwise in need of major reform.)
4. Social Security has the greatest future ever: millions of robots will give us the workforce to produce more than seniors and a fully employed nation can want. Your pessimism reeks to high heaven.
5.You are truly ignorant of history if you think a Clamshell movement caused Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, or the scare that went through the capitalist world when liabilty for damaages shook nuclear power to its roots. I am and have been open-minded on nuclear power. France and Canada have interesting applications.
6. Immigrants have always paid their fare by work. They once built the railroads. Today they feed this nation. Those from South of the border are no exception.
7. Japanese Americans fought for American freedom in Italy and Germany while their parents were interned in the West. I enlisted from the East where Japanese and Germans were never harrassed. FDR and the courts fought a war. Later, compensation was paid.
8. The Russians paid to go to Yalta with 50 million lives and a huge standing army at the end of war. Roosevelt gave nothing away. Stalin broke every commitment he made.
9. Human rights is our most important issue and how to pay for them is our hardest problem. I'm glad you endorse them. So how about offering some positive thinking on paying our bills with production -- and paying off the debt the same way?
John Gelles
unity08ws.wikispaces.com
The youth today have tools that no generation before has had to upgrade the system rather than destroy it with drastic change... It is the older generation that must guide them in this way... for continuing the hatred and bipartisanship will motivate the youth toward drastic change instead of simple upgrades for a awsome form of government that simply needs an overhall... please... www.appyp.com/fix_main.html
1. Right you are. State of the union - 1944. Pep rally as all state messages are. Rarely are even a few of the promises ever forefilled
2. No thanks. The first Bill of Rights works for me just fine, but I understand that Ramsey Clark endorsed it which is the reason that i may decline your offer.
3. Agreed. You didn't support the overthrow of communism, but by the sacifices of others, communism is dead. May I express my thanks to the others.
4. Totalitarianism dimished slightly in the 90's but is now on the rise. The communist party of China never relinquished its absolute power. Castro still
subjugates Cuba, Putin is restoring his concentrated power over greater Russia, and more worrysome in our hemisphere is Venasuala which is now totalitarian.
5. LBJ was a disgrace. That's why as you elegantly spun it "He bowed to the will of the people and did not run for a second elective term". Gee, somehow i missed all the democrats trying to stop the spread the communism in that area. As I remember even most of LBJ's own cabinet turned on him on this issue as well as Bobby Kennedy, william Fullbright, and Ramsey Clark, and Martin L. King, most of the democratic congress, the democratic press- including the NYT, leading liberal universities, and more than several tens of millions of democrats in the street at that time.
4. (count much) Since only human employees pay social security, I find it difficult to fathom how non-tax paying electro-mechanical robots are going to contribute to restore the bankrupted SS fund. The good news is that robots dont need health care. The bad news is the most of the robots will be operating in developing countries because unions fight to limit automated work here in america.
5. (5 again) The clam shell movement scared the bejesus out of the public, smeared corporations, and deliberatly prolonged litigations with utilities to
delay any effort to build safe, clean, nuclear power while the rest of the developed world was weening themselves off of fossil energy with new nuclear plants. Those are traceable facts not opinions.
6. Agreed Immigrants have always paid in full and left a tip. In modern times (last 90 years) immigrants applied for admission, perform health checks, and
became good english speaking citizens. We welcomed all these freedom seeking hard working people. However, here we are addressing illegal immigrants with low skill sets, low education, and we at the moment dont know who they are, what they are, and where they came from, or what the're up to. But we do know, once citizens they will bankrupt our social services.
7. I was remarking on FDR's respect for their human rights ( and citizen rights). He didn't.
8. Those of Polish decent, and other eastern european countries would argue that point with respect to FDR violently.
9. How about this for an idea. Utilize the capitalistic system which has provided unprecedented progress, more human respect, individual freedom, and democracy than any other form of government ever. Bar none.
Nulty rightly and clearly sees progress in our past and hope for more progress in the future he will inherit. He has reason to support Unity in 06 and 08.
Anon sees Viet Nam as the most disasterous war in American history (but later admits that as part of the Cold War it could not have been that much of a disaster).
And Anon sees LBJ's War on Poverty as an insidious thing which set the stage for the welfare mentality. Simultaneously, LBJ is seen as an heir of FDR who is really the one who invited a welfare mentality.
If there is progress in our past, it remains invisible to Anon.
The fact that workers and pensioners both need the output from production of food, clothing, shelter, etc., and that robots will produce it, does not move Anon to connect that supply to our future demand. He sees a bleak future where Unity will create abundance.
Immigrants today whose work feeds us and does millions of essential tasks are not looked on by Anon with a vote of thanks. He is a critic who shuns the support of millions of citizens who are the legal immigrant friends and relations of millions who will one day also be legal. So much for building support for the future.
Anon does have faith in capitalism without economic rights and without the strategic direction of democratic parliaments -- perhaps he likes market fundamentalism. If so, I trust he predicts it will reward Nulty's generation as I predict America will by following the traditions of TR and FDR relative to government strategic planning.
In all events, Christopher, what America does will be your responsibility -- and you will not constrained by the dead who can't vote.
John Gelles
Not an anonymous pessimist with no
word of thanks to the hard working
people without whom he'd starve
and could not be free.
unity08ws.wikispaces.com
www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for
them are key to a livable world.
Christopher Nulty Rightly Sees Progress in Our History
johngelles on June 25, 2024 - 1:21am
Anon responds:
"Anon sees Viet Nam as the most disastrous war in American history (but later admits that as part of the Cold War it could not have been that much of a disaster)."
Viet Nam was the most disastrous war in American history. That's common knowledge so I don't have to elaborate on that fact. As to its contribution to the cold war, it was a negative. It besmirched our image worldwide and challenged our legitimacy and motives to fight the greater threat of communist expansion.
And Anon sees LBJ's War on Poverty as an insidious thing which set the stage for the welfare mentality. Simultaneously, LBJ is seen as an heir of FDR who is really the one who invited a welfare mentality.
Agreed. Accurate summation and true.
"If there is progress in our past, it remains invisible to Anon."
I question progress. Certainly we have made progress in technology of all types, mainly thru capitalistic incentives and rewards. China that now has dropped its socialistic policies and killing and has adopted capitalism has made enormous progress. But, there is a very noticeable decline in effectively in our government directed collective efforts in spite of the costs. Examples being education, city planning, energy conversion, recreational drug use, poverty, and race relations to name a few. Most of the meek progress in these arena have been accomplished by individuals or charity. The rise in religious fervor has me a bit concerned as well and these I perceive will be negative forces.
"The fact that workers and pensioners both need the output from production of food, clothing, shelter, etc., and that robots will produce it, does not move Anon to connect that supply to our future demand. He sees a bleak future where Unity will create abundance."
Not true. You can try to spin it anyway you want. I was responding to your nonsensical statement where you stated that the mass use of robots was going to correct the deficit in our social security system. I pointed out that robots do not pay FICA or what is known today as the payroll tax.
"Immigrants today whose work feeds us and does millions of essential tasks are not looked on by Anon with a vote of thanks. He is a critic who shuns the support of millions of citizens who are the legal immigrant friends and relations of millions who will one day also be legal. So much for building support for the future."
WHAT PART OF "Immigrants have always paid in full and left a tip. In modern times (last 90 years) immigrants applied for admission, perform health checks, and became good english speaking citizens. We welcomed all these freedom seeking hard working people" DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND. You need to take a remedial reading course. As to whether the illegals will become citizens is currently being debated. At this point it appears that the majority of our population feels that its not a good idea.
"Anon does have faith in capitalism without economic rights and without the strategic direction of democratic parliaments -- perhaps he likes market fundamentalism. If so, I trust he predicts it will reward Nulty's generation as I predict America will by following the traditions of TR and FDR relative to government strategic planning."
Government strategic planning is now seen as a oxymoron. Is that the same government strategic planning of FEMA, which in addition to not reacting promptly to Katrina also managed to pay out $16,000,000,000 in fraud. Or the INS (ICE) which lost track of all VISA entries and doesn't prosecute employers that hire illegal labor and allowed 20,000,000 illegals to enter the country. Or the CIA that didn't see the collapse of the soviet union or that the Paki's developed a nuclear bomb and Korea and Iran were trying. Or the FBI created by FDR who appointed J.Hoover as his hitman and squelched and threatened all public decent of government policy for four decades. Or the Dept of Education that which demoted our youth to the lowest quadrants of world standards. Or the government trade policy wonks which caused massive balance of payments and allowed an actual decrease in the wages of american workers. Or the budget guru's that left us with a $8 Trillion in debt. GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOLUTION.. GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.
AN ECONOMIC CALL TO ARMS
New Policies To Build A Strong U.S. Economy
By Kirk Polizzi
INTRODUCTION
The American people are recipients of constant economic statistics from our government. Since the middle of 2024, these numbers have shown, a growing economy, a near record Dow Jones, a declining unemployment rate, and that all is well on the economic front. Unfortunately, that is all the American people are getting is numbers, but these statistics are not showing the “real economy”, or the real picture.
Yes, Wall Street is well, but Main Street is not. Too many Americans, a majority, are being left behind in this economic upturn. Hardworking Americans, and the once proud vibrant middle class, are being squeezed out of existence. The working poor, and yes, despite what you’ve been hearing, there is poverty in America, they are not making it, and they are in trouble. The American people in the lower middle class, are all living on the edge, the edge of poverty.
The economic expansion of the 1960’s, and the one that followed it in the 1990’s, was an economic train that had every American on board. The wealth of our economic engine was evenly and fairly spread throughout the country. Today, the economic train ride has most Americans being left behind, who did not, and will not, ever get to ride it. Never before in modern history, has a president’s administration been so narrow minded, to the point of foolish arrogance, and a form of economic denial, that there is real trouble out in real America.
Suddenly, the “compassionate conservatism”, of George W. Bush and his people, is not compassionate at all, in fact, it never was. The policies that Bush and his people have pushed, proposed, and signed into law, have bankrupt the nation’s treasury, purposely targeted more wealth, to the already well to do, at the expense of every working man and woman in America. Their policies advocate economic expansion from the top down, not from the bottom up. That is what this economic thesis advocates, and it should be adopted now for the country. Never before in American history has a U.S. president, been so clear in what he wants to accomplish: pad the pockets and the wallets of wealthy America, at the expense of the majority of the American people.
That is why today, the middle class is being squeezed out of existence, poverty is up, and the gap between the wealthy and the poor grows larger and larger. If these present trends continue, then yes, we will have two America’s, one rich and one poor, with no Americans living in the middle class. None of this has to be, and this thesis can be our economic solution as a nation, a call to arms, to build a real strong economy, one that brings all Americans aboard, in a fair, and honorable way.
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Dear Christopher at last the Issue is Framed: You want to be player in the grand game of life -- now and later too, when you will be our ages.
Anon tells you government is the problem not the solution.
I tell you all you have is government -- and you will have to make better.
The biggest problem we have is the idiotic attachment to the business model -- by people who are fooled like Anon is: the business model is based on accumulating gold, a finite element, to help us allocate an expanding output of goods and services.
This model always comes up short.
Functional finance uses money, not gold, and money can expand to finance victory in war and peace, modern industry and modern miracles.
Keep your eye on the economic output of the system not on debt.
Make sure parliament spends output based money to produce more, to provide all the economic rights FDR said we had to have to avoid totalitarianism and endless war.
Read Kurzweil. Avoid pessimism for the plague it is.
John Gelles
www.tiea.us
unity08ws.wikispaces.com
.
John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
AN ECONOMIC CALL TO ARMS/ New PoliciesTo Build A Strong Economy
Kirk Polizzi on June 25, 2024 - 10:46am
Impressive tyrade Kirk, but what specifically do you propose?
Bush, faced a perfect economic storm of negative events in 2024-2001. The insane dot.com bust, an exposure of massive corporate corruption, a terrorist attack (and anthrax attack), high unemployment, and an unstable world economy. He proposed a tax cut for all americans proportional to the amount of individual taxes paid and dropping the double taxation on dividends. IT WORKED. The equity markets responded and replenished the IRA's, Roths,401K's, and pension funds of all class americans as well as restoring the economic health to our businesses and industries. The interest and unemployment rates are the lowest in forty years and a GNP exceeding 5%. Mission accomplished.
Now, in 2024 with a robust economy, its time to pay back the recently applied deficit expenditures and balance the budget, reduce corporate welfare, eliminate "earmarked" spending for special interests, and deport all the illegal labor that has reached our shores for a start.I'm sure the're others here who have some additional ideas. Let's hear them!
RESPONSE TO:
Dear Christopher at last the Issue is Framed
johngelles on June 25, 2024 - 10:56am
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"I tell you all you have is government -- and you will have to make better."
Before the massive buildup in the federal government (circa 1964), America prospered; accomplished extraordinary progress economically, technically, and socially and out paced old Europe in all respects. The details are self evident. Since that period, America has been in decline witnessed by all the monumental failures of these spurious government programs. Independent, self reliant, freedom loving individuals have little need for a government whose reason for being goes much beyond that which is expressed in the constitution.
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"The biggest problem we have is the idiotic attachment to the business model -- by people who are fooled like Anon is: the business model is based on accumulating gold, a finite element, to help us allocate an expanding output of goods and services."
Mr gelles, now you have gone from the ridiculous to the absurd. The end of the international gold standard was affected at Bretton Woods in 1971. Now currencies are denominated in fiat money that relate to the economic strength of the individual countries. However, that said, when a countrys currency is stressed and inflation is eminent, gold, a neutral commodity, becomes a point of speculation by central banks and financiers like george soros who amass great wealth by preying on weak currencies. Because of the massive US debt that will cause inflation in the greenback to follow, the price of gold is currently sky rocketing. (Footnote: then perverts like soros write books about universal human rights - go figure)
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Dear Christopher and Young Adults,
Kirk Polizzi spoke the absolute truth on the heart of the matter -- the need for renewal and strengthening of our economy, especially of our manufacturing base and the incomes, health care and pensions for working people and people looking for work.
Anon asks for specifics -- and he is absolutely right about that.
Specifically, only an idiot thinks we can long exist without heavy industry, manufacturing, high tech, super high tech, success in info-tech, biotech, nano-tech, and science at the highest levels.
Anon, in my view, is right about Bush and taxes: the less we tax success, the more there will be for private successful business to invest in improving the future you will inherit.
This leaves us with a problem -- if we cannot tax success, we certainly cannot tax failure.
The answer is a taxless economy that concentrates on production and private savings as the way to prevent inflation as an economy grows at exponential rates.
Many will call this version of supply side economics by another name: communist, utopian, funny money. My answer to them is unprintable.
We have had experience with the remedy I speak of: it was every war we ever fought.
We are at war. When we win we will be faced with low cost Asian producers who must be encouraged to build their middle classes, as we make ours as rich as they can be.
Get your head out of your you know what -- I say to doubters.
Read Kurzweil. Read Keynes and Lerner.
Compute cost price on computers and keep savings high enough (fully inflation protected and indexed) for taxes to be assessed only on transactions that discourage waste of real resources.
A tax designed to pay gov't bills can be replaced by private savings of what would today be taxed. Only a tax designed to stop inflation has any right to exist in law.
John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
Anon and Polizzi: Is Unity Possible?
johngelles on June 25, 2024 - 1:15pm
Now ya talking mr. gelles. Right on!
I believe that there has not been a unity builders in years. But I must say their is one unity builder for all nationalities and that's Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il). Students at both educational levels were not more engaged in an election like two years ago. I would that republicans and democrats alike must be on the ground more to get high school and college age students involved.
RESPONSE TO:
High Schol & College Student Understanding Democracy
Willie Cousis on June 25, 2024 - 2:16pm
Willie, We're not all nationalities here. We're AMERICANS. We're color blind. Are you suggesting you vote by color. I hope not as that would be RACIST.
We are all Americans... other than that we have nothing in common whatsover... in fact internet technology has taken us from the great melting pot to a boiling pot ... so it makes sense to debate the common ground and avoid fights about our differences... for those that try and define our differences rather than talk about our common ground are evil... www.appyp.com/fix_main.html
Common ground starts with the youth... those who will be making these critical choices we face. Choices to be made because of technology, something our founding fathers knew nothing about thus could not guide us... Today our children face a police state and a life of modern corporate slavery because our media scares them with threats of terror so they will make the wrong decision and deny GPS tracking and other hitech reforms because they are scared... WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF... www.appyp.com/fix_main.html
Correction to:
FEAR FEAR ITESELF!
Earn Snyder on June 25, 2024 - 5:59pm
"because of technology, something our founding fathers knew nothing about thus could not guide us"
Our founding fathers were very versed in technology. Franklin was a leading world reknown scientist of his day. Jefferson was an inventor. Hamliton was an industrialis. The constitution set up the patent office. Within the first decade, we captured much of the english textile business and could build faster and better ships then anywhere in the world. I could go on but these examples should suffice. The founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing, it is us that has polluted the well.
I recommend moving the discussion, that was progressing, to the Shout Forum on Improving Unity 08 Site and Discussion, topic: The Core Problem.
I understand how good people here, would like my introduction on how we must build our economy from the bottom up. Unfortunately, it is all written, but it is very long folks, so give me a chance to type it.
I can assure all of you that I will make specific my proposals for what I believe will lift every American up the economic ladder.
All this will be done in phases. The first was my introduction, the next, the first phase of my thesis, will be MINIMUM WAGE TO A LIVING WAGE.
All of it is coming, be ready for an economic call to arms for all of the American people.
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Dear Kirk,
I agree we exactly need a call to arms to meet the economic challenges confronting America at war and America the victim of outsourcing and the race to the bottom.
Much of what I have at http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com says the same as you suggest.
Please (everyone) read it and comment while there with the reply tags on every page -- its a very fast read for the new pages just done.
John Gelles
My goodness, can we just stick with a topic without all of the bickering? Christopher very eloquently stated something that we need to take to heart - the youth are interested, and listening - and what do you guys do? You hijack his thread with issues of your own. Shame on you. You all owe him an apology.
You all just hijacked this thread
Keely on June 26, 2024 - 9:31pm
I read Christopher's prologue three times.. and I'm still not sure what his point was. Could you interperete it for me Keeley?
I say the tape has been removed from our lips and frustrated men and women will now speak our heart felt frustrations upon one another.... Do not see these tough communications as a bad thing but a good thing - for I say those among us listen and are consolidating your words to Unite in 2024! For more www.appyp.com/fix_main.html
K wrote: "Christopher very eloquently stated something that we need to take to heart - the youth are interested, and listening"
Perhaps K did not read what C wrote. C wrote about Lincoln and how much we owe him and revere him.
Anon, Polizzi, myself and others have had Lincoln in mind when we spoke to C.
Lincoln freed the slaves. He was a leader of men. He feared only God and did not allow ignorance to keep him from victory. He printed the greenbacks we needed and would do the same again.
Lincoln opposed wage slavery-- which is what wages are that do not return to the worker the bread he has baked.
Now Lincoln knew it was not capitalism or rich bosses, alone, who caused wages to be too low. It was the system more than anything else.
Christopher is faced by the need for income, a career, and an opportunity to produce far more than was ever possible before science and technology gave us the miracle methods of today.
Nothing has been hijacked here.
Everything is hijacked out there -- by our own ignorance -- of how to pay for the giant projects we need to protect the environment, end homelessness and poverty, get rid of everything mean and stupid that a civilized society might be rid of.
Markets and conventional money will pay for a lot of this.
But more is needed. Christopher should know this -- while he is young. Because it will take a long time before governments fully understand that THEY can AFFORD all their people can PRODUCE -- they can afford to finance the means for it to be produced and consumed by the same people who produced it.
Yes I am ashamed. The above sentence was written in 1944 in Ontario Canada at the International Labor Organization convention. A great writer-accountant, Stuart Chase reprinted it in "The Proper Study of Mankind". He said it would take 100 years for the world to understand its truth. I thought he was too pessimistic. I was wrong.
Zero-unemployment! High union wages! Zero-corruption by unions and employers! These things Christopher must know of and someday believe.
John Gelles
http://unity08ws.wikispaces.com
http://www.tiea.us
Human rights and how to pay for them are key to a livable world.
Perhaps we see things differently. I suppose the correct thing to do would be to ask Christopher to help further clarify his intended point. My apologies if I have misinterpreted his original meaning.
This thread includes off-topic and disrespectful debate between people who obviously don't agree with each other, and unfortunately also aren't channelling the vibes of this site.
Unity08 needs to be a place where people search for truth, not where they pontificate on what they "know" to be true. And it should be a place where extreme emotions, and epithets like "idiot" are suppressed. And it should focus more on tangible goals for the future, not impossibly broad debates about decades of American history. Otherwise it's just another place for political catharsis, all heat and no light.
Funny, I thought it was for political debate. You know, that form of human expression where people get to DISAGREE on issues.
Please bicker elsewhere
Don Gooding on June 29, 2024 - 8:09am
Don. Grow up. Take your political correctness elsewhere. These are serious matters with enormous repercussions. They need to be debated by real people who are stake holders in the process and will ultimately pay the financial costs.
I don't see any mention of a platform or platform committee in mission statement of Unity08.
It clearly states that the intent is NOT to create a political party but to move each of the existing parties towards the center.
Further, even in ongoing parties the platform is more often than not ignored by the candidates unless it is something they want to say anyway.
I would suspect most of our efforts should be directed at membership expansion not nit-picking over issues. The 'platform' is moving the parties towards the center.
Need we ask this question? “ ... are American politics in such disrepute that people have turned off the political process, is there some way we could energize voters, ...” etc., etc.
Try this: -- just go to a mega-bookstore and look at the magazine rack. A tiny shelf holds all the political periodicals, and a wall as long as a soccer field is needed to hold the stuff Americans want to read.
I'm usually in agreement when someone is way off base, but I don't see where Don deserved a comment like that. It just seemed out of character.
Political correctness is indeed overused, but nonetheless he is entitled to his point of view on this forum without being shooed away just because someone disagrees with him... that is what is so ironic. You tell him to take his political correctness somewhere else, in the same sentence as defending the ability to openly debate issues on this forum.
What's up SMH?
Keely on June 29, 2024 - 3:14pm
Real people in the real world don't "Channel vibes" to communicate. They state their point of view sometimes with passion and welcome others to reply in kind. That is what an honest debate is all about and leads to sound and effective results.