On March 4, 2014, Eric Odom writes on Liberty News:
Last week I wrote about the closing of 155 Sbarro pizza stores. Yesterday I posted the bad news that Dots, a clothing chain of 360 stores, is completely shutting down and closing all stores. A few readers immediately tried to claim this has nothing to do with the economy getting worse and pointed at the poor product carried by Dots. This even though I pointed out major online retailers are also struggling, but able to last longer due to smaller offline infrastructure.
Today’s news shows the economy is indeed in trouble and it’s hard to argue this will have terrible consequences as it ripples through America. Yes, folks, Radio Shack is closing up to 1,100 stores.
That’s a total of more than 1,500 retail stores closing in just three reports here at LibertyNews.com. I have no idea how many employees were at each store, but if we’re conservative and say there are 5 at each store, this means probably at least 7,500 jobs are gone with the stores. This means less sales tax revenue, less money to financial investors, less money to the employees, meaning less money in taxable income and less income to the families of those employees to spend at other companies in the U.S. economy.
How exactly is the economy getting better again?
This points to the deepening condition of fewer and fewer “customers with money” that is the result of widening economic inequality caused by an ever-greater concentration of ownership of wealth-creating, income-producing physical productive capital assets among a tiny wealthy ownership class, whose consumption needs and wants are fulfilled and who continue to re-invest in the FUTURE formation of productive capital assets with the purpose of further enriching their ownership share of the American economy.
It is evident that none of the national media pundits or our leaders are speaking of a vision for a future system of economic democracy based on equality of opportunity for every person to become an owner of wealth-creating productive capital. This is particularly of importance for the President of the United States who has the national stage at his disposal to espouse targeted leadership. This and other news stories about store closings and economic inequality should address the query “Who should own America?” going forward.
Why the focus on “productive capital?” Physical capital is non-human “things” owned by people used to produce products and services (productive land, structures, infrastructure, tools, machines, super-automation, robotics, digital computerized processing and operations, etc. and certain intangibles that have the characteristics of property such as patents and trade names). Real physical capital isn’t money; it is measured in money (financial capital), but it is really producing power and earning power through ownership of the non-human factor of production. In the law, property is the bundle of rights that determines one’s relationship to things.
The reality, which is ignored in our political discussions and even by conventional economists and the media, is that productive capital is increasingly the source of the world’s economic growth and, therefore, should become the source of added property ownership incomes for all. The ownership of productive capital is the source of wealth and income for the richest Americans––not a job.
Businesses, whether small or large, or sole proprietors, partnerships, or business corporations, are formed to provide products and services at a profit. Their success or failure is dependent on whether or not there are “customers with money.”
Unfortunately, politicians, economists and the media focus on JOB CREATION as the ONLY way to create “customers with money” and provide a source of income for peoples’ livelihood. Yet the demand for people (labor workers who contribute manual, intellectual, creative and entrepreneurial work) is being made less necessary as productive capital is increasingly the source of the world’s economic growth. What should we conclude from this assessment of reality? Well, simply that if both labor and productive capital are independent factors of production, and if capital’s proportionate contributions are increasing relative to that of labor, then equality of opportunity and economic justice demands that the right to property (and access to the means of acquiring and possessing property) must in justice be extended to all.
It is the exponential disassociation of production and consumption that is the problem in the United States economy, and the reason that ordinary citizens must gain access to productive capital ownership to improve their economic well-being.
What we really need is a national discussion on the topic of the importance of wealth-creating productive capital ownership and how we can expand the base of private productive capital ownership simultaneously with the creation of new productive capital formation, with the aim of building long-term financial security for all Americans through accumulating a viable income-producing capital estate.
If we are to significantly expand the population of “customers with money” and significantly grow the economy, then the ownership of FUTURE productive capital must be spread more broadly and simultaneously with the growth, without taking anything away from the 1 to 10 percent of the people who now own 50 to 90 percent of the wealth controlled by businesses. Thus, productive capital income would be distributed more broadly and the demand for products and services would be distributed more broadly from the earnings of capital and result in the sustentation of consumer demand, which will promote economic growth. That also means that society can profitably employ unused productive capacity and invest in more productive capacity to service the demands of a growth economy.
To accomplish this we must ensure that FUTURE economic growth be financed to create new owners of expanding existing and future businesses to ensure that the consumer populous is able to get the money to buy the products and services produced as a result of substituting “machines” for people.
But how can we accomplish this goal of creating new owners of FUTURE productive capital investment simultaneously with the growth of the economy?
The solution requires that the Federal Reserve stop monetizing unproductive debt, including bailouts of banks “too big to fail” and Wall Street derivatives speculators, and begin creating an asset-backed currency that could enable every man, woman and child to establish a Capital Homestead Account or “CHA” (a super-IRA or asset tax-shelter for citizens) at their local bank to acquire a growing dividend-bearing stock portfolio to supplement their incomes from work and all other sources of income. Policies need to insert American citizens into the low or no-interest investment money loop to enable non- and undercapitalized Americans, including the working class and poor, to build wealth and become “customers with money.” That’s what the Capital Homestead Act addresses.
The “Capital Homesteading” concept is the direction America needs to take to build an OWNERSHIP CULTURE and ensure a balance between production and consumption.
This new paradigm is the subject of the Agenda of The Just Third Way Movement at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797 and is founded on the concept of Monetary Justice (http://capitalhomestead.org/page/monetary-justice).
A Petition to reform the Federal Reserve to provide capital credit to ALL Americans can be supported at http://signon.org/sign/amend-the-federal-reserve.fb27?source=c.fb&r_by=3904687. The proposed Capital Homestead Act (http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm) would accomplish the necessary reform.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/who-should-own-america_b_2040592.html and by OpEd News at http://www.opednews.com/articles/THE-Absent-Conversation–by-Gary-Reber-130429-498.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/04/radioshack-closing-stores_n_4895456.html
