On July 5, 2015, Christina Wilkie writes on The Huffington Post:
Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) offered a first glimpse on Sunday of some of the people he might consider for his cabinet in a potential Sanders administration, and a few that he certainly won’t.
“My cabinet would not be dominated by representatives of Wall Street,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think Wall Street’s played a horrendous role in recent years, in negatively impacting our economy and in making the rich richer. There are a lot of great public servants out there, great economists who for years have been standing up for the middle class and the working families of this country.”
Prompted by host Jake Tapper, Sanders went on to praise Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist. Krugman is a vocal opponent of tax cuts for the rich, and he has warned readers for years about the dangers of income inequality. “Krugman does a great job,” Sanders said.
Also doing a great job, Sanders said, is Columbia University economics professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, whose recent work has focused on the perils of radical free markets, such as those espoused by some in the libertarian wing of the GOP.
Sanders also singled out Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley: “I think [he] is doing a fantastic job.” Reich has long been an influential backer of labor unions, which have come under attack from Republican governors in recent years.
Still, Sanders said, “it’s a little bit too early, I must say, to be appointing a cabinet. Let me get elected first.”
In recent weeks, Sanders’ long shot campaign for the Democratic nomination has captured a swell of momentum on the left, drawing larger crowds in Iowa than Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic front-runner.
“All over this country, younger people, working people, elderly people, are moving in our direction, because they want a candidate to take on the establishment,” Sanders said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/05/bernie-sanders-cabinet_n_7730208.html
Unfortunately, the three potential cabinet consideration in the Bernie Sanders administration are ALL one-factor thinkers––that laboring through a job is the ONLY means to earn an income. Their entire history of activism has been focused on job creation, without realizing that there first must be OWNERSHIP creation simultaneously with growth of the economy. The three men mentioned are conventional economic thinkers with no new, viable solutions to abate wealth and income inequality.
None of these economist recognize, nor does Bernie Sanders, that there are far more effective ways to empower EVERY citizen to earn more money to create demand for economic growth. We need to get Bernie Sanders to see the REAL solution to wealth and income inequality, which is to empower EVERY citizen to become an OWNER of wealth-creating, income-producing non-human capital assets, the result of technological invention and innovation, and the REAL cause of productivity gains. Those who OWN the non-human means of production are the beneficiaries of the wealth and income produced by shifts in the technologies of production resulting in increased productivity.
One of the principal legislative policies that will require adoption is the proposed Capital Homestead Act (CHA) (See http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/. See http://cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ and http://cesj.org/…/uploads/Free/capitalhomesteading-s.pdf.)
The immediate effects of the CHA should be felt within 18 to 24 months — but not because of the dividends earned by the new capital OWNERS, but the effect on “job creation.”
This is because forming a couple trillion dollars worth of new productive capital assets will result in new jobs, which will trigger new demand as workers spend their income, and thus more jobs to meet the new demand. The direct effects of the CHA will be felt within 7 to 9 years . . . the length of time (estimated) needed to repay the first round of new capital investment completely and apply the full stream of dividends to consumption instead of debt service . . . which will create yet more demand and thus result in more job creation.
Cautiously we can assume that the first year of the Capital Homesteading program will focus first on the enormous number of projects that must be undertaken regardless of the cost of financing. This appears to be around $2 trillion. (Strictly speaking, Capital Homesteading “pure credit” financing would be interest-free, although not cost-free — but that’s a technicality we don’t need to address in this comment.)
Following this would be those projects that have been in abeyance due solely to lack of available financing at a reasonable cost. We could consider this “additional investment” — but is it really? Let’s assume it is, since it’s above the bare minimum. There are no solid figures for this, but let’s assume that it’s roughly half of the amount of the “must be undertaken” projects, or $1 trillion. Just to be ultra-conservative, let’s include in that replacement capital that managers have realized will be cheaper financed with pure credit and the cash earning they’ve been retaining for replacement that rightfully belongs to the shareholders can be paid out to the shareholders.
Thus, hypothetically, the additional new capital increment would increase the amount of new capital formation from $2 to $3 trillion.
As one can see, the economic benefits of a Capital Homesteading program would begin immediately, as soon as the workers forming the new capital get paid. Once the initial loans are paid back, there would be another infusion of consumption income into the economy due to freeing up cash formerly used for debt service. This would increase by the same amount every year, everything else being equal.
All the loans would have to be paid back, in full, for the system to work, with capital credit insurance and reinsurance to repay the loans for failed projects. As for working capital and R&D — those are, technically, a capital item and an expense, respectively. If more cash is needed for operations, the company should issue new shares, not retain earnings. By issuing and selling new shares of stock in the corporations growing the economy, we can broadly create new capital owners with the effect of vastly spreading the new wealth created.
While Bernie Sanders is proving to be a justice-committed leader, especially one who wants to end the corruption built into our exclusionary system of monopoly capitalism––the main source of corruption of any political system, democratic or otherwise he is weak on solutions to reform the system. He needs to advocate the need to radically overhaul the Federal tax system and monetary policies and institute proposals to get money power to the 99 percent of American citizens who now only rely on their labor worker earnings. But I want him to advocate the Just Third Way’s more just and simple tax system, under which access to ownership of the means of production in the future would by provided to every child, woman and man by requiring the government to lift all existing legal and institutional barriers to private property stakes as a fundamental human right. The system was made by people and can be changed by people. Guided by the right principles of economic justice, “we the people” can organize and demand that the system be reorganized to make true economic democracy the new foundation for true political democracy. The result of this movement of new justice-committed leaders and activists will be inclusive prosperity, inclusive opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.
Support the Agenda of The Just Third Way Movement at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797, http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-basic-principles-of-economic-and-social-justice-by-norman-g-kurland/, http://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/jtw-graphicoverview-2013.pdf and http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-a-new-vision-for-providing-hope-justice-and-economic-empowerment/.
