Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Nations Problems-Now Listed For Action

One of the most discouraging items of this problem ridden recession has been the feebleness of the Government’s low energy attempt at fixing the problems. There is a characteristic dance. Democrats propose a greatly lobbied-down correction. This is criticized by a bloc of Republicans. The democratic response to the criticism is to then forget the whole idea and disappear. In spite of the seriousness of the times essentially no action has been taken by Congress.

The nation therefore essentially has given up on the Washington elected government. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans seem to have any driving concern for the citizen welfare. We have been left alone with a large and unanswered need to restore the economy and prepare our country for future global competition.

There is a long list of critical tasks. Some examples are:

Restore a weakened manufacturing sector and balance our trade

Regain control of the financial sector and return it to its proper role

Resolve the paradox of a deteriorating infrastructure with the large unemployment of construction workers

Provide all citizens with an education opportunity suitable for future global competition

Develop an immigration policy that will strengthen the US

Control corporate special interest influences on legislation

Adjust the Department of Defense to reflect changes in threats and warfare.

Establish an equitable trade agreement with China

Somehow gain a functional Congress.
The State of the Union address was a pleasant surprise. Finally the President identified the problems and explicitly recognized actions aimed at addressing them. He pleaded for congressional cooperation and promised to take the issue directly to the people of the country if no cooperation was forthcoming. Let us hope.

A CBS poll taken at the completion of the presentation showed unheard of approval Ninety one percent (91%) of the citizens that heard the speech favored taking the actions discussed.

A Gallup poll analyzed the proposed actions item by item and also showed how strongly the public favored the proposed actions.

The suffering and disillusioned public is begging for action. So far this Congress has taken none. It is doubtful that the current Congress will change its useless ways. Hopefully the items will be brought up item by item so the voters can observe the votes and take appropriate action on Election Day.

Then perhaps the restoration of a great country can begin

Friday, January 13, 2012

Simple Missions That Morphed Into Monsters

An income greedy financial sector, corrupt political parties, and bean counter corporations are all having lethal effects on the countries welfare.

All three areas once had a specific limited service to contribute to the country. Over the years, however, they have been allowed to expand their activities and boundaries to the point where they have become self serving and are now harmful to the economy, our democracy and our welfare  They have done this by abandoning service to the country and its citizens and focusing instead on creating in-house benefits. This has been accomplished with the full complicity of our elected government. All of these activities have been gained through expansion of their activities outside of constitutional requirements.

The Constitution granted Congress responsibility for the fiscal activities of the country. The Congress utilized private sources to assist it to perform specific functions and to assist in ensuring that funding was available to companies and citizens for productive use. Because they are managing national funds their focus should not be maximizing their own profits. This situation has reversed itself and these functions are now managed by central banks that are corporations focused on creating revenue for themselves, not for the productive sectors of our economy. Combine this with lax overview by the Government and we have hugh misallocation of funds misdirection of national goals, and financial disasters.

The Constitution does not mention political parties. Their potential for doing harm was warned by several founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, Geoge Washington, and John Adams. This was done on the fear that it would create primary loyalties to the party instead of the general welfare. This has proven to be true. There is a natural tendency of citizens to start groups that would organize to jointly advocate their position for pending legislation. Now, however we have only two parties that have been jointly untouchable in power for over 150 years. They have become a major anti-democracy factor by their tight control of the selection process that determines the candidates that are finally presented to the citizens. Their control of the elected government has allowed them to define an election process that greatly favors the current system. The result is that our election process is governed by two private organizations that have their primary loyalty to themselves rather than the nation

Reflecting the feelings that English corporations had been exploiting the colonies in the days before independence corporations in early America were rare, They were treated as unique organizations formed for a special business activity, such as building a canal. They are not mentioned in the Constitution and were initially solely a state responsibility. They were forbidden to become involved in politics. Over 200 years of mainly Supreme Court decisions have reversed this to give them all rights of a natural person and the right to use their profits `to exert enormous power over our legislative and electoral processes. To restore our democracy all three institutions must be put back into their proper position in relation to national governance.

The financial sector must be put back in the position of a service to the productive elements of the economy and not focused on non productive attempts to increase its own revenues.

Political parties must be reduced to equality as one of many organizations promoting candites and have no special advantages over unaffiliated candidates.

Corporations likewise must be focused on producing useful services and products, not on government and electoral process manipulation for special privileges.

These corrections will be difficult and take time. All three institutions will fight strongly to preserve their positions. It will only happen with an overwhelming demand from the citizens. It will require a drastic reduction of the funds that can be applied to influencing the government and elections.