Adopt the super-rich – a new reality show?

God warned Israel that they would regret their longing for a king once they had one (1 Samuel: 8:9). Americans had a king imposed on them, and once they won independence, chose representative democracy and the laws derived from that to rule over them in the belief that ‘all men are created equal’.

Not only are all people created equal, but all people are flawed, and so our democratic system has checks and balances on power. No matter the checks and balances and the ideal of equal representation, though, the power of money has always threatened the influence of the votes of the regular people. And this is why the US, and other representative democracies, have laws that attempt to limit the amount of money that any one person may contribute to a party or individual, in an attempt to uphold equality.

Recent decisions of the US Supreme Court have, however, created ‘super citizens’.   The decisions in Buckley v. Valeo, Citizens United v. FEC, and McCutcheon v. FEC, gave corporations the same rights as ordinary voters to contribute to campaigns, and allowed the creation of Super Pacs which may spend unlimited sums to advocate for or against political candidates.

The super-citizens are people just like us. The thing is, they don’t know us. The 1% have quite different priorities than the 99%. For example, lower-income Americans believe that creating jobs is the clear priority for government, whereas the wealthy believe holding down the deficit is much more important. 

Whether we like it or not, we every-day people meet all sorts, including people with different life circumstances and different beliefs, and often we get talking to them. This rubbing of shoulders and shaking of hands gives us firsthand information about lives that are not the same as ours. The super-citizens, however, are cocooned.

I can barely imagine the world of the super-rich – can you? We never see them. They travel in chauffeured limousines and helicopters, private jets, yachts, even submarines. Far from shopping at the local market and joining local organizations, the super-rich are hardly local anymore – they move between residences in New York, London, Ibiza, and Provence. The ‘ordinary’ people they meet are PAs, solicitors, financial advisers, accountants, and servants.

It’s the people we don’t shake hands with that we ignore, and whose problems we discount. Because of this, the super-rich cannot speak for the 99%, and yet their voices can hush all of ours.

Is there anything we can do to have our voices heard above the clink of cash? How about we open our homes to the super-rich to come live with us for a week or a month? What about a reality show? We could  use Louis Armstrong’s ‘Wonderful World’ – “I see friends shaking hands, sayin ‘how do you do?’ / They’re really sayin’, ‘I love you” as our theme song. I wonder how many would take the opportunity?

Or we can support organizations like Mayday.us which are using various means to overcome the effects of the Supreme Court decisions.

(Image from Elir Deviant Art)

Do we need another world war to save democracy?

Who’s to blame for most of us becoming poorer, while the fortunes of the super-rich grow to almost unimaginable heights? Why are Wal-Mart and the “dollar stores” losing profits while there is a growth of 4-6 percent for luxury goods in the US?

Since the early 1970s, income inequality in the United States has grown significantly. Australia and most OECD countries are on the same trajectory.  What has caused this growing disparity? Reaganism, Thatcherism, globalization – they, and many others,  have been blamed. But they are not the cause.

Thomas Piketty says that the capitalist system itself is the culprit. Piketty analyzed data from more than 20 countries from the 18^th Century to the present and found that inequalities of wealth that inexorably increase is an inherent effect of our economic system. Returns on capital will always exceed the rate of economic growth, and this naturally results in a very few inheriting vast riches.

Nevertheless, between 1930 and 1970 this trajectory of inequality shrank. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and, as in the US and Europe, these were the years where not only America, but our countries too, felt like ‘lands of opportunity’.

What happened? Before 1930 inequality was very high, but then came the crash of 1929 and then World War II. These cataclysms disrupted inherited wealth. Between 1945 and 1975 the capitalist system rebooted. The thirty ‘glorious’ years were merely a pause in the process.

But what does inequality of wealth matter? When it combines with the representative democratic system, it results in the very few fabulously wealthy owning the agenda. It results, in fact, in  the death of democracy.

To win our democratic system back, do we have to wish for another World War?

Australia beware! You will become both fascist and communist!

Here’s a new idea – raising the minimum wage will lead to the rise of a Nazi-like American state. Or, so say the Koch brothers and the vice presidents of Koch Industries.

The minimum wage in Australia is currently $16.87 (AUD) per hour for permanent workers (casual and temporary workers earn more per hour to compensate for vacations and sick leave to which they are not entitled). Although Australia is not perfect, the last time I looked it was not a fascist state, nor has it ever been.

It’s rhetoric like this that makes Aussies shake their heads. If it is not higher minimum wages leading to fascism, it is universal health care that will lead to communism. It is just as obvious that Australia is not communist.  The Australian health care system, Medicare, works well, protects all Australians, and has not endangered our liberty since it was introduced about 40 years ago.

The Koch contingent argue that raising the minimum wage would lead to a huge increase in unemployment among unskilled people, which in turn would make them open to the ploys of fascist pretenders (why they would not be open to the imprecations of communists is not made clear by the Kochs).

Debates about the economic effects and the merits of the minimum wage date back many decades.  Back in the first decade of the twentieth century neoclassical economists argued that wage levels were determined by workers’ productivity and that minimum wages would reduce employment among low-skilled workers. In contrast, progressives argued that minimum wages would encourage workers to increase their efforts, and would boost consumers’ purchasing power and thus raise aggregate demand. There is as yet no definitive answer as to its effects, if any.

At the moment, unemployment rates in the US and Australia are very similar, and have been comparable for many years. There are of course peaks and troughs when factors such as when the global financial crisis took effect.

The minimum wage in the US means that many workers need to hold two jobs in order to survive. Holding down two or more jobs means that they cannot spend time studying to raise themselves up the income ladder. So long, American dream.

Can crowd sourcing save American democracy?

http://www.christopherdombres.fr/serigraphies/

America’s Founding Fathers knew that arbitrary power can cause the pillars of democracy to crumble. They knew the ways in which a governor, a king, a tax collector, a soldier, a trading company, a colony, a prison official, could deprive the ordinary citizen of the essentials of liberty. The foundations of the liberal democracy they built were to protect citizens from this.

I wonder what they would say about the arbitrary powers of the Super PACs?
Money has always been able to capture the ear of politicians, and the more money the more influence. Hence, in the US, in Australia- a total of forty countries in all –there are laws meant to ensure that the sources of campaign financing are open to scrutiny.

But in America in 2010, something changed. Legislation to enable the creation of Super PACs (officially known as ‘independent-expenditure only committees’ was enacted. Super PACs may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns. They can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size. . Corporations that fund political causes have stockholders to answer to. Individuals (who now donate even larger amounts) do not.

In the 2012 presidential election campaign, most of the money given to super PACs came from wealthy individuals. The top 100 individuals who donated to super PACs in 2011–2012 accounted for more than 80% of the total money raised (close to $99 million), even though they numbered less than 3.7% of all contributors. Center for Responsive Politics
Super-rich individuals are taking over the political process. Timothy Noah calls these guys (yes, they are all men), the ‘crankocrats’. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/trb/magazine/102114/crankocracy-friess-simmons-oligarchs-election-america

Their wealth is going into repealing health care reform, making abortion illegal, restricting access to contraception, blocking climate change legislation, and cutting taxes for – (guess who?) the super-rich.

Everyone here except the handful of the extremely wealthy is frustrated with the mess. But just as many believe that there is nothing to be done against this power. It is truly arbitrary. But a new idea came on to the scene a few months ago.

The idea? Fighting money with money. Citizen-funded big money to fight the big money of special interests on both the left and the right. Money to fight to reform the system so that the arbitrary power of the super-rich is overcome. Not for any other issue, and not for the right or the left wing.

Mayday.org has raised $12 million in less than two months using crowd funding! This citizen money will press for fundamental reforms in the way elections are funded. https://mayday.us/the-plan/

America, the beautiful indeed!!