Showing posts with label Universal Health Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universal Health Care. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

"Extreme Inequality Is Like Economic Pollution"

What could the US afford if it raised billionaires' taxes? We do the math “Every billionaire is a policy failure.” So says a key adviser to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez herself says that it’s wrong to have a “system that allows billionaires to exist” alongside poverty. And the New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo recently called for us to “abolish billionaires”. ...... Today, the top 1% of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. ....... But what does it really mean? Is it setting a cap on the amount of wealth one household can own? Or does it entail something a little more structural: unrigging the system that gave us billionaires and instead creating an economy in which everyday people get the benefits from the growth that they have created. ........ The richest 1% own nearly 40% of all the wealth, but pay only 20% of all the taxes. ............

Inequality makes bubbles more likely, it undermines the foundations for innovation and productivity, and it weakens and destabilizes consumer demand.

........ taxing the super-rich would generate revenue that could be put to better uses than letting that money sit in a Bahamian bank account of a billionaire. .......

Over the next 10 years, the richest 1% of American households will take home about another $22tn, after federal taxes. Their average annual post-tax income will be about $1.7m.

........ Three trillion dollars in new revenue is enough to make college free at all public universities, make a massive new investment in infrastructure along the lines of what Senate Democrats have proposed, and triple the budget for the National Institutes of Health. Needless to say, all of these investments would pay enormous economic dividends. .......... Doing that would generate about $8tn in revenue, which is enough to send every household in the bottom 75% a check for nearly $8,500 every year for 10 years........ As of 2016, the wealthiest 1% of American households owned about $27tn in total, an average of about $23m per household. ........ A tax that took about 1% of that wealth each year would yield about $4tn over the next decade. To put that amount in perspective, $4tn is more than the federal government will spend over the next decade on foster care, school lunch, school breakfast, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, unemployment compensation, supplemental security income for the elderly, blind people and those with disabilities, and all the tax credits for working families combined........ Rich people are neither the source of economic prosperity, nor will they decide to go off and form their own society in Antarctica or 10 miles off the coast of San Diego...... If we disincentivize hoarding at the top, money will more easily flow to the workers and families who really drive economic growth. ........ And before long, instead of a few hundred billionaires taking ever more, we could instead have a thriving middle class, widespread economic security, and real opportunities to give the next generation a better life.


Monday, September 23, 2019

Capitalism's Own Propaganda Machine

Look at this.

News: Hong Kong, Vancouver, Diaspora Nationalism

Over a hundred million Chinese travel outside China every year. And, out of their own seeming free will, they travel back. China, obviously, is no North Korea. A lot of them will tell you, they support their government. They will line up arguments in its defense. What is going on? It is conditioning. And it is so total.

There is a similar conditioning in America. It is capitalist conditioning. The corporations that so own the political process, that so own the media, have also similarly conditioned 300 million Americans.

China needs a heavy dose of democracy. China needs to open up. That is the only way it will avoid the middle income trap. The only way China can hope to become a high tech superpower that it aspires to be is if there is free speech in China.

America also needs a fair dose of democracy. Right now it is not a democracy. America is corporate socialism. It is a corporate welfare state. It is a political system designed to work for the biggest corporation and its richest citizens. Not even the top 1% but 1% of that 1%.

The CCP has a political monopoly in China that needs to be broken. Similarly, the stranglehold of the 0.01% in America has to be broken. Then America will become a democracy.

There is need for triangulation. We want post-capitalism. We want post-communism. We want democracy. We want a market economy devoid of monopolies and oligarchies and one party ownerships.

Hong Kong should not try to imitate America. Hong Kong needs to show America the way.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Hong Kong: A Crisis For Capitalism As Much As Communism

Hong Kong 2019: This Is 1989 For Asia
Hong Kong Should Take The Plunge
Universal Basic Income (aka Freedom Dividend) Is Not Free Money
Could Andrew Yang Become President?
Hong Kong Protests: The World Should Not Watch A Possible Massacre

The knee jerk way to interpret what is happening in Hong Kong is, well, China wrong, America right. Both are wrong. The 20th-century dichotomy no longer explains aspirations. Capitalism is in crisis in America. Communism is in crisis in China. And the trade war between the two puts the whole world in crisis mode. Something fundamental is not working. There is a need for a rethink.

A big reason capitalism is not working in Hong Kong is because the Hong Kong capitalists control half the legislature. That is not sustainable. You can't have a Chief Executive who answers to Beijing but not to the ordinary citizens of Hong Kong.

That is where you start.

But then you quickly have to move to things like Universal Basic Income.

There is an acute housing crisis in Hong Kong. It is a big city problem. Singapore does it much better. Hong Kong can learn from Singapore. But it does not have the option to learn unless it can elect its own leaders.

Election day should be a public holiday. People should be able to vote from their phones. Or maybe no holiday, and a week-long voting period.

Citizens also have the responsibility to regularly meet in-person to engage in political dialogue.

Hong Kong is showing the way for the 100 biggest cities in the world. This is a turning point in world history. New Yorkers should also march. Not for Hong Kong, but for New York. Demand UBI. Demand voting rights for all residents, citizen or not.



Hong Kong’s protests are just the tip of the iceberg: capitalism is in crisis across the globe While Hong Kong is embroiled in unprecedented social and political upheaval, a silent revolution is unfolding in the capitalist heartland of the world...... This transition from “shareholder capitalism” to “stakeholder capitalism” is more than semantics. ..... The lopsided emphasis on maximising profits has been responsible for a disproportionate share of social, environmental and political problems in contemporary society – notably, extreme economic inequality, distortion of human needs, environmental destruction and climate change, corporate tax evasion and, above all, the integration of economic power with political power...... Hong Kong has for a long time had one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world, rising from 0.533 in 2006 to 0.539 in 2016. The number of poor households reached 530,000, with more than 1.3 million people living in poverty (over 15 per cent of the population)...... In May 2018, the total net worth of the wealthiest 21 tycoons amount to HK$1.83 trillion, approximately the same as Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves. But, for low-income workers, real wages have only increased 12.3 per cent in the past decade....... In a city in which seven out of the 10 richest people are in the real estate business, financial assets are the major source of income polarisation........ Hong Kong’s case is special in that its government is not accountable to the populace; Lam was “elected” by a 1,200-strong committee and is expected to follow Beijing’s line....... These same issues plague the capitalist West. Because of the presence of a nominal democratic system, some of the mass revolt has found expression in outcomes such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as US president, as well as the Yellow Vest movement in France. ....... their fate is bound up with the fate of “capitalist” development in China, which is also heading towards a major crisis...... There is a huge amount of repressed unrest on the mainland; it is just not visible because of the powerful social control mechanisms in place: China’s budget for maintaining social stability is already greater than its defence budget and it is still growing....... All this points to the urgency of reinventing capitalism.



Trump on thinner political ice than Xi in trade war
Xi brings in 'firefighter' Wang Qishan in bid to calm Hong Kong

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Dem Debate: Texas Edition

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Bernie Picked The Wrong Fight With Andrew Yang



Obviously, the Democrats can't have both Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang. So who is it gonna be?

To Bernie's credit, the idea of a shorter work week is not that bad. How about you work four days a week, not five? But a reduced work week is not an argument against the UBI. They are apples and oranges.

Andrew keeps coming at Universal Basic Income from the technology angle, the artificial intelligence, and robotics angle. And I believe his projections are valid. But projections are projections. Many of those things have not happened yet. The retail jobs are mostly still here. Truck drivers are still driving their rigs.

But what is already here is inequality. I like Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax idea. Marry that to the UBI idea. The inequality that already exists and keeps getting wider every year is extremely harmful not only to democracy but also capitalism. And the best way to narrow the gap is by applying a wealth tax to fund a UBI.

And if the technology arguments come to be, we will also use that Value Added Tax (VAT) to expand the UBI. I can see the UBI going up to $2,000 a month down the line. Technology could give economic growth rates of 50% in future years. You don't want all of that to end up with the top 1%. They will just end up fat and lazy.

This is a fight Andrew must relish. That is the only way for him to go into the double digits.

Unless he wins either Iowa or New Hampshire, he is toast. He is perhaps Secretary of Labor and not the president. More likely speaker and author and CNN talking head in 2021.

Universal basic income, and universal health care are two ideas that belong together. Andrew Yang does need to own Medicare For All if he has a fighting chance.

Friday, March 05, 2010

The Obama FDR Parallels

Paul Krugman, Laureate of the Sveriges Riksban...Image via Wikipedia
"The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who fears a lost decade, said in a lecture at the London School of Economics last summer that he has “no idea” how the economy could quickly return to strong, sustainable growth."
FDR's was the Great Depression. We are calling ours the Great Recession. FDR gave us Social Security, Obama is going to give Universal Health Care. The recession is over. The recession is not over. You love me, you love me not.

I think there are obvious parallels between the Great Depression and what we are going through right now, but it is also important to realize we are treading new territory.

(1) The Bailout

That was necessary. It is interesting that many of the banks have already paid back most of the money. I am on record at this blog saying that is what will happen, although I did not see it happening this fast. But they have not paid back all the money, so.

The bailout was putting the fire out. Without the bailout it would not have been a Great Recession but Great Depression II.

(2) The Stimulus 

It was necessary but insufficient. When it was put together, I was not shocked by the size of it. What did bother me was it focused too much on the past and too little on the future. I was surprised how little was allocated to broadband, for example.

(3) Banking Regulation

Work here has not gone as well as needed. Wall Street needs a new set of pants. Take off the boxer shorts. Put on some pants.

(4) Public Works Programs

Basically I am arguing for a second stimulus package that might be similar in size to the first one. This would be one pig push to create a truly post-industrial America. The first big wave of job creation will have to be the government's work, otherwise the 10% unemployment figure is feeling pretty comfortable where it is. You did not rely on the market for the bailout, or the stimulus, you sure do not expect the market to do the regulation work. That same courtesy has to be extended to job creation.

Most of the job creation will happen in the education and health sectors. Instead of creating a Tennessee Valley Authority, you would create a program to hire a ton of mentors to kick-start the inner cities, for example.

Universal and faster broadband is fundamental to this very idea. That is the centerpiece. That basic physical infrastructure is what will take both education and health to their next levels. Obama has to build that universal, faster broadband infrastructure like Eisenhower built the interstate highway system. Without that America is not going to become a post-industrial society. People will have to be plugged in.

The idea has to be for the government to hire five million people. If you are going to do it anyway, it makes no sense to do it later, or do it in small steps. Creating new jobs has to be the centerpiece of the second stimulus bill.

Education and health will have to be reimagined. That is why getting health care right is so key. It can't just be about adding entitlement programs for people who are known will not pay in, although everyone has to be covered. It also has to be about bringing the costs down across the board. You inject technology and the market forces into the sector.

On Deficits And Debts

The time to reign in the deficit and the debt will come, but that time is not now. Once the recovery is full, the political wind will blow in that direction.
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