A Letter to Mostafa Hessami (Iran)

A Letter to Mostafa Hessami (Iran)


I am a Friend. I honor all religions. The “Christian” justification for War is similar to your proclamation, which appears to be the sixth pillar of Islam. It is based on the misunderstandings of the teachings of John, who said and wrote, Jesus laid down his life for us, thus we should lay down our lives for each other”. The Christmas season has evolved to be an outrageous blasphemy relative to the true teachings of the prophet Jesus.

Soldiers, not Military Leaders, almost always are common people, coming from the ranks of the poor, the dispossessed, the oppressed. Thus, Marxist/Leninist thoughts and actions jibe with the concept of “holy war”.

We must be ultimately brave in our pursuit of peace. We must be peace, yet our dilemma is to throw off the shackles of Monied and Military Imperialism. George Fox said and wrote that there is good and bad in everyone and it is incumbent upon us to cultivate the good in ourselves and rid ourselves of the bad (inner jihad) and that we should try to see the good in everyone we meet and help them to do the same.

Homa Ecologica Cooperativo (On Facebook)

This group seeks to educate, organize, plan and implement a radical intentional evolution of the human species to Homa Ecologica Cooperativo.

The mission is ecologically socio-economic and seeks fundamental reform of the resource planning and allocation system to accomplish human progress in the form of ecological economic redevelopment based on human needs and the recognition of resource scarcity, and inculcated on the principles of inclusion, humanity, equity, altruism, health and well-being, quality of life, economic democracy, peace, and sustainability.

It recognizes the concept of self-interest and extended self-interest and comprehends the organization of status quo establishments and institutions, but seeks to reconcile, reorganize, and reallocate the employment of natural resources/human labor based on the concept of neighborhood/community, inter-community, regional, inter-regional, world around solidarity, cooperation, and organization.

Suggested eventual outcomes include the formulation of a World Congress for Community Economic Development.

In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity.

Mike Morin
Eugene-Springfield

Relative to Leauge for Industrial Democracy and Upton Sinclair Mutual Aid Fund

Robert,

Thank you for the letter.

It is quite interesting to see you (and others?) trying to take similar initiatives to the Peoples' Equity Union (i.e. the Upton Sinclair Mutual Aid Fund). My research and your correspondence indicate that we have very similar motivations, understanding, and intentions relative to ecological economic redevelopment/community betterment. I think we both understand the concept of the community/worker hybrid cooperative and would like to get very busy in implementing such in our respective communities and elsewhere.

With respect to such, I am trying to work on two fronts, the micro and the macro. It is my considered opinion that success will not occur on the local level until there is a huge critical mass of citizens that understand the fundamental root causes of the current and further impending failure of the Capitalist/Corporatist system and the need for us as a country and a world to unify in support of an alternative economic paradigm, a "plan and implement" economy based on the meeting of human needs, and not a "risk and return" motivation based on profit.

It brings to mind to mind the schism of the 1800's between Marx and Proudhon, and it is almost rendered impossible by the myriad of profit-motivated, solely self-interested endeavors that have evolved to be a highly decadent but self-perpetuating entropy of linear trajectory and the massive systematic inflation in the price of real and capital assets..

There is a fundamental accounting principle: Equity = Assets - Liabilities. Until we can bring to the fore world leaders who value equity as a fundamental universal principle (equity means ownership and it means equality), along with inclusion, humanity, altruism, well-being and quality of life, peace, and sustainability and who speak to the human condition in historical perspective and propose bold collective action by the species, the future of the human race will remain bleak.

I'd like to get your thoughts.

Thank you.

In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity.

Mike Morin

Minimum Wage and an Inculcated Tangent

Minimum Wage and an Inculcated Tangent



The minimum wage is only good for children, 14, 15, 16, living at home with their parents who have a living wage income (preferably male). By the age of 18, a guaranteed income to bring minimum or better wage up to living wage, and increasing with age, is in order. That is the demand side.

On the supply side, we need to consolidate assets and write down their costs (Real and Capital assets for ecological economic redevelopment with a definite and committed demand side management plan and evolution to a more sedentary life). On the supply side we are dealing with an extant and momentous over-supply glut, much of it which is of inferior quality.

Supply side chains need to be transitioned to wholesale and distribution channels altered to make goods and services available within walking distance of almost all. Such, if the resources can be garnered (every day that we squander resources so ridiculously creates a situation more bleak with regards to the opportunity costs for precious resources) and the reorganization and reallocation secured, then the youth and children have a hope for the future, much of which could be employed in the building, communications, and agro-ecology trades.

We can not afford to squander time with respect to the necessary eduaction, reorganization, and subsequent reallocation, rebuilding transition.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity...

A Letter

My Good Friend Azel,

It is not only at retail where the chains put a squeeze on assets (including labor) to maximize their profits.

Organizations such as Walmart, Costco, Safeway, Shears, etc. need to back out of the retail trade and become more of a wholesale operation with pre-order delivery to community/neighborhood access outlets which can be established in all neighborhoods so that almost all can get what they need and reasonably want within walking distance of their homes.

However, even if we could get such cooperation from the myriad of supply chains, there would still, at least within the time realm that we consider now, be an over-supply problem. Therefore, we would be faced with the cut-throat competition practices that characterize such a low effective demand/over-supply (side) economy.

It is problematic, but not insurmountable.

By the way, I joined this "Organization" because, I thought the basic mission, and principles were good, but I would rate them as an A- or a B+ in the way in which they were stated. Or if this is HueMass, hew sea, I would give it an AB, Si?

In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Letter to Tea Party

Letter to Tea Party
(originally blogged on Tea Party site about 3 to 6 months ago)


I'll be up-front.

I've been a Communist since the age of fifteen. I am now in my 57th year and have learned much since 1969. Oh, I learned nothing previous to those years. Really, not really.

I favored a Republican, McCloskey, an anti-war Viet Nam Veteran in 1968. I was a Eugene McCarthy fan until "Petey" entered the race. I was too young to vote.

But you all may remember Nixon ran a pro-war campaign in 1968, pledging allegiance to "the great silent majority that favors the War".

Hubert Humphrey by comparison was an even more absurd caricature.

Oh sure, Republicans won in 1968, but I can assure you that of the "children" of fighting age and younger we were nearly a consensus in opposition. I would also attest to you all that the majority of Americans were unrepresentative by either "wing" of our Capitalist Party government.

Memories can be conveniently short and many of the youth, and unfortunately those who fared better by the "natural selection" process forgot or never really learned the valuable lessons of Viet Nam and the ridiculous notion that we were fighting for democracy, liberty, freedom, whatever the hawkish cries were at the time.

The brave young men who served thought they were doing the right thing, I suppose. I'd venture that few, those who survived to contemplate the experience, still believe that. After all it was Fascist Capitalism against Fascist "Communism".

Through my years of academic and experiential learning, I have evolved to explain my liberation "theology" as that of one of Cooperative Communitarian/Libertarian Socialist.

I would set forth the proposition that we are not at polar extremes, in fact having earned a MBA with distinction and worked for many years in Health "Care" Cost Accounting, the notion of fiscal responsibility (a myth of the Reagan years? - it is argued that much money was borrowed from Banks to finance a Military buildup which finally reached its ultimate expression in the post 911 US aggression in the Middle East) is a concept that I understand perhaps much better than those who would consider themselves "politically liberal" and much better than many if not most if not all of my "socialist" colleagues. But I also understand the concept of Business Social Responsibility, having aced such a course in Business School that I viewed as the foundation of my Business Education. (Believe it or not taught by a burly southerner by the name of John McCain) I also know very well that the Voodoo Economics of Monetarism and Neo-classical Economics is a tragic oversimplification of reality that has played out to disastrous consequences in the last thirty years and can only lead to an end times tragedy for the youth and children of the planet (which includes the environments which we still call the United States).

I could refer you to many books on the topic, but trust me when I tell you that Capitalist Corporations do not respect borders, and what is a border anyway, but an arbitrary King's Grant with lackey Senators and Congressman, State, County, and Municipal officials to enforce what is really nothing more than a glorified feudal system administered mostly for the benefit of an increasingly few.

Contrary to the more peace-loving religions of Buddhism and Jesusianism (St. John enunciated the concept of selflessness which is also a teaching of the more pure Buddhist faith) we fool ourselves and/or others when we deny that we are acting in self-interest and extended self-interest. The question then becomes how do we define that extended self-interest? Is it a Red State? Is it a Blue State? Is it a White State? Is it a Black State?

The Constitution is a noble peace of paper, particularly the bill of rights. However, as Mr. Nixon so ridiculously stated about 1973 that it is a government of laws, not men (thousand pardons to all the perdaughters who may be viewing this epistle), the entire history of our cherished, but being squandered, North American continent has been so rife with the abrogation of human rights that I sometimes wonder if the only real right that we have is to remain silent. Why did the same Aristocracy that commissioned working class and unemployed immigrants to kill natives and kill working class, and unemployed Brits only give us the right to "peaceably assemble"? Why has that right deteriorated to the point that we must get a Government permit to do that? Was it a legitimate government of laws from which the Supreme Court ruled that a highway expansion or other form of eminent domain was only considered a taking if the value of the property was reduced to $0?

It would serve only a little purpose given the impending resource scarcity and the drunken foolishness of hedonism that accepts some Biblical revelation of end times to be a joyous salvation to mention that the Soviet Constitution was an even nobler attempt to design via a written letter of laws, but ran the fallacy of a modus operandi of violence which has been the reality since when? Quite the contrary, the anarchy that we are recognizing and will be increasingly realizing is hell bent and it is my strong estimation that most people who are living that linear trajectory don't really have a clue what is coming and without a commitment to unity and a radical reformation concerning what we need to value, and that is human life. We all have brains, we all have hearts, and most of us have left and right hands, arms, legs, and feet. We are all people. We all live in an environment. The environment is deteriorating. The environment is the issue and our stewardship is the most important responsibility.

Although the socialist will attest to the plight of the elderly and the poor, the infirm, a cooperative communitarian will attest to hopes of the still strong youth and children. Could it be that so many have been forced into the wage slavery of two income earners, which was accompanied in the so-called "Yuppie" movement by the return to the greed ethic, that no one has children to care about or have given up any hope for their progeny. Is youth and childhood a foreign concept?

No, we now must all come together, work together, help each other and understand that in this time of great communications capability that it is fundamental that we communicate the basic principles that hold such a slim hope for the future. The future not be damned. In my very considered opinion those principles need to be inclusion, humanity, equity, altruism, responsibility to life engendering pursuits, and to a hope for the future of the children.

As I write, all I hear is automobiles. Such are the bane of our existence and must be comprehensively planned into perspective. It can be done.

Almost all we really need from the Government is the Treasury. The Treasury without the massive Capitalist Class rip-off that was the Federal Reserve System. In a united world economy, if there is any chance of peaceful transition, which IS the only hope the we must redefine the issues and not have to suffer the foolishness of hatred that stems from a less than comprehensive assessment of the matters at hand and the history, particularly as it relates to precious resources, and their technological squandering and the carelessness with which we define our lives and the relationship of our lives to our neighbors. We are all neighbors.

We do need safety-net programs, but we must understand that if those programs are just another form of State Capitalist organized crime to more so benefit the helpers than the helped and it creates a dependency, like the many chemical addictions that your "free" market justifies in an absurd Capitalist Libertarian motto of atomization, "to each his own", then the helpers need to reassess as well.

But I can't stress enough the importance of the post-peak fossil fuel agenda. I have written extensively detailing the comprehensive approach that MUST be adopted. The government can help, but we must communicate to the people the importance of recognizing the poisonous ethos of the fossil fuel/automobile age from which we must settle down into sedentary communities. The rebuilding of our communities can be accomplished if we commit to such, communicate that commitment and plea with engineered ignorance to please stop. Most importantly to whatever constituency you represent, and I fear it is not the driving idiots that stream past my abode, the notion of a quasi-public private sector based on ethical principles and working in concert with a well-intentioned and WELL DIRECTED government to facilitate and to a lesser extent fund an expanded Organization of Economic Opportunity.

United Assets - United Liabilities = United Equity, The world around. Nothing less than this recognition and BOLD LEADERSHIP will accomplish anything that anyone is going to like except in the most transient of perceptions.

Homa Ecologica Cooperativo

Homa Ecologica Cooperativo


Dobson's criticism of Kingsnorth appears to be like trite infighting. However, as an anthropocentric environmentalist, I reject the notion of ecologism as described in this article. However, I refuse to let others dictate terms. Ecology means the study of the home. Economics means the management of the home. I am an ecologist; therefore I subscribe to a real meaning of ecologism, an anthropocentric one. As an Ecologist and as an Economist I reject the linear growth paradigm. I favor instead, a human need centered paradigm of ecological economic redevelopment.

The path we are on will not be a gentle one to lower energy. The path we are on guarantees the four horseman of the apocalypse will be dictating the terms. We need to unite as humans, and very soon, to fundamentally redefining the way that we conduct our daily business. We need to put the industrial, the enginocentric, and fossil fuels, into historical perspective and consciously commit to a future that is different, particularly in relation to the use of the automobile. Gasoline is a gigantic and foolish opportunity cost for a very precious finite resource, oil Radical reduction of its use for personal transportation is among the most important commitments that we can make if we want

Secondly, we will have no future unless we can consciously evolve, meaning moving from a risk and return economic paradigm to a plan and implement one. The evolution from Homo Economicus to Homa Ecologica Cooperativo is overdue. It needs to be an intentional evolution and it is well-past (pun intended) time we began it.

Public “Jobs”

Public “Jobs”


Ok, Alan, I stand corrected on the way the "private sector" works. My issue was with Mr. Khan's call for "investments". The word investment applies an allocation of money for which there will be a return to the investor. I am saying that wild econometric growth, the continuance of a supply side paradigm is not the best way to allocate "our" funds.

There is more than one issue here. In the past, government allocated funds to infrastructure (i.e. highways, sewers, electricity projects, hospitals, schools) all in accordance with the wishes of their masters "the Private Sector" in keeping with an amazingly myopic linear growth model based on assumptions of infinite resources, infinite economic growth, and with absolutely no concern for the long term environmental/public health.

The Unions want to keep the public sector of the growth paradigm alive, regardless of the lack of the private sector to succeed at their part of the game. It is a full speed ahead to destruction, stay alive one more day, reaction to a fundamentally flawed Capitalist "Plan" of World Manifest Destiny.

If we are going to allocate funds for economic progress, let's do it in an ecological manner that is sustainable. One that puts the industrial revolution and the fossil fuel age into historical perspective. One that allocates resources for the creation of sedentary, low energy input, sustainable communities. One that sees the big picture and allocates funds among and within economic sectors in a planned rational manner that starts with a vision of what we want the future to look like, to be.

Public sources should allocate wages and benefits, if they choose to make "investments", it needs to be in a One Big Union worker owned scheme of some sort. That won't happen. Investments will be allocated to Capitalists and they will continue with their ways of exploitation.

These arguments are academic. The Capitalist system is dead, and it is too late in History for an alternative. No one should be poor. We need to make sure that resources are allocated to those who are at risk of that. The ideal would be to allocate funds to community betterment organizations for community betterment all over the world. But that is not a practical option.

It doesn't matter what you or I think, say or write. The Capitalists will get their way. They will only be hastening the resource limited crash, by trying to stave off their economic demise.

The “Democratic” approach, favoring the body politic, to the continuation of the dominant paradigm is preferable to the “Republican”, but the voting on the War Powers Act of 2010 based on “Progressive Democrat” Obama’s budget displays what a woeful dilemma that the Capitalists present.

We’re not going to live happily ever after. Since we’re in the belly of the Imperialist beast and we’ve got no say, anyway, let’s just hope that wild momentum driven delusions that call for investments to the genocidal, ecocidal, suicidal, Corporatist economy don’t take away funding for the basic survival needs of the growing majority of the disenfranchised, because the disenfranchisement is permanent and there will be no “recovery”.

The BP Spill

The BP Spill

The BP Oil Spill is but the thief that got caught. Oil and other fossil fuels are filthy businesses and the constant seepage, spills, runoff, environmental stripping and small, unreported disasters are ongoing.

This BP Spill is a precursor for the drilling industry that is constantly going deeper, taking larger risks to extract the oil that is further from our more conventional grasps.

One wonders how much truth we are being told. Of course what is being heard is what most want to hear, and what the oil industry wants everyone to hear: that technology saved the day and that all is under control and always will be, as the news media commits to “case solved” and the plight of the fishing industry and the lives of the folks on the gulf gets left behind in their coverage.

Any why do we take such risks? And why do we wage aggressive war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and rattle “our” sabers at Iran? So that we can carelessly glide from destination to destination as our privileged imperial ownership caste where our only real job is to consume what each other own?

Oil is a precious resource and one that should be used wisely. Oil heats our homes, oil would be very useful in a humane agricultural system, oil products can cook our food, oil products can be used to generate electricity which, if prudently used, can add much to the quality of our lives. Oil products are used for the creation of durable goods and as feedstock for other valuable uses.

But, people of the USA squander over 15 million barrels a day of oil equivalent to fuel their mindless forays of consumption in personal automobiles. They know no other way. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We could rebuild our neighborhoods and reallocate goods and services accordingly so that the things that people need are available within walking distance of most. Such a program of building/rebuilding village/community/telecommuting centers could not only contribute to a worthwhile goal of reducing personal automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years, thereby greatly extending the tail of post-peak fossil fuels for future generations, but would also greatly add to the communitarian, sedentary, quality of life for all.
We need to commit to this as a nation and commit to it right away.

In addition to improving our domestic quality of life, such a commitment and action plan would go a long way to easing geo-political tensions and allow “us” to cease aggressions with oil rich regions and ease the pressure to extract so much carbon fuels, so fast, thus alleviating the ongoing environmental damaging and greatly reducing the chances of large environmental disasters.

Of course, the momentum of the industrial society and currently accepted "growth" imperative will cause the oil industry to try to maximize oil revenues, therefore production and consumption, and thus environmental degradation and sooner long-term, sustaining fuel shortages. The only solution to this problem, that I can see, is the nationalization of the oil companies and their associated industries, with production scheduling co-ordinated with a full fledge demand side management plan.

A Note to Dr. Mike Ellis on 08/06/2010

A Note to Dr. Mike Ellis on 08/06/2010


Mike,

We need a new paradigm of economic development. Given the existing crises and impending otherwise in resource constraints and the lack of equitable allocation, I know that many reject the politics of the G-20, the G-8, the G-1 (the USA) and the Capitalist Plutocracy and concomitant Military Industrial Complex that has been riding centuries of history based on economic Lordism/serfdom, substituted with the Capitalist profit paradigm or requirement of "risk and return".

We need to cut the Gordian knot and reject such servitude and replace it with an ethos and modus operandi and intentional evolution to Homa Ecologica Cooperativo. Practical translation of such involves much education, particularly with respect to the goals of community organization, cooperation, and solidarity, and eventual direct action of the taking of Treasuries resources for direct, non-usurious, allocation to individuals and communities (in the form of community betterment organizations) based on need. The mission is One of ecological economic redevelopment inculcated on the principles of inclusion, humanity, equity, altruism, well-being and quality of life, sustainability, and peace. This is a cooperative communitarian/socialist economic democracy paradigm of "plan and implement".

Being that most calls for socialism only clamor against the offending parties, and make weak attempts to organize within the political constraints and organizational and media domination, some with an impossible and misguided agenda of electoral victory and others with the misguided and premature agenda of revolution. What the political reformers and the cheerleaders of revolution have in common is a complete lack of understanding of the resource concerns and fundamental economic reorganization that is necessary.

I think that it is necessary to mitigate the inhumanities of the progressions of the industrial revolution and phase back more of an industrious ethic that goes along with relocalized artisanry, human ecology, agroecology (including urban agroecology) and an ethic of peace, cooperation, and solidarity.

Given that I feel much alone, although it is completely eclectic, in the enunciation of this paradigm, I call upon you for expressions of solidarity and commitment to aid in the furtherance of this mission. Please do not tarry with respect to a response, particularly related to how we can progress.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin
512 W. 10th Avenue, #2
Eugene, OR 97401
1-541-343-3808
www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com

The G-20?

The G-20?


We must try not to think of our world as being on the other side of no tomorrow, though at risk of understatement, the hour is getting late.

The biggest problem that I see us facing is the entropy that has set in with the passing climaxes of industrialization and the fossil fuel age. The age of the consumer is riding itself out, but in its path is unspeakable genocide, ecocide, and suicide.

If we could envision, educate, and communicate to the people of the planet, particularly those of the G-One (the USAers who are by far the most mad and mislead); the alternative vision of resources allocated directly to individuals and communities - based on need, and re-learn the ways of community, a "plan and implement" cooperative communitarian socialism, rather than the Imperial, Militaristic, Greed-driven, "risk and return" paradigm (or excuse), could go a long way towards turning things around.

Only idiot puppets like Obama don't understand that the Financial Game is over. The only thing left for the Financial Overlords is to keep putting money into mostly failed endeavors that will DRIVE (the fossil fuel age and automobiles are relative flukes and need to be put into historical perspective) the planet to extinction based on an insistent sucking the resources of the earth dry by insisting on the industrialization/consumption paradigm when we all should be asking for and working for an industrious/well being paradigm.

My guess is that 80% of the USA GDP is the consumption of gasoline for personal purposes. The automobile is the most destructive toy that ever disgraced the planet.

In addition to the rearrangement of the Financial Paradigm and Systems, we must also recognize and commit to the reduction of the use of the personal automobile in the USA by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. This could be done by rebuilding communities and reallocating resources so that almost all communities are sedentary.

It's a tall order, but let's recognize the mission at hand and work diligently to educate and organize (so that we can allocate), accordingly.

In Addition to “Workers’ Rights”

In Addition to “Workers’ Rights”


We have to also redefine “work”. We need to evolve from the industrial era to a modern industrious one. We need to bypass the Capitalist Plutocracy that evolved from the Bank of England into the Federal Reserve, the Capitalist Banking System, the WTO, the World Bank, their aggressive Military Industrial Complex and their subservient, yet aggressive to us, governments and commissioned militias.

We need to begin to educate and organize towards Independence from Financial Overlords and towards a cooperative communitarian vision that takes hold of the Treasuries of the world and allocates resources, based on need, to individuals and communities. We have to relearn the concept of community, but recognition is the first step towards realization.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

In Response to Raj

In Response to Raj


(In response to video and blog post on World Bank "Land Grabs" on Raj Patel's website introducing the concepts behind the book, "The Value of Nothing")

Raj et al,

Thank you for your leadership and valuable enunciation of common sense.

The Capitalist system is dead, more appropriately killing and dieing. It is the insane momentum of financial abstractions and technological "advancements" that is DRIVING (the automobile is a fluke of human history) the world to genocide, ecocide, and suicide. The Center of such a "progression" is the Military Industrial Complex led hegemony of the British Imperialist Capitalist/Industrial "culture" that saw the Bank of England transform itself to the Federal Reserve in the USA. Its' continental and colonial tyranny have manifested themselves in the World Bank and WTO, Corporate Capitalist Conglomerates and Wall Street and Main Street Financial and Land Overlords.

It is far past the 11th hour in our world, but if there is a solution, it lays in the the idea of a World Congress for Community Economic Development where we can work towards neighborhood/community, inter-community, and inter-regional solidarity and cooperation with local ecological economic redevelopment plans based on need and bypassing the International Finance "Community" as represented in the US by the Federal Reserve and participating Financial domineers and exploiters.

Save for strongholds like Kerala and Cuba, emerging Venezuela and the outgrowths of the work in these areas, we have not yet begun to organize. It is quite problematic from where I live, and throughout at least the North American continent (the only geography that I know) in that people are so firmly acculturated by the status quo that the people do not seem to have the hope, let alone the ability, to visualize an alternative economic system. The environmental damage and the momentum of entropy is so severe and the consciousness of the people so polluted and so incremental. "They've all bought into it", a friend terms it.

To each his own has become to each his own personal crisis and I wonder whether we have the educational and communication tools to reach them, that there may be, and the only hope is, a collective solution beginning with local community but extending out to world around solidarity and cooperation.

As I write this, my neighbors go their separate ways.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Basics

Basics


I attended Planning School at the U. of MA in Amherst in Fall 1975, after studying Environmental Studies on the undergraduate level. It was a mostly misguided program of studies, as are all planning curricula in the United States. Older students "turned me on" to Robert Goodman's "After the Planners" and Benton MacKaye's "The New Exploration", I met William Morris Davis' grandson (a protégé of MacKaye) who reinforced my strong impression that they were teaching bullshit. I dropped out and started studying with the Society of Friends and that gave me the basic direction (having read and agreed with the Communist Manifesto when I was 16 years old) that I have pursued since.

After working construction, real estate appraisal, in a lumber yard, I returned to get the world's famous indoctrination of Radical Economics at UMass in 1980. I got it. The W.E.B. DuBois Library may very well be the best Library in the world, especially if pursuing Radical approaches to Economics. Networking in the old fashioned ways, we were laying out plans for a new society, a better society with the energy of the innocent, the mostly naive, the definitely inexperienced. Then Reagan got elected. Approximately at the turning point that Richard Wolff alludes to...

Wage slaving the whole time, doing a lot of blue-collar drudge and hard labor, I got tired of being poor and eventually pulled up roots and went to Arkansas (the U. of A. in Fayetteville) and enrolled in Business School. Worked my way through. "Professional" work ensued, a hard labor, a drudge of another sort, Systems Analysis and Programming work, Utilization and Cost Report Development and Analysis, and Managed Care Contracting for various Health Care Finance firms. With respect to health care reform, I studied the "industry" and they do call it that and got many experiences of how not to do it, but sufficient insight into how it could be done. But I digress.

While changing trains in Boston's famous Green Line Haymarket Station (not as infamous as Chicago's), I met a couple of "brothers" who were reading Kiplinger's Business Letter. "What are you reading that shit for?"

"Yeah, you're right, it is shit. We studied Radical Economics at UMass, now we can't do anything with it".

"No promises, but I'm working on it".

Wolff and the other Radical Economists at UMass are lost in the comfort of their Ivory Towers. The answer lies in building a conceptual bridge between the Planning Department and the Business School via the Radical Economics Department.

The answer lies in the radical reorganization of the economy, bypassing the chains of the Capitalist Plutocracy, bypassing the sham Democracy of "the Administration" and "the Congress" , bypassing the Bank of England's successor, the Federal Reserve System, and taking direct control of the Treasuries and allocating funds directly to workers (in the form of a small guaranteed income) and to Community Betterment Organizations related to community, inter-community, regional, inter-regional, and world around solidarity and cooperation in an ecological economic redevelopment paradigm based on human needs and founded on the mission/principles of inclusion, humanity, equity, economic democracy, altruism, well-being and sufficiency, fecundity, and the solidarity of effort to bring the basic costs of production and trade back to earth, where they severely left with the institution of Reaganomics/Supply Side Economics.

Now, maybe I'm wasting my time, but I feel committed to the youth and children of the planet. I have been blessed (in a rather bizarre ways and means) with the opportunity to work on my life's mission full time for the past fifteen years.

Those of you who have not seen my detailed, but very concise, proposals, please feel free to contact me with an e-mail address so that I can send you about 15 pages of attachments.

I've had some dealings with Rick Wolff. He is a very intelligent Academician. His Silicon Valley example of workers democracy is ridiculously bourgeois and does not deal with huge issues such as how resources are allocated to and within communities and within and among economic sectors.

There are answers to the very serious problems that we as a species face. We are running out of time for "getting it together" and committing to and working towards the fundamental paradigm shift necessary in all communities on the planet.

Take heed.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

A Carbon Tax?

A Carbon Tax?


It is a myth, and one that destroys the credibility of many "environmentalists", that there is any other significant source of "power", other than nuclear, besides the carbon fossil fuels that we have been using for less than three hundred years and are now on the downside of peak production. We have also come face to face with the blatant disregard of Capitalist Oil Companies, whose only interest is to maximize profits in the short run, with the BP/TransOceanic Gulf Oil Blowout.

A "carbon tax" is the wrong idea. People use carbon products for heating their homes and workplaces, cooking their food, and generating most of their electricity.

The major squanderer of fossil fuels is the personal automobile. USAers use over 15 MILLION BARRELS A DAY for personal transportation. We need to commit to rebuilding our neighborhoods and reallocating goods and services so that people can get what they need, including employment, within walking distance of their homes.

Setting a demand side management goal of reducing personal automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years would go a long way towards assuring that more essential uses of carbon fuels will be a part of a viable future. It would also send a strong message to the rest of the world regarding the commitment of the USA to strongly curb their gluttonous behavior. Such a commitment could significantly assuage current geo-political tensions and hostilities.

A large tax on gasoline, maybe phased in over a period of ten years, is what is in order. Revenues from such taxes could help pay for the community redevelopment and reallocation of goods and services that needs to be a paramount goal of the USA. It would also significantly, discourage driving, while the people were educated to the reality that the automobile is a freak of the human race, and that the quality of community and domestic life would be substantially enhanced by encouraging a more sedentary lifestyle.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Letter to Dan La Botz – Socialist Candidate for Senate in Ohio

Letter to Dan La Botz – Socialist Candidate for Senate in Ohio
07/24/2010


Dan,

Good idea to try to build solidarity among neighborhoods. Being a Veteran of Eugene politics, I know that is easier said than done. It is an insidious control that the Business People exhibit over the governments. In Eugene, they have an organization, Downtown Eugene, Inc. (DEI is the Latin word for God?), I call them what they are Downtown Economic Imperialists and their tentacles spread along the arteries to the malls and strip malls of this unsustainable, inequitable, hedonistic sprawled mess. They make a mockery out of City Council and work directly with City Management to further their Capitalist "growth" agenda. They (landlords are well represented) dominate the Neighborhood Associations. Workers and potential workers are apathetic, partially because they are viewed and treated and act like consumers of alcohol, tobacco, and festivities, and partially because anyone who is legitimately concerned with the welfare of their Neighborhood residents learns quickly that they are a tiny, virtually non-existent, minority to be ignored.

It is a large, sometimes seemingly insurmountable education and organizing task. If we could get the neighborhood residents to understand that there is a vision beyond the Capitalist trickle-down and we could appeal to all peoples' concern for the progeny, then perhaps with great solidarity we could change the ways and means by which resources are allocated to and within communities (and within and among economic sectors). That is our calling. If we can be true to that and work diligently then it is not impossible for us to succeed. Two large assumptions are in play here. One, that people still have legitimate hopes for the youth and children, and secondly that people want to work and they want to work hard, given the potential to realize a living wage, equity, and a quality of life including bona fide prospects for their offspring.

It's a tall order.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Posted on Facebook 07/22/10

Posted on Facebook 07/22/10


By now, it should be clear to EveryOne, we need to supplant "the Administration" and Congress and work with all our Friends in the International Community to do the same. It will take a lot of organization and we are not ready to take the reins of the World Treasuries, yet.

The idea is a World Congress for Community Economic Development where we can work towards neighborhood/community, inter-community, and inter-regional solidarity and cooperation with local ecological economic redevelopment plans based on need and bypassing the International Finance "Community" as represented in the US by the Federal Reserve and participating Financial domineers and exploiters.

We bitch a lot on Facebook, and elsewhere, yet I have yet to see much in the way of bold leadership in defining an alternative, educating about it, and setting up an alternative National and World around Council of Elders to provide the dearth of Leadership that the cooperative communitarian/socialist/peace movement needs.

I'm hearing much too much silence. There is no need for you all to feel helpless and hopeless regarding an irrelevant and obsolete elite and the power that they yield over you. There is no room for complicity and tinkering with their system.

Please, I'm serious!!!

Cindy, Dan, Billy, Carl, EveryOne, let's stop wasting our precious time. The future is too important for the youth and the children and whatever hopes we have for our progeny!


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

The Salary of the Head of the Nurses Union

I agree with Whitman about the inflated salaries of the Union Leadership,
but I am not aligned with the Ownership Class that she speaks primarily
for, though not always to...

How can a Union Leader be sensitive to the plight of workers when
reimbursed so highly? Such highly compensated "workers" are more likely to
identify with the living conditions and opinions and views of the moneyed
elite.

We have to understand that the fundamental inflation brought about by
supply side economics has had a paralyzing effect on commerce by DRIVING
the prices of Real Estate, Capital, and forcing Organized and unorganized
Labor into the untenable position of demanding, but most often not receiving,
wages that allow workers to keep up.

We need to grab the economic bull by the horns by forming an all-inclusive
Equity Union from which we can deal with the fundamental Accounting
Principle that United Assets minus United Liabilities equals United Equity
and take the necessary steps to bring the costs of living back to earth and
work for a parity in wages, while working together to produce good jobs and
equity opportunities for all in an ecological economic redevelopment plan
that understands and adjusts for real world resource constraints.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin
Eugene, OR, USA

One Big Union

One Big Union


Although I try not to be delusional about this, the answer (at least potentially) lies in efforts underway to form "One Big Union" which the AFL-CIO and ITUC are at least giving lip service to...

Should we be able to accomplish such organization, and gain control of the National Treasuries world around, bypassing Capitalist Plutocracy Organizations such as the Federal Reserve System and allocating Treasury funds directly to individuals and Community Betterment Organizations (CBOs), we could possibly succeed.

Such may require National/International/World Presidential Commissions which would supplant "the Administration(s)" and Congress/Parliaments, etc. and would focus on building a grass roots economic democracy, a World Congress on Community Economic Development.

We could accept and implement a resource allocation paradigm that would fundamentally change the ways and means that resources are allocated to and within communities and among and within economic sectors.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

In Response to Praise for the USA Democratic Party

In Response to Praise for the USA Democratic Party


The Democrats, while their most "Leftist" positions are better than the Republicans have barely kept our heads above water, if at that, and we can only go under so many times.

The Democrats, while their most "Leftist" positions are better than the Republicans are still very Centrist when it comes to the Capitalist Plutocracy and its Military Industrial Complex partnership.

"Good government, not Big Government", was Kid Orator's slogan. So far he has shown absolutely horrible leadership with respect to good government and succeeded at giving us a hodge-podge of some good, mostly bad Big Government.

Regarding the most recent "Financial Reform" Legislation:

Tinkering and trying to oversee the overseers is totally unacceptable.

Don't worry about the Republicans, they are always against things for
the wrong reasons.

Nothing short of fundamental ecological economic reform from a
Capitalist entropy to a Cooperative Communitarian/Socialist life
sustaining One will suffice.

A Consumer Financial Protection Board is as absurd as an SEC, absurd
as OSHA, absurd as Truth in Labeling, absurd as the IRS, etc. Well
intentioned, perhaps, but ridiculous and self-serving in its pay-rolled
futility.

What we need to do is supplant "the Administration" and "the Congress"
with a Presidential Commission of Elders, who take control of the
Treasury, abolish the Federal Reserve, create an Equity Union (working
with the treasuries of all nations) and directly allocate funds to
people and communities (Community Betterment Organizations (CBOs))
while we work to organize a World Congress of Community Economic
Development, an organization of solidarity and cooperation, with all
members focusing on local/neighborhood/community improvement and
equity, inter-community/regional cooperation and solidarity, and inter-
regional cooperation and solidarity.

It can be done.

With respect to such, recognition needs to precede realization.

It will be done.

In Response to Report that Clinton is Promising Billions in “Aid” to Pakistan

In Response to Report that Clinton is Promising Billions in “Aid” to Pakistan


This is outrageous but par for the course.

Where does the money come from that goes to Pakistan, Egypt, Israel and other countries? Do they not have their own Treasuries? Can they not manage their own regional affairs and business?

The answer is that American led Corporate Conglomerate Developers will get the money and none will be dedicated to the absolute necessity to rebuild North American environments in light of the reality that the end of the fossil fuel age is rapidly approaching and that if we want a future for the youth and children of the world, we need a completely different paradigm of economic development than we have had in the last century.

The 20th century, approximate to the fossil fuel age, must be put into perspective and industry (as in industrious not industrial) must be planned and implemented accordingly.

I'm not against helping Pakistanis and Afghanis or anybuddy in a consultative capacity, quite to the contrary I would welcome and invite their cooperation and solidarity. But the organized crime of the US Government and the International Capitalist Ruling Classes must be identified for what they are: a self-serving genocidal, ecocidal, suicidal elite.

The BS they will hand out is that Pakistan and the others will be "emerging markets". Emerging markets for whom? A tiny ownership class and a majority of wage slaves and welfare recipients?

No, this is all wrong. All very wrong, and we must unite to make it correct. Ha, ha, you thought I'd use the word "right".

At issue is what is left in the way of natural and human resources and the correct way to allocate and employ such.

Do you trust Hillary Clinton and the continuation of the status quo?

I don't.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Agricultural Reform in Context

Agricultural Reform in Context


Yes, as in all economic sectors, we have to redefine the mission of the agricultural sector and restructure the resource allocation ways and means, design and implement alternative technologies, distribution channels, and build or renovate and allocate to neighborhood outlets as part of a comprehensive plan and implementation plan.

The fundamental fulcrum is the transition from a Capitalist Economic System to a Cooperative Communitarian One with the basic mission of ecological economic redevelopment for the meeting of all peoples' needs that is inclusive, humane, equitable, altruistic, well-being oriented, and youth oriented (i.e. sustainable) and peaceful.

It can be done, but it will take the largest realization of solidarity that the human species ever. In essence, it will take an intentional evolution of the species to Homa Ecologica Cooperativo.

In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Presidential Commission, Council of Elders

Folks,

It is time for us to consider forming a Provisional Revolutionary Council (An Alternative Presidential Council, A Council of Elders, which would soon replace "the Administration" and "the Congress" gain hold of the Treasury, abolish the Federal Reserve, and allocate money directly to the people/communities while working within our local communities to foster and facilitate a comprehensive ecological economic redevelopment plan and implementation plan while organizing inter-community cooperation and solidarity within a World Congress for Community Economic Development (WCCED).

I am looking for nominees, you may self-nominate, for such a Council.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Letter to Cindy Sheehan at the Gates of the Warshington DeCeaser Capital 07/13/2010

Letter to Cindy Sheehan at the Gates of the Warshington DeCeaser Capital 07/13/2010


Cindy,

Be somewhat cool, as cool as thee all can be. Reported that Obama is trying to push a War Appropriations Bill and DemonBureaucrats who are against it are going to go along with it because it also has Domestic Spending attachments that feed their particular constituents Capitalist Special Interests like HUD and Teachers, building and teaching what? is a matter of great concern...

It would be RELATIVELY easy to overthrow the Federal Government, more problematic to take all 50 States, the myriad of County and Municipal Governments.

However, the biggest challenge is to "overthrow" or more appropriately transition the economy. If you all, congregating in Warshington DeCeaser succeed at toppling the irrelevant and obsolete Administration and Congress, please be sure to secure the Treasury. It is the only essential part of the US Government and one that we want to maintain (until that super-Eutopian day that we can evolve to a World Currency, and then (about 9255 AD) a system of "Free Socialism").


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

A Succinct Comprehensive Essay Regarding the Economic/Political System

A Succinct Comprehensive Essay Regarding the Economic/Political System



Dr. Kin was the greatest...

Rather than Liberal Reform of an obsolete political system, we need to focus on supplanting it. Obama is a child. He is a talented and smart kid, but very much like Bill Clinton, he is surrounded by the wrong elements and is very much a politician trying to target messages, with "help" from the Capitalist media in attempt to sound like he cares, to try to please the most people most of the time based on public opinion polls or perceptions of the Capitalist elites that pull the puppet strings.

Obama is a jelly fish like Clinton. There is a serious lack of ethics within these men. The focus on one man is wrong and I think more and more of the populace understand to some extent the sick games that the Capitalists "on both sides of the aisle" play.

The focus needs to be on the fact that the political system is obsolete and fundamentally corrupt. More importantly, the economic system is obsolete, defunct, and fundamentally correct.

We, as a nation, as a world need to regroup. We have to focus first on our local/regional economic politics, with the recognition that the hegemonic chains of an overarching Capitalist elite must be cast off...

We need to identify our local leaders, our regional leaders, our world leaders, yet work with the existing status quo to transition to a new economic/political paradigm based on cooperative communitarian/socialist principles of inclusion, humanity, equity, altruism, wellness and quality of life, sustainability and hopefully a resulting peace. It requires a strategy of ecological economic redevelopment that fundamentally understands that we have already passed the peak of fossil fuel resources and that there is impending disaster in not recognizing the historical perspective relative to the finitude of such and other resources fundamental to a viable future.

From where I sit, the biggest danger that we as the people of the world face is the complacency of the cruise control consumer culture and a terrible arrogance that seems to have no conscience about the consequences of continuing such genocidal, ecocidal, suicidal behavior.

It is time for all potential leaders to step forward and step forward boldly.
I am very tired and frustrated by the lack of response to my outreach. It is something that I have been able to envision, yet thus far been unable to touch, to make real.

Work with me.

Time is of the essence.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Relative to Levins, Gerard, Acuff Discussion of AFL-CIO Mission and Strategies

Relative to Levins, Gerard, Acuff Discussion of AFL-CIO Mission and Strategies


Promising discussion.

A couple of problems with traditional Union approaches, even when strongly influenced by Socialist thought.

1.) Syndicalism - Collective Bargaining within an Economic Sector benefits only the workers in that economic sector and can be destructive of a larger Socialist Mission (e.g. IBEW gains in a Military Aircraft Engine Group operations, UAW gains in a post-fossil fuel environment and economy).

2.) The US vs. THEM mentality. Many, if not Most, if not All Unionized "shops" have a working/adversarial relationship with "Management" (Financial Workers, Directors, Decision Makers, Engineers, System Analysts and Programmers, Portfolio Managers, etc.) who are most often not Union members and therefore functioning somewhat at odds with the solidarity of Union brotherhood.

What is needed is the concept of One Big Union where Capitalists and their "exempt" workers would join and cooperate in a comprehensive socio/economic Mission. Socialists need to allocate resources. The fundamental questions relate to how resources are allocated to and within communities and among and within economic sectors. We need to understand and practice the fundamental accounting principle: United Assets minus United Liabilities = United Equity.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin

Regarding Health Care Reform – July 5, 2010

Regarding Health Care Reform – July 5, 2010


Thanks for "chiming" in, Diane.

Health care should not be viewed as outside the realm of environmental/public health.

Health care reform should not be viewed as outside the realm of comprehensive ecological economic reform.

But, addressing the particular issue, allow me to offer the following for your consideration, communications, and eduaction.

Having worked for about 15 years in the "Managed Care" and Cost Containment Branches of Health Insurers and other Finance Providers, I have had many valuable lessons on how not to do it.

I agree with PNHP and others about the inefficiencies and redundancies of the past and remaining current health finance firms. A single payer is a good suggestion, but the ways and means by which money is garnered into the system (also the allocation policy and methods, which I will address in a moment) is problematic.

Current understanding presupposes a system of taxation, which is quite unpopular with many and even odious to some if not many if not most. For a payment system this is the major issue. There are also infrastructure problems related to existing finance systems. In other words, people have money allocated to physical capital, and there is a large amount of human resources who have dedicated much of their precious time to building the status quo. Everyone gets up and does something similar or very similar to what they did the day before. Radical change is problematic but not insurmountable.

My transition idea or plan, if you will, is a double payer system with Medicare and Medicaid on the "Public Side" and a Union of "Private" Financiers on the "Quasi-Public" Side. Reform would be expected on both sides, and maybe eventually evolving to a single payer?

Where I differ greatly from PNHP and other advocates of Single Payer, is there total abdication of their responsibility related to the huge role that the irresponsible system of health care providers and the medical industrial complex has caused in the dissolution and breakdown of an affordable workable system of health care. The answer here is again Union. Unions of Institutional and Professional providers.

Working with the above defined workers and phasing down and eventually out Capitalists, we would work to establish HMO in every region/locality and budget resources based on a medical policy set by Physicians and others who are well acquainted and versed in the abuses of the Provider Communities and are excellent, knowledgeable, experienced at their trade. Shannon Brownlee and Nortin Hadler are two eminent such Physicians who come to mind and have written excellent books. Physicians with such qualities should be the Primary Decision Makers, especially on the professional side, but also with respect to the use and allocation of Institutional Resources.

But to reiterate, working toward such an ideal needs to be done within the purview of environmental/public health policies, programs which are part of a comprehensive ecological economic reform plan.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity

Religion

Religion, It ain't really worth talking about?

Some take a solace in that there will be an afterlife, better than this horrible life.

They won't be disappointed:

"As the emptiness of heaven welcomes your weary soul" (and pain-racked body, tormented mind)?



The problems with religion is the hypocrisy. Worshipping deities but not really living the good teachings of faith. Yet, Jesus, some followers of the man, some aspects of the Bible and Koran teach valuable lessons that could possibly help with easing the torment of the mind, IF PRACTICED, You know, the nine-fold path of the Buddha; right intentions, right knowledge, right mindfulness, right action, right livelihood, etc.

Biggest problem with religions? Holy War!!!

But people who fuel their existence on evil, the immoral (totally non-religious, in fact conscious or subconscious d'evil worshippers) and the amoral all combine with even the impure segments of even the purest serves to completely negate Godwin's Socialist Utopia).

So I'm left with another essay that I enjoyed writing but only brings us full circle to Cynicism. The Calvinist Doctrine of the work ethic is real. If I keep busy, working on the nine-fold path, I am a happy man despite my health problems (I forget about them and how they will probably run their course in these End Times, probably for most, but certainly for me). When I am not busy, I fall into mental depression that leads to mental despair. I have a weakness with right mindfulness and it can cause me torment. To appeal to "Jesus" for forgiveness, only works among the good people of the world, and we can be weak to fear the people who are along for the ride on a planet that is going (has always been going?) to the d'evil. to hell.

Try to cultivate the good in yourself and weed out the bad. To the extent that you meet people with good intentions try to help them along that path, as well. The light of good is potentially within all of us, but the option of right livelihood is available to few. That is problematic, but not insurmountable.

Posted on “Unemployeds” Forum

>As the economy recovers and employers increase hiring to meet the growing demand
>for goods and services, many currently unemployed workers will be able to find new
>jobs.

"The economy" will not recover. There will be no growing demand for goods and services. What we are experiencing is structural unemployment of the grandest scale. We are on the bust side of a thirty-year supply side boom that saw a major investment in foreign made products and domestic transportation and retail outlets. For a while, this boom supported a growth in professional business employees, exactly those whom the referenced article identifies as the long-term unemployed. The other jobs created by the supply side/retail boom were low paying retail and other non-living wage service sector jobs.

Together, the bust adds up to a permanent deficit in effective demand for the over-supply of junk that has been sold to the American consumer in the last thirty, fifty, one hundred years.

What we need to do is recognize that we are on the other side of a post-peak fossil fuel economy and organize ourselves into a collective union that works to rebuild relocalized economies in all communities, all regions.

It will take leadership that is foreign to the economic and political history of this country. It will take a solidarity that has never been seen before and is highly unlikely with the mindless hedonistic anarchy that is prevailing in our country today.

In the meantime, stick with the Dems., when it comes to safety-net issues.

Demand Side Management, Supply Side Reallocation (Jobs, Equity)

Demand-Side Management, Neighborhood Redevelopment and Transportation Planning

I would like to address the supply side scenario for energy production based on assumptions of economic growth requiring an increase in the use of energy.

The trouble with focusing on supply side economics and energy is that they both ignore demand. In relation to economics, the lack of effective demand for the plethora of consumer products will prove to be the downfall of this past generation’s experiment with supply side economics. With respect to energy, we must recognize that demand side management is critical to any possibility of a sustainable future. Liberal economics (laissez faire, the so-called free market) cannot deal with the problem(s). We need a planned economy to effectively retrofit the infrastructure and to rebuild our communities to be walkable, therefore eliminating the terrible daily waste of oil/energy resources for transportation purposes.

I have to differ with rosy scenarios regarding the contribution that photovoltaics can make. I’m not an electrical engineer or an electrician, but it is my understanding that PVs don’t have the oomph (be it voltage or amperage) to contribute very significantly to the current and recommended increased usage of electricity. Sure, PVs and wind might be able to contribute to lighting applications and a few very high efficiency appliances, but they can not power our transportation, industrial, business, and home heating and air conditioning, hot water, agricultural inputs, refrigeration, drying, and cooking needs.

We could go full throttle to the building of nuclear power plants, but I am highly leery of their toxicity and safety issues. Even if we pursued the path of electrification with the maximization of nuclear power, it will require a tremendous overhaul of our transportation infrastructure, and other applications currently met by oil products, coal, and natural gas. Such an overhaul could only be possible by a Totalitarian economy, which I would argue that is closer to what has evolved from the rapacious Capitalist Conglomerate oligopolistic conspiracy and control of all levels of government. What I am proposing as an alternative is an economic democracy. Although I am presenting a comprehensive plan, it will never be realized without the popular support of the citizenry.

Nuclear is not a “free market” technology. Government programs paid for most of the resources for development of such. Then, there is the waste issue. Is it not the Federal Government who is going to or proposing to pay for the waste depository at Yucca Mountain (Nevada)? Also, there is the issue of bringing back the so-called Price-Anderson legislation. This was legislation in which the Federal Government provided insurance for nuclear power plants and related operations. No private insurer would underwrite the risks, thus the Feds had to step in. In the current political environment of casting all responsibility to the wind, I can darkly envision a full throttle nuclear program without any insurance or public accountability. It is the same for the myopic revenue sharks of the fossil fuel industries.

Perhaps a better scenario could be realized if we started very soon with a planned economy that focused first on economic and energy demand side management and also retrofitted infrastructures with respect to very scarce and relatively clean (I view carbon resources, if appropriately used, to be cleaner than nuclear) energy applications.

The potential for solar thermal hot water is immense. Imagine all hot water demanding properties on the planet equipped with such devices. Imagine all the (community/worker owned) jobs involved with the production, installation, and distribution of these units. I list distribution last, because all efforts need to be made to maximize the localization of such production and installation, as well as any other products for which going towards relocalization may be possible (e.g. food).

Relocalization is part of the plan (and not just for food). Instead of reversalism, the term that the IMF representative, Staniford, has coined as being emblematic of the relocalization paradigm, let me offer the following "re" words that imply a gradual evolution to a future which incorporates the best of the past, for your consideration, response, and action.


Reformation

Little to no beneficial change will occur without an almost religious change from the paradigm of economic growth and standard of living to one that emphasizes community redevelopment and quality of life. This is an important educational component of an alternative ecological economic plan.

Reorganization

If we can be successful and realize the educational/reform component, the next (concurrent) step is to reorganize to one of cooperative (or at least partially so – we will probably need to compromise on the divide between one dollar/one vote and one person/one vote as the dominant paradigm of economic organization) communitarian local and regional economic entities, at least until the day that we are all nearly equal in terms of ownership of the means and goods of production and distribution. How to assure the transition from inequality is problematic. However, as the entire economic system begins and proceeds to fail, those wealthy seeking to avoid total financial ruin will welcome the opportunity to accept the quality of life paradigm, foregoing their opulent, ostentatious, enslaving, ecocidal, genocidal, and suicidal "standard of living" modus operandi.


Reallocation

We need coordinated community, inter-community, inter-regional and world planning agencies that agree on the fundamental mission of a global ecological economy that have the basic pillars of inclusion, humanity, equity, and sustainability.

Restructuring

Communities will need to be physically rebuilt to make them walkable (i.e. new urbanism, reusing existing buildings, retrofitting residential communities built in the oil/automobile age by building community economic and cultural centers making necessities and other important quality of life amenities, available to all within walking distance of their homes Also such a plan should include housing and other built environment improvement and ownership opportunities for the less well off. Included in such a plan would be neighborhood work stations which would aid in the ability of office workers to telecommute in their occupations as we transition from a supply-side nightmare to a sustainable, equitable, and quality of life economy. Imagine all the jobs!

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle.

With respect to electric vehicles, my thoughts are that they may be a small part of a longer term solution and probably restricted to rebuilt/walkable urban and suburban neighborhoods for the use of the elderly and/or infirm. The top priority with respect to fossil fuels and other energy resources is demand side management. The chief priority in planning the role of the automobile is to reduce automobile use by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. We are currently burdened by a terrible oversupply (including owned and overstocked inventories at factories and dealerships) of fuel inefficient and poorly designed internal combustion vehicles. If these vehicles weren't so poorly designed, there could be a significant opportunity to convert them to hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles. But they are very poorly designed. Perhaps the current population of vehicles should be deconstructed and parts reused or recycled. Such is obviously not a feasible alternative, though efforts should be made to make all vehicles that are in use after a comprehensive downsizing of the vehicles remaining in use New vehicles should be exclusively, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric, except maybe for long-term transport and work vehicles. It is very doubtful that we ever need to produce one more vehicle off the absurd robotic assembly lines of atrociously designed anachronisms, opulent ostentations.
The could be tremendous amounts of work generated by the reconstruction of neighborhoods and the rearrangement of production, distribution, and communication systems to make them neighborhood friendly. In addition, a great potential for work lies in the field of deconstruction of transportation and related infrastructure adaptation. Parking lots could be torn up and converted to community gardens. Streets (and rail systems) could be torn up and converted to walking and bike paths and others altered to be less wide, restoring the liveability of housing located on these very noisy busy passageways. Parking garages could be torn down and replaced by mixed-use developments and/or garden/park uses. Highways could be dedicated mostly to bus travel, long distance transport, and perhaps some, if not many, of them torn down and reclaimed as natural and agricultural land. For automobile usage, it would be optimal to encourage the development of car-sharing cooperatives. All vehicles left in use must be quiet, and slower (with the exception of busses and long range transport). With respect to transport and distribution systems (and production systems) relocalization and neighborhood telecommunications (including teleconferencing facilities) should be the major goal, greatly reducing the need for long-range transport.


Another Iteration of “the Plan”

We need some perspective.

Liquid and gaseous fossil fuel use is about 150 years old and automotive use about 100 years old. Look how absurdly, the personal automobile dominates our life and is destroying any hope for a future.

We need to deal with more than incremental adjustments from the modern automotive age. If we want to continue the many benefits of precious fossil fuels, the many opportunity costs of those fuels, to personal automobile usage, then we need to set as a goal (here in the USA) and realize it, to reduce the use of the personal automobile by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years.

It is not encouraging, because Obama explicitly stated the other day that the automobile is such an important part of American history and culture and needs to remain so. This is a statement of a myopic politician beholden to special interests.

If you've never lived in the Northeast (USA) where much of the city, town, and village centers were built before the automobile, it may be hard to imagine a future with the greatly reduced automobile use, but it is very possible and absolutely desirable.

The key is the walkable neighborhood. That is, neighborhoods for everybuddy where everyone can get what they need within walking distance of their residence. This will take a major shift in the way that resources are allocated and products distributed to communities. The major over-supply side mall outlets (for those products and services that have utility) could become regional warehouses and older town and village centers, where they exist could be explicitly brought back as outlets for these products. Where the town and village centers do not exist, such as here out West (I'm in Eugene, Oregon), where the mindless assumption of the automobile has led to the mindless, endless residential districts with their equally alienating and squandering (strip) malls, communities could be rebuilt (think of all the jobs) to provide community centers and outlets.

Of course, this will not happen in the absence of a complete commitment to neighborhood/inter-community/inter-regional/worldwide ecological economic resource planning and allocation and redevelopment.

The resource allocation issue could be handled with a reformed economic system, an equity union, with a "plan and implement" modus operandi for economic operations. Reforming the financial system to take the fundamentally inflationary Capitalist aspect of "discounting the future" (i.e. assuming that money in the future will be worth less) could lead to a system of ecological economical redevelopment where only true growth in wealth would occur and be shared and could occur under the aegis of a mission emphasizing peace, equity, inclusion, humanity, quality of life, wellness, and sustainability.

Removing the gluttonous oil resource use by the USA and Capitalist automotive oriented allies would slowly rescind the need for the hegemonic occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, threats to Iran and to both domestic and worldwide environments which need to be conserved and shared equitably and frugally, particularly with the interests of youth, children, and future generations in heart and mind. The world acting in concert would stand much better prospects for peace.



The Ecology of Redevelopment


A big part of my redevelopment plan (aside from the financial systems reform) is the REBUILDING of neighborhoods to make them walkable for the necessities of life (that is, assuming a goal of a much less harried pace than today, but also assuming that people will have responsibilities, obligations, and desires). Such a plan would include a massive education program in retraining workers and training in youth in the building trades. Human resource management would be utilized to try to maximize the match between where the primary contractors/instructors and student/workers lived and the neighborhood building projects.

Communities would be rebuilt to emulate mature ecological systems, in that they maximize the efficiency of energy and resource input into the community so that once resources enter a community, they stay in the community for the maximum amount of time possible. Once all communities are sufficiently rebuilt (a timeline of 20 to 50 years?) under such guidelines, they would evolve to ongoing day-to-day and maintenance communities and the amount of heavy labor required would decrease and the amount of leisure time increase. Again, (day-to-day and maintenance) workers would be employed in, surrounding, and/or as close to their residency as possible and it would be a priority for real and capital assets to be owned by the workers and the community patrons who ideally would be one and the same. The Neighborhood Equity Union would replace credit unions and of course, other forms of financial institutions. Parks and gymnasiums would be an important part of the plan as leisure time increased and the healthy aspects of physical labor decreased.

Concurrent with rebuilding, and the reallocation of production and distribution resources, would be efforts to make office, communications, knowledge and intelligence based labor into primarily home and/or neighborhood based vocations. Occasional travel would be necessary and desirable, but quiet bus travel and car-sharing cooperatives could be employed to fill this need along with family visit and recreational needs and desires. With respect to the former, extended families would be encouraged to develop, remain, and/or reunite geographically.

TARP and Related Matters

As DeFazio and others have suggested fire Summers and Geithner, but take back ALL the TARP money, not only that given to AIG and Goldman Sachs.

Put the money into a Peoples Equity Fund for allocation to community betterment/worker owned projects for ecological economic redevelopment which is inclusive, equitable, humane, altruistic, healthy, needs and peace oriented, and sustainable.

We do not need a Federal Reserve, which is the biggest heist of all history. We do not need Federal Taxes and we do not need to borrow funds from the self-serving Banking and Investment “Community”. All we need is a Treasury to make direct allocations to enterprises and individuals within communities and within and among economic sectors that produce and serve to meet the needs of people..

DeFazio talks of "infrastructure" and the organized crime of the fluke 20th century continues to trickle in millions upon millions of dollars to the linear trajectory of a dysfunctional suicidal and genocidal (of all youth and children) “path”. What does he want more squandered "stimulus" money, a continuation of the National Highway Act of 1950? Sorry, Peter, you're right on the front end, but wrong from then on.

Decommission the military and end military spending as fast as possible and dedicate some if not much of that money to the comprehensive education/action (eduaction) program that will be necessary to transition to such a cooperative communitarian/socialist (because some may be unable to contribute, and at first there will be a lot of resistance from many who are happy with a welfare state existence and/or understandably prefer such to the slavery and repugnant alternatives that thinly exist, if at all, within the Capitalist system) economy.

Much more to write, but limited space.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin
Eugene, OR
(the unresponsive DeFazio's district)


P.S. I have repeatedly suggested to the nameless, faceless women who stonewall for Peter, or perhaps more accurately for the Capitalist interests that control him and manipulate him, that Peter (and I have been in touch with Congressman John Lewis from George (Mason) Jah Town) (and John’s staff seem to understand better) and hopefully others introduce legislation to directly access Treasury funds for the purpose of assisting in a public/private(quasi-public) partnership that would exand the concept of an Organization for Economic Opportunity to all communities with the public sector’s participation being one of direct funding to low-income communities programs and projects, and funding of community organizing personnel in the mold of ACORN, Ameri-corps, and/or similar or a newly conceptualized program.

The Relationship of Equity Union(s) to Existing Financial Institutions and Community Betterment Organizations

The role of the Equity Union is to alter the allocation purposes and priorities of the Investment "Class" (i.e. the owners of Banks and Corporations and Traders on Wall Street and similar venues).

While credit unions and banks primarily make mortgage loans, car loans, consumer loans, and in loans to businesses, an equity union (with accounts in a community development union(s)) would specifically be dedicated to making equity grants, equity participation, and equity sharing allocations to community betterment organizations (CBOs).

When a financial organization makes a loan, it has first claim on net revenues. In other words, before a workers' cooperative or a traditional sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation can pay themselves, they must first pay back the interest (and eventually principal) on the loan.

In an equity union participation (as differentiated from an outright grant), any dividends to the equity union participants would be paid back subsidiary to the interests of the worker owners or community/worker owners of the CBO firm. The arrangement would be negotiable. If the negotiation calls for no dividends, whatsoever, then that would be called equity sharing.

Equity shares/participations in a CBO could not be traded and could only be bought back by the members of the Equity Union at par value. In other words, no capital gains would be allowed.

Concerning the Restructuring of the Global Financial/Economic System and Recent Discussion of Nationalizing “Banking” Interests

With regards to "nationalizing" Banks and other "investor owned" Institutions, we must be realistic concerning the inter-national composition of the investing institutions, corporations, and individuals.

Writing from a libertarian socialist point of view, I think it is necessary to clarify the objectives of any comprehensive program to re-dedicate private resources to a quasi-public mission and to consolidate equity and assets for the purposes of sharing the former and writing off the economically paralytic inflationary cost aspects of the latter.

In lieu of an economic system based on credit and equity trading, whose motivation is the underwriting of speculative ventures, we need to transform our fundamentally inflationary financial/economic system to one that is based on equity sharing and meeting the needs of people in the form of community betterment.

Such a financial system would be the right hand, the resource allocation facilitating function and services of an ambidextrous ecological, democratic, economic "plan and implement" economy that would respect and favor the sovereignty of villages/neighborhoods, educate-foster-facilitate-inculcate inter-community and inter-regional equality, unity and cooperation based on the basic principles of inclusion, equity, humanity, mutualism, altruism, quality of life (in lieu of standard of living), environmental/public health and wellness, sustainability, and peace.

Such a system would seek to establish a more just balance between competitive advantage and comparative advantage with the concerns of those indigenous to a community being paramount.

Such an economic system would recognize the necessity to embrace and implement conservation ethics for shorter term programs and projects of ecological economic redevelopment dedicated to survival pursuits and skills and its concomitant ubiquitous environmental improvement activities, and to the longer term programs and policies related to the legacy of the human race and its dominion (i.e. the recognition and respect of the resource limits imposed by a finite planet).

I call such a proposal an equity union and believe it to be a prudent and practical alternative to the extant economic/financial system. I believe such an economic rearrangement based on the fundamental mission of world unity and cooperation is the best hope for the purpose of entering an unprecedented era of peace and human progress and success.

A Re-introduction to the Concept of Equity Union(s)

The current Capitalist dominated system is dysfunctional both from an equity/fairness and economic and natural resource sustainability perspective.

The dominant paradigm in Capitalist financial business operations uses something called the discount rate which assumes that money will be worth less (eventually worthless) in the future, thus creating a necessity to extract profits exceeding a "hurdle" rate leading to unfair and unwise exploitation of workers, borrowers, and natural resources, and to rampant inflation.

The use of credit is not a good business or personal practice. In business, it should be discouraged because creditors have first claims on net revenues and hold liens on real property and capital assets. For "consumers", the use of credit is unwise because the system is set up to extract profits from interest thus assuring that when consumers use credit that they are losing money relative to inflation. Certainly the current foreclosure crisis in the USA is ample evidence of the inflation and the unfairness and unhealthiness of the mortgage lien process.

Credit Unions and Mutual Insurance companies are in theory attempts to institute non-profit economic democracies for their respective industries. However, because of the need to compete for customers, both of these relatively progressive financial service organization types are forced to play the same game that is basically destructive to individuals, families, communities, and the natural environment. Ideally, credit should only be used as a last resort, much more preferably not at all. We should replace all aspects of the extant financial system with an Equity Union. In some ways, a mutual insurance company is similar to an equity union. However, because such companies are required to realize profits in order to compete for "policy holders" (really investors), the companies that comprise the portfolios of the mutual insurance firms cannot be not-for-profit, can not be mutual organizations themselves.

In a not-for profit Equity Union financial services system based on principles of mutuality working in concert with ethical, wise, knowledgeable, and intelligent community, inter-community, inter-regional, and worldwide planning there would certainly be an important role for financial service workers.

A major impediment to such an Equity Union would be the competitive advantage of the current financial sector and the fear of the friction of change to those individuals and organizations. Dealing with this sector of "the" economy, it would be more feasible with regards to Capitalist resistance and more humane, to orderly and peacefully transition to an Equity Union, coordinated with ecologically sound economic planning.

I am writing and talking about transitioning slowly, methodically, and with the minimum amount of friction and hardship from a dysfunctional financial system, based on self-interest, to one designed to benefit everybuddy.

At risk of understatement, it will take a huge amount of work to educate folks to the need and benefits of such change and to communicate the basic Plan. Transition Planning will also be a very difficult process, but I see no alternative to the current, impending and worsening global economic, political, social, and natural environmental collapse.

The Peoples' Equity Union concept is designed to be a grass roots, popular choice "movement". I am organizing with individuals, workers, and shopkeepers in my neighborhood, adjoining neighborhoods, and through the inter-net to whomever I can attract an interest in the concept.

The focus is primarily local, yet regional, and global at the same time. It is my dream, not a hope yet, to encourage a critical mass of people to organize locally around a unifying mission, unifying principles, unifying strategies, and unifying tactics in order to minimize the amount of administration at the regional and wide cooperative populations.

The theory is that neighborhood locales, the neighborhood community/worker hybrid association will have maximum autonomy and will be guided only, in their inter-community and inter-economic sector relationships by regional Planning Boards and a Global Policy Committee.

We must replace the current equity trading systems, corporate conglomerate corporations, insurance companies, and usurious banking systems of the Capitalist status quo with a worldwide Peoples' Equity Union with branches in every community/neighborhood.

The goal is to be a true economic democracy: of, for, and by the people.


HOUSING AND PROPERTY OWNERSHIP

Concurrent with financial systems reform, where equity sharing and not-for-profit equity collaboration would replace the current financial paradigm of for-profit equity investing, equity trading, and usurious credit arrangements, we need to evolve to a different system with respect to residential and other real property occupation arrangements.

In lieu of rent or leases, people should be allowed to acquire equity in their abodes and business properties. For example, in the case of an apartment, if one paid $500 per month to a property management firm, let's say $50 per month would go to property maintenance, and another $40 to administration fees, insurance, etc. This would leave the resident with $410 of accumulated equity added to their account each month. If we had a large cooperative housing organization (preferably world-wide, and preferably the only form of property ownership) then when someone had to move or wanted to move, they could take their equity with them to the new property.

With regards to mortgages, they are horribly usurious and should be banned. The scenario related above would also replace the current system of financing "home ownership loans".

A huge problem that we are facing now is the terrible inflation in the market values of real property (and capital assets, for that matter). If we pooled our equity, pooled our assets, and collectively wrote off our liabilities, then we could significantly write down the market values of real and capital assets.


More on Equity Union(s)

In a not-for profit Equity Union financial services system based on principles
of mutuality working in concert with ethical, wise, knowledgeable, and intelligent community, inter-community, inter-regional planning would serve the needs of the people.

In local and inter-community equity unions, equity sharing would be the modus operandi. People with funds being held in equity unions would have the option of sharing in primarily worker owned community betterment projects based on the principles of quality of life, equity (which means ownership, and also means equality), humanity, and sustainability (which means there will be an economy and natural resources for the youth and the children, and for generations to come).

If the inflation spiral can be removed (and the cost of real and capital assets brought back to earth), then indigent and poor workers could hope to increase their equity holdings and quality of life assets and equity investors could hope to get their money back. Some endeavors, beyond poor workers enrichment, would be not-for-profit. That is, profits made beyond a pre-determined return to the poor workers, would be re-invested in more such worker/community betterment hybrid businesses (preferably cooperatives).

Equity investments in community businesses could not be sold to others, but could be bought back at par value (the price of the share of the stock when it was invested). Such would be discouraged, and disallowed if it was a qualified low-income/low wealth equity investor, who may, or may not if they were allowed to collect (limited) personal dividends.

Equity Union branches in low income/low wealth neighborhoods would be allowed to set up a (501)(c)(3) to receive donations to an equity fund for their neighborhoods, to be kept in a local Equity Union and the funds allocated (equity grants) by a Board committed to community betterment and the likely success of the endeavor(s).


Equity Union – An Example

Getting Started


Hi Mike,
(rest of letter deleted)

[By the way, I presently have more income than is best for my
lifestyle, and now have recently gotten my hands on some extra money.
I'm not used to this situation. Do you have any suggestions about
where to 'invest' for the greater good, keeping in mind that my main
concerns remain first 'global heating', and then generally shorter
paths to possible eutopias vs. possible extreme dystopias?]

Dan
**********************************************************

Hi Dan,
(rest of letter deleted)

I, too, have some discretionary funds that I would like to put into trust
for public service and altruistic endeavors. Perhaps, you and I (and others if we can find them) should investigate creating a local Peoples' Equity fund. My idea on that is to see if we can open a group trust account in a Credit Union, where each trustee would have an individual account, yet allocations to community betterment projects could be done collectively, with each individual signing off on the amount that they want to dedicate to the project.

The idea would be that we would "invest" in community betterment projects with the care that we would expect to only get the par value of our "investment" back or we could choose to make individual and/or collective tax-deductible or maybe tax credit eligible contributions to "qualified" non-profit community betterment organizations (CBOs)

CBOs could be not-for-profit, non-profit or both.

Equity Unions as they relate to a "Public Asset Fund"

His "public asset fund" has very similar intentions, I think.

Let me comment on the concept as you have presented it:

For what it is worth, government ownership is not going to be very popular, and is unnecessary. Why do we need the government to own the assets? If we can turn the property and capital over to the government why can we not instead turn those assets directly over to workers' cooperatives with funds collected by the government. Why do we need the government to administer? They merely need to facilitate.

Secondly, we must be vigilant and careful about Capitalists selling or otherwise ceding obsolete capital assets to workers. ESOPS are a good idea for workers, but have disadvantages. They don't deal withe physical/economic realities of local disinvestment and they do not address the issues associated with Corporate/Union partnerships in damaging sectors such as military contracting, alcohol and tobacco production and distribution, etc.

Let me clarify, if not reiterate, the definition of a Bank is that it is investor owned. By contrast savings banks and credit unions are depositor owned.

Among the purposes of an equity union is to evolve us away from an investor "class", non-workers who live off capital gains and dividends. Rational and purposeful (for meeting community needs and reasonable wants) Equity participation, sharing, and granting would replace speculative equity investing, equity trading, and lending (usurious by definition and certainly in practice).

In essence, the main purpose of an Equity Union system would be to evolve the private sector into a quasi-public One.

We also need to abolish the Federal Reserve. Let the Treasury make direct allocations to community equity unions instead of allocating financial capital to Investor owned banks.

Please pass this communication on, if you deem such appropriate.

Let me know what Dave thinks of my ideas, and by all means encourage him to contact me directly.

Thanks for writing.

Take good care.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin
wiserunion@earthlink.net

A Re-introduction to the Concept of Equity Union(s)

The current Capitalist dominated system is dysfunctional both from an equity/fairness and economic and natural resource sustainability perspective.

The dominant paradigm in Capitalist financial business operations uses something called the discount rate which assumes that money will be worth less (eventually worthless) in the future, thus creating a necessity to extract profits exceeding a "hurdle" rate leading to unfair and unwise exploitation of workers, borrowers, and natural resources, and to rampant inflation.

The use of credit is not a good business or personal practice. In business, it should be discouraged because creditors have first claims on net revenues and hold liens on real property and capital assets. For "consumers", the use of credit is unwise because the system is set up to extract profits from interest thus assuring that when consumers use credit that they are losing money relative to inflation. Certainly the current foreclosure crisis in the USA is ample evidence of the inflation and the unfairness and unhealthiness of the mortgage lien process.

Credit Unions and Mutual Insurance companies are in theory attempts to institute non-profit economic democracies for their respective industries. However, because of the need to compete for customers, both of these relatively progressive financial service organization types are forced to play the same game that is basically destructive to individuals, families, communities, and the natural environment. Ideally, credit should only be used as a last resort, much more preferably not at all. We should replace all aspects of the extant financial system with an Equity Union. In some ways, a mutual insurance company is similar to an equity union. However, because such companies are required to realize profits in order to compete for "policy holders" (really investors), the companies that comprise the portfolios of the mutual insurance firms cannot be not-for-profit, can not be mutual organizations themselves.

In a not-for profit Equity Union financial services system based on principles of mutuality working in concert with ethical, wise, knowledgeable, and intelligent community, inter-community, inter-regional, and worldwide planning there would certainly be an important role for financial service workers.

A major impediment to such an Equity Union would be the competitive advantage of the current financial sector and the fear of the friction of change to those individuals and organizations. Dealing with this sector of "the" economy, it would be more feasible with regards to Capitalist resistance and more humane, to orderly and peacefully transition to an Equity Union, coordinated with ecologically sound economic planning.

I am writing and talking about transitioning slowly, methodically, and with the minimum amount of friction and hardship from a dysfunctional financial system, based on self-interest, to one designed to benefit everybuddy.

At risk of understatement, it will take a huge amount of work to educate folks to the need and benefits of such change and to communicate the basic Plan. Transition Planning will also be a very difficult process, but I see no alternative to the current, impending and worsening global economic, political, social, and natural environmental collapse.

The Peoples' Equity Union concept is designed to be a grass roots, popular choice "movement". I am organizing with individuals, workers, and shopkeepers in my neighborhood, adjoining neighborhoods, and through the inter-net to whomever I can attract an interest in the concept.

The focus is primarily local, yet regional, and global at the same time. It is my dream, not a hope yet, to encourage a critical mass of people to organize locally around a unifying mission, unifying principles, unifying strategies, and unifying tactics in order to minimize the amount of administration at the regional and wide cooperative populations.

The theory is that neighborhood locales, the neighborhood community/worker hybrid association will have maximum autonomy and will be guided only, in their inter-community and inter-economic sector relationships by regional Planning Boards and a Global Policy Committee.

We must replace the current equity trading systems, corporate conglomerate corporations, insurance companies, and usurious banking systems of the Capitalist status quo with a worldwide Peoples' Equity Union with branches in every community/neighborhood.

The goal is to be a true economic democracy: of, for, and by the people.


HOUSING AND PROPERTY OWNERSHIP

Concurrent with financial systems reform, where equity sharing and not-for-profit equity collaboration would replace the current financial paradigm of for-profit equity investing, equity trading, and usurious credit arrangements, we need to evolve to a different system with respect to residential and other real property occupation arrangements.

In lieu of rent or leases, people should be allowed to acquire equity in their abodes and business properties. For example, in the case of an apartment, if one paid $500 per month to a property management firm, let's say $50 per month would go to property maintenance, and another $40 to administration fees, insurance, etc. This would leave the resident with $410 of accumulated equity added to their account each month. If we had a large cooperative housing organization (preferably world-wide, and preferably the only form of property ownership) then when someone had to move or wanted to move, they could take their equity with them to the new property.

With regards to mortgages, they are horribly usurious and should be banned. The scenario related above would also replace the current system of financing "home ownership loans".

A huge problem that we are facing now is the terrible inflation in the market values of real property (and capital assets, for that matter). If we pooled our equity, pooled our assets, and collectively wrote off our liabilities, then we could significantly write down the market values of real and capital assets.


More on Equity Union(s)

In a not-for profit Equity Union financial services system based on principles
of mutuality working in concert with ethical, wise, knowledgeable, and intelligent community, inter-community, inter-regional planning would serve the needs of the people.

In local and inter-community equity unions, equity sharing would be the modus operandi. People with funds being held in equity unions would have the option of sharing in primarily worker owned community betterment projects based on the principles of quality of life, equity (which means ownership, and also means equality), humanity, and sustainability (which means there will be an economy and natural resources for the youth and the children, and for generations to come).

If the inflation spiral can be removed (and the cost of real and capital assets brought back to earth), then indigent and poor workers could hope to increase their equity holdings and quality of life assets and equity investors could hope to get their money back. Some endeavors, beyond poor workers enrichment, would be not-for-profit. That is, profits made beyond a pre-determined return to the poor workers, would be re-invested in more such worker/community betterment hybrid businesses (preferably cooperatives).

Equity investments in community businesses could not be sold to others, but could be bought back at par value (the price of the share of the stock when it was invested). Such would be discouraged, and disallowed if it was a qualified low-income/low wealth equity investor, who may, or may not if they were allowed to collect (limited) personal dividends.

Equity Union branches in low income/low wealth neighborhoods would be allowed to set up a (501)(c)(3) to receive donations to an equity fund for their neighborhoods, to be kept in a local Equity Union and the funds allocated (equity grants) by a Board committed to community betterment and the likely success of the endeavor(s).


Equity Union – An Example

Getting Started


Hi Mike,
(rest of letter deleted)

[By the way, I presently have more income than is best for my
lifestyle, and now have recently gotten my hands on some extra money.
I'm not used to this situation. Do you have any suggestions about
where to 'invest' for the greater good, keeping in mind that my main
concerns remain first 'global heating', and then generally shorter
paths to possible eutopias vs. possible extreme dystopias?]

Dan
**********************************************************

Hi Dan,
(rest of letter deleted)

I, too, have some discretionary funds that I would like to put into trust
for public service and altruistic endeavors. Perhaps, you and I (and others if we can find them) should investigate creating a local Peoples' Equity fund. My idea on that is to see if we can open a group trust account in a Credit Union, where each trustee would have an individual account, yet allocations to community betterment projects could be done collectively, with each individual signing off on the amount that they want to dedicate to the project.

The idea would be that we would "invest" in community betterment projects with the care that we would expect to only get the par value of our "investment" back or we could choose to make individual and/or collective tax-deductible or maybe tax credit eligible contributions to "qualified" 501(c)(3) community betterment organizations (CBOs)

CBOs could be not-for-profit, non-profit or both.