Rebooting the American Dream - 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country

[maxx]

from "Griftopia" by Matt Taibbi

"...the parties should be broken down into haves and have-nots, a couple of obnoxious bankers from the Upper East Side running for office against 280 million pissed-off credit card and mortgage customers. That's the more accurate demographic divide in a country in which the top 1 percent has seen its share of the nation's overall wealth jump from 34.6 percent before the crisis, in 2007, to over 37.1 percent in 2009. Moreover the wealth of the average American plummeted during the crisis--the median American household net worth was $102,500 on 2007, and went down to $65,400 in 2009--while the top 1percent saw its net hold relatively steady, dropping from $19.5 million to $16.5 million..." p.12

[Jimaz]

from "Griftopia" by Matt Taibbi

Good one.

America for Sale: An Exclusive Excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s New Book on the Economic Meltdown

The title "Griftopia" threw me for a moment until I remembered that "grifter" is slang for a kind of gambling cheat or "con artist."

[Jimaz]

Here's a detailed article about the author: Progressive Profiles: With New TV Show, Radio Talker Thom Hartmann Brings Substance to Style

Thom has a theory about [Benjamin] Franklin: The founder, he says, had attention deficit disorder. Hartmann is something of an expert on the subject.

"He's the poster child for ADD," Thom says of Franklin. "And if he didn't have ADD, we wouldn't have the United States of America."

"Franklin was all over the map," he continues. "He never held a job more than five years in his life, he had three or four different careers...In my first book on ADD there's a whole chapter about Ben Franklin."...

Hartmann is a true believer in the power of media to convert the skeptic to the progressive point of view, and his radio guests are mostly conservatives, whom he debates with gusto, armed with an historian's knowledge of America's distant and recent past.

... "I just got an e-mail today from a guy who said, 'I've just been listening to your show for a couple of weeks and I want to tell you it's the best radio show on the air and I love it so much. And, by the way, I'm a die-hard conservative but I'm not listening to Limbaugh anymore because I can predict what he's going to say and I'm learning from you.' My prediction is that in a year I'm going to get an e-mail from him saying, 'I used to be conservative.' Because it happens constantly. Literally constantly. People call into the show or send e-mails or post on our message board, 'I thought I understood politics until I started actually listening.'"

[oladub]

I don't know the reason for the title but this article makes good points about the relationship of supply demand, immigration, and unions. I wish he had similarly gone after NAFTA, GATT, and such other agreements which have severly reduced the demand for US workers. Also, the author should have pushed the idea of punishing cheating employers.

maxx:What sort of job? What level of pay? I'm sure there are plenty of corporate heads who would love for everyone to make minimum wage so they would have to hold two or three jobs to survive. They'd have no time to know what was going on."

The jobs which would materialize at higher wages due to supply and demand dynamics if immigration and offshoring jobs were dealt with as mentioned in the article. Corporate heads already like the status quo which is driving us toward the future you cite. The article is, in part, about what it would take to get unions back on their feet and claim a larger percentage for US workers as well as create demand for light rail and other personal and private things.

[Jimaz]

Rebooting the American Dream - Chapter 10: Wal-Mart Is Not a Person

[oladub]

From the 'historical perspective' section:
"Thus the Framers of our Constitution intentionally chose not to even use the word corporation in that document, as they wanted business entities and churches to be legally established at the state level, where local governments could keep an eye on them."

So close. The magic words are 'the 10th Amendment' which, if it had been employed, would have prevented a judge from making corporations 'legal persons' in 1886.

The author already established, in chapter 9, how implementing supply/demand would create a labor shortage allowing US workers to demand a larger part of the economic pie. If those changes were implemented, US workers would have more money in their own pockets to spend on campaigns. It would therefore not be necessary to have such an involved amendment. Going back to Alan Keyes thought, simply limit donations to natural persons. It is pretty much what the author recommends but treats unions, churches, foundations, corporations and other non-persons alike whereas the author would forbid giving only to for profit entities. With the author's suggested amendment, what is to prevent schools and every other government entity from making contributions? We can predict where that would go. By simply stripping all non natural persons from buying politicians, executives, teachers, union officials, etc. could still donate privately.

"The right of free association includes the right to associate our money with the causes we believe in, and to do so in any amount that we think is necessary to get the job done. For government to dictate what we can do under the rubric of 'campaign finance reform' is a total violation of our constitutional rights, and we should force our politicians to abandon it...
The first principle is that there will be no 'dollar' vote without a ballot vote. Only people who can walk into the voting booth and cast a vote for a candidate should be able to make a contribution to his campaign. This means no corporate contributions, and no union contributions, except from unions truly acting on the authority of members freely associating and intending to make a contribution. There must be no financial contributions whatsoever from any entities that are not actual, breathing voters.
The second principle is that when anyone casts a 'dollar' vote, it should be publicized immediately. The whole world should know who is giving how much, and to whom, so that the voters can enforce the result."
Apr. 3, 2008 Alan Keyes

[maxx]

That may be the only intelligent thing Alan Keyes ever said.

Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.
Alan Keyes


It's about time we all faced up to the truth. If we accept the radical homosexual agenda, be it in the military or in marriage or in other areas of our lives, we are utterly destroying the concept of family.
Alan Keyes

“The income tax is a slave tax,”
Alan Keyes quote

“Our first responsibility is not to ourselves, ... Our first responsibility is to our country and to our God." Alan Keyes quote

“If we would let God into our schools under normal circumstances, then we probably wouldn't have to see our children turn to God when faced with this kind of evil,” Alan Keyes quote

[oladub]

maxx, You may be right but in the spirit of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I find myself, on occasion, even agreeing with President Obama. In this case, Keyes deserves some credit for his position that "Only people who can walk into the voting booth and cast a vote for a candidate should be able to make a contribution to his campaign" and without falling back and including his favorite non human entities.

[Jimaz]

Rebooting the American Dream - Chapter 11: In the Shadow of the Dragon

[firstandten]

Excellent chapter. I really like the Mondrigan business model. This is a model if followed on a large scale can bridge the gap between free enterprise and gov't.Thom has written a remarkable book

[Jimaz]

Excellent chapter. I really like the Mondrigan business model. This is a model if followed on a large scale can bridge the gap between free enterprise and gov't.Thom has written a remarkable book

Yeah, Thom seems to have a knack for finding unexpected counterexamples like that. He seems to enjoy "thinking outside the box." The world is often other than depicted.

Wikipedia's Mondragon Corporation article

Thanks, Thom. Wish we could clone you!

[oladub]

Here in Wisconsin, we have a lot of cooperatives which also bridge the gap between government ownership and corporations or are an alternative to corporate capitalism. My telephone and electric coops are customer owned. Every user gets one vote to vote for three township representatives for the board of directors. Profits are given back to customers once a year. Two of the grocery stores I frequent are employee owned. I buy beer from employee owned City Brewery. I even get to support a city owned football team in the Super Bowl.

Historically, Scandinavian immigrants brought over the concept of coops. There was also a wave of German socialists who settled in Wisconsin. I think those are reasons coops and employee ownership are more common here.

[firstandten]

Here in Wisconsin, we have a lot of cooperatives which also bridge the gap between government ownership and corporations or are an alternative to corporate capitalism. My telephone and electric coops are customer owned. Every user gets one vote to vote for three township representatives for the board of directors. Profits are given back to customers once a year. Two of the grocery stores I frequent are employee owned. I buy beer from employee owned City Brewery. I even get to support a city owned football team in the Super Bowl.

Historically, Scandinavian immigrants brought over the concept of coops. There was also a wave of German socialists who settled in Wisconsin. I think those are reasons coops and employee ownership are more common here.

What do you see are the strengths and weaknesses of your co-ops especially how your electric
and telephone companies work ?

[oladub]

What do you see are the strengths and weaknesses of your co-ops especially how your electric
and telephone companies work ?

First, a bit of background: I live in a township with about 500 residents. Many of the other townships in the area have similar populations. This makes the area less interesting financially to big companies because there is a lot of line maintenance per customer meaning it isn't the most lucrative place to sell either electricity or phone service. Such rural places were more likely to have had to establish their own coop arrangements. Countywide coops then join together to form their own ubercoop that produces electricity having it's own power plants.

Back to my county's coop and answering your question. I know some of the directors of my coop from my township and some from other townships. They tend to be guys who people know and look up to in the community. They are elected by us and do a good job of representing us. All my dealing with either coop have gone well and my phone company provides my Internet service. I choose my little phone coop over larger Internet outfits partly because they have 24 hour help a phone call away when I can't figure out how to get my TV or computer to work. I never have to wait. When the problem can't be resolved on the phone, they send out a service guy no charge the next day. I always get good service although I probably have more power failures and Internet glitches than most people in the city because of the length of lines. For instance, ice storms can mess up quite a few lines at once and some are hard to get to in the woods with only two crews. I know they are always doing the best they can given the circumstances because, among other things, they are my neighbors.

Our ubercoop did create a problem a couple of years ago. The ubercoop's directors are chose by the directors of the local county coops. EPA regulations required cleaner air. The waste ash with its toxic chemicals had been disposed by incorporating it into concrete. However, the EPA regulations resulted in waste that was so toxic, it would not work with concrete. The ubercoop's response was to dump it in a landfill in one county. Local farmers and other resident's fought back and eventually discovered how the Waste was treated in Germany to still be used in concrete. Based on the information provided by outraged citizens, the ubercoop backed off and adopted the German method which was slightly more expensive than dumping the ash to get rid of some of the ash.
story of ash

In summary, the local county level coops are very accommodating although not rich in resources. The coop that provides them with electricity is less accommodating, more distant and acts more like a conventional utility. I do pay more than city rates because of the sparse population and geography here.

[Jimaz]

Rebooting the American Dream - Conclusion: Tag, You're It!

[maxx]

The Republicans' Roadmap for America
http://readersupportednews.org/news-...pq-for-america

"...He [Rep. Ryan] laid it all out in a document he calls "A Roadmap for America's Future." In it was his simple plan for health care reform: destroy Medicare as we know it by giving seniors a fixed dollar voucher and sending them off to find an insurance company that will cover them. That's after raising the age of Medicare eligibility. He also revives the discredited idea of privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age. Good luck, Grandma!
He enthusiastically joined every Republican to vote to repeal the health care bill, despite the independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office declaring that repeal adds $230 Billion more to the deficit. "The CBO is entitled to its opinion," declared Speaker John Boehner. Dismissing the CBO is equivalent to throwing the umpire out of the baseball game and replacing him with your team's coach. But that's just exactly what the new Republican rules allow - if they disagree with the CBO, they simply throw out the call..."

[TKshreve]

Just finished the book and this thread.

What can I say? Thom Hartman has a knack for translating the complicated challenges and dishonest lies we Americans live through in this day and age.

He calls out government and corporations alike. Both of which I have harbored doubts upon for some time, but lacked the due research to form a strong opinion.

And then there were a couple ideas I have kicked around before, only to find that Thom and other populations beat me to it. First, the community owned co-op business model. To see that this format is successful in other parts of the world is very reassuring. Second, the attention to ratios of pay. When Thom points out that CEO's are making up to 5000 to 1 of the lowest employee compensation, it sickens me and gives raw data to the wealth shift we are experiencing [[although we lack the comprehension of it). Our country was built and strengthened through a strong middle class, where now our leaders seem hell bent on destroying that premise.

I second a previous posters comment that I need to read it again. Not that his writing is Ivy League level, but his ideas and suttle hints need further digesting. I am surprised he did not address urban crime in one of his sections. It seems like another elephant he left out.

In the end, I agree with about 98% of the material in the book. Thom Harmann sums up just about every problem our country faces now, whether domestic or foreign.

[Jimaz]

Another recurring theme I've noticed in Thom's work is that he seems to believe that Americans have been too demoralized and so need to be emboldened--not to riot but just to become constructive.

I think that's why he so often likes to give examples of effective, even [[gasp) simple solutions to our problems that are surprisingly cost-beneficial. We rarely hear that sentiment from other sources.

When I stop to think how often I hear that our problems are too entrenched to ever be solved, too expensive, too strongly opposed, too hopeless, "too big to fail," etc., it's easy to see where he might get that idea. The futility of it all is pretty much constantly hammered into us. I think no one with our interests at heart would hammer so constantly.

No matter how hopeless a situation, one thing's for sure: Complacency never accomplished anything.

Tag! We're it!