No, no, no! Being an Italian I am very familiar with that institution (since we have it), and believe me, you don't want that mess. Welcome to the club.
Most government systems including the US are obsolete... A true democracy is now more possible because of the internet... A country has boundaries because of its legal system and actual physical land ... The internet enables a better informed public about who the person really is that wants to be in government... An individual has a number that represents a legal agreement with his government to be included in its ability to tax...This number would no longer be required and would be eliminated... ................................................................................................... A country's strength...is its ability to consume...those that consume the most..should be paying the taxes...in the form of a consumption tax....Debt would be illegal.... The tax that is collected is used for infrastructure...medical...military...education...energy...and would be voted on by as to percentages by internet vote...All is transparent... All other categories would be capitalistic and the public exchanges would be available to the world 24/7... Education is internet based and not dependent upon parents ability to pay... False programs such as SS and medicaid would no longer exist...There would be no more future demographic risks...All people would be responsible for their own... There are no more elections..no political parties...instead you have highly qualified people in very responsible positions...In the event that the person is no longer desired by the consuming public...another highly qualified person fills the position... All public entities would be transparent...as this would solve executive pay and crony issues... People would get a job because they are qualified via internet... ........................................................................................... The point is that the political whores such as Bush and Cheney would no longer be in existence......and oil oligopolists will no longer have the opportunity to fuck over the average public citizen... Giving a handful of individuals a lot of power is outdated and corrupt...
This statement says it all, good job Libertad. If this one area could be fixed all other problems would sort themselves out. But how does it get fixed when the rulemakers have no incentive, and even a dis-incentive to fix it?
Well at least we can agree that the economy was strong during the late 90's. But from your statement you must think Clinton created this strength. Really? Which of his economic policies was responsible?
US net investment position is over $3 trillions, and the current account deficit is about $800 billions. Americans don't make anything that foreigners want, and Americans don't own production means. Americans just own brand names. "Sto" is right about US becoming feudal: wealth is concentrating, and class income gaps are widening. Feudalism develops when wealth is rights ownership and not skilled labor: in medieval era, nobility's wealth was farmland ownership, and it needed only plentiful unskilled labor. Today in Nigeria, the upper class' wealth is largely crude oil rights, and it needs almost no native unskilled labor but buys much foreign skilled labor. Today in the US, the upper class wealth is brand name rights, and it needs little native unskilled labor but much foreign skilled labor. To illustrate the US example: WMT and DELL are two of the most successful US native businesses; both make nothing and sell foreign goods to the native population; both employ little native skilled labor but many low-paid sales and clerical workers. The difference then between a 1st world country and a 3rd world country then is the nature of the labor force: the upper class in countries like Japan need to employ many native highly-educated and well-paid skilled workers, and it not only owns retail brand names but also exports goods to foreigners; the upper class in countries like Nigeria and US only owns retail brand names and exports no goods. As a result, countries like Japan run huge trade surpluses with countries like US.
libertad... some nice transitional comments. Globalization ...through electronic means will be surprising to all of us. I like the way some of the institutions are waning and newer global oriented ones are improving..... The NGO route is where I put my money (for enabling purposes); any time relationships can transend the need for governmental intermediaries, the way is paved for optimum solutions. In Tucson, the last voting turned the control up-side-down and the larger money spenders lost by greater margins than ever before. One lesbian CEO of a not-for-profit took out the real estate supported pro politician. It was said to be unbelievable. All of a sudden..hehe... the public TV channel where the town council meetings are broadcast has become one of the most watched scenes. The AZ governor, a talented woman, is taking on all the Federal issues left unhandled and mishandled and it getting rave reviews for her orientation. Our state is very lucky since we have a huge and favorable balance of trade. Everyone comes here with big checks from selling all their life's accumulations. they just drive here and set up a new bank account and buy land, homes and furnishings. Buying a new home here now includes buying the infrastructure to support it...hehe... The fact that a Senator cannot carry his laptop into the Senate chamber doesn't bother me....... The fact that the courts cannot ajudicate technology as fast as technology goes to obsolenscence is not a problem either........ The form and operation of the Federal gowernment will be replaced by functional alternatives thought up by people outside of "system". The substitute for transfusions of dying systems is to plant new seeds that will grow the proper fruits. Not having war anymore is going to be a lot more fun........ I'm beginning to think we need 100 Anderson Coopers on both sides of the battle lines and federal support infrastructure systems broadcasting to everyone so we can keep the tax money moving in the right direction and so everyone can cut out the middleman. If we keep interviewing all the people with needs and all the people who are providers, maybe the jobs will get done quickly, right and cheaply. China is graduating 350,000 engineers the US is graduating 150,000. China will make the steel and aluminum and chemicals and plastics; the US can make stuff that doesn't need much engineering like health services and retirement benefits and fast foods.... I think that the way eople are divided up is going to change greatly. Now we are divied by things like states and countries. In a while the divisions may be entirely different. People will be able to group up according to other delineations. One nation of today might become a group of people who like to do ports. Port people. They have ports and they make them go go go ... There could be oil people. They could do wellness. Car people with hybrid relationships. Nano people and genetic people who grow for the world. There could be a Haliburton/Bectel infrastructure group making all the roads and everyone would pay them according to usage electronically collected at no inconvenience in real time. Our local Swedish tomato factory makes Campbell Soup look silly. How did the IKEA guy get richer than Bill Gates. These are tomato and furniture people. Consolidation of people groups could make them bigger than national groups. Some already are. Who else is losing boundaries. Doctors without boundaries. Engineers without boundaries. ohh ohh...religions without boundaries. Weather is already operational. What if we just used the tidal and weather energy to run the place instead of what we use now?? The living world operates on less than 1% of the solar energy impinging on the planet. that means the bioshpere is using less than 1%. The weather of the hydrologic cycle does take about 20% to operate, though. All the rest is either reflected or changed to warmth which is promptly radiated back out into space. If nations lose the ideas of boundaries and people get themselves into affinity groups of various sorts, the globe gets to have another kind of politics and groupmanship going on. The equities deal would be so neat too and so different. When a person gets out of college he comes to a fork in the road. To own or to work. Owning was my choice. Working did not have an appeal to me. I appreciate workers and that the world does not need full time employment or, rather, full employment to operate. Taxes are running something. Does it have to happen in a bordered place? I see the whole arrangement changing ever faster. Bush just created some voids that are being filled by alternatives that will work a lot better. The feds suggested a 50 wall along the Arizona border; our Governor sees 51 foot ladders all along the border. Will the Feds keep the bird flu out the same way??? I am thinking of going into the portland cement making business using local mineral deposits; we will have an international plant operation to cut shipping costs.
"Well at least we can agree that the economy was strong during the late 90's. But from your statement you must think Clinton created this strength. Really? Which of his economic policies was responsible?" Clinton and his administration was only partially responsible, but they helped on average rather than hurt. *) Robert Rubin, secretary of treasury. *) moderate tax rates in line with revenues *) didn't lock away Internet to big, old media for big business as Bellsouth is now trying to do. *) liked high tech that doesn't kill people *) No anti-truth people in all levels of government *) Pissed off Newt Gingrich, not rest of planet. *) No land wars in Asia
People have to be deprogrammed the idea that "liberal" is automatically and "conservative" automatically good. Clinton was a modest liberal, and historically that is the best policy that works. Adam Smith was, of course, a liberal.
In the days of Adam Smith, liberals were defined as those who advocated laissez-faire capitalism. I wasn't trying to bash Clinton in my previous post, I just think he gets more credit than he deserves for the unprecedented prosperity of the late '90's. One good thing we had in the late '90's was a democratic president and a republican congress. But I think it would have worked out the same even if it had been the other way around. I believe the political bickering actually slowed down the government and is the biggest reason things were going so (relatively) smoothly. What we have now is one party in control of basically the whole government which allows them a lot more leeway in what they can pass and get away with. That's why I believe the only solution to fixing the problems in washington is to break the democrats & republicans duopoly on the US political process by voting for independent & third party candidates. It's the only power the people have to change what's going on, unless you have DEEP pockets. Here's a link about another law they want to pass that will isolate them even further from any real competition. Stop the "Don't Let the People Decide" Act