Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea
EN | IT

587 posts since 2006

Category: Policy

  • Let the Government do more with less

    We seem to have two political positions in our two political parties.  The first by the republicans is “spend less and do less”.  The second by the democrats is “spend more and do more”.  How about “spend less and do more”.  We need the government to do more, especially at this time. There is a role for government to deal with major policy, regulatory, and defense issues.  But the government is inefficient and not business minded.  We need regulation for instance but not mind numbing impossible to understand regulation.  Obama should appoint a committee of successful business people to look at how to increase government efficiency.

    Obama says, that we need to hire more public sector employees.  I am ok with that but he also says we need to go into debt to do that.  I am no as ok with that although there is an argument to be made for that at his moment.  But I have an other idea.  How about cutting everyone in government’s salaries back by 10%  (with the exception of congress and the white house where a 20% reduction should be done)  and then hiring 10% more people to work for the government. That would improve government productivity without an increase in government spending.

    Romney, wants to lower the tax for the wealthy but only paid about 13%.  How is that possible with the Alternative Minimum Tax? being at 28%? The answer (assuming he is telling the truth about the 13%) is  charitable deductions.  So lets have a minimum tax at 20% with no deductions for those making over a million dollars (top line).

  • Introducing the Four Day Work Week

    As some of you know, I plan to run for President via Americans Elect if nominated.  I will be posting some of the planks of my campaign platform
    Here is one:  Introducing the Four Day Work Week
    As some of you know, I plan to run for President via Americans Elect if nominated.  I will be posting some of the planks of my campaign platform from time to time.  Here is one – Introduce the Four Day Work Week.
    I hate to be the one to tell you, but the jobs that were lost in the debacle that  resulted in part from  the real estate bubble,  are not coming back.  The combination of globalization, increased productivity resulting from technological advances and  resource depletion  are  permanent.  Rather than dealing with that reality, we masked it by the using of easy credit.  So rather than having growth we simulated growth.  That allowed Americans to buy homes they could not afford with debt that they could not pay back. Building these homes created many jobs but those jobs could not be sustained.  In the mean time, increasing real estate values allowed the rest of us to feel more wealthy  and more comfortable spending our savings or, even worse, borrowing from the equity of our homes.  I think you probably already know all this.  But our government leaders are telling us (both parties) that we just have to return to growth and everything thing will be ok.  The two parties do not disagree with the end objective – growth.  They just disagree on how to get there. And they are both wrong.
    So if we are going to have 10%  unemployment (it’s really more like 20% but we don’t count the people that had given up looking for work), more or less permanently (although will likely get worse), then what does this mean for our country?  If so many people are unemployed permanently, things are going to get ugly. Unemployment insurance can not maintain standards of living.  And unemployment insurance will not be extended for ever.  So many families will find themselves with greatly reduced incomes or even no income.  Family not directly effected will fear that they will be next to lose their jobs.  This means that in addition to living with great anxiety, they will also be willing to work longer hours for less pay and less benefits which, while increasing profitability for their employers, will have the effect of actually reducing job growth.  Not all parts of society will be effected in the same way.  For instance young people and in particular young people of  minorities will be even more effected.  You only have to look to the recent riots in the UK to see how well this works out.
    So is there an alternative?  Yes, we can go back to the promise of a four day work week, something I was told to expect when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s.   If we reduced the work week to 32 hours,  after a period of adjustment, everyone  could be employed.  Yes, we would all be earning 20% less but we would have a full extra day in our lives.  This in effect would add increase our days off by 50%.  We would stop having to worry about losing our jobs.  We would once again have some bargaining power with employers.  We would have not to be fearful of gangs of young men who have never found work.

    So rather than think about a reduction of your salary by 20%, think about all the great things you will be able to do with the extra day.

    Here is a pretty good video talking about this concept.

    New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo.

     

    …..

  • Bridges not Bombs

    It seems like a lot of people,  particularly those in government, are confused about the difference between building a bomb and building a bridge.  A bomb does not have much function other than to blow up people.  I guess you could argue that in the right circumstance it might provide the owner with some protection against an enemy,  but I think it would be hard to really make the case that the majority of weapons have a utility.   Given that our government is running  about a 40% deficit (it takes in revenues that are about 60% of what it spends), we must borrow money to build the bomb.  Now, I don’t actually think we should build bridges ( although I think we should repair the ones we have) but I do think there are things that we could do to create value and actually pay back the money and interest we  have to borrow to build to such things.  A great example would be a national smart grid to improve the distribution of electric power.

    It seems that the government and our citizens cannot tell the difference   between borrowing money to create value and borrowing money to destroy value.  What if we used our soldiers and the industries that provide materials to conduct wars (remember the USA spends more money in defense then all the other countries of the world combined) to actually build things that would pay for themselves over time?  This kind of borrowing can be  supported by our economy.  There is a difference between borrowing money to finance a vacation and borrowing money to get a college education, but it appears our political leaders cannot see this difference.

    There is an other example of lack of understanding.  Government officials and TV pudents talk about how much money  America corporations  have in their treasuries.  They say companies are not spending this money because their is no consumer demand for more of their products. But there is another reason that seems to escape all these talking heads.  So much of the profits of American companies were made overseas and are not subject to US tax until they are brought back.  So if  an American company wants to use this cash to invest in the USA they first have to pay about 40% in tax.   Given our situation we should allow companies to bring this money back without tax- provided they invest the money in creating US jobs or  pay dividends to their shareholders.  This should get the money in circulation.  And speaking of dividends, they are taxed twice. First they are taxed at the corporate level and then at the individual level.  Not only should they be taxed only once but frankly, I don’t think they should be taxed at all.

  • Economics: Science or Astrology

    I have been having been thinking a great deal about economics. The market crash of 2008 was my inspiration to understand more, that along with a series of discussion with my son, Asher, who is the Executive Director of the Post Carbon Institute. It was Asher who introduced me to the work of Chris Martenson and in particular his Crash Course on Economics which I highly recommend. The more I learn about economics the less I understand. I have also begone to question the ability of economist to predicate the future (of course some will get things right sometimes but that may be the result of the lows of probabilities).  I have more faith in the long term weather reports.

    At the same time, I have been giving a lot of thought to the difference between intuition and analysis. Those of you that know me, know that I am governed more by my intuition than my ability to analyze things. I think analysis is great for understanding the past but not the future. You can read about how I used intuition in my business life here. For me intuition really has to do with trusting that part of our mind that is not conscious. It is trusting our ability to see patterns and to solve puzzles. I good example is how one might try to do an actual puzzle. You could try to use analysis to figure out what the puzzle represented or you could try to put the pieces together. And in doing that you would find pieces that fit together starting with the pieces that might be candidates for the corners. As you got clumps together you would try to arrange them. At some point you might think, wisely, that you should just stare at the board and hope that some imagine would appear. Once you saw the imagine, putting together the pieces would happen rapidly.

    So here is the problem with economics. The people that practices are trying to be rational. They are using analysis to build models. But the best people at predicting might not even know why they believe that certain things will happen. I know many people that manage money that just go with their “guts” . But they could never really tell someone that. They would have to put together a story the supported their feelings.

    It is a shame that we do not trust our own intuition. Maybe we could actually solve some problems if we did.

  • Avram Miller’s plan to save America and maybe the world

    I have been pretty negative for some time about our government.  I think congress is disgusting and self serving.  I think the Obama administration is a great disappointment.  We need leadership.  So here I am with my own program to save America.

    Health Care

    • We need to focus on prevention and early detection of disease. This means increase research, education about changing life styles and appropriate medical testing.
    • The amount of money spent in the last year of life needs to be decreased. A great deal of this money is wasted on taking care of patients that hardly know they are alive. The money could be better spent on prevention and early detection so that the last year of life would happen several years later (longer life expectancy).
    • Must phase into a single payer system. The best way to accomplish this is to decrease the age of medicare by two years each year.  In ten years the age will be 45.  At that point every one should be eligible. Only a single payer system can balance the long term with the short term.  Insurance companies have no incentive since they  do not know how long they will have a particular member.
    • Move from an employer based system.  One of the benefit of an employer based system is that it creates a large group of people with different medical conditions, ages and sex.  This can be accomplished in other ways.  The employer based system creates an economic disadvantage to companies since the cost of these plans are high and many non American companies do not have to  carry this burden.  These programs tend to isolate consumers from the real cost. The tax deductions companies get without the consumers taxed on the benefits means that the government is paying a significant amount of the medical insurance cost  without being able to influence how this money is spent. The government should provide a tax credit for medical costs and a deduction on medical cost above the value of the tax credit which can be capped.
    • Reform the legal system and change the laws on mal-practice suits. Remove the anti-monopoly exception for insurance companies
    • Improve the IT in health care.  Standards for consumer health data bases should be established which provide for inter-operability and sharing of data bases.  All medical institutions should be required to use approved health care software
    • Consumer Pricing Information. Methods should be developed so that consumers can get access to both pricing and performance of organizations such as testing facilities (like MRI’s).  Transparency is required.

    Energy

    • We need a tax on energy especially gasoline.  We should set a floor and then increase the floor in determined and known way.  The money resulting from this tax can be given back to tax payers as a credit.  They can decide to use it for energy or something else.
    • We need a mass works program to develop alternative energy sources.
    • We need to create mass transport and provide incentives for  people to use this transport.
    • All other methods of conservation should be encouraged.

    War on Terrorism

    • Reduce direct spending and take money saved and use it to create economic development in key countries like Palestine.
    • Understand that the US wars in Islamic countries only help recruit terrorists.
    • Work with Muslim  leaders to help turn the tide of thinking.

    Employment

    • Establish two years of national service after high school for all Americans.  These years can be used in a number of ways from support of public programs, to peace corp. or even armed service.  This will take the 18 and 19 year old’s out of the work force.  It will give them valuable skills.
    • Establish optional two years of national service for adults between the age of 60 and 70.

  • Our Goverment is selling our bodies, one gene at a time.

    Actually, they are giving it away for a small fee.  See Michael Crichton’s op-ed in the New York Times here.  It is just an other awful example of how broken our IP laws are.