Forum Post: A possible plan of action to clean up this mess
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 2, 2011, 7:07 p.m. EST by ARod1993
(2420)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Here's my solution; considering that the last time things were this bad or worse was during the Great Depression, and considering that the New Deal had a dramatic positive effect on this economy, I would advise a retooled New Deal (a New Deal 2.0, if you will) to help fix the mess we're in now and help us prevent it from happening again. The whole thing is too long to place in one post here, so here are the links:
Overview of the entire proposal: http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=184
Rationale for Section III: http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23&p=119#p119
Rationale for sections IV and V: http://occupywallst.org/forum/everybody-walk-away-from-your-debt/#comment-246898
Rationale and possible project ideas for Section VI: http://occupywallst.org/forum/revive-the-ccc-and-the-wpa/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/could-high-speed-rail-be-the-answer/#comment-197932
Draft of policy ideas concerning Sections VII and VII: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gytiI1qwPDpnLQ8cRmNXoJFmiy4ob3n6yjqfBHpBH8M/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1 Note: this is just a draft and hasn't really been cleaned up or codified.
Order of implementation: Obama seems to have started on IV and V, on a much smaller scale than we hoped, but we'll see if we can widen it. VI is apparently the whole point of the OWS Jobs for All demand, so we'll see how that goes. VII and VIII have the broadest support, so we'll see how we can or can't force the issue during the 2012 election season. I-III may wind up being really hard to implement but hey, it's an election year. As to how I propose making any of this count, see here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-want-change-thats-great-now-how-do-we-implement/#comment-205283
The government can't be fixed because it already is. Time to start over.
What would you recommend?
Starting over, beginning with the abandonment of the corrupt systems that have and are destroying cultures, lives and the environment.
Your plan requires positive action from those who have created and perpetuated all of the problems and ills cited in the OWS Declaration. It would be foolish to expect anything from them except more of the same.
OWS is a beginning of a new order based on humanitarian and environmental principles. The form it takes and the process it follows will evolve as we grow. This is not about demands, but about personal responsibility and action. Actions are things we do autonomously as individuals and together by agreement. We cannot change the behavior of others, we can only set an example for others to see.
[Deleted]
The purpose of the estate tax is this: you earned your wealth. Your kids didn't earn your wealth; they can still have enough to launch careers or businesses but there's no reason that inheritances shouldn't be taxed at the same or higher rate than income because one is earned and the other one isn't.
Great discussion. Let's do a few things now while continuing the debate. Fight for #7. New Game Plan for Congress. Divide the New Jobs Money In-Half to R & D. Let each Party Prove they can create the most new jobs. The Media and CBO keeps score for the next 6 months. We the PEOPLE mark a 'Check-Off' on our IRS-1040 for 2012 on which Jobs Act We want to CANCEL on April 15th, 2012. We need a congresswo/men to be a sponsor of each Demand. I have 19 more Fighting Points: http://fuzzythinker.WebStarts.com/ows-_fighting_points.html
That could be a very interesting idea. That said, I would include measure it in job-dollars per year (number of jobs provided multiplied by the average AGI each worker takes home in a year) to prevent either side from spamming the competition with fast-food jobs that don't pay a living wage.
Nice detail. CBO would want that.
Out of this collapse must emerge a quantum leap in representative government or we will end up with the same corruption and public apathy that we have now!!!!
I scanned your overview and I would congratulate you on a sincere, thoughtful effort. I think it would be a good starting point for some number of working groups working on slices of the issues/solutions.
I assume you will post this on Occupy Resistance as well as the Multitude? I respond further there.
I haven't had a chance to put this on theMultitude yet, but I just put it up on OccupyResistance: http://www.occupyr.com/Demands/thread.php?id=627
How can this movement call the US government a "mess" when the movement itself can't successfully focus on any clear objective or many any progress toward it, other than camping out in a park and making sparkles with their fingers? If the movement were not itself so dysfunctional, then they might have some standing to make recommendations for sweeping changes to government. But with an ineffective system of government themselves, how can they throw stones from their glass house and expect anybody to take them seriously?
Man, you should have been at Lexington and Concord. That was a mess. Oh, and Michele, they are the ones in Massachusetts.
The thing is it's getting to the point where you don't even need much common sense let alone formal education or organizing skills to see that this country is not in a very nice place right now and something needs to be done to change that. All the organizational troubles that OWS had merely go to prove that straight government by consensus is not a good way to run a movement. If you've noticed, I haven't called for implementation of an OWS-style GA as a legislative body, only some basic modifications for which there is ample historical precedent.
I agree that changes are in order. And this movement isn't going to be what inspires those changes if it can't manage to focus on any objective. The Tea Party started in a similar sort of nebulous, undefined, passionate way as Occupy Wall Street. But somehow they managed to draft the Contract From America, they got a bunch of people to sign it and get behind it, they got candidates who embodied its values, they elected those candidates, and they successfully made government more responsive to their concerns. The drama over the debate over raising the debt ceiling has been their big achievement so far, and they're still going.
Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, is still fumbling at the very first step. The first step toward success is focusing on a goal. A corollary demonstrated by this movement is that the first step toward failure is to fail to focus on a goal.
Here, take a look: http://www.contractfromamerica.org/the-contract-from-america/ Will Occupy Wall Street ever manage to create something like this, for people to get behind?
You must be so proud.
Yes, we should always keep the example of the Tea party in mind. Now, if we could just find a couple of guys with about $50 billion to tell us what we think.
Hmmmm.
[Deleted]
That is what we have. Laws that law makers can't fix. Know why? They didn't write them. Hell, they didn't even read them. They were written by lobbyists.
Maybe we should eliminate the middlemen, and elect ...... lobbyists and pay them to unscrew the Rube Goldberg machines they built. Yeah, that's the ticket.(Humor)
Seriously, TechJunkie, where do you buy your governmental architects? Forward some resumes?
I've hired a lot of software coders and architects and admit I've been fooled a few times. Also developed the first highly parallel implementation of UNIX. Wasn't easy and it was late. Likely happens in government, too.
I happen to hire software developers, and I would not hire a software development consultant who is unable to demonstrate that he can write a working program. And in exactly the same way, I'm skeptical of suggestions for ways to improve the structure of our government from a movement that has created a system of government that's incapable of accomplishing anything.
[Deleted]
You say "very definitely focus goal". I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that English is not your first language, and so I ask: what is your version of what the goal in focus is?
Fuck off with your big gov bullshit. OWS isnt about giving Obama and the criminals more power
you have any power to give? think something interesting to say--4 letter words are not very interesting.
Thanks for all of your help. I assume you will be back to help some more?
Here's what a few of us in OccTampa have put together (not speaking for the GA) http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Occupy-Congress/109181762526876
Hate to tell you but the New Deal actually was considered part 1 and 2. Secondly and probably worse for you, is it was not the New Deal that brought out economy out of the depression, it was World War 2. Sounds nice to think that FDR's plan did some immediate good, but really it was the ramp up of the war machine. Why do you think America has successive wars? because it has historically stimulative to the economy.
I know that the New Deal didn't do much compared to World War II, but it definitely did help; it cut unemployment by 30-40% over the course of only a couple of years. If we were able to get that big a cut now it would put us back around 5-6.5% unemployment, which isn't that far off the natural rate of unemployment. It would probably also boost wages a fair amount.
in great depression gdp fell 30%, multitudes lost job, yet America was still the world's manufacturer. debt spending and the stimulation of war spending increased demand for goods, and brought the workers back to the factories. this is no longer the case. sadly things don't stay new and useful. our economical ground has totally shifted, meaning we aren't going to spend ourselves into more jobs, this time around.
We might be able to if we did it properly; that is to say if we implemented a truly punitive corporate tax code for companies that decided to manufacture their goods offshore we might be able to create actual demand for workers even outside the infrastructure projects. If the infrastructure projects are chosen and prepped for construction before any money is actually disbursed we might really have a shot at creating monetarily efficient projects that can provide fairly long-term employment for a large number of Americans.
What makes you think the New Deal did that? After the high point around 1935 of more than 20% the unemployment rate came down to about 15% in the next couple of years, because there was a need for workers. But it started to rise again by around 38' and it was the war that finally drove it down. As the stimulus proved, our economy is not going to react like that. We do not have nearly the opportunity for growth like we did back then, have much greater debt problems, less productive people as a percentage of society (this is a biggie), and an influence by the world.
The "stimulus" was in three pieces as I recall, tax cuts which did nothing (again) increased benefits, weak stimulus and infrastructure projects which weren't shovel ready (to satisfy congressmen's districts) and came out as a trickle. One could hardly design a less stimulative package and what was the total as a percentage of GDP? Almost nothing. Designed to do nothing. Did a little.
By the way, isn't a cut of 20% to 15% a 25% cut? Arod1983 isn't that far wrong.
New Deal detractors like Brandon Lee (see the 1982 Wilson Quarterly for the article) were probably partially right that the New Deal didn't do all it was cracked up to do. However, their argument as to why that was is most likely the opposite of yours: it wasn't Keynesian enough. FDR's desire to keep the budget balanced was what robbed the New Deal of what it could have been.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLUpGGmku8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SMrnx6nkRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wg1bH6-1YY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgKS4i-u0OM
http://www.reverbnation.com/Killumination
Donate!!!
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NKRL8TGE95H2Y
Paypal is part of what people are fighting
Occupy Paypal, billions in rolling resever for 6 months, no tax, no interest to people
http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupy-paypal-billions-in-rolling-resever-for-6-mo/
And you're e-panhandling me why again?