Who decides? The many or the money?

Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, wrote a good “Counterpoint” in today’s Star Tribune - “Minnesota Values Deserve Our Support”.

My favorite line is “…the voices of the many, not the money, should govern our democracy.”

If you are a U. S. citizen, I hope you have Tuesday, November 4, 2014 on your calendar to remind you to vote.  In fact, be sure that the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is on your calendar for every year.  Local and state officials need your electoral support, too.

Democrats elect Republican Congress

Come on!  Diehard Democrats won't vote for Republicans!

They don't have to vote for Republicans to elect them to Congress.  All they have to do, is they have so often in the past, is to not show up on Election Day!

See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/us/politics/democrats-scramble-to-stave-off-midterm-disaster.html.

Stop crying about money in politics and voter disenfranchisement.  Show up and vote!  If you don't, you may find yourself disenfranchised in the future.

Quote of the day: military spending

"A dollar appropriated for highway construction, health care, or education will create many more jobs than a dollar appropriated for Pentagon weapons procurement: The jobs argument is thoroughly specious."

The PARTY is OVER: How Republicans Went CRAZY, Democrats Became USELESS, and the Middle Class Got SHAFTED, Mike Lofgren

The people know best how to spend their own money! Really?

Yes, we know how to spend our money on food, shelter, and entertainment, but do we know how to spend our money on infra-structure, police and fire, military, regulatory agencies, foreign policy, and basic research?

"Know best how to spend our own money" has been a mantra of the anti-tax, anti-government crowd as if government is just a sinkhole giving money away for no purpose.  They completely ignore that taxes pay for our roads, our sewers, and many other physical features of a civil society.  They ignore that without regulatory agencies a power company could change its rates willy-nilly without warning.  They ignore that without a military, there would be nobody to fight the wars that they claim we should get into.  They ignore that without the basic research into atomic energy that we would not have the nuclear energy that taxes have heavily subsidized.  And if they found this page with Google, they should thank the National Science Foundation, DARPA, and NASA for the grant to Stanford University in 1994 that made Google possible.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation and many other pages.

Some business people in Superior, Wisconsin don't believe in free markets

One of the conditions of a classical free market is the ability to enter and leave the market at any time.

Many are faulting a homeowner in Superior, Wisconsin for not selling to a supermarket chain that wants to build a new store.  See "One homeowner holds up construction of new Superior Super One", Shelley Nelson, Duluth News Tribune, 2012-08-31.http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/241725/

Shouldn't the company have made sure that all the homeowners were willing to sell before buying any of the properties?  Many say the homeowner is holding up progress and should accept the very generous offer above and beyond "fair market value".  But are all values measured in dollars and cents?

The end result will most likely be that his house will be taken by imminent domain and at a price far less than the maximum he was offered.  I know, I know, it's "eminent domain", but unless you are a large corporation with deep pockets, the result is imminent.  Remember Best Buy versus Lindahl Oldsmobile in Richfield, Minnesota?  Lindahl Olds and many homeowners were forced out.

Quote of the day – Republicans crazy, Democrats useless, and we're shafted

The full quote is the book title: "The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted" by Mike Lofgren, a former Republican staffer.

You can read a short interview with Mike Lofgren at http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/former-congressional-staffer-how-money-divides-politics.

"One percent has money, 99 percent have votes" not original with me

I felt a bit of pride in coming up with "The 1% may have the money, but the 99% have the votes".  I never saw it anywhere else, and I had a hard time searching for it.  In fact, I was disappointed that a search for the phrase as I wrote it in http://magree.blogspot.com/2012/05/1-may-have-money-but-99-have-votes.html turned up nothing.  Even when I give the phrase to Google in quotes, it only shows articles with the pieces, not the whole phrase.  Maybe this is why I don't see many hits of my blog for this mantra.

Last week I finally found something very similar.  It is at "Message to 99%: Help Stop the 1% From Using the Super Committee to Rob the American People", a blog on the Huffington Post by Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, 2011-10-29.  Their exact quote is "The 1 percent may have most of the money, but the 99 percent have the votes."

It doesn't surprise me that my version didn't go viral, but I'm surprised that something written on HuffPost did not circulate more.  In a sad way, that shows that too many of the 99% don't exercise their vote.

Sadly, I bet the turnout in Wisconsin tomorrow won't exceed 60% of the registered voters.

The 1% may have the money but the 99% have the votes!

I thought of the above phrase last night after a "debate" between a Tea Party supporter and an Occupy Movement participant.  See "Respectful discussion covers Occupy, Tea Party movements", Mike Creger, Duluth News Tribune, 2012-05-04.

After the main discussion, audience members were allowed two minutes each to speak.  I reminded people that all recent presidents and many other elected official received the votes of only a minority of eligible voters.

After I spoke, I pondered the common complaint that elections are bought.  Come on!  Are we a bunch of zombies who follow some evil master?  If we consider ourselves free agents, then we should go to the polls and vote for the candidates we prefer, write in somebody, or leave it blank.  If more of us voted, the expensive campaigns may become meaningless.  In fact, there have been cases where the candidate who spent the least won the election.

Why fight Super-PACs? They may do it for us

Winning Our Future PAC, a Super PAC supporter of Newt Gingrich, may win our future free of Super PACs. Sheldon Abelson have given over five million dollars to Winning our Future. As a casino owner, he doesn't seem to place his bets well. So far Newt Gingrich has incurred the wrath of the other candidates for the Republican nomination and received less than 40,000 votes. That's $125 per vote; not a very good bargain. See "Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina", Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 2012-01-11, republished as "Gingrich takes the big money", Star Tribune, 2012-01-13.
His relentless attacks on Mitt Romney may also help re-elect Barack Obama. If so, Republicans may really rethink their support of money as speech. Gosh, if I have enough money to put a loud-speaker truck on every corner and blast my message so loud that nobody can have any conversation, would shutting down my loud-speakers take away my free-speech rights. Far-fetched. What about being the highest bidder for so much television time that nobody can even get a second of air-time? Is that a free-speech right?

But getting back to the real world of individual citizens, there are steps we can do to halt Super-PACs.

1) Don't watch TV. This is the easiest way to ignore Super-PACs

2) Show up and vote

3) Read newspapers and magazines. You can easily skip over pages you don't like.

4) Vote what you believe; ignore poll results

5) Talk politics with friends. Don't be passive about voting.

6) Vote in every election.

7) In case I didn't mention it, Vote! It's your patriotic duty.

Cash is becoming obsolete, will credit cards follow?

Imagine this! You go into a store to purchase something. When it comes time to pay you whip out, not your credit card but your cell phone. The merchant gives you a number, you call PayPal, enter the amount of the purchase and the number the merchant gave you. A moment later the merchant receives a notice on his or her computer that the payment has been made. The merchant wraps your purchase and thanks you for your business.

Far-fetched? No, it is technologically feasible and has been implemented in many parts of the world, see "Mobile Payments". The above scenario is a four-step process. The purchaser calls his or her financial institution. That company approves the sale and calls the merchant's financial institution transferring the money. That company sends a message to the merchant's computer. The merchant sees the message and completes the sale.

Apple has this down to a three-step process for iTunes and PayPal has it down to a seven-step process. I would guess that Apple trusts most of its iTunes users and eliminates the approval process. See "From Credit Card to PayPal: 3 Ways to Move Money", Wired, February 2010. See also the main article, "The Future of Money: It's Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free".

To think that Congress passed an enormous bill to rein in the reign of the credit card companies. It could have passed a one-page bill to authorize Federal agencies, including the IRS to accept payments through PayPal.

True capitalists should welcome this creative destruction, which really is the basis for innovation, not behemoth near monopolies. For more on creative destruction, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

Guess who is a capitalist?

Many in the calamitist side of "liberals" decry capitalism as if it were some evil force out to destroy the world.*

Is this so-called capitalism really capitalism or is it management hi-jacking a company? Upper management controls the company even though they have no or few shares in the company. They appoint other corporate managers to serve on their boards. Then they grant themselves and the board members shares in the company, or at a minimum give them a well-below market price for the shares.

Have you thought that your neighbors may be the real capitalists? What about the people that do lawn-mowing for a living? Nobody is going to cut grass with a pair of shears on their hands and knees. Nobody is going to cut grass with a scythe (I saw this being done in Budapest in 1974). Few are going to cut grass with a push mower. Anybody cutting grass as a job is going to have a power mower or two or three. Having a power mower requires capital.

Because few could make a living mowing grass within walking distance of their home, they will need a truck to haul their mower around. Having a truck requires capital.

Some jobs will require different kinds of mower. More capital for more mowers and more capital for a trailer to haul several mowers. Oh, yes, mowers need gasoline. Capital buys gasoline.

In northern climes snow covers grass part of the year. To keep cash flow going, our lawn-mowing capitalists have to also clear snow. The equipment to clear snow requires capital.

Capitalism permeates many trades: carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. These tradespeople generally don't work for large corporations, but themselves, their families, or small companies. They need capital for their tools and materials.

Capitalism is part of all small businesses - the coffee shops, the restaurants, the shoe repair shops, the web designers, the free lance programmers, the free lance photographers, the small farmers, …

If we didn't have individuals practicing capitalism, who would create innovative stuff? Would we have Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak creating new computers in a garage? Would we have Bill Gates selling his BASIC? Selling software!!?? How uncooperative!! Would we have Earl Bakken creating Medtronic? We can't wait for government or for large corporations to do these things.

The next time somebody criticizes "Capitalism" ask them to explain what they mean. Ask them how an individual can start a business without capital. If an individual starts a business, is that a bad thing because that individual is a capitalist?

* For more on "calamitists" see Climate change and so-called bipartisanship.