“He who has eyes, let him
see”. But what should “She” do?
He who has eyes, let him see.”
It’s a noticeable fact that the Bible does not often mention a woman.
Maybe that was a reason for men domination in … well, everywhere, and
for a very long time.
Thigs start finally changing (despite a strong resistance from male
population, and a wide-spread apathy among women).
And that is a good thing.
The problem with men – especially in business and politics – is that
they quickly lose any interest in a topic they discuss and start bragging who
has a bigger Dickens.
That is why I don’t place my hope on any male Presidential candidate –
they have no chance against Donald Trump. And the reason is not related to a
gender per se. The reason is that the Democrats can only beat Trump if they
design a mutual strategy, if they will act together in concert, starting NOW
(not after the Convention).
This coordination will never happen between men (see the note about
Dickens).
However, women candidates still have a chance to work together.
It’s like an Olympics team: on one hand, all the members compete with
each other, but as a team they work together to beat other teams.
To succeed, however, they would have to invent and offer to the American
voters a brand new philosophy.
Everyone who knows some history is aware of the fact that no revolution
happens instantly.
At first there is “the one” who teaches something very different from
the common views. Then there is a small group of people who start following the
teacher. Then more and more people join the movement. And only then the
movement grows strong enough to topple the current regime. And that only
happens because the current regime stops answering the needs of the majority.
The current economic, social and political situation in the U.S. is
exactly like that: the current economic,
social and political regime has stopped answering the needs of the majority.
The problem is that all the contenders from the left still cannot offer
to the voters nothing new, they are stuck in the old philosophy of
“redistributing”.
No matter who says what about something (“free college”, “Medicare for
all”, “jobs for everyone”, etc.) they all propel the same idea: “Most people have a bad life because they are
poor, but few people have a good life because they are rich, so we need to take
from the rich and give to the poor!”
Everyone who knows some history is aware of the fact that humanity has
known many revolutions which were based on exactly this idea. And none of those
revolutions ended up exactly like they were intendent.
They idea of the redistribution of wealth may be even correct, but the
devil is in the details, namely, who and
how will be redistributing that wealth?
Let’s say the new tax code is put in place. Let’s imagine the best case
scenario, all the multi-millionaires and billionaires don’t try to leave the
country, don’t hide their income but pay the tax as prescribed. The government
finally has its coffins full with money. No budget deficit. Huge surplus.
What’s next? Who will be writing checks and to whom and for how much? Money
does not move from one place to another place automatically. There is always
someone who makes the decision, like - how many tanks to make, how many
aircraft carriers to build, or how many new hospitals to open and where.
If there are people making such decisions, there are always people who
influence people making those decisions.
Those people do not go away, and they are good at what they do. And they
do it for money – big money – from those who have those big money. And a dozen
of freshly minted progressive politicians will not make any difference.
Unless they – those freshly minted progressive politicians – have a strategy – the strategy that goes way
beyond “take from rich and give to poor”.
This strategy is simply absent.
The development of this strategy requires rethinking of all fundamental
economic principles. The developers of this strategy should start from asking –
again, like it has been done many times in the past – some fundamental
questions, like “What is wealth?”, What is money?”, “How do we know how many
dollars do we need?”, “Why do people need to work?”, “What is fairness - today?”, etc., the list is long.
Then they need to reassess the whole current structure of the wealth production and distribution, analyzing what
elements of this structure help wealth production, what elements of this
structure suppress wealth production, what pathways and gates does this
structure have and how they affect the wealth flow?
And then they have to develop the new structure, that one which would incentivize
working people work better, and rich people share more – the incentives to
share have to be built-in in the system, not imposed by controlling and collection
agencies (which are susceptible to corruption, or stupidity).
I cannot develop the whole new economic philosophy, but based on my
reasoning I can offer one or two ideas which professional economists could use
for the further development.
1. It is obvious to me that the nowadays majority of wealth is produced
in financial institutions via shares, stocks and other financial instruments which are available only to a tiny portion of the
population. It is unfair. To make it fair (or at least fairer) each (of a certain size) corporation
has to have shares (not just some), and each corporation needs to transfer 10 %
of the shares to a special fund, which would operate similar to the Federal
Reserve, i.e. semi-independently from the government. This fund would be used
to – well, whatever the fund thinks would make the life of people better (#1
principle of its operation is openness). Is this a new and very unusual idea?
Yes. Can it be done? I don’t know. But I do know this idea is worth to be
discussed, but no one from the left even raised it.
2. It is not enough
to take money from the rich. The goal is to make rich to want to give the money
– for example for helping people stay healthy. This is the approach that can be used to decrease
spending on health insurance, and to increase the number of insured citizens
via a creation (eventually) of a “Federal Health Care Fund”.
The Fund will function in a way similar to
the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court, i.e. the board will be composed
based on a consensus between the Congress and the White House (and, maybe, the
Governor’s Association); but the board will function independently from all
other business and government entities, and the members are elected for life.
The goals and functioning of the board
will be:
* Establishing on the annual basis
the minimum level of the “States health insurance coverage” (may be different
for different States).
* Every citizen and permanent
resident who does not have health insurance coverage can apply for the
financial help to cover medical expenses.
* Every U.S. citizen and a U.S. based
business will have to pay a one-time annual fee.
* The amount of the fee will be
determined by the board depending on the number of the requests, and the total
amount of the fund need to grant those requests.
* The amount of the fee will be
determined by the board according to the formula set by the board on the annual
basis.
* The fee is NOT a tax, it does
NOT go to a federal budget, it CANNOT be used on anything else but the
activities set by the board.
* If needed, the board may file a
request to the budgeting entities to request funds from the federal budget.
Results:
* This approach will lead to
ensuring that every US citizen will have sufficient health insurance.
* More importantly, this
approach will become a strong psychological instrument; this approach will
provide incentives for business owners to provide sufficient health insurance,
because that would result in decreasing the number of requests to the fund,
which would lead to the decrease (and maybe even a complete elimination) of the
fee.
* More importantly, this
approach will become a strong psychological instrument; this approach will
provide incentives for business owners to extend the health insurance coverage
in the various forms, because that would result in decreasing the number of
requests to the fund, which would lead to the decrease (and maybe even a
complete elimination) of the fee.
* More importantly, this
approach will become a strong psychological instrument; this approach will provide incentives for business owners to reach out
to healthcare providers and healthcare insurers to make them to lower the cost
of the healthcare, which would lead to the decrease (and maybe even a complete
elimination) of the fee.
I have been writing on the matter and expressed some of the ideas in
multiple posts, for example:
“The Dawn of The Era of Dictatorships; Explained by The Systems Theory.”
“Peering through the fog of brainwashing: the real reasons behind the conservative politics.”
Everyone is welcome to invest his/her time into reading and make his/her
mind on the topic.
Now I want to discuss just one more issue of the left: the absence of
cooperation.
Currently, narcissism and jealousy is flourishing among the left.
There is no chance male politicians would be able to overcome this
temperament.
But female politicians could.
Cooperation (which I
proposed right after Trump won the Presidency) should demonstrate
people that the Democrats are indeed for the people, and would do anything to
increase their (Democrats, not an individual) chance to win.
The cooperation could be in different forms, for example, mutual
statements, an announcement of mutual cabinet assignments (“If I win I will
take her to be my …”), etc.
As I said many times, the
Democrats are very week on using the new instruments in their political
machinery. Unfortunately, they
do not learn form their mistakes.
When I teach, I always answer a question from a student.
If it was asked the first time.
If the same question is asked again, I answer it, too, but my answer is
shorter.
The third time, and I say – “This questions requires a face-to-face
discussion, please, see me after a class”.
I believe the same approach works in politics, too.
“Democracy dies in darkness”
Yes.
But first it needs to be born (i.e invented, and then applied), or reborn (reinvented, and reapplied).
And what history has been showing
again and again is that Democracy is
born by an Intellect and built for Fairness.
Dr. Valentin
Voroshilov
