Saturday, December 07, 2019

Why Resign!?

My home life was another story. That day on the train to New York was also five months to the day from when I moved out of my house and told my husband, who I had been with since I was 16 years old, that I wanted a divorce. It wasn’t the first time I had tried to leave; the last time was less than a month before the election, and when I tried, he made it clear to me that if I left, he would ruin me. I knew he could, so I went back to him and finished the campaign. But, after five months on the job and with the toxicity of our relationship growing worse, I knew I had to finally leave once and for all........ the nudes and private text messages that had been published on a right-wing website called Red State, everything came crashing down. I believe my husband is the source of the images. ....... one of the most difficult moments during my resignation process was my phone call to the Speaker, a woman I admire more than anyone and whom I had come to love. She told me I didn’t have to do this, that the country needed me and that she wished I hadn’t made this decision ........ The future I thought was in store for me that was instantly and irrevocably gone. ........ Alex — “A.O.C.,” as people like to call her — said I was a warrior and always would be. ....... So the next day I put on my battle uniform: a red dress suit that my mom had bought me. I put on my war paint: bright red lipstick. I stepped up to that lectern and told the world that although my time in Congress was over, I wasn’t done — I was just moving to another battlefield.

Friday, December 06, 2019

Step By Step To Solving The Big Problems

I think it would be a good idea to start with basic accounting. This is very pro-market. This is pro-capitalism. And I don't think the Chinese have anything against basic bookkeeping. So accounting is ideology-free.

All wealth has to be put on the Blockchain. Everything every person on earth owns has to be put on the Blockchain. That is in the great interest of the property owners. That will secure property rights. It is said the biggest thing you can do for wealth creation in the poor countries is to secure as to which land plot belongs to who. Modern technology has now made that possible. Satellites can now put borders down to the inch. Once every person in the Global South knows exactly who owns what plot of land, suddenly they have all this collateral they can use to borrow money from banks and can invest in new businesses. The biggest risk-taking entrepreneurs are in the bottom billions. They will give immense growth.

There does not have to be a loss of privacy. Most people probably would not like the idea that now anyone with internet access can find out how much you are worth. For one, that might seriously jeopardize online dating! Privacy is important. Privacy is an important, fundamental human value. There is a way to put all property on the Blockchain and still preserve privacy. Maybe there can be an arrangement such that only authorized organizations, like the four layers of government - local, state, national, and world - should have access to your property records.

But we don't have a world government right now. Maybe we can start with a one percent wealth tax. Everything you own above a certain value (say a million dollars) should be subject to a wealth tax of one percent that you pay directly to the world government. To that every member country gets to pay one percent of its GDP every year. That would be the membership fee.

The super-rich should not be allowed to "hide" their money. A great tragedy of the 2008 Great Recession was that the world economy was staring at an abyss and there were trillions of dollars simply parked in so-called "safe havens."

This one percent wealth tax would work as a constant stimulus. If your wealth is not generating income, then that one percent tax might be a burden. And so there will be pressure on all wealth to grow.

It is high time we funded a UBI, which I have never defined as American Basic Income.

Too many people still don't have proper IDs. Well, now we can do that easily. All someone has to do is place their fingers on a touchscreen, and their unique fingerprint will give them a more secure ID than the US social security number. And every such biometric ID could have an instant online bank account. The UBI would be an automatic transfer of money into every bank account.

Poverty is a lack of cash. If we were to transfer something like $100 per month to every single human being every month, poverty is past tense.

Why should people who are not poor support something like that? Because UBI is infrastructure. What electricity was for the second industrial revolution and the internet was for the third, UBI (Universal Basic Income) is the same for the impending fourth industrial revolution. The fourth industrial revolution that will unleash tremendous wealth creation and usher an Age Of Abundance is not possible unless you put in place the UBI.

Everybody who can touch a touchscreen can get an ID, or look into a smart screen camera. And it does not even have to be a screen you own. And everyone can directly vote on those screens. We could have a directly elected President of the World.

There is the climate crisis. There is urbanization and the housing crisis. There is poverty. There is immigration. There is terrorism, a needle in a haystack problem. All these big problems are global in nature and scope. I am not saying the world government will solve them all. But only a world government can provide the framework in which the problems can be solved.



New Capitalism Is Techno Capitalism, Hello Marc
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
Inequality And Climate Change Are Existential: A Blueprint For Survival
Towards A World Government
Universal Basic Income (aka Freedom Dividend) Is Not Free Money