Doubling the Peace Corps to 16,000, and extending Americorps to 250,000 seem like ideas with a lot of potential - but what would they actually do? Is there a way to use PAYGO to get concrete services out of them, such that the Peace Corps’ salary, health and life insurance, and three-tiered retirement plan would be fair compensation? And pooled resources that provide food, simple clothing (jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts), shelter (barracks in renovated and reopened military bases), and recreational facilities? Certainly recovering from hurricanes, earthquakes, and forest fires is worth paying for. Federal tutors bearing down on substandard districts might be effective. Manning clinics for flu shots could be a low-key rehearsal for biowarfare. Adequate pay would dignify the services performed.
Because education has a lower priority in this country than sports, employers are used to training new hires. Use them, and use the excellent training facilities that the military already has, to train noncombatants in Americorps and the Peace Corps to do useful work for the nation.
Relax restrictions on entrepreneurs. We can get out there and do lots of things, but the paperwork is too much hassle! I would guess that there are 25 million jobs, let alone 2.5 million, that people could invent for themselves, if government just got out of the way! Especially if their income were not taxed. The amounts, at least at first, would not pay the cost of collecting them anyway. John Stossel did a "special", showing how easy it was to start a business in Singapore versus how difficult it was in India. How about letting anyone with a car earn some money using it as a taxi, with no warranties expressed or implied?
Using the PAYGO principle on the extension of unemployment insurance, how about basing those payments on actual work done? If folks will volunteer at soup kitchens for no benefits, more will volunteer for similar duties when benefits are offered. I can remember “policing up” the grounds on military bases. Make it part of the Americorps program: no job too small. Even slackers, panhandlers, and functional retardates could be picking up litter, and might be happy to if it were made hassle-free and properly rewarded. You can’t bail out everyone, and there’d be a lot less resentment from the rest of us if cities got visibly cleaner in exchange for money being spent.
I’d also like to see a combination of your whistleblower protection with the line-item oversight of federal programs, and a finder’s fee for individuals or groups who save government money. Say a 10% finder’s fee for up to a million dollars’ worth of savings, down to a 1% fee for saving a billion (ten million dollars is probably adequate encouragement).
Above all, please, do it with all deliberate speed, but Don’t Panic. Don’t overdrive your headlights. Do no harm. One of the reasons for the Wall Street meltdown was that CEOs couldn’t understand the algorithms their mathematicians were using.
As for those of us on Main Street, if we’d saved a little money along the way, we wouldn’t be worried about paying next month’s bills with next month’s paycheck. But we can solve our own problems. We may be consumptive (pun intended), but we’re neither clueless nor helpless.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Loop Taxis
It’s an answer to: gridlock and air pollution, dependence on foreign oil, scheduling carpoolers, insufficient use of downtown areas due to parking problems and long waits for a bus, underused and empty buses as well as overfilled ones, gerrymandered bus routes, and 500,000 people needing jobs NOW, without bureautic delay.
It will necessitate finding common ground with current municipal transit systems as well as taxi companies and drivers who shelled out thousands for medallions.
It’s in use in Chile, and probably most other countries shouldering their way into the developed world.
In Chile they’re called Collectivos. Here, I’d call them Loop Taxis or Loopers. It’s a simple concept: a driver of an ordinary car or van driving east on a major urban street for several miles, then looping around on the same or a parallel road and heading west to the start point of the loop. As he goes along, he picks up people heading in his direction until his vehicle is full. He collects a dollar from each and drops them further along his route. Passengers who need to go north or south from that point simply grab another Looper going in that direction and pay another dollar. Once it catches on (a tipping point is involved), it costs only two bucks to get anywhere, you don’t have to call a taxi company or consult a bus schedule, and you never have more than about a 60-second wait for a ride.
You may end up walking a few blocks, which is not nearly as inconvenient as a bus, and actually good for your health. Downtowns are revitalized, since people don’t have to wait half an hour for a bus, wondering if it even goes where they want to go. Exact change is no problem. Parking, ditto.
But the main power of the idea is instant jobs for half a million people. That’s one out of every 600 people in this country. If you’re out of a job, or inexperienced or unqualified or simply need the extra money, and you can get your hands on a car, you can do this RIGHT NOW!
All that is necessary is for the government to get out of the way. No screening of drivers or testing of cars; no warranty expressed or implied. Also no grabbing of municipal fees, and no tax on the earned income (why bother? It’d be too small and too hard to monitor!).
Would there be unintended consequences? Certainly. Can we cope with them? Yes, we can. Believe in the people and let them solve the problem.
Will one out of 600 people be willing to make untaxed money by performing the service of driving people down the street? Why not try it and find out?
It will necessitate finding common ground with current municipal transit systems as well as taxi companies and drivers who shelled out thousands for medallions.
It’s in use in Chile, and probably most other countries shouldering their way into the developed world.
In Chile they’re called Collectivos. Here, I’d call them Loop Taxis or Loopers. It’s a simple concept: a driver of an ordinary car or van driving east on a major urban street for several miles, then looping around on the same or a parallel road and heading west to the start point of the loop. As he goes along, he picks up people heading in his direction until his vehicle is full. He collects a dollar from each and drops them further along his route. Passengers who need to go north or south from that point simply grab another Looper going in that direction and pay another dollar. Once it catches on (a tipping point is involved), it costs only two bucks to get anywhere, you don’t have to call a taxi company or consult a bus schedule, and you never have more than about a 60-second wait for a ride.
You may end up walking a few blocks, which is not nearly as inconvenient as a bus, and actually good for your health. Downtowns are revitalized, since people don’t have to wait half an hour for a bus, wondering if it even goes where they want to go. Exact change is no problem. Parking, ditto.
But the main power of the idea is instant jobs for half a million people. That’s one out of every 600 people in this country. If you’re out of a job, or inexperienced or unqualified or simply need the extra money, and you can get your hands on a car, you can do this RIGHT NOW!
All that is necessary is for the government to get out of the way. No screening of drivers or testing of cars; no warranty expressed or implied. Also no grabbing of municipal fees, and no tax on the earned income (why bother? It’d be too small and too hard to monitor!).
Would there be unintended consequences? Certainly. Can we cope with them? Yes, we can. Believe in the people and let them solve the problem.
Will one out of 600 people be willing to make untaxed money by performing the service of driving people down the street? Why not try it and find out?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Tax Reform
Some people have begun converting their cars and trucks to run on reclaimed vegetable oil; that’s what Otto Diesel had in mind to begin with a hundred years ago. But as soon as success seems likely, the government is ready to place roadblocks in the path of anyone who wants to start a conversion business, and then to tax the reclaimed oil, and soon there’s no longer any advantage to anyone in pursuing it.
How many tax accountants and attorneys, looking for loopholes in 3,000-page statutes, would rather be working in some capacity on an urban monorail project along the lines of what Disneyworld has had for half a century? So many unproductive jobs are created, directly or not, by a government which could improve things for everyone if it simply got out of the way.
Some things are worth getting rid of, and the power to tax is the power to destroy. So if we want to discourage something, such as cigarette smoking, it makes a certain sense to tax cigarettes and apply the revenue to research and education on lung cancer, and try to make the culture less dysfunctional.
So if you want to discourage productivity, tax earned income.
But wait. Do we really want to discourage productivity? Let’s think outside the box instead and try alternative ways of generating government revenue, scrap the income tax, and let the tax wonks find productive work.
Let the government charge the parties who want court cases adjudicated and contracts and verdicts enforced, instead of taxpayers in general who never get inside a court except on jury duty.
Cut down on enforcement costs by creating a federal sales tax, payable at the cash register. Anyone who wants to avoid taxation can simply do without stuff.
A daily national lottery would generate tons of revenue, if it were worked right. California has lotteries that were supposed to generate revenue for education, but there’s a lack of transparency, and the revenue didn’t necessarily go where it was supposed to. Also, prizes of 100 million dollars are almost obscene; a thousand prizes of $100,000 each would increase everyone’s odds by a factor of 1,000 and provide a significant boost to a winner’s welfare without the problems attendant on a fabulous windfall (such as relatives appearing out of nowhere, right behind the tax collectors). A thousand days of a thousand non-repeating winners per day would give a boost to a million citizens, percolating up into the economy instead of trickling down.
Of course these ideas are only half-baked, but the basic ingredient, keeping Congress’ hands off our earnings, aligns with traditions going back to the founding of the country. It has to be better than Aid to Dependent Children, and that made it through both houses and into law.
If a temporary income tax cut works for 95% of the population, let’s build on it; over the next eight years, lessen government’s dependence on income taxes to exclude all of everyone’s earned income, permanently, by constitutional amendment. Then we’ll see this country take off!
How many tax accountants and attorneys, looking for loopholes in 3,000-page statutes, would rather be working in some capacity on an urban monorail project along the lines of what Disneyworld has had for half a century? So many unproductive jobs are created, directly or not, by a government which could improve things for everyone if it simply got out of the way.
Some things are worth getting rid of, and the power to tax is the power to destroy. So if we want to discourage something, such as cigarette smoking, it makes a certain sense to tax cigarettes and apply the revenue to research and education on lung cancer, and try to make the culture less dysfunctional.
So if you want to discourage productivity, tax earned income.
But wait. Do we really want to discourage productivity? Let’s think outside the box instead and try alternative ways of generating government revenue, scrap the income tax, and let the tax wonks find productive work.
Let the government charge the parties who want court cases adjudicated and contracts and verdicts enforced, instead of taxpayers in general who never get inside a court except on jury duty.
Cut down on enforcement costs by creating a federal sales tax, payable at the cash register. Anyone who wants to avoid taxation can simply do without stuff.
A daily national lottery would generate tons of revenue, if it were worked right. California has lotteries that were supposed to generate revenue for education, but there’s a lack of transparency, and the revenue didn’t necessarily go where it was supposed to. Also, prizes of 100 million dollars are almost obscene; a thousand prizes of $100,000 each would increase everyone’s odds by a factor of 1,000 and provide a significant boost to a winner’s welfare without the problems attendant on a fabulous windfall (such as relatives appearing out of nowhere, right behind the tax collectors). A thousand days of a thousand non-repeating winners per day would give a boost to a million citizens, percolating up into the economy instead of trickling down.
Of course these ideas are only half-baked, but the basic ingredient, keeping Congress’ hands off our earnings, aligns with traditions going back to the founding of the country. It has to be better than Aid to Dependent Children, and that made it through both houses and into law.
If a temporary income tax cut works for 95% of the population, let’s build on it; over the next eight years, lessen government’s dependence on income taxes to exclude all of everyone’s earned income, permanently, by constitutional amendment. Then we’ll see this country take off!
Brainstorming
In the Agenda on change.gov, we can see the interconnections as we look at education, which connects in one way to aid to families, and in another direction to increasing spending on R&D.
It’s all connected. We would rather young people help build new rapid transit systems than mark up the old ones with grafitti. We would prefer an efficient mass transit system to gridlock and parking problems. And we would like it if the transportation system made us independent of foreign oil.
It’s not as if the technologies are not already here.
Half a century ago, Disneyworld had the monorail, a quiet, efficient, and lovely system that by now has transported millions without a single traffic fatality. The footprint of each pillar is about a square yard; the noise level allows a quiet conversation even as people travel overhead.
People have recently begun converting their cars and trucks to run on reclaimed vegetable oil; that’s what Otto Diesel had in mind to begin with, a hundred years ago.
The first electric car is also over a hundred years old.
And as for new ideas, all it took was a laying off of aerospace engineers in the 70s, and all of a sudden we had skateboards, Hobie Cats, windsurfers and parasails. It turns out that imagineers don’t all have to work for Disney.
We have all seen ideas that work and that could be expanded on. How about using this space, and the Suggestions button at change.gov, to explore a few, without criticism? That’s what brainstorming is all about; even ideas that seem far out may have a kernel of value, or at least suggest one that does.
It’s all connected. We would rather young people help build new rapid transit systems than mark up the old ones with grafitti. We would prefer an efficient mass transit system to gridlock and parking problems. And we would like it if the transportation system made us independent of foreign oil.
It’s not as if the technologies are not already here.
Half a century ago, Disneyworld had the monorail, a quiet, efficient, and lovely system that by now has transported millions without a single traffic fatality. The footprint of each pillar is about a square yard; the noise level allows a quiet conversation even as people travel overhead.
People have recently begun converting their cars and trucks to run on reclaimed vegetable oil; that’s what Otto Diesel had in mind to begin with, a hundred years ago.
The first electric car is also over a hundred years old.
And as for new ideas, all it took was a laying off of aerospace engineers in the 70s, and all of a sudden we had skateboards, Hobie Cats, windsurfers and parasails. It turns out that imagineers don’t all have to work for Disney.
We have all seen ideas that work and that could be expanded on. How about using this space, and the Suggestions button at change.gov, to explore a few, without criticism? That’s what brainstorming is all about; even ideas that seem far out may have a kernel of value, or at least suggest one that does.
Transitioning
There’s a lot to like about Obama’s change.gov website, starting with the weekly state-of-transition video.
First, there’s the fact that it exists at all, demonstrating not only transparency, but also proactiveness. He’s not waiting until January 20, and he’s letting us all in on what’s going on.
Secondly, and this is part of the transparency, we get a transcription right below the weekly video. No need to try to remember what was said; it’s all right there to read, copy, and paste (you can guess why Dubya or Sarah Palin wouldn’t want their phrasing printed out). And of course the very idea of a video presence is state of the art, alerting us to what we can expect of the new administration.
Valerie Jarrett, as transition co-chair, has a blog to keep us up-to-date on appointments and so on.
There is a Transition Directory you can follow to see a block diagram and lists of executive, legislative, and judicial movers and shakers; and Plum and Prune books that explain to new hirees how to hit the ground running.
There are agenda links that break down the platform into manageable parts, and a button to push to add your own two cents to any part of them.
So do it! Do it two times, baby: on this website, where everyone can read your ideas and piggyback off them, and on change.gov, where Obama’s staff can do the same.
First, there’s the fact that it exists at all, demonstrating not only transparency, but also proactiveness. He’s not waiting until January 20, and he’s letting us all in on what’s going on.
Secondly, and this is part of the transparency, we get a transcription right below the weekly video. No need to try to remember what was said; it’s all right there to read, copy, and paste (you can guess why Dubya or Sarah Palin wouldn’t want their phrasing printed out). And of course the very idea of a video presence is state of the art, alerting us to what we can expect of the new administration.
Valerie Jarrett, as transition co-chair, has a blog to keep us up-to-date on appointments and so on.
There is a Transition Directory you can follow to see a block diagram and lists of executive, legislative, and judicial movers and shakers; and Plum and Prune books that explain to new hirees how to hit the ground running.
There are agenda links that break down the platform into manageable parts, and a button to push to add your own two cents to any part of them.
So do it! Do it two times, baby: on this website, where everyone can read your ideas and piggyback off them, and on change.gov, where Obama’s staff can do the same.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Pendulum
This country has swung back and forth so often and so predictably, and perhaps imperceptibly getting better each time, but it always makes one wonder if we shouldn’t, since we’re all in the same boat, be pulling in more of a unified direction.
And perhaps we are. George Will writes about socialism in America as a gift of, believe it or not, the Republican party, “a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm -- and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called "the private sector" has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout... The distribution of a trillion dollars by... the federal government -- will be nonpolitical? How could it be? Either markets allocate resources, or government -- meaning politics -- allocates them.”
If a sine qua non of socialism is the use of force (to redistribute taxpayer earnings to this or that lobbyist or cause), then both parties are indeed pulling in that direction.
But how about a slight change in direction?
The military Reserves are, in a sense, a socialist organization paid to protect a country that thinks of itself as capitalist. What saves the situation is that, instead of being forced into the Reserves by a draft, individuals are free to do so, or not. And the nation pays for that service with an abundance of benefits that actually make it a good deal for many people. All of which makes it a win-win scenario, or as Robert Wright writes, a nonzero-sum solution.
When a group of people freely pool their resources as in, say, the cohousing movement, they do not thereby become socialists. They simply put some real estate to its “highest and best use” for their purposes. Purposes such as living together well.
One of the planks in the Obama administration refers to creating jobs, and there is no shortage of jobs that need doing. There is the idea of a renewal and expansion of the Peace Corps or Teaching Corps with the same force as the military, able to project brigades or divisions to states suffering from natural disasters or inadequate education or crumbling infrastructure. The non-combatant areas of the military, such as the Medics and Corps of Engineers, could be utilized in areas needed by the country. Throwing a high-speed rail line across the US from fifty different starting points would be just as remarkable as the Liberty Ship program of WWII, and just as thrilling as getting the use of it.
What would be the motivation for someone to enlist in such a service? Sacrifice? Not likely. “You can’t fool all the people all the time”, and people on Main Street are tired of being called to sacrifice themselves while those on Wall Street laugh all the way to the bank, subsidized with the suckers’ tax dollars. Sacrifice is the last argument of a scoundrel.
Neither force nor sacrifice will get us where we want to go. But trade might.
Service in the reserves offers not only a GI bill that pays part of college expenses, a monthly stipend for duties as a teacher or medic or whatever, and after 20 years a small pension that cannot be raided. It offers as well: a no-money-down mortgage, medical benefits (a Naval clinic for teeth cleaning, VA hospitals for flu shots and the occasional colonoscopy, Tricare for Life paying what Medicare doesn't), PX and Commissary privileges, low-cost lodgings at bases around the world, and free flights to get to them, both on a space available basis.
All this for a minimum requirement of one weekend a month and a two-week camp once a year, which can be extended at the option of the individual for as long as his service is needed. The minimum required work amounts to only a bit over two years' service in all, a piddling amount really, but it leverages well for both morale and welfare. And the Reservists, who could come from any age group that had something to offer, would be worth the benefits - we do not bind the mouths of the kine that tread the grain.
Incidentally, the merging of citizens from different social strata in basic training is a great idea worth preserving, but good leadership is enough to get them there without re-instituting the draft. Most people are willing to work for this country in noncombatant jobs for a minimum of two days per month plus two weeks a year, doing needed work for the benefits offered. And doing it could mean re-opening a lot of bases, giving needed stimulus to local economies, to house those people on a rotating basis in what might be re-named "baracks".
New Orleans would be a good place to start.
And perhaps we are. George Will writes about socialism in America as a gift of, believe it or not, the Republican party, “a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm -- and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called "the private sector" has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout... The distribution of a trillion dollars by... the federal government -- will be nonpolitical? How could it be? Either markets allocate resources, or government -- meaning politics -- allocates them.”
If a sine qua non of socialism is the use of force (to redistribute taxpayer earnings to this or that lobbyist or cause), then both parties are indeed pulling in that direction.
But how about a slight change in direction?
The military Reserves are, in a sense, a socialist organization paid to protect a country that thinks of itself as capitalist. What saves the situation is that, instead of being forced into the Reserves by a draft, individuals are free to do so, or not. And the nation pays for that service with an abundance of benefits that actually make it a good deal for many people. All of which makes it a win-win scenario, or as Robert Wright writes, a nonzero-sum solution.
When a group of people freely pool their resources as in, say, the cohousing movement, they do not thereby become socialists. They simply put some real estate to its “highest and best use” for their purposes. Purposes such as living together well.
One of the planks in the Obama administration refers to creating jobs, and there is no shortage of jobs that need doing. There is the idea of a renewal and expansion of the Peace Corps or Teaching Corps with the same force as the military, able to project brigades or divisions to states suffering from natural disasters or inadequate education or crumbling infrastructure. The non-combatant areas of the military, such as the Medics and Corps of Engineers, could be utilized in areas needed by the country. Throwing a high-speed rail line across the US from fifty different starting points would be just as remarkable as the Liberty Ship program of WWII, and just as thrilling as getting the use of it.
What would be the motivation for someone to enlist in such a service? Sacrifice? Not likely. “You can’t fool all the people all the time”, and people on Main Street are tired of being called to sacrifice themselves while those on Wall Street laugh all the way to the bank, subsidized with the suckers’ tax dollars. Sacrifice is the last argument of a scoundrel.
Neither force nor sacrifice will get us where we want to go. But trade might.
Service in the reserves offers not only a GI bill that pays part of college expenses, a monthly stipend for duties as a teacher or medic or whatever, and after 20 years a small pension that cannot be raided. It offers as well: a no-money-down mortgage, medical benefits (a Naval clinic for teeth cleaning, VA hospitals for flu shots and the occasional colonoscopy, Tricare for Life paying what Medicare doesn't), PX and Commissary privileges, low-cost lodgings at bases around the world, and free flights to get to them, both on a space available basis.
All this for a minimum requirement of one weekend a month and a two-week camp once a year, which can be extended at the option of the individual for as long as his service is needed. The minimum required work amounts to only a bit over two years' service in all, a piddling amount really, but it leverages well for both morale and welfare. And the Reservists, who could come from any age group that had something to offer, would be worth the benefits - we do not bind the mouths of the kine that tread the grain.
Incidentally, the merging of citizens from different social strata in basic training is a great idea worth preserving, but good leadership is enough to get them there without re-instituting the draft. Most people are willing to work for this country in noncombatant jobs for a minimum of two days per month plus two weeks a year, doing needed work for the benefits offered. And doing it could mean re-opening a lot of bases, giving needed stimulus to local economies, to house those people on a rotating basis in what might be re-named "baracks".
New Orleans would be a good place to start.
Pilot
My friend Juan and I discovered President-Elect Obama’s weekly communiqué on YouTube today, and told each other about it. What a great idea! But without feedback, the inspiration goes only one way, the transparency is only one-sided. It needs more.
One pilot deserves another, and this blog is Our opportunity to serve that purpose. That’s the “royal Our”, meaning that Our thoughts, set down here, including various comments from readers, will tend to coalesce toward a certain perspective.
We don’t know what that perspective will be in any of several directions, based on various parts of the new administration’s emerging platform. But we hope that the phrase, “You can’t fool all the people all the time” will be part of it. Whatever one of us doesn’t think of, another will, and banking off one idea or another, a ball may occasionally hit the jackpot.
And at that point, the hopeful jackpot becomes a pilot of its own, to be tested and re-evaluated over the next term, or two.
One pilot deserves another, and this blog is Our opportunity to serve that purpose. That’s the “royal Our”, meaning that Our thoughts, set down here, including various comments from readers, will tend to coalesce toward a certain perspective.
We don’t know what that perspective will be in any of several directions, based on various parts of the new administration’s emerging platform. But we hope that the phrase, “You can’t fool all the people all the time” will be part of it. Whatever one of us doesn’t think of, another will, and banking off one idea or another, a ball may occasionally hit the jackpot.
And at that point, the hopeful jackpot becomes a pilot of its own, to be tested and re-evaluated over the next term, or two.
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