All of these corporate fines, where the citizens get screwed, but the government gets all the money, needs to be handled differently.
We need to start an “America First Fund” (irony intended) for these sorts of fines, which will be the seed money to fund our wish list of social programs, starting with Medicare 4 All. As we collect fines, settlements, confiscations, etc. from Sociopathic Oligarchs and their corporations, it should go into the America First Fund, to finance a better life for all American citizens.
But even that’s just an end-run around publicly staffed and administered enterprises. Why do you even need a private middleman to begin with? Taxation is a means of reorganizing currency, sure. But a nation’s real material wealth is in its sovereignty, its industry, and its natural resources.
Rather than letting a handful of grifters and gatekeepers rent-seek off the public, then skimming a vig off the top, we could abolish the landlord class entirely and manage the productive forces democratically.
There should be an “econonomic” as a separate government estate of power. It could be much more direct democracy with people voting every month on economic proposals. Like the federal bank printing the money, which the people then can vote for to fund this or that project. Buy this or that factory, or shut it down. Parts of the economy planned, but democratic in many ways.
It’s so ludicrous that we’re stuck on 19th century democracy when we have better voting systems and internet access and cheap usb authentication dongles.
Sure, some parts should be more institutionalized and run by experts. But people should definitely get a say if their “taxes” (printed money really) are spend on wars and goes to the military industrial complex or not. Independent of the executive and legislative.
For example why do we need the stock market at all? If it’s for getting investments, this could be democratically voted on by the people, not by capitalists.
Obviously democracy can’t be absolute, but we’ve mostly stopped any talk about improving our democratic systems. If people actually want change and overcome the current crisis that has developed of the previous century, we don’t just need a reconstruction era but also need to learn about the failure modes and drastic improvements. And that HAS to include economics and how we run it. There is little doubt now that liberal capitalism will lead to humanities extinction.
Budgeting I totally agree should be democratic. monetary policy is a whole different matter.
Since you are a ml person I recommend checking out how China and the Soviet Union do/did monetary policy. Small group of centralized well informed people.
And obviously none of this would work without some sort of revolution and a “restoration” and a massive education campaign about how the economy can work to serve the people.
I think after such a successful education the vote would be to let a small group of highly educated informed people manage monetary policy. Like small small changes can flatten potential for material growth or just destroy all savings.
All of these corporate fines, where the citizens get screwed, but the government gets all the money, needs to be handled differently.
We need to start an “America First Fund” (irony intended) for these sorts of fines, which will be the seed money to fund our wish list of social programs, starting with Medicare 4 All. As we collect fines, settlements, confiscations, etc. from Sociopathic Oligarchs and their corporations, it should go into the America First Fund, to finance a better life for all American citizens.
I think this is just called “taxes” in a functional society.
Taxes, tariffs, and fees, sure.
But even that’s just an end-run around publicly staffed and administered enterprises. Why do you even need a private middleman to begin with? Taxation is a means of reorganizing currency, sure. But a nation’s real material wealth is in its sovereignty, its industry, and its natural resources.
Rather than letting a handful of grifters and gatekeepers rent-seek off the public, then skimming a vig off the top, we could abolish the landlord class entirely and manage the productive forces democratically.
There should be an “econonomic” as a separate government estate of power. It could be much more direct democracy with people voting every month on economic proposals. Like the federal bank printing the money, which the people then can vote for to fund this or that project. Buy this or that factory, or shut it down. Parts of the economy planned, but democratic in many ways.
It’s so ludicrous that we’re stuck on 19th century democracy when we have better voting systems and internet access and cheap usb authentication dongles.
Ohh god. Please no popular voting to control nation state monetary policy.
Sure, some parts should be more institutionalized and run by experts. But people should definitely get a say if their “taxes” (printed money really) are spend on wars and goes to the military industrial complex or not. Independent of the executive and legislative.
For example why do we need the stock market at all? If it’s for getting investments, this could be democratically voted on by the people, not by capitalists.
Obviously democracy can’t be absolute, but we’ve mostly stopped any talk about improving our democratic systems. If people actually want change and overcome the current crisis that has developed of the previous century, we don’t just need a reconstruction era but also need to learn about the failure modes and drastic improvements. And that HAS to include economics and how we run it. There is little doubt now that liberal capitalism will lead to humanities extinction.
Budgeting I totally agree should be democratic. monetary policy is a whole different matter.
Since you are a ml person I recommend checking out how China and the Soviet Union do/did monetary policy. Small group of centralized well informed people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy_of_China
https://archive.org/details/monetarypolicyin0000naka/page/n10/mode/1up
And obviously none of this would work without some sort of revolution and a “restoration” and a massive education campaign about how the economy can work to serve the people.
I think after such a successful education the vote would be to let a small group of highly educated informed people manage monetary policy. Like small small changes can flatten potential for material growth or just destroy all savings.