G21 DAY ONE - "Day One USA"

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Day One USA

by John McGinnis

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[Upon reading last week's DAY ONE, MOIA List member John McGinnis fired off an OP ED piece which we reprint with his permission. --- Ed.]

We don't have a winner in the bunch for president this time around. (Reagan might be better even with Alzheimer's.)

Yes, the school systems, especially in the large cities, are in terrible shape.

The crime rates in some segments of the populace are terrible (black and hispanic communities the worst).

The plans/policies gaff is truly part of the problem. But I don't buy the rest of the argument.

First of all let's understand that our forefathers were bunch of rich capitalist landowners. Some earned it, others had it given by the crown. They saw three issues at stake -- property needed to be protected, greed was inherient in the human condition so you need to have structure that channels it construtively, protection of papers that define property needed protection from illegal search and seizure. So from DAY ONE THIS COUNTRY HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT MONEY (CAPITAL).

However with all of that our forefathers also feared unfettered capitalism. They believed that it was wrong to have capital passed down from generation to generation growing ever more powerful. They instituted federal estate taxation laws to blunt its affect and saw the federal governmemnt as the only remedy at the time. (Remember that this is a time before corporations where most enterprises were propertiorships.). For their day it was an effective tool.

We have a large prison population for one reason -- too many laws have been federalized. One can now be incarerated for possession of a very small vial of drugs. If you look at the prison populations, many are in jail for nonviolent crimes through drug possession, money laundering, or tax evasion purposes.

The idea that capital can be allocated according to some 'scheme' while the owner of the capital is in the hands of private citizens (remember that the vast majority of capital is held by pension funds of retirees.) is doomed to failure. The owners of the capital will always migrate their assets to the highest bidder so long as risk is equal.

An attempt to grab 1/7th of the economy was just tried by Mrs. Clinton and was utimately defeated by rank and file Americans. The attempt was seen for what it was nationalization the health care industry.

Here is the major problem with the socialist mindset:

That somehow greed in the human condition can be usurped by the state and cast aside. Sorry doesn't work that way. You can nationalize Microsoft tomorrow, but I am afraid that Bill Gates will only find another way to get his billions. Where are you then? At what point does nationalization get down to the mom & pop industries?
The bureaucrats that run the socialist enterprises are also greedy. Once a group grasp control of the means of production for major enterprises and is rooted it will be natural to cast about for other industries to grab. It would be necessary for the powers that be to take control of the vertically integrated inputs and outputs to maintain control.
Over time socialists don't stay rooted in the economics of their arguments but take on social issues as well. 'Our policies are not working because of the way the people are behaving....' leads to a spate of social engineering. So far this has been abysmal failure in all but a few tightly social demographic countries.
Socialism economically does not see any need for competition. Over time choices dribble down to one in each category in the name of 'efficiency'. Production become stagnant. What is misunderstood is that competition is what keeps the industrial engine fresh. Competition spawns new ideas that generate new product and consequently wealth.

So what might be the solution to your concerns? How about:

A) School shootings. First let's get some perspective -- in the last 5 years Columbine like events have affected less than a 1000 out of a population of 5 million. Statistically it is not a problem but a highly sensational event drummed by the press as a way to sell Pepto-Bismol on the 6pm news.

B) School results. Privatize the suckers. Our current system was based out of a need to 'Americanize' a large population of immigrants during the period 1840-1900. The industrial age answer was of course an assembly line methodology. Prior to that the schools were private institutions paid by the parents of the children. Go to vouchers in a big way. Eliminate the school board system. Permit the parents to auction thier vouchers in blocks with the individual schools bidding for the vouchers. Pay more money to the teachers and eliminate the social babble middle management layer.

C) Decriminalize drug use. Have the same provisions in place that hold for alcohol abuse. Much of the prison population would vanish. Interdict the drugs coming into the country, lace with a deadly poision and place it back in the distribution chain and make it public -- Video, nightly news, PBS. Anybody that is then willing to take the chance deserves what they get. Radical enough?!

D) Change the tax laws. The current tax law disincents for saving. Make savings tax free. This country would be awash in cash. Go to a flat tax for both individuals and companies. Make sure it can't be changed without a 2/3rds supermajority of both houses. This will eliminate most of the lobbyists. Anyone below the poverty index receives the difference as a check from the IRS and then eliminate the welfare system. Don't laugh, the IRS is very efficient they can print checks as well as receive them. (This idea has been proposed by Milton Friedman for years.)

E) Eliminate the existing corporate form. Require a termination of operations after a period of time, say 50 years. The LLC business type has those provisions currently. Some will say this is disruptive. However it is no more disruptive than say a hostile takeover or a corporate merger.

F) Update the Estate laws. Eliminate perputal trusts. Change the estate laws so that all but the first $100,000 (indexed)given to each child is taxed at 100%. If the next generation is smart, they can take the $100k and make their own millions out of it. It they aren't -- oh well!

G) Presidential Elections. Afraid to say there is no solution with our current press corps. So long as muck raking and sensationalism is the mark of a good journalist good candidates will not come forward. Why would someone with a good political track record but a skeletion in the closet be willing to go through the pain? That's what I thought. This country needs to make a decision -- do we want good statesmen or good breeding? (Last comment is not an endorsement of Clinton or GW Bush.) Tammany Hall may have been corrupt but the record is clear -- TM did more social good than harm for their period. Give me a person who has admitted that they failed once or twice but are better for it and are willing to serve the public good. And we need to somehow eliminate the political class and have more citizen-statemen.

Now I believe that I have done two things:

Met most of your concerns without utilizing the socialist form.
Eliminated several 'programs' and returned more control back to the citizens.

To achieve what you want, the ticket for apathy needs only to be punched to stop the train.

JOHN MC GINNIS is a enterprise systems consultant to a Fortune 50 company as well as lecturer on technology subjects. A constitutional constructionist by political preference. Ruminates on the essays of Locke, Rousseau, and Franklin for fun.

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