Enhancing Freedom,
Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing
and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is
hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of Contents *Featured Articles Opportunities, Petitions and Feedback Commentaries from Our Members Susan Harmon On Jason Osgood Smear Ray McBain Recommends New Naomi Wolf Book Dick Burkhart: No Bailouts without Reform Jack
Smith: a John McCain Housing Crisis Solution Penny Miller on Helping the Obama Campaign Joanne Gainen on Calling Talk Radio Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef State and Local Links to the Beef Endorsements
for General Election Candidates Nation and World Links to the Beef Responding to Our Economic Crisis* Restoring Credit Is
Immediately Necessary* Our Most Important Task Is Creating Jobs* Producing and Ameliorating Employment Shifts* Our Liberal Spirit Our Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and Competent Spending ·
Investment for Productivity ·
Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental Protection and Energy ·
Security and Equal Rights ·
Justice and Peace Everywhere ·
International Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives
oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More
on Conservative opposition to our American Dream Washington State’s 4 Major Needs Federal Funding for Health
and Education ·
A
Progressive Income Tax ·
Replacing
Republican Legislators Quote of the Week
Calendar of Events
Friday, September
26 at 5 PM at
Friday, September 26 at 7 PM at Gibson Hall (105
Newport Way, Issaquah) – American Democracy Movie Night featuring “Recount”
with Kevin Spacey and Laura Dern, about 2000 presidential Florida election
recount, hosted by 5th Legislative District Democrats. Cancelled so people can watch presidential
debate.
Saturday, September 27 at 5 PM (Social), 6:30 PM (Dinner and Program) at South Seattle Community Center Jerry Brockey Center (6000 – 16th Avenue SW, Seattle) – Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility Annual Dinner, with keynote speaker former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. $75. To register or for more information.
Saturday, September 27 at 5:30 PM
at Carrie Bogner’s home (
Friday, October 3 at 7 PM at
Saturday, October 11 at 9:30 AM –
3:30 PM at
Saturday, October 11 at 6:30 PM at
Friday, October 17 – 19 at
Opportunities, Petitions and Feedback
Communication with Our Members and Feedback
Here’s where many of our
links come from: Alternet, Common Dreams, the New Republic, Our Future Today, PolitickerWA, the Progress
Report, Sightline Institute, and Stateside
Dispatch each send me emails containing up to ten links per day. Various political, civil liberties, peace,
environmental, children’s, women’s, labor, veteran’s and other organizations
send me several links per week, for information and petitions. I also get numerous requests for donations,
which I seldom put in our newsletter to avoid overwhelming you. .
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Petitions and Donations
Tell
Secretary of Treasury Paulson that your $700 Billion proposal must be
drastically changed.
Tell
Dept. of Health and Human Services not to consider contraception equivalent to
abortion.
See other Planned
Parenthood advocacy petitions.
Urge
Congress to find Karl Rove in contempt.
Commentaries From Our Members
Susan Harmon On Jason Osgood Smear
Are You
planning to write anything on the horrendous smear of Jason Osgood by
Republicans and Democrats are doing nothing about King County Elections
director violating election laws by helping in this outrage?
I think
what concerns me the most is the lack of outrage from the powers that be in the
DEMOCRATIC party. Why isn't anyone calling for the resignation of the director
of elections? She has broken the law and violated the conditions of her
employment. I'm amazed at the roar of
silence. It's as though the very idea of standing for justice is abhorrent to
those who can actually do something. Susan Harmon
The
following appeared in our August 22 newsletter:
Smear Campaign Conducted against Jason Osgood
Jeff Upthegrove alerted me that: A smear campaign has been conducted against Jason Osgood, Democratic candidate for our Washington State Secretary of State. Originating with a staff member of his Republican opponent Sam Reed, a false rumor has been passed on by Director of King County Elections Sherril Huff and King County Council Member Dow Constantine to negatively influence Democrats who should be supporting Jason Osgood. Read Jeff Upthegrove’s blog for more details about this sordid story.
46th
LD PCO and Sergeant at Arms and Washington State Progressive Caucus Treasurer Barbara Whitt also emailed me as
follows: “Have you heard
about what the King County Director of Elections did to Jason Osgood. I want to do all I
can to raise hell on this issue and could use some good suggestions or help.”
I want to remind everyone that electing all of our
Democratic candidates for state offices is important to demolish the Republican
farm team. Jason Osgood’s election to become our Secretary of State is especially
important since our Secretary of State is also our states chief elections
officer. Dave Thomas
Ray McBain Recommends New Naomi Wolf Book
Naomi
Wolf's 2007 book The End of America:
Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot has an excellent summary of the danger
we now face in
If Obama
gets elected, I expect the 800 or so signing statements signed by Bush (the
puppet who now holds the office of President) will be rescinded. If not, then
we will have something more to worry about.
Cheney (puppet master) is the leading advocate of abrogation of
constitutional protections by the president. Others include Karl Rove. We must
be wary and realize not only the opportunities but also the dangers of our
actions. Better forewarned than surprised.
Ray McBain
Dick Burkhart: No Bailouts without Reform
Want to
send a message to Congress and the White House about all these taxpayer
bailouts of rich speculators? Here's a constructive suggestion:
No Bailouts
without Financial Reform
1.
Tax unearned income (capital gains) more than earned
income
2.
Tax wealth (e.g., 2.5% annual tax on wealth over $5
million)
3.
Prohibit speculative practices such as selling short or
long
4.
Ban unregulated financial institutions such as hedge
funds and private equity firms
5.
Work with other nations to develop a new global financial
order, based on a currency and on lending backed by environmentally and
socially responsible productive assets and practices
Dick
Burkhart
Jack Smith on a John McCain Solution to Our
Housing Crisis
The problem
with the economy started with the housing/mortgage market. John McCain has so
many houses he doesn't even have an official count. To solve the economy/housing issues, why not
have McCain start buying more houses. Our
economy will be solvent within the week.
But, say what you will, the rich people will be the beneficiaries. Some things never change, no matter how you
try. Have a nice day. Jack
Smith Vote for Obama!
Penny Miller on Helping the Obama Campaign
As you probably
know, I've been volunteering for the Obama Campaign for several months
now. I hope you will volunteer as well, in the last days of this
critical campaign. I began
volunteering by going into the
Then, a few weeks ago, the national Obama Campaign released a new online process by which I could sign up to be a "Neighborhood Leader" and print my own walking or calling lists from my home computer! (It is a very cool Web-based software that was developed by one of the four founders of Facebook, a man who is volunteering his technical ability to the Obama Campaign. You print out your list, make your calls or knock on doors, and report your contacts by doing your data entry right from your computer!). NOTE: They just added the ability for women volunteers to contact undecided women, which I'm going to try tonight.
To get
started, please contact either Pat Devney or
The campaign timeline is as follows:
· NOW till Oct 4: Register new pro-Obama voters
· NOW till Oct 16: ID pro-Obama voters (They just added a woman-to-woman calling campaign)
· Oct 17 to Election Day: GOTV (Get out the Vote by contacting these pro-Obama voters to VOTE!)
It's basically all hands on deck right now, so if you can spare a couple hours (or more), please make that call. It's really, really easy to do, and very rewarding to find voters who think like you do. And you'll come away from this experience with the knowledge that you participated in probably the most important election in your lifetime. Our country cannot take another 4 years of Republican rule, especially in the White House.
I'd also
recommend that you sign up at www.my.barackobama.com and
browse around. You'll see that you can sign up for house parties, events,
volunteer and social activities. You'll be amazed how many
others have already come forward to win back
As Barack
said: This is our time! This is our moment when we take back
Joanne Gainen on Calling Talk Radio
I received an email soliciting donations on behalf of Sarah Palin, so of course I surfed over to their web site to see what they are up to. Prominent on the site was a “Call Talk Radio” link: http://www.gop.com/ActionCenter/CallTalkRadio/
I wondered if the Democrats had anything like this so I checked Obama’s site and DNC.org and found nothing. I googled “calling talk radio,” and within the top 10 I found a link to some information on the Media Matters web site, with advice and transcripts of some of the latest offenses. I did find one example that may be a Democrat but he did not even identify himself as such!
http://www.martinheinrich.com/action/talkradio
I think we need something like this to encourage Liberals to call these shows, especially the conservative-leaning shows, and to help them be effective when they call. I found lots of examples with advice and phone numbers:
http://www.wvgop.org/GetActive/CallTalkRadio.aspx
http://www.calltalkradioforron.com/resources/900.htm
http://radio.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_call_talk_radio
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509220006
From the Libertarian Party I found this info for
Ron Paul supporters:
http://www.lp.org/call-talk-radio
They include talking points:
http://www.calltalkradioforron.com/index.html
Do you think there’s a need for some action on this front? If you’d like to address it, I’d be glad to help out. Thanks again for all you do! Joanne Gainen
Liberals and Democrats
Democrats Are On a Roll
Our Media Are Exposing McCain Campaign Lies
Our commercial media pundits have finally been unable to ignore the blatant lies of John McCain’s campaign. They are now documenting and pointing them out. Even a few Republicans with integrity are expressing their disgust. For more. For more.
Sarah Palin’s Star Status Is Fading
Under scrutiny from the media, Sarah Palin seem less and less like Ronald Reagan. It has become obvious that she is unqualified to be president. She is not even qualified to be John McCain’s nurse. She is avoiding the press. She is whining about their scrutiny. Women’s groups are pointing out her anti-women ideology. Campaigning on her own would subject her to more scrutiny. Campaigning with John McCain, she overshadows him. She may still be favored by many Conservative Republicans. But others who are more Independent are increasingly viewing her unfavorably. For more.
Our Financial Crisis Exposes McCain’s Economic Wrong-Headedness
John McCain is flailing around with a new story every day, blaming others and Barack Obama for our present financial crisis, while ignoring his own role of supporting deregulation and easy credit. He is primarily attempting to use our financial crisis for political gain.
Barack Obama has met with his group of varied financial advisors. He has informed us that he will not interfere with the deliberations of those government officials and legislators who are dealing with our current crisis. For the time being, Obama will primarily stick with his previously expressed economic proposals, which include expanding regulation.
I agree with Arianna Huffington that Obama needs different advisers from Clinton Administration officials Robert Rubin and Larry Summers who helped create our problem. My favorites are Joe Stiglitz on national economic policy, Robert Kuttner on deregulation, and Kevin Phillips on our current financial crisis.
We Have the Disciplined Campaign, Money and Grass Roots Organization
We have often commented upon these positive factors. Note that Barack Obama’s ability to create and manage his campaign demonstrates his managerial ability. Just as John McCain’s topsy-turvy campaign demonstrates his lack of managerial ability. See 9/21 Daily Kos Commentary. For more.
What
We Must Now Do
Join our Barack Obama – Democratic Party campaign. Volunteer and contribute to its various components. Give particular attention to less publicized races, such as our state legislators and our state government officials other than our governor.
Canvass your relatives, neighbors, colleagues, friends and acquaintances. Ascertain which are likely to vote for Democrats. Check to see that they are registered and vote. Stay away from Republicans, in hopes they forget there is an election. If each of our members would stimulate 4 voters to vote who otherwise wouldn’t have, that totals 10,000 votes, enough to decide close races such as the 2004 Cantwell race and the 2006 Gregoire race.
Here’s the Beef
Have you noticed that President Bush is missing in action during our financial crisis?
Michael Reagan says “Welcome back Dad.” to Sarah Palin.
John McCain recognizes his Washington Insider connections and support for President Bush (video).
John McCain considers health care, education, alternative energy and foreign aid a waste of money.
John McCain environmental record is terrible (video).
Poor John McCain. Reality is changing so fast, he can’t change his story fast enough.
All the reasons we’re supposed to reject Barack Obama actually apply to Sarah Palin.
Seattle Times endorses Barack Obama for President
A Conservative criticizes Bush and reluctantly admits the need for regulation.
Our commercial media are afraid of being viewed as Liberal.
State and Local
Endorsements
for General Election Candidates
To see all of our Washington Tax Reform Commentaries in one document.
Burglary Prevention Advisory
Just a
"heads-up" on a recent spike in residential burglary activity. After
a relatively quiet spell of one or two residential burglaries per week, we have
just received five (5) reports of single family residential burglaries within
the past 24 hrs. The locations affected are all over
Please remember to leave
your house in a condition as if somebody is still at home. Blinds and drapes
OPEN during the daytime. Lights ON INSIDE during the daytime. Car parked in
driveway near front door. Garbage cans and newspapers brought in. A discreet
radio on inside and barely audible for somebody standing at your front door.
All these burglaries
occurred during the daytime. All involved doors that were forced open with
inadequate strike plate screws or lock mechanism. Swap out your 1.5"
deadbolt strike plate screws with 3" screws or better yet, install a $10
extended strike plate that has 4-6 screws.
Regards, Detective and Crime Prevention Officer Michael Chiu, Bellevue Police
Department
Here’s the Beef
See who’s filing to
run for Washington state and federal offices.
Barack
Obama endorses Darcy Burner. Hopefully
his voters will vote for her.
Joel Connelly
tells us to support candidates for state offices.
Governor
Christine Gregoire responds to looming revenue shortfall. For
more.
See
Northwest Progressive Institute commentary on Gregoire – Rossi debate.
More
homes are needed in single-family zones to accommodate increased Seattle
population.
Western
Climate Initiative should auction higher proportion of pollution credits.
Spokane,
Boise, Bend, Walla Walla and other inland cities are right sized.
Nation and World
Restoring Credit Is Immediately
Necessary
Credit is necessary for investment and purchase of
expensive durable consumption items. We
especially need investment capital for creating the jobs described below. We also need to provide capital for durable
consumer purchases by those who can afford them. Especially houses. Without credit, our economy will suffer a
great depression.
An increasing number of our financial companies are
failing. Highly leveraged and burdened
with securities which contain unknown mixtures of performing and non-performing
housing loans, they are unable to borrow or sell their loans. As some fail, their creditors are also
threatened. Failure of large financial
companies threatens widespread failures.
Our present financial agencies have greatly restricted their provision
of credit. Inhibiting both the provision
of unqualified loans (which is good) and of qualified ones necessary to
maintaining our economy (which is bad). For more. For more.
On a case by case basis, our government has already
committed $800 billion to bailing out failing financial companies. But half of our non-performing securities
have not yet been accounted for. With no
action to protect the financial companies that hold them, they will surface
over the next year to continually threaten our credit and economy.
Finally getting it, our government is now
considering committing another $700 billion.
$1 billion is $3.30 per
We
Must Restore Credit by Buying Securities Cheaply from Failing Financial
Companies.
The cost to our economy of doing nothing to restore
credit would cost us more than $2,300 per person, in lost jobs, lost
innovation, lost savings and more.
Either way, we are paying an enormous price for the deregulation ethos
and corrupt self interested lobbying by financial companies that has infected
both Republicans and Democrats. For some history.
Also see our newsletter
issue #136. Notice that the Bush
Administration is asking for almost unlimited authority to use the $700 billion
without congressional oversight. Nor has
anyone proposed an investigation of how we got in this mess. To prevent future bubbles, we need to end our
misguided assumptions and abuses.
Our government must establish an agency or agencies similar
to the Resolution
Trust Corporation which in the late 1980s acquired and later sold assets of
the failing Savings and Loan Companies at a cost of $125 billion ($200 billion in
today’s money). This agency should:
·
Acquire securities (without rewarding shareholders and managers)
of failing financial companies
·
Identify and separate non-performing and performing loans within the
securities
·
Acquire and resell houses which were purchased by non-qualified buyers,
insuring that some of these houses (especially near jobs) remain affordable to
workers and others
·
Change the unmanageable terms of loans which were made to qualified
buyers, so that they can continue to service them and keep their homes.
·
Sell performing loans to financial companies, as market conditions
improve their value
·
Have
Congressional oversight
I am not sure that we must rush to pass this $700
billion legislation immediately.
President Bush is pushing our congress to hurry without making changes
as he has previously, with his tax cut and Iraq War legislation. Major changes must be made to restore credit
as cheaply as possible, without rewarding those who created this mess, and
adopting regulations and other measures to prevent future bubbles and
crashes. Note that our economy worked
fairly well during the 25 years following World War II without the our many
leveraged securities containing loans with unknown risk. What would we lose if we banned these various
securities and derivatives?
Ameliorating
the Decline of Housing Prices
Housing prices are too high. They must still decline perhaps 25% to reach
historic levels compared to our incomes.
Delaying this decline will result in continued problems, similar to what
When such owners decide to sell these homes or walk
away from them, a government agency (perhaps through providing capital to local
government or non-profit agencies) should purchase them and resell or rent them
as permanently affordable housing. This
should not reward lending agencies which made loans leaving the house owner
with insufficient equity. Nor should it
reward home owners who entered into such loans.
It should prevent the presence of vacant foreclosed houses, which
destroy both the houses and their neighborhoods. It should make homes available for sale to or
rent by moderate and lower income persons.
We
Must Prevent Future Bubbles
Unregulated activities by individuals, organizations
or markets, inevitably lead to abuses.
That is why we have contract law and other regulations. We must create and
implement appropriate regulations specific to various activities,
individuals organizations or markets.
For more detail, see Stopping Fraud and Restricting
Speculation below. For
more.
Our Most
Important Task Is Creating Needed Jobs
We want people to be able to earn instead of
borrow. We must create jobs, consisting
of producing goods and services that we need.
These include:
·
Maintaining and improving our physical and social infrastructure.
·
Conserving
energy and other resources, which we presently waste.
·
Creating alternative
energies,
which uses sustainable resources and doesn’t produce pollution. It should not produce greenhouse gases which
produce global warming pollution.
·
Creating and implementing new technologies relevant to our health,
education, housing and other needs.
·
Preserving and improving our social safety net and improving our human
resources. Universal access to
quality health care. Universal access to
quality education. For
more.
·
Create
concentrated housing, especially affordable housing near jobs. To reduce the damage to our environment. To reduce the cost of providing
utilities. To reduce the amount of
commuting, fuel consumption, congestion and polluting. To increase the time that people have to
spend with their families, civic activities and other interests.
Their workers must be able to earn in proportion to
the value of what they produce. We must
increase the wages of workers (in existing
and new productive jobs) enough that they earn in proportion to what
they produce. We need to
·
Realistically increase our definition of poverty
For more. For more. For more. For more.
·
Increase our minimum
wage and earned
income tax credits
·
Stimulate unionization, including passage of the Employee
Free Choice Act and strengthening and enforcing laws which prevent
employers from punishing workers who attempt to form unions
·
Increase the wages of our teachers, social workers and caretakers, to
encourage people to become qualified, take and keep such jobs.
The government can obtain the capital for creating
these jobs and other reforms by
·
Restoring fair tax rates to high income earners and our wealthy
·
Eliminating subsidies for special interests that don’t benefit our common
welfare
·
Eliminating unbeneficial expenditures, including military industrial
expenditures that don’t contribute to our national security
·
Increasing taxes to provide everyone access to quality health and
education, while saving individuals and companies money now paid to private
insurance companies and pharmaceuticals.
·
Improving and enforcing our laws against tax payer and other fraud.
For
more. Notice how quickly our
government can find money to restore credit, especially if it helps our wealthy
and powerful. But how difficult it is to
find much less money to provide the types of needed jobs described above.
Stopping Fraud
We need to enact and impose sufficient penalties on
people who commit fraud. Including real
estate, stock and other sales people.
Bank employees who approve loan applications. Appraisers.
Rating agencies with interests that tempt them to rate stocks and
financial companies too favorably.
Rating agencies must be strictly at arms length from the stocks and
companies that they rate.
We need to mandate transparency for financial
transactions. We should forbid the
securitization of any loans which disguise their risks. Leave it to investors to choose the mix of
less or more risky securities that they purchase. This includes derivatives.
Restricting
Speculation
The housing bubble resulted in part because people
borrowed a high percentage of the purchase price with the assumption that the
value of the house would increase.
People bought houses speculating that increased values would yield them
a profit. People also refinanced their
homes to obtain money for consumption or speculation. When housing values declined, they no longer
had equity, nor the motivation to keep their house, leading to additional
declines in housing values and the collapse of home construction. Margin (larger down payments and restrictive
refinancing limits) requirements would have inhibited the creation and later
collapse of the bubble. For
more.
We need to reduce highly leveraged speculation, by
imposing margin requirements. Home
buyers should pay perhaps 20% of the purchase price with saved money. Stock buyers might be required to borrow no
more than 50%. Similar limits might be
placed upon other purchasers of financial instruments, by individuals or
financial companies. The more volatile
the price of the items being purchased, the higher the margin requirements
should be. Interest paid to borrow money
for speculation should not be tax deductible.
Producing and Ameliorating Employment Shifts
Our financial sector has increased from 10% to 20%
of our economy. We need to greatly
reduce the number of people who are creating and monitoring loans and otherwise
assisting speculative activities. This
means that many people will have to change jobs. To assist these people, we should:
·
increase the duration and size of our unemployment payments. And reemployment counseling.
·
Provide life-long access to health care, child care and education,
independent from employment.
·
Increase training and wages for the jobs described above.
Here’s
the Beef
A potential $1 trillion
program is being created to bail out distressed financial companies.
Seventy nine million Americans have problems paying medical bills or medical debts.
Arizona, Colorado and Montana voters will decide about changes to their health care systems.
Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards: Bush Administration proposes to block health care for women.
Why no bailout for our Peace Corps and other social programs defunded by President Bush?
Major anti-immigrant figure is exposed as racist. Aren’t most of them?
Silly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice berates Russia. Didn’t our invasion of Iraq isolate us?
Our Liberal Spirit
Making
Things Simple
I enjoy attempting to understand complex phenomena well enough to describe them briefly so that people can understand them.
Our Values and Priorities
A prime example is the description of our Liberal Values in four brief statements, the third of which has several clarifying sub-statements. Some theorists have presented extensive analyses of which is the more important underlying value. Equality or freedom. Individual or shared common freedom. These analyses can clarify our understanding of these values. But such analyses complicate trying to convey these values for others to understand. And they aren’t necessary for conveying the major features of our values.
I have similarly expressed our Liberal Priorities (see at the right side of the first page of our newsletters) in eight phrases, some of which could be expressed in separate phrases. These are priorities which result from identifying the challenges to our values which occur in our present situation. During our nation’s founding, freeing ourselves from the crown would have been a priority and some of our present priorities wouldn’t apply. Similarly during the period of our civil war, during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency or other historical times.
The
The danger is that we (the enabling consultants) will (perhaps to impress our supporters) begin to take responsibility for the success of the projects. The local participants will immediately back off from taking responsibility and quit learning. We become colonialists who reduce rather than increase their self sufficiency. The bottom line is not the success of each small project. It is changing the culture from ‘I can’t.’ to ‘We can.’ One these main features of our approach are clarified and understood, then we can continue to provide simple explanations at the next level of detail.
Our Financial System’s Problems and Solutions
Our national financial system is very complex. As is it’s problems and likely solutions. I only understand it’s broad outlines. We have changed from an ‘earn and invest’ to a ‘borrow and consume (and speculate)’ financial system. We need to change back. We need to Reclaim our American Dream in which our physical and social infrastructure and financial reward system enable us to enjoy the fruits of our labor and enable future generations to produce even more fruitfully.
Notice the distinction between investing to effectively and efficiently produce or distribute products and services and speculating in gold, art, real estate, derivatives, lotteries, etc. to reap benefits that I haven’t earned, often at the expense of people who have earned them. Notice also that we need both individual investment in enterprises and collective investment in infrastructure to enable individual investment to pay off. We need to reward investment. We need to restrict speculation, especially when it leads to infectious greed and bubbles, which produce the wrong things and then collapse.
The major obstacle is our addiction to consuming and speculating and borrowing to do so. And denial that we have become so addicted to such a destructive system. The major strategies must be to understand the need for and make and encourage both collective and individual investment. And to regulate (restrict and punish) speculation and borrowing for speculation. We need to regulate individual, organizational and market behaviors.
Different activities, types of organizations and markets require different regulation. Cab driving and farming tend toward over-competition. Utilities, some manufacturing and some retail trade tend toward under-competition. Some activities require more regulation to produce transparency and prevent fraud than do others. Some activities (home buying, stock buying, securities buying, etc.) require more margin requirements than others to prevent excessively leveraged speculation. Various fraudulent activities must be prohibited, policed and punished. Individuals and organizations must be forced to stop or mitigate their externalities (imposing costs on our environment, communities, consumers, workers and owners).
Even after trying to simply describe our financial system, its problems and solutions, it still seems complicated. And it quickly gets more complicated as we attempt more detailed descriptions. I believe the solutions expressed above are correct, but the devil is in the details of specifying and applying them to the various markets, organizations and individuals.
Procedures for Making Things Simple
So how does one simply describe complex social situations. I first brainstorm the major features and organize my brainstorm into a small number of statements. I then do research (books, other commentaries – printed and electronic (blogs), looking for things to add to the brainstorm. I continually look for ways to keep it simple, removing statements that address more trivial issues, combining statements that address similar features.
The result is often a tree. There is the major feature, 3-5 sub-features, 2-5 sub-sub features, etc. Teaching begins with the trunk. Then the major branches. Then smaller branches. Thanks to Google, we can now use links to guide people to more detailed commentaries about the twigs and leaves.
I would appreciate your responses to this commentary. What approach (strategies and tactics) do you use to understand and convey your understandings to others? Maybe together, we can develop a manual for understanding and simply conveying aspects of social systems. Dave Thomas
Recommended Books – See our list of books for
liberals
Jack Huberman, 2007, The GOP-Hater’s Handbook, 378 Reasons Never Again to Vote for the Party of Reagan, Nixon and Bush Again
After reading this book about the chicanery, lies, fraud, corruption, predatory behavior, and criminality of jillions of non-compassionate Conservatives during the past 100 years, you may feel like an elitist. You may realize the extent to which your values are violated by the people that Jack Huberman describes. You may have contempt for them.
But don’t fail to ask yourself, when have you and our Liberal colleagues been tempted and even succumbed to the temptation to act similarly? Instead of feeling superior, we might feel the humiliation of being humans, who don’t easily and always resist temptation. Ask yourself how we can create situations which provide us fewer temptations? How we can improve both ourselves’ and others’ ability to resist temptation?
Free Member Advertising
Hire Our Lake Hills Neighbors
· Auto Repair, price varies depending on job (but always fair), Jaime Speicher (AAS Auto Repair Technician) (425-746-2353)
·
Babysitting for infants (occasional
evenings and weekends) - $5 per hour-
·
Data Entry- $10 per 12 font, double
spaced page-
· Debt Elimination Counseling, Seminars and Workshops – price negotiable – Sherry Brandt (206-356-8034, somerev2@comcast.net)
·
Home Repair- prices vary, depending
on job-
·
Home
Repair and Remodeling,
·
Housekeeper,
price negotiable –
·
Life
Support Therapies,
· Private Piano Lessons (students must have a piano), afternoons - Anna Khosrowian (378-7938), price negotiable
·
Psychotherapist,
accepts insurance - Sandy Mathews (462-7889,
www.sandramathews.com)