A Fair Deal

1 – Jobs

Jobs are created by new industries, new thoughts, new research & development and New Frontiers. Opening a New Frontier in Space would transform our energy system, mitigate climate change and create new jobs... a whole new economy. We look ahead with confidence. We can do these things:

2 - Medicare4All - Health Security and Financial Security

Americans believe health care is a right, not a privilege. Yet we now have the most expensive and least effective system of any modern industrial society.

Under a Universal Single-Payer healthcare system, the state pays for healthcare financed through taxes. It’s cost-effective because it’s simple. Competitive practices like advertising are minimized. There are no deductibles. Co-pays are low or non- existent. Savings of 40% are possible with preventative health care, much less bureaucracy and the elimination of insurance company overhead, hospital billing costs, underwriting, sales and marketing departments, the huge profits and exorbitant executive pay.” Single-payer systems do not devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. There is no need for a variety of plans. Everyone receives the same level of care. All essential care is covered.

Supplemental plans are available for cosmetic and elective surgeries. Coverage is not affected by loss or change of jobs. There are no lifetime limits or exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Physicians are chosen by patients. For a specialist, a referral is made. Inequities are reduced. Medications are covered for the elderly or indigent. Drug prices are negotiated by the government to control costs.

Preventive care saves hundreds of billions. Physicians for a National Health Program estimate the savings at $350 billion a year. The Commonwealth Fund believes the mortality rate would improve and the country would save $570 billion a year.

Government already pays for most health care, 64%, but for a complex and fractious system. The Veterans Administration system is socialized medicine, owned, operated and financed by the government. Medicare is a single-payer system for seniors, people with specific disabilities or Renal Disease. We also supply Iraq and Afghanistan with Single Payer coverage through war costs.

U.S. administration costs are over 30%. An American pays over a thousand dollars a year. Twenty five per cent of seniors declared bankruptcy over medical costs from 2002 to 2008 and 43% were forced to mortgage their homes. Single payer protects Americans from that financial insecurity and ruin. A $350 billion savings means $1,300 per person or $3,500 per household.

The net cost would be negative. Savings would more than offset the expense of universal coverage. Medicare4All combines all current programs to provide free necessary care; primary care and prevention, prescription drugs, emergency care, long-term care, mental health services, dental services, and vision care. Doctors are paid to keep people healthy, not sick. Med4All trains and pays physicians and health workers to provide coverage to millions of formerly uninsured Americans, creating good jobs.

It saves American lives and reduces pain, suffering and financial insecurity…It keeps people well, not sick. A healthy and secure society is a more productive, aspirational and happy place. Medicare 4 All is Simpler, Cheaper, More fair. And Everyone’s Included. It’s a Fair Deal 4 Americans… Medicare 4 All.

3 – College 4 All

A knowledgeable citizenry is our best defense. It enhances the quality of life and best informs our decisions on the way forward. Everyone deserves all the education they can handle. Young people need to be educated as never before to enter the work place. For older people new education broadens their horizons. Education is continual, throughout the stages of life. People with knowledge in one field would be happy to share that knowledge with others. Jobs would be created in teaching and educational infrastructure, in building colleges and schools, in building community centers, in building educational sites on the Internet.

4 - Forgive College Debt

Student loans are a drag on our society, on our economy, on the lives of young people and of people who have never escaped the payments from their early years. This delays adulthood, stresses people, limits home building, and delays families and the birth of kids. Many of these loans are held by the government to no good end. Others are for the profit of a few. We can forgive the debts by trading them for Government service, in teaching, in building infrastructure, in restoring the environment, and cleaning the earth.

5 – Climate Change – Environment & Pollution

If we don't solve this problem, everything else is meaningless.

We know that climate change is real and humans have caused it. Those that deny it are paid by the fossil industries. They are shortsighted, stupid, greedy, self-centered. The fossil industries, the richest corporations in the history of the world, control governments and economies. They benefit from tax breaks, subsidies and the support by our tax-funded armed forces protecting in the sea lanes over which fossil fuel travels and in funding wars for this commodity. Great fortunes and power are in play. But it will end.

If the fossil rulers come to reason, they will understand that there are new ways to capture and distribute power. They will know they have the power to do so, to be on the forefront, to engage in the transition to clean energy. If they do not grasp this, they will fall by the wayside, be replaced, and they will be remembered as a class of the most evil and stupid people ever to inhabit this planet.

One of them, a Vice President and tool of fossil interests started a war on the basis that the consequences are so great that if there is one chance hundred that something bad will happen, we should go to war. The consequences of climate change are so bad that if there is one chance in a million or trillion, or gazillion we should drop everything and go to war against the fossil interests in defense of our home. Make that one chance in a quintillion because there is no Planet B.

6 - Space Power - A Convenient Truth

And a call to action for a new Space Race.

Activists have identified CLIMATE CHANGE as the greatest crisis facing humankind… but have no solution. Scientists have the solution, but have not connected to the problem. Scientists say we have “A chance” of mitigating climate change in time.

Forces driving climate change: an exploding population and the desire by all people on the earth for a better quality of life. Space Solar Power satellites in GeoSync Orbit can microwave power to earth to replace fossil fuel.

Clean power, on time, on target, world-wide, will provide jobs and a new world economy of wealth. We know how to do it. It’s proven technology. It’s not science fiction, it’s science fact. We need a Marshall Plan, an Apollo Program, a Manhattan Project, a world-wide Space Race for Energy before its too late. Fossil companies fight progress with millions of dollars a year in disinformation, intimidation and political bribes. Divestment, “Divertment", Elimination of Subsidies, Eco-Savings and a Carbon Tax can fund the transition.New concepts have brought down the Cost to Orbit by a factor of 10, making space enterprise possible.A potential $14 Trillion dollars a year in space energy will fund our New Frontier in Cislunar Space and a European-led Moon Village.

7 - Open a New Frontier

"For humanity to survive, it must move into space...

... Stephen Hawking

There are seven and a half billion people on earth. By 2050 it is projected there will be ten billion. No one knows what the carrying capacity of the planet is. There is evidence that we are exceeding it now. Humanity is like a virus infecting the surface of the planet, using up all the food and resources, filling the available space and throwing off toxins that will poison itself and the host planet. We are heading toward a catastrophic collapse.

Yet, of the seven billion on the planet, four billion are living in poverty. More than two billion go hungry. The economic system is based on and demands continual growth, but there is nowhere left to grow into. On earth.

In the rich countries, consumers have all the material things they can use and more. The few super wealthy who run rich nations and corporations have more money than they could ever spend. Among the poor, there is no money, no resources, no infrastructure to lift them out of poverty. In a closed system, which is our planet, the only thing left is the fight over limited resources.

As the poor and disenfranchised turn to fundamental extremes and the rich react with imperial wars to protect their lifestyles, it is either climate change or weapons of mass destruction that may finally limit mankind's growth by eliminating billions and leaving the planet uninhabitable for eons. In the past half century there have been a number of very near misses...nuclear Armageddon’s avoided by luck and within seconds of catastrophe.

With the pent up anger of humans pressed too close together, the future is uncertain. Humanity balances on a knife-edge. Whether we will destroy ourselves or move to a next stage of destiny is in our hands. It’s an intelligence test for the human race.

For salvation, one has to look in the historical direction of heaven. Above us are all the natural resources of the universe. There is a new, high frontier. Our first explorers have been there and planted a flag. Now it is high time to open that frontier.

There is a new space race. The winner will have the key to unlimited energy and a new enterprise zone of unlimited wealth. The race itself, will change the circumstance of mankind, freeing humanity from the closed system of our home planet, with it's limited resources, overpopulation and ancient conflicts.

The nations that prevail will have the ability to change the balance of power on earth. Abundant, clean energy has the ability to raise the yearly average income of everyone on the planet. A new frontier enriches everyone, gives everyone hope and opportunity. It is the greatest escape valve for the pressures confronting us.

This new race has many entrants: Russia, The U.S., China, India, Europe and Japan as well as minor participants. Some will co-operate, some may go it alone. The opening of the New, High Frontier may mirror the opening of the American Frontier, with hazards and hardships but great resources, land, wealth and just as importantly, a new political paradigm.

The race is over establishing a colony to harvest helium3 for fusion fuel and lunar solar power, to be beamed back to earth. This clean, safe, renewable energy will replace fossil fuel, mitigating climate change and creating great new wealth on the home planet and in space. The race is on...largely under the radar. And, America may be lagging behind. We have the technology. It's not rocket science anymore.

8 - Wall Street Regulation - Prevent Bubbles & Depressions.

Unregulated Wall Street is the Wild West. Clever and greedy people will find new ways to capture wealth generated by workers from the economy. New Schemes grow like weeds. Schemes come faster with self-referential greed. Left to their own devices humans steal and appropriate every cent they can. Constant regulation creates jobs for the clever who can minimize their own thoughts of greed for the common good.

A tax scheme to diminish ill-gotten gains puts wealth back into the economy instead of into the hands of a privileged few. Left to its own devices, unregulated and unwatched, Wall Street will cause bubbles and depressions.

9 - Robotax

A new study claims that we will lose as many as 47% of jobs to automation, while we will only create 20% of new ones. More than a quarter of American jobs will disappear. Any foreign jobs brought back will go primarily to robots, not American workers. You cannot retrain for jobs that don't exist.

Robots don't need healthcare or retirement, family leave, vacations, sleep, lunch or bathroom breaks. They don't slip and fall or develop stress injuries. They work 24/7 and don't require payment.

Robotics transfers workers’ earnings to the SuperRich. Our society will have to support displaced Americans, either through a welfare system or incarceration. Might as well do it simply through a tax that takes some of these new savings and profits to support those who need them. The benefits to humanity of automation; freeing people from repetitive, boring, physically challenging effort, should also free them from want by eventually supporting a Guaranteed Universal Income.

Flexicurity

http://denmark.dk/en/society/welfare/flexicurity
Flexicurity is a compound of flexibility and security. with an active labour market policy.

Flexible rules for hiring and firing, make it easy for the employers to dismiss employees during downturns and hire new staff when things improve.

Unemployment security in the form of a guarantee for a legally specified unemployment benefit at a relatively high level - up to 90% for the lowest paid workers.

An active labour market policy is an effective system to offer guidance, a job or education to all unemployed.

The aim of flexicurity is to promote employment security over job security. The model has the dual advantages of ensuring employers a flexible labour force while employees enjoy the safety net of an unemployment benefit system and an active employment policy.

10 - Rebuild Our Infrastructure

The jobs are out there. America is behind other modern states in quality of life. The ease of travel on trains in Europe, the speed of the Internet, the beauty of foreign cities and towns, roads and landscapes, clean water and air… shows that modern society can do things to make life easier and more enjoyable.

A Civilian Conservation Corps, a Works Progress Administration, National programs for the Arts and Humanities, all contribute to the quality-of-life for everyone and create jobs. …Jobs to restore the Environment, clean up toxic sites, to create parks and recreational facilities, to rebuild slums. These jobs could be paid by the government as citizens work off college loans.

11 – Voting 4 All

Voting is a right for all citizens. Insuring everyone's vote is a relatively easy task. Making voting easier, eliminating long lines, and registering all citizens should be a priority. Otherwise it is unfair and we are not a representative democracy.

12. - Redistribution of Wealth

AMERICA - WELFARE FOR THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS, CAPITALISM FOR EVERYBODY ELSE.

The happiest societies in the world are those with the least distance between rich and poor.

Reaching de Minimus.

Money is mutable. As it travels upward, it loses value.

Most people in the world work hard to get enough to eat. Once you get enough it’s less work to get too much. It’s less work than that to get better food. At the very top, the difference between a great restaurant and a great private chef in terms of money is great, in terms of better food is de minimus.

If you don’t have a car, transportation can be difficult. You must work very hard to get a car that runs. Once you make enough to get a car that runs, you can more easily get a good car. Once you get a good car, you can more easily get a luxury car. Once you get a luxury car, getting an exotic car is de minimus. There’s nowhere you can drive it at 200 miles an hour. You are stuck in traffic with pick-ups full of lawnmowers, blurping along in second, fouling your plugs.

Finding shelter if don’t have it, is very difficult. You depend on a tent, or a lean to, or a favela. Once you have shelter, You can now live and work more comfortably, you are able to get better shelter. Once you have a house with seven bedrooms, you can’t use them all. Once you have seven houses you can’t occupy them all.

When you have more money than you can spend for human needs, you buy silly things. You buy status. You buy things bigger, better, more expensive than your peers. You spend your time on flaunting your privilege, on outspending your rivals, on showing up your neighbors.

In your seven room mansion you could have a nice painting on the wall. You spend a hundred million on a Picasso. Is it a better picture, or just more expensive? Or is it just a way to lock away useless wealth?

You could take that hundred million and actually create jobs, not just lie about doing it. You could give your servants, assistants, agents and friends five million dollars each. But then they wouldn’t need to work for you. You’d lose that key attribute of wealth, your separation from the rest of humanity; your status.

Do you buy seven Ferraris so you can drive them? Is one better to drive than another, or are you just a collector of useless things. A car too expensive to drive is useless wealth. Houses too numerous to occupy are useless wealth.

When you have enough useless wealth, you can change wives like sheets. You can father useless children. You can buy exotic pets. You can spend your time trying to find something, anything to spend it on that would improve your life just a little. Or you can just watch the zeros add up in your accounts. Once you have enough useless wealth, you… Wait…Okay. There is never enough.

Once you have enough useless wealth you spend your life trying not to lose it. You pay expensive experts to diminish your taxes. You buy politicians to make laws to prevent anyone else from getting your wealth. You want to keep others down. Because all you have left is your exalted state.

Because like wealth and the material it can buy, there is only so much happiness one human can have. You could try to spread it around. You could make other’s lives easier. Or you can try to keep it all to yourself. Then it’s de minimus.

13 – Tax Reform

We need to redistribute wealth by tax reform. …Need to diminish the distance between the superrich who are not really our citizens, but World Citizens of Richland. They change nations with the season, the tax breaks, the money laundering opportunities, with the changing fashion of the enclaves of wealth and privilege.

Their adherence is to their wealth and class, the peerage of privilege, the ease of luxury and status, the changing fortunes of their native countries, now no longer of interest except for bank interest and rate of return.

The French economist Thomas Pigetty, writes of the danger that the inheriting class will wind up with all the wealth and power, and having nothing important left to buy, will buy the power inaccessible, and removed from the masses, and will spend their excess on more and more means to enhance their power and status until they reach an unapproachable personal Valhalla. That is happening now.

14 - Cyber Security

Present wars are cyber wars. Nuclear weapons cannot be controlled. Shooting wars lead to nuclear weapons. Great destruction of nations and peoples does not benefit anybody. It ruins markets. The best and brightest college graduates should be recruited into a Cyber corps.

15 - Nuclear Weapons

The United States has 6800 nuclear weapons. Russia has seven thousand. Other states have more and are more loosely held. There are enough nukes to kill us 10,000 times over, making our world uninhabitable by mammals. The Half life of plutonium is twenty thousand years. In 20,000 years there would only be enough plutonium to kill us five thousand times. In 40,000 years we’ d only die 2,500 Times. In 60,000 years would still be enough to kill us 1,250 times over.

It would take 1 million years for the earth to become habitable by creatures like us.

It took us 50,000 years to climb from the sea. The earth is 4 1/2 billion years old. How many times have creatures like us reached this state only to destroy ourselves.

If we go, all history, everything we have done, seen, felt, loved… all our existence will have been for nothing. Nations will disappear, ancient arguments, philosophies, arts, visions, peoples… will be as nothing, as if nothing human ever occurred.

And we will be lost.

16 - The Constitution

Our constitution needs work. Recent events, the accidental election of a foreign-controlled sociopath, and the inability to rapidly eliminate him from office, combined with the collusion and sedition of an entire political party shows that we must do some serious work on how we govern ourselves. This is a battle that must be joined now, with this election. We must reverse the damage of the last year. We must protect our country from outside influence so that we have the will and strength to defeat them our shores, in our cyber frontier and working with our allies, in the world.

Those allied with our enemies in the attempted destruction of our democracy need to be driven from office, driven from power, isolated in contempt, never spoken of again.

17. Tax Inherited Wealth

Piggety, in “Capitalism in the 21St Century” claims inherited wealth is the greatest economic danger to the future as a nation’s wealth is consolidated in the very few, who become all powerful.

1 - Establish a tax free limit for inherited wealth- say $10 million.

2 - Above $10 million, taxes kick in at a graduating rate, until you arrive at, say, $50 million - more than any human being could possibly need in a lifetime - adjusted for inflation of course. At that point, inherited wealth is taxed at 90%.

Consider what that might get you...

Enough money to fund Universal Healthcare?

Enough money to make college tuition free?

Enough money to forgive student debt?

Enough money to pay a yearly (living wage) stipend to those unable to find work because of dying industries and the roboticization of manufacturing, etc. ?

Enough money to make public education state of the art?

Enough money to house the homeless and feed the hungry?

Enough money to fund recovery programs for the opioid crisis?

Enough money to prepare coastal cities for flooding due to climate change?

That's a short list. We'd have to do the figures, but the amount of money that would come in from really taxing the ultra rich may be truly astronomical. And it wouldn't noticeably change the lifestyles of the people paying those taxes. Unless they were ridiculously greedy. Or unless they had bigger ambitions - like buying congressmen, or even the presidency. Acknowledging that some of the ultra rich are doing good in the world, political power is often the thing that kind of money tends to go for. And assuming we are a representative democracy, we should be trying to prevent that.

C.Proser