Politics and Solving the Nation's Problems - You are right, it IS all about money. The wider scope solution is to Support the National Employment Recovery Act (NERA) and here is the solution.
THE SIX ECONOMIC PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED NERA WILL ADDRESS:
1) Uncertainty in the long-term solvency of Social Security and
2) Uncertainty in the long-term solvency of Medicare due to the "short-circuit"
in FICA revenue;
3) The increasing national deficit and
4) The reduction in well-paying living wage middle class jobs;
5) Stagnant or declining educational standards insufficient to properly equip
the next generation with the skill sets required to meet future
economic requirements, all of which are resulting in:
6) The "watering down" of the American Standard of Living to a global
substandard as opposed to the elevation of the global standard to an
American benchmark.
That's why I created a petition to The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama advocating NERA which I am requesting you to please view and sign, at:
http://petitions.moveon.org/...
Another such partition to please sign is on the Whitehouse site at:
http://wh.gov/...
For additional information and commentary see my newsvine article at
http://rncox.newsvine.com/...
With a Facebook page at:
http://www.facebook.com/...
(Recently the House Ways and Means Committee; WV congressmen McKinley, Manchin, Rockefeller; and the National Governor's Association and the Federal Reserve Board were made aware of NERA.)
Feel free to network this around. I am an Independent by the way, which lets me talk to both sides :-)!
Thanks!
Richard Cox
http://www.linkedin.com/... <= my professional profile
Independent member, WV Senator Manchin's Project Weirton task group (http://www.cityofweirton.com/... )
PETITION ADVOCATING THE
NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT RECONSTRUCTION ACT (NERA)
Politics and Solving the Nation's Problems - You are right, it IS all about money. The wider scope solution is to Support the National Employment Recovery Act (NERA) and here is the solution.
THE SIX ECONOMIC PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED NERA WILL ADDRESS:
1) Uncertainty in the long-term solvency of Social Security and
2) Uncertainty in the long-term solvency of Medicare due to the "short-circuit" in FICA revenue;
3) The increasing national deficit and
4) The reduction in well-paying living wage middle class jobs;
5) Stagnant or declining educational standards insufficient to properly equip the next generation with the skill sets required to meet future economic requirements, all of which are resulting in:
6) The "watering down" of the American Standard of Living to a global substandard as opposed to the elevation of the global standard to an American benchmark.
AT THE CORE OF THE SOLUTION: NERA - The National Employment Reconstruction Act:
Properly implemented, the NERA bill we the signers of this petition propose to our respective congressmen will rectify these problems by providing another tool (in addition to the prime interest rate) to the FED for making the cost of products or services originating overseas fall within a "free trade" window of their cost to produce or provide domestically.
Indirectly, the increased National Employment will address Social Security and Medicare worries through the increased FICA revenue that will be realized as the result of NERA.
Directly, resolving the deficit, providing education needs for the next generation as well as supplementing Medicare and Social Security when needed would be provided by the direct revenue stemming from NERA.
NERA is good for business as well, especially small ones, as they are less likely to be driven out by subsidized or cheap labor overseas.
NERA represents an engineering approach solution. The key is to implement NERA impartially using strict economic rules and without trade agreement political favoritism or other influence, why it is suggested that the FED (or a similar independent entity that can be monitored but not controlled) be used for NERA administration.
THE NEED FOR NERA:
Via FICA both Social Security and Medicare are funded by payroll deductions on the domestic working class, the philosophy being the current working generation supports the needs of the prior one. Exporting jobs without compensating by some means for the FICA revenue lost "short-circuits" this well-designed mechanism as fewer jobs means fewer income streams for FICA to deduct from and less FICA revenue, resulting in the Social Security and Medicare solvency concerns. This decreased domestic income stream also exacerbates the deficit and educational issues as well, requiring an ever smaller "upper class" to devote ever more revenue to meet these needs. Ultimately democracy itself becomes compromised as politicians begin to pay more attention to a "financial aristocracy" and less attention to securing the welfare of the general populace. The middle class then is effectively eliminated.
One idea often discussed is to supplement the FICA funds lost by switching from those who work to those who consume with a value added tax. But with fewer domestic living wage jobs this becomes ineffective, due to a decreasing average tax base value.
NERA though works by giving another tool to the FED, allowing it to impartially impose actively monitored surcharges on items produced outside this country to keep them within a "free market trading range" window of what it would cost to produce the same items domestically.
ADMINISTERING NERA:
NERA must be administered without regards to politics using raw economic laws. THIS IS PRO-LABOR LEGISLATION, think of it mechanically as a flywheel governor on the free trade process to keep it from spinning out-of-control and destroying itself:
Exclude foreign companies which choose to locate here, hire our work force and abide by our labor laws.
DO NOT exclude domestic companies which export labor overseas then seek to bring products produced there back here to sell.
The increased FICA revenue will then take care of the Social Security and Medicare solvency concerns. Use the direct revenue to improve education for the next generation (e.g. restore the "High" in high school) and then to pay down the deficit ONLY, NO OTHER SPENDING UNTIL THESE SHORTFALLS ARE TAKEN CARE OF AND WE ARE BACK ON A SURPLUS FOOTING.
Effectively then we "tax away" any advantages of foreign subsidies, "dumping" and using cheaper overseas labor thereby keeping our domestic businesses from being overwhelmed. Any surplus direct revenue resulting from NERA must go straight to lower the deficit and to improve education standards for the next generation, NOTHING ELSE. Thus we keep our economy from being "watered down" to the lowest global denominator.
This is the effective way for our government to unilaterally handle this problem. Since we only establish free trade "windows" note that domestic companies still have to compete within those windows, surviving ideally on quality of product and service as they should but the playing field is level now. This also allows an entity such as the FED to "tune" domestic production and keep our domestic businesses from growing fat and lax, as well as damps political influence by an upper class affluent minority.
We the signers of this petition and citizens of this good nation the United States of America therefore respectfully do petition and direct our duly elected President and congressional representatives to advocate and enact NERA based on our guidelines above, thereby giving the Federal Reserve another tool to restore our middle class national labor market, prevent our nation's businesses from being overwhelmed or undercut by unfair foreign competition and preserve our national economy and living standard for our retirees and the generations to come after them.
Thanks!
Richard Cox
http://www.linkedin.com/... <= my professional profile
Independent member, WV Senator Manchin's Project Weirton task group (http://www.cityofweirton.com/... )
Sign please:
http://petitions.moveon.org/...
and
http://wh.gov/...