“The economy,” as that term is used by economists, politicians, pundits, and ordinary people, generally refers to GDP, gross domestic product.

Here’s an op-ed from the New York Times entitled “G.D.P R.I.P” that discusses why GDP is seriously flawed as a measure of national welfare.

After discussing some of the flaws, the author states that:

[I]t would be fairly easy for President Obama to convene a panel of economists and other experts to join the Bureau of Economic Analysis in creating a new, more accurate measure. Call it net economic welfare. On the benefit side would go such nonmarket goods as unpaid domestic work and ecosystem services; on the debit side would go defensive and remedial expenditures that don’t improve our standard of living, along with the loss of ecosystem services, and the money we spend to try to replace them.

The complete piece is here.

That would be a good step in the direction of more meaningful and useful discourse. Though it’s just a small step, it would almost surely make a real difference in helping people understand the value of income security for all. Guaranteed income is the most direct way to promote economic welfare for individuals and society as a whole.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Politicians are talking about paygo, and President Obama endorsed the concept a few days ago. Why not? It purportedly worked in the 90s, when President Clinton and the Republican Congress cut government spending and produced a budget surplus.

It’s a simple rule: New spending legislation must include the cuts to pay for it. Pay as you go.

Obama and the Democrats are endorsing it now in response to Republican warnings about the budget deficit. Republicans want to blame Obama and the Democrats for the deficits, ignoring the fact that most of the red ink spilled on their watch, while they controlled Congress with the Bush administration, cutting taxes and launching the war in Iraq.

For some help in cutting through the spin and fear tactics, here‘s a very good article from a truly nonpartisan source, Public Agenda.

Paygo: Useful, but Not Nearly Enough

A direct link to an article it recommends,

America’s Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making, is here.

For some “truly terrifying data about the real state of the U.S. economy” (that’s the subtitle), here’s a piece from Slate that has some very good short tables.

All three articles conclude that radical reforms are necessary.

The best way to start, in my view, is with income security for all.

In the 1960s, guaranteed income was a mainstream, moderate idea. Martin Luther King called for it in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

The updated idea is to set some amount, say $1,000 a month, and provide that to every adult citizen. It should be enough for food and shelter, but just enough, so people still have strong incentives to work and earn.

Once that is in place, it will be a lot easier to cut government programs. Everyone will have a basic income, so we’ll be able to cut individual welfare programs. Everyone who’s unemployed or underemployed will be able to manage while they find or create jobs for themselves, so we’ll be able to cut corporate welfare programs that subsidize employers. Cut individual welfare, perhaps eliminating whole programs and agencies. Cut corporate welfare bailouts, subsidies, tax credits, and such. That’s how we pay for the basic income, Citizen Dividends.

Give the same amount to everyone – the hungry and homeless, the middle class, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey – and we create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality. It will be a lot easier for us to work together as We the People to demand that our elected officials enact the necessary reforms. That includes the necessary reforms of our tax code.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

Please comment on this blog and help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

President Obama is in Green Bay today as part of his push for health care reform.

A story on the front page of the Washington Post has the following paragraph near the end:

Richard Cooper, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, says he thinks the variations identified by the Dartmouth researchers — due primarily to enormous hospital expenses — are often related to patients’ socioeconomic status. States such as Wisconsin have lower medical costs because they are predominantly white and middle class, he said. The notable exception is Milwaukee, with its “poverty corridor,” he said. “Nobody wants to talk about the fact that if you want to deal with health care you have to deal with poverty.”

The complete story is here.

The last sentence deserves extra emphasis:

“[I]f you want to deal with health care you have to deal with poverty.”

That’s a point we ought to raise in every debate about health care reform. Getting people to talk about it, and do something about it, ought to be a national priority – and a personal priority for everyone who cares about health care, everyone who’s dissatisfied with the status quo.

Citizen Dividends will reduce health care costs significantly. Every adult citizen will have added income, say $1,000 a month to ensure that they can afford food and shelter at least. Some of that money could also pay for health care.

I posted yesterday about hunger and a new book by Sasha Abramsky, and here’s a quote from a review of the book:

“The failures of our policies that led to this epidemic of hunger and poverty are evident across the country. Unemployment, lack of benefits, and wage cutbacks by major employers are forcing families to the food pantries.”

Also from yesterday’s blog, some data about poverty:

• In 2008, the official poverty line was $ 10,590 for a single person and $21,203 for a family of four. Census data shows 37 million Americans at or below these numbers.

Citizen Dividends of $1,000 a month would put everyone above that poverty line. To pay for it, and to prevent inflation, we’ll cut other government programs at the same time, and adjust the amount as necessary. We can eliminate hunger and debilitating poverty.

Here’s an earlier post about health care reform.

Income security for all, as I’ve written elsewhere on this blog and web site, updates ideas that were mainstream and moderate in the 1960s. Martin Luther King called for guaranteed income in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

In the 1930s, mass movements for guaranteed income security generated the political will for Social Security, and that history is document on the official web site of the Social Security administration. Mass demands for economic justice also helped power the Populist and Progressive movements of the 1890s, which resulted in many political reforms.

Give it to everyone – the hungry and homeless, you and other readers of this blog and our families, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey – because that will minimize the administrative costs and bureaucracy, while preventing political fights about where and how to draw the lines over who’s included. That will also create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality, thus making it easier for us to work together to solve our social, cultural, political economic, and environmental problems.

We will achieve this if we individuals and We the People demand it.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

Please comment on this blog and help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Obama’s speech yesterday in Cairo is receiving enormous attention around the world, and that makes sense. Here’s the conclusion:

The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”

The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”

The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

A practical path to peace is to start with income security for all. It’s easy to understand how and why that is so.

From my perspective, the major obstacles to world peace are habitual ideas and attitudes, particularly the conventional practice of thinking in terms of abstractions, such as “war,” “peace,” “terrorism,” and “the economy.”

Instead of abstractions, the way thinking at the core of income security for all starts with individuals and our everyday lives.

Imagine that everyone in, say, Palestine has a guaranteed basic income, enough for food and shelter.

Ordinary Palestinians have never known economic security, no matter who governed their territory, Turkey, Great Britain, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, or the Palestinian Authority. There have been reports for years that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, inefficient, ineffectual; that was the main reason for the emergence of Hamas. About half of the 4.1 million Palestinians live below the regional poverty line of $2 a day. Unemployment is more than 40 percent overall, more than 60 percent in some areas.

Suppose the international community offered to provide the funds and help the Palestinians establish their own version of Citizen Dividends. Just $3 billion a year would double the incomes of the poorest. Every Palestinian would have a more direct stake in seeking peace, ending terrorism, and remaking the Palestinian Authority into an effective government that can negotiate with Israel. The plight of the Palestinians will no longer be a rallying point for Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and other enemies of Israel, including Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Moderate voices might finally be heard over the shouting of militants and fundamentalists.

A few billion dollars a year. That’s a lot less than current international aid to the region. It’s less, in fact, than the current aid that pays for weapons.

Does this make sense? Could it work, do you think? Have you heard anything else that might lead to peace in the Middle East?

The complete proposal, the benefits, and the plan to make it happen is in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

A lot of additional information about Citizen Dividends is on this web site, IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

Please explore the web site, read the book, and help spread the word.

We can achieve world peace, and we will, when We the People demand it.

Steven Shafarman

Sonia Sotomayor has become a household name since President Obama announced her as his pick for the Supreme Court.

Her life story is truly remarkable: Puerto Rican parents, growing up in the South Bronx, the death of her father when she was young, her mother working two jobs to support Sonia and her brother, Princeton University, Yale Law School, a distinguished legal career, and now this nomination.

Along with her story, we are of course hearing a lot about politics and the expected fight over her confirmation. Democrats appear to be uniformly elated, though a few have expressed remorse that Obama didn’t pick someone who’s more of liberal ideologue. Republicans are divided, and portrayed as being in a bind over how to oppose her.

Instead of writing about the politics of this nomination, I’m inspired to focus on a relevant subject that’s too often distorted by ideology – justice for all. That, of course, is the closing phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, which many of us learned when we were kids in school. “… with liberty and justice for all.”

Justice for all is impossible when only a few have real access to elected officials, while many others are mostly excluded. The very rich meet politicians at fundraisers; the rest of us may try to arrange meetings, but in most cases our phone calls are returned only by interns.

Income security for all will help level the legal, social, cultural, political, and economic playing fields.

This shouldn’t be a matter of liberals vs. conservatives or Democrats vs. Republicans. After all, the Pledge of Allegiance is nonpartisan.

Here’s how income security for all can work: There will be some baseline amount, say $1,000 a month, and our government will provide that for every adult citizen. It should be enough for food and shelter, but just enough, a basic income, so there will still be strong incentives to work, earn, and produce.

Major reasons for social exclusion are economic insecurity and economic inequality. People who are struggling to pay their bills, typically, cannot afford to be active citizens, participating in politics. Conversely, the very rich can readily hire lawyers, lobbyists, and PR professionals to advance their causes and plead their cases.

Even a basic income, $1,000 a month for every adult citizen, will do a great deal to reverse those injustices.

Sonia Sotomayor is truly exceptional, obviously. Her mother clearly did an extraordinary job in extremely difficult circumstances. Yet in a more just society, such exceptions would do more than prove the rule, they will also seek to help others to also become exceptional. Justice for all may require income security for all.

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor will one day write a Supreme Court majority opinion declaring that extreme economic inequality is, in itself, a violation of our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The complete proposal for income security for all is in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Guaranteed income was a mainstream, even moderate idea in the 1960s. Martin Luther King was a leading supporter, and a plan to provide a guaranteed income actually passed the House of Representatives in 1970 by a margin of two to one. More of that history is on the home page of this web site, IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

Steven Shafarman

There have been lots of news stories over the past two days about the Obama administration setting stricter fuel efficiency standards. Opponents insist that the new standards will raise car prices and hurt consumers, without much impact on climate change.

The continuing conflicts and complexities are clearly considered in a Wall Street Journal story. The first few paragraphs follow, and the complete article is here:

Obama Would Support Auto Incentives for Consumers

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration would support the idea of giving consumers additional incentives to buy fuel-efficient vehicles, a White House official said Tuesday.

The White House would likely favor tax credits for vehicle purchases over any proposal to raise the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gas tax, as many industry officials and transportation experts have recommended.

“We fought for the $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles in the Recovery Act,” the official said, and “our administration remains committed to policies to help bring the costs down” for consumers.

Industry officials in recent days have expressed concern that consumers might balk at paying a premium for costlier, more fuel-efficient cars and trucks if gas prices don’t rise to $4 per gallon or more in the years ahead.

The administration estimates fuel-economy regulations will add $1,300 on average to the price of new cars by 2016.

Suppose we start with income security for all, and every adult citizen is getting, say, $1,000 a month in addition to what we earn or get from other sources. Suppose, as well, that we pay for that, in part, through higher carbon taxes.

Everyone could afford to pay the higher gas taxes, higher costs for new efficient cars, higher costs for electricity, and so on. Everyone would have strong incentives to reduce fuel consumption, in order to save the money for other purposes.

Moreover, pairing the guaranteed income, Citizen Dividends, with the carbon tax is a way to make the carbon tax politically acceptable.

Among the most interesting aspects of the recent debates is the number of people who are saying that auto companies will make fuel-efficient vehicles when there’s a demand for them. As we saw last year, when fuel costs were so high, people were turning in their SUVs and buying much smaller cars. That was without any government mandates for vehicle fuel efficiency. That recent history is good evidence for this proposal to combine guaranteed income with carbon taxes.

(This idea, combining a guaranteed income and higher natural resource taxes, actually goes back to Thomas Paine and his 1793 pamphlet Agrarian Justice.)

The auto companies ought to be leading the campaign to enact this, because this would create huge demand for more efficient cars while providing people with the money to pay for them. Until now, auto companies have been saying that there’s not enough demand for more efficient cars. Higher fuel prices will create that demand, particularly if consumers know that prices will remain high. That certainty will come with a gas tax.

A more modest version of this is getting some public attention. It’s called “tax and dividend.” Most versions, however, would distribute the dividend as a cut in payroll taxes. That would leave out people who don’t work and earn, including the very poor and retired. A true guaranteed income would help everyone equally.

Guaranteed income was a mainstream, moderate idea in the 1960s. Martin Luther King called for it in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

The complete guaranteed income plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen – including a discussion of carbon taxes – is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

I hope you’ll comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

That phrase, “saved capitalism,” is one many historians use to describe Franklin Roosevelt’s actions in response to the Great Depression. We got Social Security; the FDIC, to insure bank deposits; the SEC, to protect investors and restore confidence in financial markets; and other government agencies and programs.

Roosevelt also reconceived government as “the employer of last resort.”

We’re now in the midst of the Great Recession, and Barack Obama is responding by trying to update or resurrect Roosevelt’s legacy. That appears logical, because current conditions are generally attributed to decades of deregulation. One form of deregulation has been the failure – most notably by the SEC, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department – to apply and enforce regulations.

Though Obama’s approach is keeping things from getting too much worse, it’s not enough. It’s only providing aid to people who are losing their jobs, bandaging the failed government programs, and comforting the victims of Wall Street’s excesses and crimes. Aiding, bandaging, and comforting are good, often necessary, but in this case mostly just rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. The deck-chairing can’t go on much longer. The ship really is sinking.

We need more fundamental reform, a peaceful, positive revolution.

It’s time to update an idea millions of Americans supported in the 1930s, an idea that was nearly enacted in the 1960s, an idea that actually has its roots in the founding of our nation. That idea is guaranteed income. We can and must ensure that every citizen has an income independent of any job. Income security for all.

In the 1960s, guaranteed income was a mainstream, moderate idea. Martin Luther King called for it in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

In the 1930s, mass movements for guaranteed income security generated the political will for Social Security, and that history is document on the official web site of the Social Security administration.

As for the Founders: Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine clearly endorsed ideas about income security. Think for a moment about the real meaning and logic of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Life requires food and shelter, and therefore an income to pay for food and shelter. Liberty is denied, at least partly, to people who cannot afford basic necessities. And happiness, though it is clearly more than money, almost always requires some income. If we sincerely believe in the ideals of the Declaration, it makes sense to enact income security for all.

The updated idea is to set some amount, say $1,000 a month, and provide that to every adult citizen. It should be enough for food and shelter, but just enough, so people still have strong incentives to work and earn.

Why don’t we have that? Because we individuals and We the People are not demanding it.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

But first:

Are you tired of news about “the economy”? When you listen to the people on TV and radio – the reporters, commentators, and authors; the bankers, CEOs, and economists; and the politicians, too – do you sometimes wonder if they even know what they’re talking about?

If you were to ask them a simple direct question, “What is ‘the economy’?”, do you think they could answer it? Most couldn’t, because it’s an abstraction.

Economists and some of the smarter politicians, President Obama, say, would likely define the phrase in terms of the GDP. That’s the total production of goods and services, all the stuff, but GDP is still rather abstract. And it includes lots of stuff that’s never used or shouldn’t be produced, such as weapons, crime, waste, and pollution.

A proposal: Turn off the talkers or tell them to shut up. Don’t be distracted or hypnotized or brainwashed by “the economy.” Let’s focus, instead, more concretely and specifically on our own economies. That’s important because there’s “the economy” of finance and Wall Street and economic analysts, and it’s very different than “the economy” of Main Street and ordinary people.

How is your economy? Do you have enough money? Could you get by if you or your spouse lost your job? What if you, your spouse, your child or a parent became seriously ill?

The way to fix “the economy” is to start with real people and our immediate needs and concerns. The most simple and direct strategy is to enact an idea that more than 1,200 economists endorsed in the 1960s – including economists from the left and the right who later won Nobel Prizes – and that is guaranteed income.

Instead of bailing out banks and subsidizing big corporations, we can and should give the money to ordinary people. Every adult citizen ought to get a basic income of, say, $1,000 a month tax free. Give the same amount to everyone, rich or poor, employed or unemployed, so we can distribute it with minimal bureaucracy and a real increase in equality.

“Citizen Dividends” would promote the general welfare, and we can pay for it by cutting the current programs that serve and subsidize only the special welfare of select individuals, groups, businesses, or industries. The general welfare, not the special interests. Bailout the people, not the banks.

This is a serious policy proposal. A guaranteed income plan passed the House of Representatives in 1970 by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Martin Luther King called for guaranteed income in his last book, describing it as necessary for real progress on homelessness, racism, and education. “There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum – and livable – income for every American family. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”

Before that, millions of Americans joined mass movements for income security in the 1930s, and their demands were key to enacting Social Security and other innovations. Similar ideas inspired the political reforms of the 1890s. Earlier proponents included Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Abraham Lincoln.

Why don’t we have it? Because we’re not demanding it. We will have it if each of us tells our friends and neighbors about these ideas, and if we then start working together as citizens, as members of the We the People.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

By “us” and “we” and “our” in those questions, I’m referring to ordinary Americans, those who used to be called the “silent majority.”

When we read about Obama, when we hear him on the radio and see him on television, we should remember something: America is a democracy. We citizens are his bosses. His job is to follow our directions.

Our job is give him clear directions. That means we have to be active citizens. We can’t just go to sleep and expect him to know and do what’s right.

It’s not enough to just complain, criticize, and protest. That’s particularly true these days, when some protests are like the anti-tax “tea parties” of two weeks ago. Those were mainly PR events for the Republican party and its friends at Fox news.

The reason I write this blog and work so hard to promote the idea of Citizen Dividends is that I want to live in a society based on real justice for all, real freedom for all, real dignity for all. Too often, it seems to me, justice, freedom, and dignity are just rhetoric.

Justice, freedom, and dignity are denied or impaired when people lack an income, enough for food and shelter at least. Income security for all is necessary.

But we can’t just sit back and wait for Obama to solve our problems for us. Indeed, if we expect him to do so, we’re just reinforcing our sense of powerlessness. And we’re actually making it less likely that there will be any real progress on climate change, health care, education reform, and so on.

What do you think? Do these ideas make sense to you? Do you see the connection between income security and democracy?

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word. That’s how real change happens, from individuals talking to our friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers.

Steven Shafarman

Universal community service could become a reality if we start with Citizen Dividends. In return for the basic income, we might ask everyone to contribute 8 hours a month to their communities. Everyone could afford to serve, and would be rewarded for serving. Each of us, all of us, would have monthly reminders that we’re all in this together, part of the community, as equals.

That reciprocity, unversal community service, is one addition to the guaranteed basic income that I proposed in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution: Economic Security for Every American.

These thoughts are inspired by President Obama signing a law yesterday that greatly increased funding for Americorps and other service programs. With him at the signing were Bill Clinton and Senator Ted Kennedy. Obama and Clinton then went to a nearby park and planted some trees.

“We need your service right now, at this moment in history,” Mr. Obama told an audience at the Seed School of Washington. “I’m not going to tell you what your role should be. That’s for you to discover. But I’m asking you to stand up and play your part. I’m asking you to help change history’s course.”

Republicans typically favor strictly voluntary service. George W. Bush affirmed that on many occasions, Colin Powell is renowned for advocating community service, and George H. W. Bush famously talked about people who serve as “a thousand points of light.”

We can have truly voluntary service that is also universal, because Citizen Dividends would ensure that everyone can afford to serve. With Citizen Dividends, moreover, because everyone would be receiving an equal amount, there would be real, positive social pressure on everyone to reciprocate and serve. No need for a government bureaucracy to monitor and enforce our service.

Steven Shafarman