An Occupy Declaration

Whereas, the government of the United States has hurt the majority of the people, while benefitting the few who can afford to pay Congress to give them our tax dollars and have them pay less money, the Occupy movement of the United States adopts the following goals as our official platform:

1. We stand for Universal Health Care like exists in the vast majority of the "First World"
2. We stand for a system that will allow people to access credit and get good deals by changing the way our credit system works.
3. We stand for a system where work is rewarded, and intelligence is paid, but bribery is punished, and those who steal are punished.
4. We stand for a system where people can easily get up from being poor to a place where they can be comfortable middle class if they are willing.
5. We stand for a system where there is no lobbying of money in Congress, but only by the merits of the lobbyists' arguments. A system where bribery is punishable by imprisonment.
6. We stand for a utilitarian economy to improve the United States of America and the world.
7. We stand against the status quo where the United States' foreign policy has not benefited the countries we invade but the companies who lobby.
8. We stand for a progressive tax structure and a complete overhaul of our tax code to simplify it.
9. We stand against anarchy.
10. We stand for a Democracy of, by, and for the People where the People vote responsibly.
11. We stand for accessible government.
12. We stand for just copyright laws.
13. We stand for job accessibility to not be determined by your housing status, to end that cycle of poverty where the homeless can't get a job without a home and can't get a home without a job.
14. We stand for publicly run and publicly funded elections across the United States.
15. We stand for a prison system that focuses on rehabilitation.
16. We stand to switch the War on Drugs to a medical fight in the hospitals with a focus on rehabilitation, not incarceration, as opposed to a military war.
17. We stand to audit the Department of Defense.
18. We stand to continue to insure bank and credit union deposits.
19. We will continue to remove our money from financial institutions that do not treat us respectfully.

These are more or less what Occupy stood for in the beginning, and something that if the President of the United States chose to embrace could strengthen our economy in such a way that hasn't been seen since the New Deal.

A future American Election System with a reasonable amendment

I posted a summary I researched on how the American election currently works on January 4th on this blog, followed by a first analysis on how it should be done. I left a few things out, states can set their own standards on who can vote, people are not automatically registered to vote, and laws are being passed in the Deep South to disenfranchise African Americans and Hispanic Americans who are citizens. This is wrong, but is legal, as Fair Vote points out on their website. This is an updated analysis following further research designed to work better.


I agree with Fair Vote on many issues, but they leave out the most important part of our election system, the primary, so I hope that they can find this and add on how desperatly America needs to fix our primary system with a fair alternative with some similar aspects to what exists in Washington State along with Instant Runoff. Here is my proposed Constitutional Amendment to strike out the following parts of the Constitution:




Article 1, Section 4

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representatives from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

Amendment 12My proposed amendment is as follows.


Fair Election Amendment to the Constitution of the United States


Section 1 Candidates for the Presidency, House of Representatives, and Senate will register with the Federal Election Commission no sooner than 18 months prior to the election day and no later than 12 months prior to the election day for those offices. Candidates for the House of Representatives will need 1% of electors in their district to sign on their petition to the Federal Election Commission to become a candidate, candidates for the Senate will need 1% of electors in their state to sign on their petition to the Federal Election Commission to become a candidate, and candidates for the Presidency will need 1% of electors in the country to sign on their petition to the Federal Election Commission to become a candidate. Petitions must be submitted 9 months prior to election day, and the citizens who have met the quota will become candidates and receive their money for their campaigns.


Section 2 Candidates for the Presidency, House of Representatives, and Senate will receive their campaign money from the Federal Election Commission. Candidates may use only this money for the election and may not use their own money or money from private donations. The Federal Election Commission will be fully funded by donations from American citizens. At the end of the election all money that is unused for the campaign will be returned to the Federal Election Commission.


Section 3 The Primary election for the President will end on the 2nd Saturday of August. The candidates will run on a single ballot and the ballot will be the same for every elector. The ballot will be a preferential voting ballot, with the candidate that is the most favored by the elector getting first place, and the candidate with the second favorite getting second place and so on. Electors may vote for up to 6 candidates in order. First place will receive 6 votes, second place will receive 5 votes, and so on until 6th place will receive one vote. The totals will be added up and the five candidates with the most votes will proceed to the General Election. Candidates for every seat of Congress will be elected in the same manner on the same day in their districts. Electors may cast their vote as early as the 2nd Saturday of May. A candidate may step down at any point in the election.


Section 5 The General election for President will end on the 2nd Saturday of November. The five candidates who got the most votes in the primary will be on the same ballot across the country. Electors will rank the candidates one to three with the candidate in first place receiving three votes, the candidate in second place receiving 2 votes, and the candidate in third place receiving 1 vote. The candidate with the most votes will win the election. Electors may cast their vote as early as the 2nd Saturday of October. A candidate may not step down part way through the election.


Section 6 The 2nd Saturday of August and 2nd Saturday of November are national bank holidays.


Section 7 The Vice-President of the United States will be voted alongside the Presidential candidates in the General election.


Section 8 Elector as used in this amendment is defined as an American citizen 18 years of older.


Section 9 Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


As you can see, this is a compilation of several different solutions which are used throughout the world. I have selected one ballot with all the candidates for everyone because it will avoid political parties controlling our system as they do today. They are limited to the amount of money from the FEC because that will prevent them from having multiple loyalties, one to their constituents, one to their investors. I set the election dates on Saturdays lasting for one month because that will allow everyone a chance to vote, and will be convenient for everybody. I got the idea for a multiple month primary from Jonathan Soros' plan, but I felt that a 6 month primary would lead to the same election fatigue that it leads to today, so I cut it down to 3 months which will probably be enough to be convenient for all without feeling like the election lasts forever, plus 3 is nice because it is one quarter of the year. I set the final date on Saturday to increase turnout because when people realize at the end of the season they still haven't voted they can still have a day where they won't have work and won't disrupt a lot of people's schedule, and having it as a national bank holiday will slow down commerce enough that people can focus on voting. I used preferential voting to allow third parties to have a chance, and to allow people who will be divided between candidates to choose one.
It also will allow different sides, liberal, conservative, libertarian, green, to choose the best candidate who represents their philosophy without giving the power to a private election which naturally disenfranchises voters who may lean towards two or more parties. If we had the primary as a one vote without preferential voting than the side with the fewest candidates will dominate the general election. For example, if the Republicans have 10 candidates and the Democrats have 5 candidates with a public one-choice primary than the General election will be dominated by Democrats, because where the Republicans are divided among ten the Democrats have their votes with only 5 candidates of which the candidates with the most votes will almost definitely be Democratic, and the Green, Libertarian, and Constitutional Parties will be locked out. However, if we have preferential voting than the General election will be able to have people representing multiple parties, each side will almost always have a clear favorite who was the first and second choice in most ballots and proceed, and the same in the Democratic candidates. But by having an open party, lets say a Democratic voter said the following logic with the 2008 candidates, "Now, I really like Clinton and Obama,but I prefer Obama, when comparing Clinton to Nader I prefer Nader, and then McKinney (the Green party candidate) comes in third place after Nader with Clinton in fourth, out of the Republican candidates I like Giuliani the best, followed by John McCain in 6th place." Making this person's vote the following:

1. Obama
2. Nader (Independent)
3. McKinney (Green)
4. Clinton
5. Giuliani (Republican)
6. McCain (Republican)

The Republican would vote the same way, possibly like this:

1. McCain
2. Giuliani
3. Romney
4. Barr (Libertarian)
5. Baldwin (Constitutional)
6. Huckabee

These two hypothetical voters have given their preferred candidates and have chosen the candidates that they think will do the best job, regardless of party. This will allow both ideological sides to choose the people they think do the best job without the side with the fewest candidates winning. We have taken power of selecting candidates away from the 5000 or so appointed delegates to select whoever they want and given it to the 200,000,000 Americans who are eligible to vote. In the end, it won't be about the party, it will be about voter preference and who will do the best job for their country. That is what elections should be about, the country. When it comes to the General election, there is still a need for a two-tier election system even though we have preferential voting in the primary. This is because we will still have two sides with big names, and if one side had given their support more evenly to one side than another, they will lose, even though they have the potential to win the election, having a two-tier system levels the playing field between ideologies. In this hypothetical system in 2008 where the three candidates who won the preferential primary went against each other we probably would have seen the following:

• Obama
• McCain
• Clinton
• Nader
• Romney

Once again we see the same choices that were presented earlier, but with fewer choices which allows different sides to come down to the candidate the ideology prefers without limiting people to party choices, which is fair to everybody. The candidate who got the most votes in the end would win the election and there would be no question as to who the country prefers. In this 2012 Presidential election I expect the following candidates would be on the final ballot using this system. By allowing candidates to step down through the primary it would allow the general election to see more viewpoints represented and allow candidates to focus on the person they think would do the better job. The only question that remains is who the vice-president will be, and by allowing people to step down in the primary to run alongside another candidate in the general gives Americans a chance to see an example of who that person would appoint if he/she were indeed elected President, and has been a major deciding factor in the past because of the accurate test of judgement it presents.

Here you have it, a fully functional non-partisan election which will be constitutional and undebatable. It will allow the American People to be in control of the country and select who we think will be our best President. The election will not be so long that people get bored, or so short that there hasn't been enough of a chance to get the best candidate. The preferential voting will allow voters who are torn between two candidates to still get their best choices there, and represent us, the people, better. By not allowing private donations it will remove the division of loyalties which is poisoning our political process now, just look at how Congress is functioning in both parties and will seriously cut down on corruption. It truly has the potential to let our government be of, by, and for the people.

Why the new bailout for Greece will not work.

Just logged on to Wikipedia today to look at the news because they always cover the biggest news stories on the top of the page and found to my delight that Greece will get a second bailout. This could have been a wonderful thing for Europe and the United States, and will be different from the first, because several variables have changed.

1 History facts
First, the first bailout was in April 2010, during that time Papandreou was Prime Minister, which except for 5 years his party PASOK had been in power since 1993. He was a highly corrupt Prime Minister and ineffective at leading his country, leading them to financial ruin and taking in almost no money. If you want a balanced accurate look at the history of this mess I highly recommend NPR's Planet Money's 340th episode from January 24th 2012 which explained the issue perfectly. The biggest issue is people didn't pay their taxes, the same reason America has a large deficit with such low spending (relative to the countries of Canada and all nations of Northern Europe) That is pretty much all you need to know about the issue.

2 Current situation.
Papademos is the new Prime Minister of Greece. He has been the Governor of the Bank of Greece from 1994 to 2002, and Vice President of the European Central Bank from 2002 to 2010. This guy is an experienced economist. This is his first political office that has not had economics as his prime function. He is also has been a Columbia University faculty member, John F. Kennedy School of Government faculty member, and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens faculty member. This guy has experience with the subject! He is 64 years old and a member of the Trilateral Commission and Academy of Athens. His school of economic thought is pro-Europe (which is good). Unfortunately he is a supply-side economist, also known as trickle down, the policy of America's most failed President in the realm of economics, Herbert Hoover. Nothing else matters. (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15643454)

Europe is now officially screwed. America should not bail them out, Papademos as a supply-side economist will abuse it, and Greece needs to kick him out as fast as they possibly can and replace him with a Stockholm school economist. According to history, this will happen. Papademos will not save Europe.

Europe needs to kick Greece out of the eurozone now. They need to figure out how to fix their own problems, because they will not learn if they are part of the Europe. There needs to be a new resolution so that a country can leave the Eurozone while staying in the Schengen Area (the only shred of hope for the Greek economy I can see now.) because they will not solve the problems. Supply-side economics is extremely traditional, and has never solved any economic downturn. With this fool in charge of Greece and the opposition of Merkel and Sarkozy to having countries leave the Euro I fear for the world.

Greece must stay in the schengen zone though, because if New Dawn came to power Greeks need to keep contact with the rest of Europe. If Greece left the free travel zone war becomes a possibility.

I wrote this in February 2012.
I hope I am wrong.

I support Occupy, here are the problems.

I was a regular attendee to my local Occupy protest for the first few weeks of the protest and went until we were evicted. I support the basic goal of Occupy to remove corruption from our government.

I just did an exercise to see the richest people in history, and made a spreadsheet with their wealth in a spreadsheet. The richest man in history was Mir Osman Ali Khan, the sultan of Hyderabad who when adjusted for inflation had a miraculous $790,341,000,000 in 1948 adjusted for inflation. This has not been surpassed. The second richest man in all of history was John D. Rockefeller at 663.4 billion dollars adjusted for inflation. You keep going down the list and you will not find anyone whose business deals with money for moneys sake until Warren Buffett, and there are no CEOs of major banks with billions of dollars (according to Forbes) who have not got their wealth through investments. However, look back at number 2, John D. Rockefeller, the man who was the CEO of Standard which had to be broken up by the Federal Government for their monopolistic practices. After then there were a handful of corporations that controlled the economy, moving the oil industry from a monopoly to an oligopoly.

Banks are different however. If I chose to, I could set up a bank of my own. It's a free market in the vast majority of the economy, as it should be! Credit unions are across the nation that give people better rates, better service, and better deals. People have the right to move their money from one to another, and people should to save their wealth. That is why I would have taken part in bank transfer day if I didn't already have all my money in credit unions.

The biggest problem is the system, this consensus model that was used failed. Things that should have been decided were not, and the anarchists had the ability to destroy Occupy. I wouldn't be surprised if people from the Tea Party had infiltrated camp and caused trouble, this caused no decisions to be made, which caused real problems really quickly and shut down the camps efficiently.

The Tea Party had one thing right. Their goals were unpatriotic and slightly treasonous, but they wanted to make real change to our system by electing people to Congress and Legislatures. They have now made real changes to our political landscape that has damaged our nation giving more power to the corporations they truly represent. See Citizens United. If Occupy had done the same thing we could have filled Congress with new representatives and senators who would have been able to make real positive changes to America's economy and make sure that the government listens to all the people, not just the rich. And by keeping our major check and balance for two years through organizing, setting up a real third party with real potential, and sending letters to them to keep them based in reality, we could make real change that is necessary to the survival of our nation. No nation can survive long with a large underclass and a small ruling class where the ruling class tramples the underclass, the Soviet Union proved that along with many other examples throughout modern history. This is the key to our ultimate success, or failure. It is up to us and no one else!

Also, when Occupy was evicted they didn't move out into the area around the cities which could have been a really powerful tool. We can still do this, and hopefully we will. I hope that we can end the corruption in our government and make our country a better place.

Things that "conservative, literal" Christians and Jews do and don't follow.

There is a lot of talk against gay rights in the United States (and other Christian-majority nations) where their only argument is "it's in the Bible, so it's wrong." I am going to make a list of all the prohibitions and laws in Leviticus that I have not seen done by any Christian or Jew who opposes Gay marriage (See Orthodox Jew).

• Burnt offerings
• Animal offerings
• Offer an animal when you sin.
• Offer grain.
• The guilt offering
• Do not eat blood (yes, rare meat is out of bounds.)
• Do not eat fat
• Do not eat pigs
• Do not touch carcasses of unclean animals
• Do not eat shellfish
• Infectious skin disease rules.
• Mildew regulations
• Women's menstraul secretions make her unclean for 7 days.
• No work on the tenth day of the seventh month.
• Do not plant two different types of seeds in one field.
• The fruit of a tree is out of bounds for the first three years of its life.
• Do not mistreat aliens in your land.
• Feast of Tabernacles on the 15th day of the 7th month.
• Stone blasphemers.
• People who kill others are to be killed.

There are all these rules that Christians are supposed to follow, and none of them do.  They do not follow all the rules. Yet they get upset at people who are gay. I see a double standard. If a Christian wants to follow every law in the Bible, than they should try it for a week and see if they make it. In today's world they probably won't.

Would you want all those laws above the law in the United States as many far-right people call for? I don't. That would be the death of our country. As the Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" which the ACLU defends daily from the onslaught of the far-right. It would be illegal and these so-styled "Constitutionalists" would do well to read the constitution and key judicial decisions on this subject. Also, read the whole text, not just the part that you find fits your current views, which often change without reason or notice.

Drill Baby Drill. Economical Analysis into the impact of the proposed American Oil drilling

There has been a lot of talk over the past few years over drilling for oil. Proponents claim that this will save the American economy, opponents claim that it will destroy the environment. On the saving the American economy with hundreds of thousands of jobs, the Cornell Global Labor Institute did research and found the total net gain to the Keystone Pipeline would be between 20-127 permanent jobs total. When we do the drilling in the Tundra and Taiga of North Alaska as has been proposed we will ravage hundreds of thousands of acres of land that are currently protected and have a gigantic amount of permafrost storing enough water to raise sea levels (scientific fact unopposed by any scientist). They also claim that this will bring down oil prices with the current economic system by increasing supply. Here is why that is practically impossible and wishful thinking.

There are 18 large oil companies in the United States, all private, an anomaly in the world, with Exxon Mobile dominating by a longshot. Unless we allowed foreign corporations to drill our oil (which would be basically outsourcing the profits to their headquarters) those 18 would be the only companies that would benefit from drilling oil. An oligopoly of less CEOs than a modern typical Kindergarten classroom by the way. What is to stop them from gathering in the Cayman Islands and discussing what their prices are going to be? The answer is absolutely nothing. In fact, only 5 of those companies make the list of the 187 largest corporations of the world, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, and Marathon Oil. It is safe to assume that the other 13 companies would get very small stakes and these five could outbid the others, increasing their profits and leaving the others to rot from the other companies' dominance.

Now, with five companies in control of North Alaska (which is safe to assume) what is to stop them from decreasing oil prices to give the illusion that this worked? Nothing at all. In fact, they could bring the prices so low that the other 13 companies would be drowned out of the market with their massive stocks. Seems like those stinking liberals were wrong again! Not quite. As I just said, 13 companies just went bankrupt and a majority of Americans are thinking that our oil concerns are over with prices at 80 cents per gallon, maybe lower. With only 5 companies now they can do pretty much whatever they want, they can raise prices and we will have nowhere else to turn, given that they control the vast majority (over 80%? likely) of America's oil. They then could raise prices as high as they want without increasing the pay of oil workers. That is a very scary scenario and very likely. We would have no other places to get our oil either, because of their corruption of our political system and probable sanctions on foreign oil in the name of "national security", and with the amount of money they have they will probably increase the amount they already donate to our political system (source: www.opensecrets.org) which will make politicians who oppose them be out-campaigned by the oil oligopoly's choice.

Did I forget to mention? Alaska is now completely covered with oil rigs in the north, destroying habitat beyond the travel region of most Americans (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil) which the mass media (which they already control, just watch some public or counter-media and you will be amazed) will fail to report yet again. This water has to go somewhere, matter cannot be destroyed, which means it will go to the oceans, and sea level will rise. The increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will poison our environment and make recovering from climate change (which is supported by every scientist in good standing with the scientific community) a lot further down the road than it is currently.

The prices have risen too, so a period of oh, let's say 50 years, which has already been proven to make most people forget what life was truly like and gives enough time for history to be rewritten (point in case: America's mass-transit system, look up "Great American Streetcar Scandal" on youtube, you will be amazed at the corruption) which will make recovery more difficult than it is now. Social revolution? Likely.

Let's not go down this path, it will bring nothing but pain to 99.9% of all people in the world. I hope I am not being too bleak and dreary, but this is truly what is going to happen if we drill in Alaska. Economists, whether they are socialist or capitalist do agree on one thing, private oligopolies are bad. Prices will not come down in the long-run, we will not be truly energy independent, we will just be getting ripped off by the oil companies who already have control of shipping. If you doubt my claim that controlling the means to shipping (fuel) can cause someone to control an economy, read "Dune" by Frank Herbert and watch out for the Guild which did exactly that.

Again, energy independence will not come from more oil drilling, it will come from renewable resources which are exactly that, renewable and cannot be monopolized or oligopolized. That is the only path to energy independence for the United States of America.

3 companies, 2 bail-outs, trillions of dollars of tax-payer money SAVED

I just saw a very interesting story on CBS Sunday Morning for 22 January 2012 on the auto industry of the United States and what happened. First, some background

The year is 2008 and every American manufacturer have mostly been building monster cars that are the size of tanks, thousands of cars go unsold (according to Sunday Morning) and their net revenue collapses. Millions of Americans are at risk of losing their jobs, 100 years of heritage, down the drain. President Obama proposes to bail out a number of corporations who have paid back the money (don't tell CBS, FOX, NBC, or ABC by the way, that makes the government look good) to the present date. The act known as TARP spent $17,400,000,000 on Automotive manufacturers. They were loans, not gifts. All corporate media is clearly against our government by misreporting this fact.

Assuming every unemployed worker got $10,000 for unemployment per year had the companies failed, the government would have paid that to every worker, using 2010 employment numbers, adding over $516,230,000 for Chrysler, $2,020,000,000 for General Motors, or $2,536,230,000 for both companies. I could stop here, but that wouldn't be enough, these 253,623 Americans also had earning potential. Assume they worked at $10 per hour on average (Union and non-Union workers, they get different wages, the benefit of representation and the cost of not having those protections) at 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, comes out to $25,362,300,000 lost income per year for the United States for a few years, which is a dollar value higher than that which the government spent to keep car companies afloat, meaning in other words, a net gain to the economy of $7,937,700,000, which is a low-ball figure.

 I believe in representing money without scientific notation, because scientific notation gives the wrong impression, the difference between 10 million and 10 trillion don't look very different to the average you write $10,000,000 and $10,000,000,000,000 when the difference becomes obvious to everybody, because of that I put no scientific notation in this post to keep perspective intact.

All American manufacturing companies have received new management that are more responsible and in-tune to what Americans actually want, as Honda and Toyota have been for years.

I understand what the people who claim this was an irresponsible thing to do are saying, but they are not looking long-term. They are seeing the immediate cost of $17,400,000,000 and say it is too much, without realizing that the amount of money that would have been spent on unemployment, and the amount of taxable income is a savings for the government, given the unemployment.

The same sort of analysis can be done for the bailout of the big four banks. President Obama had a choice, spend $17,400,000,000 dollars to keep them afloat or spend several trillion dollars fulfilling the government's promises to pay on the insurance through the FDIC and NCUA to every bank that collapsed. Presidents Bush and Obama and Congress made the right decision saving trillions of dollars in national debt to pay out the insurance to every American that has a bank account in a bank that sputtered, or keeping them afloat. Granted, it would have been prudent to divide them up into regional banks to prevent their influence, but the Republicans wouldn't go along with that so there was no use in trying because of the filibuster. So they did the least of all evils. If Americans want to break them up (which is a good idea given the amount of influence they have) than they would have to tell Congress in an election that they want to see it, we didn't, so it isn't going to happen with our voter turnout.

As I have proved in this point the government made the right decision to bail out these companies and replace their management, and saved trillions of dollars. They also avoided a great depression which was inevitable if we had lost our financial system, it would have taken a decade to recover. We did it in three years. Trillions of dollars and millions of jobs saved.