Created on Sun Feb 01, 2009 12:58 am with 7 blog posts
Accepting dictators has long been a way of life -- for the majority of people throughout the world. It can change. It should change.
In the meantime, I think about a lot of other things, too. And post here on Frihost and other places.
Michael Totten nails why:
| Quote: |
| "Anti-Israeli sentiment is much deeper and broader in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza than anti-Americanism has ever been in Iraq. Israelis have no chance of getting the majority of Lebanese or, especially, Palestinians onto their side right now." |
The hatred of Israel is too deep, because it's too easy.
People like to hate others, too much.
I think they need to do occupation better -- more strict protection of moderates. Look around, there's plenty of work. What there is NOT, often, is somebody willing to pay you to do the work.
Getting paid to do work is a job. What almost every poor person needs, even more than money, is a job.
If I had a $1 T (trillion) to save the economy, here's what I'd do:
I would certainly NOT bail out any Big Banks, whose mostly unsupervised managers were paid Big Bucks to make profits (which they did) withOUT taking on more risk (in which they failed).
I actually agree that there should be a place for a non-capitalist system of wealth creation. I would define such a system, and fund it by offering start up capital for new companies following its pay incentives. (Free Market is great, capitalism is good -- it's best as creating wealth, new capital. It's maybe not as good as helping workers. Most other systems help workers too much, they are NOT sustainable. Capitalism, based on profits, IS sustainable. )
I'd call my new system "jobism", where managers of companies get paid based on how many employees they have.
I don't think the 10 * lowest wage as a salary cap is enough for 10 000 person companies, tho it might be for 100 person companies.
My incentive would be based on always more for the managers with more employees, but I don't know what ratios would produce the most job growth.
I'd start with a low base wage W of 120% of poverty income, or more, offered to all new employees.
(As this system gets more successful, that base W will slowly increase. With experience & company success, workers will slowly get more; but many good workers might well decide to leave for higher wages from capitalists. That would be OK, too.)
The Top Manager would start out with a salary that was the square root of the number of employees * W, e.g. with 4 employees, it would be 2 * W; with 9 employees 3*W, with 100 employees it would be 10* W (same as the above 10* lowest cap).
At some point the pay scales would need adjustments as the Top manager(s) need to manager other managers. All managers would have bonuses based on number of employees managed.
While the company would be run like a profit making company, every month and every quarter and every year, any "expected profit" would be used in a combination of bonus pay and new hiring. This would minimize the income profit tax, but also tend to push hiring new workers, constantly.
Some $500 bil. would be used to create internet based banks, and accounting / bookkeeping services, IT services, janitorial services, catering services -- any and all types of current companies. Based on business plans of anybody, plus a $50 000 prize for each business plan accepted & funded.
The other $500 bil. would be used to bid for currently foreclosed for sale houses, to be immediately offered for rent. The anti-Bush, anti-American, anti-capitalism press is very very quiet about this event.
I didn't know about the two assassinations. Very sad. But it's not at all clear from this point that "it's gonna get worse before it gets better". It looks like the worst was 2006, after the temple was bombed, and it's mostly going to get better from here on.
Thank God. for Bush. and America. and those who supported Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Far more freedom than any other Arab Muslim country now has, tho Lebanese enjoyed quite a bit not so long ago.
A successful, secular but religion-respecting Iraq might provide some hope for the Palestinian-Israeli problems, as well.
(Thanks for posting this thread.) From Bondings (personal message):
To change the category of a blog post, simply go the page of that blog post and below the comments there is a drop-down box with all the categories available. Selecting another one will change it to that category.
Well that's easy. I want this one in Tools, with try to change a prior own.
Most of the 'stimulus' passed won't happen fast, most won't even be in 2009.
Tax cuts could easily be done, NOW, and be working already.
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