EVERYONE CAN BE WEALTHY

EVERYONE CAN BE WEALTHY

BUT WE CAN’T AFFORD

THESE MONEY HOARDING BILLIONAIRES ANYMORE

TIME TO DECIDE: Is the impossible dream of being a billionaire more important to you than a higher standard of living for everyone?

There is enough for everyone! Enough food, water, land, housing, medicine, and things like paid time off, vacations and travel, toys, music, sporting equipment, etc.

It is the distribution of resources that are creating our problems! Before World War 2, before the Technological Age, the world population was never more than 2 billion. It is now 7.8 billion. And humans are using resources at a rate never experienced before. Even if the population were still 2 billion, we would be facing this crisis at some point. Things are too unequal.

We could all be “rich.” Let’s look at what wealth really is.

WEALTH

Wealth is having more than enough.

Wealth is an abundance.

Abundance exists in nature.

Wealth is specific to humans.

TWO WAYS TO CREATE WEALTH

Wealth can only be created by two things: exploitation of natural resources and human labor. Wealth only exists when there is more than what is needed. A human alone, eating and using only the resources necessary for survival, would still need to labor, but would not create wealth for someone else.

Natural resources can be depleted. Human labor exists as long as humans exist, and without wealth. 

Natural resources plus labor can create wealth. And human labor can create wealth on its own. For example: A tour guide or other non-material service (labor).  A tour bus (natural resources turned into a bus using human labor).

Money and currency are the main way we exchange labor and natural resources.

If I have enough extra to give you or loan you something, that is wealth. That is wealth for both of us.

DEBT IS WEALTH

The distribution of wealth can also create wealth (interest). And the distribution of wealth is performed by human labor (like loan officers, bankers, etc).

If I set up an unfair economic arrangement (by use of force, or coercion, or persuasion, or contentment) and you accept the arrangement, that is still wealth.

If you work and create the item (or money, or credit) that I am loaning or giving you, that is still wealth.

Even if you cannot pay your debts, a debt is wealth.

THE U.S. DOLLAR IS BASED ON DEBT INTEREST

Until 1933 the dollar was backed by gold. The Federal Reserve had to keep enough gold to cover 40% of its demand notes. The Gold Standard is now obsolete. 

The U.S. Government's promise has replaced gold. But all of the U.S. Government's money is from taxes (income, excise, and social insurance, and any interest derived from investing taxpayer funds). The U.S. Government does not produce any wealth of its own. It is really the taxpayer's promise that backs the U.S. dollar.

New money is created when the banks make a loan.  The Treasury prints money for the Federal Reserve. (They can “unprint” money, too, but this has little effect on the “mundane” economy, beyond balancing the books, as in 2008.)

The banks (not the government) earn money from the interest.  When the banks make bad loan decisions, like in 2008, the government “bails out” the banks with taxpayer money.  Even though the banks did not lose their own money or do anything to earn the money.

In 2008, the banks got paid twice for crashing the global financial system.  The banks got bailout money and they kept all the houses. The people that lost their homes still had to pay their taxes to the U.S. government or go to jail.

Banks are supposed to pay taxes on the profits they make from loan interest payments.  The U.S. Tax Code allows banks to define their profits as net zero. They do not usually pay taxes.  When banks do pay taxes, they pay extraordinarily little.

THE FEDERAL DEBT AND THE FEDERAL DEFICIT

The national debt is accumulated deficits.

A deficit is a shortage of money.

The U.S. Government has a $23 trillion deficit. $23 trillion divided by 327 million people (the entire population of the U.S.) equals $70,337 per person. 

Every single person (babies, retirees, disabled - everyone) in this country would have to pay an extra $70,337 in taxes to level that shortage. To do that each person would have to earn an extra $200,962 in their lifetime and pay 35% of that in taxes.

A person working full time and making federal minimum wage ($15,080 a year) would need to work an extra 13 years and four months to earn $200,962.

FREELOADERS AND HOARDERS

Banks are freeloaders (leeches, really), and so are large corporations.  Large corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes.  Amazon made $11 billion dollars profit in 2018.  They did not pay any taxes.  Their tax return showed that they were owed $129 million in tax breaks.

Since the minimum wage does not cover the cost of living, taxpayers also subsidize corporations by supporting low wage workers with the Earned Income Tax credit, welfare like Food stamps and Medicaid, and other government programs. Welfare is really paid to the rich.

Most wealthy people pay a lower percentage of taxes than minimum wage workers.  In 1944 the tax rate for someone earning the equivalent of $2.5 million today was 94 percent.  Today it is 37%. We need to raise the taxes on the wealthy. A higher tax bracket would prevent the accumulation of excessive wealth.

We also need to charge transaction tax on stock market purchases, close the carried interest loophole, and limit inherited wealth.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO WORK

Wealthy people do not always work, and when they do, it is rarely the “essential work” that our society requires. We need to require at least one year of civic service, at the very least, from everyone.

And if everyone worked, we could all work less.  To have all these advances like automated check outs, and agricultural machinery that can replace back breaking human labor, and to not use them because “they are taking away someone’s job” is ridiculous. 

Labor (and resources) need to be divided fairly.  The people who worked through the Covid pandemic are worth billions.  Not Jeff Bezos.  And Bezos should not be sitting on his yacht having meetings on how to hoard more money while his employees work without a living wage, benefits, or union representation.

TRASH IS TO WEALTH WHAT SHITTING IS TO EATING

Trash is also a form of wealth. A wealth of the wrong kind. Packaging, plastic and paper grocery bags, used motor oil, fast food ketchup packets, disposable diapers- all of these things were created by human labor and natural resources. Our trash will outlive us and our money.

Recycling is reaching its limit of usefulness.  And recycling requires resources.  Those plastic grocery bags? It takes more resources to recycle them then to make more. And even the recycled ones only more plastic bags and packaging.

Our trash is poisoning our environment, now and hundreds of years in the future. Humans require a very narrow set of circumstances to survive- a 100-degree temperature range, a certain ratio of oxygen and water, etc.  If you are 60 years old or younger and have an average life expectancy in the US of 77 years, you will experience water shortages, supply chain breakdowns, more pandemics, and grid disruptions, with more and more frequency unless we change our ways. 

What has been happening since 2019 and Covid will only increase.  Even if we don’t have another global pandemic.  And once the disruptions and shortages being, they will snowball. Those of us in developed countries, that are the most grid dependent, will suffer the most. 

We not only need those computer chips for our phones and televisions, we need them for almost everything. Stocking up on toilet paper is not going help when public utilities aren’t working.

We need to start thinking about wealth differently.  We are producing (and consuming) more than is necessary simply for the benefit of a small percentage of people that contribute nothing and give very little. We need to start talking to our reps and each other about a new and better future for all of us. (Except those lazy billionaires.) oneminuterevolution.blogspot.com