To: Eithne Fitzgerald, Biophilos, Rob Reid, JOHN.ATKIN, and other reformers on Burt's copy list. Hi Folks, Please find below the last two paragraphs of my 09-08-30 post "Reform," with a correct spelling of implement, and the full text of four helpful replies to date to that 09-08-30 post. Why is it, that our discussion of social reform (rule 1) seems to skip over the expense of supporting children until they enter the workforce, and concentrate on the expense of educating children until they enter the workforce? Those two expenses are of similar magnitude, as reported in the U.S. literature, each item is about 5% of GNP, or similar to the U.S. defense budget. Every industrial nation does education well enough, but the U.K. and the U.S. have left the other expense in the family budget, except for token contributions from inadequate exemptions from personal income taxes. An important item of information that is still missing from the global model at <http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html> is the ratio of indirect taxes on the capital plant to direct taxes on personal income consisting of wages, salaries, dividends, and interest. My only data on indirect taxes is an impression that indirect taxes in Switzerland, Japan, and the U.S. contribute about 10% of the total public revenue, and the total public revenue is about 30% of GNP in those three countries, I know of no industrial nations with total taxes less than 30% of GNP. At the other extreme, the U.S.S.R. collected 82% of the public revenue from indirect taxes on the capital plant. My 1994 guess at total taxes in the U.S.S.R., as plotted on Figure ! of the global model, was an uninformed guess. If all the general and administrative expense of the capital plant (30% of sales) is counted in the public revenue under communism (total tax rate), I should have located the U.S.S.R. at 75% of GNP on Figure 1. As Figure 6 shows, when indirect taxes are high, the role of the market, in the democratic process of reforming society, is diminished proportionally. Russia is the reference point on this question of indirect taxes vs social reform. Of course, some people will prefer the status quo on this question, for the short run. But what of the long run? Not all of us will be dead. In support of the FAITH in the possibility of a common denominator of social reform, consider the validity of this observation by Spinoza, 1670: >> "Now it is a universal law of human nature that no one ever neglects anything which he judges to be good, except with the hope of gaining a greater good, or from the fear of a greater evil; nor does anyone endure an evil except for the sake of avoiding a greater evil, or gaining a greater good. That is, everyone will, of two goods, choose that which he thinks the greatest; and, of two evils, that which he thinks the least. I say advisedly that which he thinks the greatest or the least, for it does not necessarily follow that he judges right. This law is so deeply implanted in the human mind that it ought to be counted among eternal truths and axioms." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> End quotation from Spinoza <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I cannot comment in greater detail on each of your four replies at this time. But I hope this post will encourage a wider participation in the search for the common denominator of social reform. Kind regards, WesBurt >>>> Begin last two paragraphs and four replies <<<< My Figure 1 of the Global Model at <http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html> shows that only the U.S. and the U.K. implement the first rule at 50% of an adequate level, while the other industrial nations fully implimented rule 1 by 1946. I don't have any data on how well other nations implement the second rule, but who ever pays those campaign expenses, makes the laws. Maybe these two rules would make sense to the public, if enough reformers could agree on them and talk them up. When these two rules are followed, every thing else is easy in the corporation. Regards, WesBurt XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Subj: junk mail Date: 99-08-31 05:40:50 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eithne Fitzgerald) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I would appreciate if you exercised a little more care in selecting recipients of mail, and refrained from broadcasting your e-mails generally to an entire mailbase. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Subj: Re: Reform Date: 99-08-31 10:27:17 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good points to remember Wes ....... thanks for the contribution. Education to me is the key value to the health of a society. As to the political campaign funds..... obvious the ruling elite likes the situation just as it is. Mr Smith goes to Washington sort of thing. When you mention about age and work I remember a quote from Albert Schweitzer that you might appreciate. "It is not always granted to the sower to live to see the harvest. All work that is worth anything is done in ---FAITH." Biophilos ~~~~~~~~~ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Subj: Re: Reform Date: 99-09-01 11:36:32 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob Reid) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Multiple recipients of list) At 21:16 30/08/1999 +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [parts removed ...] >2, Adequately fund the executive compensation budget (about 10% of $sales). >In the U.S. we pay our Congressmen about 4.5 times the average wage, or >$135,000/year. But our Congressmen and Senators must raise an additional >$1,000,000/year to cover their campaign expenses every two or four years. > >Our elected representatives (? Democracy ?) face a greater financial obstacle >than a worker trying to support a wife and four children on the minimum wage. > And we wonder why corruption is so common. > >My Figure 1 of the Global Model at ><http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html> shows that only the U.S. and the >U.K. impliment the first rule at 50% of an adequate level, while the other >industrial nations fully implimented rule 1 by 1946. I don't have any data >on how well other nations impliment the second rule, but who ever pays those >campaign expenses, makes the laws. > If you take the Rule-2 analogy and apply it back to the corporation, this means you would justify a business executive's salary mainly on what they spend on canvassing to get hired!! What about the British model, where there are strict limits on what can be spent on campaigning? I'm not necessarily saying you shouldn't pay your executive at an adequate rate, but don't use campaign expenses as the justification! Also - Wes assumes that high salaries for politicians will reduce corruption. Evidence on the world scene in recent years doesn't seem to support this assumption! Rob Reid XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx 4 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Subj: European view of Reform Date: 99-09-02 03:44:06 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JOHN.ATKIN) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Burt Wes) Following your remarks on Education and so on - the difficulty will be to align European ideas with the US In France we have the following 1) a very large public sector which must be serviced - this is done by the redistribution by the government of collected taxes.This obviously includes education and retirement pensions both the basic state (government pension) for ALL workers and the earnings related pension for state employees. 2) Private industry earnings related pensions which are financed by the current workers who pay for the retired people ( this is the "contrat de générations" which was introduced in 1945+) 3) Points 1) and 2) are being subjected to intense pressure both by the Internationalisation of the main companies and the desire of industry/finance to less contribute to state employee pensions ( and seemingly inefficient state operations) It seems at this time that we will probably have a mix of state aid and private pension funds - this is causing a lot of debate as you can imagine ! As regards education - this will probably stay mostly public and means that education will be easily accessible to anybody with the minimum university entry requirements. Regarding education in the USA compared to Europe - In the recent symposiums and research meetings I attended ( and also in many large US labs I visited ) most work scientific work seemed to be done by "first generation immigrants" from India , Europe and so on. This would mean that other countries were paying for higher US education . There is a similar pattern for the UK. Germany in my opinion has a similar situation to France. As a last remark - in France there is a long tradition of state intervention (as in Germany) .To catch-up with UK industry in the 17th 18th century state-run industry was introduced but with-out adequate back-up credit due to virtually non-existant banking facilities ( and in fact the lack of suitable credit facilities - and state bankrupcy - was probably one of the main reasons for the "French Revolution") It is going to be very difficult to align European culture with US - which is why I ask - how to get World reform agreements ? / John XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx 5 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX >>>> End last two paragraphs and four replies <<<<
