What can adults learn from this nine-year-old?

Nine-year-old Luke Sekera of Fryeburg ME is standing up to a bully trying to abuse his town.

Fryeburg, in rural Maine, has a natural spring that the town draws its water from. Nestlé, the world's biggest food and beverage corporation, is trying to intimidate Fryeburg's residents out of their water. When the town refused to enter a 45-year contract with Nestlé to give up its water source to allow the megacorporation to bottle it under the Poland Springs brand, Nestlé sued the town.

Mind you, with its water under the contract, the community would have to draw its water from an area where an old industrial site once stood. It's not right that, as Luke says "If we want to drink our town's natural spring water, we have to buy it in the store."

It's Fryeburg's aquifer and the people of Fryeburg have THE right to choose who can tap into its water source. Corporations need to realize that they don't control the earth.

As Luke points out: Giving up the water rights for 45 years would mean his children and grandchildren would not have a voice in this matter. "I want them to be proud of me," he says. "I must speak for them."

He speaks for many other people, too, showing them that when people stand for their rights, bullies lose their power to do wrong.

In this nation founded by patriots who stood up against royal bullying, adults today would benefit to remember: abusers, however big or politically connected, have no power to defeat people who stand for what they value.

You can stand up to the corporate megabully too: support Luke's petition on change.org.

Go Luke!

I wonder... what you think.

What future progress could YOU maximize today?

Imagine that the universe/multiverse is an entirety of infinite potential and imagine too that each of us, in however small a way, contributes to fullfilling its possibilities. What if by sharing our best thoughts and learning experiences and recombining what is known into new ideas we could really make a better world? – Imagine that you could leverage your little bit of input into progress for a better future!

A new scientific study has shown this is not only possible but how: Last fall, the journal Nature's Scientific Reports published a mathematical model that likens the growth pattern of social networks to the electrical firing between brain cells – and the dynamics of expanding galaxies.

This computer simulation suggests that the universe and our social networks are growing like a giant brain: From the BigBang to the latest tweet, this study demonstrated that networks all build by sharing connections. According to the scientists, the rate of growth accelerates as a "power-law graph with strong clustering" that develops between various nodes.

Each growth node expands in proportion to its connective links – and a wider network of connections creates greater growth. That is: more similarity in the type of links resulted in limited growth, whereas junctions to many different connections broadened the progression into larger-scale complexity and more dynamic growth.

In human terms, this means sharing your information not just with like-minded peers but with a wider network of connections. Broadcasting shared thoughts, learning experiences, and recombinant ideas makes new connections – not just to more people but in ever-evolving ways.

–– That is, IFF we take the time to think about all the information download we receive we can grow. Just observing, retweeting, and forgetting isn't enough -- we have to pay attention and take time to be creative. Otherwise, we're just spinning our collective mental wheels in a more scatterbrained way!

Just as inbreeding in biology limits evolutionary adaptability, simply retweeting the same kittie pics keeps us stuck in the same old patterns. Superficial dabbling in however massive a network of shared content isn't the way to create actual progress. The world won't change if we let immutable laws lock us in the clockwork Newtonian paradigm. A narrow catechism of already-shared answers blinds the mind to broader outlooks. It's only when we recombine information quanta into something creatively new that we move beyond mere repetition.

From the BigBang's tiniest space-time units (more minuscule than subatomic particles) we've progressed beyond the capacity to expand as a vast clockwork universe. By consciously creating connections, humankind has evolved the capacity to choose what bits of progress add up to our future. But without creatively recombining quanta, there'll be nothing new in the universe.

It's your choice what evolves today. Just more information or bigger galaxy-like brains will keep us recycling through what's already known. To maximize progress into a future worth yearning for, we'll have to leverage our emerging bits of input by consciously collaborating with diverse nodes. If we can co-create some synergy, we'll make the quantumly creative leaps that will maximize progress to evolve a future we can't yet even begin to imagine.

I wonder... what you think.

PS – What are you waiting for? Turn off your computer and THINK about what this means for you – and all of us.

*Photo credit: www.sciencephoto.com

Wasn't habeus corpus a founding American value?

"Instead of justice for the September 11 attacks, Guantanamo has given the world torture, indefinite detention and unfair trials."

Amnesty International is right: It is well past time to change course and close this detention facility.

I cannot believe that the America founded on the principles of justice and the right of habeus corpus continues to deny detainees at Guantanamo their basic right to trial. There is no excuse after more than a DECADE to continue to shield behind "Patriot Act" euphemisms for unAmerican practices.

This time of budget crisis should be a further incentive to proceed with closing the Guantanamo detention facility. It's time we urge Congress to get this no-brainer job done, today.

Not only is the US government obligated under international law to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, it's the American way and the right thing to do.

I wonder... what you think.

How far are you going today?

Have you ever noticed that no one is where they want to be? We're always on the road, heading away from where we were to somewhere else we want to go.

From the moment we get up in the morning, we are constantly moving on to the next item on our day's agenda. There's never a moment during the day when we sigh and are done. We're always going from one thing to another, from one activity to another, from one place to another. It's a neverending cycle of movement.

Even when we think we're at rest, our bodies are in a constant state of flux, never done -- breathing in and breathing out, digesting and eliminating, growing synapses and shedding cells.

We're so practiced at being in motion as we commute to jobs and travel to vacations and move closer to our dreams that we don't ever question where our lifelong trajectory is heading. If we think at all about that ultimate shared life destination, it is to map out the disposition of our accumulated things: a will to distribute our assets, a plan to dispose of our remains.

But what about the bigger picture? What about the true legacy we leave behind? Along with the dead body and bequeathable inheritances, we leave a world that we were responsible for shaping.

How are we doing today to prepare our world for its future? What are we doing in life to prepare for that ongoing impact after our physical presence has ceased its interactions in the world. Are we shaping a destiny that generations to come will admire? Are you working for long term improvement to progress along the slippery slope of life or just a quick and dirty self-serving boost to beat some others to the next obstacle?

Take a look at your motivation for living. Are you moving on a limited access path toward a narrow pinnacle no one else can share or are you helping to open and shape a more thoughtful, worthwhile way to keep improving the journey for everyone? The one plan will get you to an end, the other will continuously progress further than you can imagine.

Which choice will make you move farther in life?

I wonder... what you think.

Who says women have a math problem?

For too many girls today, they learn the "common wisdom" that math is just too hard for them to attempt – and they foolishly take that fear to heart without every testing their own mettle.

Girls don't have a problem with math they have a problem with misperception.

Fortunately as a child, Shakuntala Devi never heard that advice. Instead, she let her natural abilities with numbers blossom. She became an unsurpassed mathematical prodigy.

Here are just a few of her amazing mathematical accomplishments:

In 1977, tasked with calculating the 23rd root of a 201-digit number, she out-performed a Univac computer by 12 seconds. The Guinness Book of World Records recorded her 1980 mental multiplication of two 13-digit numbers—with a 26-digit solution—at a mere 28 seconds. Twice (once on the BBC, another time at the University of Rome) she corrected calculations supplied to interviewers. An American researcher couldn't even start the stopwatch before she provided two complex answers.

Shakuntala Devi is a glowing example of just how wrong "common wisdom" is about so many things. How many other things are we foolishly believing just because someone told us it is so?

Instead of just accepting social standards as truth, we need to test our own perceptions. Too often the problem with math — or anything else — is only prejudicial bias. When we choose to tap into our own innate abilities, we can evolve into far more than we currently imagine possible.

I wonder... what you think.

Cartoon Credit: TwistedPhysicsBlog

How's that political process working for US?

If 92% of the public supports legislation and only 54% of the Senators vote for it, what does that say about who is being counted in the "representative democracy" in this country? How's that working for US? Where is the support for our Common Welfare?

I got an email from an international organization the other day that said "Top legal scholars say the US is nearing state-failure, with hyper-corruption allowing big corporations to write laws and make policies that affect the entire world." Is that how we think the world views US? Is that how we choose to allow the world to view US?

Gabby Giffords is right: It's time for a change -- politics as usual just doesn't represent US anymore

I stand with Gabby and am proud to support her efforts at Americans for Responsible Solutions to "fight back against an ideological fringe that has consistently used big money and influence to obstruct progress."

It's time for us all to face the politics of influence and corruption and choose to make a change for the better. I hope you'll join US.

I wonder... what you think.

What if YOU could prevent a tragedy?

This is a true story:

Imagine that Francine's grief is yours. (It is.) Now, imagine that you live in a world in which this speech never needs to happen. (You have the power to make it so – call your Senator.)

I wonder... what you think.

Can American society pray violence away?

A current FB blog is circulating a statement made to a House Judiciary Subcommittee by Darrell Scott, father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado. In short, he said what is needed to overcome shooting tragedies is not stricter gun laws but a return to God and prayer.

I've got to disagree. It isn't a deity but rather the sense of shared community values and responsibility that are missing in today's society. Children in pain are ours to heal, and if we as citizens ignore those needs, no deity will step in regardless of a million prayers. It is not belief or words but healing actions that prove our commitment to mend social ills.

Laws, it's true, are stopgap measures. For those who respect the dignity of all others and encourage development of potential in every person and stand for equity, fairness, and cooperation, a law is just a commonsense reminder.

Sadly, it's also true that stringent laws are not effective deterrents for those who have failed to learn the basic values of respect, fairness, and mutual support. What those without a moral foundation need is neither law nor faith that some deity is watching but guidance from caring adults to help build a supportive basis for constructive cooperative living in community.

A retired friend was feeling purposeless until he signed up to mentor an eight grader who lacks appropriate direction in his life because of a difficult home situation. Bill is thrilled to share his passions for fishing and for remote control flying with this child and envisions helping groups of boys who may need some positive outlet in otherwise under-playful lives. Attention and support from an enthusiastically involved adult are often all a child needs to turn the corner from neglect or despondency to proactive participation in becoming more of his best potential. It's not a prayer but a willing model that makes the difference.

When no adult steps in, there is no way for an ignored, neglected, or abused child to learn a better way. Social moral values are not learned from the words of school officials or elected leaders or law enforcement officers or religious clergy; rather, social moral values are demonstrated by the actions condoned by members of the public.  If bullies are tolerated with a headshake or kids are discouraged from "tattling" or victims are told to suck it up or push back, the stage is set for violence to be a way of life.

While faith-sure adults are free to choose prayer any time and individual children coached to pray have no legal boundaries to exercising their personal practice, imposing prayer on others is neither effective nor ethical. Praying to God may self-soothe, but it won't dissuade an alienated shooter. At the same time, current gun control laws are a piecemeal effort; too many guns and too much ammunition are readily available in too many unguarded places and too many unregulated exchange venues. What is more germane and necessary is mental health assistance for troubled individuals and early childhood support for kids whose parents are overwhelmed by and underskilled in parenting.

Lacking public interest in the necessary sorts of effective mental health assistance, too many children will continue to feel unvalued and fail to develop appropriate social moral values. Unless adults step in to fill the gap and teach the younger generation by example (whether through faith-based tenets or any ethical and moral principles) and demonstrate to each child that s/he is valuable and help children learn values that serve society's common welfare, they will only learn what is modeled in the world around them.

Today's models are abysmal. Not only do we "war" on drugs and in other countries, TV shows highlight schoolyard bullies, news reports excuse rapists, shooters are profiled and talked about, "reality" quests for money and power are ruthless. Notoriety can seem attractive to a desperate and lonely youth – and mandating prayer is not a sufficient social adjustment to reach a better result.

Since good role models today are so heartbreakingly scarce, unvalued kids are likely to continue to agitate society's conscience despite demographic statistics claiming religious faith is prevalent. It's not a lack of faith that pulls the trigger of violence. It's the gun in the hand of an already-wounded individual that creates the environment for a violent outcome.

After so many tragic killing crazes, we who witness cannot remain blameless when further violent outbreaks occur. We only make a difference in the future when we do something that changes the status quo. In today's world, that has to be to support gun control laws. Active measures to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable indivduals will have far greater a real-world impact than all the prayers rotely recited by unvalued schoolchildren.

Of course, if you really want to make a difference to change the status quo, you could follow Bill's example. To mentor a needy child doesn't require faith in prayer but only faith that you have a valuable contribution to make to the life of a child, to your own sense of purpose, and to the ending of the cycle of violence. If enough adults choose to value our nation's children, we won't need any gun laws or to pray violence away because we'll already have the safe, ethical, and cooperative society we can only dream about today.

And if mentoring a student isn't feasible for you today, perhaps you could practice deep-healing a child you know intimately with this process:

Imagine yourself as a very young child, for living in this imperfect world, we all have childhood wounds to heal. Imagine your adult self soothing and embracing your child self, reassuring that wounded, needy part of your inner self of her/his worth and perfect wholeness. Now imagine as your child self feels your perfect accepting interest s/he relaxes her/his perfect, healed, loved innermost child self into your heart. Feel the sense of healing energy surrounding your melded hearts – and imagine your healing heart energy reaching outward to others you know. Imagine that in the embrace of your healing heart energy, other wounded hearts are healed and they too embrace you embracing your healed child-self – and as every person your heart touches joins your embrace, a spiral of love grows out from your heart into the far reaches of the earth and into the galaxy beyond, sending the resonance of healed love to every being on the planet, to every particle of energy in the cosmos.

You have that much power within – to heal the planet, to heal the world, to heal humanity, to heal your heart.

You don't have to pray for that – just do it.

I wonder... what you think.

How can we stop being totally stressed out?

You're not the only one stressed these days. Stress is destroying our world.

A couple years ago, I wondered a lot about stress:

• What is stress?
• How do we get rid of stress?
• Why does stress seem neverending?
• What is the stress response?
• What stops the stress cycle?
• What does it take to resolve stress?
• How do we resolve stress?

Sadly, stress hasn't diminished. In fact, it's become an escalating global stress crisis. If we want to end the stress that's killing us and our world, we have to face some stressful facts: We're responsible. We're responsible for our own individual state of stress, and we're also responsible for totally stressing out the world.

It's really no wonder why the world is totally stressed out: We're polluting Earth's air and water, hating people who aren't like us, worrying about everything, and living with endless conflict.

The only way to heal a stressed world is to DEstress ourselves.

If you've ever wondered how to relieve your stress, you might want to start at SocioEnergetics this month because the world's stress can't improve until we each DEstress ourselves.

I wonder... what you think.

 

Image credit:  cottoncloudblog

What are you doing today?

Artist Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com blogged back in February: "'Live each day as if it were your last, for one day it will be.' Though Mar­cus Aure­lius’ Third-Century advice sounds terri­fic, it’s pro­bably the har­dest piece of advice in the world to follow." and demonstrated that idea with the funeral scene from Robert Altman’s 1992 movie “The Pla­yer” in which the last words of a murdered screenw­ri­ter are read. It's memorable and tragic because the writer was unsuc­cess­ful and his last words are mundane.

credit: gapingvoid.com

We're all "intoxicated by possibility" but most days we hesitate to be the change we'd need to become to actually venture into our most yearned-for reality.

We think we aren't ready. We think we're not perfect enough. We're waiting for inspiration. We're waiting for something else to happen first. We're worried what friends and family would think. We don't want to look like a fool. We need a plan. (One that's fool-proof.) (Even for the ineptitude level we feel.) So we wait. We study and think. We plan and design. We draft and redraft. We rethink and we study some more.

And if we keep doing that, one day we end up 70-something, with a triple bypass and a stroke and we're consigned to therapy without any medical professional really hoping we'll regain our full potential. If we aren't like Jill Bolte Taylor and we give up on that day, we'll never know what we could have been.

In fact, if we give up today, if we postpone change just one more day, chances are we'll never know what we could have been.

So the challenge for each of us today, every today, is to be the person we yearn to become. If we practice that every day, sooner rather than never, we will become all we imagine we can be. And then, we'll have the opportunity to become even more, to fullfill unimagined possibilities of our infinite potential.

Wouldn't that be a good thing to do today?

I wonder... what you think.

 

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How can teens confuse love, sex, and rape?

Think back: In how many "romances" does the "hero" "ravage" the damsel? How many shows have you seen where sex replaces intimacy? It's nothing new: Do you remember Ayn Rand's Fountainhead when the hero wordlessly "takes" the woman? We've been conditioned to imagine that these meaningless encounters are a basis for a mutually ecstatic ongoing coupleship.

American culture has long lauded sex-saturated exploits and encouraged boys to "prove" their manhood. For decades, girls were divided into "good" and "easy" but lately even that distinction has eroded under the assault of sexting and picking a partner to "get it over with". Even preteens now wear too-revealing "fashions" and watch their popstar icons posture provocatively and avidly follow their inappropriate escapades.

By presenting so much visual stimulation while failing to support realistic self-awareness, Society has created an irresponsible environment in which teens have no basis to distinguish love from sex – or even to recognize rape.

Rape statistics are just the tip of reality.

There's a great ambivalence in every nascent attraction, and when we have no basis for evaluating the pros and cons of desire and concern, pressure often trumps prudence. It isn't even always outside pressure since the insidious foundation of sexualized socialization has instilled a faulty sense of precaution.

As a result of society's inconsistent presentation of sex (from blatant visuals to uncomfortable silence), teens often have no basis for considering whether sex is appropriate, and many adults have little more foundation for making their sexual choices. Here's a cheat sheet for precautionary guidance to help you distinguish sex from its counterparts:

If you're thinking about what others would say if you don't: it isn't love.
If you're thinking about what others would say if you do: it isn't love.
If you're thinking about what your partner would say if you don't: it isn't love.
If you're thinking about what your partner would say if you do: it isn't love.
If you're thinking about shoulds: it isn't love.
If you're thinking about shouldn'ts: it isn't love.
If you're not thinking: it isn't love.

If you're thinking, what you're thinking is important, but even so, appropriate thought isn't enough for it to be love: coupleship love requires mutuality, respect, and connective interaction.

If it isn't love, don't bother doing it because sex without love can never be a basis for mutually ecstatic ongoing coupleship, which is so far superior to anything less that getting stuck in a relationship based on just sex will never truly fullfill you.

And if it isn't a relationship (ie it is one person dominating the other into bodily coupling), that's rape.

Rape can be by violence, but rape can also be by intimidation, manipulation, domineering, trickery, or anything other than conscious mutual choice. If you're not talking together about making a wise choice, don't do it. Sex should never be a don't ask, don't tell furtive encounter.

Sex without conscious mutual choice is rape. Sex without love or respect is a bodily function. Sex in a respectful, mutually connective relationship has the potential for love. Sex in a mutually connective loving relationship has the potential for true intimacy. Sex in a mutually connective, lovingly intimate relationship has the potential to become a mutually ecstatic ongoing coupleship. A mutually ecstatic ongoing intimate coupleship is the best you can aspire to.

When we are ignorant of the possibilities, we fail to live up to our full potential. As long as we are leaving it to teens to imagine love from a foundation of sexualized socialization, sex will dominate their thinking. Education is the only way to create awareness and stop this perversion of ignorance from overshadowing – and harming – future generations.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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What budget supports America's future?

OMG! Finally a budget that makes SENSE.

Called the Back to Work Budget, its main focus is creating jobs (7 million in 2014) through investments in infrastructure (to repair crumbling roads and bridges, saving lives as well as long-run costs) and investments in education (rehiring laid off teachers and helping prepare children for the 21st century economy) as well as ending tax incentives for corporations that move jobs overseas (duh!).

credit: weaponsofmathdestruction.com

The Back to Work Budget also works to reduce the deficit by eliminating tax subsidies for oil, gas, and coal, reducing deductions for corporate jets, enacting a financial transaction tax, and returning Pentagon spending to 2006 levels. The sensible priorities in this budget are a clear choice for America’s future — invest in jobs for working Americans and support middle class sustainability as well as true American values.

The Back to Work Budget will be offered as a substitute amendment to the Ryan budget tomorrow (Tuesday 3/19). (The Ryan alternative would continue tax breaks for ultra-rich individuals and for corporations while of course increasing taxes on the poor and the middle class, destroying Medicare, cutting Food Stamps and student loan assistance, and throwing millions off health insurance.) If you care about YOUR future and the direction the United States is heading, urge YOUR representative to support budget sanity NOW.

A vote for the Back to Work Budget is a vote for getting back to the America we remember and love.

I wonder... what you think.

What should we do about "tight" fossil fuels?

Extracting tight fossil fuels like tar sands and shale oil is the least effective dying gasp of an outdated energy policy. The pollution produced by these extraction methods compounds the pollution from refining and use of the products. The impact on our planet's environment is devastating.

You've probably heard by now that NASA's leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, said that tar sands development would mean "game over for the climate." Even before any shale oil is extracted, fracking destroys the countryside and pollutes the groundwater. To allow the fossil fuel industry to continue its outdated, outmoded, and environmentally unconscionable practices is like signing a death order for Mother Earth.

Credit: worldofweirdthings.com

Before it's too late, we must take proactive climate action. Big Oil isn't going to stop collecting excessive profits from dirty, dangerous, disaster-creating business practices unless We the People insist. Their lobbies cannot outspend our voices.

We must speak out loudly now: Clean energy sources are crucial to the future of America. The proposed Keystone XL tar sands project is totally counterproductive. We must insist that our representatives in Washington work to cancel the Keystone XL project. Fracking is a disaster that doesn't even wait to ruin land and water. We must insist that our state representatives cancel all fracking projects. It's up to US to halt all like-minded backward-looking approaches so that the US can invest in a safe energy future.

It's past time to bring America's energy policy into the 21st century. The debate about climate science is over, and the scientists have proven we must change our oil dependency to move forward to a climate-safe future. We the People must act now to insist our representatives listen, before it's too late. Our future – and the Earth's – is in their votes

I wonder... what you think.

 

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What if God were ALL of us?

Several years ago, the theme song for a popular show asked, "What if God was one of us?" It's a device that's been done in movies and shows before. George Burns was charming in Oh God, yet he transformed into surprising alternatives to pass on messages and ideas to the main character. Each story's God-persona stimulates its hero/ine to consider a new perspective, rethink a choice, or act in a different way.

Intriguing but I always thought a bit limiting. First of all you'd have to be attentive to notice it was some authoritative God-being contacting you and second, there are a lot of non-God-followers for whom the visit wouldn't be any special deal. And most important, why should it take some omnipotent, supernatural being to cause a person to rethink a mistaken perspective or wrong choice or inappropriate action? Wouldn't it be more effective if every person had the potential for realizing the errors of their thoughts, choices, and ways; wouldn't we all benefit from reforming our decisions and creating a better world?

credit: www.123rf.com

If instead of evaluating every encounter for the possibility that the individual might be this authoritative God-being, wouldn't it be more effective if everyone just considered every encounter as if it had life- and world-changing potential. Imagine if God-believers considered "What if God were ALL of us?" and non-believers made a conscious effort to open their minds to alternate quantum wavestates or to trek in the proverbial loaned moccasins or to imagine trying a different life on for size. What alternative reality might YOU recognize?

From an omniscient point of view, there is no one single perspective, no one and only choice, no categorically correct action. Every point leads equally to every other, so every starting point can end up at any finishing point, and there are infinite paths to any destination. The chance of birth and background can perhaps only lead to here, but from now into the future is as open as unexplored space.

If we keep going as we have been, there are far fewer options, but if we stop at this point and take the full 360º evaluation, we might notice some new possibility our myopic one-track focus had ignored. We might even consider looking not just around but above and below and inside. We might realize that what we notice in our normal everyday outlook is hardly the entirety of all potential views. And if we invited in the realities, possibilities, insights, and potentials of the entire global community, what other opportunities to create what other successes might we begin to envision?

Imagine infinite potential as your birthright, because it is.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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What, really, could correct the US debt?

Pointing fingers and trying to assess blame is a waste of time and resources. The top priority for US debt reduction must focus on how to achieve more revenue and fewer expenditures

Credit: senseoncents.com

First, citizens have to take responsibility for correcting the problem and demand that their representatives honor the people's priorities rather than special interests. Congress must give up their corporate subsidies and pass legislation that makes corporations merely businesses with no special standing as court-interpretted pseudo-people. The legislation should remove corporations from election financing and prohibit self-serving lobbying for their special benefit. Educational lobbying might continue with the proviso that any profits attributable to the lobbying effort would be taxed at a higher rate.

credit: www.opednews.com

On the income side, we need to address corporate obligations to the government. Businesses benefit from the government's education and infrastructure expenditures among many other programs that ensure a healthy business environment for the country. Not only must corporations pay their fair share to support our nation with a fair and equitable tax rate on their gross income but they must also be held accountable for their actions. There can be no future payments of government funds (that is income from us taxpayers) to corporations that did a bad job and lost money, that fired US workers to ship jobs overseas, that created crises in the economy. Congress often retrospectively changes the rules on Medicare and modifies the terms of the Social Security system. It could also retrospectively change its mind about the payments made to support corporations that made these bad decisions. We need to rescind the bailouts paid under duress and convert those payments into debt, demanding they be repaid, with interest as a cost of being helped to stay in business. Congress must also repeal all other corporate subsidies and if warranted replace them with interest-bearing debt obligations.

credit: economistonline.muogao.com

The second thing that must happen is to shore up the income tax code to also ensure that every citizen contributes a fair share for their support of our nation. This can be done simply: Charge the same percent in income tax (on all income, without exemptions, deductions, or any other adjustments) to everyone in multi-earner households grossing more than $50,000 and single adult-earner households grossing more than $30,000. (According to Wikipedia, in 2012, the national median household income was $44,389; in 2006, the median individual income was $23,535; in 2010, 45% of individuals earned less than $25,000.) For those earning less than the minimum, their share would be provided through hours of service to the nation.

For a simple example: Imagine the flat tax rate is 10% and the service equivalency is calculated at the rate of $10/hour. Then each adult earning less than the minimum would owe the government a minimum of 300 hours of work per year; this can be as little as 6 hours per week in addition to their normal hours of documented work, and if they are working less than 40 hours per week, the individual could be obligated to either provide double those hours (to 600 total) or submit evidence of 300 hours of training for future employment, and those unemployed but receiving government subsidies (welfare or aid to dependent children, for example) would be required to provide a service equivalent and training totaling 40 hours per week. Even unskilled or elderly individuals could provide childcare under government-approved supervision, though certainly those with documented physical and mental debility would of course be exempted. The service equivalency requirement would provide an incentive to those who are earning less than the minimum to increase their skills. Ultimately, the welfare expenditures would begin to decrease as those who earn less than the minimum are incentivized to increase their employment income. 

credit: storycartoons.com

Once we are underway to solve the income problem, we can address the expenditure side. Last minute duress-induced cliff-hanging decisions are an ineffective way to reach reasonable resolutions of fiscal issues. To ensure duress measures aren't the choice of political resort, citizens must demand that the financially viable budget be set with a one-month lead before the fiscal year ends. To achieve this, there must be safeguards:

First, legislation must be enacted to ensure that all budget bills shall be presented and voted upon no later than ONE FULL MONTH before any budgetary deadline. Further, to ensure timely budget completion without game-playing, citizens must demand that, should the one-month deadline be missed, the full Congress shall meet continuously without stopping until the budget work is completed and voted into approval.

Second, a Line Item Veto program should be enacted. Every line item selected for veto would then be reviewed by an impartial citizen panel which may either concur with the veto or refer it, with specific questions and/or adjustment recommendations, to a special joint Congressional compromise committee for adjustment and resolution.

Third, legislation must be enacted to ensure that budgeted expenditures do not exceed income. This balanced budget requirement will undoubtedly mean some expenditures must be cut. To ensure that this is effectively evaluated, every program, including all defense and black ops agency expenditures must present open accounting of their use of taxpayer funds. No agency expenditures for one project or program would be funded under a different project or program. All the budget centers would be divided into three portions:

1) essential government spending,
2) discretionary projects and programs, and
3) special interest funding. 

The former essential spending would have priority processing in advance of the other two portions; special interest funding would optionally be considered after the formal two portions are approved; a full merit justification would be required for the latter two portions and a further independent review for special interest funding requests. Competitive bidding on all approved funding projects and programs would also be required unless the independent panel determined that to be unfeasible.

It's past time for wiser choices like these to prevail in Washington DC. Clearly, these are simple structural measures that could streamline the US budget process and enable fiscally conservative consideration of debt reduction measures. Maybe it's time for We the Real Constituents to call on Congress to crowdsource a truly workable solution.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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How can we fix the US debt?

Since we can't go back in time and correct the errors as they occurred, we have to come up with a prospective plan. The short answer is: collect more revenue and outlay for fewer expenditures. But even before those detailed negotiations, there are actually important things we can do to move the US toward debt resolution.

Most importantly, what we need are citizens willing to demand our legislators take corrective action and we must have legislators who are not afraid to take corrective action. So the first thing we need to do is stop the influence of lobbyists representing special interests. We can do this by prohibiting any budget entries that would benefit one specific company over any other. This will prevent further escalation of the crisis.

Once we stop the pork barrel earmarking and institute competitive bidding for ALL government-funded projects, we can address other underfunding problems.

You can't balance a budget if you spend more than you earn.

First we've got to stabilize and increase our income. To achieve that, we need to change the national mindset away from thinking taxes are a burden to be avoided; rather we need to educate the public to realize that taxes are the price we pay for our common (national) welfare -- that is: we need to invest (with taxes) in our fair share of government in order to have the funds that make it possible to live in a country we are proud of, to have education and employment opportunities to enable all citizens to earn a satisfactory living income, to expect the assurance of safety and well-being for all our neighborhoods, and to have the upkeep of common infrastructure managed and maintained for the benefit of all.

This means we must charge equitable taxes so everyone in this country will pay a fair share for their support of our nation. That will take some long hard looks at the tax structure for both individuals and corporations. We've got to be more equitable in our expectations of individuals, ensuring that those who have lower incomes still contribute to the nation's well-being; national service by those who cannot afford to pay must be expected both to provide needed services to the nation and to provide training and experience to those who require skills to enter the job market.

credit: blogs.worldbank.org

Corporations, too, must be held accountable for their choices and decisions. Bad management should not be a ticket to bailouts. Just as Congress and regulatory agencies often retrospectively reinterpret rules affecting taxes and Medicare (not hypothetical: costly retroactive adjustments were imposed on me and on my mother), the bailout subsidies extended to corporations that contributed to the financial and real estate debacles should be reconsidered. Corporations contributing to the economic disaster should be held accountable and their "stimulus" payments reinterpretted as the loans from the the nation's taxpayers as they should have been, with interest and principal due back to the US Treasury.

credit: kalyan-city.blogspot.com

Finally, we need to hold our elected officials responsible for their management of the economy. The budget should be balanced, with income to meet the expenditures, including debt service. There should be monthly, quarterly, and annual reviews, with the President reporting the bottom line to the nation in the State of the Union and transparent accounting of ALL expenditures (that is: NO slush funds and black ops back holes of secrecy) open to review by all citizens. When cost overruns occur, the managers should be held accountable for correcting the problem immediately and those who are unable to do so should be fired if the discrepancy hasn't been resolved by the following quarterly report. It shouldn't take a Constitutional amendment to ensure prudent fiscal husbandry, but the evidence shows that our representatives cannot be trusted to show appropriate conservation of our funds. We the People must demand accountability. If it takes the threat of automatic impeachment of elected representatives cannot manage to oversee a balance budget, then that is what we must insist be put in place.

credit: www.cartoonstock.com

So can this really be achieved? Sure, but it will take a legislative mindshift and commitment of the populace to make the necessary choices and contribute their fair share.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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How big is the problem of skyrocketing US debt?

The crisis of the skyrocketing US debt reminds me of a story I heard about a sailing ship captain and a seaman.

Back in the day, the seaman was charged with stowing the ship's heavy cargo of ammunitions, but he neglected his duty and when a storm came up, the cargo broke loose. If the ammunition rolling about impacted the hold, not only could it damage the ship's side but it could explode in a skyrocketing blast.

credit: wall321.com

Because of the loose load in the hold, the entire ship was endangered, but the seaman leaped to their rescue and at great risk to his own safety managed to corral the cargo. After the storm subsided, the captain called all hands on deck. He bestowed an award on the seaman, and then he unsheathed his flintlock pistol and shot the seaman saying, "Heroics are rewarded but neglect of duty can be fatal."

We've got a bigger problem. Our economic ship is actually sinking under the debt we have let loose. But those who first created the situation are no longer facing us to shoulder the blame, and no one today is willing to step to the rescue.

In fact, no one is willing to take any action for fear they, as the messenger of ill-fortune, will mistakenly be shot. Still, someone had better step up and offer a solution, or the USS Economy will sink. Tomorrow I'll offer some realistic possibilities.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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What caused the sudden US debt?

In reality, the US debt problem is hardly sudden and can be traced back to specific instances of poor planning from ill-conceived starting visions.

I used to work for an insurance company. Any good actuary can tell you: projections are based on probability. You look at reality and trends and interpolate them into the future. When you create a retirement program annuity (for example), you look at the number and demographics of workers participating in the plan, their anticipated life expectancy, and the return on the premiums you can expect to earn before your payout, and you calculate your current liability. If things change, like if people start living longer, you better change your calculations and adjust your funding.

credit: vilasvaidya.blogspot.com

Similarly, if you want to insure the health of a population, you calculate the typical costs in a year for the whole group and project that cost into the future for the group based on the trends for both the amount of healthcare needed and the changes to the costs for that healthcare. Again, if things change, like if people living longer develop more serious health issues and the treatments extend for longer periods of time, you better change your calculations and adjust your funding.

It's the same with a budget. If you want to balance your budget, you need to have your revenues cover your costs. If you spend more than you take in, you have to borrow from a lender to cover your underfunded expenses, and the lender will charge you to use that debt for some specified period. You end up spending more over the long run than you would have had you paid when you made the purchase. So when you host a war and don't fund it with taxes, you have to borrow, and the resulting debt will increase the cost of your war. (The same is true for any government – or business – program.)

The problem of growing debt begins if you fail to increase your funding along the way; each year you continue to underfund your program/budget, you accumulate an unfunded future debt. If you complicate those simple increases to your debts by using some of your income to pay subsidies to businesses that did a bad job and actually lost money, you multiply the effect on your debt. That is, you have less income from the business taxes and you spend more than you expected, so your debt goes up even faster. And if you allow the executives of businesses to pay themselves huge untaxed amounts in "deferred compensation" and exempt bonuses while laying off workers and shipping jobs overseas, you reduce the income from personal and business taxes, and if you then reduce the rate the huge bonus payouts are being taxed at, you escalate the reduction in tax income.

credit: lucrativeturnkeybusiness.com/SEC

And if you have a population trend like the Baby Boomers followed by the Bust, the booming influx of workers is of course going to be superseded at some point by a decrease, and if you are funding future payments out of those expected future revenues, you need to notice that this plan will not work forever. At some point the number of no longer paying in recipients increases beyond the funding ability of the decreasing number of workers still paying in. To top that off, if you have businesses that are firing workers and expecting fewer people doing more work with fewer resources to support them, then the nation's income revenue will decrease as its workers' stress levels go up and there will be more debt and more health issues. And if you have businesses whose sole function is to produce products that adversely affect people's health (that would be tobacco products and fossil fuel producing- and using-industries), then there will be more health costs as well.

So all of this should have been pretty obvious to any accountant. The SEC even provides the pyramid scheme graphic on their website. But instead the financial industry just redefined the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and required less future liabilities funding on financial statements, making everyone think for a while that the problem wasn't really there. Of course, anyone with a brain should have been able to tell that derivatives and subprime loans and interest-only mortgages and junk bonds were investments that had no more long term viability than Ponzi schemes.

credit: thedailygrifter.blogspot.com

And yet here we are....

I wonder... what you think.

 

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What does the US debt mean to YOU?

The other evening, my ToastMaster's club heard a speech on the growing national debt. The figures viewed in the presentation were estimates based on projections and looked really scary flashing ever-incrementally into higher totals.

Of course I skeptically looked up more information, and there are a number of "us debt clocks"  but even the government's own site has equally oppressive numbers. We're talking TRILLIONS of dollars; our speaker showed us a webpage to help us visualize the magnitude. Of the many trillion- dollar demonstration webpages, I chose this summary:

Credit: www.elsolet,net

Remember, though: that field of pallets by the plane is only ONE trillion in this picture; the Treasury Department says the debt is more than $SIXTEEN trillion. So stack the image up 16 times in your mind. And of course then the speaker threw in the specter of "unfunded" liability for Social Security and Medicare and you're overwhelmed with far greater figures.

In fact, based on US Treasury figures, the cost to each and every citizen can be calculated.  This chart is an approximation of the Treasury figures:

United States Population	315,719,500
United States National Debt Per Person	$53,000
United States National Debt Per Household	$137,000
Total US Unfunded Liabilities Per Person	$391,000
Total US Unfunded Liabilities Per Household	$1,011,500

It's clearly a huge problem to think about.

But of course I did, wondering what could be the solution, and of course I came up with ideas. Tomorrow, we'll look at the causes; then we'll consider the implications; next I'll suggest some broad strokes for the fix; the final day I'll get down to some potentially workable details.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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Can we citizens stop the Sequester?

 The short answer is YES: Tell your elected officials to support HR 900. The full text is below:

HR 900 IH
113th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 900 To eliminate the sequestration under section 251A of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 28, 2013

Mr. CONYERS (for himself, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Ms. WILSON of Florida, and Mr. GRAYSON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Budget

---

A BILL To eliminate the sequestration under section 251A of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013’.

SEC. 2. REPEAL OF 251A SEQUESTRATION.

Section 251A of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is repealed.

Urge your representative to support this bill. Across the board cuts are the WRONG way to proceed. We need real solutions, not stopgap idiocy. Keep reading Wonders.KaeBender.com this upcoming week for background and suggestions for a more fiscally-conservative and well-considered SOLUTION.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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How can Congress cut spending?

It's hypocritical of either political party to point fingers at the other as if one or the other is solely responsible for marching the country toward some hypothetical fiscal cliff. 

Remember, it was more than a decade ago that a certain president hosted a war but cut tax revenues.  The resulting deficit from that fiscally irresponsible approach should never have come as a surprise. Its burdensome long-tail cost chains our collective pocketbooks and strains the federal budget.

But that fiscally UNconservative and financially irresponsible choice is only part of what keeps US in debt today. Ongoing government waste is the currency of political budgetry, and neither party is blameless.

Credit: apgovernment-faust.blogspot.com

Anyone who has studied Econ101 knows: You can't reduce your debt if you don't pay it off. To do that, you have to earn more income (in this case, that would be Taxes) and reduce expenses (in this case that would be federally funded programs). As the constituent credit advisors to the legislative debtors, it is up to us to make sure our elected representatives take the correct actions to remedy the imbalance.

As with any big business, government is filled with duplication, ineffective programs, and just general wasteful spending. But the most costly overspending in government aren't programs to help masses of lean and hungry real people, rather they are the special budget items that benefit already-fat profit-making businesses. It's called Pork Barrel Legislation because those businesses are feeding at the public trough like greedy pigs.

Just like average citizens have to diet when they overstuff with food, Pentagon Porkers, Fossil Fuel Porkers, and general all-around Porkers need to go on a diet.

It's time we citizens insist our legislators join together as Waste Watchers instead of continuing their bad habits as secret Pork Pushers.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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Why do we fear our Common Welfare?

I'm not much of a detailed student of history. The gist of one era of hatred and war followed by another seems too wasteful and wrong. I can't understand why leaders rely on fear and hatred of others to hold power over their world. It seems to me there would be far less unrest and far more progress if we all just shared alike and got along.

Instead of cooperating and helping each other along, the dominating group has kept the resources and spread the wealth only as far as to pave their way to more conquest. The few at the top have made sure everyone else was kept without -- without power, without resources, without education, without food or safety, without possibility of better. They structured life around fear -- fear of those in power, fear of people who look different, fear of groups who practiced different rites and rituals, fear always that the ones with even less were threats.

Fear is always outward-pointing. Fear eschews stability. Fear is agitating and restless. Fear always focuses on some other, never looks inward, never seeks common ground.

At yet, at heart, we are all the same. We have identical hopes and dreams. We yearn for the same peace; we idealize living in plenty. We struggle to learn more and become more of our potential.

The division of fear though prevents us from ever achieving all we could. As long as there is the divisive struggle to keep some with less -- less land, fewer resources, less food, less possibility of growth -- it is impossible for all to rise to the fullest potential.

Fear-based power pervades our world today and makes us all less than we could be. We -- the world -- will only evolve into something better when we -- all people -- join together to bring forth our best ideas of possibility and all collaborate for the common welfare.

I wonder... what you think.

 

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