The Roots of Economic Success: in the USA and Beyond

Wealthy people in the USA, and the record-breaking profits of corporate America, are happening because they exist in a society that can afford to buy the products and/or services they sell. All who are alive today were born into a great society and an enormously successful economy, largest in the world, that already existed... To listen to the Americans in the Davos crowd you'd think they were born into lean-to shacks on packed earth trails that existed until they created this society and economic situation.

The US economy was made by a US regulatory environment and the government's investment targeted to, oft government specified, research and development (a list of government offices that support enormous quantities of research and development can be found by searching the Internet for web sites like the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers - FFRDC) . The successful, 20th century, US economy was built with marginal tax rates of 70 - 91%. Tax payers are the original, crowd sourced funding that built the society we enjoy. Getting everybody to pay their fair share of taxes is the only way this economic success continues.

Wealthy folks, of the 1% crowd, point proudly to their foundations and associated charitable giving, but (if they'd check) they'd find their foundations would all be bankrupted by the annual spending of some of the largest states; all bankrupted in months by the budget of the United States. The 1% would be better served by doing their part in continuing the society they live in, were born into, that made their wealth possible and sustainable, by paying their fair share of taxes.

Views on Restoring US Democracy from a Democrat, Moderated Capitalist

It is time for a perspective from this progressive Democrat/Moderated Capitalist...

We have seen the four page summary of the Mueller Report, rumored to be almost 400 pages (because nobody outside the AG's office has seen the actual report), from 45's appointed Attorney General, who wrote a nineteen page application for said office, William Barr.

We have seen the media run with the AG's report as if it were conclusively representative of a report that none of them has seen.

While we wait to see the actual, unabridged version of the Special Counsel's report...

Here is what I believe that Democrats have to do to restore Democracy to the United States of America.

First, we must take back majorities in the legislative bodies of more than half of the several states. We also need Democratic governors in these same states. It is from these states that we might undo the harm done to Democracy by:

1. Gerrymandered, Republican safe, districts;
2. Electronic voting machines that create, intentionally, a ballot that, once cast, can not be audited;
3. Purged voter rolls;
4. Awkward, limited (not automated), voter registration;
5. Targeted removal of polling places;
6. Biased photo identification requirements;
7. Etc...

In 2020's elections we must turn out as many voters as humanly possible to overwhelm the biases that we can't remove before the elections of 2020. Everybody that has had any disagreement and/or run-in with the aforementioned, anti-democratic mischief must be certain that they are registered and make the effort needed to vote (in every election).

To all the Democrats running for President, already... We need to hold a majority in the US House and establish a majority (preferably a filibuster proof 60 votes) in the US Senate, or a Democratic President means nothing; ask President Obama.

We must promote moderated capitalism that will be fraudulently labeled as Socialism. Competition amongst capitalists is regulated so that there is a level playing field where multiple capitalists, in a given market, might succeed; a market that benefits consumers/customers. Deregulated (laissez-faire, feudal) capitalism pits capitalists against one another in a winner takes all competition that creates a monopoly; benefits the victorious capitalist.

Government will still strive to make a best effort at the things that benefit the economy for as close to everybody as possible. Those things that provide little, or no, return on investment (ROI) in the short time frames essential to a business that must profit to survive (e.g., common carrier infrastructure, education, etc...) These will continue to be paid for by the first, crowd sourced, funding method: taxation. Taxes are funding from a pool of as close to everybody, who can afford to pay in, to the benefit of as close to absolutely everybody as is possible.

Provide health care for as close to everybody as is possible: single payer health care. There is hand ringing about this from the folks who are in the businesses of health care for maximized revenue/profit. They pretend not to know how this will work, except that it is already working (verifiable lower costs and better results) in every industrialized and developing nation in the world, except ours.

Single payer health care from one's very first to the very last breath is, “pro-life;” all else is pretense to concern.

So, as we await the delivery of an unabridged Mueller Report to the US House of Representatives, those Constitutionally obligated to determine if what a President has done rises to the level of impeachable activity (it need not be criminal), and for the criminal indictment, for obstruction of justice, to be handed to AG Barr; Sessions recused himself to avoid this particular consequence.

Remember this process is frustratingly slow because it is treading where the founding fathers did not anticipate that the government of these United States would ever find itself; where it currently is. They did not determine definitions and consequences that one would apply when one of the three branches of the federal government decides to deliberately, and purposely abandon their duties (as a check and balance on the two other branches of the federal government), and abandon their oath of office (to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign an domestic), as was done in the first two years of the 45 administration by the Republican majority in the US House.

I hope the only party of Democracy, Democrats, can get out of their own way, quit using definitions created by the far right-wing radicals that have destroyed the Republican party, and save us from ourselves. We helped create this mess by not voting in sufficient numbers and/or by refusing to vote because our choice wasn't on the ballot, or because one couldn't find, “suitable,” candidates.

Voters get out and vote... Democracy does not survive if you don't.