SOMETHING BETTER THAN WE HAD:  The Bright Side of Our Train wreck

Believe it or not, the legacy of Scowlface—who made colossal new troubles where we had only old chronic lesser troubles—is going to lead to unexpectedly happy results that almost surely would not have come to pass if Scowlface had not made his troublesome troubles. Chronic wrongnesses we the people had tolerated and lived with for decades would have dragged on, still chronically wrong, for decades more if Scowlface had not so seriously screwed up just about everything and moreover pissed off every voter with a shred of honor remaining in them. But he did—even most of the lookalike scowlers who formerly liked him—and so the unexpectedly happy results that otherwise might never have been approved are now pretty much a sure thing.

At this writing there are still a few miles of muddy road we the people must slog through until Scowlface is finally deposed or dies naturally of internal diseases like meanness, pus and bile, greed, self-worship and hate, when our honorable republic is rid at last—praise God, we’re rid at last—of the moral pollution foisted upon us by Scowlface and his act-alike minions who adore the exploitive get-rich-and-powerful contrivances Scowlface in his vast sinfulness has pursued.

But we shall get there, never doubt it, because already in this very short while it has become impossible to return to where we were pre-Scowlface. The entire world has changed and our future options have changed along with it. We’re not going back to the way we were, because 1) it’s not there to go back to, and 2) the way we were wasn’t good enough in the first place, and 3) the rest of the world will now deny us the least possibility of returning to the way things used to be. The rest of the world now sees us much more clearly than they used to—halos, warts and all—before that benighted portion of We The People turned Scowlface loose by permitting him to be elected and thereby showing our ass. Our old allies have become quickly, firmly intent, in their new maturity, on having nothing to do with that old world we dominated pre-Scowlface. Domination wasn’t right even then, that’s just the way WWII turned out and we got used to it.

Here’s a preview of the many help-each-other FIXES that assuredly are coming in the USA.

> TAX THE RICH. Graduated Income Tax brackets shall be raised to maximum 94% (just like 1944-1960); any untaxed excess over 94% will be far more than enough for billionaires to live in high hog. A hefty Wealth Holdings Tax will shall apply annually to persons with net worth over $1 million. Income and Wealth taxes shall apply to gross income and to net-worth wealth, and no exemptions or exclusions of any nature shall be permitted in formulas for computing these taxes.

> HELP YOUNG ADULTS GET STARTED RIGHT. The new revenues shall help establish an interest-bearing Young Adult Opportunity Trust Fund, within which a $100,000 Life Opportunity Voucher (LOV) shall be earmarked at birth for every child born in the USA. Upon high school graduation or reaching age eighteen, every young American shall be automatically enlisted in the National Service To America Corps for three years (optional military enlistment may fulfill this compulsory obligation). Upon completion of service, the LOV may be redeemed (up to age 30) to purchase the recipient’s choice of 1) a first-time equipped farm, or 2) a trade school education plus entrepreneurial business startup, or 3) a 4-year college education. Under federal law, no university, college or trade school may levy charges exceeding the LOV.

> FIX IMMIGRATION. A new equivalent of Ellis Island shall be constructed with two portals, one each on the east and west coasts, as the only legal points of entry for immigrants seeking US citizenship. Quotas may be applied to skills but not to ethnicities. No other routes into the nation shall be legal, and persons caught attempting illegal entry shall be debarred for life from the USA. No person born here and residing here since birth shall ever be deported from the USA.

> STABILIZE FOREIGN POLICY AND TRADE. The USA, being the world’s third-largest consumer marketplace, shall strive to:  become a co-equal trading partner with the European Union; to maintain coordinated U.S.-E.U. foreign policies toward the rest of the world; and a co-equal unwavering supporter of NATO as the only meaningful bulwark against historical Russian expansionism. Respective U.S. and E.U. trading relationships with other world nations shall remain independent, subject to continual review to preclude conflicts between the partners.

> CONTROL MONOPOLIZATION. All U.S. corporations and commercial entities deemed “too big to fail,” or controlling 25% or more of the U.S. market for anything they sell, shall be defined as Monopolies. “Natural” monopolies shall be classified as those dependent on fixed infrastructure such as rails, pipelines, and wire-satellite-cellular-digital networks;  and “Contrived” monopolies shall be those intentionally created through mergers, buyouts and other schemes of any nature. All natural monopolies shall be nationalized and placed permanently under governmental administration. The largest natural monopolies shall be placed under federal administration;  smaller ones shall be assigned to administration by the states subject to rules and administrative procedures promulgated and strictly monitored by the federal government.

> THE FIVE PERCENT RULE. All contrived monopolies, and all corporations controlling more than 5% of the US market for anything they sell, shall be broken up into smaller entities, none of which may control more than 5% of U.S. market. These new size-limited commercial entities, along with existing smaller entities already controlling less than 5% of sales, shall be subject to federal rules requiring competition to be their first priority, pursuant to minimizing prices they charge the buying public. The concepts of corporations, formation of corporations, and issuance of traditional capital-stock corporate ownership shares, shall be outlawed.

> CITIZEN CONTROL OF THE U.S. ECONOMY. The employees of every new small business created under The Five Percent Rule shall be offered a one-time choice (one employee one vote, regardless of rank) to continue the business as 1) an Employee-Owned Cooperative or 2) a Small Entrepreneurship. Both shall pay all employees not less than a Living Wage adequate to purchase the eight defined Economic Rights. Both shall be obligated to a 10-year stockholder buyout plan (paying no interest, just like the tobacco buyout of 2005-14). Entrepreneurships shall be subject to exceedingly minimal government regulation, and free to use their surplus income (i.e., “profits”) as they please. Employee-Owned Cooperatives shall reinvest their surplus in their business and, as feasible, divide the balance as equal bonuses among all the employee-owners.

> OUR NEW TRULY COMPETITIVE ECONOMIC SYSTEM. All commercial activity in the USA shall be conducted as 1) Small Entrepreneurships or 2) Employee-Owned Co-ops (both under the 5% rule), and 3) government-controlled Natural Monopolies. All entrepreneurships and all co-ops shall be mandated to compete against each other to the maximum extent possible. Communist, capitalist and socialist economics shall be outlawed in the USA. The concept of “profit” shall be banned and replaced as “surplus income.”  Advertising and marketing shall be outlawed and replaced by reasonable, limited, non-in-your-face “Product Offerings.”

©William D. Coffey

The rest of his 95 FIXES may be seen under “Books/Populist Corrections” at fixypopulist.com.