Monthly Archives: January 2017

Regional Thinking Pt. 3 Six Californias and (Six New Yorks, Texas’s and Florida’s)

January 26, 2017Community Activism to Enhance Access to Capital, Entrepreneurial Approaches65mcj

This is a great idea after the first two proposals (1 and 2) for reforms to the government and economy of the U.S. This is the best idea to advance democracy and strengthen the republic at the same time. The left/right debate has been vaporized in the election of President Trump where the body politic was expecting someone out of the political world but got something that was totally unexpected. The destruction of two political dynasties which were the Bush and Clinton political families. Gov. Jeb Bush on the Republican side and Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton on the Democratic Side.

I don’t want to dwell on the 2016 election any longer since it was last year and it was an election that I wanted to end very quickly. Instead of the political left/right crap but actually, reforms and ideas to help the coming generation come into its own. This is the way to actually make the institutions of government respond and reflect the will of its citizens. The problem with American Democracy is the same old theme that many people are saying. It’s not tyranny, dictatorship, or Neo-Hitlerian thoughts (Alt-right, White supremacy, or Neo Confederacy), and I not saying there are no racial problems in the country. It’s taxation without representation.

I argue the question that is on the public, political scientists, historians, and politicians’ minds is that why is the public will is never reflected in the outcome of bills.

Michael Lind is going deeper into the debate that needs to be started and solved:

“Nobody should underestimate the power of inertia in American politics. But we will never have any progress, if we accept stupid things just because they are old.

At this point, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” on a fife and drum, somebody in the peanut gallery will object that our system represents the “genius of the Founding Fathers.” Sorry, peanut gallery patriots — the major Founders hated the overrepresentation of small states in the Senate. For most of their political careers, Alexander Hamilton favored more centralization, while the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison (except early in his career), was for states’ rights. But these two co-authors of the Federalist Papers agreed that states should be represented in the Senate on the basis of population and that the compromise in the Constitution that gave each state two senators, no matter its size, was a mistake.

In the guise of denouncing the Articles of Confederation, Hamilton made his feelings clear in Federalist No. 22:

The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail…. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller.”

Michael Lind –Break up the states! The case for the United Statelets of America

We need to reform the Senate and allow the big states to be fully represented in the Senate where democracy has been missing for about 240 years. (241 if you include July 4, 2017) Michael Lind goes deeper into the sanity of representation of big states’ populations in the Senate:

“If we assume that microstates like Wyoming are not going to give up their two U.S. senators, then macrostates like California, Texas, Florida and New York should voluntarily divide themselves, in order to boost their representation in America’s upper house. Under the Six Californias plan, for example, residents of present-day California would send 12 senators to Washington, not two.”

“And because they are smaller, the successor states to the Former California would be more citizen-friendly. A citizen of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota or Alaska — the four least populous states — has a much better chance of influencing the legislature or arranging an appointment with the governor than does a citizen of California or Texas who is not backed by an army of lobbyists or hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Michael Lind – 75 Stars

“Why not form new states within the jurisdictions of the existing megastates? Why not divide in order to rule? This is not as crazy as it sounds. Commentator Walter Russell Mead has suggested that no American should have to live in a state with more than 4 or 5 million citizens. If the 4-million-population rule were applied to the large states, California might be subdivided into eight new states; Texas, five; New York and Florida, four; Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio, three; and Michigan and New Jersey, two.

Eight Californias? Five Texases? Four New Yorks? Why not?”

Michael Lind – 75 Stars

That includes four Floridas in this new way of thinking. Redistricting is going to have a new meaning where instead of not only congressional districts but also regional governors manage these new areas. The only thing that I disagree with Michael Lind is the creation of new states. You could keep the same states but treat the new “statelets” as regions within a state as a district.

Let’s evolve our institutions and perfect the union! Mr. Draper is on to something big!!!!

This is the third article in a three-article series on Regional Governance.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/empire/empire-threeuscities/2013/11/2013112417488309525.html

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/28/break_up_the_states_the_case_for_the_united_statelets_of_america/?utm_content=bufferc7041&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-21?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/how_did_estonia_become_a_leader_in_technology_

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/07/15/theres-a-plan-to-split-california-into-6-states-heres-what-it-might-look-like/?utm_term=.487a2e7ecb28

http://www.fixcal.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Californias

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/03/california-politics?utm_content=buffer9d61f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/15/331694432/plan-to-make-6-states-out-of-california-may-head-to-ballot

Why venture capitalist Tim Draper wants to divide California into six states (interview)

Founding Purpose: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

The mechanism for achieving this goal is Capitalism and Democracy.

Regional Thinking Pt. 2 – Regional Mayors and Govenors

January 25, 2017Community Activism to Enhance Access to Capital, Entrepreneurial Approaches65mcj

The greatest challenge to the United States Post WWII and the Post Cold War era where the U.S was in deep competition with the Soviet Union. The issues of threats changed from being external to now being internal. The evolution of Globalization/Americanization has contained threats and challenges. Challenges that the United States had to call upon its population to enlist/commission in its armed services and sometimes tragically give life and limbs to values that are enshrined today. In the first post, I explained the net gains of consolidations of institutions to expand the power of markets in the Continental United States.

With the transformation and evolution of the global economy in the 21st Century. Reforms are needed to keep up with the pace of change and adapt to the world where changes are happening whether you like it or not. The U.S. is at a point in its history where the right decisions and investments are made. We could be talking about the next American century and the concept of the true Pax Americana where the world is less focused on warfare and the concept of commerce, eCommerce, and science. This will help the U.S. compete in the next coming century with more players in the game. (China, India, Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa, and Africa)

The concept of Regional Mayors and Governors will help the economy change where political infighting has shown that the politics and lawmakers are holding back the progress of the U.S. Polls after polls showed that people do not see each other and politicians and natural disasters, and terrorism as threats to their livelihood. The last eight years and another four to maybe another eight years showed that the U.S. cannot have political incompetence. This will continue to bog down future administrations where the list of things to do adds up and the crisis always bring political deadlock.

Regional Mayors will help to expand cities that would help to harmonize laws, public works, and investment deals where instead of one city looking for cluster placement. A series of twenty or thirty cities will bring attention to these areas with a large pool of customers, human capital, and financial capital. This would increase of hitting power of American cities, towns, and rural areas that are seeking investments. This should make it easier for Regional Governors to collaborate with local and county officials.

Regional Governor will help dissolved the political deadlock by bringing business, trade, and cultural differences to expand the market. Public Health, Public Services, Infrastructure, and working business will help develop these areas into megaregions. With differed districts, one for commerce and another for military/law enforcement will assist and enforce the commercial consolidation. The website for the Council of Governors states the following and research should be put into this Council:

“The Council of Governors (Council) was created by the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 and formally established by Executive Order 13528, issued on January 11, 2010. The Council is intended to serve as a mechanism for governors and key federal officials to address matters pertaining to the National Guard, homeland defense and defense support to civil authorities.”

Military/National Guard/FEMA/ Commerce consolidation based on the

Law Enforcement Districts U.S. Federal Reserve Districts

This should help with help institutions with adjusting to not only the commercial realities but includes law enforcement/military institutions for white-collar, cybercrimes, and natural disasters that will certainly take place.

This is the second article in a three-article series on Regional Governance.

http://www.rpa.org/article/what-us-map-should-really-look-like

https://www.nga.org/cms/CoG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/12/the-radical-new-map-that-would-really-reflect-life-in-the-u-s/?utm_term=.de2459fc269c

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/story/news/local/clarksville/2016/10/06/city-mayor-kim-mcmillan-lead-regional-mayors-caucus/91708566/

http://www.sanantonio.gov/DotGov/Full-Article/ArtMID/2621/ArticleID/8547/Mayors-to-meet-for-regional-growth-summit

Regional Council of Mayors

The mechanism for achieving this goal is Capitalism and Democracy.

Neo Federal Reserve (Mega Capitalism)

January 25, 2017Banking, Entrepreneurial Approaches, The Politics of Wealth65mcj

I hope everyone is enjoying their new year and I wanted to jump-start this blog because of the major risk and uncertainty that is accelerating in the coming months. The incoming Trump Administration has something that 44 presidents had before them in terms of a record to come off. The President-elect soon-to-be President has no record or background in politics to reference and that has a lot of people terrified. I see this as a major opportunity to open doors and destroy intellectually wasteful left/right debate in this country’s politics.

The first issue, I come to terms with not playing stupid gotcha left/right politics and creating opportunities for major reforms that are needed in the global economy because of the advancement of globalization, institutional changes to integrate new technological clusters into the economy, and consolidations needed to resolve conflict and risk. This central theme for the next post will be about creating fluid economic institutions to deal with a post gold standard economy.

The real stress is the economy that no one is talking about is the economy is expanding fastest than the present institutions can handle. To handle the major change and bring certainty and fluidity back to the market. Before we continue any further on this post. We have to define the two policies affecting the economy right now:

“Monetary policy involves changing the interest rate and influencing the money supply. Fiscal policy involves the government changing tax rates and levels of government spending to influence aggregate demand in the economy.”

Difference between monetary and fiscal policy | Economics Help

www.economicshelp.org/blog/1850/…/difference-between-monetary-and-fiscal–policy/

We need to acknowledge that we are in a shotgun wedding when it comes to the economy, treaties, and trade pacts. There is no way out of this or around it because the only autonomous nation on the planet is North Korea(they’re leveraged with food by the Chinese). We need to understand and create dialogue to address the structural shortcomings and the measures to resolve them. What I’ll love to inject into the debate is that we do not need so much tension where political showdowns and battles translate into market uncertainty which delays investments, contracts, and implementation of business decisions from the C-Suite.

The first issue I’m going to tackle is reforms of the Central Banks or commonly known as the Bretton Woods system to adapt to the current market of emerging markets, globalization, declining and evolving technological clusters, and upgrades to the current infrastructure. Basel III is the current structure of the global economy in terms of banks and the holdings they are required to have to keep the banks running. This could be the founding of Basel IV where the new changes in the tax code are updated across the world.

I don’t have an economics, finance, or high-level maths degree to work out the equations but the three areas that will explode the economy with a capital-rich environment is these three areas: capital requirements, leverage ratio, and liquidity requirements. The updated tax plan and policies suggested in this blog will help to reverse the declining clusters around the world.

The picture shows the role of the central banks in the country:

I’m proposing a consolidation of the top 8 central banks into a new central bank system with the U.S. and the U.K. The top financial cities(New York and London) are in those countries and the growth is small compares to the rest of the world. It already has the institutions within its borders and people are used to this nation-leading:

8 Central Banks You Need to Know

Taking the top 8 Central Banks and putting them into the U.S. Federal Reserve System and the U.K.’s Bank of England can help to resolve and bring efficiency back to the markets.

US Federal Reserve Bank (USD)
European Central Bank (EUR)
Bank of England (GBP)
Bank of Japan (JPY)
Swiss National Bank (CHF)
Bank of Canada (CAD)
Reserve Bank of Australia (AUD)
Reserve Bank of New Zealand (NZD)

Take the bottom banks and put them into the U.S. Federal Reserve System:

The same is on the bottom and will create Dual Branches of the Federal Reserve system that will reduce the number of central banks policies to contend with and make business decisions easier.

Take the bottom banks and put them into the Bank of England and it will help to reduce the danger of currency fluctuations and harmonize monetary policy around the World. Moving and splitting the Bank of International Settlements into both the U.S. and U.K. will help shake up the mix. I know what everyone is thinking (What about Brexit?)