Corporations used to have 3 major components — customers, employees, and share-holders. The worker component influence in this triangle has been diminished over the decades by Corporations via many means. It would be useful for the Corporation to have a Worker representative on the Board to help balance employee considerations (living wage and benefits) to those of the share-holders (profits).

Also add a cap on the ratio of the CEO salary, stock, and stock options to that of the lowest paid employees. A ratio of 50/1 is reasonable. For example, the CEO maximum total annual compensation of $1.5M, versus the lowest level employee compensation of $30,000 per year. If the CEO wants to make more — then pay the employees, that make their vision come true, more.

With the rapid increase in the ability to tally votes and see results immediately across the country, we do not need such a long period between election day and Inauguration Day. We the citizens could pass a law, with the PttP Referendum in place, to move Inauguration Day up to mid-December. This would prevent the outgoing Administration from causing as much trouble before the new Administration is sworn in.

Reparations are long overdue for the U.S. Black population.

Wealth ensures justice — with wealth you can defend your rights.

Wealth buffers adversity

Wealth enhances one’s health

Wealth presents opportunities

Wealth crosses generations

Black Wealth creation requires reparations

Although some U.S. Caucasians do not believe they should pay for crimes from the “past” although everyone’s present wealth is based on this fact

Some would argue, why should the less wealthy individuals have to pay? It is less likely they have benefited from their ancestor’s owning slaves, or benefited from other white privilege actions, in acquiring wealth.

This reparations proposal intends to target funds from the group of citizens that have benefited the most – those having greater wealth.

The Reparations Fund Proposal:\

All Business or individual stock transactions, bond transactions, and Real Estate transactions will be subjected to a reparation transaction tax based on the entire transaction’s value.  Additionally, for Corporate stock buybacks, the reparations transaction tax will be 20% of the value of the buy-back/repurchase amount. These reparations transaction taxes will be tax deductible for individuals with wealth lower than median per capita level set by the U.S. Government for the prior year.  The reparation transaction tax rate will be set to ensure that, within 20 years from the start of reparations, the black reparations population’s per capita wealth is equal to the average per capita wealth of all U.S citizens.

These proceeds will go directly into a Reparations Fund for U.S. Black citizens that are decedents of slaves in America and 100% percent black (African continent) ancestry.  For practical purposes, this will mean any black citizen that can demonstrate having one ancestor living in the U.S. since the end of WWII. That person will receive one (1) share in the Reparations Fund until their death.

Other black citizens will receive a ½ (0.5) share for 100% percent black (African continent) ancestry, and proportionally less for mixed race individuals greater or equal to 1/8 black ancestry.

The Reparations Fund shares will be distributed quarterly to all qualifying black citizens being at least 21 years of age. The fund will not cease to disperse funds until such time as the average per capita wealth of the Reparations Fund qualifying citizens is equal to the average per capita wealth of all U.S citizens.    The wealth statistics will be based on U.S. citizen’s public/private holdings from the previous year.  Individual wealth will include all assets foreign and domestic.

The IRS will collect and disperse the funds each quarter based on the net amount collected in the previous quarter.  The Federal Government will manage the Reparations Fund applications by citizens, and their meeting the qualification criteria within 6 months of application submission.

Around 90 years ago with the start of the Depression in the U.S.A., and 25% unemployment, the Government started supporting workers. During the Depression spawned Social Security.

Unions formed, workers demanded and won new benefits. The economy grew with people having more money.   In the 1950s it took off.  The 1960s other races wanted their fair share of the pie.  The 1970s the Oil crisis, destroyed Detroit, another crisis not directly caused by the people, but the Middle East tired of being exploited by big business.

Right to work laws – designed to prevent union formation.

Then the opening of relations with China.  Ever since, not just because of China — Globalization.   Not that work needed to be performed overseas because of some geographical advantage like local natural resources, but to find a cheaper source of labor and looser health and safety regulations.  From the 1970s and onward we have seen; the dismantling of labor unions and moving good jobs overseas, so Corporations could earn more. Not for any inherent good for the U.S.A. or the Corporations workers.

Corporations do not primarily have workers or Country in mind when they are making decisions.   It is all about the Managers and Shareholders.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with multi-national Corporations except their goal of maximizing productivity.  It is okay of Apple builds iPhones in China – for China.  The issue is when all production is one country and its devices are sold everywhere.  We need manufacturing capability AND capacity in the U.S.A. as well.  Boeing is a better model to date, building planes here and in China.  The Chinese policy was to build it there.  That is not a bad model.

Maximizing productivity is a civilization ender

Maximizing employment is a civilization enhancer.

Another effect of globalization that people do not see – directly and a topic for another day.  According to The Essential Daily Briefing:

“It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars. The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world. And if the shipping industry were a country, it would be ranked between Germany and Japan as the sixth-largest contributor to CO2 emissions.”

About 11,000 ships are bulk carriers out of a total of 53,000 January 2019.(source Count of container ships)  Take that climate change.

The hollowing out of the Government.   Making in incompetent by removing resources and putting people in charge of Agencies with the intent to damage them.   By cutting taxes and then claiming the budget deficit is too high, therefore the Federal budget needs to decrease.

2010’s Citizens United – The lawsuit and Supreme Court ruling are anything but – basically saying Corporations are people too.   A massive tax cut for the rich to increase the Federal Budget deficit.   Putting the States that try to care for their citizens at a disadvantage, by cutting the State tax deduction on Federal returns and increasing the tax owed by that State’s citizens.

It is time for “Corporation first” to change.  For the Pendulum to start swinging back to the workers.

We need a new bold U.S. initiative right now.  A program for the People — not the Corporations.

Instead of trickle down we need a lift up

 Expecting politicians to hand over their power is naïve – it needs to be taken from them.   Twice in a decade they have allowed events to decimate the fortunes of the working class.   Yes, the latest covid19 virus is not their fault, but the lack of preparedness and handling of the impact are.

They do not deserve to have unlimited power.   We should not wait for them to “solve” things for us.   We need to put guardrails in place to get them to

Do the right thing NOT the thing that is right for them

i.e. attempting to increase contributions and ensure their reelection.

The PttP is a mechanism for placing guardrails around our elected leaders.

Income and wealth disparity between the poor plus working class versus the top has gotten worse in the last 40 years.   The trickle-down economics, where the rich create living wage jobs for everyone else — is not working.  The reduced ability of workers to unionize to represent a united front with management is being legislated away.   The removal of any controls on money in politics, with the Court’s revocation called “Citizens United” (a typical fake name hiding an ugly concept) has allowed the rich to control whom gets elected by withholding their donations for non-compliant (do as I want or else) candidates. The “great” recession was anything but for the poor that lost everything.  The inability to secure full-time jobs with a living wage, even with record low unemployment, requires many to hold multiple part-time jobs to support their families.   Yet, taxes for the rich continue to go down in percentage and real terms.

The study The Triumph of Injustice by economists E. Saez and G. Zucman reported in the Washington Post October 10,2019, shows for the first time in history,  the effective tax rate

for the top 400 families was 23%,

lower than the rate paid by the bottom half (50%) of earners 24.2%.

In 1980 the richest effective tax rate was 47%.  Additionally, the “death tax” law changes; allows more and more rich beneficiaries to keep more and more as inheritance.

The ability, and willingness, of corporations to replace employees with machines, or worse just force them to do more for the same pay and hours.  All of these issues are documented repeatedly, in study after study.

The rich do not create their wealth without the hard work of their unsung employees.  Whom builds everything the rich claim as theirs?

How could the ability to pass laws, defined by citizens, directly change this wealth dynamic? 

What common sense, easy to understand, easy to implement, hard to subvert laws, would help course correct the wealth disparity back to a reasonable level?

When the Constitution was written, the ability of an individual, even the President, to reach a large audience was extremely difficult and would take weeks, or even months to get a message distributed.

Today a person via the Internet can reach tens of Millions of people with their message; voice, text, video, image, etc. – in seconds.   Each person can be their own newscaster or publisher.

One should not be allowed to state one’s opinion online about an entire group of people – by race, religion, country of origin, age, gender, etc. – unless you have specific in-person information on every individual in that group.   If you want to make remarks, make them about a person, or a specific group of people that the speaker has interacted with.  The larger the group, the more a speaker’s negative comments ring of straight hatred; based on upbringing, or generalizing about a specific experience, unrelated to the entire group. Conversely, unwarranted praise is pandering and also unjustified. If you have not interacted with the individuals personally, then how can we speak honestly about them?

Therefore, it seems to me the definition of Defamation of character, slander and libel, need updating. Defamation of character happens when something untrue and damaging about one person is presented as a fact to another party.  Expand Defamation of character to cover groups, based on today’s World, as we have modified other laws over the last 2 Centuries.  We have the power to update laws to address situations that our Founding Fathers could never foresee. To say no laws need updating, is equivalent to saying we do not need traffic laws because cars didn’t exist in 1789.

My view is — there are approximately(~) 5%, of any group, that are the cause of most of that groups most egregious acts.  They are the main reason we need laws, police, courts, and other enforcement agencies.  Most other individuals will behave ethically, morally, and “do the right thing”.

So, our dilemma in this era of World-wide connectivity, instant broadcasting, and personal publishing – is how do we, as a society, manage the problematic ~5%, and keep their ignorant massaging from unlawfully influencing the other 95%?

One way to remedy this situation is with the PttP Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

You will NOT find the word “democracy” in either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. The United States of America was established as a Republic — period.

So, what’s the difference between a Republic and a Democracy?  It is important to today’s debate about social equality and government involvement in our lives.

A Republic is guided by an overarching set of laws — a charter or constitution — which, in our country’s case, explicitly guarantees the individual’s rights against the desires of the majority. Each of us has the indisputable right to think, worship and vote anyway we want.

A true Democracy, on the other hand, allows the majority to rule and to disregard the desires of any individual who doesn’t agree with them. Think of a democracy like this: If the majority of your neighbors voted to paint all houses bright purple you would be forced to follow suit.

If Ben Franklin were still with us, I think he would step forward to remind us that America was ordained to live as a united, law abiding country, tolerant of each other’s differences, and content to change laws via an orderly and legal process — not mob rule.

James Madison, often called “the father of the Constitution” wrote, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths.”

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* This article tries to maintain the original intent of the author Diane Dimond.  It was rearranged, edited for length, and has minor formatting changes.  Ms. Dimond website is at http://www.DianeDimond.com

** The article contents were found at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-republic-or-a-democracy_b_6306120

The legacy of winner takes all for a State’s Presidential Electoral votes is problematic.   It disenfranchises voters that do not represent the majority in their state.  There can be impacts beyond the Presidential vote by filtering down the line for more local elections.

This invalidates our one-person one-vote ideal.

This has slowly started to change, in two states, electoral votes are NOT ‘winner-take-all’.  “The candidate winning the popular vote normally receives all of that state’s votes. Maine and Nebraska have adapted a different approach. Using the ‘congressional district method’, these states allocate two electoral votes to the state popular vote winner, and then one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska). This creates multiple popular vote contests in these states, which could lead to a split electoral vote.”

A better approach, is in its purest form, the Electoral votes could be prorated by popular vote in the State, then it would be truly be one-person one-vote.  

For example 10 Million votes,  that go 60% to 40% for Party 1 and 2, instead of say for example 10 Electoral votes for Party 1. The Electoral votes would be split 6 and 4 for Party 1 and 2. Therefore 4 Million voters in this scenario would have their Presidential election voice heard,

The problem impacts both Republicans and Democrats, and impacts a large percentage of voters.

A BIG positive side effect is, candidates then could visit more States, since every State can ensure some Electoral Votes, versus the current scenario where candidates only go to States that are safely in their camp, or in “play” for the winner take all election.

We could make this happen, if the PttP Referendum amendment were in place.

Other countries take the electoral process more seriously. In a recent election, Indian election staff traveled 300 miles to allow one person to vote.  In Australia, citizens are required by law to vote .

Minimally, we should give people the option of taking part of the day off from work (it doesn’t have to be paid, but that would be nice if employers saw voting as an important enough role in democracy to paid for some time off).   Regardless, citizens should be accommodated by their employers AND Government by making it as easy as possible to legally vote.   Polling places that are located where needed and staffed accordingly to expected turnout, encouraging write-in ballots, and having extended voting hours.

Maybe, we can get to a phone app that allows us to vote from wherever and also see how we voted.   It is problematic that one doesn’t see how their vote is registered and if the total tallies make sense.

Making voting required, one can submit absentee ballots, is also a way to remind people take ownership of their country and their Government.

Again giving Power To The People,