Rolling Stone has the article Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.

4. Make Everything Owned by Everybody

Hoarders blow. Take, for instance, the infamous one percent, whose ownership of the capital stock of this country leads to such horrific inequality. “Capital stock” refers to two things here: the buildings and equipment that workers use to produce goods and services, and the stocks and bonds that represent ownership over the former. The top 10 percent’s ownership of the means of production is represented by the fact that they control 80 percent of all financial assets.

This detachment means that there’s a way easier way to collectivize wealth ownership than having to stage uprisings that seize the actual airplanes and warehouses and whatnot: Just buy up their stocks and bonds. When the government does that, it’s called a sovereign wealth fund. Think of it like a big investment fund that buys up assets from the private sector and pays dividends to all permanent U.S. residents in the form of a universal basic income. Alaska actually already has a fund like this in place. If it’s good enough for Levi Johnston, it’s good enough for you.

This is exactly what I am suggesting for the Social Security Trust Fund. I didn’t want to mention this aspect of what would happen if the fund invested this way for fear that the 1% might wake up to this fact. Now that Rolling Stone has let the cat out of the bag, I guess there is not point in hiding this anymore.

It was the Daily Kos article When are we going to invade communist Alaska? that led me to the Rolling Stone article.

National Report has the story Colorado Pot Shop Accepting Food Stamps – Taxpayer Funded Marijuana for Welfare Recipients.

In all, 136 licenses have been approved by the state of Colorado for retail operations for the purposes of selling marijuana.  A majority of those licenses were issued to businesses in Denver with just eighteen city stores completing the process in time for opening day. One of those shops, Rite Greens, located on E. Colfax Ave in Denver, has taken the steps needed to accept food stamps (now called EBT cards) for the purposes of purchasing marijuana effectively leading to taxpayer funded marijuana for welfare recipients.

I did find this disclaimer on the National Report web site.

*DISCLAIMER: The National Report is an online portal for “citizen journalists”. The views expressed by writers on this site are theirs alone and are not reflective of the fine journalistic and editorial integrity of National Report. Advice given is NOT to be construed as professional. If you are in need of professional help, please consult a professional. National Report is not intended for children under the age of 18.

Maybe I should also mention that I was led to this story by the Daily Kos article Fake news story apparently prompts real legislation in Colorado.

You might also want to check this out on the Snopes article Brownie Points.

Yes, it’s funny. Just remember that we are “forced” to make sarcastic jokes about the rich in order to right some injustices. However, in the back of my mind I do worry about being too successful at demonizing managers and CEOs.

Some of the productivity of workers comes from the introduction of labor saving capital investments – computers, automation, and machines in general. Some of these productivity enhancers were introduced by management to lower the cost of labor. If the remaining workers were given all the proceeds of this “cost reduction”, then there would be no net cost reduction. Some of the incentive to make the company more efficient would be taken away. Notice that I used the adjective “some”, not the adjectives “all” or “much”. This is not a binary decision to grant the workers all of the benefits or none of the benefits.

Also, while it seems to be true that some executives are being paid exorbitant salaries and perks, we should not forget that good executives do good work for the corporation. The corporation would not do very well without good people in all positions within the company including among the executive ranks.

Ok, now that I have gotten that out of my system, I can feel free to go back to my regular schedule of excessive demonizing of the ranks of the rich.

Naked Capitalism has the article Your Humble Blogger Speaks on RT: “Banks Are Still Getting Away With a Lot”.

I had fun on this interview, although there was one point where the host, Erin Ade, hit me with a remarkably broad question: what was the worst pre-crisis bank abuse? I neglected to include chain of title, the pretty much pervasive failure to transfer the mortgage rights as stipulated in securitization agreements to the trusts used to hold them. That actually was the most stunning thing I came across as more and more information came out after the the dust had settled. But it didn’t play directly into the meltdown, so I neglected to include it.

Warning: Know where your mute button on your computer is. There is introductory music and a break in the middle that can stand to be muted.

The interviewer, Erin Ade, seemed fairly knowledgeable during the interview with Yves Smith.

However, after the interview there was a segment of the program where she and produce Ed Harrison discussed a couple of viewer questions. This segment was so unintentionally silly, that I had trouble picking my jaw up from the floor. The first question did actually raise an issue with Modern Monetary Theory that concerns me a little. The answers by Erin and Ed were not worth listening to except to prove what a good actress Erin is. I actually thought she knew something for a while during the show.

The Rachel Maddow Show has a Facebook post  about her article Meet Ron Johnson’s Doctor.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has based much of his hatred of the Affordable Care Act on the medical care that saved his daughter.

According to the surgeon responsible for that life-saving care, Johnson’s completely wrong

What’s the matter with Wisconsin?  Too much cold weather?

In light of the controversy I stirred up with my blog post Does Israel Have A Profoundly Democratic Political System?, I thought I would provide some pointers for further research.

A Google search of Prawer Law gives about 195,000 results.

Below are the links on the first page of search results, along with some biased excerpt selections from some of the articles.

Demolition and Eviction of Bedouin Citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev) – The Prawer Plan

The Prawer Plan: Act Now

Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev

The bill is described as part of a campaign to develop the Negev; bring about better integration of Bedouin in Israeli society, and significantly reduce the economic and social gaps between the Bedouin population in the Negev and Israeli society.[2] By contrast, Jewish families have been encouraged to settle in this part of the country to make the desert bloom and small, gated farming communities – fully serviced with water and electricity – have sprung up close to the Bedouin villages.[8]

The “Criticism” section of the above WikiPedia article says the following:

A United Nations committee has called for the withdrawal of the draft law that would move 30,000 Bedouin living in the Negev to permanent, existing Bedouin communities. Furthermore, the United Nations human rights chief urged Israel to reconsider a proposed law that would result in the demolition of up to 35 Bedouin villages, displacing as many as 40,000 members of these communities from their ancestral homes. “If this bill becomes law, it will accelerate the demolition of entire Bedouin communities, forcing them to give up their homes, denying them their rights to land ownership, and decimating their traditional cultural and social life in the name of development,” Ms. Pillay said. According to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Law for the Regulation of the Bedouin Settlement in the Negev is discriminatory and would legalize racist practices. Further critics of Prawer Plan include an independent human rights organization and legal center, Adalah Adalah which works to promote and defend the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, 1.2 million people, or 20% of the population, as well as Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). The center describes the Bill – which was approved by the Israeli Knesset on 25 June 2013 with 43 votes for and 40 votes against, as discriminatory. It adds that the Bill calls for the mass expulsion of the Arab Bedouin community in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of Israel. If fully implemented, the Prawer-Begin Plan will result in the destruction of 35 “unrecognized”Arab Bedouin villages, the forced displacement of up to 70,000 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel, and the dispossession of their historical lands in the Naqab. Despite the Arab Bedouin community’s complete rejection of the plan and strong disapproval from the international community and human rights groups, the Prawer Plan is happening now. Adalah further elaborates that Prawer-Begin Bill is an unacceptable proposition that entrenches the state’s historic injustice against its Bedouin citizens.

The European Parliament heavily criticized the plan.^[9] In January 2012 hundreds of people protested the Prawer Plan, calling for the relocation of about 30,000 Beduins to recognized villages, in front of the Beersheba courthouse.^[10] In September 2013 both Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued statements condemning Israel’s ongoing destruction of Palestinian homes and other structures, particularly in the occupied West Bank and the Negev desert in southern Israel.^{[citation needed]}

The Prawer Plan

Under the Prawer Plan it is estimated that some 30,000 to 40,000 people in at least 25 of the unrecognized Bedouin villages would be forcibly relocated. The Israeli government would then level these villages.

Prawer plan defeated

The Israeli government officially announced that Knesset discussions about the Prawer plan will be halted. The meaning of this is that the government has backed away from attempts to pass the Prawer law and to threaten the Arab residents of the Naqab (Negev). This is first and foremost a huge victory for the popular struggle – the struggle of the Bedouins of the Naqab, the struggle of the determined young women and men who led the struggle, and for everyone who identified with the struggle and supported it. The radical right-wing also wanted to bury this law, but this occurred only when the regime understood that the Naqab will not resign itself and will not accept the law. It is alright to rejoice!

Prawer Plan buries the two state solution

Prawer Plan Back in Knesset, Causing Heated Debate

The controversial Prawer Plan to resettle residents of illegal Bedouin settlements underwent a second and third reading on Monday, despite earlier announcements that the bill would be dropped.

The plan would grant Negev Bedouins 180,000 dunam (45,000 acres) of state-owned land for free, as well as “compensation” for their relocation from illegal outposts.

The bill garnered controversy from both sides of the political spectrum. Arab and leftist groups objected to the forced relocation of 30-40,000 Bedouin Arabs; nationalist MKs argued that the plan rewarded the Bedouin population for engaging in illegal land grabs.

Government Drops Prawer Plan for Bedouins

Netanyahu vows to advance Beduin resettlement plan despite violent protests

Adalah: Withdrawal of the Prawer Plan bill is a major achievement

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to research the rest of the 195,000 items.

Are you tired of blog posts that tell you what is wrong with the world and offer no solutions?

New Economic Perspectives has the article The Job Guarantee which tells you some things that are right, in other words, it offers solutions.

NEP’s Pavlina Tcherneva appears in the following video by Rebecca Rojer. The video condenses a lecture by Pavlina explaining what a job guarantee is, its economic impact, and what we can learn from her research on the Jefes (“Heads of Households”) Program in Argentina.

I received an email with a link to Charles Krauthammer’s article Sea of easy and open bigotry is rising.

Given that Israel has a profoundly democratic political system, the freest press in the Middle East, a fiercely independent judiciary, and astonishing religious and racial diversity within its universities, including affirmative action for Arab students, the charge is rather strange.

I found The Real News Network story Israel’s Bedouin Face Displacement Despite Apparent Gov’t Concessions.

LIA TARACHANSKY, TRNN PRODUCER: On November 30, the Bedouin Arabs of Israel’s Negev Desert launched a coordinated day of protest that saw solidarity around the world. They were protesting the so-called Prawer law that would forcefully urbanize them and on the lands from which their villages would be demolished construct Jewish ones.

Did I miss the profoundly democratic political system’s application to Bedouin citizens of Israel? Are we now to conclude that official apartheid policies can be part of a profoundly democratic system? The gong of cognitive dissonance that is echoing in my head has made it hard for me to think.

Makes me ask “Was the way the native Americans were pushed off their lands by European settlers profoundly democratic? What have we learned from our history?”

For further information on the plan discussed in the video see my subsequent post The Prawer Plan: Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev.

The Boston Globe published the article Treasurer wrestles with potential conflicts over family firm on December 16, 2013.

State Treasurer Steven Grossman’s family marketing firm touts an impressive list of high profile clients that includes some of Boston’s biggest private sector names: the Bruins, the Celtics, J.P. Morgan Chase, and the high-powered law firm Mintz Levin.

Those organizations each have something else in common. They all have lucrative financial relationships with the state Treasury or the Massachusetts State Lottery, which Grossman oversees.

I saw the headline when the story first came out, but I didn’t get around to reading it.  Then I realized I was making decisions based on the headline rather than what was in the story.  So, I finally went back and read the story.  I am not quite sure what to make of it.  Maybe you can read it, and then tell me what the significance of this story is in regard to the political race for Governor of Massachusetts.  Steven Grossman is one of several seemingly progressive candidates in the upcoming election.

Here is an excerpt from a campaign email that I just received from Steven Grossman:

My vision for Massachusetts deals decisively with the issue of rampant economic and income inequality – the central and defining challenge we face. When we empower those citizens and communities that have been left out and left behind for far too long, we will build one Commonwealth that thrives together. It’s an ambitious vision, but it is absolutely essential to our success.

The Inter Press Service News Agency has the article Gates Conceals Real Story of “Gaming” Obama on Afghan War by Gareth Porter.

The leaking to the news media of a politically damaging version of internal debate between the White House and the coalition pushing for a major escalation was nothing less than shot across the bow from Obama’s principal national security officials, including Petraeus, Mullen, Gates and Clinton. They were signaling to the president that he would incur a significant political cost if he rejected the McChrystal request.

I have often wondered if the Obama administration’s excessively belicose (warlike or hostile in manner or temperament) foreign policy was a product of his then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or if it  came from Obama himself.

The fact that since John Kerry has taken over there have been a number of diplomatic breakthroughs makes me even more suspicious that Clinton was the one pushing the belicose strategy.

If this suspicion proves true, it would make me even less likely to want Hilary Clinton to be our next president.