HOMESTEAD: COG and SocSec

["Thomas Brandt" <TBrandt@dbedt.hawaii.gov>]

Deb,

Thanks for your quick response, and sorry for sending so many copies of the
same email.   My suggested inclusion of USOP and free market socialism
proposals in your Homestead summary was motivated more by a sense of
intellectual or academic thoroughness than by a belief these should get
more consideration as ideas COG should promote at present.    I also won't
have time to write a summary of these for the long version of your
Homestead paper by next Monday, but I will give some thought to doing so
for handout at the meeting in May.    However, since my email suggesting
these additions will be archived by COG, that may suffice to satisfy my
need for thoroughness (especially bearing in mind our limited time and
resources constraints).

While I agree with Rodney and John (as well as yourself and probably most
COG participants) that widespread capital ownership could eventually reduce
or eliminate the need for Social Security (and perhaps collective
bargaining as well), I agree with you that we are still a long way from
that goal, so maintaining the viability of Soc Sec and collective
bargaining is still important.   But I also think that it may be feasible
and desirable to promote some COG alternatives as viable ways to supplement
Social Security, and that the ongoing Soc Sec reform debate may present a
window of opportunity for COG to get some of its proposals on the political
radar screen.    The various existing proposals to partially privatize
and/or invest some SS funds in the stock market in various ways--whether
you or I like them or not--may help to make COG proposals seem less "far
out".

Aloha!




                                                                                
      
                    Deborah Groban                                              
      
                    Olson                     To:     "Thomas Brandt"           
      
                    <dgo@esoplaw.com>         <TBrandt@dbedt.hawaii.gov>        
      
                    Sent by:                  cc:     Homestead                 
      
                    owner-homestead@co        <Homestead@cog.kent.edu>          
      
                    g.kent.edu                Subject:     Re: HOMESTEAD: New 
ideas   
                                              and balloting                     
      
                                                                                
      
                    04/20/01 12:00 PM                                           
      
                    Please respond to                                           
      
                    homestead                                                   
      
                                                                                
      
                                                                                
      




Dear Thomas:

        Thank you for your thoughtful reply to the Homestead summary. I
have run out of time to make significant changes in the Summary that will
add any length. If you have corrections to the existing copy, I can try to
get them in.  As an alternative, I would be happy to put additional
information in the long version of the Homestead paper, if I have it by
Monday April 23. If that deadline does not work, feel free to write a short
piece that we can use as a separate handout at the May 6-8 conference.
Those packets will be created during the week of May 1-4.

        One outcome of the May 6-8 meeting will be a balloting process
allowing all COG participants to evaluate all proposals on their likelihood
to solve problems and their likelihood of implementation. We hope to use
this process to help create additional, more highly focused discussion
groups around specific proposals. We are trying to create groups of
like-minded folks who want to work together to develop implementation
strategies for ideas they think are worth the effort. So, even if the USOP
idea does not make it into the HOmestead summary or paper, you will be able
to post it for further discussion in Homestead and for balloting. We are
still working on the logistics of the balloting process, so don't ask me
for specifics yet. We don't have the time to deal with it until after the
May conference.
Deb
At 08:21 PM 4/19/01 -1000, you wrote:

>Deb,
>
>I think this is a very concise, yet quite comprehensive summary of the
>currently most viable alternatives (at least relative to those I mention
>below) discussed by COG so far.    The main alternatives I think are not
>included are the various and perhaps somewhat more grandiose proposals
>submitted to Stuart Speiser's USOP (Universal Stock Ownership Plan) essay
>contests in the 1980s.   (BTW, Terry Mollner's "trusteeship trust"
proposal
>was included in the books of essays published by Speiser and was distinct
>from most of the others in its non-governmental "bottom-up" approach).
>
>I remember mentioning the USOP essays early on in COG discussions, but I
>don't think these were ever thoroughly discussed because I think they were
>perceived as too difficult to implement or too socialistic and/or because
>none of the Speiser contestants was participating in COG discussions.
>Even though the USOP proposals may not be politically feasible at present,
>I think they are no less so than Norm Kurland's Capital Homesteading
>proposal, which is equally far-reaching in scope, and which you do mention
>in your summary.   Your summary also leaves out existing ideas for free
>market socialism proposed by various scholars working more in the
tradition
>of Oskar Lange rather than Louis Kelso.
>
>Even though I think the Kelsonian and other alternatives you mention are
>relatively more feasible in the current political climate, I think
existing
>USOP and market socialist proposals might enrich the COG Homestead
>discussion or at least deserve mention in your summary (if only because
>they might make COG's Homestead proposals seem more feasible and desirable
>by comparison).   On the other hand, introducing these lines of thought
>might just create another unproductive distraction (or taint COG's primary
>proposals), and discussion by COG of proposals for free market socialism
>might get no further than discussion of USOPs for the same reasons.
>
>So bearing in mind your and COG's time and resource constraints, I think
>the following addition to your summary would be useful even if you are not
>inclined to include any of my other suggestions above.    A brief
>description of Clinton's Universal Savings Account (USA) proposal--which I
>believe is not the same as that proposed by Michael Sherraden--and/or
other
>existing proposals for partially privatizing Social Security by investing
>in the stock market might deserve a mention to show readers unfamiliar
with
>any of these ideas that, by comparison, what COG proposes isn't really
that
>far beyond the realm of possibility and might address possible SocSec
>shortfalls, as well as the problem of concentrated wealth, more
>effectively.
>
>Mahalo and Aloha!