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Re: HOMESTEAD: Last chance to correct Homestead Chapter of Ownership for All - Fri.9/7/01 is deadline for changes to manuscript



Dear Shann: See interspersed comments. I was under strict orders not to make the article any longer.
Deb
At 09:54 PM 9/8/01 +1000, you wrote:
Dear Deb

There seems insufficient time to make major editorial changes to the report by you and Alan Zundel.  If there were time, then I would recommend that the length be reduced and signposts put in the text to explain the contribution of each section, outline its contents and explain its relevancy and importance.  The positive ideas get lost with excessive detailed descriptions which are not required to explain the pro and cons of the ideas.

There are five places where I can suggests changes that concern my own contributions and three places that I suggest clarification and/or qualification of details:

1.  You list the eight "Issues to Consider in Promoting OTC Reforms on pages 11-14.  Ideally I would like to see my response to each of these eight issues added to the text or the eight issues removed with a reference to the COG web page that lists both the eight issues AND my responses. http://cog.kent.edu/CogStrategyConf6-8May2001/StrategyPapers.htm  A second best approach would be to just add a citation to the web page that lists my responses. http://cog.kent.edu/CogStrategyConf6-8May2001/TurnbullResponseToDavidBinns.htm

I added a sentence mentioning your responseseand a footnote citation.





2. Before the section on the Capital Homestead Act on page 14 -17 could you add a new short Section with the heading along the lines as follows:

There was no room to add all of this but I did add a sentence and a short footnote citing your paper.


The Use of Central Banks to Spread Ownership

At the COG Strategy meeting in May 2001, Shann Turnbull was invited to present a paper on "The Use of Central Banks to Spread Ownership", refer to http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=277508 This paper introduced an original framework of economic analysis used but not explained in his 1975 book Democratising the Wealth of Nations whose full text can be downloaded from the COG library at http://cog.kent.edu/lib/TurnbullBook/TurnbullBook.htm  The framework is explained in a TOES book, Building Sustainable Communities: Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change, C. George Bennello, Robert Swann, Shann Turnbull, Edited by Ward Morehouse, Bootstrap Press of the Intermediate Technology Development Group of North America Inc. New York, New York, 1989, Revised second edition 1997 and also in his 1992 paper 'New Strategies for Structuring Society From a Cashflow Paradigm', posted in the COG library at http://cog.kent.edu/lib/turnbull1/turnbull1.html.

The article prepared for the COG meeting was also presented to the President of the World Bank to describe how client countries could establish self-financing economic development on a democratic basis consistent with the mission of COG and that of the World Bank to "eliminate poverty".  The article also explained the basis for terminating the need for the World Bank and other international lending institutions when foreign exchange was not required in a development project.  In consultation with David Ellerman, Economic Advisor to the Chief Economist of the World Bank and Ann Pettifor, Chief Executive of the Jubilee 2000 debt cancellation campaign and now CEO of Jubilee plus, Turnbull developed a plan for the World Bank to sell its loans to a self-financing Economic Development Facility established in client countries funded by their Central Bank. 

The President of the Bank, a former Australian colleague of Turnbull, gave Ellerman permission to develop this proposal but added his own idea that loans from the World Bank to the private sector in client countries also be included in the buy back proposal.  Both public and private sector buy backs are included in an explanation of this proposal in Turnbull's article "Liquidating the World Bank: with debtor countries buying back their loans and introducing self-financing development"  as listed on the Jubilee plus web page at http://www.jubileeplus.org/opinion/shann_Liquidwb.htm  A Op Ed summary published in The Australian Financial Review on August 7, p.55, 2001 is posted at http://cog.kent.edu/archives/ownership/msg02062.html The core idea was inspired by the writings of Louis Kelso who also inspired followers in the USA to develop a "Capital Homestead Act" that represents a variation of these proposals as outlined in the next section.

3. I cannot quickly locate the citation required in regards to my comments on the Tobin Tax on page 19.  I applied my web browser "find" facility to locate "Tobin" in any thread of either the Homestead and Ownership archives without success.

Steve provided the Tobin cites.


4. A compound board as mentioned on page 21 exists when ever a company is governed by more than one board established by the corporate constitution and/or when one company board controls another company that is not a wholly owned subsidiary.  Corporate by-laws that establish a "watchdog" board and/or "stakeholder councils" create a compound board.

I saw no reference to this on page 21. I think I got across the gist of this idea correctly in the section on Stakeholders Councils which begins on P.25. Please let me know if this is incorrect..


5. On page 6 in the paragraph beginning "In the US and UK,....."  you refer to myself and state that "He argued for legislation to allow workers to hold their shares in their own right"  You could add a reference here to my article "Reforming capitalism with worker owners’ Eosubnational discussion group, July 30th under thread ‘Do trusts make workers second class owners' http://cog.kent.edu/archives/eosubnat/msg00196.html 

I added this citation.



Changes could be made to clarify and/or qualify three other points:

1. On page 16 in referring to David Ellerman's comments it is stated "This is because the company owned by these shareholders is obliged to issue shares to the ESOP in addition to repaying the loan that allowed the ESOP to purchase these shares". 

Like Allen I disagree with the Ellerman analysis for the reasons set out in "The use of central banks to spread ownership". However, the word "obliged" in the above sentence is not necessary correct so the word "may" should be used.  New shares are not issued when the ESOP buys shares held by other shareholders as is often the case and invariable when the ESOP is acting as a market maker.

I made this correction.


2. On the top of page 17 a dot point states that "Directing credit to SOPs means constricting credit elsewhere, which is likely to meet political resistance".  In my quotation of Alan Greenspan that heads up my article on "The use of central Banks to spread ownership" it is clear that central banks and their government can create as much credit as they desire so there is no need for "constricting credit".

I added this point.


3. It would be nice if you could provide a reference to my concern when ownership being distributed indirectly through trusts, pension plans, or "development funds" etc. as noted in my article listed in point 5. above in your "Fair Exchange Model" which refers to "development funds" on the top of page 3, etc, etc. with a citation to my article on this topic listed in point 5.
 
Regards

Shann

At 02:08 PM 7/9/2001, Deborah Groban Olson wrote:
Dear Homesteaders, especially Shann, Norm, Karen and others quoted in the Homestead chapter: Attached is the version of the Homestead most likely to be published in the Cornell Univ. version of Ownership for All. I must have these final revisions to Jackie by the end of the day on Fri.9/7/01. Please look at any sections in which you or your ideas are represented and tell me what, if any, changes are needed. We are on a very tight timeline with the publisher. Actually we are beyond their 9/1/00 deadline. Our final manuscript will go to the publishers Monday. Jackie and John are assembling it all this weekend. So, please get me your comments immediately.

Best regards,
Deb

Shann Turnbull  Ph.D.
P.O. Box 266 Woollahra, Sydney, Australia, 1350
Ph: +612 9328 7466 office; +612 9327 8487 home; Fax: +612 9327 1497;
Life long E-mail: sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu  Alternate:sturnbull@optusnet.com.au
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sturnbull/index.html
Papers at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=26239
with other papers & book at http://cog.kent.edu/library.html