Re: Would that it were so, according to J. Gelles.

Dear Curtiss Priest and John Gelles,

Once again, Curtiss, I am in your debt for the constructive 
suggestions in the message below.  Under your message 
I have added an eloquent, as always, message from John 
Gelles which puts you and I in the same boat because we 
have not yet gathered a large following of "true believers" 
in our "hobby-horse" themes.  John says:
 
"Wes' contribution remains hidden behind an extremely 
opaque subjective model of everything."  

And I had to hire a lawyer to interpret his closing five line 
paragraph, which is one long sentence.  "Wan na be masters 
of the universe" do tend to be competitive and suffer from 
the NIH syndrome.  They may also be members of a 4000 
year old "anti-progress conspiracy" which parades as our 
Judeo-Christian tradition, but withholds the Laws of Moses 
from the Old Testament, rejects the teachings of Jesus 
Christ in the New Testament, and proscribes scientific inquiry. 

If we hope to some day influence US public policy we must 
first firmly establish among public opinion makers a technically 
valid conceptual model of The Optimum Policy (I call it TOP, 
to save bandwidth) for a sustainable and just economy.  
Briefly stated, the purpose of such a model would be to 
enable CEOs in the private sector, and their elected 
Representatives in Government, to weigh the costs and 
benefits to them of making the standard private sector 
financial practice a standard of the public sector also.

All that we would be asking of our wealthy, healthy, 
intelligent, and powerful folks (our WHIPs); is to rest 
content with the rewards of their own natural superiority, 
and forgo some of the unearned income so easily acquired 
by skinning the public.  The German and Japanese WHIPs 
mastered this paradigm shift after their defeat in World 
War II, and decided to rest content with peaceful coperation.  
It makes no sense to me, for US WHIPs to wait until after 
World War III before they begin to give this paradigm shift 
some serious consideration.  But then, maybe they see 
advantages in the status quo that are invisible to me.

Figures 4 and 7-9 at the web site below have evolved since 
1994 and are now sufficiently robust that devious defenders 
of the status quo (DDotSQ) no longer attempt to refute them.  
They fuddle my accounts with the mail lists I post to, instead.
But my models still fall short of being accepted by folks who 
hold the public by the ears.  Fig4.7 has been revised to show 
that the capital plant, the households, and the two markets 
are co-extensive with each other and rooted in the land.  

IMHO, C.H. Douglas' A + B theorem must have been a reference 
to the businessman's "cost plus pricing formula" for each product which
adds direct labor cost (A) to direct material cost (B) and 
divides the sum by 0.70 to determine the market price (A) 
which will support a 30% of sales G&A rate.  I simply cannot 
find a systemic shortage of purchasing power anywhere in 
the the private sector of Fig4.7.gif.  The nonrecurring 
expense of capital development is covered by the current 
sales revenue in the private sector.  

The century old systemic defect of omission in US 
domestic policy, which keeps US children poor, is an 
unintended consequence of our Judeo-Christian tradition.  
It keeps their parent's noses to the grind stone, and their 
household accounts in the red.  That singular defect is 
the US 5% of GDP public investment in human development 
(1-12 public edu) when a 10% of GDP public investment is 
required.  There is no other way to stabilize the labor market 
at full employment for all who desire to work.

Notice on Fig4.7, that the corporate policy funds Res. & Dev. 
at 10% of corporate sales revenue.   Government stands 
in the same relationship to households as the corporation 
stands to the many products or profit centers within the 
corporation, and should apply the same policy.  Adam Smith 
said as much in 1776 in his first of Four Maxims of Taxation. 
 
Why is C. S. Lewis' Senior Devil, Old SCREWTAPE, so 
successful in keeping such simple things out of our minds?
Because he has so many English speaking WHIPs among 
his minions to help him in his work!  Simple innocense 
cannot account for our present condition.

The common features shared by the capital plant and the 
households on the macro model, Fig4.7, are more concisely 
illustrated on the micro model, Fig7-9e.gif.  In Figure 7 of 7-9, 
capital assets have one great advantage over households. 
Their ability is maximum at the beginning of the productive 
phase of their lifecycle, and their retirement phase is very 
short.  New members of the workforce, to the contrary, begin 
at low incomes and reach their maximum incomes after the 
parenting phase of their lifecycle is complete. Too late!  
By then, their children are ready to enter college.  The 
concept of Figure 7 applies equally to both the capital plant 
and the households of Fig4.7,gif.  Both active elements of 
the macro model are populations of productive assets which 
must be continuously replenished.  Both are conceived at 
no cost.  Both are expensive to develop. Both have fixed and 
variable costs while in production.  But only the human 
assets must be supported during a long retirement.

There are a few places, Curtiss and John, where a (WSB  
comment WSB) is appropriate in your messages below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 18:14:38 -0500 Curtiss Priest <bmslib@mit.edu>
writes:

> Dear Wesley,
> 
> I found this essay to be extremely embracive.
> 
> It addresses various issues, and I appreciated
> your elucidation about M1 in relation to payrolls.
> 
> As I am fascinated by what role the money supply
> has with anything else, this was informative.
> 
> 1.  Regarding federal-debts, I am sorry that it
> is my observation that you speak outside of most
> subscribers' ability to comprehend the relationship
> between what you say, and what they think they are
> concerned about.  This is to say that the scope
> of your thinking so vastly exceeds their more myopic
> thoughts, that the "average subscriber" will simply
> tune out.
> 
> 2.  With the introduction of Douglas into your thinking,
> I wondered whether you might create a new figure.
> 
> Yes, I know you have modified some of your "classic"
> figures, but I was wondering if you might illustrate
> "A+B" in a way that helps us all understand the
> way in which a social dividend helps balance the
> availability of goods and services with the ability
> for all to consume them, without debt ?

(WSB The effect of a social dividend on the distribution 
of discretionary income over the workforce is best 
illustrated by Fig8.1.gif on the website below.  An adequate 
children's allowance would correct most of the injustice we complain
about.  Extending an adequate dividend to the 
whole workforce would test whether the essential work of 
society would be done, or not.  WSB)
> 
> Yes, perhaps, you already account for this, somewhere,
> but, it is this figure that I would most like to see.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Curtiss
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~ End Curtiss Priest ~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: John Gelles <indexed-savings@sbcglobal.net>
To: cyber-soc@topica.com
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 20:11:07 -0800
Subject: Would that it were so.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm telling you, this is just the beginning of real
  empowerment of people. And the Internet is going 
  to be the integral way that it happens."

      - David Pogue in the NYT today, courtesy Jack H.

Interactive it may be. But it is not efficiently content 
addressable. (Google married to party platform perpetual 
maintenance might come close some day.)  If it were, 
people could address one issue or sub-topic within an 
issue or even a single word to make contact with other 
people also zeroed in on specific content in a campaign's 
platform or the like.

(WSB  What words of content should folks ask for on a 
content addressable system to retrieve the laws of Moses 
and the teachings of Christ presented in a creditable 
format, as tabulated on Fig7-9e.gif?  WSB)

Not being content addressable, we have no way to 
influence the candidate significantly different than is 
done by polls, surveys and focus groups. Interactive  
just does not yet work well except for raising money. 

Rush Limbaugh talks to several million ditto heads a 
day on AM radio. He hears from a few thousand a day 
by email. But the emails he reads to his radio audience 
are from only a very few people a day. True empowerment 
of his audience via internet- a technology he promotes 
every day to sell stuff commercially (like he does with 
AM radio)- such true empowerment - is a long way off.

If it were not, the members of this forum could develop 
domestic and foreign policy platform planks that 
represented our advice to Kerry (and/or Bush). 

  We can't because no such empowerment game has 
taken hold. The only game is writing and reading the 
hobby-horse themes of a few addicted contributors. 
    1.. Wes Burt is one of these- and since he has no 
collaborator to force him to be understandable, his 
contributions remain hidden behind an extremely 
opaque subjective model of everything.

(WSB  Helpful collaborators are hard to find these days, WSB)

    2.. Curtiss Priest is another who collaborates face to 
face but not on the CS forum to the extent that Pogue implies.
    3.. Jack is another - but, fortuitously he already believes 
what Kerry and Dean believe. All he needs to do is send 
them a dollar bill.
    4.. I am the saddest one of all. I really want to be 
empowered. And I won't be. 

(WSB  Why not?  If your eloquence were joined to my 
unrefutable models, Curtiss Priest's website below would 
have more subscribers than "Taking It Global."  WSB)

                                                     I'm as remote as
Kerry and 
as stubborn as Bush. If I live to see how the victor handles 
terrorism, jobs, wages and the environment- it will be a 
miracle: for the moment I'm pulling for Kerry. He looks like 
Lincoln but fudges like Clinton. 
      a.. Yet in office (and in my prayers) he is Lincoln reborn-  
and a fair government of the people, by the people and for 
the people (all of whom enjoy free broadband to the home 
and a content addressable semantic web invented by Tim-
Berners-Lee) is at last elected.  

(WSB  Amen!  WSB)

          John Gelles
~~~~~~~~~~ End John Gelles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kind regards to all,

Wes Burt

     The Optimum Policy (TOP) or The Whole Divine Law 
          for either Human or Capital Productive Assets is 
illustrated at <http://www.epie.org/cyber-soc/default.htm>
and discussed on list <TOP@topica.com>, and elsewhere.


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