March 2011 Meeting announcement about Economic Reform by Common Ground-NYC

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Common Ground-NY Logo by Common Ground-NYC

Hello fellow economic Reformers (names withheld by request):

Your Chapter in Action

We've been busy since I last wrote!
On February 18, I gave a slide-show presentation on Land Value Taxation, using actual examples and figures from right here in New York City. Did you know 8% of the taxable land in the 5 boroughs is vacant? That's over 16,000 acres, (18 Central Parks!) and 400 in Manhattan alone! And that doesn't even include underused land like half-vacant buildings and parking lots, where the tax is so low there is no incentive to develop the land. There is $33 billion in assessed value in vacant land in New York City, and that is taxed at only .42%. Is this any way to run a city, especially the most densely populated city in the country, where 10% of the population lives in the metropolitan area?
I gave a shortened version of this presentation to the Reclaiming the Commons Symposium on February 24 sponsored by the Communications Coordinating Committee for the UN.

On both of the next two items, Rita and I (and Polly Cleveland on the 2nd item) left copious amounts of materials, including your hand-signed letters advocating replacing the property tax cap with Ground Rent, and enacting the LVT bill for vacant property, as well as related petitions and white papers, etc.
On March 2, Rita and I spent about 45 minutes with Assembly-member Jonathan Bing's Chief of Staff, explaining LVT, our opposition to Cuomo's Proposition-13-like Property Tax Cap, and our support for the Vacant Property Tax Class bill currently being sponsored by Linda Rosenthal (D-AD87). We also discussed the positive effects of creating a State Bank along the Bank of North Dakota model, and reaffirmed the assembly-member's commitment to banning fracking near our upstate reservoirs (most of you will remember our co-presentation of the movie Split Estate with United For Action on this issue last December).
On March 7, Rita, I, and long-time Georgist professor and activist, Polly Cleveland, met at Linda Rosenthal's office with the Legislative Director to cover similar items. We had a nearly hour-long discussion with him, and he was up on LVT, but not on the deferral option with interest that would only kkick in upon sale of the property, that Bill Batt and Polly Cleveland have been promoting. Polly was able to point to her testimony March 1 to the NY Assembly Committee on Ways and Means, opposing the misguided property tax cap. On the LVT bill to tax vacant property at higher than the effective rate of .42% (that's what it works out to in the NYC Dept of Finance database) we were promised the bill would be pushed once the budget is resolved in the next few weeks. What we need now is Republican co-sponsorship. Anyone out there know of someone wanting to co-sponsor the LVT 5th class bill (formerly A05671- see attached)? Rita and I will make ourselves available to make the case too! Another thing we should do is to reach out to the building trades unions who actually build buildings, and related groups, according to our contact.

Branding: Our T-Shirt committee has made great strides. We now have a design and order form (see attached), approved by our "seed money" benefactor, Andrew Mazzone, and we will be soon taking orders! You can download the form, fill it out and bring it to the next meeting; be sure to fill out your name, size, and color preferences, as well as quantity and totals. WE ARE NOT FILLING ORDERS UNTIL THE NEXT MEETING. Ralph Rivera will also be around the school to take orders, but you may also e-mail me your order. We expect to fulfill our orders after the March 26 meeting and get the bulk discount. Sorry, for now, local NYC residents only, and C.O.D. ONLY at either our meeting place or the school.

carbon from fossil fuels that can be emitted to the atmosphere without disrupting the economy, using a gradually declining "cap." The concept is to gradually accelerate emission reductions

and then provide a dividend of 75% back to every American citizen and 25% directly to clean energy initiatives. This is a tax on pollution and a Citizen's Dividend - both are the essence of Georgism, and we should support this by writing/emailing the Senators and media outlets. You can learn more about this here.
Thanks to Jeff Smith's Georgist News for alerting me about this!

Our Next Meeting

Our next meeting of Common Ground-NYC will be on Saturday, March 26 3:00-7:00 at the Vanderbilt Y, 5th floor, 224 E. 47 street.
Briefly:

• We will show the 30-minute award-winning classic movie "One Way to Better Cities" showing how LVT could rescue the most blighted cities. It was filmed in 1969 but, uh... we still have the same problems. Discussion to follow.
• We will also show a portion of the new "Monopoly: Under The Boardwalk" movie, describing how the original Landlord's Game was created under nearly the opposite set of rules as later Monopoly, followed by a brief discussion by special guest speaker Richard Biddle, Director of the HG School in Philadelphia and acknowledged expert on the Landlord's Game.
• We will also have a presentation by Andrew Mazzone on how he plans to speak out in favor of neo-Georgism (describing what that is too) and why now is the right time for a new party. See also the Announcement at the end of this email.
• We will talk briefly about forming a new website committee
• Finally, our T-shirt committee will present and we will take orders!

More details as they develop but mark your calendars.

CAFR Lies in Wisconsin...and a victory for the Truth!

Asset Reform (my term) is gaining momentum quickly, as people are asking themselves: "Are the budgets really as dire as we're being constantly told? Are we really 'broke' or is something else going on?"
The "something else" has been brilliantly and succinctly demonstrated by Clint Richardson (realitybloger.wordpress.com), and he even has a "school" on his blog to teach anyone how to examine these abstruse but understandable state, municipal, and city budgets, here.
Clint Richardson looks at the CAFRs the proper way: against current obligations.

And in Main Headline story on Huffington Post:

WHY EMPLOYEE PENSIONS
AREN'T BANKRUPTING STATES

Huffington says what I've been screaming about in my articles and comments for some time. According to HuffPo's linked McClatchy story:

However, the short answer is that there's simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim...

To begin with, the Wisconsin CAFR is one of the best managed in the country. According to Ellen Brown's (full disclosure: I serve on her Public Banking Institute's Volunteer Committee as NY State Coordinator) YES! Magazine article on Wisconsin:

A recent study by the Pew Center for the States showed that Wisconsin's pension fund is almost fully funded, meaning it can meet its commitments for years to come without drawing on outside sources. It requires a contribution of only $645 million annually to meet pension payouts. Zach Carter, writing in the Huffington Post, notes that the pension program could save another $195 million annually just by cutting out its Wall Street investment managers and managing the funds in-house.

Says Michael Moore in writing and in an inspiring speech to the strikers in Wisconsin (after I commented in practically the same words on his blog, though I am sure I'm not alone):

America Is Not Broke

"Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich...Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined...It's part of the Big Lie...So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity."

Clint Richardson has also broken down Wisconsin's non-pension funds into convenient pieces here . Though Richardson is not a trained accountant, it is not that hard to examine the CAFRs of any state and you can total them up yourself, online, from the comfort of your computer desk (there's even a program to do so, which I will talk about more at the next meeting). So, drum-roll please...Mr. Richardson's total from the Wisconsin State CAFR (NOT counting all the municipalities, cites, counties etc) is:

TOTAL ASSETS (CAPITAL AND INVESTMENTS) FOUND IN 2010 STATE CAFR

-> $123,481,258,000

That's $123 billion+ ! Now, knowing that:

"According to the Wisconsin pension fund's own 2010 annual report, the system had $69.1 billion in total assets at June 30, 2010, while paying out $3.7 billion in benefits over the course of the previous year...(and) The value of those assets has since risen"

what is really going on in Wisconsin? It sure looks like Wisconsin is not broke at all. Could it be that the new Koch-supported Governor is simply trying to bust the unions? That they are adding to their assets unnecessarily just to please, and to provide fee structures for, their financier backers? Nah, that would be too cheesy (sorry, couldn't resist)...

And then today, this came out from the Associated Press. When AP reports on something, you know it has gone mainstream:

Rainy Day Funds sit unused in handful of states (I and others believe it is more than a handful, but at least the MSM is becoming aware of this!)

ACTION ITEM: Who in the group wants to work on examining the New York State CAFRs? I don't have time to do this alone, but would assist anyone who wants to do this vital and essential work. There's even an .exe program to assist you. Be prepared to do some number crunching, but you can do it all from your computer. Or...you can allow yourself to pay higher taxes for lower services. Your choice.

State Banking and Land Value Taxation

I published a new article in Huffington post espousing both here: Zero Reserve Banking? The Federal Reserve Chairman went on record a year ago saying that we should have zero fractional reserve banking! That's right, instead of a paltry 8% reserve, Bernanke wants to go to zero, allowing an essentially unlimited amount of loans to be generated because, well, the Federal Reserve's got the banks' back...doesn't it?

There is another way - Fully Funded Money. That is, money that is created by Congress, under constitutional mandate (Article 1, Section 8) AND Sovereign right. Those who still think Greenbacker Stephen Zarlenga is still alone in his government-issued money theories - despite support from Bill Still & The Money Master films, and Ellen Brown - can rejoice in yet another site/book/slide-shows that support them as well : The Two Faces of Money -
http://www.thetwofacesofmoney.com/index.php/Main/HomePage
On the Federal Reserve:
http://www.thetwofacesofmoney.com/index.php/Site/HonestMoneyGroups
On the nature of Money (what it is):
http://www.thetwofacesofmoney.com/index.php/Site/WhatIsMoney
This video from a link on the site is part of a 3-hour movie I have on dvd from Chris Martenson which is as good and informative as it is simple and direct . I'd be willing to show it at a special meeting of Common Ground and other participants, but we'd have to set up a special time and place just for that, perhaps at the school?
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-16-fuzzy-numbers

The truth is not just "out there," it is all around us, in well-produced books, movies, slide-shows - you name it. The neo-classical debt-based, value-free, dog-eat-dog economic model is fast becoming the minority view, though it is is still convenient for the elite to continue to hold it and promulgate it down to us as much as we will let them. Don't let them.
Here are a few basic facts to keep in mind at all times:
Asset Reform
1. We are not broke. There are hundreds of billions alone in the NY CAFRs.
2. We can force money to be directed to the people's needs through new asset management institutions like State Banks, like the Bank of North Dakota (BND) .
Land Value Tax Reform (Common Ground's Main Mission)
3. There is ample wealth in taxable resources and locational values, created by the community and due back to them, to pay for all our needs.
Monetary Reform
4. Congress has the Sovereign right and Constitutional authority to "coin (debt-free) money ( U.S. Notes )" any time it wants to, like Lincoln did to fight the Civil War.
Political Reform
5. Our "Representatives" do not represent our wants and needs, but we will have to fight to make sure they do, and for fair and open elections.

Announcement

Cay Hehner, Andrew Mazonne, Ioannis Tziligakis, and Quisia Gonzalez - all from the Henry George School - will be on a panel at CUNY's Left Forum on Saturday 12:00pm - 1:50pm, March 19, 2011 to talk about the current crisis, and whether the worst is really over. Each panel member will talk about a different part of the world. I'll be in the audience. See attached flier for more details.

And now, for something completely different...

This is completely off-topic from our usual economic concerns, but as award-winning syndicated columnist Johann Hari points out here we have now been in Afghanistan longer than we fought in WWI and WWII combined. It will be a full decade this Fall! Read more about how we are actually damaging our cause by being there, and then consider how much money - and lives - could be restored to our own needs if we ended the wars (up to 6 by some counts; is Libya next?). That is an economic issue.

Ready for inspiration? Watch this video: http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html and then remember...
change is possible.

Scott Baker - Op Ed News Journalist/Senior Editor ; Huffington Post Blogger ; Author; President: Common Ground - NYC ; NY State Coordinator: Public Banking Institute

Petitions:
-- Set up a Land Value Tax & untax ALL productive activities to make California Healthy, Wealthy, and Prosperous
-- Replace Property Tax with Ground Rent in New York State
-- Set up a State Bank For Florida
-- California Dreaming: Set up a State Bank with abundant CAFR funds
-- Complete the East Side Manhattan Greenway from 38-61 Streets and save bikers, help the environment, and clear up traffic
-- Tax Vacant & Unused Land to Return its value to the Community
-- Untax Production and Wages while taxing the use/abuse of natural resources. Polluters pay while workers and entrepreneurs profit from true production
-- Close New York State's budget Gap with money from its own agencies by setting up a State Bank