2020 Election – 10 Unknown Facts

I'm for small business and believe that the proper nurturing of American small business should enable the United States and its residents to maximize their health, knowledge, skills, security and standard of living. Politics over the past years has resulted in voters voting against their self interest, in many or most cases because of voters' failure to know 10 politically material facts. I list and then support these 10 Facts below.

You need to understand that promoting small business is not in the interests of big business and the individuals who make and control large contributions to political campaigns. For that reason, don't expect any federal or state legislation designed to help small business take away substantial business and profits from big business. You can achieve this only at the local level of government, and then by relatively low-cost ballot initiatives which enable voters to enact directly the local laws needed to promote small business which local legislatures won't enact.

Small-business proponents and voters need to work for expansion of ballot initiatives for local governments and to protect against state legislation attempting to take away or limit existing laws enabling local ballot initiatives. You can obtain more information about local ballot initiatives from ballotpedia.org, search for "local ballot initiatives" and "local ballot measures" (although you won't find a list of state laws enabling local ballot initiatives); and from Wikipedia on Ballot Initiatives, once again no significant information about local ballot initiatives in the nation's 18,500 municipalities (which number is undoubtedly the reason why).

List of 10 Unknown Material Political Facts - or Facts You Are Not Supposed to Know

1. The United States has no debt.
2. Federal and state regulation of higher and vocational education has materially and needlessly injured the U.S. economy.
3. As the stock market goes up, the economy and standard of living goes down for 95% of Americans.
4. Antitrust regulation is vital for the U.S. economy but virtually non-existent.
5. Small business creates more jobs but the federal, state and local governments pay only for training of use to big business.
6. Restoration of the economy could occur by focusing on assistance to small business.
7. Single-payer Medicare is not at all "socialist"
8. Local advertising websites are the competitive answer to goliaths such as Amazon, Google and Facebook.
9. Local ballot initiatives (or referenda) enable voters to enact needed laws in spite of local legislative opposition.
10. Globalization is somewhat reversible.

The 10 Facts Explained

1. The United States has no debt

NYC and Texas, for example, have to worry about debt, because for them and all other states and local government debt is real and money has to be obtained through taxes and fees to pay the debt. But the same is not true for the federal government. It alone (under the U.S. Constitution) has the right to print money and use this printed money (and now bank credits representing printed money) to pay whatever payments the federal government decides to make, including road construction, student loans and defaults, military salaries and equipment, tax refunds, social security and Medicaid/Medicare payments and thousands of other types of payments, including payments to major banks throughout the world to keep them in business.

For a long period ending in 1933 (4/5/33 FDR Executive Order forbidding the “hoarding” of gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates) the United States was on a gold/silver (bi-metallic) standard and then a gold standard. (All vestiges ended by a President Nixon Executive Order dated 8/17/71 prohibiting the Federal Reserve from converting money to gold.) As long as the U.S. guaranteed that U.S. dollars could be converted into gold (or silver), U.S. did have debt, because it would need to buy the backing metal for every dollar printed. When it was clear that this was impossible to continue, FDR ordered everyone to turn in their gold and took the U.S. off the gold standard. Thus, since 1933 (or perhaps 1971) the U.S. was always able to print money sufficient to pay for whatever the federal government wanted, subject to obvious inflation and political opposition if it printed too much. The take-away from this is that there is no debt and the federal government has the money to pay for healthcare and medicine for all, free college and vocational training, and daycare for working parents, while making large corporations pay their fair share of taxes. It is strictly a political issue, and not one of debt and balancing the budget. We have had nothing but politically-controlled inflation, on the average, for hundreds of years.

2. Federal and state regulation of higher and vocational education has materially and needlessly injured the U.S. economy

I was instrumental in creating a career field (paralegal or legal assistant) by creating, financing, teaching in and running the 2nd paralegal school in the U.S. and adding various other when word processors were invented (Vydek, IBM OS6 and Lanier, later the Ventura Publisher application).

Without regulation, a lecture course could be quite profitable charging $2/hr to $4 instead of the $70/hr charged by NYU, if the student lives at home, has free parking, and eats at home, from a lunchbox or at a local diner. One year of instruction amounts to 500 hours of instruction, or $1,000 to $2,000 so that student loans would not be needed.

The problem is that regulation strongly inhibits for-profit (or “proprietary”) schools from getting started or operating profitably. Too much attention has to be given to regulatory compliance to avoid loss of licenses that instruction is subordinate to regulation and costs go up unreasonably, which students and their parents cannot afford.

The quality of education cannot be regulated, so that regulation doesn’t serve its intended purpose. Instead of licensing this First Amendment activity (which a federal judge refused at my request to declare unconstitutional), higher education and vocational education should be market regulated (with better-performing schools getting more students) and fraudulent schools getting sued by attorneys general, students and parents. This would enable students and their parents to obtain a sound, low-cost education and avoid economic slavery to pay off (up to) $70/hr student loans with any disposable income remaining when earning only $15/hr.

The resulting loss has a macro-economic effect, adversely affecting almost everything Americans are trying to achieve and resulting in what we're trying to end or reduce, such as poverty, joblessness, underpaid employment, incarceration rate, economic crimes, and homelessness. The First Amendment had it right. Higher and vocational education needs to be free of regulation to maximize its value to Americans.

During April, 2019 I had a meeting with the majority legislative leader of a large NYS city (not NYC) and convinced such person that the city should start training residents to become the assistant to the owner of a small business. The program never got started because I perhaps foolishly said that I wanted no payment or reimbursement of any kind and was not available to teach the program. I could have easily found retired businesspersons to teach the program (for compensation, of course) but I failed to make that point. I also mentioned that a municipality offering the program to non-residents could become the Education Capital of the United States (or perhaps the World).

I have various websites you should look at for further information.

college-admissions-scandal.com

ac-jobs.com

americanjobsparty.com

3.. As the stock market goes up, the economy and standard of living goes down for 95% of Americans

GM CEO Charlie Wilson said, at his confirmation hearing in 1953 for Secretary of Defense, that “what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist.” This may have been somewhat true in 1953 (67 years ago), but it is no longer true, for many, many reasons including

1. The ever-increasing concentration of the economy
2. NAFTA andother trade agreements
3. Globalization
4. Government-controlled economies such as China which steal market share and jobs by government subsidies which lower prices
5. Computers and smart phones
6. Social networking instead of learning, working and inventing
7. Artificial intelligence
8. Declining enforcement of antitrust laws (to the present virtual non-enforcement)
9. Judicial appointments to federal courts
10. Campaign financing and Citizen’s United decision
11. Twombly U.S. Supreme Court decision
12. Hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing
13. Change to service economy
14. Cannot avoid student loans through bankruptcy
15. Major corporations not paying their fair share of income taxes
16. Misuse of tariffs
17. Training students at taxpayer expense to get jobs with major corporations, while providing little or no training to work for small business
18. The macro-economic effect throughout the U.S. economy of 50 years and tens of thousands of special rules, statutory provisions and contracts favoring the rich

The way it works now, in 2020, is that the stock market goes up and up because of excessive, monopolistic pricing (e.g., drugs, housing, college) and, as a result, the persons who own most of the market stocks (i.e., the rich) get richer and richer while most of the rest of us get nowhere or poorer. Most Americans do not have stock or 401K’s.

4. Antitrust regulation is vital for the U.S. economy but virtually non-existent.

Small business creates more jobs but the federal, state and local governments pay only for training of use to big business

There are 7 federal antitrust statutes:

1. Sherman Antitrust Act enacted in 1898 (prohibiting unreasonable restraints in trade, which has had an increasingly reduced impact in judicial decisions over the past 40 years), in theory the most important statute
2. 1918 Clayton Act (prohibiting mergers and acquisitions that tend to substantially lessen competition), the second most important statute
3. 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act (prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce), the third most important statute
4. 1936 Robinson-Patman Act (prohibiting price discrimination), the fourth most important statute
5. 1939 Trust Indenture Act (prohibiting bond issues valued over $5 million from being offered for sale without a formal written agreement and requires disclosures)
6. 1940 Investment Advisers Act (requiring firms or sole practitioners compensated for advising others about securities investments must register with the SEC and conform to regulations designed to protect investors)
7. 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (“It increased 900 import tariffs by an average of 40% to 48%. Most economists blame it for worsening the Great Depression. It also contributed to the start of World War II. In June 1930, Smoot-Hawley raised already high U.S. tariffs on foreign agricultural imports. The purpose was to support U.S. farmers who had been ravaged by the Depression. Instead, it raised food prices. It also compelled other countries to retaliate with their own tariffs. That forced global trade down by 65%.” – thebalance.com - US Economy and News)

   I have taken the time, as an antitrust lawyer for more than 50 years, to list the 7 antitrust statutes with descriptions. These statutes cover a wide variety of regulation of competition in an economy which has become ncreasingly concentrated with increasing sums of money from monopolistic profits to obtain even more benefits from politicians seeking campaign financing. The result is very little enforcement so that the rich are getting richer and richer, and the rest of us are losing our hard-earned money to these protected monopolists.

   The cure does not seem to be possible at the federal or state political level, for a variety of reasons. Look at it this way, how are you going to get elected officials willing to reverse tens of thousands of statutes, rules, orders and judicial decisions which collectively have given our economy to a few companies and individuals.

   The solution, if any, as I see things, are local (because voters can enact laws directly in some municipalities, in spite of unwillingness of local legislators to enact such local laws) and through concentrated nurturing of small business through the 3 reforms that I discuss elsewhere (free broadband, community-advertised website with free advertising, and training employees for hiring by small businesses).

5. Small business creates more jobs but the federal, state and local governments pay only for training of use to big business

For this discussion, “big business” includes the military and large governmental agencies. As a former school owner, I am particularly mindful of how the federal and state governments heavily subsidize higher education, whose graduates generally look to big business for employment. If a recent college graduate applied for a job as the assistant to a small-business owner, the owner would get a good laugh and get rid of the applicant as unqualified.

Recent college graduates after being hired by big business are provided with (1) training to orient them to their new employment, and (2) an upward ladder of steps available to advance in the employment, perhaps to become a divisional head or even the CEO. Such training and steps are not available in most small businesses. The small business owner cannot train an employee to do what the owner knows how to do, so the owner does the work himself, more efficiently in the short run. Also, here are often no steps to advancement in most small businesses. You do your job, receive pay increases, and usually leave for greener pastures. If the owner engaged in training, he/she would be training a replacement person numerous times instead of doing the work required by the small business. What the small business owner needs is an already-trained individual who can do many of the vast variety of tasks required of the small-business owner. BUT, if there is no school and market of already-trained persons, the small-business owner won’t be able to hire any one seemingly-trained person because if such person were hired and then quit or died, there would be no replacement, and the owner would have expanded his/her business and now be unable to manage it because of the loss of such person without any market for an immediate replacement. AND because the owner does not have time to train anyone (who also might leave the employment).

The training that is needed be useful for small business can be described as staff functions required by most small businesses (including small professional firms, religious and other non-profits and governmental agencies – all of which I refer to as “small entities”). These staff functions are numerous and quite varied, including billing, collections, blue screen of death or today’s equivalent, stopped toilet, placing hiring ads, paying bills, inventorying and ordering supplies, making deposits, cell telephone, fax and office telephone management, office maintenance including plumbing and electrical, answering the telephone, taking messages, maintaining calendars, lead management, and the list goes on and on, which is the reason that small business owners have little time left to do the specialized things that caused them to start their operations in the first place.

The needed training program is easy to summarize – hundreds of topics. The most important point to be taught is learned from the following story: assuming you are a graduate of a training program for assistants to small-business owners and that until today I had only myself and 1 chair in my place of business; but after hiring you I bought a second chair (and desk); and assume that you are starting out on your first day, that we are seated near each other and that you have a question about the electricity. You and I are alone in the room. Who do you ask? You are expected to indicate me, but I then say: “Read my lips. DON’T BOTHER ME! When I was here alone I didn’t call you. My time is too valuable bill at $450/hr and I need to bill clients for my legal work to be able to pay you your $85/hr. If you don’t know the answer, do research and/or find someone else who can help, BUT DON’T BOTHER ME!

6. Restoration of the economy could occur by focusing on assistance to small business

By now, it should be obvious to you that small business is the backbone of America, and that it is losing its effect. Small business, when successful, provides the extra time and income/profits needed for small businesspersons to get active in politics, and to provide good jobs and incomes to enable small-business employees to make campaign contributions and get active in politics. By suffocating small business we are destroying the middle class and as a result the rich are getting richer.

7. Single-Payer Medicare is not at all "socialist"

I've been on Medicare for years and it is anything but socialist. NYU Langone and Columbia University Physicians and Surgeons provide some of the medical services I have used, and I pay for prescriptions purchased from CVS and Costco Pharmacy, to name only two. I have never been treated by a medical facility owned by a government agency. Socialism is where the government owns and operates the facility, such as Veterans' Hospitals, public high schools, highway systems, public transportation systems and, yes, oil depletion allowances and tax reductions for the rich. Medicare obviously is not socialist and is being improperly maligned by persons seeking lower taxes at the expense of health coverage for all. Failure of Americans to understand this unknown facts could cause them to lose necessary healthcare services and medicines, and result in premature ill-health and death.

8. Local advertising websites are the competitive answer to goliaths such as Amazon, Google and Facebook

Amazon is a marketplace for almost everything. Google is a website to find almost anything anywhere, not just in Amazon. Facebook is a social network website which allows self-profiled users to connect online with friends, work colleagues and others they don't know. The community-advertised website which I'm advocating would be competitive with all three, especially if each community creates a community for itself (which would be something like 50,000 websites), all diminishing the use and value of these three major websites and others, and transferring some of their combined monopolistic value to the individual community websites. Everything that could be offered or or sought or purchased locally would be advertised for free on the community website, thereby competing with Amazon. The search engine on the community website would enable users to find what they're looking for on the community website and, when successful in locating what they want locally, would not need to use Google for this purpose. The website could add features to enable local Facebook users to use the local website instead (perhaps because they would not be targeted with advertising; or because local contacts are more apt to turn into valuable contacts, for example). My community website is described more fully at election-issues-us.com [look for THIRD] and in my ballot initiative - see Ballot Initiative for Community-Advertised, Free-Advertising Website

9. Local ballot initiatives (or referenda) enable voters to enact needed laws in spite of local legislative opposition

Ballot initiatives (also known as referendums or referenda) are where voters enact laws directly, in spite of the local legislature's opposition (known because of its failure to enact the legislation when given a chance to do so). Legislators, increasingly for reasons stated above, are unwilling to enact legislation benefitting the local voters and their families for fear of losing campaign contributions or business connections from the rich. So, voters have a way to remedy this development, by enacting laws directly through ballot initiatives. The laws vary from state to state. In each of the 62 "cities" in New York State plus Suffolk County, voters can enact laws directly. In municipalities that are not "cities", there is a veto process as to laws enacted by the local legislature, which is a far cry from the ballot initiative for cities. It is obvious to me that voters can overcome legislators who do t he bidding of the rich by enacting directly the needed laws that legislators are unable to enact. I have prepared more than 40 proposed ballot initiatives for use in almost any of NYS's 62 cities at 40 Petitions for Local Ballot Initiatives. The 3 most important local reforms are represented by petitions available at (1) Broadband-for-All Petition; (2) Petition for High School and Adult Ed Small-Business Job Training; and (3) Ballot Initiative for Community-Advertised, Free-Advertising Website.

10. Globalization is somewhat reversible

By restructuring the local economy with the three basic reforms (free broadband for all; 4th year high school and adult education training for small business management; and a community-advertised website), a town can create new jobs to replace jobs lost through globalization politics. The reversal cannot be 100% because some parts of the economy cannot be replicated at the local level (such as computer parts made in China), but an inexpensive higher educational system can be created locally; and many of the costs of Facebook (some of which are hidden) can be avoided with a local website. Reversal requires a sustained effort to leave a globalized and national economy for a local economy, over which voters have substantial control.

Prepared by attorney Carl E. Person. For his c.v. or resume, click on Carl E. Person C.V.

If you have any questions, please call me, Carl Person, at 917-453-9376 or email to me at carlpers2@gmail.com

Or, you could send mail to me to the following address:

Carl E. Person
225 E. 36th Street - Suite 3A
New York NY 10016-3664

Copyright (c) 2020 by Carl E. Person

Last Rev. 1/17/20 3:58 pm op par3 -