AB 750, California's bill to study the feasibility of establishing a state-owned bank that would receive deposits of state funds, has passed both houses of the legislature and is now on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown awaiting his signature. It could be the governor's chance to restore the state to its former glory. . . .

http://www.care2.com/news/member/406091837/2947120

. . . California is the largest state economy in the nation, yet without a state-owned bank, is unable to steer hundreds of billions of dollars in state revenues into productive investment within the state. Instead, California deposits its many billions in tax revenues in large private banks which often lend the funds out-of-state, invest them in speculative trading strategies (including derivative bets against the state's own bonds), and do not remit any of their earnings back to the state treasury. Meanwhile, California suffers from constrained private credit conditions, high unemployment levels well above the national average, and the stagnation of state and local tax receipts."

The $106,800 Sanders referred to is the current payroll tax cap. Here's how the Sanders bill eliminates that cap over time: In the first year the bill is in effect, people earning less than $250,000 but more than the cap would not pay any additional payroll tax, while those earning more than $250,000 would pay the tax on that portion of their earnings in addition to what they earn up to the cap. In other words, there is a tax-free "doughnut hole" between the cap and the $250,000 threshold.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/406091837/2945247

Instead of any discussion of cutting Social Security benefits in any way—whether byraising the retirement age or through imposing a "chained CPI (consumer price index)" formula that would erode the buying power of seniors over time—the conversation should be about passing a measure such as this one. Let's get this bill on the forefront of the discussion about securing Social Security's future, and tell the White House, the deficit-reduction "supercommittee," and anyone else who has their budget knife out under the mistaken notion that Social Security contributes to our deficit problems (it doesn't), "No cuts to Social Security."

I first heard of the Mondragon Cooprative of the Basque in Spain, back in 1994. My Mom had been telling m the Family History of the Cheveries who are Basque. The French had kicked the Cheverie's out of France. We ended up on Prince Edward Island. The English tried to kick us out of there. My Ancesters went andn hid in the woods for 15 yars and had lots of kids. I told my Mom, ''I want to know what they are doing now?'' 2 weeks latter she showed me an Article in the Catholic Digest, about Mondragon's Worker Ownership. As an IBEW Journey Man ""Wirenut'' (as we called ourselves.) who had worked in a good part of this Country, with all of my benefits being sent back to my Home Local, 103 of Boston, saw right away how Unions could maken it work here. Been planting seeds about it to all kinds of Unions, Churches, and other gathering places, from my address book picked up through the years.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/406091837/2982427

''OWS has not yet formed a group consciousness to create Democratic Social Organizations to serve the Nation But Vermont and Montana are creating citizen operated Health Insuranc. And North Dakota has had its own State Bank for over 90 years, which bypasses Wall Street and The Fed. Ithaca New York has a Democratic Social Town Bank. And the nation media is showing their shameful censorship for the whole country to recoil from. United Steel is planning Worker Owned Factories. It's a long journey back to Liberty and justice. We will struggle to end lobbying and to end the Federal Reserve (Which is owned and run by private banks and has no reserves.). Its a lot of work.'' J C Skues -A good Facebook Friend of mine.

This video blow tell you a bit more about how Mondragon works.

http://youtu.be/OKihB_-I5wc

Please sign and forward if ya like. This is my 1st care2 petition and it could be a bit fuzzy, along with the great Danny Glover video, of him speaking at OWS-Empire's-Territory, not posting as I had strongly wished. This one I would love to see go to Creedo, Moveon, and end even Bono's One People.

I first heard of the Mondragon Cooprative of the Basque in Spain, back in 1994. My Mom had been telling me the Family History of the Cheveries who are Basque. The French had kicked the Cheverie's out of France. We ended up on Prince Edward Island. The English tried to kick us out of there. My Ancestors went and hid in the woods for 15 yars and had lots of kids. I told my Mom, ''I want to know what they are doing now?'' 2 weeks latter she showed me an Article in the Catholic Digest, about Mondragon's Worker Ownership.

As an IBEW Journey Man ""Wirenut'' (as we called ourselves.) who had worked in a good part of this Country, with all of my benefits being sent back to my Home Local, 103 of Boston, saw right away how Unions could maken it work here. Been planting seeds about it to all kinds of Unions, Churches, and other gathering places, from my address book picked up through the years.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/worker ... ss-the-99/

OWS is going to be what the people make it. I hope we can focus on things that will help all 7 Billion Humans, flying through space on Beautiful Mother Earth.

Since we need sound money, which we have never had, lets gt out of the Fed. The best way I've hard to do that, is tofollow what North Dakota has been doing fine with for 90 years, with its State Bank. Other States are studying how to do it.

If we don't fix Healthcare, the price will double in 10 years, probably with less care. Vermont's and Montana's Single Payer could very well be worth other States checking out

And need we mention that ending the wars is a must. Why the hell not close all over seas Military Bases, and put the Vets, and others to work rebuilding this Broken Promised Land?

But on other thing: Communities should study how to set up the Worker Ownership of the Mondragon Cooperative, of the Basque in Spain. There is an Evergreen Cooperative in Cleveland, and Richmond California, is putting people to work by starting smaller Cooperatives. Its a better way to work. Don't we all want that?

This is Danny Glover speaking at an LA OWS.
http://youtu.be/50IXNRiIuWg

Ron Paul's economics are founded on selfishness, (Maybe. I think that they are misunderstood.) but what other candidate, including Obama, would end the wars, end the drug war, end the war on terror and respect the Constitution and Bill of Rights, asks TCBH! journalist Dave Lindorff

http://www.care2.com/news/member/406091837/3055625

I'd like to hear Paul talk of the North Dakota State Bank as the way out of the Fed, and would be how to keep capital in the States. It seems like it would fit right in with Kucinich's plans of putting the Fed under the treasury (Which now looks to be the other way around.) and print its own US Notes as Lincoln did, and fazing out fiat banking in 10 years. Those notes could be given to the State Banks for them to invest in the States.

If you add Worker Ownership Cooperatives, modeled after Mondragon, into the picture, we can end up with good jobs, with sound money. These Cooperatives are starting to pop up around America. They are a bottom up thing. Mondragon of the Basque use 10% of its profits for Social needs of the Community. It also owns its own bank, which reinvests in itself, along with a Collage that trains its worker owners.

Occupy USA Democracy is Coming Lyrics by Leonard Cohen
http://youtu.be/lBVaqrqb3bk

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." Roberts is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.-

-''The consequences of a dead economy when the government is wasting trillions of dollars in wars of naked aggression and in bailouts of fraudulent financial institutions is a government budget that can only be financed by printing money. The emperor has no clothes, and sooner or later this will be recognized.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Econom ... 1-946.html

Real average weekly earnings (deflated by the government's CPI-W) have never recovered their 1973 peak. Real median household income (deflated by the government's CPI-U) has not recovered its 2001 peak and is below the 1969 level. If earnings were deflated by the original methodology instead of by the new substitution-based methodology, the picture would be bleaker.

Today, consumers are too indebted to borrow, and banks are too insolvent to lend. Therefore, there is no possibility of further debt expansion as a substitute for real income growth. An offshored economy is a dead and exhausted economy.

The consequences of a dead economy when the government is wasting trillions of dollars in wars of naked aggression and in bailouts of fraudulent financial institutions is a government budget that can only be financed by printing money.''

We (A self given nick name, since last we are a Dewey. Do we are dont we, we do for Dewey was #8's campaign motto for 5th grade President.) will be writing in Ron Paul 2012, or else we feel the drums beating for war with Iran.

A world at peace would have solved problems or be actively working on
solving them. We are reminded what Rock and Roller Jackson Browne says,
'Every bullet is a mouthful of food stolen from a starving child.''*

http://www.opednews.com/articles/World- ... 1-966.html

You can find numerous pundits explaining the inevitability of disaster and
the impending collapse due to the loss of national financial sovereignty to
transnational banking cartels. A world at peace would have solved problems
or be actively working on solving them.

Number Nine from The Beatles Song. lol

As my poet friend David Chorlton said while we were listening to Cohen:
"Now that's poetry." One more: I can't run no more with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've
summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from
me. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There
is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. - Anthem, L. Cohen*

http://youtu.be/lBVaqrqb3bk*

--
‎''An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to
stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that
would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." --Thomas Paine

I think the more centralized the power base is in this country (ala the federal government), the less chance these things have of working out. God bless your effort, 4 sure, but if anything like this ever took off, be sure they won't stand aside and let it happen easily.

We need a distributist economy http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/ ... beginning/
.
Distributism is about shifting our economy away from Wall Street and back to Main Street. We need to build a humane economy of family-owned and cooperative businesses, of community, concern for our eco-system and the food we eat. Distributism is a sustainable system validated by thousands of small family firms and employee-owned companies, micro-lending banks, and credit unions. On the large-scale,Distributist businesses like Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, and the Distributist economies of Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, where 45% of the GDP come from cooperatives, demonstrate how Distributist economies and frms have a built-in advantage that capitalist and socialist systems cannot begin to match.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/67331177

We need a distributist economy distributistreview.com
Today, our flyer is being handed out not only on Wall Street, but in cities like Spokane, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis and this is one more reason why Distributism is viable.

''Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principals of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.''-Bertrand Russell

Democracy is a form of government in which all citizens take part. It is government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Socialism is where we all put our resources together and work for the common good of us all and not just for our own benefit. In this sense, we are sharing the wealth within society.

Of course when people hear that term, “Share the wealth” they start screaming, “OMG you want to rob from the rich and give it all to the poor!” But that is NOT what Democratic Socialism means.

To a Democratic Socialist, sharing the wealth means pooling tax money together to design social programs that benefit ALL citizens of that country, city, state, etc.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/07 ... epublican/

The fire and police departments are both excellent examples of Democratic Socialism in America. Rather than leaving each individual responsible for protecting their own home from fire, everyone pools their money together, through taxes, to maintain a fire and police department. It’s operated under a non-profit status, and yes, your tax dollars pay for putting out other people’s fires. It would almost seem absurd to think of some corporation profiting from putting out fires. But it’s more efficient and far less expensive to have government run fire departments funded by tax dollars.

When an American graduates from college, they usually hold burdensome debt in the form of student loans that may take 10 to even 30 years to pay off. Instead of being able to start a business or invest in their career, the college graduate has to send off monthly payments for years on end.

On the other hand, a new college graduate from a European country begins without the burdensome debt that an American is forced to take on. The young man or woman is freer to start up businesses, take an economic risk on a new venture, or invest more money in the economy, instead of spending their money paying off student loans to for-profit financial institutions. Of course this does not benefit wealthy corporations, but it does greatly benefit everyone in that society.

Health care is another example: If your employer does not provide health insurance, you must purchase a policy independently. The cost will be thousands of dollars annually, in addition to deductible and co-pays.

In Holland, an individual will pay around $35 monthly, period. Everyone pays into the system and this helps reduce the price for everyone, so they get to keep more of their hard earned cash.

In the United States we are told and frequently reminded that anything run by the government is bad and that everything should be operated by for-profit companies. Of course, with for-profit entities the cost to the consumer is much higher because they have corporate executives who expect compensation packages of tens of millions of dollars and shareholders who expect to be paid dividends, and so on.

Let's begin with the need to build a wider economic movement: Worker cooperatives are a particular--and effective--structure for democratically organizing the production of goods and the provision of services. Yet contrary to the inclinations of many on the left, we cannot build a different economy and society simply by advocating for alternative institutions of production. An economy is an ecosystem, a cyclical whole that includes processes of creation (the "original production" of natural resources by geological, biological, and energetic forces), production (human transformation of resources into goods and services), exchange, consumption (perhaps more appropriately called "use"), the processing of waste, and the recycling of surplus (sometimes called "investment"). Appropriate to this holistic picture, movements working for a just and democratic economy must generate interventions--and link these interventions together--at every point of the economic cycle."

http://www.geo.coop/node/197

Indeed, to create conditions under which their success is increasingly possible, worker cooperatives must work to generate, sustain and support institutions at all other points of the economic cycle. Only through inter-cooperation and solidarity with other economic sectors will worker coops become viable, long-term institutions of social and economic change. Why? Because organizing across the entire economic ecosystem and building a broader social movement is actually the work of constructing reliable markets--"solidarity markets"--for goods and services produced by worker cooperatives. Inter-cooperation and movement building is about worker coops moving from a passive place of "entering markets" to an active place of constructing them. Such work feeds the "bottom-line" of the financial ledger and advances the cause of social and economic justice.

''The idea of cooperatives and other solidarity economy enterprises resonates with many, namely because their models prioritize people over profit. With the recent launch of the United Nations 2012 International Year of Cooperatives and FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva’s emphasis on the importance of cooperatives and producer organizations to global food security at the 2012 Thematic Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil from 24-29 January, such enterprises are increasingly being recognized as viable alternatives to mainstream business structures.''-article

http://www.mediaglobal.org/2012/02/16/i ... attention/

''However, there are still many challenges ahead. “In Brazil, we still need to convince the society and the government that there exists a fairer way of producing, distributing, and consuming, thereby promoting a new paradigm,” says Lopes. Dribben and Chavez cite similar obstacles for the cooperative movement as a whole, both noting that the potential of the cooperative model and its successes to date remain at the periphery of public and policymakers’ consciousness.''-article

''So why don’t we pay everyone some non-labor income — you know, the kind of money that flows disproportionally to the rich? I’m not talking about redistribution here, I’m talking about paying dividends to equity owners in good old capitalist fashion. Except that the equity owners in question aren’t owners of private wealth, they’re owners of common wealth. Which is to say, all of us.

One state—Alaska—already does this. The Alaska Permanent Fund uses revenue from state oil leases to invest in stocks, bonds and similar assets, and from those investments pays equal dividends to every resident. Since 1980, these dividends have ranged from $1,000 to $2,000 per year per person, including children (meaning that they’ve reached up to $8,000 per year for households of four). It’s therefore no accident that, compared to other states, Alaska has the third highest median income and the second highest income equality.''-Peter Barns

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/17-4

''Regardless of its revenue sources, the mechanics of an American Permanent Fund would be simple. Every U.S. resident with a valid Social Security number would be eligible to open a Shared Wealth Account at a bank or brokerage firm; dividends would then be wired to their accounts monthly. There’d be no means test — and no shame — attached to these earnings, as there are to welfare. Nor would there be any hint of class warfare — Bill Gates would get his dividends along with everyone else. And since the revenue would come from common wealth, there’d be no need to raise taxes or cut government spending. All we’d have to do is charge for private use of common wealth and feed the resulting revenue into an electronic distribution system.''-Peter Barnes

Posted: Friday, February 17, 2012 10:00 am | Updated: 11:35 pm, Thu Feb 16, 2012.
By MATTHEW MARTIN Staff Reporter
Analysts said it couldn’t happen and liberals said it was too early to come, but the Spanish cooperative of Mondragon has grown into a global powerhouse.
The Mondragon cooperative of 120 different companies was the focus of Carl Davidson, a writer and the national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, who talked on Thursday to a sparse audience in Lawson Hall. The speech was sponsored by the Committee on Peace Studies and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program.
Mondragon is the largest cooperative in the world. The cooperative has been successful in a wide array of businesses including industry, research, and education.
“Think about a platypus. When they discovered them (Mondragon), it wasn’t supposed to exist,” Davidson said.

http://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/ar ... g.facebook

“In Mondragon the average spread is one to nine from the guy who sweeps the floor to the head honcho. In the U.S. it would be one to 9,000,” Davidson said.
One of the main principles of the cooperative is to take a three-in-one approach to business said Davidson. Davidson said the cooperative prides itself on its factory, school and credit unit aspects. He said it’s possible for companies to become a cooperative but that they need to accomplish a few goals.
“First, the workers have to want to do it. Second, the workers have to trust each other. Third, you need a decent business plan,” Davidson said.
Mondragon is working in other countries than Spain. Mondragon recently made an agreement to work with the United Steel Workers of the United States but things are moving slowly. Davidson said several other cooperatives, such as the Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives, were influenced by Mondragon.
“The U.S. is a very easy place to start a co-op and a very easy place to fail,” Davidson said.

‎"When capitalism is replaced with economic democracy, social labour and economies will no longer be directed in the interests of capitalist profit. When everyone is equally entitled to participate in economic decisions, communities will aim to provide acceptable employment opportunities for all available labour. No longer pressed to give priority to private profit, communities will be freed to balance industrial activity with the carrying capacity of environments. The financial costs of social services will be balanced with revenues generated in exchange. The cost of needed imports will be balanced with exports."

Capitalism and the Alternative
by Al Engler / October 14th, 2011

''Capitalism is a system that gives major shareholders and top corporate executives—one per cent or less of populations—the right to direct means of livelihood in their private interests. The system’s dominant institutions are corporations. Deemed in law to be individual persons, corporations actually combine the capital of numerous shareholders with the intention of dominating markets.

Corporations are privately owned capitalist collectives. The largest control more revenues than most governments. To maximize profits, corporations expand production and introduce labour saving machinery, cut wages, and move employment to places where labour is cheaper. A recurring result is that the income of majorities who depend on labour falls as production increases. With declining markets for consumer goods, capitalist investment turns to financial speculation. Market crashes follow. Production facilities are shut down. Unemployment worsens, more jobs are lost, wages are cut further. Individual lives are disrupted. Communities are impoverished.''

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/10/capit ... ternative/

''With equal human entitlement, residents of owning communities will replace shareholders as the legal beneficiaries of means of livelihood. Social labour will be motivated and directed not for private profit but for general wellbeing. When all inhabitants including people whose livelihood depends on tourism and organic agriculture, berry and mushroom pickers, scientists, educators, parents, and students as well as manufacturing and resource workers have a voice and equal vote in economic decisions, communities will limit industrial activity to the carrying capacity of environments.''