Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Monetary Reform What do infrastructure repair and a looming steel strike have in common?
The American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 Infrastructure Report Card says $3.6 trillion needs to be spent by 2020 to bring our infrastructure up to modern standards. Congress has been quite clear that it will neither increase taxes or borrowing to accomplish this.
Fixing our infrastructure would put 10 million Americans to work at good-paying jobs and increase our global economic competitiveness. It requires steel, thus negating management’s argument that demand is down and concessions are necessary.
Management and labor, in both steel and construction industries, should support the only proposal that would fund the repairs. The NEED Act is comprehensive monetary reform legislation that creates 10 million new, good-paying jobs by fully funding the Infrastructure Report Card, all without increasing taxes or borrowing. Congress Members of both political parties should be lining up to support the bill, instead they can’t even fix the potholes.
Incredibly, management, labor and Congress have almost all, universally ignored the NEED Act. Ignored the only proposed legislation that not only puts 10 million Americans to work and rebuilds our nation’s infrastructure, but also provides a bail-out for the poor, working class, small businesses and beleaguered state and local governments.
The NEED Act (National Emergency Employment Defense Act) was put before Congress in 2011 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich and co-sponsor John Conyers.
The 3 Necessary Monetary Reforms of the NEED Act:
1. Makes the Federal Reserve System part of our government, exactly what most people mistakenly believe it is now.
2. Decisively ends all bank creation of money as debt. Banks will only loan money that already exists, exactly what most citizens mistakenly believe they do now.
3. Our federal government creates and spends new US Money for the needs of the nation and its people, as determined by Congress, in non inflation/deflationary amounts.
Acclaimed Economics Professor Karou Yamaguchi put the reforms that became the NEED Act into his advanced system dynamics computer model and concluded that the ASCE infrastructure modernization could be done, while simultaneously paying off the federal debt, without any inflation. “Workings of a Public Money System of Open Macroeconomics — Modeling the American Monetary Act Completed”
Former head of the Modeling Division of the International Monetary Fund Dr. Michael Kumhoff and Dr. Jamomir Benes reached the same basic conclusion in their IMF Working Paper “The Chicago Plan Revisited”.
The recovery within the present system from the Financial Crash of 2008 has given us a real unemployment rate of 23% (ShadowStats.com), the replacement of 2 million high and mid paying jobs with 2 million low paying jobs (National Employment Law Project) and 91-95% of all income gains going to the richest 1% (Emanuel Saez, “Evolution of Top Incomes in U.S.“). The debt money monetary system responds to the crisis by helping the wealthiest. Only the NEED Act helps the American people.
Elected government representatives, union leaders and corporate decision makers should all educate themselves on monetary reform and the NEED Act before workers are locked out or a strike is called. The American Monetary Institute’s 11th Annual Conference on Monetary Reform in Chicago, Sept 10-13, 2015 (monetary.org) is the perfect place for management, labor and government to come together. All are invited to attend and learn how monetary reform can pay for jobs, infrastructure, education and healthcare.
Nick Egnatz
occupynick@yahoo.com
References
“USW says it won’t strike yet as contract expiration nears“. Karren Caffarini, Chicago Tribune. Aug 28, 2015.
The NEED Act (National Emergency Employment Defense Act)
American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 Infrastructure Report Card
The original NEED Act referenced the 2009 Infrastructure Report Card and would have created 7.2 million new jobs. The 2013 ASCE Report Card calls for additional repairs and money and thus would create 10 million jobs. FACT SHEET: Congressman Kucinich’s Jobs Bill to Secure America’s Financial Sovereignty: The Debt Stops Here
Karou Yamaguchi “Workings of a Public Money System of Open Macroeconomics — Modeling the American Monetary Act Completed”
Jaromir Benes & Michael Kumhof, IMF Working Paper “The Chicago Plan Revisited”
John Williams, Shadow Government Statistics
The National Employment Law Project, “The Low Wage Recovery”
Emanuel Saez, “The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States [2012]” and for 2013.
Great article. Even the Fed now admits that QE hasn’t done anything for the real economy: https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-015.pdf