Mike Folkerth - King of Simple

Western Colorado’s own Humorist / Economist

Is Socialism America’s Future? Kucinich Suggests SO:

Good Mornin’ Middle America, The King of Simple News is on the air.

Does Dennis Kucinich have a viable economic plan for America? Or does he simply promise the coveted goods with no actual means for delivery? I support the latter premise, but to be fair, let’s examine the Kucinich plan for economic stability and universal health care.

1. Pull out of NAFTA immediately. Structure new agreements that would require these countries to comply with U.S. work standards, increase wages to workers, and employ new environmental standards prior to further trading.

Pros – retain American jobs and stop future U.S. Companies from moving or outsourcing jobs to Canada and Mexico. New agreements would level the compensation and work standards.

Cons- Canada and Mexico would see this as a breech of an important agreement that had previously benefited those countries immensely. Canada provides the greatest amount of our nearly 75% of oil import and Mexico is the second largest provider. China could certainly use the oil along with countless other emerging economies. Turn about is fair play. Such a plan is based on the U.S. imposing our will on other governments, such as Bush is doing in Iraq.

2. Pull out of the WTO immediately. Same restructuring mandates as NAFTA prior to further trade. Tell China, India, Korea, Japan, etc. that they either comply with our wishes, or there will be no trade.

Pros – same as a withdrawal from NAFTA.

Cons—Same as NAFTA with the added issue that Japan, China, India and others hold massive amounts of our debt which I believe would be triggered immediately by our withdrawal from the WTO.

Supplies of global resources are being taxed as it is, I believe that the Asians countries, rather than bow to U.S. demands, would organize along with Russia and India and cut us off from future trading and the current $3 billion per day that these countries currently loan the U.S. to finance of our economy.

3. Raise minimum wage to no less than $8.00 per hour, require our trading partners to pay a living wage.

Pros—Increase the living standards of those citizens working at entry level and low skilled employment. Raise the living standards for the workers of our trading partners

Cons—The U.S. is currently one of the highest cost countries in the world in which to do business. Raising the cost of doing business in the U.S. will result in a reduction of job formation as fewer export opportunities avail themselves.

The low cost global providers have no incentive to voluntarily increase their costs in an effort to assist the U.S. at the expense of curtailing their own economic growth; quite to the contrary. The U.S. represents just 4.8% of global population. As these emerging economies grow, the U.S. with our massive per-capita consumption will be far more of a problem than a benefit.

4. Put some 2 Million people to work for the Federal Government in WPA initiated programs. The cost of the various programs would be borne by the creation of debt instruments issued by the Federal Government.

Pros—Employment would be established for those workers displaced by the world trade agreements and declining U.S. exports. Roads, bridges, schools and other public infrastructure would be improved.

Cons—It would be necessary to continually increase the National Debt to fund these programs. Taxation on those not working in the expanded role of government would need to be drastically increased.

The creation of these debt instruments without sound backing other than additional taxation on the citizens of the already largest debtor nation on earth, would further debase our weak currency and certainly trigger hyper-inflation.

5. Government provided health care for all.

Pros—All American citizens would have equal access to quality health care regardless of ability to pay.

Cons—Coupled with the programs above, the retirement of some 78,000,000 baby boomers, our current national debt, and the already debt ridden society that the U.S. has become, the Kucinich Plan would hurl the U.S. into a depression of unprecedented proportion. This is not an “off the wall” prediction, this is a natural mathematical progression based on the intricacies of our monetary and current world trade systems.

The above plan demonstrates a complete and total absence of even basic knowledge of U.S. and world economics. At best, such a plan would reduce the U.S. to universal poverty.

Change is absolutely necessary; I wrote a book on that very subject. However, the Kucinich Plan illustrates that Mr. Kucinich is not a viable leader for that movement.

The U.S. no longer has the luxury, nor does the majority of our population have the desire, of becoming an isolated and socialist state. This is not 1932 and Mr. Kucinich is not Franklin Roosevelt. Times as they say; have changed.

 
Comments
1.
On December 24th, 2007 at 10:54 am, redsecoy said:

Good Morning Mike,
Just to let you know that Ron Paul is now making a presence in Alaska. There has been some local news coverage and also some local supporters have been getting more active. Ron Paul does have a long road to haul to become a viable candidate for President. He does have many good ideas. Some are to far away from traditional republican norms. To become a viable front runner he will have to change to a third party candidate. As the republican party would never nominate him. With the turmoil going on in America right now it may be the right time for a third party to win the Presidency. Ron Paul does seem to have honed a less traditional campaign that is being more and more effective. He may just pull it off. If he doesn’t then we may have no choice but to join our Canadian brothers.
Merry Christmas,
Red

2.
On December 24th, 2007 at 11:24 am, Mike Folkerth said:

Thanks for the post Red. Paul is far too honest in his approach and far to educated in economics to make the top tier as you suggested.

Consider those who hold massive military contracts. Those who support our bases in some 140 foreign locations. Or those involved in the IRS rip-off. The tax accountants and CPA firms who have a direct line to the White House.

Not to mention the $billions and $billions doled out to countless government providers and paid with tax collection.

They will pull out all of the stops to defeat Ron Paul. But my opinion is that this is a fork in the road for Middle America. If we do not see massive change, economically, we’re sunk.

And then, we truly will see a movement of separation for many Middle Americans who see no way to follow status quo and peacefully and quietly sink to poverty.

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