Rich Poor Gap

A letter to Rolling Stone magazine

2009-01-22T11:02:00.002-05:00

Economists Agree: No New Economic Systems Will Ever Be Discovered

Mainstream economists have reached the conclusion that there are no
new economic systems to explore, and that from now on world leaders
will just have to tweak the patchwork of systems they have.

When asked about the comparatively recent discovery of binary
economics and its practical applications (ESOPs, Capital Homesteading
and Justice-Based Management), almost every economist interviewed
scoffed at the possibility of new developments, one even going so far
as to say, "Keynes said it, I believe it, and that settles it," and
another, "If God wanted us to explore a new economic system, he would
have told Keynes to tell us about it."

When reached for comment, Norman Kurland, president of the Center for
Economic and Social Justice, noted:
"Well, the core theory behind it HAS only been around for fifty years – I
guess we could wait another fifty for the mainstream to catch up - or
people could go to www.CESJ.org to learn more and start changing the
world now."

If you believe that there is more to discover in the field of
economics, please visit www.CESJ.org today.
***

Dear Mr. Wenner,
Obviously, the above "press release" is a parody at the expense of mainstream economists.
But there is truth backing it up, and so for you and Rolling Stone, this is an opportunity to break one of the biggest stories in history.

Because there IS a new and different economic system - binary economics - that could begin to close the rich/poor gap and spread capital ownership through this nation and the world. It's been around for 50 years, and it is the working basis for the ESOP, created by Louis Kelso. It is real.
All I ask is that one of your reporters look into this, call Norman Kurland, president of CESJ at 703-243-5155, read the material on CESJ.org, and see for yourself the potential of this "Just Third Way" between capitalism and socialism.
Start here to get a feel for this material:

A simple grid comparing systems:
http://cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm

The flyer for the book "Capital Homesteading"
http://cesj.org/publications/capitalhomesteading/whatif-flyer.pdf

The book, free of charge
http://cesj.org/thirdway/paradigmpapers/pressclub-nkmgdb-ppr.htm

After that, all the in-depth information you need is in Norm's head and in the CESJ.org library.

It may be that ONLY Rolling Stone could make this story happen. Please, take advantage of this opportunity to help turn the country and the world in a new, more hopeful direction.

With greatest respect,

Stephen Roy
Wellspring Productions
Mobile: 617-279-7669
http://richpoorgap.blogspot.com/

Rich-Poor Gap Widens

2009-01-07T18:57:00.002-05:00

A new reader forwarded this link to me:

Rich-Poor Gap Widens by Paul Campos
Over the past generation, much mainstream economic thought has assumed that what is good for rich people is good for America. Naturally, this view has tended to transform university economics departments and business schools into cheerleaders for the Republican Party.
Ask professor Pangloss of the University of Chicago what we ought to do about capital gains or the inheritance tax or unions, and he will dazzle you with equations supposedly demonstrating that the political outcomes sought by the wealthiest Americans are also best for society as a whole.
That, at any rate, is the current economic orthodoxy. How well does it reflect reality?...

Please go to this link for the remainder of this excellent article

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0502-30.htm

"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win."

2009-01-07T18:45:00.001-05:00

Hi Norm
Thanks for explaining your position on Rand. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out to anyone who still needs proof of your open mindedness that, inspite of your opinion of Rand's work in some areas, you still can see the value of other parts, and readily allow her voice to be added to the JTW Blog. Now that's a big tent, and you are to be commended for it.

I don't know that she was ever exposed to Kelso/Adler but, though I think you are correct that she probably would not support the JTW, her theory of capitalism began with this most basic definition:

"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." Ayn Rand

Nothing there to automatically preclude her support, in my opinion.
However, to quote her again:

"When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church." Ayn Rand

So, I think it's safe to say she would not approve of the current state of affairs, either. As she pointed out, the system we are suffering under now is 'mixed capitalism.' Few people care to acknowledge that the system we are mixing capitalism with is socialism. It is that part of the mixture that is killing us, not the capitalist part, though capitalism is blamed for the failure. But as Rand so correctly pointed out:

"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit." Ayn Rand

I don't intend to continue viewing this issue through her lens, except for this observation:

Her philosophy, Objectivism, lays out actual proof that capitalism is the economic system that is most consonant with freedom and justice. No one needs to wonder if there's another system out there somewhere that we're missing. The ideal is some form of capitalism that preserves that freedom and that justice. I believe that Binary Economics and the Just Third Way are the only way forward.

It would be great if Objectivists and Libertarians could see this clearly and join us in what is in my opinion one of the final battles for the survival of the capitalist system.

Norm's comment on the last post

2009-01-07T18:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Steve. I too found Ayn Rand's position against statism compelling, but I found her position in defense of selfishness as a virtue morally obnoxious. Self-interest is imbedded in human nature, but selfishness and greed go beyond healthy self-interest to represent gain at someone else's expense. I wish she and today's libertarians were as open-minded as you to the Kelso-Adler books.
Steve, would you consider trying to open up the minds of Lew Rockwell (Lew Rockwell ) and his Mises Foundation members to your thoughts? Rockwell and others in his libertarian network need to hear your views. Unfortunately, they seem to be blind to the systemic barriers to equal ownership opportunities and to the reason libertarians cannot connect up to most voters are wage slaves, welfare slaves and debt slaves whose lives are so desperate that they turn to the state for their economic salvation. That's why I no longer use the term "capitalism" to describe the just market system America and the world needs to avoid the totalitarian trap into which Keynesian, laissez faire and socialist economic high priests are leading us.

Mike, please post Steve's piece on our Just Third Way blog. You can add my thoughts as a comment to Steve's excellent piece.

Own or Be Owned,
Norm

Time for Atlas to Shrug?

2009-01-07T01:22:00.003-05:00

I don't think Ayn Rand would approve of anything other than laissez faire capitalism as the proper economic structure of a nation, but I do think something that could stop and reverse the relentless march to collectivism in her beloved adopted country would interest her. I believe that binary economics and the Just Third Way could be that something.

Rand knew well the horror of collectivism, or communism, or socialism (all the same principle) because she escaped from Russia and watched with the world as the Iron Curtain descended. A friend wrote to her, asking her to tell people that the USSR was a graveyard, and that they were all dying slowly. She fought as hard as one person could to tell that story, constructing an entire philosophy, Objectivism, that was reality-based, and exposing collectivism for the horror that it was and is.

Using that philosophy, she searched for the economic system that would best support freedom and dignity for Man. She proved that only capitalism could offer that freedom and prosperity, and held that only the purest form, laissez faire capitalism, would be acceptable, because anything else would be contaminated with collectivist structures. People would then blame capitalism, when the real culprit was collectivism. (see "Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal").

Funny - that's what some people are claiming now. That the current crisis proves that capitalism is a sham, that putting the financial system under government control is the only answer.

As if enough millions haven't died already proving that to be a bloody path to hell.

As if there wasn't any other alternative, when we know damn well there is, and has been for over fifty years.

Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler worked it out in The Capitalist Manifesto (available for free at the www.cesj.org library). I read the book in the 70's and immediately got the message, though I was totally unschooled in economics. I was elated that there was a new way, a third way, that could usher in a new era for us all. Surely the powers that be would see it. Surely they would follow up with sophisticated econometric models that would prove the validity of the theory, and apply it for the good of all.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that 30 years later, I would bring up the topic and be regarded with totally blank stares from people who should have at least heard about Kelso and Adler. But such is the bankruptcy of the field of economics. In it's current state it is not a science - it is a witch hunt in reverse, desperately trying to muddy the waters and obscure any clear view of the third alternative, Binary Economics, or the Just Third Way. As if ignoring it would make it go away. And they almost succeeded - The Capitalist Manifesto is out of print and ignored, and Keynes still rules from beyond the grave, still poisoning us all with his fatally flawed theories.

I'll leave alone for the moment the obvious conclusion - that the people with most of the real wealth, that monopolize the ownership of the most capital, are perfectly happy that up until now, the people don't know about any of this. Too bad for them that Norm, CESJ, The Kelso Institute and all the other hardworking people in this movement refused to let the dream die. Now there is a new kind of capitalism, that robs no one, that distributes capital throughout the citizenry, that could put real purchasing power, not more debt, into the hands of all Americans and world citizens alike.

Here's an open challenge to economists everywhere - put Binary Economics on the table from now on as a valid choice for the economic structure of a nation, put in as much work proving it true or false as you do making excuses for the failures of Keynes' theories - or stop thinking of yourselves as scientists, and start thinking of yourselves as witch doctors. Because true scientists examine ALL new ideas. They LIVE to be proved wrong so the truth can finally be known. Witch doctors continue shaking old bones over the dying man, hoping that he gets better - somehow.

In Atlas Shrugged, the "men of the mind" withdraw their intelligence and effort from the world when the witch doctors and government stooges make life impossible to live with dignity. They allow the old world to collapse under it's own dead weight, and go back to the world only after the way is clear.

Maybe it's time to take a second look at that strategy.

Big Banking, we have not heard a word of apology from any of you. With the help of the dirtiest, most inhuman administration in history, you have raided the treasury - our children's future - of billions that were supposed to be put back into the economy and sat on them as "padding," refusing to lend any of it. You can't even say where some of it ended up.

Let me guess.

In my opinion, all those who participated are traitors. You mismanaged trillions knowing the government would have to bail you out, surely stuffed piles of it into off-shore shelters, and mortgaged all our futures for decades to come.

If it was done to us by a foreign country, it would be an act of war. Economic terrorism.
Because it was done by Americans, to Americans, I say it is treason, and should be treated accordingly.

Respectfully submitted

Steve Roy

Open letter to Tom Ashbrook at OnPoint

2009-01-06T23:52:00.002-05:00

Hi. Thanks for stopping by...

This is a letter I sent to Tom Friedman at the New York Times, which I modified and re-sent to Tom Ashbrook at OnPointradio.com.

Dear Tom
If you are interested in helping turn this country around, you could
devote a program or two to the work of civil rights champion,
attorney, and economist Norman Kurland, president of the Center for
Economic and Social Justice in Washington, DC. Dr. Kurland has been
promoting a true third way in economics, called the Just Third Way,
based on the work of Louis Kelso, the creator of the ESOP, and famed
American philosopher Mortimer Adler.

Dr. Kurland is an amazing man who co-founded the Center for Economic
and Social Justice — www.cesj.org — specifically to promote a
departure from the debilitating legacy of John Maynard Keynes, and
offer a logical new alternative that would expand capital ownership to
include all Americans, not just a wealthy few.

As even the mainstream media pick up stories about the end of Keynes'
now-discredited, debt-based economic model, one finds many saying
capitalism is dead, and that socialism is all that's left. It is not.
For over 50 years there has been a proposed alternate system that
almost no one has spoken openly about.

In my opinion, the lack of discussion of this topic by mainstream
economists invalidates any claim they might make that economics is a
science. If it is a science, then let's put ALL the options on the
table and test them. If not, then call it what it is - a scam on all
of us.

Tom, I know you are an honest broker of information, so I ask you to
pick up this challenge:

Look at the material on cesj.org. Call Norm — he is accessible and
ready to respond at almost any time — do your due diligence, and then
report what you find to the world. You will be breaking what may be
the most important news since the first American Revolution
established the concept of political freedom — the announcement of a
Second American Revolution that will establish a concept of economic
freedom and justice without which the first revolution cannot be
sustained.

I pray you move quickly, before it's too late and, in our panic and
uncertainty, we contaminate our economy with even more socialism than
it already has. How ironic if the United States of America were to be
relegated to the dustbin of history as just another failed
collectivist State in the end.

Respectfully,
Steve Roy

An additional comment:

I'm using the Rich/Poor Gap approach to try to get through to people who
know little or nothing about economics in a simple, direct way they
can relate to. I count myself among that number, especially in
comparison to Norm, Patricia, CESJ, The Kelso Institue and all the
other great people in this movement, but therein may lie a strength.

My goal is to bring this concept to a large audience, and to do that,
the explanations must be simple, clear, and full of common sense.
Thanks to all of you, anyone wanting the specifics now has several
reliable sources for accurate information. My job, as I see it, is to
leave the breadcrumbs along the trail that leads to that knowledge.
Apologies in advance for the lack of recent postings here -
- guess I'd better get writing again!

Thanks again for your support.
Steve Roy

A Third Way

2008-11-05T14:32:00.005-05:00

What if you were to find out that your doctor only told you two of the three ways he could treat your condition, and that he withheld information from you about a potentially superior " third way" because, in spite of the evidence, he just didn't believe in the treatment or even fully understand it?

What if you found out about this after your quality of life had suffered a devastating blow? Would you have grounds for a malpractice suit?

I'll leave that determination to the lawyers, but I think it's safe to say most people would be very angry and ready to make that doctor pay for his mistake.

Well, that is the very situation you are in now with regard to the economic life of our nation. There is a false battle between capitalism and collectivism (or socialism). False because there is a Third Way - what some call a "Just Third Way" - to revolutionize the economic structure of the USA and indeed any other country. You haven't heard about it, but the economic gurus that flood the airwaves with circular logic and grey, approximate statements about what's causing this or that disaster DO know. They just don't choose to tell you about it.

Yet there are examples of this Third economic structure at work right now - ever heard of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)? They are based on the economic theory that I'm describing here. And this theory, properly expanded and structured, could be, and I will say here, MUST be - the only way to survive the current economic crisis and the many more that are destined to follow as the rich/poor gap expands.

Because in the end, in negative reaction to what they have been told is "capitalism" (which it's not - it's mixed capitalism with government interference at best) to save themselves and their children, the people will vote in the only other economic structure they know of - Collectivism/Socialism/Communism. They will vote themselves into slavery.

How do you structure an economy with this Third Way? It's simple -

Don't allow all capital (stock) ownership to concentrate in the hands of the few that already own most of the available capital

Don't put all the capital ownership in the hands of the state (for God's sake!)

Instead, distribute capital ownership among the population so they can earn money in BOTH of the ways wealth is created - labor and capital ownership. Structure the economy so they can purchase a small amount of the billions in new capital generated every year with the earnings it generates over time. Pay off the company that issues the stock, and the banks that lend the money to purchase them. Eventually, this capital will become a growing revenue stream for them. You will give away or re-distribute NOTHING. Indeed, IMHO this plan could begin to eliminate transfer payments as people earn their way with the income from their capital ownership - not the money taxed from others.

The plan mirrors Abraham Lincoln's Homestead Act of 1862. Then, land was capital - the only capital. Now, the universe of technology that keeps our economy moving is the capital, represented by stock in those companies that use it.
But the principles of Lincoln's bold initiative remain sound.

The answers to all your questions about this economic structure exist now, and have existed since 1958. It is a crime that you don't know about them - a crime against you, your children, and your country.

Go to these links to find out more:

A simple chart comparing Capitalism, Socialism and the Just Third Way

http://cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm
___________________________
The books by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler that started it all:

The Capitalist Manifesto
http://www.kelsoinstitute.org/pdf/cm-entire.pdf

The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings
http://www.kelsoinstitute.org/pdf/nc-entire.pdf
___________________________
The flyer
http://www.capitalhomestead.com/
___________________________
The free online book about the mechanics of it all:
http://cesj.org/homestead/capitalhomesteading.pdf
___________________________
The only organization with the courage and vision to keep trying to bring this information to you for almost 25 years.
www.CESJ.org

This is as significant as any scientific discovery in history, because the problems it addresses reach into every corner of the world. It is the engine that will take us to the stars, allow us to clean up the environment, feed the hungry, eliminate terrorism.- all of it, in one simple package. Read about it. You'll see.

Steve Roy

Open letter to Sen. Obama

2008-10-30T11:53:00.001-04:00

Dear Sen. Obama,

Present mainstream economics is disconnected from the real world. Everyone recognizes this, but most people haven't the least idea what to do about it. But there are a few people coming up with answers. Of course, since they are not mainstream, they get no coverage. (Can you say "Catch 22"?)

The ever-widening rich/poor gap is the most glaring indication of the system's failure, but most news reports about it (and they come out every year) don't address why the gap is getting worse every year.

The reason is that the rich have two factors of wealth creation helping them, and we the people have only one.

We "gappers" have only labor - they have labor and capital ownership.

We are allowed to buy capital - but only out of our savings, so we never can buy enough to, say, match our salaries with an equal amount of money generated by capital ownership.

The rich 5% can use their credit to buy a lion's share of the billions of dollars worth of new capital generated each year... and the gap grows again.

THIS is the root of the problem with the economy - to grow it, the middle class needs to have at least some discretionary income, but that has evaporated, so they buy on credit- EVERYBODY buys on credit- but they can never earn enough to catch up with only their labor earnings. And with technology advancing as it is, they never will.

But the system must not simply redistribute wealth, taking us further down the road to socialism, and it doesn't have to in order to fix this problem. It simply needs to be rewired so there is broad capital ownership throughout the population of the new capital created every year. All present holders of wealth and capital would keep what they have - they just would not have a monopoly on buying all that new capital every year.

Go to www.cesj.org, the website of the Center for Economic and Social Justice, and prepare to have your eyes opened to a world you should have heard about at least 50 years ago, when Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler first discovered this "Third Way" between pure collectivism and pure capitalism.

Go to http://www.capitalhomestead.com/ to learn more about this relatively simple, yet world-changing plan. Having been directly associated with CESJ for a time, I can vouch for their absolute trustworthiness and credentials.

Thank God that Norm Kurland, civil rights hero and co-founder of CESJ and the seminal source for information about this, is still with us. Don't miss this opportunity to tap into his vast knowledge base.

Senator Obama, please look into this now. You have a chance to change the economic history of not only this country, but the world.

God bless you and your family, and God bless America.

Respectfully,
Stephen Roy

A few thoughts on the financial crisis

2008-10-02T00:14:00.001-04:00

A few thoughts:

This crisis has weakened the United States terribly during a time of war (two wars). If this economic crisis had been precipitated on purpose by a third party - say a country who wished us ill - it would be an act of war, and any collaborators would be arrested for treason.

I submit that the banking system knowingly gambled with the economic well being of this country at the worst possible time, knowing full well that it could not stand, and knowing that they would be able to hold us all to ransom using the mountain of debt they piled up as a weapon. Given all this, I call them self-serving, narcissistic traitors, and call for their arrest.

Secretary Paulson’s attempt to make such a naked power grab in his pitiful three page “plan” while all of our futures hung in the balance leads me to question his patriotism as well.

And where are the leaders of these banks, whose corruption has brought us to the brink of the abyss? Not one word, not an apology, not an offer to try to fix the mess they’ve made. They just dispatch a legion of stooges (including our “President” ) who spread panic in the public media to stampede us into giving them a $700 billion handout to save their sorry behinds.

Answer this Mr. Banker - if there were no government funds available, how would you fix this trainwreck? Because that’s what you would be doing right now, on your own, without even being asked, if being a citizen of this country actually meant anything to you. Clearly, it does not.

I need to see multiple humiliating perp walks, and I need to see them now.

And still more proof...

2008-03-07T17:19:00.001-05:00

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/12/news/economy/income/

Gap between rich, poor seen growing
Income disparity reaches highest since 1920s, paper reports, with recent Wall Street boom partly to blame.
October 12 2007: 9:56 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans grew to its widest level since the 1920s, according to a report published Friday.

Citing Internal Revenue Service data, the Wall Street Journal reported that the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans earned 21.2 percent of all the nation's income in 2005, up from the previous high of 20.8 percent in 2000.

I reiterate this blog's initial position - there is a solution to this issue. See cesj.org for more information.
SR

More proof that the system is broken

2008-03-07T17:14:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the lack of recent posts -
As you can see, you don't have to wait for long to get further confirmation of the widening rich/poor gap... SR

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/rich-m07.shtml

America’s “Fortunate 400” control vast wealth

By David Walsh
7 March 2008

The richest four hundred American taxpayers have amassed immense wealth, and that amount is steadily increasing, according to figures reported by the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

The Journal piece and the latest celebration of the world’s billionaires carried out by Forbes magazine point to an increasingly and malignantly polarized American and global social order, with fabulous riches accumulated at one pole and widespread social wretchedness at the other.

The data published in the Wall Street Journal article come from an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) study of wealthy US taxpayers in 2005, an update of a report conducted five years earlier. The study reveals that the 400 super-rich—who represent approximately .0003 percent of the nation’s 134 million taxpayers—reported total income of $85.6 billion in 2005, an average of $213.9 million each.

Welcome Norm Kurland!

2008-02-06T21:35:00.000-05:00

Hi Norm - can't believe it's you! Hope you and your family and everyone at CESJ are healthy and happy!
I will call soon - in the meantime, please feel free to post some of your wisdom on my humble site.
Very best wishes!
Steve

Matrix

2008-01-22T15:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a great matrix showing the comparison among Capitalism, Socialism and the Just Third Way (a form of Binary Economics)

http://cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm

About the Rich Poor Gap

2008-01-22T15:04:00.000-05:00

This issue is real, people. The problem is that in a democracy, when people get really fed up, they can vote for change. And if they see only the choice between "Capitalism" and "Socialism" and they are tired of getting screwed by what they (mistakenly) think is our present form of economics - Capitalism - they will vote for the people-killer, Socialism.

And the light of freedom in the US and around the globe will start to fade.

Here are some articles from a quick websearch:
_______________________________________
Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html

Rich-poor gap gaining attention
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
A remark by Greenspan symbolizes concern that wealth disparities may destabilize the economy.

WASHINGTON – The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself.
Is that a liberal's talking point? Sure. But it's also a line from the recent public testimony of a champion of the free market: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan...
_________________________________________
Worldwatch Institute – November 12, 2003 – 6:17pm

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/82

The global economy has grown sevenfold since 1950. Meanwhile, the disparity in per capita gross domestic product between the 20 richest and 20 poorest nations more than doubled between 1960 and 1995.

Of all high-income nations, the United States has the most unequal distribution of income, with over 30 percent of income in the hands of the richest 10 percentand only 1.8 percent going to the poorest 10 percent...

Source:

Rich-Poor Gap Growing, Vital Signs 2003, pp. 88-89.
_________________________________________
International Herald Tribune

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/18/news/letter.php

Letter From Washington: As U.S. rich-poor gap grows, so does public outcry
Albert R. Hunt Bloomberg News
Published: February 18, 2007

WASHINGTON: There is hand-wringing in America over growing income inequality and excessive executive compensation.

The complaints are not emanating from populists on the left or ivory- tower academics. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, devoted an entire speech this month to income inequality, worrying that it threatened "the dynamism" of capitalism. And President George W. Bush has been a critic of greedy executives...

Welcome

2008-01-22T14:45:00.000-05:00

Present mainstream economics is disconnected from the real world. Everyone recognizes this, but most people haven't the least idea what to do about it. But there are a few people coming up with answers. Of course, since they are not mainstream, they get no coverage. (Can you say "Catch 22"?)

The ever-widening rich/poor gap is the most glaring indication of the system's failure, but most news reports about it (and they come out every year) don't address why the gap is getting worse every year.

The reason is that the rich have two factors of wealth creation helping them, and we the people have only one.

We "gappers" have only labor - they have labor and capital ownership.

We are allowed to buy capital - but only out of our savings, so we never can buy enough to, say, match our salaries with an equal amount of money generated by capital ownership.

The rich 5% can use their credit to buy a lion's share of the billions of dollars worth of new capital generated each year... and the gap grows again.

I'm no economist, but I have found out this simple fact, and many more, thanks to some dedicated, passionate people you've never heard of.

Go to www.cesj.org, the website of the Center for Economic and Social Justice, and prepare to have your eyes opened to a world you should have heard about at least 50 years ago.

For more information, research "Binary Economics," another term for the as yet untried economic system that enables all families to earn money using the two factors - labor and capital ownership. Having been directly associated with CESJ for a time, I can vouch for their absolute trustworthiness and credentials.

The floor is open for discussion.