How about addressing the problem that no one mentions? Government raiding of the peoples’ Social Security Fund. The Super Rich could bend their efforts to getting a bill passed into law which would make Social Security a dedicated fund, permanently removing government hands from our Fund. Without government raids, our Fund would be self-sufficient for all time!
Secondly, they could use their influence to force The White House, Congress and the Supreme Court to comply with the anti-Trust laws that helped this country recover from the Great Depression of 1929. We needed the anti-Trust laws in 2009, more than we needed to throw more money at the overstuffed money bags!
These two actions would go a long way towards returning this country to The People!
Isaac Asimov & Frederik Pohl in “Our Angry Earth” 1993, thoroughly covered a plethora of issues that face our nation, possible solutions and pretty accurate prophecies of the consequences we would face that are now manifesting. Ralph Nader has been on track ever since I can remember, but the common person lacks knowledge of the issues. The rich have the means but we the people must be the instruments and the catalyst to bring change. Get off your duff, get interested in a greater cause than what only benefits self. Educate to honor, compassion, morality, duty, service, participation in civic affairs, dignity, respect, honesty, and yes, manners, like i was taught in school in the 40’s. Our news should be timely, informational, unbiased, and accurate, same with advertising. Nader’s book should be in schools and several million in the hands of thinking people at an affordable price. How can we stop greed? It’s a learned behavior, therefore a need to turn it around begins with education, quality teachers and good parenting.
I read every suggestion and while they were mostly good no one mentioned following almost everything in the book including the founding of the Clean Elections Party. Nader’s book includes all the necessary procedures to successfully change everything for the better. For a hundred years many of the rich have been doing good things with their money ie Carnegie plus the hundreds of organizations on the left and we continue to regress. Nader’s plan appears to have all the essentials for bringing about a complete progressive populist change. So I feel our mission is to find rich and not so rich who can carry out Nader’s plan. Of course sabotage and co-opting by the right would be a constant danger which Nader talks about in the book.
Self-sufficient colonies could be built on desertified /deforested lands around the globe. Such colonies would showcase advanced green technologies necessary to save the planet. Greenhouse tech would be vital to such settlements.
Citizens from any country could join a colony of their choice by either purchasing a condominium or being subsidized to do so. Water supply would be the prime limiting factor but some novel solutions do exist.
A system of schools would be created to train prospective colonists in the art of colony operation.
World wide, equal health care for WOMEN with free access to contraception and safe legal abortion. When women have control of their lives with fewer children, the family all have the chance to become educated and family life/the world is improved.
The planet is overpopulated and must be controlled. Women can do this if given the opportunity
We need to stop the gross bribery that is part of our election system. Election campaigns should be funded by the government and the government alone (This way campaign contributions will not decide who is elected). I understand that people have the right to representation, but representation should be equal among all people. As Americans we are not guaranteed a right to buy extra time with politicians, nor should we be.
We must realize that our economic system is not some natural entity. It is man-made. People seem to think that because they can find a way to make a lot of money that they’ve “earned” that money. Income is supposed to be proportionate to output; to a good or service provided to others. That is natural, that’s the only thing that should matter. And that is not seen in our current system. Pay should relate to the good done. Meaning CEOs should not possibly be receiving pay that is so far above and beyond that of their workers. Look at the rest of the world! No one else has such a great disparity in pay. That is what we need the CEOs to change.
This is a problem of maintaining a standard. It’s very easy to slip quickly away from the standard. It is much harder to return to the standard, to equity. That is what we need the super rich to help us with. Set the example! Realign your corporate pay structures and return our broken system to the standard!
That being said, the rest of us must help them to toe the line. This is where the real work is. We need leaders, yes. But those leaders need followers who will hold strong to their convictions. Let’s go America. Follow the example of men and women in the armed services. Make sacrifices for the good of the country, for the good of the world.
While a reasonable justification for the good Mr. Nader’s premise may be found in Margaret Mead’s famous quote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” we are unsure, but hopeful that that group may turn out to be the super rich.
Change corporate governance. They could start with the corporations they control or influence. Require that one-third of the board of directors of large corporations be nominated and elected by employees. The percentage is arbitrary. It might need to be higher. But, the representation of the corporation’s biggest group of stakeholders,who are currently unrepresented in corporate decisions, could change everything.
I wish this website (or some other) had a feature for locating, joining, or creating bookclubs for “only the super-rich” that could then have the possibility of getting a few people to commit to some actions.
Ralph,
I’m looking forward to reading the book, but why only ONE woman, Yoko Ono, in your billionaire group? I’ll bet the book would reach a wider audience if there were more women in the group.
Try JK Rowling, Oprah, Meg Whitman, Alice Walton and Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken for starters!
Thanks for all your work. I got involved with the Green Party in 2000 because of your Presidential run, and have been a peace, environmental, Green Party and electoral reform activist ever since!
My suggestion IS the book.
Less than a quarter way through I had the growing urge to send one to Buffet with the note writ large: “WHY NOT, WARREN?…What have you got to lose…a few billion…SO WHAT?”
I DO think it is possible, just as it would be possible for a huge world-wide people’s uprising…large enough to discount any real militaristic opposition.
Just as I believe with hindsight all war is clearly preventable, at worse the “inevitable War’ could be prempted by an OVERWHELMING military flooding of the initiator.
WHY NOT UTOPIA???
1st, begin the messy job of dismantling the power-structure on Wall St. the banking industry actually runs our country. Un-seat them using wahtever means are necessary.
They should get together to fully fund public schools in which intellectually curious teachers guide deeply engaged students, and reflect learning in projects, performances and portfolios instead of standardized test scores.
I would love to see the super-rich pool their resources and pour them into the development of schools, hospitals, food stores, land credit unions, that would be become the basis for a system that would compete against the inhumane one we have today.
The Super Rich could usher in a new era of professional sports sponsorship by establishing not-for-profit, world class, professional franchises. For example, a major league baseball team called “The Green Sox” where all profits go directly toward environmental concerns. This radical concept could create a capitalist revolution in sports sponsorship, at the same time broadening the viewership appeal because the planet would be profiting, not just millionaire players and team owners.
The super-rich should solve the problem of government not representing the peoples’ desires (as is the case with health care reform, most recently) by launching a nationwide campaign to make ballot initiatives a part of government on every level – local, state, and national. They exist in 24 states and hundreds of municipalities right now, but they need to spread!
Boyaskasha Superrich guys: You won’t have anyone to leave your wealth to if the planet is destroyed by corporate produced greenhouse gases. Change the system and save the earth before its too late.
Peace,
The World
I think the super-rich should focus all of their money on the environmental problems we have. They should water the soil for the green economy. I also think they should buy as many factory farms as possible and shut them down and then return food production to local, family based, sustainable farms.
Organize shareholders at every company to cap salaries above $2M except for company founders who are CEOs. Put the many back into the stock price instead of paying it to CEO and senior execs so shareholders can build real wealth. This would make companies more profitable and CEOs more dilligent.
Health Care and many other problems can be addressed with money. I have long thought that a club-big box approach could be used to solve the health care problem. Design a super plan open to everyone with hospitals, clinics, private physicians and make it like Costco or Sams club. Pay an annual fee and a monthly charge and get health care. if you don’t need it, don’t go. If you do, go whenever you need to. The super-rich could supplement it until its self-sustaining.
I believe the President should not be using our money to petition for the Olympic Games when there is plenty they can be doing with that money to help our entire nation instead of just one city.
The most important thing the super-rich could do FOR the “common good”, in my opinion, is to simply distribute at least 60% of their total accumulated wealth. I mean, just how much does ONE PERSON really need to sustain their existence, how many houses can ONE FAMILY occupy at a time, how many cars can ONE INDIVIDUAL drive at one time? Enough with the culture of Conspicuous OVER-Consumption.
I do not happen to know any people who could possibly be considered as “super-rich”. Besides, why would any of them want to change how the Nation is run? After all — they amassed all of their wealth BECAUSE OF how the Nation is run. Level the “playing field” and they would have give up some of that wealth…..the poor babies.
Eric said, “Start paying the people who make our clothes a respectable wage.” I say start paying the people a respectable wage. Period. The people who make our clothes, our food, our EVERYTHING. Everyone should get a respectable wage.
I’m halfway through the book.
The super rich “conspire” around a round table, then observe an hour of silence around the same egalitarian table, writing notes, thinking.
Simple, and wonderful.
Raise the minimum wage to something livable, and tolerable, and implement a max wage that prevents the kid of bonuses we presently see with TARP funds.
produce a series for mainstream tv about what a utopian society would look like. fund a gathering of the most forward looking technological and socialscientists, writers, artists, musicians, spiritual leaders etc. to form a brain trust to write the script that would popularize the best society we could evolve into given the right circumstances.
The super rich could help establish local clinics providing healthcare for chronic health problems like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, asthma, COPD. The care for adults and children provided by teams of Nurse Practitioners, Dietitions and Physicians could save billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
I know a bunch of super-rich people… they’re all CEOs of health insurance companies. United Health Group – CEO: William W McGuire – $124,800,000 per year
Forest Labs – CEO: Howard Solomon – $92,100,000 per year
Caremark Rx – CEO: Edwin M Crawford – $77,900,000 per year
Merck – CEO: Raymond Gilmartin – $37,800,000 per year
Abbott Lab – CEO: Miles White – $26,200,000 per year
How about we start hounding these guys?? THEY are the reason our healthcare is currently so expensive.
The super-rich should cause to be devised a system of voting in the House and Senate whereby all votes are accurately recorded and reported, BUT with the provision that each and every individual vote is kept SECRET with respect to the individual casting the vote. IF and ONLY IF the individual subsequently decides to run for re-election at the end of their term(s), THEN that individual’s entire voting record would be unsealed and made available to his or her constituents. The constituents could then examine their representatives’ voting record and decide whether it reflects, in the aggregate, their (the constituents’) desires. If yes, they can vote to re-elect that representative; if no, then they can vote to remove that representative from office. This is no different from the present system in that election time is the only (practical) time that individual voters can influence what a given representative does. The serial knowledge of representatives’ votes BETWEEN elections is not actionable by their constituents and only serves to make them (the representatives) more vulnerable to influence and pressure from lobbyists and special interest groups. Under this system, the representatives could vote their conscience on EVERY issue, and the pervasive and perverse actions of lobbyists and special interest groups would become essentially meaningless.
Education, education education. If we don’t get to the roots of the problem it will only rise again. Fund public school systems, education in prisons, family planning classes, continue education, education research, and all other avenues of education. Improve teacher salaries to get the best teachers for our future leaders and citizens. The rich could help the next generation start on the right path, perhaps then they will have the numbers and the knowledge to question/fix the currupt heart of our nation and society.
Everyone must become a Vegan! a start to solving so many problems our planet is faced with. The super-rich could set this example and help inform the public..GO VEGAN !!
1. support private funding for training for doctors and nurses so the giant pharmaceuticals are no longer controlling them.
2. support private alternative schools that truly encourage learning as opposed to the Corporate Banking Method of controlled warehousing of our children.
3. I support universal health care, alternative decent housing utilizing solar energy, composting toilets where feasible, the use of EM (Effective Microorganisms) such as we use at City of the Sun Foundation in our environmentally approved waste-water lagoon. We were founded as a private alternative not-for-profit foundation on 157 acres of real estate near Columbus, New Mexico. We have been overrun by old drug burnouts and those of us trying to re-plant desert grasses and live logical alternative lives have been about drowned out. Since we are out of compliance, we could easily be taken over by a group dedicated to the aims of changing the system.
4. Yes, estate tax
5. yes, get rid of corporate tax loopholes and corporations in general.
6. yes, prosecute tax cheats
7. We are a finite planet and cannot have unlimited consumption and growth – also get ride of giant pharmaceuticals and excessive pesticides. The US has one of the highest cancer rates in the world (I was permanently damaged (lungs) by pesticide drift ) as are many farmworkers.
Promote bilingualism and a greater knowledge of the rest of the world (back to education). Thank you. How can I help?
The super rich could help save us by helping us adopt and enforce more rigorous standards of journalism and education to produce a better-informed and more critically-minded citizenry. The Enlightenment has collapsed under the weight of the nexus of corporate propaganda, religious fundamentalism, and pseudo-patriotism. We need an Enlightenment II Project. The quality of public discourse is depressing.
Capitalism has succeeded so well that it is now obsolete. The next logical step for capital is to detach the profit motive from a flexible form of universal currency that will redistribute the world’s resources without causing recession-depression in the advanced industrial nations or economic implosion and civil war in the less developed nations.
Summary We should: 1) Represent people according to the first three Amendments to the Constitution. 2) Redesign the tax system for fairness and to save $900 Billion dollars every year. 3) Stop the despotic enforcement of arbitrary laws. 4) Test school graduates to evaluate and rank there schools. 5) Have the President and Congress do the jobs assigned to them by the Constitution.
Conclusion
By giving attention to these matters you could play a vital role in seeing that action is taken to address the failures of our current system and to implement the measures outlined in this paper. These items need to be brought before our governmental institutions. The governmental systems must be reevaluated and restored to the constitutional structures intended by our founding fathers.
The super rich could start using Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map which shows all the continents at proper scale, and in one glance proves that the land masses are connected and can be seen as one island in one ocean.
Get rid of packing material! Save the environment. Every time something is sent through mail to email consumers or to retailers by manufacturers, there is plastic wrapping each item, I have worked in retail and thrown out zillions of plastic bags, wrapping a clean piece of clothing. Every time I order supplements or books online, it arrives in a bag, wrapped in plastic in a cardboard box, all that packaging is ridiculous.
Also, I think Brad Pitt would make a great President!!!
It’s not only the super-rich, but us all, that need to rethink what is meaningful in life. We have despoiled our beautiful planet for what? Ipods, junk food, cell phones, designer clothes, clothes for animals? If we didn’t go out and buy all this crap, maybe there wouldn’t be any super-rich. Take a look around you and ask yourself what it is that you truly value. We all need to shoulder the burden and step up. It’s time that we, as citizens and consumers, started acting responsibly.
I love Ralph Nader and voted for him every chance I’ve had, and even written him a couple of times. I find the premiss interesting, I can’t summon the optimism required to hope these super heroes would actually rise to the occasion. That said, here are a few issues in no particular order that could use superhuman attention.
* Real finance reform in the form of publicly financed elections.
* Living wages instead of minimum wages.
* Universal health care.
* Accountability and prosecution for Bush and Cheney’s crimes.
* Accountability and prosecution for those that were responsible for the “financial meltdown/bailout”.
* Creation of a Department of Peace.
* Re-thinking on the war on drugs.
* A more just foreign policy/bring the troops home!
* End and make criminal, public water fluoridation.
The super rich could shut down factory farms and pay family farmers to grow organic foods…they could ship them to the stores and farmer’s markets and write off the expenses as a form of ‘charity to the American people’. After all, haven’t we become nothing more than ‘charity cases’?!!
They should put in place a “basic income”.
—————
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A basic income is a proposed system[1] of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
1) Continue with media outreach (i.e. Fox, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh) about the rich paying more taxes, like back in Eisenhower’s time;
2) Help us get corporate money out of Congress/elections;
3) Help us find/fund innovative/green jobs for individuals/rural communities to survive and contribute to the decrease of climate change worldwide;
4) Promote justice and social values of peaceful democracy, i.e. can’t have a democracy when there is a 400% difference in salaries between the highest and lowest wage earners (i.e. CEO’s of insurance companies are making $100,000 an hr. – that’s NOT what makes democracy).
The Super-Rich have had their chances to make a difference in the world- what good has it done, then & now? Besides a few philanthropic contributions here & there, they have also managed to make their fortunes even more grander, with tax loopholes & offshore accounts. If they should unite over just one thing, they should start with reversing climate change, because if they don’t, their untold riches will not be passed on to their descendants (for obvious reasons).
I’d like to see some promotion of Peter Barnes’ ideas described in the book Capitalism 3.0. You’ve got your private sector and your public sector — it’s a two-legged stool, constantly toppling over this way and that. Barnes’ champions the third leg, a “commons” sector. A billion or so from the super-rich getting this off the ground would do some real good. Read the book! (After reading Nader’s, of course.)
Global Warming, without doubt, should be the focus of the Super-Rich. As the science clearly indicates the severity of the problem and the unavoidable nature of the consequences, the only sane response to the Climate Crisis is to endeavor to solve it. Profiteering from it becomes pointless in the face of global destruction. Surely some of the Super-Rich will be able to face the reality of the situation, and choose to act rather than fiddle whilst the planet burns.
A Major strategic advantage exists in a campaign to sway the Super-Rich; we only need to get through to a few people to save the planet!
A wonderful revolutionary premise is at the heart of this book, and it’s one we can all get behind. We must demand that the Super-Rich do what the power they have demands of them. Spider Man and Frederick Douglass quotes come to mind. With great power comes great responsibility, and power will concede nothing without demand. It’s time to demand the Super-Rich get with the program!
Unfortunately it IS money that talks, pays the bills, puts food on the table, so the super-rich (no capitals, please) certainly have a responsibility to the rest of society. Washington is so corrupt that a few billion of theirs speaks louder than a few thousand of us protesters. So they need to lobby for every just cause and use their money to do it, period. If they listen to their true selves, they will do this and become truly free.
The Super-Rich should sell all stock in capitalist corporations, which have one share one vote, and invest that money in class B non-voting shares of Cooperative Enterprises, where class A voting shares are owned by employees, one member one vote. Cooperative Enterprises adhere to democratic principles, whereas capitalist corporations are plutocratic. The Super-Rich should start a mutual fund of Cooperative Enterprise class B shares, and steer the stock market into transforming IPOs and capitalist corporations into Cooperative Enterprises that are democratically controlled by all their employees.
The Super-Rich should stop trying to be the Super-Rich. They should instead devote themselves and all their money to dissuade people from trying to become the Super-Rich and all the exploitation of people and resources it entails. This would solve a lot of the world’s problems.
The super rich could flood the world with a light durable bicycle. This would be a start to solve these four problems. Urban congestion, pollution, obesity and inequality.
How about addressing the problem that no one mentions? Government raiding of the peoples’ Social Security Fund. The Super Rich could bend their efforts to getting a bill passed into law which would make Social Security a dedicated fund, permanently removing government hands from our Fund. Without government raids, our Fund would be self-sufficient for all time!
Secondly, they could use their influence to force The White House, Congress and the Supreme Court to comply with the anti-Trust laws that helped this country recover from the Great Depression of 1929. We needed the anti-Trust laws in 2009, more than we needed to throw more money at the overstuffed money bags!
These two actions would go a long way towards returning this country to The People!
Isaac Asimov & Frederik Pohl in “Our Angry Earth” 1993, thoroughly covered a plethora of issues that face our nation, possible solutions and pretty accurate prophecies of the consequences we would face that are now manifesting. Ralph Nader has been on track ever since I can remember, but the common person lacks knowledge of the issues. The rich have the means but we the people must be the instruments and the catalyst to bring change. Get off your duff, get interested in a greater cause than what only benefits self. Educate to honor, compassion, morality, duty, service, participation in civic affairs, dignity, respect, honesty, and yes, manners, like i was taught in school in the 40’s. Our news should be timely, informational, unbiased, and accurate, same with advertising. Nader’s book should be in schools and several million in the hands of thinking people at an affordable price. How can we stop greed? It’s a learned behavior, therefore a need to turn it around begins with education, quality teachers and good parenting.
I read every suggestion and while they were mostly good no one mentioned following almost everything in the book including the founding of the Clean Elections Party. Nader’s book includes all the necessary procedures to successfully change everything for the better. For a hundred years many of the rich have been doing good things with their money ie Carnegie plus the hundreds of organizations on the left and we continue to regress. Nader’s plan appears to have all the essentials for bringing about a complete progressive populist change. So I feel our mission is to find rich and not so rich who can carry out Nader’s plan. Of course sabotage and co-opting by the right would be a constant danger which Nader talks about in the book.
Self-sufficient colonies could be built on desertified /deforested lands around the globe. Such colonies would showcase advanced green technologies necessary to save the planet. Greenhouse tech would be vital to such settlements.
Citizens from any country could join a colony of their choice by either purchasing a condominium or being subsidized to do so. Water supply would be the prime limiting factor but some novel solutions do exist.
A system of schools would be created to train prospective colonists in the art of colony operation.
World wide, equal health care for WOMEN with free access to contraception and safe legal abortion. When women have control of their lives with fewer children, the family all have the chance to become educated and family life/the world is improved.
The planet is overpopulated and must be controlled. Women can do this if given the opportunity
We need to stop the gross bribery that is part of our election system. Election campaigns should be funded by the government and the government alone (This way campaign contributions will not decide who is elected). I understand that people have the right to representation, but representation should be equal among all people. As Americans we are not guaranteed a right to buy extra time with politicians, nor should we be.
We must realize that our economic system is not some natural entity. It is man-made. People seem to think that because they can find a way to make a lot of money that they’ve “earned” that money. Income is supposed to be proportionate to output; to a good or service provided to others. That is natural, that’s the only thing that should matter. And that is not seen in our current system. Pay should relate to the good done. Meaning CEOs should not possibly be receiving pay that is so far above and beyond that of their workers. Look at the rest of the world! No one else has such a great disparity in pay. That is what we need the CEOs to change.
This is a problem of maintaining a standard. It’s very easy to slip quickly away from the standard. It is much harder to return to the standard, to equity. That is what we need the super rich to help us with. Set the example! Realign your corporate pay structures and return our broken system to the standard!
That being said, the rest of us must help them to toe the line. This is where the real work is. We need leaders, yes. But those leaders need followers who will hold strong to their convictions. Let’s go America. Follow the example of men and women in the armed services. Make sacrifices for the good of the country, for the good of the world.
Don’t blame the rich. Do not shake the apple tree, grow your own. They create jobs and wealth. Period.
While a reasonable justification for the good Mr. Nader’s premise may be found in Margaret Mead’s famous quote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” we are unsure, but hopeful that that group may turn out to be the super rich.
Change corporate governance. They could start with the corporations they control or influence. Require that one-third of the board of directors of large corporations be nominated and elected by employees. The percentage is arbitrary. It might need to be higher. But, the representation of the corporation’s biggest group of stakeholders,who are currently unrepresented in corporate decisions, could change everything.
I wish this website (or some other) had a feature for locating, joining, or creating bookclubs for “only the super-rich” that could then have the possibility of getting a few people to commit to some actions.
Ralph,
I’m looking forward to reading the book, but why only ONE woman, Yoko Ono, in your billionaire group? I’ll bet the book would reach a wider audience if there were more women in the group.
Try JK Rowling, Oprah, Meg Whitman, Alice Walton and Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken for starters!
Thanks for all your work. I got involved with the Green Party in 2000 because of your Presidential run, and have been a peace, environmental, Green Party and electoral reform activist ever since!
CAPITALISM earns it;s place at the top of the list of The Source of All Evils.
Imagine…
My suggestion IS the book.
Less than a quarter way through I had the growing urge to send one to Buffet with the note writ large: “WHY NOT, WARREN?…What have you got to lose…a few billion…SO WHAT?”
I DO think it is possible, just as it would be possible for a huge world-wide people’s uprising…large enough to discount any real militaristic opposition.
Just as I believe with hindsight all war is clearly preventable, at worse the “inevitable War’ could be prempted by an OVERWHELMING military flooding of the initiator.
WHY NOT UTOPIA???
1st, begin the messy job of dismantling the power-structure on Wall St. the banking industry actually runs our country. Un-seat them using wahtever means are necessary.
They should get together to fully fund public schools in which intellectually curious teachers guide deeply engaged students, and reflect learning in projects, performances and portfolios instead of standardized test scores.
I would love to see the super-rich pool their resources and pour them into the development of schools, hospitals, food stores, land credit unions, that would be become the basis for a system that would compete against the inhumane one we have today.
The Super Rich could usher in a new era of professional sports sponsorship by establishing not-for-profit, world class, professional franchises. For example, a major league baseball team called “The Green Sox” where all profits go directly toward environmental concerns. This radical concept could create a capitalist revolution in sports sponsorship, at the same time broadening the viewership appeal because the planet would be profiting, not just millionaire players and team owners.
The super-rich should solve the problem of government not representing the peoples’ desires (as is the case with health care reform, most recently) by launching a nationwide campaign to make ballot initiatives a part of government on every level – local, state, and national. They exist in 24 states and hundreds of municipalities right now, but they need to spread!
Boyaskasha Superrich guys: You won’t have anyone to leave your wealth to if the planet is destroyed by corporate produced greenhouse gases. Change the system and save the earth before its too late.
Peace,
The World
Write a Cliff Notes for the book so it can be used in classrooms, for workshops, etc.
I think the super-rich should focus all of their money on the environmental problems we have. They should water the soil for the green economy. I also think they should buy as many factory farms as possible and shut them down and then return food production to local, family based, sustainable farms.
Organize shareholders at every company to cap salaries above $2M except for company founders who are CEOs. Put the many back into the stock price instead of paying it to CEO and senior execs so shareholders can build real wealth. This would make companies more profitable and CEOs more dilligent.
Health Care and many other problems can be addressed with money. I have long thought that a club-big box approach could be used to solve the health care problem. Design a super plan open to everyone with hospitals, clinics, private physicians and make it like Costco or Sams club. Pay an annual fee and a monthly charge and get health care. if you don’t need it, don’t go. If you do, go whenever you need to. The super-rich could supplement it until its self-sustaining.
I believe the President should not be using our money to petition for the Olympic Games when there is plenty they can be doing with that money to help our entire nation instead of just one city.
The most important thing the super-rich could do FOR the “common good”, in my opinion, is to simply distribute at least 60% of their total accumulated wealth. I mean, just how much does ONE PERSON really need to sustain their existence, how many houses can ONE FAMILY occupy at a time, how many cars can ONE INDIVIDUAL drive at one time? Enough with the culture of Conspicuous OVER-Consumption.
I do not happen to know any people who could possibly be considered as “super-rich”. Besides, why would any of them want to change how the Nation is run? After all — they amassed all of their wealth BECAUSE OF how the Nation is run. Level the “playing field” and they would have give up some of that wealth…..the poor babies.
Eric said, “Start paying the people who make our clothes a respectable wage.” I say start paying the people a respectable wage. Period. The people who make our clothes, our food, our EVERYTHING. Everyone should get a respectable wage.
I’m halfway through the book.
The super rich “conspire” around a round table, then observe an hour of silence around the same egalitarian table, writing notes, thinking.
Simple, and wonderful.
It’s mind boggling to think that 1% of the population controls most of the wealth of this nation and hence whether we sink or swim.
They can make a difference, so why aren’t they?
Raise the minimum wage to something livable, and tolerable, and implement a max wage that prevents the kid of bonuses we presently see with TARP funds.
produce a series for mainstream tv about what a utopian society would look like. fund a gathering of the most forward looking technological and socialscientists, writers, artists, musicians, spiritual leaders etc. to form a brain trust to write the script that would popularize the best society we could evolve into given the right circumstances.
The super rich could help establish local clinics providing healthcare for chronic health problems like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, asthma, COPD. The care for adults and children provided by teams of Nurse Practitioners, Dietitions and Physicians could save billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
I know a bunch of super-rich people… they’re all CEOs of health insurance companies. United Health Group – CEO: William W McGuire – $124,800,000 per year
Forest Labs – CEO: Howard Solomon – $92,100,000 per year
Caremark Rx – CEO: Edwin M Crawford – $77,900,000 per year
Merck – CEO: Raymond Gilmartin – $37,800,000 per year
Abbott Lab – CEO: Miles White – $26,200,000 per year
How about we start hounding these guys?? THEY are the reason our healthcare is currently so expensive.
The super-rich should cause to be devised a system of voting in the House and Senate whereby all votes are accurately recorded and reported, BUT with the provision that each and every individual vote is kept SECRET with respect to the individual casting the vote. IF and ONLY IF the individual subsequently decides to run for re-election at the end of their term(s), THEN that individual’s entire voting record would be unsealed and made available to his or her constituents. The constituents could then examine their representatives’ voting record and decide whether it reflects, in the aggregate, their (the constituents’) desires. If yes, they can vote to re-elect that representative; if no, then they can vote to remove that representative from office. This is no different from the present system in that election time is the only (practical) time that individual voters can influence what a given representative does. The serial knowledge of representatives’ votes BETWEEN elections is not actionable by their constituents and only serves to make them (the representatives) more vulnerable to influence and pressure from lobbyists and special interest groups. Under this system, the representatives could vote their conscience on EVERY issue, and the pervasive and perverse actions of lobbyists and special interest groups would become essentially meaningless.
Education, education education. If we don’t get to the roots of the problem it will only rise again. Fund public school systems, education in prisons, family planning classes, continue education, education research, and all other avenues of education. Improve teacher salaries to get the best teachers for our future leaders and citizens. The rich could help the next generation start on the right path, perhaps then they will have the numbers and the knowledge to question/fix the currupt heart of our nation and society.
Everyone must become a Vegan! a start to solving so many problems our planet is faced with. The super-rich could set this example and help inform the public..GO VEGAN !!
1. support private funding for training for doctors and nurses so the giant pharmaceuticals are no longer controlling them.
2. support private alternative schools that truly encourage learning as opposed to the Corporate Banking Method of controlled warehousing of our children.
3. I support universal health care, alternative decent housing utilizing solar energy, composting toilets where feasible, the use of EM (Effective Microorganisms) such as we use at City of the Sun Foundation in our environmentally approved waste-water lagoon. We were founded as a private alternative not-for-profit foundation on 157 acres of real estate near Columbus, New Mexico. We have been overrun by old drug burnouts and those of us trying to re-plant desert grasses and live logical alternative lives have been about drowned out. Since we are out of compliance, we could easily be taken over by a group dedicated to the aims of changing the system.
4. Yes, estate tax
5. yes, get rid of corporate tax loopholes and corporations in general.
6. yes, prosecute tax cheats
7. We are a finite planet and cannot have unlimited consumption and growth – also get ride of giant pharmaceuticals and excessive pesticides. The US has one of the highest cancer rates in the world (I was permanently damaged (lungs) by pesticide drift ) as are many farmworkers.
Promote bilingualism and a greater knowledge of the rest of the world (back to education). Thank you. How can I help?
The super rich could help save us by helping us adopt and enforce more rigorous standards of journalism and education to produce a better-informed and more critically-minded citizenry. The Enlightenment has collapsed under the weight of the nexus of corporate propaganda, religious fundamentalism, and pseudo-patriotism. We need an Enlightenment II Project. The quality of public discourse is depressing.
Capitalism has succeeded so well that it is now obsolete. The next logical step for capital is to detach the profit motive from a flexible form of universal currency that will redistribute the world’s resources without causing recession-depression in the advanced industrial nations or economic implosion and civil war in the less developed nations.
Not only finish cleaning up after the last Katrina but figuring out how to cope with the next one, coming any year now.
Summary We should: 1) Represent people according to the first three Amendments to the Constitution. 2) Redesign the tax system for fairness and to save $900 Billion dollars every year. 3) Stop the despotic enforcement of arbitrary laws. 4) Test school graduates to evaluate and rank there schools. 5) Have the President and Congress do the jobs assigned to them by the Constitution.
Conclusion
By giving attention to these matters you could play a vital role in seeing that action is taken to address the failures of our current system and to implement the measures outlined in this paper. These items need to be brought before our governmental institutions. The governmental systems must be reevaluated and restored to the constitutional structures intended by our founding fathers.
Princeton Professor Peter Singer has proven how the rich can save us and NOT EVEN FEEL IT! Read this if you care about economic justice.
The super rich could start using Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map which shows all the continents at proper scale, and in one glance proves that the land masses are connected and can be seen as one island in one ocean.
Get rid of packing material! Save the environment. Every time something is sent through mail to email consumers or to retailers by manufacturers, there is plastic wrapping each item, I have worked in retail and thrown out zillions of plastic bags, wrapping a clean piece of clothing. Every time I order supplements or books online, it arrives in a bag, wrapped in plastic in a cardboard box, all that packaging is ridiculous.
Also, I think Brad Pitt would make a great President!!!
It’s not only the super-rich, but us all, that need to rethink what is meaningful in life. We have despoiled our beautiful planet for what? Ipods, junk food, cell phones, designer clothes, clothes for animals? If we didn’t go out and buy all this crap, maybe there wouldn’t be any super-rich. Take a look around you and ask yourself what it is that you truly value. We all need to shoulder the burden and step up. It’s time that we, as citizens and consumers, started acting responsibly.
I love Ralph Nader and voted for him every chance I’ve had, and even written him a couple of times. I find the premiss interesting, I can’t summon the optimism required to hope these super heroes would actually rise to the occasion. That said, here are a few issues in no particular order that could use superhuman attention.
* Real finance reform in the form of publicly financed elections.
* Living wages instead of minimum wages.
* Universal health care.
* Accountability and prosecution for Bush and Cheney’s crimes.
* Accountability and prosecution for those that were responsible for the “financial meltdown/bailout”.
* Creation of a Department of Peace.
* Re-thinking on the war on drugs.
* A more just foreign policy/bring the troops home!
* End and make criminal, public water fluoridation.
Super-Rich can solve:
-Alternative fuel(s) for our Cars
-the Tax system
-Human Rights in USA
Wouldn’t the super rich not be super rich without the existing structure? Consider the incentive
The super rich could shut down factory farms and pay family farmers to grow organic foods…they could ship them to the stores and farmer’s markets and write off the expenses as a form of ‘charity to the American people’. After all, haven’t we become nothing more than ‘charity cases’?!!
They should put in place a “basic income”.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A basic income is a proposed system[1] of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
1) Continue with media outreach (i.e. Fox, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh) about the rich paying more taxes, like back in Eisenhower’s time;
2) Help us get corporate money out of Congress/elections;
3) Help us find/fund innovative/green jobs for individuals/rural communities to survive and contribute to the decrease of climate change worldwide;
4) Promote justice and social values of peaceful democracy, i.e. can’t have a democracy when there is a 400% difference in salaries between the highest and lowest wage earners (i.e. CEO’s of insurance companies are making $100,000 an hr. – that’s NOT what makes democracy).
Thank you! Good luck!
Peace
The Super-Rich have had their chances to make a difference in the world- what good has it done, then & now? Besides a few philanthropic contributions here & there, they have also managed to make their fortunes even more grander, with tax loopholes & offshore accounts. If they should unite over just one thing, they should start with reversing climate change, because if they don’t, their untold riches will not be passed on to their descendants (for obvious reasons).
I’d like to see some promotion of Peter Barnes’ ideas described in the book Capitalism 3.0. You’ve got your private sector and your public sector — it’s a two-legged stool, constantly toppling over this way and that. Barnes’ champions the third leg, a “commons” sector. A billion or so from the super-rich getting this off the ground would do some real good. Read the book! (After reading Nader’s, of course.)
Global Warming, without doubt, should be the focus of the Super-Rich. As the science clearly indicates the severity of the problem and the unavoidable nature of the consequences, the only sane response to the Climate Crisis is to endeavor to solve it. Profiteering from it becomes pointless in the face of global destruction. Surely some of the Super-Rich will be able to face the reality of the situation, and choose to act rather than fiddle whilst the planet burns.
A Major strategic advantage exists in a campaign to sway the Super-Rich; we only need to get through to a few people to save the planet!
A wonderful revolutionary premise is at the heart of this book, and it’s one we can all get behind. We must demand that the Super-Rich do what the power they have demands of them. Spider Man and Frederick Douglass quotes come to mind. With great power comes great responsibility, and power will concede nothing without demand. It’s time to demand the Super-Rich get with the program!
Start paying the people who make our clothes a respectable wage.
How do we redistribute wealth? 33% of US wealth belongs to less then 3% of the population in the US. How will you give it back?
Unfortunately it IS money that talks, pays the bills, puts food on the table, so the super-rich (no capitals, please) certainly have a responsibility to the rest of society. Washington is so corrupt that a few billion of theirs speaks louder than a few thousand of us protesters. So they need to lobby for every just cause and use their money to do it, period. If they listen to their true selves, they will do this and become truly free.
The Super Rich can help clear the way for Third Party’s to be taken seriously in this nation and have fair ballot and media access.
The Super-Rich should sell all stock in capitalist corporations, which have one share one vote, and invest that money in class B non-voting shares of Cooperative Enterprises, where class A voting shares are owned by employees, one member one vote. Cooperative Enterprises adhere to democratic principles, whereas capitalist corporations are plutocratic. The Super-Rich should start a mutual fund of Cooperative Enterprise class B shares, and steer the stock market into transforming IPOs and capitalist corporations into Cooperative Enterprises that are democratically controlled by all their employees.
The Super-Rich should stop trying to be the Super-Rich. They should instead devote themselves and all their money to dissuade people from trying to become the Super-Rich and all the exploitation of people and resources it entails. This would solve a lot of the world’s problems.
The super rich could flood the world with a light durable bicycle. This would be a start to solve these four problems. Urban congestion, pollution, obesity and inequality.
We need universal health care. And we need to combat the misinformation that is being spread about a single payer system.
I wish they would work to decentralize corporate power and put the means of production into the hands of the workers