Looks like it didn't attach. Oh well here it is, again.
Greg The Katrina Wake-up Call: A Strategy for Turning Disaster into A Twenty-First Century Model for Regional Rebirth To: The Honorable George W. Bush, President of the United States From: Norman Kurland, Center for Economic and Social Justice Date: September 7, 2005 Executive Summary Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States, will likely rival 9/11 in terms of its economic impact and social upheaval. However, this colossal human tragedy also offers a unique opportunity to rebuild the affected areas and foster a rebirth of the American Spirit. By launching a massive redevelopment program financed in ways in which every citizen of the region can participate directly in the ownership of the new capital formation and land recovery, the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal government, in cooperation with state authorities and the Federal Reserve System, can encourage universal citizen participation in capital ownership. This would create a regional free enterprise model of an ownership society. Through a non-inflationary use of the money-creation powers of the Federal Reserve System and special tax reforms like those provided to leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), the proposal would relieve Federal and State taxpayers of the huge anticipated bill for rebuilding the regions economy and creating ecologically sound infrastructure to avoid future disasters like Katrina. A major innovation in this plan is the establishment of a for-profit, citizen-owned Regional Natural Resources Bank to acquire land and coordinate future land use and infrastructural development. The plan would offer all area citizens an array of unique Capital Homesteading incentives to build from the ground-up a Twenty-First Century global exemplar of a participatory ownership society. All citizens within the affected region would have equal access to share ownership and would participate equally as shareholders in the governance of capital projects financed under the Katrina Plan. Finally, the proposal would finance the application and manufacture of advanced renewable, waste-to-energy technologies that would assist in the massive clean-up of toxic wastes left in the wake of the Katrina disaster, and would launch an overall energy plan that is ecologically sound. This would re-establish Americas key industries on a secure basis, as well as provide a template for strengthening the United States economy in all sectors and regions. The Challenge. Hurricane Katrina was perhaps the most devastating natural calamity in Americas history. While the cost in human life and suffering cannot be fully measured, initial estimates of the economic costs of Hurricane Katrina to people and property from this natural disaster are in the hundreds of billions. The American economy is already facing close to $400 billion in annual budget deficits, hundreds of billions in annual trade deficits, and an estimated $1 trillion long-term cost of the war in Iraq. And just as we begin the massive cleanup, recovery and rebuilding effort in the devastated region, some climatologists are predicting that more Katrinas may be on the way. In its path of destruction, Katrina has laid bare Americas substrata of poverty and remaining racism, inadequate and insecure incomes, homelessness, unemployment, and the many other symptoms of its current exclusionary economic, financial and ownership system. We will soon see Katrinas reverberations on our already financially shaky social security and health care system, and after-shocks in the form of global wage arbitrage, shrinking oil and gas reserves, climatological threats from inadequate pollution controls, and growing budget and trade deficits. Further, in addressing the Katrina emergency, the President of the United States cannot fail to see its connection to the war on global terrorism. Having witnessed the vulnerability of our population and infrastructure, Americas strategic planners cannot help but consider a parallel scenario of suicide terrorists delivering weapons of mass destruction in a coordinated attack against our major centers of population, a calamity that could dwarf Katrinas destruction. The Katrina crisis will strain Americas power to respond to national disasters both natural and man-made. How then can we turn this disaster into an opportunity to launch a comprehensive program for regional rebuilding that would be supported by all Americans? What are the new ideas that could help us address the systemic and structural causes of mass poverty, the ideas that could help us overcome ideologies of hate with a truly American ideology of freedom, justice, and hope? If ever there was a time to think outside-the-box, it is now. Basic Steps for Implementing a Justice-Based Solution to the Katrina Disaster. 1. Under the Katrina Plan for Regional Rebirth, President Bush, with the support of the Governors of the States of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, would designate the counties and parishes in the tri-State regional disaster area to receive special treatment for recovery and rebuilding. A regional model of Capital Homesteading for every citizen, would be launched in the Katrina disaster zone. (For summary of concept, see http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm) 2. The President would seek Congressional authorization for the establishment of a for-profit, citizen-owned Regional Natural Resources Bank (RNRB) as the private sector vehicle for implementing the project. The RNRB would be a land planning and development corporation with a representative board elected by citizen-shareholders for approving, financing and maintaining infrastructure projects, approving construction contracts under competitive bidding, and marketing to attract feasible new investment to the disaster zone. (The RNRB is an expanded version of the Community Investment Corporation that was invented for building model communities, as described at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html) 3. Under the plan, the three states would enter into a regional compact to delegate their powers of eminent domain to the citizen-owned RNRB. Such a compact would enable the RNRB to acquire all government-owned land and natural resources in the tri-state disaster zone on behalf of all citizen-shareholders, purchase title to privately-owned land that must be redeveloped, and develop a 30-year plan for comprehensive reconstruction of the disaster area. 4. Consistent with the long-term RNRB plan for building ecologically sound and sustainable community life for area citizens, the RNRB would assess land rentals, auction licenses for the extraction of resources, and collect use and maintenance fees for regional infrastructure. 5. The Federal Reserve System would use its seldom-used discount powers under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to monetize through member banks low-cost (transaction fees and risk premiums only) loans for feasible projects of the RNRB. Feasibility would be determined by lenders and capital credit insurers and reinsurers, with environmental guidelines established by designated Federal and State oversight agencies. Loans would be collateralized by the land and other assets of the RNRB. 6. An independent private sector regional capital credit insurance corporation would be established to scrutinize the feasibility of Capital Homesteading loans, to charge risk premiums on the loans to cover the risk of default, and to serve as a substitute for conventional collateral to meet the needs of new zone businesses. 7. Congress would give the RNRB tax treatment similar to that received by leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) under the Internal Revenue Code, so that dividend payouts would be tax-deductible at the corporate level and taxable at the individual level. After servicing its bank loans and covering its own operating expenses, the RNRB would distribute dividends equally to each citizen-shareholder. Thus, property incomes would increase the purchasing power of all citizens, lifting the regions poor from continuing dependency on government welfare or private charity. Anticipated Outcomes. 1. By giving regional member banks access to its discount mechanism, the Fed would supply sufficient asset-backed credit for all capital and infrastructure projects. In the face of mounting Federal and State budget deficits, this step alone would take enormous pressure off Federal and state taxpayers and would be far less costly than any existing sources of accumulated savings. (See Harold Moulton, The Formation of Capital, Brookings Institution, 1935, and chapter VII of Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, a book published in 2004 by the Center for Economic and Social Justice, at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/capitalhomesteading.pdf 2. As long as they maintain their primary home in the zone, each citizen would become economically empowered by the privilege of receiving a personal lifetime, dividend-yielding, non-transferable voting share in the RNRB, a modern counterpart of Abraham Lincolns Homestead Act of 1862. This private property right in a communitys land, natural resources and infrastructure parallels the right of each citizen to own the public sector through personal access to the vote. 3. Governments role would shift from ownership of land to establishing broad guidelines for citizen participation in ownership; recommending ecological safeguards in the rebuilding process; settling disputes not resolvable by voluntary mediation and arbitration; lifting institutional and financial barriers to equal ownership and job opportunities especially for the poor; and securing the lives, liberties and property of all citizens. 4. The availability of Capital Homestead stakes for all citizens and interest-free bank loans for private sector development should serve as a magnet for attracting diverse entrepreneurial ventures for sustaining a more ecologically sound area economy that can compete without special protections in the global marketplace. Initial Katrina Project Coalition. 1. In our network is Equitech International, LLC, a company headed by a former master planner and architect at Georgetown University. Equitech holds a remarkable systems patent for pollution-free Hydrogen Age waste-to-energy technologies developed originally for lunar colonies. Micro- and macro-sized applications of these technologies could be manufactured in the region and employed for stand-alone energy systems to meet the regions future energy needs. (See http://www.equitechllc.com and http://www.intellergy.com) 2. Also in the Katrina Project Network is Team Syntegrity of Toronto, Canada, which offers a planning protocol that incorporates the tested concepts of the late Dr. Stafford Beer, noted as the father of managerial cybernetics. This communications tool has been used by businesses and governments around the world to compress the time it takes for professionals from highly diverse fields to develop solutions to extremely complex problems, such as those that will have to be addressed in this project. (See http://www.syntegritygroup.com) 3. The leaders and counselors of our non-partisan, interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) are ready to volunteer to help get this project underway. We are now organizing an initial broad-based core of environmental, civil rights, religious, labor and business leaders committed to designing a democratic free enterprise growth plan for the disaster zone. The plan is based on a post-scarcity model articulated by such visionaries as Louis Kelso, Buckminster Fuller, and Martin Luther King, Jr. You can count on our support. This core includes close associates of these three visionaries. (See http://www.cesj.org and http://www.eei-consultants.com) 4. A top official of the Sierra Club is now studying our approach. We hope that the Sierra Club, the Buckminster Fuller Institute, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other organizations in our network will supply the grassroots leadership and outreach for the critical mass of people power and leadership power needed to move our plan forward politically. Expanding the Political Leverage for the Katrina Plan. 1. If President Bush sees the merits of moving forward with our Katrina Plan, he would appoint a Presidential Task Force to work out the details for moving forward to develop the long-term comprehensive plan, similar to the 1985 Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice. President Reagan appointed this author to the task force where he served as deputy chairman, under former OAS Ambassador J. William Middendorf, II. The PEJ Task Force was charged by Congress and the President to develop a strategy for spreading ESOPs throughout the Caribbean and Central America as a free enterprise counterforce against communist threats to regional stability. 2. Using the leverage of organizations backing the Katrina Project (see above), separate private meetings would be arranged with former President Bill Clinton, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, and Senator Trent Lott to explain to them the strategy and unique approach to financing the project. 3. These leaders would be asked to contact the Governors of Louisiana and Alabama to gain their support for this alternative plan. 4. Separate meetings would be arranged with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan for project leaders to explain the key role the Fed would be asked to play in financing the hundreds of billions of dollars needed for reconstruction projects in the regional disaster zone. The Fed would authorize special access to the Atlanta and New Orleans Feds discount windows under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act, enabling member banks operating in the zone to monetize credit needed for feasible projects and broad-based capital ownership. (Chairman Greenspan is familiar with our monetary reforms from an exchange of correspondence he had in March and April 1995 with Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and from our Capital Homesteading book that he received from Dr. Norman A. Bailey, with whom he served in the Reagan White House.) Hurricane Katrina will undoubtedly be written into Americas history as a watershed event on the scale of 9/11. Mr. President, from your vantage point occupying the highest seat of power, you understand that this crisis and its solution cannot be isolated from the other huge challenges facing America in the 21st century. With this crisis comes an historic opportunity. The moment demands ideas equal to the challenge and a leader with the foresight and courage to champion a genuine vision of justice and hope for the future. Mr. President, we believe that armed with these uniquely American revolutionary ideas, you can turn a disaster into your most important legacy. Greg Southworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:While the attached is not a specifically libertarian proposal, there are things in here that libertarians will like, and I suppose a few that might be "problematic." It does try to use the market to a noble end, however, and it is much better than some we will be hearing in the coming weeks. Happy reading. Greg --------------------------------- Yahoo! for Good Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. 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