| Subject: | [socialcredit] Norm Kurland: Plagiarist | | Date: | Saturday, September 3, 2005 05:42:58 (-0700) | | From: | William B. Ryan <w_b_ryan @.....com>
|
| In reply to: | Message 2688 (written by Norman Kurland) |
[Norm Kurland posting yesterday] "In a meeting in his
office on July 14, 2005, I asked Senator George Allen,
who previously supported the Alaska Plan, to send our
proposal to top Iraqi officials he knew, as an
alternative to the Alaska Plan, which was also
previously supported by Chalabi. Here's the binary
economic proposal I'm told by the Senator's staff was
sent out, before we learned from the main editorial in
the Wall Street Journal of August 17th what appears to
be a policy reversal by Chalabi."
----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
*Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we
practice to deceive*
----------------
Meeting with Senator Allen, "who previously supported
the Alaska Plan," on July 14, is it? Sent out by
Senator Allen's staff, then policy reversal by
Chalabi, is it?
But the Arabiestrends article that I cited was picked
up by Google on July 13:---
This is G o o g l e's cache of
http://www.arabiestrends.com/Business.htm as retrieved
on Jul 13, 2005 23:28:28 GMT.
G o o g l e's cache is the snapshot that we took of
the page as we crawled the web.
The page may have changed since that time. Click here
for the current page without highlighting.
This cached page may reference images which are no
longer available. Click here for the cached text only.
To link to or bookmark this page, use the following
url:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:AaIU47Ufj0wJ:www.arabiestrends.com/Business.htm+%22Fawaz+K.+Saraf%22+Ahmed+Chalabi&hl=en
---
This is how the Arabiestrends article on the Web on
July 13 put it:
"Ahmed Chalabi, a highly controversial figure in Iraqi
politics, believes the government should create a
national oil company that collects revenue from the
development and sale of the country’s oil and gas.
Every citizen would own one non-transferable share in
the company. The shares would pay dividends to
citizens, who in turn would pay taxes to the
government. 'We would make the government reliant on
the people for its revenue, rather than having an
independent stream of revenue from the oil,' says
Sethna, Chalabi’s energy policy adviser. 'The
government will be more responsive to the people, and
the people will feel that they have a stake in their
governance.'
"Establishing a tax system in Iraq would be one way to
sidestep the contentious debates Alaska has faced
since it first created the Permanent Fund. Alaskans
pay no state income tax. Oil royalties fund most of
the state government; this money, for the most part,
does not come from the Permanent Fund or its earnings.
Instead, lawmakers can tap the fund’s investment
earnings to pay for the business of government."
----------------
The Wall Street Journal on August 17 put it this
way:--
"The best suggestion we've heard for cutting this
Gordian knot comes from the much-maligned Ahmed
Chalabi, who is now Iraq's deputy prime minister with
special responsibilities for oil and infrastructure
and has emerged as a major constitutional broker. He
has bucked some of his Shiite and Kurdish allies by
insisting that ultimate control of Iraq's natural
wealth must remain in the hands of the central
government, while also suggesting constitutional
language that the wealth be owned by all Iraqis in
'equal measure.' In other words, the oil would be
managed by the central government in the interests of
all Iraqis wherever they live, but not owned by it.
"Mr. Chalabi hopes that the 'equal measure' concept
will pave the way in practice for the creation of an
oil trust, under which Iraqis would from birth have
accounts established in their name. Iraqis would
receive their full and equal share of oil revenue and
the government would have to vote to tax it away. Mr.
Chalabi sees this as a way of breaking the 'oil curse'
that has turned so many oil-rich nations into corrupt
tyrannies."
----------------
This is how Fawaz Saraf, the drafter of Chalabi's
proposal, put it in his article posted to the Iraq
Foundation site dated February 14:--
"Deductions from monthly checks could made for
reinvestment in the oil infrastructure with aim of
boosting production, making payments towards Iraq's
significant national debt, and paying national and
local taxes to fund national and local government
budgets (at the end of each year and once tax on total
income, including income from oil dividend, is
calculated, an Iraqi may have to pay additional tax or
receive a refund).
"Each month, along with the check, every Iraqi adult
could also get a check-stub itemizing deductions and
how they are disbursed. When the oil industry is
mismanaged or sabotage disrupts oil production or
exports, Iraqis will see it and feel it when the next
oil dividend check they receive is smaller. What
better way to induce a sense of ownership among
Iraqis?...
"Over the span of several years, and as Iraqi economy
is normalized, security and stability is restored,
democratic and civil society institutions are firmly
in place, and essential infrastructure projects are
funded, dividends payout from oil revenues could be
reduced and redirected towards the establishment of
oil royalty account or "Iraqi Permanent Fund". As
funds in the royalty account grow, dividend payouts
from oil revenues could be completely phased out and
replaced with dividends generated by the Iraqi
Permanent Fund trust."
----------------
On August 18 Norm Kurland posted this to the Kelsoist
"joelunchbuckett" site:--
"...Whether Achmed Chalabi independently conceived of
this proposal doesn't matter. It is a bottom-up
approach based on limited government, private property
principles that could be implemented to enhance market
competition in growing the future Iraqi economy. This
stands in sharp contrast to the socialistic top-down
Alaskan Dividend Plan previously advocated that would
keep citizens in a continuing status of economic
dependency on governmental largesse. (Instead oil
dividends trickling down after the political and
business elite take their cut off the top, you [the
Wall Street Journal] point out that the plan would
channel dividends to each individual's account, so
that oil managers and government tax collectors would
have to justify their needs with a nation of
taxpayer-owners.)"
----------------
Kurland once again disparaged the Alaska plan with the
most outrageous characterization, as he, Kelso and
Gravel have done for years. Yet, the truth of the
matter is that Chalabi's proposal is an adaptation
from the Alaska model deriving in first inspiration
from C. H. Douglas' idea of the social dividend, not
Kelso's or Kurland's "invention" that Chalabi "may
have" discovered "independently".
-
--- Norman Kurland <thirdway@cesj.org> wrote:
Normally I don't respond to anything Ryan contributes,
because he doesn't understand binary economics or make
any serious attempt to. He also doesn't understand
property or its political significance, is therefore
totally oblivious of the systemic causes of extreme
concentration of capital ownership and the
ever-widening economic power gap in the world. He
spends most of his time trying to attack the motives
of others who don't see the world his way. I don't
have time for him or others who have closed their mind
to the Just Third Way.
However, Ryan demonstrates that he has a hard time
reading closely, especially ideas outside of his
narrow box. His posting contradicted his support of
the trickle-down Alaskan Dividend Plan as an
alternative for Iraq. His quoted source, without
realizing it contained this passage:-
Ahmed Chalabi, a highly controversial figure in Iraqi
politics, believes the government should create a
national oil company that collects revenue from the
development and sale of the country’s oil and gas.
Every citizen would own one non-transferable share in
the company. The shares would pay dividends to
citizens, who in turn would pay taxes to the
government. “We would make the government reliant on
the people for its revenue, rather than having an
independent stream of revenue from the oil,” says
Sethna, Chalabi’s energy policy adviser. “The
government will be more responsive to the people, and
the people will feel that they have a stake in their
governance.”
Establishing a tax system in Iraq would be one way to
sidestep the contentious debates Alaska has faced
since it first created the Permanent Fund. Alaskans
pay no state income tax. Oil royalties fund most of
the state government; this money, for the most part,
does not come from the Permanent Fund or its earnings.
Instead, lawmakers can tap the fund’s investment.
earnings to pay for the business of government.
-
Compare the above with our proposal
(http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/paradigmpapers/iraq-nationbuilding.htm)
It has been circulating long before America invaded
Iraq in 2003. In a meeting in his office on July 14,
2005, I asked in Senator George Allen, who previously
supported the Alaska Plan, to send our proposal to top
Iraqi officials he knew, as an alternative to the
Alaska Plan, which was also previously supported by
Chalabi. Here's the binary economic proposal I'm told
by the Senator's staff was sent out, before we learned
from the main editorial in the Wall Street Journal of
August 17th what appears to be a policy reversal by
Chalabi:
Phases of Implementation
PHASE 1: Transfer Free Oil Shares to Every Citizen of
Iraq.
Denationalize the oil fields of Iraq, as a catalyst
for building a new "Just Third Way" economy. Transfer
the ownership and control of all oil reserves and
natural resources within the borders of Iraq from the
Iraqi National Oil Company to a newly formed,
professionally managed, limited liability joint stock
corporation. All Iraqis would automatically receive
free, as a right of citizenship from birth to death,
an equal number of non-transferable shares in the new
corporation. All citizens would be guaranteed
first-class shareholder rights to the profits and
voting control over the board of directors and
management of the new company. All profits except for
operating reserves would be paid out fully and
periodically as dividends to each shareholder.
To meet all costs and services of government at the
national, provincial and local levels, taxes on such
dividend incomes would be withheld by the corporation
before distributing the balance of dividends to each
citizen. The shares of those who die would be retired
to the General Fund or redistributed to new-borns,
returning Iraqi exiles and newly naturalized citizens,
who would receive an equal number of shares as
existing shareholders.
The new corporation would encourage market forces in
setting prices throughout the economy by offering,
through a competitive bidding process, concessions and
leases for exploration, drilling, infrastructural
engineering and construction, processing and marketing
oil and other natural resource activities.
Preferential treatment would be given to competitive
operating companies that are broadly owned by Iraqi
citizens.
To lay the foundations for Iraq’s future economy, new
industrial, agricultural and commercial demonstration
projects (for example, using advanced alternative
energy technologies that produce power and water from
sea water and waste), could be launched and financed
in ways that encourage wider share ownership among
Iraqi workers and other stakeholders.
Future government revenues would then flow from the
bottom-up from increasing citizen incomes. This would
make government more dependent economically on its
citizens, rather than perpetuating the previous
top-down dependency of the people on a political
elite. A single rate of taxation on all incomes above
poverty levels would balance government budgets,
achieve greater accountability, transparency and
democratic participation in governance at all levels,
and radically reduce future risks of public sector
corruption or future coups.
Personal share accounts (like Individual Retirement
Accounts in the U.S.) would be set up within local
banks for each worker and every citizen of Iraq to
accumulate income-producing capital assets, sheltered
from any taxes until assets or income are distributed
for personal consumption. The equity accumulation
accounts would also be given the power to borrow
interest-free, non-recourse productive credit on
behalf of the citizen.
This "capital credit" would be used exclusively by
citizens to purchase new shares issued by new or
growing Iraqi enterprises to finance the expansion and
modernization needs of a growing Iraqi economy. The
debt for purchasing the newly issued growth shares
would be secured and repaid by the projected dividends
on those shares (as with leveraged employee stock
ownership plans in the U.S.).
Here's the relevant passage from Wall Street Journal
article of August 17th:
The best suggestion we've heard for cutting this
Gordian knot comes from the much-maligned Ahmed
Chalabi, who is now Iraq's deputy prime minister with
special responsibilities for oil and infrastructure
and has emerged as a major constitutional broker. He
has bucked some of his Shiite and Kurdish allies by
insisting that ultimate control of Iraq's natural
wealth must remain in the hands of the central
government, while also suggesting constitutional
language that the wealth be owned by all Iraqis in
"equal measure." In other words, the oil would be
managed by the central government in the interests of
all Iraqis wherever they live, but not owned by it.
Mr. Chalabi hopes that the "equal measure" concept
will pave the way in practice for the creation of an
oil trust, under which Iraqis would from birth have
accounts established in their name. Iraqis would
receive their full and equal share of oil revenue and
the government would have to vote to tax it away. Mr.
Chalabi sees this as a way of breaking the "oil curse"
that has turned so many oil-rich nations into corrupt
tyrannies.
-
What does this prove? It shows that Ryan shoots from
the hip and doesn't see the confused and contradictory
nature of his attempt at refuting our initiatiative.
I repeat, the Alaska so-called "dividend" plan is "a
trickle-down socialist approach". It does not give
Alaskan citizens private ownership of property in the
form of individually acquired equity shares. Our
approach gives economic power to the people. The
approach Ryan seems to favor keeps the citizens in a
permanent position of dependency on the generosity and
honesty of policiticians and bureaucrats, who will do
whatever they can to be re-elected and that usually
means giving money to special interest groups they
need to stay in power, and giving the people the
left-overs. That's why socialism eventually gets as
corrupt as monopoly capitalism.
Ryan doesn't get the point, and until he can refute in
a civilized maneer the logic of binary economics, I
will continue to ignore him, as so many others have in
the past. You can bet that Ryan will not pass my
response on to the social credit elist.
Norm Kurland
William B. Ryan wrote:
[snipped]
-
____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
|
Norm Kurland: Plag
Reply to this message