Falzett for the Yuba College Board Get-together

On Friday, October 1 the Falzett for the Yuba College Board Get-together at the Sopa Thai Restaurant launched Bill's campaign. Bill noted that 5 of the 7 candidate's were "suit & tie guys." While all had good ideas and their positions were well stated, there were familiar cliches such as fiscal responsibility, support for the chancellor, and the State controls funding, etc. These are the "grown up" things to say to get elected. They usually are heard as admonitions: Don't bother me I'm in charge.

There was little support for the notion that education and the educational process are the mission of Yuba College by most of the candidates. "If you believe that education is a necessity, you were not likely to hear that from the other candidates."

"The suit guys have been saying these kinds of things since I was a youngster. Somebody has to notice that the struggle continues with quality education being the loser in the battle." was Bill's observation. He continued with a reference to John Kennedy's "trip to the moon" project: "It wasn't the grownup thing to do but it was inspiring and it got done."

"People in the Yuba Community College District need inspiration not admonitions. We have quality faculty and staff who are languishing for lack of real leadership and support from the Board and the administration. The goal of the leadership seems to be to increase administrative positions while reducing those in the trenches -- faculty and staff. These are the folks who do the work that is education."

Dr. Bill Falzett is a clinician, consultant, and educator who has 40 years of "work in the trenches", delivering services to people who need and want change, improvement in their lives, and the opportunity for advancement. Bill said that his "concern is that the current mismanagement of resources will continue degrading the level of education for our community."

Health Insurance Cons

The media and certain bloggers are ranting about how health care costs are skyrocketing. They focus on fraud, delivery snafus, old folks costing too much, and youngsters with chronic conditions costing too much.

It is a sorry state of the country when we are eating our young people and our seniors. That completely negates what has always been a central theme in our democracy -- we are one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all, And, we are all in this together. Any nation's standing should be judged on how they treat the least fortunate.

Stop chewing on the the red herrings for a moment and look instead at 2 quite simple facts: 1) we are the only major country with predominantly for-profit insurance companies running the show -- that means that a significant percentage of profit goes to stockholders.

2) CEOs & other health insurance executives take hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from each major company. Total costs to us -- all of us -- run into the BILLIONS each and every year. Chew on that instead!

While you're at it consider for a moment the administrative costs for a not-for-profit insurance company -- Medicare costs 3-5% of expenses to run. For-profit companies cost anywhere from 25-35% of expenses to run. You do the math.

Get Out The Vote

The best way to get out the vote seems to be to scare people. The Republican leaders have done it for quite some time. They are still doing it.

If you want to be scared or that's what it takes for you to decide to vote, how about this:

The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL Social Security;

The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL Medicare;

The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL Veterans benefits;

The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL the VA system;

The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL unemployment benefits;

The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL the elderly;

and The Republican Leaders including Wally Herger, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Dan Logue, and Doug LaMalfa want to KILL the middle class!

Does any of that worry you? Does it scare you? Does it make you understand that we all have to vote? Does it help you see that we are all in this together? Can you see that we must be informed, active, and voting? Be well.

California Legislature Passes IOU Bill

In the recent news that has gone largely unnoticed is a story about our legislators passing a bill to allow vendors to use State IOUs as payment for bills owed to the State. Granted, that may sound strange in that we have an imaginary item -- an IOU -- that we then take to the State to pay a bill. Wow! Sounds strange right?

Just a darn minute, pardner. Isn't that what currency is? Darn right it is. Currency is a piece of paper that we use to buy goods and services or to pay for labor. We decided that the piece of paper means something. If everyone agrees, Bam! You got money!

This current bill was initiated by a Republican for goodness sake. Didn't he realize that he just started the move to have California in the banking business? See the post below for further info.

If California Governor Terminator signs the bill, we the people are in the banking business. Now lots of folks will wail & moan about IOUs and fiscal responsibility. Forget them! Get behind this measure! What it does is get money (liquidity) into the State economy. We need it! We want it! We deserve it! Let's do it!

If you need further info on the concept, see the book "Web of Debt" by Ellen Hodgson Brown, JD or go to her website, www.webofdebt.com. Have a good read and let's take back the economy and the Fed!

Copyright, 2010
Bill Falzett

The True Potential of Publicly-owned Banks

or: What if the People Owned the Banks?

North Dakota broke new ground nearly a century ago, but the true potential of publicly-owned banks remains to be explored. Nearly all of our money today is created by banks when they extend loans. (See the Chicago Federal Reserve’s “Modern Money Mechanics”, which begins, “The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks.”)

We the people have given away our sovereign money-creating power to private, for-profit lending institutions, which have used it to siphon wealth from the productive economy. If we were to take that power back, we could generate the credit we need to underwrite a whole cornucopia of projects that we don’t even consider because we think we lack the “money.” We have the labor and we have the materials; we just lack the “liquidity” (50% of every thing you purchase is the result of interest.) necessary to put them together to create products and services.

Money today is just a ticket, a receipt for work performed and goods delivered. We can fund the work we need done by creating our own credit. The real promise of publicly-owned banks is not that they can bail out subprime borrowers but that they can jumpstart the economy by creating real wealth. They can provide the liquidity to put labor and materials together, allowing the economy to build and grow. Our private, profit-driven banking sector has been bleeding wealth from the rest of the economy. Public-interest banks can transfuse the economy with the credit it needs to flourish and be productive once again.

This process sets up a "musical chairs" phenomenon in our country. Just like musical chairs in grade school, there will never be enough chairs for everyone. In other words, no matter how hard you work; no matter how many jobs you have, there will always be an "under" class -- people who just can't seem to make it.

Our current problem here in the US in 2010 is that the under class has grown to a point that it is swallowing a large segment of what used to be the middle class. The drain on resources has trickled up -- now, 80% of the assets of this country are controlled & owned by 5-10% of the population. Furthermore, they didn't work for those assets, they created them from imaginary activities that are called a whole variety of obscure names -- CDOs, monetized debt, credit default swaps, etc.

For more updates on the movement for publicly-owned banks, see http://www.public-banking.ccom. To sign a petition for a citizen-owned bank in California, go to http://www.change.org/actions/view/help_the_terminator_save_california.