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From: baba@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal
Message-ID: <829@flairvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Nov-84 13:33:38 EST
Article-I.D.: flairvax.829
Posted: Mon Nov 26 13:33:38 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Nov-84 02:49:59 EST
References: <318@qantel.UUCP>
Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 45

>I think we must examine a wider range of possible solutions. Recently Dr David
>Owen, one of the leaders of the Social Democratic party in England, proposed a
>new plan for creating capital and savings for those at the low end of the
>British economic scale. He suggested that the British government distribute the
>shares of government-owned companies such as British Airways, British Tele-
>communications, etc. to those below a certain level of income. This would
>create some capital and savings for people who would probably have little 
>access to both for many years. 
>
>Although the U.S. government does not own industrial concerns to the same
>extent that the British government does, nevertheless the U.S. government is
>in many businesses. It not only owns TVA and Conrail but has large holdings
>of coal, timber and gas and oil leases, among others. The current proposals
>to "get the government out of business" may be reconsidered with such a plan
>in mind. Instead of selling Conrail, TVA or others, the government might set
>them up as operating companies and devise ways to distribute their shares to
>those at the lower end of the income scale. Instead of transferring more
>income from one set of Americans to another, we could transfer capital assets
>from the government into the hands of its needy citizens.
>
>					Felix Rohatyn,
>					courtesy of gabor@qantel

This certainly seems more reasonable than having a pre-apocalypse fire
sale of national assets to the present throng of corporate developers,
but it isn't clear to me whether or not this too becomes a one-shot deal.
You can only give away an asset once, and since the bulk of the US
government's assets are in raw resources rather than industrial plant,
very little in the way of "new" government assets are being created.
Thus, such a program will, sooner or later, give away all that can be
given away, leaving nothing for those unfortunate enough to become
destitute later.  If the distribution is stretched out over a longer
period of time, the amount to be allocated to each individual must
shrink, ultimately to the point of inconsequentiality.  Thus, some
means needs to be found to keep ownership of these assets in circulation
along the bottom of the economic heap.  Perhaps the "stock" issued
in the national operating companies could be constituted such that
the owner is obliged to sell if the owner's economic state was better
than some statistically derived cutoff, but enforcement of such a
provision could be a bureaucratic nightmare and a distortion of the 
purist market principles that seem to underlie the proposal.

			May the Market Force be with you, always,

							Baba