tt9_990_655. HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION "ONE FACE AT THE BORDER" INITIATIVE. HEARING BEFORE THE OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE. (ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS), First session, November 13, 2007. – Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008. – 171 p. DOC.[110 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]. [DOCID: f:38990.wais] S. Hrg. 110-304 Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
[Парламентские чтения: Дефицит человеческого капитала в таможне и на пограничных пунктах. – Вашингтон, 2008. – 171 с. Совместный проект с Кинг Каунти Лайбрэри Систем, Босэлл, штат Вашингтон, США. Штрих-код: 203954918 9]…..1
Opening Statement of senator Akaka: Each year CBP processes more than 400 million pedestrian and passenger entries, as well as 20 million containers with goods, into the United States. The vast majority of visitors to the United States have come here legally for tourism, business, work, studies, or other activities. But the GAO report makes clear that thousands of people each year are entering the country illegally through official ports of entry.
I requested that GAO do this study because I was concerned that CBP was not hiring enough officers to screen travelers at ports of entry and that CBP officers were not receiving the training they need to do their jobs properly. This report reinforces my concern……2
GAO investigators who visited border crossings found CBP officers missing from their inspection booths at some locations. At other locations officers failed to ask investigators for their identification or travel documents. GAO investigators also saw video of (p. 1) CBP officers waving vehicles through inspection booths without speaking with the passengers. In short, CBP at times conducts inspections that are unlikely to detect people and goods that should not enter the country.
Insufficient staffing and training seem to be the central reasons for these inadequate inspections. CBP simply does not have anywhere near enough CBP officers working at ports of entry, and officers are not provided the training they need to do their jobs effectively. CBP's own staffing model indicates that the agency needs to hire several thousand additional CBP officers.
Because of staffing shortfalls, CBP officers are being forced to work extensive overtime, sometimes 16-hour shifts. It is not realistic to expect an officer to stay as alert and focused as needed for 16 straight hours. Long overtime also leads to CBP officers calling in sick from exhaustion, worsening the staffing shortages……3
CBP has made progress in improving its training programs, but staffing shortages have forced the agency to cut back on its training. New officers at land border crossings are supposed to receive 12 weeks of basic on-the-job training when they start. Most CBP officers receive less than that. Some receive as little as 2 weeks of on-the-job training, and more advanced training courses often are canceled or shortened because there are not enough officers to cover the inspection booths.
As a result, officers are being placed in situations without the training they need to do their jobs.
Unfortunately, but predictably, staffing shortages, forced overtime, and inadequate training contribute to serious morale problems in CBP……4
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising there is high turnover among CBP officers. At some ports of entry, CBP is losing officers faster than it can hire replacements. Attrition is a major factor in understaffing. This is a vicious cycle. Understaffing creates problems that lead to turnover, and high turnover makes it very difficult to address the staff shortages.
As the GAO report notes, some CBP officers are leaving to take positions that provide law enforcement officer benefits. Even though CBP officers receive mandatory law enforcement training, carry firearms, and make arrests, they do not receive the same enhanced pension benefits that other Federal law enforcement officers, including Border Patrol agents, receive. Fixing this inequity would help mitigate the high turnover of CBP officers……5
We owe the brave men and women charged with keeping terrorists, illegal drugs, and other dangerous people and items out of the country much better training and working conditions.
GAO also found weaknesses in the infrastructure of land border crossings that allow people to bypass inspection booths entering the country without inspection. The physical environment at some land border crossings is not conducive to thorough inspections. In many ports of entry, visitors wait hours to enter the country because there are not enough inspection booths.
As the Senator from Hawaii, I fully understand the importance of facilitating efficient entry into the country for legitimate travel and trade. Tourism is almost a $12 billion industry in Hawaii, the (p. 2) largest sector of our economy, and foreign visitors contribute enormously to Hawaii's and the Nation's economy……6
Approximately $4 billion in capital improvements in the facilities at land border crossings are needed, but there is only approximately $250 million in the President's budget for infrastructure improvements.
Securing our Nation's ports of entry is a critical national security priority. At the same time, we must never lose focus on the fact that these ports welcome millions of tourists, business people, students, immigrants, and refugees who make this Nation more economically and culturally vibrant. As the President's new National Strategy for Homeland Security States, achieving a welcoming America must remain an important goal.
It is time that we invest in the infrastructure to make our Nation's ports of entry more secure, inviting, and efficient. One approach would be to examine ways of redesigning the gateways to this country to optimize security and maximize processing rates while improving the work environment of our Customs and Border Protection officers……7
I look forward to learning more about CBP's successes and challenges, in particular, staffing and infrastructure issues. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss these important issues, and before calling on my friend, Senator Voinovich, for his opening statement, I would like to say that there is a vote scheduled shortly. Senator Voinovich will chair the hearing while I vote, and he will recess briefly after his statement, until I return. We will try it that way. But we will see how it works.
So at this time, let me call on Senator Voinovich……8
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If things work the way they work in the Senate, we may not have the vote at that time, so I am going to make my statement rather short. Hopefully we will get a chance to hear the witnesses before we have to go and vote.
First of all, I want to thank you very much for holding this hearing. I think you did a wonderful job in explaining what the problems are, and I am not going to reiterate them. I think you have done a terrific job in laying them out for the witnesses and for the people that are here today.
Second, I think that we should make it very clear that the budget of this agency is really robust. As you know, we went ahead and passed the Homeland Security budget. Between the White House and the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, they increased the budget by 23 percent over FY 07. And if you take the $3 billion that we put in at the end, we are talking about almost a 47-percent increase in the amount of money for border security and immigration enforcement over FY 07……9
So the issue is not money. What are we doing with the money? I think we all have to understand that security at the borders is a cornerstone to our national security. There are 326 land, air, and sea ports, and it entails more than preventing individuals from crossing these borders illegally. It includes protecting our economy from illegal goods, which is a big problem today. That is why (p. 3) Senator Evan Bayh and I have introduced a bill to deal with counterfeit goods.
CBP holds this responsibility, and the American people are grateful to the thousands of officers who every day accept this responsibility. They do a very good job. They are conscientious workers. Nowhere in government is it more important than at CBP that you have to have the right people with the right knowledge and skills at the right place at the right time so that they are going to be successful. However, as the GAO will discuss in its testimony, Customs and Border Protection faces significant challenges in getting the right people with the right skills in place. Two of the three components that today make up CBP came to DHS with significant operational and management challenges. One of the problems when we created the Department of Homeland Security was not recognizing that a lot of the agencies being merged were already in trouble. And here we are, same problems today……10
Senator Akaka and I have been pushing legislation that would require a Chief Management Officer at DHS. A CMO would have a 6-year term that would concentrate on making the management changes in the Department of Homeland Security. Without a strong leader who can develop the proper metrics and an appropriate strategic plan, we will be here 5 years from now, and it will be the same story. And, quite frankly, as a former mayor and governor, I am fed up with it. We must do better.
For more than 4 years, Customs and Border Protection has not been able to identify the concrete steps they will take o--in other words, they have not been able to ensure it has the skilled workforce in place to meet its mission. Senator Akaka did a great job of explaining the turnover rate, the training, and so forth. CBP must find and take immediate steps to address the needs of its workforce today, not in 1 or 2 years but today……11
I think it is ridiculous that we do not have performance measures for the Traveler Inspection Program that identifies Customs and Border Protection's effectiveness in apprehending inadmissible aliens and other violators. It is just absolutely unacceptable. One of the things that this Subcommittee is trying to do is get the Department to develop those metrics. Before this Administration leaves, we want the strategic plan and we want the metrics. When the next Administration comes in, we want to be able to say here is where you are in performing and how you are going forward to get the job done. That is the only way we can do it, Senator Akaka. If we do not do that, then we will get a new Administration in, and we will start all over again.
So I am anxious to hear the witnesses today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich……12
Now you know how passionate he can be, and he has been working really hard on human capital problems, and really it is the basis of what we are talking about.
I want to welcome to the Subcommittee today's first panel of witnesses: Paul Morris, who is the Executive Director of Admissibility Passenger Programs in the Office of Field Operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Richard Stana, Director of Homeland (p. 4) Security and Justice Issues at the Government Accountability Office.
I think you know that it is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses, and I would ask both of you to stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?.....13
Mr. Morris. I do.
Mr. Stana. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let it be noted for the record that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. I want the witnesses to know that while your oral statements are limited to 5 minutes, your entire statements will be included in the record. So, Mr. Morris, will you please proceed with your statement?
Testimony of Paul M. Morris: Since its creation in 2003, CBP has made significant progress in effectively securing our borders and protecting our country against terrorist threats. I am here today to discuss a recent report released by the GAO.
CBP is responsible for protecting more than 5,000 miles of border with Canada, 1,900 miles of border with Mexico, and operating 326 official ports of entry. Each day, CBP inspects more than 1.1 million travelers. Though the vast majority of the people CBP officers interact with are legitimate travelers, there are those who would seek to do us harm……14
To that end, CBP intercepts more than 21,000 fraudulent documents and interdicts more than 200,000 inadmissible aliens each year. Despite the assertions made by the GAO, during fiscal year 2007 alone CBP officers at our land, sea, and air ports of entry arrested nearly 26,000 individuals, including murderers, sexual predators, drug smugglers, and individuals with links to terror (p. 5).
DHS must be able to capitalize on our border inspection process. We must be able to verify the identity of all those who seek to enter. In partnership with the Department of State, we are working to secure our homeland by strengthening our ability to identify accurately all persons before they enter the United States. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) establishes these documentation requirements while continuing to facilitate the flow of legitimate trade and travel. Full implementation of WHTI will supply our officers with the technology and proper documentation to make admissibility decisions in a matter of seconds. This vital layer of security must be put in place as soon as possible and not be subject to repeated delays and endless new and ever shifting requirements. We must advance to a smarter, more efficient, and more secure border that includes these document controls……15
We have no greater asset than our human resources. CBP continues to increase its workforce, hiring 2,156 new CBP officers and 340 agriculture specialists in fiscal year 2007. Included in our 5-year strategic plan, we have an objective of building and sustaining a high-performed workforce by refining the recruitment and hiring processes, improving our retention capabilities, and enhancing deployment and staffing. We have developed a workload staffing model to better align resource needs and requests against levels of threat, vulnerabilities, and workload. However, we are challenged with the continuously expanding demand for our services as trade and travel to the United States continues to grow.
We depend on the dedication and training of our front-line officers to conduct thorough inspections and make sound judgments. We have developed and implemented a comprehensive training curriculum. To make the best use of our training, we train our officers when they need to be trained and for the functions they are performing. This means that not every officer completes every training (p. 6) module but does receive the training needed to do the job performed……16
CBP has long recognized the need to improve our facilities and infrastructure to more effectively meet mission requirements. Unfortunately, the rapid evolution of CBP's mission, coupled with years of neglect, has left these vital assets in dire need of modernization and expansion. Expanded responsibilities and the deployment of enhanced technology have stretched our physical resources well beyond their capacity. In addition, CBP's infrastructure priorities have to compete with other Federal buildings and courthouses, and we receive only a small amount of the funds allocated. Although we are working with GSA to streamline the 7-year construction process, right now our facilities are stretched to the limit.
Mr. Stana: CBP is the lead Federal agency responsible for inspecting travelers who enter the United States. In carrying out this responsibility, over 17,000 CBP officers are charged with keeping terrorists and other dangerous or inadmissible people from entering the country while also facilitating the cross-border movement of millions of travelers and legitimate cargo. For fiscal year 2007, CBP had a budget of $9.3 billion, of which $2.5 billion was for border security and trade facilitation at ports of entry. My prepared statement summarizes the report we issued to you on November 5. In my oral statement, I would like to highlight three main points……17
First, CBP officers at the ports of entry have had some success in identifying inadmissible aliens and other violators. In fiscal year 2006, they successfully turned away over 200,000 travelers who attempted illegal entry at the ports and seized more than 40,000 phony documents. But despite this success, weaknesses in inspection procedures resulted in many thousands of illegal aliens and other violators entering the country. This problem is not new, and previous attempts to fix it have not been fully successful. In 2003, (p. 7) we reported on several weaknesses in the CBP inspection process that permitted inadmissible aliens to enter the country, and we recommended improvements. In 2006, CBP identified weaknesses in its inspection procedures, such as officers waving vehicles into the country without stopping the vehicle or interviewing the driver or its passengers. (p.8-16)……18
We have a special program. This program randomly selects 260,000 land crossers and 240,000 air crossers into the country for further inspection. If the inspector at the booth or at the desk at an airport decides that the person is eligible to enter the country, those individuals may be tagged through a random selection process to go into the secondary area where a more detailed inspection is done (p. 17) (p. 18).
Mr. Morris. Officer morale is a difficult area to address, and we recognize that it is really a combination of many things that can affect that. It is in many cases simply the nature of the job, the very difficult circumstances that we place the officers in on a day-to-day basis, for instance, on the Southwest border during the summer and on the Northern border during the wintertime. And beyond that, the infrastructure is not there to really support effective and efficient inspections as well. And when we do not provide our officers with that infrastructure, with a facility that is conducive to conducting an effective inspection, it makes their job that much more difficult (p. 19) (p. 20-26).
Ms. Kelley: At airports, all international arrivals are expected to be cleared within 45 minutes. CBP's emphasis on reducing wait times without increasing staff at the ports of entry creates an extremely challenging work environment for the CBP officer (p. 27)(p. 28-34).
APPENDIX (p. 35-171)……19.
CТРАНИЦА 5 - PAGE 5
Korten, David C. Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth. – San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2009. – i-xiii + 196 p. ISBN 978-1-60509-289-8 [Кортен, Дэвид К. – Программа новой экономики: От фантомного богатства к богатству реальному. – США, 2009. – i-xiii + 196 c. Совместный проект с Сноу Айлэнд Лайбрэри, штат Вашингтон, США. Штрих-код: 3 9067 05063970 1]
Today's economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. However, as David Korten shows, the steps being taken to address it — including pouring trillions of dollars into bailouts for the Wall Street institutions that created the mess — do nothing to deal with the reality of a failed economic system. It's like treat¬ing cancer with a bandage. Korten identifies the deeper sources of the failure: Wall Street institutions that have perfected the art of creating "wealth" without producing anything of real value: phantom wealth.
Our hope lies not with Wall Street, Korten argues, but with Main Street, which creates real wealth from real resources to meet real needs. He outlines an agenda to bring into being a new economy — locally based, community oriented, and devoted to creating a better life for all, not simply increasing profits. It will require coura¬geous and imaginative changes to how we measure economic success, organize our financial system, even the very way we create money, an agenda Korten summarizes in his version of the economic address to the nation he wishes Barack Obama were able to deliver.
DAVID KORTEN is president and founder of the People-Centered Development Forum, chair of the board of YES! magazine, and a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. He is the author of The Great Turning, The Post-Corporate World, and When Corporations Rule the World.
His doctoral dissertation research in Ethiopia taught him the power of culture in shaping collective behavior. The dynamics of large-scale organizational systems are important. He speaks about the positive power and potential of local community (p. x) self-organization and the importance of local control of essential economic resources. Korten became aware of a terrible truth: Development models based on economic growth were making a few people fabulously wealthy at an enormous social and environmental cost to the substantial majority.
Author thinks about organizing dynamics and principles of healthy living systems. His experience with YES! Magazine gave new definition to this vision of a possible human future, based on its wealth of stories about people taking practical action to create a world that works for everyone (p xi). Two Web sites are given: davidkorten.org and greatturning.org (p. xii-xiii).
Part 1. The Case for a New Economy.
Simple illusion that money is wealth. We have the decline of community life. One thinks that “making money” is the equivalent of “Creating wealth” (p. 1). Authors speaks about real-market economy. It is necessary to reduce economic inequality and prevent environmental collapse (p. 2).
Chapter 1. Looking Upstream.
Our economic system has failed in every dimension: financial? Environmental, and social (p. 3). We need to rebuild the system from the bottom up. Wages are falling in the face of volatile food and energy prices. Many factors are eroding the social fabric to the point of fueling terrorism, genocide, and other violent criminal activity. Excessive consumption is pushing Earth’s ecosystems into collapse (p. 4). We can and must create an economic system that can work foe all people for all time. We need treat the system, not the symptom. It’s necessary to look at the big picture (p. 5). “Bad” theory or story may be even worse than no theory (p. 6) (p. 7). Two different types of economy – phantom-wealth economy and real-economy (p. 8).
It is now commonly acknowledged that we humans are on the course to self-destruction (p. 9). Very important criteria of economic health – fulfill the democratic ideal 0f one-person, one vote citizen sovereignty (p. 10). Cultural stories shape our collective values and the institutional systems shape our relationships with one another and with Earth (p. 11).
Chapter 2.
The capitalist ideal is to create money out of nothing, without a need to produce anything of real value in return (p. 12) (p. 13-24).
Chapter 3. A real-market alternative.
Till now we had excess of capitalism and repression of communism. We need liberty and creativity for all but not for the few at the top. We need to develop our innate human capacities for cooperation and creativity (p. 25). Not as Wall Street, Main Street businesses function within a framework of community values and interest that moderate the drive for profit (p. 26) (p. 28). Scottish economist Adam Smit in his “Inquiry” of 1776 put forward the affirmation that small buyers and sellers make decisions based on their individual needs, interests, and abilities (p. 29). In other words, Buyers and sellers must be too small to influence the market price (p. 30).
Korten writes that capitalism an market are not the same (p. 31). Under a socialist system, government consolidates power unto itself. Under a capitalist model, government falls captive to corporate interest and facilitates the consolidation of corporate power. In a true market system, democratically accountable governments provide an appropriate framework of rules within which people, communities, entrepreneurs, and responsible investors self-organize in predominantly local markets to meet their economic needs in socially and environmentally responsible ways.
For Wall Street the efficiency measure is return to financial capital, for Main Street – return to living capital. The role of government is also different in these two cases: for Wall street it protects the interests of property, for Main Street it advances the human interests. Political orientation is also different: a democracy of dollars versus a democracy of persons (p. 33) (p. 34).
Chapter 4 (p. 35).
Jeffrey Sachs, an economist by training and perspective, is known for his work as an economic adviser to national gov¬ernments and an array of public institutions. The New York Times once described him as "probably the most important economist in the world."
Sachs opens his most recent book, Common Wealth: Eco¬nomics for a Crowded Planet (2008), with a powerful and unequivocal problem statement that raises expectations of a bold break with the economic orthodoxy of those he refers to as "free-market ideologues."
The challenges of sustainable development — protect¬ing the environment, stabilizing the world s popula¬tion, narrowing the gaps between rich and poor, and ending extreme poverty — will take center stage. Global cooperation will have to come to the fore. The very idea of competing nation-states that scramble for markets (p. 36), power, and resources will become passé.... The pres-sures of scarce energy resources, growing environmen¬tal stresses, a rising global population, legal and illegal mass migration, shifting economic power, and vast (p. 37) inequalities of income are too great to be left to naked market forces and untrammeled geopolitical competi¬tion among nations [Jeffrey Sachs. Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. - New York: Penguin, 2008. - P. 3-4].
In a 2007 lecture to the Royal Society in London, Sachs made clear his belief that there is no need to redistribute wealth, cut back material con¬sumption, or otherwise reorganize the economy (p. 38) (p. 39). But Speth insists on redirection and redesign. He notes that growth in GDP always increases (p. 40) environmental damage. “Economy and environment remain in collision” [James Gustave Speth. The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Envieonment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. – New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. – P. 57].
Speaking about health and happiness, Speth is clear that we are unlikely as a species to implement the measures required to bring ourselves into balance with the environment so long as economic growth remains as a principle (p. 41). He recommends replacing financial indicators of economic performance, such as GDP, with wholly new mea¬sures based on nonfinancial indicators of social and environ¬mental health — the things we should be optimizing. Speth quotes psychologist David Myers, whose essay "What Is the Good Life?" claims that Americans have
“big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at mak¬ing a life. We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose. We cherished our freedoms but longed for con¬nection. In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger. These facts of life lead us to a startling conclu¬sion: Our becoming better off materially has not made us better off psychologically” [David G. Myers. What Is the Good Life” // YES! A Journal of Positive Futures. Summer 2004. – P.15, quoted in Speth, ibid., p. 138].
As Speth documents, economic growth tends to be associated with increases in individualism, social frag¬mentation, inequality, depression, and even impaired physi¬cal health. Speth gives significant attention to social movements that, while grounded in an awakening spiritual consciousness, are creating communities of the future from the bottom up, prac¬ticing participatory democracy, and demanding changes in the rules of the game (p. 42):
“Many of our deepest thinkers and many of those most familiar with the scale of the challenges we face have concluded that the transitions required can be achieved only in the context of what I will call the rise of a new consciousness. For some, it is a spiritual awakening — a transformation of the human heart. For others it is a more intellectual process of coming to see the world anew and deeply embracing the emerging ethic of the environment and the old ethic of what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Speth. The Bridge …, p. 199-200] [ (p. 43).
The name: James Gustave Speth (p. 43-44).
Part II. The case for eliminating Wall Street.
Even more damaging in some ways than the economic costs are the spiritual and psychological costs of a Wall Street culture that celebrates greed, favors the emotionally morally challenged with outsized compensation packages, and denies the human capacity for cooperation and sharing (p. 45-46).
Chapter 5. What Wall Street really wants? – “Modernizing” the economy (p. 47). Individualism is the foundation of prosperity and liberty. Government is the enemy of both (p. 48).
In 1950, arguably the peak of U.S. global power, manufacturing accounted for 29,3% of the U.S. gross domestic (p. 49) product and financial services for 10.9 percent. By 2005, manufacturing accounted for only 12 percent of the GDP, and financial services for 20.4 percent. In 2008 financial services was the largest U.S. economic sector, bigger than manufac¬turing, health, and wholesale/retail (p. 50) (p. 51). In 2007 alone, the fifty highest-paid private investment fund managers walked away with an average $588 million each in annual compensa¬tion - 19,000 times as much as an average worker earns (p. 52) (p. 53-54).
In 2005, Forbes magazine counted 691 billionaires in the world. In 2008, only three years later, it counted 1,250 and estimated their combined wealth at $4.4 trillion. According to a United Nations University study, the richest 2 percent of the world's people now own 51 percent of all the world's assets. The poorest 50 percent own only 1 percent.11 A 2008 International Labour Organization study reported that in approximately two-thirds of countries studied, income inequal¬ity increased between 1990 and 2005. This was in part the result of an overall fall in labor's share of total income relative to that of management and to investment income [International Labour Organization “World of Work eport 2008: Income Inequalities in the Age of Financial Globalization” (Geneva: ILO, 2008), 1] (p. 55-56).
Chapter 6 (p. 57).
Relatively recently began the historic transition from rule by imperial monarchs to rule by imperial corporations, and from the rule of the sward to the rule of money (p. 58).
The vast amounts of gold that Spain ultimately extracted from South and Central America ruined the Spanish econo¬my and fueled inflation throughout Europe. With so much gold available to purchase goods produced by others, Spain's productive capacity atrophied as it became dependent on imports. The result was an economic decline from which Spain never recovered (p. 59) (p. 60-64).
Chapter 7. The high cost of Phantom wealth (p. 65)(p. 66).
The financial assets of the richest 1 percent of Americans totaled $16.6 trillion [John Cavanagh and Chuck Collins. The New Inequality: The Rich and the Rest of Us // The nation. June 30. 2008. – P. 11]. (p. 67)(p. 68-71).
The result of development till now was the ever-increasing debt and the accelerating destruction of the natural environment and the human social fabric. It is illogical and deeply destructive to design an economic system in a way that creates an artificial demands for perpetual growth on a finite planet.
We easily fall into the trap of valuing ourselves by our financial net worth and (p. 72) material possessions rather than by our intrinsic self-worth. We are placed in a position of continuous, sometimes extreme, anxiety, with serious consequences for our physical and emotional health (p. 73). Wall Street destroys a sense of (p. 74) community, creates a narcissistic culture, and rewards predatory competition. But the major improvements in our health and happiness come not from more money and consumption, but rather from relationships, cultural expression, and spiritual growth (p. 75) (p. 76).
Chapter 8. The end of empire (p. 77).
Some five thousand years ago, our ancestors in Mesopotamia, the land we now call Iraq, made a tragic turn from partnership to the dominator relationships of Empire. They turned away from a reverence for the generative power of life, represented by female gods or nature spirits, to a reverence for hierarchy and the power of the sward, represented by distant, usually male, gods (p. 78). Societies became divided between rulers and ruled, exploiters and exploited.
Great civilizations were built and then swept away in successive waves of violence and destruction (p. 79). The beginning of the West’s democratic experiment is marked by the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776 (p. 80). It is axiomatic that democracy cannot be imposed from above or abroad. True democracy is born only through its practice (p. 81) (p. 82). The ideals set forth in the stirring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence, a revolution, and the U.S. Constitution al failed to bring democracy to North America (p. 83).
Many of us who grew up in the United States in the post-World War II years came to accept democracy and econom¬ic justice as something of a birthright secured by the acts of the founding fathers. We were raised to believe that we were blessed to live in a classless society of opportunity for all who were willing to apply themselves and play by the rules (p. 84) (p. 85-86).
Today the world's estimated 1.5 billion Internet users, 22 per¬cent of all the people in the world, are learning to function as a dynamic, self-directing social organism that transcends boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality to serve as a collective political conscience of the species. On Feb¬ruary 15, 2003, more than 10 million people demonstrated the power and potential of this technology when they took to the streets of the world's cities, towns, and villages in a uni¬fied call for peace in the face of the buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq (p. 87) (p. 88).
Part III. Agenda for a real0wealth economy.
We humans are awakening to the reality that we are living beings and that life, by its nature, can exist only in community. Our future depends on getting with the program and organizing our economies in ways that mimic healthy living systems – which not incidentally look a lot more like Adam Smith’s vision of a market economy than they do Wall Street’s. We have the right, the means, and the imperative to declare our independence of Wall Street and get on with the work of building real-wealth economies (p. 89) (p. 90).
Chapter 9. What people really want?
Empire’s greatest tragedy is the denial and suppression of the higher-order possibilities of our human nature. The propagandists of Wall Street would have us believe “ there is no alternative”. They have even given it a name: TINA. To believe them is to give up all hope of a future fo0r our children. Like most imperial propaganda, TINA is a lie.
We humans are complex beings of many possibilities (p. 91). The human capacity to choose is perhaps the most distinctive characteristics of our nature. What we are depends in substantial measure on what we choose to be — not just by our individual choices but also by how we shape the collec¬tive cultures and institutions that in turn shape our individ¬ual behavior.
Because cultures and institutions are collective human creations, we can change them through intentional collec¬tive action. We have been trapped in Empire's pernicious rule-or-be-ruled, kill-or-be-killed, play-or-die dynamic because of physical and cultural barriers that have kept us divided and unable to see and embrace our common interest (p. 92).
The communication technologies of the Internet now in place create a potential for collective dialogue, organizing, and action never before available. We have the means, as well as the need and the right, to bring forth cultures and institu¬tions that cultivate and reward our higher nature. Do we have the will? Author believes we do. We are born to care and cooperate. Scientists who use advanced imaging technology to study brain function report that the healthy human brain is wired to reward caring, cooperation, and service. Merely thinking about another person experiencing harm triggers the same reaction in our brain as that of a mother who sees distress in her baby's face.
Conversely, the act of cooperation and generosity triggers the brain's pleasure center to release the same hormone that's released when we eat chocolate or engage in good sex. In addition to producing a sense of bliss, it benefits our health by boosting our immune system, reducing our heart rate, and preparing us to approach and soothe. Positive emotions like compassion produce similar benefits.
By contrast, negative emotions suppress our immune sys¬tem, increase our heart rate, and prepare us to fight or flee. These findings are consistent with the pleasure that most of us experience being a member of an effective team or extend¬ing an uncompensated helping hand to another being. It is entirely logical. If our brains were not wired for life in community, our species would have expired long ago (p. 93). We have an instinctual desire to protect the group, including its weakest and most vulnerable members — its children. Behav¬ior contrary to this positive norm is an indicator of serious social and psychological dysfunction. Caring, cooperation, and service are both the healthy norm and wonderful ton¬ics — and they are free.
Psychologists who study the developmental pathways of the individual consciousness observe that over a lifetime, those who enjoy the requisite emotional support traverse a pathway from the narcissistic, undifferentiated magical consciousness of the newborn to the fully mature, inclusive, and multidi¬mensional spiritual consciousness of the wise elder. It is a journey from "me" to "we" that over a lifetime traverses from a my-group "we" to a human "we," to a living Earth "we," and ultimately to a cosmic "we."
The lower, more narcissistic, orders of consciousness are perfectly normal for young children, but they become socio-pathic in adults and are easily encouraged and manipulated by advertisers and demagogues. The even deeper tragedy is that adults who have been thwarted on the path to maturi¬ty are those most likely to engage in the ruthless competition for positions of unaccountable power. Moreover, the Empire system implicitly recognizes that they best embody its values. We have suffered enormous harm from the imperial culture's celebration of the accomplishments of triumphant psycho¬paths and its promotion of them as the standard of human achievement.
The mature consciousness recognizes that true liberty is not a license to act in disregard of others; rather, it neces¬sarily comes with a responsibility to protect and serve the large we. Doing the right thing comes naturally to the mature (p. 94) consciousness, which minimizes society's need for coercive restraint to prevent the antisocial behavior of those whose path to maturity has been thwarted. This sense of personal responsibility and self-restraint is an essential foundation of a mature democracy, a caring community, and a real-wealth economy. It is one of society's most valuable real-wealth assets.
Strong caring families and communities are not only the key to our happiness and physical health; their emotional support and stimulation facilitate the maturing of our emo¬tional and moral consciousness. They are therefore essential to the realization of our humanity and to the realization of true democracy, a real-wealth economy, and the world of our shared human dream.
In 1992 Korten participated in the civil society portion of the Earth Summit in Rio dé Janeiro, Brazil, where he was part of a gath¬ering of some fifteen thousand people representing the vast variety of humanity's races, religions, nationalities, and lan¬guages. Their discussions centered on defining the world we would create together.
These discussions were chaotic and often contentious. But at one point it hit him like a bolt of lightning. Despite our differences, we all wanted the same thing: healthy, happy children, families, and communities living in peace and coop¬eration in healthy natural environments. Out of our conver-sations emerged an articulation of our shared dream of a world in which people and nature live in dynamic, creative, cooperative, and balanced relationships. The Earth Charter [http://www.earthcharter.org/ ], which is the product of a continuation of this discussion, calls it Earth Community, a community of life (p. 95) (p. 96-101).
Chapter 10. Essential priorities (p. 102- 106).
We have to cultivate diversity and share knowledge (p. 107).
As with any living system, the structure of a living econo¬my is defined primarily by its internal flows of energy, which in a human community takes the form of relationships of trust and caring we call social capital. Not talk¬ing here about financial or material flows, talking about flows of life energy, which in a human community means the flows of non-monetized trust and caring essential to com¬munity cohesion and vitality. An important asset of a living-economy leader is a flair for organizing participatory street parties.
Permeable managed boundaries are indispens¬able to life's ability to create and maintain the embodied (p. 109) energy essential to its existence. Each community must have a sense of its own identity and a shared commitment to invest¬ing in the human, social, and natural capital crucial to its vital¬ity and capacity to serve its members. To make such invest¬ments, it must control its economic resources and priorities.
This does not mean that living economies shut them¬selves off from the world. To the contrary, they recognize the mutual benefits of fair trade in goods and services and a free exchange of ideas, technology, and culture. But those who come to participate in the local economy are expected to play by local rules and each party to exchanges between neighbors must respect the right of the other parties to determine their own priorities (p. 10) (p. 111-112).
The United States account for roughly half of the world's military expenditures and devote more than half of our federal government's discretionary budget to maintaining our military establishment — to the neglect of education, health, infrastructure, environmental, and other needs. Yet our primary military threats are from a handful of terrorists armed with little more than a willingness to die for their cause.
Students of military science have long known that deploy¬ing a conventional military force is futile and counterpro¬ductive when fighting unconventional enemies who blend invisibly into the civilian population. The inevitable collater¬al damage spreads outrage and accelerates the recruitment of terrorists. The only beneficiaries of this stupid security pol¬icy are the Wall Street corporations that profit from defense expenditures (p. 113) (p. 114).
The transition to an economy suited to the realities of life on a living spaceship poses a significant creative challenge. It (p. 115) also presents an epic opportunity to realize and express our creative potential (p. 116).
Chapter 11. Liberating Main Street (p. 117).
Market fundamentals are right in their recognition of the creative potential of self-organization. But we need new rules for a new economy (p. 118). These rules combine with the values of a strong ethical culture to shape the institutions of economic life and the people and purposes they serve.
Adam Smith envisioned a world of local-market econ¬omies populated by small entrepreneurs, artisans, and family farmers with strong community roots, engaged in producing and exchanging goods and services to meet the needs of themselves and their neighbors. This was a vision of the Main Street economy of Smith's time.
Contrary to popular misconception, Adam Smith was not the father of capitalism. He would have tak¬en offense at the title, because the values of capitalism as we know it were not his values. He had a substantial antipathy toward corporate monopolies and those who use their wealth and power in ways that harm others. He believed that people have a natural and appropriate concern for the well-being of others and a duty not to do others harm. He also believed that government has a responsibility to restrain those who fail in that duty (p. 119).
Capitalism is what happens in a market without appro¬priate rules. Economic power becomes increasingly concen¬trated and turns from the production of real wealth to the production of phantom wealth. A lack of market rules is the cause. Proper market rules preclude speculation, the acquisi¬tion of monopoly power, and the destruction of real wealth to create phantom wealth — all of which are subject to extreme abuse. Proper market rules support an economy that func¬tions more like a healthy ecosystem than a cancer. They cre¬ate a powerful bias in favor of Main Street and real wealth. They are a good idea (p. 120).
A 12-POINT NEW ECONOMY AGENDA:
1.Redirect the focus of economic policy from growing phantom wealth to growing real wealth (p. 121).
2.Recover Wall Street's unearned profits, and assess fees and fines to make Wall Street theft and gam-bling unprofitable.
3.Implement full-cost market pricing.
4.Reclaim the corporate charter.
5.Restore national economic sovereignty.
6.Rebuild communities with a goal of achieving local self-reliance in meeting basic needs.
7.Implement policies that create a strong bias in favor of human-scale businesses owned by local stake¬holders.
8.Facilitate and fund stakeholder buyouts to democ¬ratize ownership.
9.Use tax and income policies to favor the equitable distribution of wealth and income.
10.Revise intellectual property rules to facilitate the free sharing of information and technology.
11.Restructure financial services to serve Main Street.
12.Transfer to the federal government the responsibility for issuing money (p. 122).
We must begin a process of replacing financial indicators with indicators of real well-being (p. 123) (p. 124-134).
The desire to learn and to innovate is integral to life. Until some twenty to thirty years ago, the driving motivation behind most science was the desire to learn, discover, and share. Academic prestige and rewards came through the pub¬lication of new knowledge for others to use, not its monop¬olization through patents. The idea that needed innovation (p. 135) will be forthcoming only to the extent it is motivated by sig¬nificant financial rewards is to elevate pathology to a social norm.
The point is not to eliminate intellectual property rights but rather to define them narrowly, grant them for a limited period, and encourage their free sharing.
The need of our time is to take back the economy, shrink it, and reallocate real wealth to secure the long-term well-being of all. The old rules bar us from doing what we need to do. If democracy has any meaning, we have the right and responsibility to demand that our politicians change the rules that do not serve us —and provide us with financial institu¬tions that do (p. 136).
Chapter 12.Real-wealth financial services.
We have a morally bankrupt money system accountable only to itself, detached from reality, and driven by unadul¬terated individualistic greed and a misconception of wealth and money that favors those who create phantom wealth for those who need and deserve it least at the expense of those with real needs doing beneficial work. We need an ethical money system that is accountable to the community and is driven by a commitment to serve those who are creating real wealth, and we need to cut off funding for swashbuckling privateers engaged in reckless get-rich-quick speculation that creates economic instability, results in a misallocation of real resources, and produces nothing of value in return (p. 137) (p. 138-144).
In the real world, retirement is necessarily a contract between retirees and the working people who agree to devote a portion of the fruits of their labor to providing for the retir¬ees' needs. The threat facing future retirees is not insufficient money; it's demographics. In 1935, when the newly signed Social Security bill set the retirement age at 65, males at birth had a life expec¬tancy of 60 years. Life expectancy rose, to 74 by 2005 and is expected to grow to 85 years by the end of this century. But the accepted retirement age has stayed the same, creating an increasingly impossible burden on the working popula¬tion to provide ever-longer extended vacations for those who reach 65.
In I960, there were five working people per retiree. Because of longer life spans and the greater percentage of people reaching retirement age, that ratio was 3.3 to 1in 2004 and, unless the retirement age changes, will be down to 2 to 1 by 2040. At some point working people strug¬gling to keep their children fed and clothed will say, "Enough already."
The basic design of Social Security is sound, but there is no financial solution to the threat to Social Security's con¬tinued viability. We must change the retirement age as part (p. 145) of a larger real-wealth restructuring of the economy and the workforce.
The answer to a secure retirement will not be found in the financial services sector. It will be found in a recognition that we all need to remain active contributors to the real-wealth economy for as long as we are able, and that we need to rely on a universal Social Security system to manage the intergenerational transfer of real wealth to care for our needs once active engagement is no longer practical (p. 146) (p. 147148).
Chapter 13. Life in a real-wealth economy (p. 149-155).
Part IV. Change the story, change the history (p. 157-158).
Chapter 14. An address I hope president Obama will one day deliver to the nation (p. 159-156).
U.S. household mortgage and credit card debt stood at $13.8 trillion in 2007, roughly the equivalent of the total 2007 GDP, and much of it was subject to usurious interest rates. The federal debt inherited from the previous adminis¬tration stood at $5.1 trillion in 2007, before the Wall Street bailout was approved, and it cost taxpayers $406 billion a year in interest alone, the third-largest item in the federal budget after defense and income transfers like Social Security.
This debt hamstrings our government and places an intoler¬able burden on American families that undermines physical and mental health and family stability. It also creates a mas¬sive ongoing transfer of wealth from the substantial major¬ity of households that are net borrowers to the tiny minority of households that are net lenders. This engenders a form of class warfare that has become a serious threat to the securi¬ty of America's working families.
There is another serious consequence of giving control of our money supply to Wall Street. When Wall Street banks stop making the accounting entries needed to fund Main Street, the real-wealth economy collapses, even though we have willing workers with needed skills and still need to meet the needs of our families, maintain the nation's phys¬ical infrastructure, and protect our natural resources. The economy stops solely because no one is making the nec¬essary accounting entries to allow real businesses to func¬tion. We cannot allow the moral corruption of Wall Street to bring down our entire economy, indeed our entire nation (p. 167).
By recommitting ourselves to the founding ideals of this great nation, focusing on our possibilities, and liberating ourselves from failed ideas and institutions, together we can create a stronger, better nation. We can secure a fulfill¬ing life for every person and honor the premise of the Dec¬laration of Independence that every individual is endowed with an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (p. 168) (p. 169).
Chapter 15. When the people lead, the leaders will follow (p. 170).
To change the course of history, we must discredit the cul¬tural stories on which the old ways rest and replace them with new cultural stories that point to a new course. (p. 171) (p. 172-176).
Both of these historic resistance movements demonstrate the enormous and often unnoted human capacity to orga¬nize in causes larger than the self-interest of any given indi¬vidual. They accomplished everything reported here without establishment leadership, support, or sanction. There were no organization charts and no central budgets. There were only thousands of leaders — millions, in the case of global civil society (p. 177) (p. 178-180).
For the many millions of us working to create a better world, it is easy to feel discouraged by the seeming insignificance of even major successes relative to the scale of the problem. Consumed by the details and challenges of our daily engage¬ments, we may easily lose sight of the big picture of the pow¬erful social dynamic to which our work is contributing.
Step back from time to time; take a breath, look out beyond the immediate horizon to bring the big picture back into perspective, and reflect in awe at the power of the larger social dynamic to which your work is contributing. So how do you know whether your work is contributing to the big-picture outcomes we seek? (p. 181).
The first step in making a personal contribution to creat¬ing the New Economy is to take control of our lile and declare your independence from Wall Street by joining the voluntary simplicity movement and cutting bock on unnecessary consumption. Beyond that, shop at local independent stores where possible and purchase local¬ly made goods when available. Make the same choices as to where you work and invest to the extent feasible, Do your banking with an independent local community bank or credit union. Pay with cash at local merchants to save them the credit card fee. Pay your credit card bal¬ance when due and avoid using your credit card as an open line of credit.
The second step is to join with others on initiatives that contribute to any one or all of the four activities mentioned under "Making a Difference" on page 181. Engage in conversations about changing our cultur¬al stories. Facilitate new connections. Create liberated public spaces. Demonstrate new possibilities (p. 182). For all of the above, plus a wealth of stones and resources helpful in tracking the larger movement to which your work contributes, subscribe to YES/ maga¬zine and draw on the wealth of resources on its Web site, http://www.yesmagazine.org.
(p. 183) (p. 184-185).
We humans have made enormous progress in our techno¬logical mastery, but we fall far short in our mastery of our¬selves and the potential of our human consciousness. Failing to identify the true sources of our happiness and well-being, we worship at the altar of money to the neglect of the altar of life. Failing to distinguish between money and real wealth, we embrace illusion as reality, and enslavement to the insti¬tutions of Wall Street as liberty.
Our defining gift as humans is our power to choose, including our power to choose our collective future. It is a gift that comes with a corresponding moral responsibility to use that power in ways that work to the benefit of all people and the whole of life.
It is within our means to replace cultures and institu¬tions that celebrate and reward the pathologies of our lower human nature with cultures and institutions that celebrate and reward the capacities of our higher nature. We can turn as a species from perfecting our capacity for exclusion¬ary competition to perfecting our capacity for inclusionary cooperation. We can share the good news that the healthy potential of our human nature yearns for liberation from the cultural stories and institutional reward systems that have long denied and suppressed it (p. 186).
The liberation of this potential is the larger vision and goal of the New Economy agenda. It begins with getting our val¬ues right and investing in the relationships of the caring com¬munities that are the essential foundation of real wealth and security. As individuals and as a species, we can find our place of service to the larger community of life from which we sep¬arated in our species' adolescence and to which we must now return as responsible adults.
We can find hope in the fact that the institutional and cul¬tural transformation required to avert economic, environ¬mental, and social collapse is the same as the transformation required to unleash the positive creative potential of the human consciousness and create the world of which humans have dreamed for millennia. We are privileged to live at the most exciting moment of creative opportunity in the whole of the human experience. Now is the hour. We have the pow¬er to turn this world around for the sake c oorsehres and our children. We are the ones we have been waiting for (p. 187).
The End.
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