NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF WEALTH, NOT INCENTIVES
by Peter Moss

Most people know that you don't get very rich by hard work and honest dealings. Not enough people know the secret of getting very rich: corruption. And even fewer people are in a position to participate and benefit from corruption. But in the wake of unprecedented media admissions about Enron, World Com, and dozens of other megacorporate megascandals, public discourse has raised issues that were hush-hush before. The people are yet to realize that the media are not news, nor in the public interest, but are regime propaganda and part and parcel of the corrupt, conservative, self-serving power structure to enrich themselves and the other top 2% rich at the expense of the bottom 98% unrich (commonly called middle class, working class, poor, etc.). Public discourse now questions how long this has been going on? What other corporate and executive wrong-doing will become public next? How many other enrons and arthur andersens are there in total? Is the stock market truly rigged, as has been long suspected? Why is executive pay so grossly excessive? And why is the income gap between rich and unrich continuing to grow and if so, why do the bushists continue to give out tax cuts for the rich and corporate welfare in myriad ways? Health is the number one serious concern for the American people, and a large but insufficiently known federal organization exists to coordinate health care research and delivery for the myriad participants in that industry. The organization is the National Institute of Health, or NIH, and it has 27 institutes and centers: there are institutes on cancer, the eye, heart, lung and blood, aging, allergy and infectious diseases, child health and human development, dental research, environmental health, and several others. NIH sponsors and coordinates research in the public interest. Wealth is second only to health as a serious concern for the people but no comparable organization exists to study wealth. If I am elected, I will propose legislation to found and fund N.I.W., or National Institutes of Wealth. The main purpose of the N.I.W. is to prepare public support for a 180-degree change in the direction of income redistribution, from the greedy to the needy. This reversal is proposed not only for government funding and taxation, but for all income and wealth redistribution activities, to prevent and eliminate violence, war, and communism permanently. To start, N.I.W. it to consist of: First Institute: to list all rich people and to analyze how they got their wealth. Forbes, Fortune, American Lawyer and other publications have made a good start with annual issues devoted to this, but the list should go down to at least the top 100,000. Jim Hightower has estimated that there are 65,000 megadonors and 35,000 lobbyists, and all of these need to be studied. Second Institute: to determine what the rich have done with their excess money that is not spent on food, shelter, health care, travel and entertainment, and savings for old age. The standard "explanation" now mouthed by the rich and their supporters is that they need the excess wealth as an "incentive" to improve their economic performance in the national or public interest. My response to that is: horsefeathers. Third Institute: to analyze how the use of wealth determined by the Second Institute has affected the well-being of this nation and mankind. Fourth Institute: to develop fair taxation policy for incomes and estates based on information developed by the first three institutes, and to recommend levels of and relationships among poverty income, negative income tax, the minimum wage, a living wage, and permissible maximum after-tax income to prevent bribery, corruption, etc. Fifth Institute: publications, publicity and education starting at the earliest age, to educate future generations that endless greed and growth-without-end ("the tide that raises all ships") are unsustainable and ecologically suicidal. Sixth Institute: to monitor macroeconomic data to prove that fair taxes and other gap reduction policies serve the well-being of everybody. Henry Ford understood that only a fair wage could make Model T customers of his workers, but the lesson is lost on minimum wage foes and overtime pay foes today. Seventh Institute: to retain staff for N.I.W., to insure that only sincere, incorruptible people are hired and retained, to be chosen and recommended by public interest activists and advocates and appointed by Congress and free from manipulation by presidents who are puppets of the overreaching overrich. Existing proservative think tanks would, of course, be welcome to join one of the institutes, or even become the foundations on which to develop some of the institutes.