Raising The Bar On Government and Economics
Step One: Observe (Analyze) As reported in the OB Rag, a group of San Diego pickleball players ‘stormed’ the Peninsula Tennis Club and symbolically took it over for a while, effectively halting ‘business as usual’ until police arrived and persuaded them to leave without serious incident. According to the pickleball insurgents, their staged takeover was …
Calling All Economists: a union of concerned social scientists is not enough anymore; time to form a New Economic Justice League. Tryouts start today. By Robert Simmons We all know the story. The Earth and its people are under siege; a dark parasitic force has taken over the planet. It has attached itself to every …
How two pickleball privateers turned an all-too-willing media into a megaphone for alternative facts, divisive rhetoric, trumped up charges, and dubious data in an attempt to leverage city and park officials to evict the 40-year tenants of a popular public park non-profit tennis facility. By Robert Simmons DIY Guide On How To Steal A Tennis …
This article is part of a series of social science inquiries attempting to prove that socio-economic operating systems would provide more Certainty, Fairness, Inclusivity, and Sustainability if they were designed to empower people rather than control them. By Robert Simmons Preamble “If you don’t look at it, you can’t change it. You’ve got to look …
By Robert Simmons Preface This article was originally written for the San Diego Union-Tribune as a rebuttal to several articles it had published to promote the business plans of Stephan Boyland and Mike Shinzaki of www.pickleball-sd.com, two unemployed Pickleball pros looking to take over the popular Peninsula Tennis Club in San Diego, a non-profit public park tennis …
The bloodiest battles in the war between Democracy and Capitalism are being fought to secure those needs most essential to human existence, and one of those is our healthcare. By Robert Simmons A democratic version of healthcare would ensure that each person receives equivalent access to whatever care maximizes their opportunity for life, liberty, and …
The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics By Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith Goodreads Rating: 4.05 Amazon Rating: 4.6 462 Pages Kindle: $11.99 Paperback: $15.91 About The Author: Political Scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a Professor of Politics at New York University, as well as a senior fellow at …
It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear By Robert Simmons Anyone trying to solve the human equation will discover that A) there are very …
Through her storytelling ability, Loen Kelley helped shape how television audiences viewed crime in America. Now she has created a platform for criminals to tell their side of the story. By Robert Simmons Prison Writers reminds me that I am human…Loen and her volunteers treat us convicts with kindness and respect. They encourage us to …
By the 16th century philosophers began conjecturing whether private property was a natural right. Meanwhile Oppressors continued forward with their own agendas. by Robert Simmons L is for Liberty By the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarian school of thought added that the exercise of power, to secure natural rights, was not government’s only function. Government also had …
Irwin thoroughly laid out the steps the Fed took to save Wall Street, because Wall Street, in the current system, was “too big to fail.” The Alchemists (2013) By Neil Irwin Goodreads Rating: 4.05 Amazon Rating: 4.5 465 Pages Kindle:$10.99 Paperback: $20.00 About The Author: Since receiving his M.B.A. from Columbia University, Neil Irwin has …
Community School Addresses Inequality and Climate Action Through New Education Model By Robert Simmons As a climate action campus, MTM will seamlessly link indoor and outdoor experimental and experiential learning; it will also blend the five components of the STEAM curriculum into a more interdisciplinary format. Through this, MTM believes students will achieve a holistic …
Extra thanks to Neil Irwin (now with Axios) for his comprehensive look into the role of Central Banking in the modern economy—The Alchemists—upon which this article draws several of its examples, Ellen Brown, for her continuing crusade to reinstate public banking, and Otto Scharmer at MIT, whose observations concerning the current societal disconnects serve here …
The Third Option likes Andrew Yang’s calm Certainty, simple Inclusive rhetoric, and Fair Sustainable solutions—plus he knows Dave Chappelle. All Americans should hear him out. By Robert Simmons Andrew Yang and The Third Option have been moving along an ideological path best described as a perfect mirror trajectory; perhaps The Third Option is the Yin …
Nobel Prize-winning Economist / author / columnist Paul Krugman still believes Democracy and Capitalism can co-exist. by Robert Simmons Universal Healthcare or Bust Paul’s Take The U.S. healthcare system is wildly inefficient…We spend far more per person on health care than any other country…yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life …
Michael Sandel’s job is to explain justice, democracy, and ethics to the rest of us. Current enrollment for this semester’s online edX Justice Class is 420,000. By Robert Simmons There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader. Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin Michael Sandel has made it his sole purpose to help …
Oppression is genetic. The Third Option has a treatment plan to downgrade Oppression to a chronic but manageable condition. The following exploration of Racism is meant, in part, to demonstrate how The Third Option plans to dismantle Racism at the systemic level. By Robert Simmons Atonement: A White People’s Four-Step Program STEP ONE: Taking Ownership …
How does science reconcile two irreconcilable viewpoints? Create a Third Option. The Theory of Everything successfully merges both views into a single equation. By Robert Simmons Einstein was arguably super-human. He took a leap of faith and embraced the concept that light had a fixed speed limit – a ‘Constant’ 670 million miles an hour. …
The Fire This Time: Self-worship, cannibalism and ritualistic human sacrifice in the Age of Consumerism. By Robert Simmons Dig into a dusty old history book and (horrible atrocities aside) you will find it filled with people famous for inventions and discoveries, creative works and profound ideas. Since Consumerism came to own us, we now have …
Thanks to Patrice Lumumba, for six days in the summer of 1960, the Congolese people felt what it was like to be free. In reality, the West was never going to allow the Africanization of Africa. By Robert Simmons The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country with huge natural wealth…diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, …
No manmade law can restrict the flow of people simply by calling them ‘illegal’, at least not until we find a way to make Oppression illegal as well. By Robert Simmons If poverty, unemployment, crime, spousal abuse, and other non-state-imposed forms of human suffering justify an asylum claim, then at least 2 billion people on …
Witness America’s version of Ethnic Cleansing and Economic Genocide: the U.S. Prison System. How our ‘Tough on Crime’ Groupthink led to the mass incarceration crime of the century. By Robert Simmons Poverty is not only a predictor of incarceration; it is also frequently the outcome, as a criminal record and time spent in prison destroys …
This is not an article detailing any of the one thousand failings of the Private Healthcare system. This is an article detailing what we are going to do about it. By Robert Simmons The Third Option Universal Healthcare Operating System is designed to deliver affordable, accessible, preventive and patient-centered care. Government would no longer subsidize private healthcare, it would instead collect …
Meet the door to (revolving) door salesmen of the private sector, with their unique access to the so-called ‘public interest’, and a special talent for selling government a bunch of stuff its citizens don’t really need. Welcome to Lobbying 101. By Robert Simmons What Is Lobbying? Lobbying 101: Lobbying is acting to influence the decisions …
Whether it swings right or left, U.S. Government has long since relinquished “Command” of our Economy to a Market system, of which tax incentives are inevitable. By Robert Simmons Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all. Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name What is an example of a tax …
Our Ignorance is not who we are; it’s what keeps us from being who we are. The battle for the planet of the apes has begun. Arm yourself. By Robert Simmons Know thy Enemy Contrary to ‘popular’ (aka ‘ignorantly formed’) opinion,Ignorance cannot be shamed out of people, punished out of them, or lectured out of …
It’s the language everyone speaks, but no one speaks about; until we listen to It, however, It will continue trying to make Itself understood. By Robert Simmons But I digress. This essay is about “Violence”, the tool of last resort in our Survival Toolkit, designed to inflict damage, and because, per usual, we have had …
Everybody has a cure for Public Education; it’s difficult to know who is right. What if we changed our Educational Paradigm instead, so we could all be right? By Robert Simmons You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, create a new model that makes the old model obsolete. Richard Buckminster …
Professor Roy L. Brooks brings everyone up to speed on post-civil rights theory, in the hope of moving the conversation along toward some unified solution. Racial Justice in the Age of Obama By Roy L. Brooks Product details Publisher : Princeton University Press (August 23, 2009) Language : English Hardcover : 264 …
Thomas Piketty must have struck a nerve to have so many people falling over themselves to contradict him. Now we have Inequality Deniers, too. Of course, criminals would be stupid to admit to their crimes. That’s for a jury to decide. Capital in the Twenty-first Century (2014) By Thomas Piketty Goodreads Rating: 4.03 Amazon Rating: …
Gordon Lafer dives into the shallow end of the genetic pool, in order to observe Homo Economicus up close, and better explain the downward mobility of corporate economics. The One Percent Solution (2017) By Gordon Lafer Amazon Rating: 5.0 272 Pages Kindle: $9.99 Hardcover: $20.99 Product details ASIN : 1501703064 Publisher : ILR …
Peter Barnes wants to upgrade our 18th century economic operating system to serve 21st century people, but over 300 years after Democratic Equality was established, people still fear it. With Liberty and Dividends For All (2014) By Peter Barnes Goodreads Rating: 4.36 Amazon Rating: 4.6 192 Pages Kindle: $9.99 Paperback: $16.14 Product details Publisher …
Not one to be an economic cheerleader on the sidelines of a rigged game, economist James Heckman instead works to level the playing field before the game begins. Giving Kids a Fair Chance (2013) By James J. Heckman Goodreads Rating: 4.22 Amazon Rating: 4.0 148 Pages Kindle: $12.99 Paperback: $14.33 Product details Publisher : …
Joseph Stiglitz believes that economics should serve people, not divide and conquer them; we believe that 99% of people, once they read his books, would agree. Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy (2015) By Joseph E. Stiglitz Goodreads Rating: n/a Amazon Rating: 4.3 246 Pages Kindle: $9.99 Paperback: $15.95 Product details Publisher : …
Sir Paul Collier wants to infuse Economics with some Ethics. We would prefer to start with Ethics and build some Economics around it. The Future of Capitalism (2018) By Sir Paul Collier Goodreads Rating: 3.86 Amazon Rating: 4.4 256 Pages Kindle: $10.99 Paperback: $28.38 (Spanish Edition only) Product details Publisher : Harper; 1st Edition …
In Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich shows us how far the cancer of Inequality has spread. His advice? Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few By Robert Reich Goodreads Rating: 4.22 Amazon Rating: 4.6 324 Pages Kindle: $12.99 Paperback: $9.65 Product Details: Publisher : …
Ellen Brown’s compendium of public banking history shows how it consistently outperforms the private version which often replaces it, to the detriment of people and their democracies. The Public Bank Solution (2013)By Ellen Hodgson Brown Goodreads Rating: 4.18 Amazon Rating: 4.7 442 Pages Kindle: $9.95 Paperback: $25.00 Product Details Publisher : Third Millennium …
When so many people are unhappy over so many different issues, it naturally creates a paralyzing gridlock. By Robert Simmons I. What Causes Political (and Social) Polarization? This MORE is also reflected in our Economics, through the constant drive to achieve Economic Growth. Economic Growth is similar to Obesity: though it is not a direction, …
Ellen Brown is looking to expand Public Banking in the U.S., and has written three convincing books toward that end. Here the Third Option attempts to capture the gist of her main arguments. By Robert Simmons A National Public Bank is the best possible long term investment for individual citizens (retirement dividends, affordable basic needs), …
Dr. Garza speaks with the Third Option on the tools she is using to dismantle the House Oppression built. By Robert Simmons The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization…Only the oppressed, and those who will stand with them, have the …
Who owns the Chappelle Show? It’s “Chappelle’s” Show; says so in the title. “Intellectual Property”? Sounds like Mental Oppression; Welcome to the new slavery. By Robert Simmons Opening the door: Nobody’s life is perfect. No matter what it looks like from the outside, you don’t know what the fuck’s going on inside. Heading down to the …
Americans know something doesn’t ‘feel right’. Luckily, the AfD knows what it is, and is already engaged in a grassroots ground battle for the soul of America. By Robert Simmons History cannot shut up. It keeps repeating itself, over and over, ad nauseam. It’s as if all those dead people are trying to tell us …
Otto Scharmer’s ‘U’ represents a deep dive below our disruptive surface, where presencing can see the deeper systemic disconnects & lead to more holistic decision-making. By Robert Simmons Human Progress is analogous to one of our ancestors, swinging through the jungle, letting go of one vine, while grabbing onto another. When we do not …
Sir Paul Collier is the champion of the bottom billion, using pragmatism and evidence-based reasoning to take Economics to neighborhoods that it usually avoids. By Robert Simmons Modern capitalism has the potential to lift us all to unprecedented prosperity, but it is morally bankrupt and on track for tragedy. Human beings need a sense of purpose, and …
Government legalizes financial cage-fighting in a free market pit where anything goes; the winners prefer no rules in a knife fight, & pay off refs to that end. By Robert Simmons (Followed by six steps to help correct the problem) You stand looking down at a trail of ants. From your point of view, the …
The world is already powered by renewable energy (the Sun). Third Option has a plan to plug into that power, by unplugging the power of those leading us astray. By Robert Simmons Step One: A Hostile Takeover (of the Corporate Kind) The US power grid is a complex network of generation, transmission, and distribution, and …
Six steps towards mending the divide between us. Election 2020: The big game is over, but the tug of war continues. Six things you can do to help ease the tension, once the hangover wears off… By Robert Simmons It was a helluva battle… Everybody fought hard… It could have gone either way, really… We’ll …
National Parks bring private business $20 Billion in visitor spending, while the public pays all the expense. The Great American Outdoors Act won’t change this. By Robert Simmons Renting public land to some of the wealthiest corporations in the world for as little as $1.50 an acre per year is irrational…Oil companies are drilling on …
The human race has utilized biomimicry throughout its entire existence; it is only recently that we have become consciously aware of it, however. By Robert Simmons When we look at what is truly sustainable, the only real model that has worked over long periods of time is the natural world. – Janine Benyus The human …
Our politicians and news analysts seem to have never taken a civics course. We see a population that increasingly finds conspiracy theories more plausible than their everyday common sense. By John Simmons Tis really astonishing that the same people, who have just emerged from a long and cruel war in defence of liberty, should now …
How is Power best defined? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; real Power is internally generated; Control is applied externally. By Robert Simmons The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis …
Beef, which comes from the skeletal muscles of cows, (or cattle), appears to be a great source of protein, and only around 1200 calories per pound. If this muscle could be extracted from the beast, we would highly recommend it for human consumption at a rate of at least a quarter pound every day. To …
Written by Robert Loyd For us the topic of Medicare for all has been the most interesting political speaking point. Not for its pros or cons, it’s controversies, or anything like that, but for its lack of any relation to the Medicare program. Here we are going to discuss what Medicare For All actually is …
Communication Infrastructure Theory is trying to get people to talk back to each other, in order to rebuild their communities from the ground up. By Robert Simmons Part III: Communication Infrastructure: What is Communication Infrastructure Theory? The Third Option also has a story to tell, about how Communication Infrastructure is essential to the health of …
Our U.S. Water Infrastructure Strategy is full of holes; 240,000 new ones each year. How are we going to fix our water infrastructure problems? The Third Option By Robert Simmons Part II: Water Infrastructure Problems: How can water infrastructure be improved? How are we going to fix our water infrastructure? There are still 1.6 Million …
How Can Road Transport be Improved? A $2.8 Trillion National Public Bank Loan will get us where we want to go, minus pollution, accidents & freeway congestion. By Robert Simmons Part I: How Can Road Transport be Improved? deaths, plus 854 bicyclists and 6,000 pedestrians hit and killed by cars. Meanwhile, transportation accounted for close …
Ouch. Go to any articles about “tax payer funded stadiums” and the reviews are pretty one-sided: giving public money to privately owned sports franchises is a losing proposition. No argument here, but the fact remains: people like their sports teams. There is a public good there, outside of any economic considerations. That being said, the …
We are not better when we don’t think about things, and our ignorance, however blissful, leads to being easily manipulated by those ranked above us. By Robert Simmons A common phrase you often hear from the amateur player is “I am better when I don’t think (about what I am doing)”. The reality is that …
What is an Independent Coffee Shop? It’s a Small Local Business that’s hurting, like all the rest, and like all the rest, a source of hope for their community. By Robert Simmons Every small community has at least one independently owned local coffee shop. Our area is no exception. In 2019 B.C. (Before Covid), the …
Addiction is the most important healthcare issue of our time. The Private Healthcare Industry’s addiction to money is a $4 Trillion dollar habit, and the first step is to admit we have a problem with that. The next step is to have an intervention, and the American people need to know, going in, that many …
Third Option has a strategy to help the Bottom Billion, create lasting friendships in the process, and break the cycle of People & Resource exploitation. By Robert Simmons If you were handed power on a plate you’d be left fighting over a plate. Tom Stoppard, Squaring the Circle South Sudan is the world’s youngest country, …
By Robert Simmons You are at home, sitting on the couch, when you notice that your beer can is empty. There is more beer in the fridge, but no one is around to get it for you. You weigh your options, form a plan, and moments later, you are back on the couch with another …
By Robert Simmons The current model for economic success focuses heavily on Economic growth, or the steady expansion of goods and services produced from one time period to the next. On a constant fishing expedition, the private sector has recently cast its line out into Government waters, looking to snag already functioning government businesses like Medicare, Prisons, Public Transportation, Postal …
Lessons in Fairness, Humility, Effort, Grit, Mastery, Teamwork; it’s all there, when we learn a sport. By Robert Simmons 1. Sports teaches you how to play by the rules. There is etiquette in sports. There are boundaries and parameters in sports. Parents should probably be forced to play sports on another field while their kids …
By Robert Simmons Right out of the womb, We let our feelings be known. And immediately, We are understood. But things get so complicated after awhile, so luckily people invented words, and immediately everything was much more clear, because words allow us to convey the truth about All Things, and emotions are…sorry, I’m a guy, …
RULE NUMBER ONE : STAY IN YOUR OWN LANE Everyone has an important role in order for a child to develop fully, and the professionals will know their role. It’s really only the parent that needs any coaching, and it is important for parents to listen to this coaching, and learn from it. In the …
By Robert Simmons Elephants are big suckers and take up a lot of space, but if you let them hang around long enough, you start getting used to them being there, and simply maneuver around them. Sometimes you almost forget they are there. Almost. In reality, the path or course We take everyday is altered …
DEFINING TERMS DENOTATION: The actual meaning of a word. CONNOTATION: The way you have been conditioned to feel about a word, beyond its actual meaning. PAWN: Someone easily manipulated by anyone of authority. Rule #1 in the Thug playbook: Thug want more and more and more. But what about these other people, who get less …
Elizabeth Rosenthal shows us the serious side effects that occur when mixing profit-seeking with healthcare. By Robert Simmons In the past quarter century, the American medical system has stopped focusing on health or even science. Instead it attends more or less single-mindedly on its own profits…The Affordable Care Act was mostly a bill to make …
Seeing as how women are only pulling in about 80 cents on the dollar for “co-equal” work these days, it’s a pretty sure bet that Melinda Gates is doing at least 62.5% of the work in her and Bill’s “co-equal” relationship. For this reason, we decided to give her top billing for a change. In …
“The current…generation and disposal of synthetic polymers are largely unsustainable. As part of the solution, the development of biodegradable polymers…has been intensively pursued in the past two decades. However, the degradation of such polymers in Earth’s landfills typically leads to no recovery of the materials’ value, and their degradation in the Oceans could create new …
OUR NEW AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY Countries are People (195 of them) If possible, we will always try …
Life, Liberty, Happiness, Justice; The Third Option has a way to better promote the General Welfare and secure each American’s unalienable rights. By Robert Simmons Platform (n) – a raised level surface on which people or things can stand. The rising tide of economic growth continues to lift up anyone who can afford to buy …
Only a Permanent National Public Bank can Check Power, Balance Debt, and Recycle all our Wealth and Waste By Robert Simmons Ecology and Economics share the same prefix (“eco” from the Greek oikos, meaning “house”) because both are about how living organisms do business here on Planet Earth. Unfortunately, the two business models have little in …
On its best day, Government still fails us. How we can improve our skill level to clear these upcoming high hurdles (from healthcare to climate change). By Robert Simmons Ed Yong, science writer at The Atlantic, has tracked the coronavirus SARS‑CoV‑2 since it first made landfall back in late January. While Covid-19 climbed to #3 …
Bad economics represents policies that condone suffering, under the guise of liberty, simply because more profit can be derived from this misery. By Robert Simmons Perhaps this is where the NRA got inspiration for their slogan. Since it is unlikely we could fix seven billion people, let us look instead at this system of Economics, …
