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Katrina Wakeup
Call
By Norman Kurland
September 7,
2005 " The
Katrina crisis will strain America’s power to respond to national
disasters — both natural and man-made. How then can we turn this
disaster into an opportunity to launch a comprehensive program for
regional rebuilding that would be supported by all Americans? What are
the new ideas that could help us address the systemic and structural
causes of mass poverty, the ideas that could help us overcome ideologies
of hate with a truly American ideology of freedom, justice, and hope?
If ever there was a time to think outside-the-box, it is now ! "
--Norman Kurland
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
A small group of concerned leaders in the environmental, civil rights,
and economic justice community have developed the Katrina Plan for
Regional Rebirth. Enclosed is our comprehensive national mobilization
plan to turn the Katrina Disaster into a model for solving some of the
most urgent problems you face as President.
Our plan is not designed to alleviate the immediate suffering of
millions of people in the region surrounding New Orleans, Louisiana as a
result of Hurricane Katrina. You and other leaders are already rallying
the American people to meet these most urgent needs.
This bold plan is for the long-term, to rebuild the disaster region
economically, ecologically and spiritually. It draws upon the power of
America’s most revolutionary ideas — problem-solving concepts “whose
time has come.” While focusing on the future of the disaster region, our
plan is consistent with your call for a domestic “ownership society.”
It will demonstrate to the world how Americans, when challenged with
extreme poverty and hopelessness, can respond with compassion and
justice. Further, it will show how the untapped technological and
financial potential of America’s private sector can help launch a
project on a scale dwarfing that of Roosevelt’s Manhattan Project,
Truman’s Marshall Plan, or Kennedy’s Race to the Moon.
Most important, this plan will take advantage of a long-neglected source
of financing for the rebuilding of the region as a model for sound
ecological and infrastructural study, assessment, planning and
development. This low-cost funding source is not dependent on taxpayer
support or ownership-concentrating financing methods, nor does it
require existing savings of domestic and foreign investors.
The Katrina Plan will also send a powerful message to the growing number
of people around the world who blame America unfairly for the economic
and social conditions that breed global terrorism. Mr. President, we
believe you have an historic opportunity to address this crisis in a way
that will promote prosperity, freedom and peace through justice in the
world. We urge you to consider seriously and act boldly on our proposal.
I know of no more lasting legacy you could leave to America and, by
example, to the world.
*The Katrina Wake-up Call: A Strategy for Turning Disaster into A
Twenty-First Century Model for Regional Rebirth*
*Executive Summary*
Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters to hit the United
States, will likely rival 9/11 in terms of its economic impact and
social upheaval. However, this colossal human tragedy also offers a
unique opportunity to rebuild the affected areas and foster a rebirth of
the American Spirit. By launching a massive redevelopment program
financed in ways in which every citizen of the region can participate
directly in the ownership of the new capital formation and land
recovery, the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal
government, in cooperation with state authorities and the Federal
Reserve System, can encourage universal citizen participation in capital
ownership.
This would create a regional free enterprise model of an “ownership
society.” Through a non-inflationary use of the money-creation powers of
the Federal Reserve System and special tax reforms like those provided
to leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), the proposal would
relieve Federal and State taxpayers of the huge anticipated bill for
rebuilding the region’s economy and creating ecologically sound
infrastructure to avoid future disasters like Katrina.
A major innovation in this plan is the establishment of a for-profit,
citizen-owned Regional Natural Resources Bank to acquire land and
coordinate future land use and infrastructural development.
The plan would offer all area citizens an array of unique “Capital
Homesteading” incentives to build from the ground-up a Twenty-First
Century global exemplar of a participatory ownership society. All
citizens within the affected region would have equal access to share
ownership and would participate equally as shareholders in the
governance of capital projects financed under the Katrina Plan.
Finally, the proposal would finance the application and manufacture of
advanced renewable, waste-to-energy technologies that would assist in
the massive clean-up of toxic wastes left in the wake of the Katrina
disaster, and would launch an overall energy plan that is ecologically
sound. This would re-establish America’s key industries on a secure
basis, as well as provide a template for strengthening the United States
economy in all sectors and regions.
The Challenge.
Hurricane Katrina was perhaps the most devastating natural calamity in
America’s history. While the cost in human life and suffering cannot be
fully measured, initial estimates of the economic costs of Hurricane
Katrina to people and property from this natural disaster are in the
hundreds of billions. The American economy is already facing close to
$400 billion in annual budget deficits, hundreds of billions in annual
trade deficits, and an estimated $1 trillion long-term cost of the war
in Iraq. And just as we begin the massive cleanup, recovery and
rebuilding effort in the devastated region, some climatologists are
predicting that more Katrinas may be on the way.
In its path of destruction, Katrina has laid bare America’s substrata of
poverty and remaining racism, inadequate and insecure incomes,
homelessness, unemployment, and the many other symptoms of its current
exclusionary economic, financial and ownership system. We will soon see
Katrina’s reverberations on our already financially shaky social
security and health care system, and after-shocks in the form of global
wage arbitrage, shrinking oil and gas reserves, climatological threats
from inadequate pollution controls, and growing budget and trade
deficits.
Further, in addressing the Katrina emergency, the President of the
United States cannot fail to see its connection to the war on global
terrorism. Having witnessed the vulnerability of our population and
infrastructure, America’s strategic planners cannot help but consider a
parallel scenario of suicide terrorists delivering weapons of mass
destruction in a coordinated attack against our major centers of
population, a calamity that could dwarf Katrina’s destruction.
The Katrina crisis will strain America’s power to respond to national
disasters — both natural and man-made. How then can we turn this
disaster into an opportunity to launch a comprehensive program for
regional rebuilding that would be supported by all Americans? What are
the new ideas that could help us address the systemic and structural
causes of mass poverty, the ideas that could help us overcome ideologies
of hate with a truly American ideology of freedom, justice, and hope?
If ever there was a time to think outside-the-box, it is now.
Basic Steps for Implementing a Justice-Based Solution to the Katrina
Disaster.
1. Under the Katrina Plan for Regional Rebirth, President Bush, with the
support of the Governors of the States of Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama, would designate the counties and parishes in the tri-State
regional disaster area to receive special treatment for recovery and
rebuilding. A regional model of Capital Homesteading for every citizen,
would be launched in the Katrina disaster zone. (For summary of concept,
see http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm)
2. The President would seek Congressional authorization for the
establishment of a for-profit, citizen-owned Regional Natural Resources
Bank (RNRB) as the private sector vehicle for implementing the project.
The RNRB would be a land planning and development corporation with a
representative board elected by citizen-shareholders for approving,
financing and maintaining infrastructure projects, approving
construction contracts under competitive bidding, and marketing to
attract feasible new investment to the disaster zone. (The RNRB is an
expanded version of the Community Investment Corporation that was
invented for building model communities, as described at
http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html)
<http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html%29>
3. Under the plan, the three states would enter into a regional compact
to delegate their powers of eminent domain to the citizen-owned RNRB.
Such a compact would enable the RNRB to acquire all government-owned
land and natural resources in the tri-state disaster zone on behalf of
all citizen-shareholders, purchase title to privately-owned land that
must be redeveloped, and develop a 30-year plan for comprehensive
reconstruction of the disaster area.
4. Consistent with the long-term RNRB plan for building ecologically
sound and sustainable community life for area citizens, the RNRB would
assess land rentals, auction licenses for the extraction of resources,
and collect use and maintenance fees for regional infrastructure.
5. The Federal Reserve System would use its seldom-used discount powers
under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to monetize through member
banks low-cost (transaction fees and risk premiums only) loans for
feasible projects of the RNRB. Feasibility would be determined by
lenders and capital credit insurers and reinsurers, with environmental
guidelines established by designated Federal and State oversight
agencies. Loans would be collateralized by the land and other assets of
the RNRB.
6. An independent private sector regional capital credit insurance
corporation would be established to scrutinize the feasibility of
Capital Homesteading loans, to charge risk premiums on the loans to
cover the risk of default, and to serve as a substitute for conventional
collateral to meet the needs of new zone businesses.
7. Congress would give the RNRB tax treatment similar to that received
by leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) under the Internal
Revenue Code, so that dividend payouts would be tax-deductible at the
corporate level and taxable at the individual level. After servicing its
bank loans and covering its own operating expenses, the RNRB would
distribute dividends equally to each citizen-shareholder. Thus, property
incomes would increase the purchasing power of all citizens, lifting the
region’s poor from continuing dependency on government welfare or
private charity.
Anticipated Outcomes.
1. By giving regional member banks access to its discount mechanism, the
Fed would supply sufficient asset-backed credit for all capital and
infrastructure projects. In the face of mounting Federal and State
budget deficits, this step alone would take enormous pressure off
Federal and state taxpayers and would be far less costly than any
existing sources of accumulated savings. (See Harold Moulton, The
Formation of Capital, Brookings Institution, 1935, and chapter VII of
Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, a book published in 2004 by the
Center for Economic and Social Justice, at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/capitalhomesteading.pdf
2. As long as they maintain their primary home in the zone, each citizen
would become economically empowered by the privilege of receiving a
personal lifetime, dividend-yielding, non-transferable voting share in
the RNRB, a modern counterpart of Abraham Lincoln’s Homestead Act of
1862. This private property right in a community’s land, natural
resources and infrastructure parallels the right of each citizen to
“own” the public sector through personal access to the vote.
3. Government’s role would shift from ownership of land to establishing
broad guidelines for citizen participation in ownership; recommending
ecological safeguards in the rebuilding process; settling disputes not
resolvable by voluntary mediation and arbitration; lifting institutional
and financial barriers to equal ownership and job opportunities
especially for the poor; and securing the lives, liberties and property
of all citizens.
4. The availability of Capital Homestead stakes for all citizens and
interest-free bank loans for private sector development should serve as
a magnet for attracting diverse entrepreneurial ventures for sustaining
a more ecologically sound area economy that can compete without special
protections in the global marketplace.
Initial Katrina Project Coalition.
1. In our network is Equitech International, LLC, a company headed by a
former master planner and architect at Georgetown University. Equitech
holds a remarkable systems patent for pollution-free “Hydrogen Age”
waste-to-energy technologies developed originally for lunar colonies.
Micro- and macro-sized applications of these technologies could be
manufactured in the region and employed for stand-alone energy systems
to meet the region’s future energy needs. (See
http://www.equitechllc.comhttp://www.intellergy.com)
<http://www.intellergy.com%29>
2. Also in the Katrina Project Network is Team Syntegrity ™ of Toronto,
Canada, which offers a planning protocol that incorporates the tested
concepts of the late Dr. Stafford Beer, noted as the “father of
managerial cybernetics.” This communications tool has been used by
businesses and governments around the world to compress the time it
takes for professionals from highly diverse fields to develop solutions
to extremely complex problems, such as those that will have to be
addressed in this project. (See http://www.syntegritygroup.com)
<http://www.syntegritygroup.com%29>
3. The leaders and counselors of our non-partisan, interfaith Center for
Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) are ready to volunteer to help get
this project underway. We are now organizing an initial broad-based core
of environmental, civil rights, religious, labor and business leaders
committed to designing a democratic free enterprise growth plan for the
disaster zone. The plan is based on a “post-scarcity” model articulated
by such visionaries as Louis Kelso, Buckminster Fuller, and Martin
Luther King, Jr. You can count on our support. This core includes close
associates of these three visionaries. (See
http://www.cesj.orghttp://www.eei-consultants.com)
<http://www.eei-consultants.com%29>
4. A top official of the Sierra Club is now studying our approach. We
hope that the Sierra Club, the Buckminster Fuller Institute, the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other organizations in our
network will supply the grassroots leadership and outreach for the
critical mass of people power and leadership power needed to move our
plan forward politically.
Expanding the Political Leverage for the Katrina Plan.
1. If President Bush sees the merits of moving forward with our Katrina
Plan, he would appoint a Presidential Task Force to work out the details
for moving forward to develop the long-term comprehensive plan, similar
to the 1985 Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice.
President Reagan appointed this author to the task force where he served
as deputy chairman, under former OAS Ambassador J. William Middendorf,
II. The PEJ Task Force was charged by Congress and the President to
develop a strategy for spreading ESOPs throughout the Caribbean and
Central America as a free enterprise counterforce against communist
threats to regional stability.
2. Using the leverage of organizations backing the Katrina Project (see
above), separate private meetings would be arranged with former
President Bill Clinton, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, and Senator
Trent Lott to explain to them the strategy and unique approach to
financing the project.
3. These leaders would be asked to contact the Governors of Louisiana
and Alabama to gain their support for this alternative plan.
4. Separate meetings would be arranged with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan
for project leaders to explain the key role the Fed would be asked to
play in financing the hundreds of billions of dollars needed for
reconstruction projects in the regional disaster zone. The Fed would
authorize special access to the Atlanta and New Orleans Feds’ discount
windows under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act, enabling member
banks operating in the zone to monetize credit needed for feasible
projects and broad-based capital ownership. (Chairman Greenspan is
familiar with our monetary reforms from an exchange of correspondence he
had in March and April 1995 with Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and from
our Capital Homesteading book that he received from Dr. Norman A.
Bailey, with whom he served in the Reagan White House.)
Hurricane Katrina will undoubtedly be written into America’s history as
a watershed event on the scale of 9/11. Mr. President, from your vantage
point occupying the highest seat of power, you understand that this
crisis and its solution cannot be isolated from the other huge
challenges facing America in the 21st century. With this crisis comes an
historic opportunity. The moment demands ideas equal to the challenge
and a leader with the foresight and courage to champion a genuine vision
of justice and hope for the future.
Mr. President, we believe that armed with these uniquely American
revolutionary ideas, you can turn a disaster into your most important
legacy.
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