Borderline Equality

An Economic “Bill of Rights” for Economic Equality and Freedom

Several confusing inequities in the marketplace have created a fog of misinformation about the U.S. economy. We are trapped in this fog, so there is frustration and anger as different voices make conflicting and contradictory arguments in their attempts to clear the air. There is an unending stream of solutions proposed, but none have resolved the root of the problem.

Many things have contributed to the problem over many years, but only by addressing these root causes can we find a solution. The symptoms are present and obvious, but the causes behind them are invisible and not easy to discover. Why have we lost all those industrial jobs? Why are we importing foreign goods and services while our own workers are unable to supply the marketplace with domestic goods and services?

Over a period of many years and decades there were efforts to improve our American quality of life. Well-meaning legislators passed marketplace laws that applied to the business world, to makers and providers of goods and services; laws requiring certain wage limits, pollution controls, worker safety, and public health and welfare.

Far too many of these laws unfortunately applied only to business; they avoided regulation of the goods and services themselves. Perhaps the worst and most obvious example of this is the minimum wage law, which regulates wages a U.S business must pay an employee. This law does not regulate the minimum wage that must be paid by ANY provider of goods and services in the American marketplace.

Thus we have created a situation today whereby the US retailers import products made in foreign countries with much less costly labor. If this same law had been worded as applicable to the product being sold in the US, then cheap foreign labor would not have displaced domestic jobs based on labor cost alone.

Consider: The way certain laws were worded created an inequality at the border whereby foreign goods and services receive favorable treatment over domestic goods and services: they do not have to play by the same rules! Large U.S. corporations are now set up to do business using this leverage; they have become global multi-national entities owing no long-term interest in their customers as fellow members of a local community. Their community identification and their individual loyalties are only to their company and their global co-workers. Their customers are not neighbors; they are statistics.

But there have also been inequitable economic practices inside our borders; unfair treatment at the cash register checkout line favoring select members of our shopping and buying community… unfair practices ensuring that the rich get richer. We take it as a given that rich buyers, mostly corporations, should be allowed to pay less for goods and services than a poor buyer, the individual citizen or small business. We accept these unfair inequities in economics just the same way as for decades and centuries terrible prejudicial social inequities were accepted without question.

Any effort to correct either injustice, whether at our national border line or at our cash register checkout line, will be opposed by forces benefiting from those inequities. Any effort to correct inequitable treatment must, therefore, include some kind of restraint on those who have enjoyed immense financial benefit from the status quo. We offer here both kinds of measures; corrections of the problems, and also controls to curb the undeserved power of those who have benefited and profited from the problem (and who will do everything in their power to perpetuate this abuse).

There can only be economic equality across the border if marketplace laws apply to all products and services sold in our marketplace, and not solely to U.S. products and services.

1. No manufactured product shall be imported into these United States unless it complies in every respect with all laws pertaining to competing products manufactured within these states:

a. All employees engaged in the manufacture shall have been paid at least the current minimum wage applicable in these states in U.S. currency value.

b. All employees engaged in the manufacture shall have been enrolled in a retirement program similar to the U.S. social security program.

c. All employees engaged in the manufacture shall have been hired under equal opportunity protection as practiced in the United States, including child labor laws.

d. All employees engaged in the manufacture shall have been protected from harassment and intimidation as enjoyed in these United States.

e. The workplace of manufacture shall be inspected and found safe in accordance with occupational safety and health practices as imposed on domestic manufacturers.

f. The waste products of manufacture shall be safely disposed of in accordance with environmental protection requirements imposed on U.S. manufacturers.

g. All products imported into the U.S. shall meet all quality control and safety standards imposed on same or similar products manufactured in the U. S.

h. No foreign national or company or corporate entity shall purchase U.S. raw materials for processing and final sale or consumption within the United States in competition with same or similar products made in the U.S.

2. No agricultural product imported into these United States shall be permitted unless it complies in every respect with all laws pertaining to similar agricultural products produced within these states:

a. All employees engaged in planting, growing, harvesting, processing, and transport of raw or processed agricultural products shall receive the same minimum wage, safety, health, and personal protections as that received by agriculture workers in the United States.

b. All machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals used in agricultural production shall comply with the same requirements as prevail in the United States regarding personal and community safety and health.

c. All livestock or livestock parts or meat products of or derived from animals, fish, or other live creatures shall have been raised, protected, handled, and processed in accordance with the same laws imposed in the field of animal husbandry in the United States.

d. All waste products of the agricultural production process shall be disposed of in accordance with those same laws regarding pollution imposed on U.S. agricultural endeavors.

In order to ensure that the laws respecting our sovereign borders will continue to be respected it is necessary to remove foreign control over any aspect of our economy from which non-American interests might be promoted. Foreign nationals should not be allowed to exercise control over our laws or our people, which can only work to our detriment.

3. No foreign national within the U.S. borders shall have decision-making power or authority over U.S. citizens. This includes:

a. No foreign-based company or corporate entity shall employ U.S. citizens within the U.S. borders.

b. No foreign national employed by a U.S. company or corporate entity shall supervise or oversee any U.S. citizen also employed by that company or any other company or agency hired by or subcontracted to that company.

c. No foreign national shall own common (voting) stock in any U.S. company.

d. No foreign-based company or corporate entity shall own common (voting) stock in any U.S. company.

e. No foreign national or company or corporate entity shall own real property in the United States and it's territories.

This idea of marketplace equality should be extended to domestic consumers as well. No consumer should be required to pay more than any other consumer for the same product or service, especially by the practice of embedding the cost of favoritism in prices charged. Just as all products and services should enter the market only in compliance with the same U.S. laws, so we should require that the price of each product or service sold should be the same for all; and the prices charged should not embed supplemental charges designed to benefit a favored segment of the consuming public.

4. No business shall sell any product or service at terms that work to the benefit of a wealthy class or business to the detriment of a person or business of lesser economic strength:

a. No business shall price any product or service at other than unit price, which shall be freely offered to all U.S. citizens and businesses. In conflict situations the U.S. citizen or business end user shall have purchase preference over a foreign national or a foreign-based business.

b. No business shall offer discounts, supplemental goods or services, or other inducements to purchase that shall have the effect of reducing the base unit price.

c. No business shall include in unit pricing any fees based on other than unit volume.

d. No business shall impose any special requirements on and of its customers other than as provided by law for the common good.

5. No business shall require or impose on any customer the burden and cost of extending credit to another customer.

a. The selling price shall be common to all customers.

b. Any surcharges for credit handling shall be added to the credited customers price as a separate fee.

6. No business shall pass the cost of business to non-customers:

a. No business shall obtain tax relief for the cost of marketing.

b. No business shall obtain tax relief for charitable contributions.

c. No business shall obtain special tax waivers or other financial incentives from local government as inducements to establish or maintain that business in the jurisdiction of that locale.

d. No business shall obtain tax relief for idle, unused, or abandoned property.

f. No business shall encourage, abet, permit, or reward any solicitation of it's employees or agents for any established charity, political party, political candidate, nor any other cause; and no business shall cause any penalty or harm to employees for failure to support any cause espoused by the business, its owners, its officers, or its agencies.

It is necessary to protect and enforce our laws at the border; this is obvious to all. But it is also necessary to protect against corporate economic power in the domestic sector.

The power of economic wealth stands in direct opposition to equality; wealth seeks to concentrate itself in fewer and fewer hands along with ever increasing political power. Wealth gravitates toward the creation of a plutocratic oligarchy, a few thousand multi-millionaires manipulating marketplace economics from the shadows. The wealthy few could all too easily subvert an open political process by exercising the power of corporate influence. There needs to be checks and balances in place to prevent a wealthy elite from using corporate investor funds to enhance their personal wealth and power.

7. No business shall be permitted to influence or affect the actions and operation of the government elected and supported by the general population:

a. No business shall make contributions to political candidates or parties; neither by cash nor by direct or indirect payment for or supply of materials, supplies, facilities, labor, or services.

b. No business owner, officer, or agent thereof shall meet in secret or private with elected officials or members of their staff for any reason. Separate laws may treat of exceptions, as in the cases of family members, etc.

c. No business shall offer discounts or other consideration to political candidates or parties, or to public employees or agencies in the employ of government.

d. No U. S. business shall own property in any foreign country, including the ownership of stocks, bonds, or other investments in foreign business, activity, or endeavor.

g. No business shall hire within four years of severance any former government official of rank GS-12 or above if that official had, in his/her official capacity, engaged in or influenced any government decisions affecting the operation of that business.

8. All business endeavors shall be limited in size and power:

a. No business shall directly or indirectly employ more persons than one-half the number of adult citizens in the largest congressional district.

b. No business shall own any real property other than that required for the production and distribution of goods and services.

c. No business shall permit or encourage its officers to serve or be employed by any other business.

d. No business shall own common or voting stock in any other business; no business shall own or control another business under a separate name.

e. No manufacturing or service business shall own investments in excess of two years operating expenses.

f. No business shall pay or compensate any employee an annual wage or salary greater than twenty times that of the lowest paid or compensated employee.