Money: Angles Let's Get Moving!

By Andy Tobias

We are embattled economically, competing with people like the Koreans and Mexicans, who are willing to work harder for less, and the Japanese, who study more diligently, save more and spend less. We shouldn't begrudge their efforts to prosper, we should applaud them. But to prosper ourselves, we need to be as efficient as possible -- personally (turn off the TV if no one's watching it!), corporately and governmentally.

Here are just a few of the things we could do:

1. NCNB, now merged with C&S/Sovran, is about to change its name to NationsBank. Stop! Wasteful! Think of all those signs that need to be redone, all that stationery, all those forms. It's a huge undertaking, and for what? Far better simply to change the name to the Nation's Cutest, Nicest Bank . . . NCNB. This will save millions of dollars, and may even fool some folks into thinking NCNB, with its Marine Corps culture, is nice and cute.

2. We have a ridiculous auto insurance system. Why sell auto insurance one policy at a time when we require almost everyone, by law, to buy it? States should adopt "Pay-at-the-Pump Private No-Fault Auto Insurance" plans that would collect the same premiums we currently collect -- but automatically, efficiently, at the gas pump. (Claims would be handled just as they are now, by State Farm, Allstate and the like. But they would bid for blocks of business, much as they now bid for group health insurance business.) You will be hearing more about this, because all the obvious objections (What about electric cars? Bad drivers? Collision coverage? Driving across state lines?) have simple, efficient solutions. Cutting the selling costs out of auto insurance would save 15 cents of each premium dollar; cutting out the lawyers would save 25 cents more. The lawyers and insurance agents hate this plan, but what does that tell you? (Side effects: by collecting the premium at the pump instead of through the mail -- adding it to the price of gas -- you provide an incentive to use less gas. And that means less pollution, less traffic, less dependence on foreign oil, less American wealth siphoned overseas.)

3. The leading cause of preventable death in America, and a major contributor to our competitively crippling health care costs, is smoking. The tobacco companies claim they don't want kids to start smoking, that they spend $3 billion a year advertising in the U.S. merely to get people to switch brands. Fine. Let's give them antitrust exemption to agree among themselves: no more advertising or promotion of any kind. Market shares would be frozen where they are, and the companies would have an extra $3 billion a year in profits. How can they complain about that? Smoking should obviously be legal, but why on earth spend billions a year, using tennis pros and cartoon characters, to tell 8- and 10- and 12-year-olds that smoking is cool, sexy and athletic?

4. Turn off the TV even if people are watching it! Too many of our kids are growing up brain dead. Make them do something. If they can read, pay them to tutor kids who can't (then charge them rent, to get the pay back, so you're not out-of-pocket). Sound tough? Hey, Perdue's right: it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.

5. Cap residential real estate commissions at 5%, thus adding an instant 1% to the value of every home in America and, at the same time, making real estate sales -- which produce nothing -- a little less attractive relative to teaching, which is where we really want to attract our best people. There's already tacit "price-fixing" among real estate agents -- the standard 6% commission -- so this would just fix the price a little lower. With home prices having consistently outstripped inflation for decades, until recently, real estate commissions were outstripping inflation too. Meanwhile, pay for most other lines of work, like teaching, barely kept pace. Do we want our best people selling real estate or molding young lives? Which will make America more prosperous and competitive?

6. Make Social Security income fully taxable, just like any other kind of income. It would be no hardship on the poor; because of the graduated tax system, they'd pay no tax. It would be no hardship for the rich; they can afford it. For those in the middle, it would sting and so should be phased in gradually. But faced with catastrophic deficits, and limited resources, we can't afford to provide government assistance to people who don't absolutely need it. And we certainly can't afford to provide it tax-free. (Yes, I know you paid into the system for decades; but the price you paid was based on your living to 70, or thereabouts, not 90, and on providing a subsistence safety net, not a substitute for personal savings.)

7. Slash the capital gains tax on new investments -- but not on real estate or "trading" profits, only on profits made from investing in newly issued stock and bonds.

8. Pass right-to-die laws, not only because a person should have control over his or her body, but also because it's crazy to spend a fortune on unwanted medical care in the last months of life when we haven't the resources to nurture all our children adequately in the first months and years, where the impact lasts a lifetime.

9. Turn underutilized military bases into drug-rehabilitation camps -- it's nuts that people who want to enter drug-rehab programs are turned away -- and, well, lots more (rebuild the infrastructure; put more computers in schools; provide financial aid for any kid who gets into college, repaid out of earnings). But the main thing, I think, is to get moving! And those signs. How about this: Notoriously Competitive 'N Big . . . NCNB.