I WOULD. I KNOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE BS BUT HERE’S WHY I WOULD BE BEST:
One time I wanted to run for Congress in my district.
I had a platform. I reached out to people. I started to put my team together.
I got a call from someone representing a major Presidential candidate. He said the candidate wanted to support me.
BUT FIRST, I had to hire his pollster to do polls. (“But nobody even knows me yet!” and his response: “Well, we also see what issues you need to run on.” My response: “BUT I already KNOW the issues I believe in.” …. “Nevertheless, if you want this candidate, you have to do this.” And then he told me the enormous price.)
I got disgusted. The political system in the US was garbage and the best way to change the world is to change yourself.
I focus on the process: improving my physical health, emotional health, creative health, spiritual health, and that then effects the people around me, the people around them and so on.
Save yourself before you try to save the world.
So I quit.
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This used to be the “proper” qualifications of someone who ran for President:
- They served in standard political roles in service of the country.
For example, they were in the House, Senate, Governor, Vice President (in that order or similar: think LBJ or Nixon or Ford or Clinton or Reagan or Obama or JFK, just to name a few but this tradition goes back to the beginning).
- Or they served well in the military (rarer but: Eisenhower, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington).
- They came from a political dynasty Kennedy (three Presidential candidates and one President), Clinton (two candidates and one President), Adams (two Presidents), Roosevelt (two Presidents – six terms), Harrison (two Presidents), Bush (three candidates and two Presidents), etc.
And usually they worked hard to rise up in one of two parties in our two-party system.
In fact, state by state, it’s very difficult for someone to run for President (or any office) if they are not approved by the local political machine of one of two parties.
The entire idea of the United States was to be a meritocracy where class, family connections, and the standard classist paths through the system were supposed to count for less.
Well, now it does.
Trump is President. Zero political service for the country. No real party affiliation (he’s donated equally to both over the decades).
I’m not saying this is good or bad. Clearly half the votes felt one way (populists) and half the other way (centrists).
Maybe Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates would be a great President. Maybe a great writer or intellectual would make a great president. Who knows?
But now we can finally ask the question. The door is open.
We always complain about the bureaucrats and lobbyists in Washington and the monarchistic tendencies of dynasties and yet that’s the system we always voted for.
So can someone like me run?
Well, I’m not a billionaire (Trump, Perot). And I don’t have any party affiliation.
I’m not part of a dynasty. And I’m not an intellectual who pontificates on issues from their air-conditioned home all day long on Facebook or Twitter.
I haven’t read a newspaper since 2010. Although I’m easily informed because all day long everyone on the subway argues every stupid issue.
Plus, as an investor across every industry, I’m exposed to many issues and as a parent and a son I am exposed to many issues baked into the system.
I want to run for President and I think I have ideas that are easy to implement and would help the country in enormous ways.
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THE JAMES ALTUCHER FOR PRESIDENT PLATFORM:
OVERALL PHILOSOPHY:
- Reduce massive debt
- Save the middle class from it’s downward trend (which always historically ends in violence)
- Reduce corruption
- Reduce medical costs
- Reduce risk in financial system and cyber attacks
- Reduce the risk of fascism which leads to nationalism and war
- Increase opportunities for young entrepreneurs to restore meritocracy to US
- Bring back innovation to the US, which has the ultimate “trickle-down” effect. I use those loaded words because it’s more applicable here.
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HOW I WOULD DO THIS?
I don’t care if people agree on every issue.
With political parties it’s almost as if everyone has to agree on the exact same 40 or 50 issues.
The reality is: we all have only one or two issues we care strongly about.
It’s impossible for everyone to have the same agreement and level of importance on all issues which is what makes political parties so ridiculous.
Find a candidate who has common sense and even if they don’t always agree with you, put your faith in that common sense.
Here is my common sense and I am in the continual process of learning more about it:
NO WAR:
Get us out of our 17-year war in Afghanistan and other military “adventures” that are killing our teenagers and killing foreign teenagers.
I have a teenager legally qualified to fight in a war. Do I really think she can sit behind a tank and bomb people?
Of course not. And yet the system allows it.
Saves hundreds of billions on defense spending reduces the impact of the defense lobby.
Most importantly: will end the tragedy of the 22 SUICIDES A DAY being committed by our brave and patriotic returning veterans.
POSSIBLE PROBLEM: Will this make countries think they can push us around?
ANSWER: Not at all. With increased resources, there are dozens, if not hundreds of tactics we can use to diplomatically and stealthily “police” the world which America has historically done.
FREE TRADE:
Tariffs only reduce opportunities in jobs in every country around the globe.
Tariffs destroy markets (basic historic example: Smoot-Hawley in 1929 caused the Great Depression).
But won’t it allow countries to undercut our prices on basic products?
Yes, let them. Why should an iPhone cost $5,000? If it costs $200 this increases the resources and wealth of the middle class, which is the source of future innovation in America.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Just like municipal bond profits are often “tax-free” let’s make trade finance opportunities more available to the public and make them tax-free.
Creating wealth out of the increase in trade that comes from reduced tariffs.
More wealth in the country leads to more jobs.
BAN THE FDA:
The Food and Drug Administration is what approves pharmaceutical drugs and sets the rules on illegal drugs such as marijuana (still federally illegal), heroin, cocaine, etc.
Four problems with the FDA:
- RISING MEDICAL COSTS:
If you have a small company with a potential cancer-curing drug it will often take TEN YEARS and over TWO BILLION DOLLARS, before the FDA approves that drug.
This is why drug costs could be as high as $60,000 a month for the cures of certain diseases. Companies have to recoup that one cost.
2. THE FDA DOESN’T WORK:
People ask me: but doesn’t the FDA save us from bad drugs?
I don’t know. Drug recalls (and medical device recalls) are at an all time high because of poor FDA decision making.
(drug recalls)
Why is this happening? Because the costs are so high, the lobbying industry is much more active, causing bad decisions in the FDA.
Let’s privatize the clinical research and testing. The best and most honest companies will rise to the top and we will get better, faster, and more accurate testing of drugs (or, at least, AS accurate, given the number of current recalls).
Costs will be reduced by BILLIONS across the entire medical industry. Millions of lives will be saved and the middle class will have more disposable income.
3. THE NUMBER ONE SOURCE OF BANKRUPTCY FILINGS IN AMERICA:
Unpaid medical bills.
That ends now.
4. BURDEN ON THE PRISON SYSTEM:
Marijuana, which will soon be legal, is a multi-billion cost on the prison system.
Heroin addictions are creating a crisis among teenagers simply because it’s a crime and can’t be adequately addressed. And so on.
THE GOVERNMENT WILL STOP BACKING STUDENT LOAN DEBT:
Student loan debt has gone from $200 billion in 2003 to $1.5 TRILLION right now.
20 million Americans have student loan debt and it is the one form of debt you can’t get rid of in a bankruptcy. This is a shame.
Meanwhile, income for young people ages 18-35 has gone down while tuitions and debt have gone up higher than inflation EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR since 1977.
Result: an entire generation of entrepreneurs, inventors, creatives, artists, will disappear. The source of all growth in the United States for over 200 years.
BUT, people ask: don’t kids have a right to college?
YES! But two things:
- It’s the government backing of student loan debt that has led to the increase in tuitions (why not increase if the government is paying? is the thought of college).
SOLUTION: Let’s increase supply.
2. Price (tuitions) are a function of supply and demand.
There are many many great online universities that are “unaccredited”. Khan, Coursera, Udemy, etc.
Let’s make them all accredited, which gives middle class students (the majority of students) access to great educations (better educations) with far fewer costs.
VOTING:
Allow people to vote from home, online. This will increase voter participation and reduce the effects of other countries “meddling”, a big problem in the US.
Also: Do not restrict who can be on the ballot. This will reduce the need for a false two party system.
LOBBYING INDUSTRY:
This one is a bit far-fetched but it will work.
Require congressmen in the House of Representatives to only vote on House issues while physically in the districts they represent.
This will end the lobbying industry (since you can no longer wine and dine everyone in a day or two in Washington DC).
And this will keep congressmen closer to the very constituents they are supposed to represent.
THE ENTIRE REASON there is a “Capitol Hill” where they all vote is because 200 years ago there were no phones and no internet so all debate and voting had to happen in one building.
This thinking is obviously grossly outdated.
FLAT TAX:
I don’t care what the tax is. But make it flat to reduce the unbearable weight on the tax industry, from the IRS to the citizens.
“Flat taxes” are often considered to benefit the rich. Trust me, Bill Gates doesn’t pay a dime of taxes on his $100 billion (because he sets up tax-free charitable trusts like every other wealthy person).
High taxes hurt the middle class. Not the upper class or the lower class.
But one addition: INCREASE sales tax on vices and luxuries. A “luxury” can be any item costing $50,000 or more (other than a house or an education).
A vice can be anything that has on it’s label. “May cause cancer”.
CYBER DEFENSE:
Here’s what they don’t tell you:
Almost every Fortune 500 company is “infested” with “bot armies” put there by unknown hackers from around the world.
Think of a bot army as a terrorist sleeper cell. At any point it can wake up and all of the bots will start acting in unison for whatever purpose the hacker wants them to do.
The US utility grid (and the electric grids of almost every other country) are under constant attack from hackers. The weak points are 20-year-old routers with un-patched security holes.
Most of the apps on your phone have access to your video camera and don’t need to tell you when they activate it and observe you. Same for your audio.
And many more issues.
We are behind on cyber defense while we’ve been poring hundreds of billions into a 17 year war in Afghanistan.
What solves the terrorism problems in a country like Afghanistan?
Help their citizens achieve economic growth.
No parent will send their child to do a suicide attack if they are upward trending economic citizens. Increase trade with the secular populations of problem countries.
Then divert our enormous defense money to entrepreneurship in the cyber defense sector, which is grossly underfunded.
The US is in an intensely secret war and is losing every day.
PEER TO PEER LENDING TAX-FREE (like municipal bonds):
Treat small businesses (the sources of most jobs and all innovation in the country) the way we treat infrastructure projects.
Allow individuals to lend and make the interest payments tax-free.
So all of the billionaires putting their money in tax-free trusts that are locked up will stop insisting that the US government pays for a Universal Basic Income and instead the billionaires will see more financial opportunities in supporting small businesses.
PAPER MONEY LINKED TO BLOCKCHAIN:
Many countries (famously Germany in the ’20s, South America in the ’80s, Asia and Russia in the ’90s, etc.) have been entirely wiped out (causing war and violence) when human error and corruption caused their currencies to be evaporated.
Linking money to some sort of blockchain technology will reduce the risk of human error, increase privacy of transactions, reduce forgery (a big problem), and make the banking system cheaper for individuals (reducing inflation in the financial system).
I’m not saying, “Go bitcoin!” I’m just saying let’s study the use of this technology based on thousands of years of science and how it can improve the stability of our overall financial system.
Areas that would benefit: everything from inflation to simplification of taxes to fraud to improving the contract law industry.
Additionally, this reduces the enormous costs of supporting a bloated IRS and Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve.
FEDERAL BACKING OF COMMUNITY PROJECTS TO BUILD FIBER NETWORKS:
The US is not even in the top nine of countries in terms of speed of internet. Our cities are turning into ghost towns as entrepreneurs move to cities with faster and easier internet access.
Rather than backing student loans, ruining a generation of potential entrepreneurs, back cities with loans to lay down fiber networks.
Don’t let all the wealth of the country go to Silicon Valley. Let’s make every city a potential Silicon Valley.
STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS:
20 million people in the US are over-burdened by ridiculous student loans. All student loans forgiven.
This saves the middle class and will be balanced by increased tax revs and productivity of the increase in entrepreneurs who are no longer burdened by the debt.
The cost: $1.4 trillion. Which can be paid for in one day by an even more aggressive tax holiday for companies repatriating money from overseas.
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HOW TO WIN:
The average Presidential campaign winner spends $2 billion on his or her campaign.
This is ridiculous. It requires so many more skill sets to win an election than the skill sets needed to provide good governing abilities. .
Nor is it necessary.
When I was selling my crypto-education product to teach people about blockchain, bitcoin, and help people avoid scam currencies, we spent a tiny tiny percentage of that and generated over 3 BILLION impressions on our ads.
We “broke the internet” and spent hardly any of the money normally required to win a Presidential campaign.
We can use the same technology to run a massive and targeted political campaign.
WHY ME:
I have spent 20 years helping people with millions of books sold, articles read, podcasts, etc.
My main focus: improve yourself before you can improve the world.
I’ve built up an enormous network of successful people from every industry that can help me more deeply understand the important issues. No President ever started in office with a lobbyist-free understanding of all of the important issues.
And I see the disaster that is happening in America (begun decades ago and not the fault of any one individual).
It’s time to think a little bit different.
And heck, if not me, then you.
You can run for President now.