Norm’s

Plank Bank

Copyright © 2026 Norman Sperling. All rights reserved. [except the Buffet item, because it is not mine. Its copyright might belong to Buffet or CNBC, or it may be in the Public Domain, I don’t know.]

I do not hold any public office. I’m not running for any office anywhere. My background: EverythingInTheUniverse.com

Candidates for office traditionally tell what public policies they stand for and against, forming the “platform” they stand on (also called their “manifesto”). Parties and candidates compile their own platforms. Many seek issues that their voters should like, and that distinguish them from rivals.

Candidates for any position, anywhere, are invited to advocate planks from this responsible, professional, and reality-based menu. Most fall outside the attitudes of parties and rarely contradict them. Some are really big deals, others address small annoyances. Voters should recognize these planks are fresh and blatantly good. Before you advocate standards for other people, make sure you comply with them yourself.

Permitted Usages Spelled Out

Anyone can use this PlankBank for free! … though if you violate these Terms of Service, that permission can be revoked.

TERMS OF SERVICE

Acknowledge this source, such as “As suggested by Norm Sperling, EverythingInTheUniverse.com/PlankBank”. If I’m merely a messenger for an idea from a different source, such as Buffet’s, acknowledge that source instead.

Tell me about any plank you use, so I can log candidates and dates with each plank. Tell me the public reaction and election result. Also include the following obligation:

Enactment of anything on this list by any government or group: Pay me or my heirs $1,000 per enactment. I’m making your affairs better, I need you to make mine better. Let me post, or link to, your legal phrasing, so others can copy and adapt without reinventing the wheel.

Creators using any of these ideas for “what-if” fiction or other art should include a character named “Norm” or “Sperling”, or visually resembling me, somewhere in the work. (lots of pictures in EverythingInTheUniverse.com/Selfies) (I wonder what roles and characterizations these people will have.)

Consulting, Speaking, or Writing: Do you want more of my services, beyond simply copying or adapting planks published here for free? Hire me as a consultant, speaker, or writer. Tell me what you want and I’ll tell you what I’ll charge. I am not a candidate for any office. 2026 rate: typically $1,000/day plus reasonable expenses. normsperling@gmail.com .

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New Housing:

Fast, Affordable, Close to Work

Posted April 2026

Housing prices far exceed anything reasonable, or socially justifiable. Crowded markets raise rents unreasonably, which inflates the prices of everything sold there.

Workers face hours of commuting. Close-to-work housing would decrease rush hour traffic so we don’t need expensive highway expansions.

Reducing rents 30% while holding income steady, should make everyone much more secure.

Homeowners, whose investments rise, have been too greedy. Towns with narrow-minded laws that covet property taxes collude in that greed. Holders of rental property won’t voluntarily decrease their assets, so we need to maneuver a whole lot more housing near work sites without their help, and expecting their opposition. Over-ride anti-social zoning on a regional scale.

There’s lots of land available if we decide to make it available. Build on empty fringes of companies, highways, interchanges, parks, reservoirs, unused rights-of-way, and big-enough land of any shape. Also, rezone and convert into housing any building that has stood empty for at least 1 year.

New Housing Ready in a Month

Start the fastest, easiest way: Travel-trailers, 5th-wheel trailers, and recreational vehicles (RVs/campers) can drive in right away and hook up very fast. All they need is a pad, and hookups for electricity, water, and sewer. Scads of used rigs, many quite fancy, are expensively parked in storage clusters. Would-be users and current owners can agree on whatever sale or rent makes sense to them. Depending on landscaping and the lay of the land, trailers can be inserted, clustered, or fringed, with attractive greenery. With an appropriate slope or crane, units can be lifted into a girder framework several stories tall, with a central elevator and utility piping. It can be made stylish and attractive, unlike the dystopian “Stacks” in Ready Player 1. As soon as rigs should go, simply drive them away.

If time-limited, such as a 2-year occupancy with a firm end, the jurisdiction MUST provide at least the same amount of hard-shelled, anchored housing before that time runs out, or the time limit is automatically overridden till there is enough housing.

New Housing Ready in a Year

Any building of any type that has lain vacant for more than 1 year can be rezoned and offered for housing. Convert empty offices, warehouses, factories, and shopping centers to residence: punch a few light-courts down the interior, and attach side-towers of bathrooms and kitchens to boost the plumbing and embellish brutalist flat sides. Conversion or replacement must obey health and safety rules. Install so many near work sites that rents and rush-hours decrease 30%.

New Housing Over a Year or 2

On vacant land you can build multi-story units, units with small yards instead of big, etc.

The market will stop building more housing when they stop finding more customers, so law should not be needed to pause or stop more conversions.

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Fans Can Keep Their Teams

And Oust Fleeing Owners

Posted April 2026

Norm’s Note: As a 3-time loser, I feel strongly about this! I was abandoned by the Senators I, Senators II, and Athletics. Leagues seeking new markets shouldn’t tell us established fans that we’re not wanted anymore; spread with expansion teams.

Revise the agreements between leagues and their host regions, so that when an established sports franchise threatens to move, the fans from the team’s metro area can vote to oust the owner and keep their team. Find new local owners, or make it civic like Green Bay. But also guarantee selling enough tickets, swag, and so on to pay for team needs.

Voters in this non-government election must include active, vocal, knowledgeable fans who can’t vote in government elections, such as non-citizens, and those in youth sports. Vote at Little League fields for baseball, high school fields for football, high school gyms for basketball, and ice rinks for hockey. (Each voting-day is also a great time to buy-and-sell used sport-wear, so provide swap-meet tables.)

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The Grand Central Backbones

Posted April 2026

This doesn’t need any new law, just do it.

Compromise was once a cherished hallmark of The American Way. Restore that status. Brutal absolutist partisanship has proven that it doesn’t work. Stand up straight for what’s right. Elect officials who have the spine to withstand partisan bullying. Fortunately, that’s a treasured trait in America. Indiana Republicans stood up straight and rejected gerrymandering in December 2025.

Issue-by-issue, form coalitions around strong stand-up leaders near the middle of current consensus: “The Grand Central Backbones”. Gang up against party straightjackets. Pass laws reflecting public consensus.

Pass budgets that not only appropriate money but (in court-proof language) require it to be spent and exercised as prescribed. Yes, we do want responsible, professional public employees doing those jobs.

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Abolish the Electoral College

Posted April 2026

Switch to direct nationwide popular vote for teams of candidates for president-and-vice-president. Use the same rules for electing presidents as for governors, senators, and representatives. This issue strikes lots of sporadic sparks across the country, so unify them.

One consequence will be for campaigning outside the “swing” states that could go either way. More votes where they already have a majority will count. More votes where they’re in the minority will count just as much.

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Justice and Courts

Posted April 2026

Courts operate much too slowly. Appeals span decades. Delay is a standard procedure for criminals to wriggle out of legal tangles. “Justice delayed is justice denied”. All cases must go to trial within 6 months after filing charges. Neither officials nor companies can delay cases. If they don’t have enough time to prepare, they should hire enough preparers to do the job, or change preparation procedures to fit.

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NOBODY is Above the Law

Posted April 2026

Rule of law: NOBODY is above the law, including presidents and judges and police. Standards of proof should be identical with those for everybody else. Punishment for violations should be stiffer than everybody else’s to factor-in the betrayal of public trust.

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Criminal DNA

Posted April 2026

All death-row and life-sentence convicts should have DNA-matching to confirm identity; to test for innocence; and to match to unknown perpetrators (some are probably multiple offenders, this will reveal how many). Add other convicts and accused who consent, or from whom DNA has already been legally obtained. When superior testing replaces current methods, switch to the better way.

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Modern Technicalities Demand Officials Who Understand Them

Posted April 2026

Technical people make Technology and Science work and advance. We have seen for decades that government and business leaders don’t understand enough Science and Technology to be competent in this technical world.

My satirical example from chemistry:

People who can’t distinguish silicon from silicone from silicate

are invited to show off their silicate implants

while prancing around Silicone Valley.

People who passed chemistry courses should get a good laugh at the expense of the clueless. [end of this satire]

Public officials must understand technicalities, in chemistry, psychology, biology, etc., and their mathematics, like flow rates, doses, and compound interest. Passing college science courses is a classic way to acquire basic competence, but that can also be done through personal interest, hobbies, apprenticeships, and other means. Grill candidates on their understanding of technical issues.

While we’re at it, embarrass and disqualify suckers who push pseudoscience and quackery.

Technical scientific issues in court should be decided by judges and juries who understand the technical science.

A marker for a bad attitude for decision-makers is “tl;dr” (“too long, didn’t read”). Decision-makers MUST meticulously evaluate every detail going into their decisions. If they don’t know enough, or their attitude skips full input, find somebody else who is competent to decide.

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Agencies Should Own

Some of the Money They Earn

Posted April 2026

Agencies should be allowed to earn income from their work: admission fees, logo ware, selling media, … NASA is perhaps the most popular government agency in the world, but is not allowed to collect money for its imagery, logo, etc. It could rent out Moon rocks. Government programs that bring in more money than they spend should get to apply 90% of their income that is not from taxes to their own expenses. Many medical and scientific programs save much more than they spend, if you simply count realistically-long time spans.

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Warren Buffet on Deficit Spending

This one isn’t mine and is not subject to my rules.

Credit the source, *Warren Buffet**, whom I highly respect.*

“I could end the deficit in five minutes,” he told CNBC’s Becky Quick in a 2011 interview. “You just pass a law that says that any time there’s a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

Norm’s © comments: Failure of Congress in its Constitutional duty to pass a full annual budget, nor even, several times, continuing resolutions, shows the embarrassing gross failure of the political parties. Having failed to do their jobs, senators and representatives should not be continued in those jobs!

Also note that Buffet spoke hyperbole: 3% is arbitrary, it takes longer than 5 minutes to pass a law, and many other criteria could be invoked.

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NASCAR Vest

Posted April 2026

This one doesn’t need a law, just do it.

People have suggested — tongue-in-cheek — that candidates wear NASCAR-style jump-suits with names and logos of what they support. Make it so.

I recommend a vest … which might give a new literal meaning to “vested interests”. Or maybe a sweater.

On the front, strut names and logos of what you support and what you oppose. Behind, tell who endorses you and who donates heavily — your backers, and who’s got your back.

This would be a catchy stunt on the campaign trail, especially in contrast to opponents with negative logos, or who don’t talk about their “dark money”. Display each campaign’s vest in your office ever after.

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The Corps of Engineers

Posted April 2026

The “Army” Corps of Engineers does a lot of important work, but only 5% of the people doing their work are actually in the Defense Department, so the Corps shouldn’t be. Find better fits in civilian agencies, some in Transportation, some in Interior, perhaps in the Bureau of Reclamation, and regional and state authorities.

Free them from pork-barrel projects, which often should not be done at all. I drove West Virginia Route 55, a beautiful, expensive, lonely highway where hardly anyone seems to want to go.

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Save the Largest Analog Computers Ever Built

Posted April 2026

Save the Mississippi River model in Jackson, and the San Francisco Bay model in Sausalito, which are the largest analog computers ever built, by transferring them to the National Park Service as historical technology.

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Return the District of Columbia

to Maryland

Posted April 2026

Retrocede the District of Columbia back to Maryland, just as the south-of-the-Potomac portion was retroceded back to Virginia in 1846-47 to form Arlington County. The Federal government should continue to maintain, police, and service its own properties. Turn the rest into a new, restored, or redistricted county of Maryland. All resident US citizens must be entitled to full voting and representation. This won’t change the number of senators or the electoral vote majority, but would merely shift population and their Representatives and electoral votes from DC to Maryland. This lack-of-change and following of precedent should ease approval.

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Flags of Convenience

Are Flags of Deceit

Posted April 2026

Ships’ “flags of convenience” evade responsibility and should be abolished. Only recognize the nationalities of the owner, and of the shipper hiring that particular voyage. The United States should noisily clean up its own act, and upon completion, tell the rest of the world we no longer recognize their coverups.

Shell corporations are often used to obscure responsibility, too. Each must clearly state which people are responsible.

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Delete Restrictive Covenants

Posted April 2026

Many property deeds, and certain other legal contracts, include “restrictive covenants” to exclude people of target races or religions. Those have been “legally unenforceable” since 1948. Yet, the legal profession resists deleting the shameful restrictions. Pass laws that irretrievably remove all such “covenants”, whatever they may be called or however phrased.

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Don’t Tell Me

What the Speed Limit Isn’t

Posted in Plank form in April 2026, having been posted in blog form in 2014.

No new laws needed, just do it.

I drove past a sign that said “End 45 mph speed limit”. I don’t care what the speed limit isn’t. I need to know what the speed limit is.

You can’t be sure that the limit is now higher; some places that look like high-speed areas are posted much slower. You just have to guess, and the only actual number you know is the one they definitely say is wrong: the previous limit. The authorities treat citizens as prey, sticking their tongues out, “nyaah nyaah, bet you can’t guess what we’ll ticket you for.”

Truthful, informative signs should cost the same to make. Changing them would cost little, but of course we should have avoided the cost of making useless signs in the first place. Charge that to the people who caused those useless signs. I suspect they were lawyers.

As everyone else can easily tell, this isn’t fair at all. So judges should:

Void all speeding convictions between the “end speed limit” sign and the next sign that DOES tell the new limit, for under the region’s top limit. (Hellions going 90 mph where nowhere’s over 65 deserve their punishments.)
Refund fines and costs, with interest, for reversed convictions.
Clear convictions from victims’ records, and reverse problems they cascaded to (Disemployment? A third strike? Deportation?).
Punish officers who ticketed the victims of the befuddling signage; if the officers are also innocent victims, warnings placed in their files might suffice.
Hold officials who approved the befuddling signage in contempt of court until fully corrected.
Prohibit any present or future signage that could confuse drivers when it could just tell the plain rules.

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Restore Stock Shares From Betting Chips Back Into Investments

Posted April 2026

Stock shares are meant to be investments in specific companies, valued by the years-long value of the whole company. Financiers hijacked stock shares to use as betting chips. Short-sighted investors who only seek break-up loot have squashed, dismembered, or devalued many worthy companies triggered by momentary fluctuations in stock prices. That hollows out the institutional structure and memory of America.

Permit each share of stock to be traded no more than 10 times in any running 25-year period.

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Make Tech Revisions Much Safer and Longer-Lasting

Posted April 2026

No new laws needed, just do it. If they don’t, push with laws.

The current practice of insufficient software and hardware testing, rushed turnaround, new versions every 8-20 months … opens us users to cybercrimes by crooked hackers, gangs, and countries. Instead, hardware models and software versions should be durable and secure, designed and written to NOT expire automatically. Versions and models should NOT be re-issued in less than 3 years. Redirect industry efforts to super security. Super-defend everything against bugs and worms and viruses and backdoors and zero-days and other attacks.

Allied with that: allow a sure-to-be-popular option to require every update for safety and security and continued use to be free and required, devoid of bloatware. Companies can also offer enrichment at their own prices, offering “improvements”, if they wish, but software and hardware that already works must keep working. Prohibit cutting off “support” for things that still work. Otherwise it violates the “merchantability” condition of the Uniform Commercial Code: selling something that doesn’t work very long.

Standard routing protocol, old Perl script, and more, need long-term, bullet-proof replacement. Industry itself should shoulder this task without forcing government to force them.

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Hire me for speaking, consulting, expert testimony, short jobs and projects, and boards. Topics include astronomy and science; editing, history, education, business, baseball, and wit.

Email: normsperling@gmail.com. Postal: 2625 Alcatraz Avenue #235, Berkeley, California 94705 USA.

Made with Squarespace

Norm’s

Plank Bank

Copyright © 2026 Norman Sperling. All rights reserved. [except the Buffet item, because it is not mine. Its copyright might belong to Buffet or CNBC, or it may be in the Public Domain, I don’t know.]

Permitted Usages Spelled Out

TERMS OF SERVICE

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New Housing:

Fast, Affordable, Close to Work

Posted April 2026

New Housing Ready in a Month

New Housing Ready in a Year

New Housing Over a Year or 2

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Fans Can Keep Their Teams

And Oust Fleeing Owners

Posted April 2026

Norm’s Note: As a 3-time loser, I feel strongly about this! I was abandoned by the Senators I, Senators II, and Athletics. Leagues seeking new markets shouldn’t tell us established fans that we’re not wanted anymore; spread with expansion teams.

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The Grand Central Backbones

Posted April 2026

This doesn’t need any new law, just do it.

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Abolish the Electoral College

Posted April 2026

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Justice and Courts

Posted April 2026

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NOBODY is Above the Law

Posted April 2026

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Criminal DNA

Posted April 2026

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Modern Technicalities Demand Officials Who Understand Them

Posted April 2026

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Agencies Should Own

Some of the Money They Earn

Posted April 2026

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Warren Buffet on Deficit Spending

This one isn’t mine and is not subject to my rules.

Credit the source, Warren Buffet, whom I highly respect.

Also note that Buffet spoke hyperbole: 3% is arbitrary, it takes longer than 5 minutes to pass a law, and many other criteria could be invoked.

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NASCAR Vest

Posted April 2026

This one doesn’t need a law, just do it.

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The Corps of Engineers

Posted April 2026

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Save the Largest Analog Computers Ever Built

Posted April 2026

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Return the District of Columbia

to Maryland

Posted April 2026

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Flags of Convenience

Are Flags of Deceit

Posted April 2026

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Delete Restrictive Covenants

Posted April 2026

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Don’t Tell Me

What the Speed Limit Isn’t

Posted in Plank form in April 2026, having been posted in blog form in 2014.

No new laws needed, just do it.

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Restore Stock Shares From Betting Chips Back Into Investments

Posted April 2026

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Make Tech Revisions Much Safer and Longer-Lasting

Posted April 2026

No new laws needed, just do it. If they don’t, push with laws.

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Credit the source, *Warren Buffet**, whom I highly respect.*