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There are two kinds of death penalty in this country. One of them I bet you’ve never really thought about.

First there’s the death penalty imposed by the state for particularly heinous crimes. This one’s been churning for decades – we all know about it, and many of us have strong feelings about it. In 1978, for example, California voters passed an initiative authorizing capital punishment for an expanded list of crimes. A few days ago, a coalition of organizations announced they had collected enough signatures to put a measure on the November ballot that would ban the death penalty in California. Make no mistake: this is one of those social issues that inspire passions of biblical proportions. Whichever way voters go on this, it’ll be an intense, high visibility campaign... over the fate of 719 people on California's Death Row. In 2011, California executed two people; three in 2010.

Then there’s the death penalty almost nobody ever mentions, but claims many more victims – all of them innocent.

I’m talking about the one carried out on a daily basis by corporations that put profits over people’s lives. Consider the death toll that results when insurance companies refuse to sell a health insurance policy at a reasonable price. A study by Harvard researchers concludes that nearly 45,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance and go without the care they need. About 5,300 of those are in California – more than the number of homicides and suicides in the state combined.

Deaths due to malpractice by medical personnel in hospitals alone are estimated at 195,000 annually.

Water, air and soil pollution is reported to be responsible for forty percent of all deaths worldwide.

Most of the corporate policies reflected in these statistics on fatalities are based on a simple financial calculus of profit v. loss. The prototypical example is the decision by Ford executives in the 1970s to manufacture a car with a known fatal defect: a gas tank that could explode in the event of a moderate car accident. The company’s engineers were aware of the flaw, but the cost of the repair – $11 per vehicle – was deemed too expensive. Ford decided it’d be cheaper to pay the medical and court costs of the victims and their next of kin. You can read Ford’s cost/benefit analysis here.

Who knows how many Americans have died an early death after losing their jobs, their homes and their life savings in the financial collapse engineered by Wall Street speculators four years ago?

Why isn't there more discussion of this form of capital punishment? As I explained in a book on medical malpractice years ago, mayhem perpetrated behind closed doors in the suites isn’t as accessible, nor as easily translated into graphic videos and television news stories, as is crime in the streets.

“Corporations are people,” Mitt Romney candidly explained to an angry American last year. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United indisputably granted these inanimate creatures the freedom of speech that once belonged to humans only. Abetted by government incompetence or deliberate inaction, some corporations have gained even greater power: the power to make life or death decisions for many Americans.

I don’t mean to diminish the importance of the debate over the death penalty here in California; the point made by the supporters of the new initiative to ban capital punishment is that a relatively small number of prisoners are costing everyone else a ridiculous amount of money. But we citizens ought to pay at least the same amount of attention to the de facto death penalty that corporate greed can impose.

The US deficit is estimated at $1.5 trillion. In Washington, the debate is between raising taxes or cutting spending. Neither is necessary, if we take advantage of America’s greatest asset, the Star Spangled Banner.

In dire straits after the Wall Street debacle, many governments across the United States and throughout the world are being pressed to sell public assets – buildings, utilities, trains, even highways. Just last year, Governor Action Hero tried to sell off California courthouses and other historical landmarks to a private consortium for $2.33 billion. Naming rights on sports stadiums and convention centers have always been a revenue strategy for municipalities and closely associated private firms like Anschutz Entertainment Group, which wants to build a football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. In addition to seeking tax breaks from the city, the firm has already sold the stadium's naming rights to Farmers Insurance for $700 million.

Why not rent some or all of Old Glory on a daily basis to pay off the debt we have racked up to bail out Wall Street?

Here’s the math.

There are fifty stars on the flag (each one added when a state entered the Union). So if those stars were to be made “available” on a daily basis, there would be at least 18,250 “opportunities” every year (50 x 365).

Divide the deficit by 18,250, and we could eliminate the federal debt in one year if each star were offered up at the price of $82 million ($82,191,780.08, to be exact).

Sure, that’s hefty price, you might say. Who would pay it?

Answer: the folks who got America into this mess in the first place.

So let’s say J.P. Morgan Chase wanted the highly prestigious opportunity to occupy the entire flag for one day each year. Here’s what that might look like:

As a special inducement to pay $4 billion, companies that agreed to take the entire flag for a day could also be given the right to put some text on one of the stripes. It could be the company's most important message:

Or anything its CEO might desire:

Some may object that it is inappropriate to put the American Flag in the hands of big corporations. First of all, like the United States Supreme Court said in its Citizens United decision applying freedom of expression to corporations, all Americans will have equal freedom to buy access to the flag for $82 million per star. Corporations are Americans, too. Second, these companies own the United States anyhow, so what’s the biggie?

What about foreign countries? Should we rent the Stars and Stripes to our trading partners, the Chinese? If so, should we require them to write in English, or should we allow them to use Chinese characters?

That’s a tough question, and like all decisions concerning the American Flag Deficit Reduction Program, should be decided by the United States Congress.

Which, by the way, has a spectacular building in a prime location that would be highly attractive to certain firms. Consider this on the East Face of the Capitol Building:

"Congress. Brought to you today by Goldman Sachs."

Just think about it.

Capital Punishment by Corporate Proxy

The American Flag Deficit Reduction Program