Blazing trails of inspiration so others may pave better ways.
On towards best!
Dedicated to the freedom of speech, press, and the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A Collection of Articles By Royal Griffin Publishing, Duke Johnson, and Ting Tsu Yu.
Book updated July, 2023
Compiled Sequence & Original Release Dates:
Compassionate Meritocracy - September, 2022
Visions Of Concepts - May, 2021
Creative Currency Octaves & UBI - June, 2022
The Blue Print - January, 2015
Creator Currency Octaves & UBI - January, 2017
Inverse Elite - February, 2017
CurrentSea X-Change - April, 2016
Compassionate Meritocracy - A Socio-Political-Economic ideology where humans are provided the essentials for decent and peaceful living at a basic level; and economic prosperity and political influence can be earned by those who possess the skill, talent, drive, spirit, etc. to achieve, as opposed to those who wield political influence gained by inheritance, nepotism, wealth, corruption, theft, force - especially via violence, or any other subversive, covert, or overt means.
Compassionism - Economically, under a compassionate meritocracy, extreme poverty becomes obsolete where no financial suffering (from lack of housing, utilities, or food) exists, and the deserving actualize their potential without unnecessary obstacles. By means of Basic Income with Creative Currency Octaves, motivations are provided for individual achievement, incentives are offered for collective participation, and efficiency is rewarded to reduce waste and unnecessary work.
Of course economic strain could be brought about through famine, foreign hostility, natural disasters, medical or other emergencies, however in times of peace and stability, appropriate abundance is attainable, and overall work requirements become less demanding. Free market forces lead to increased compensation for essential labor, likely leading to fewer overall wage hours worked per week per person, and/or fewer years worked per job.
Continuing education, creative expression, innovation, and enterprising activities are encouraged, especially those efforts that benefit others and society in general - leading to more labors of love, crafts of desire, and passion-project volunteerism that enhances the culture.
Common sense social alignment by choice, not force, leads to less social strain, where (for example) drug laws are relaxed in adult-only zones, which are located on the opposite side of town from the peaceful areas where children are raised. A greatly reduced prison requirement is far less burdensome to society, and without law enforcement focused on drugs and crimes resulting from economic desperation, police can spend more time serving and protecting against violent crime.
Overall health and well-being increases when medical care and services are freely provided to all, however this system would permit private insurance and care centers to operate in accordance with ethical standards and safe practices. Psychologically, overall mental health would likely increase when compared to stressed or oppressive systems.
It’s claimed that all of society benefits from incentivized innovation and the obsolescence of economic impoverishment - the main cause of crimes of desperation. Where and when social development and cultural elevation are focused upon, humans would benefit from additional leisure time to improve community relations and/or spiritual connections that lead to wholeness, and social flourishing.
Freedom of speech, press, and protest are necessary feedback mechanisms to check-and-counteract the distortions that might develop in those who hold positions of power, such as tyranny, destructive excess, or villainous behaviors. Social-media should provide plenty of censorship-free outlets for concerned citizens to reveal, highlight, and mock political ineptitude, inadequacy, and/or incompetence.
The aim of a political arena with a more open democracy via the internet is to provide an increasingly productive, effective, and efficient political system with fewer official representatives, and therefore less waste, bloat, and corruption.
VISIONS OF CONCEPTS
A Better Way Towards Best
Citizens Internet Portal
Envisioning A Connected Citizenry - Offered To All, Yet Forced Upon None
Do you think the current systems are operating in the best way possible, considering modern technology, wisdom, and abilities? If not, improvement is The Way.
In any society, radical change may become necessary after say- a successful revolution- or a proverbial fall-from-heights. To avoid chaotic anarchy post revolt/fall, it's likely beneficial to first devise a better way, and if agreed upon by a strong majority- yet still met with authoritative resistance, the preparation enhances both the future, and the transition.
For many, it seems high time to discuss more effective and efficient ways of organizing and managing our societies, economies, and governance- on micro, mid, and macro levels.
An Improvement Movement
How would you improve or reset human systems to align affairs forward in a positive and productive way? What would your checklist have in each category:
(Need) (Desire) (Don't want, but tolerate) (Aim to prevent)
How would your checklist stack up statistically to the collectives? We as concerned Citizens should know what We all agree upon, via a Citizens Internet Portal.
Setting the official agenda via simple agree / disagree (yea / nay) questions could be a collective activity, with potential to become the most democratic form of governance possible- via the internet- and it's within our reach. If citizens can securely pay taxes online, they should also be able to securely vote online.
If a Connected Citizenry could enhance the legislature, and in due time, even replace the Representative systems, then who should build and maintain the platform?
-Citizen-self-assembled with open source code?
-A new, non-partisan agency- similar to how the Secret Service protects the currency, a "Judicial Guard" protects the platform?
-The Public University system?
-A blend of all of the above?
There are arguments against eVoting, even when using blockchain, to where the technology isn’t secure enough, yet. Considering citizens can securely bank and pay taxes online, a valid argument is that the vote choices aren’t supposed to be tracked to individual voters, to protect the identities and thus voter security from those who would be willing to compromise voter’s safety. Which is fair and appropriate, but who’s to say paper ballots are counted accurately each audit, even if the protocols are sound? Considering most agree that corruption currently runs rampant in law making, results might be improperly reported, sometimes deliberately, maybe “accidentally.”
A Citizens Internet Portal can be an option to connect electronically, to where citizen voters still have the ability to vote officially in-person. The same paper ballot protocols can be used to, say, provide paper print-outs at: public libraries, schools when classes aren’t in session, and/or other government buildings to where voters review and sign within ~21 days prior to election day, or on a rolling basis for an open-democracy.
Also, maybe election day should be changed to the second Tuesday of November, to put a bit more separation between both Halloween and all souls day/dia del muerto, and the voting day deadline. Would you be opposed to changing voting day to a different month entirely, maybe the second Tuesday or Thursday in October? And why is October the tenth month when the root word octa translates to eight in Latin?
Meme for the Kids to Ponder:
How shall the future be decided? What’s appropriate?
Regardless, aiming for an incorruptible collective system could be the most important inheritance the Transformation Generation could provide our future selves, and future generations.
Considering the costs are negligible to gain and maintain the benefits of a potentially priceless system when compared to say, taxpayer expense for each election cycle, alone makes the endeavor a worthy cause. Additionally, eliminating massive amounts of campaign expenditures, lifetime salaries for future politicians, other staff salaries, administrative liabilities, and countless other bloated waste, the efforts seem worth every cent, and are likely to pay dividends in perpetuity for the life of the democracy.
So why not unite online to see what We agree upon? Why not collectively set the agenda? Why not interact democratically in a new, technological way?
Compared to the current way, what’s the risk?
An Economic Theory: UBI With Creative Currency Octaves
Visualizing a flourishing, harmonized economy where poverty becomes obsolete through Universal Basic Income and Creative Currency Octaves.
Imagine any currency both supplemented by a Basic Unit, and complemented by a Creative Octave Scale. The opt-in basic unit, pegged to the primary currency at a 1:1 ratio, would be distributed universally via basic income. Primary currency would still be both earned and spent the same as now, however the poverty-eliminating basic currency could only be spent on foundational goods and services until expired, then either gets redeemed by Collective members, or reverts back to its source. Joining an inclusive Creator Collective would enable members the opportunity to save expired basic units, accept them as rewards, trade them within the collective, and convert expired basics for primary currency at an elevated and individualized rate, thus incentivizing participation and enhancing the culture. Harmonizing economics this way would create both a supply of, and demand for, social-balancing currency designed to dramatically reduce crime, stress, strife, and extreme wealth imbalance.
Better than Socialism, better than Capitalism, and far better than Communism is- Compassionism, for three main reasons: Freedom, Incentive, and Peace. The choice to quit or refuse participation to peacefully go one's own way, is critical. The social maturity to prevent fellow humans from unnecessary suffering- by providing what's already abundant, is feasible. And in a modern technological era and information age, the wherewithal to incentivize participation for further collective prosperity- without the threat of impoverishment, or the burden of undue stress and strife, is attainable. Little risk with large reward is “the way it should be” for a modern society, so why not try, especially if it could be simply accomplished?
UBI without CCO
Giving every adult $1k/month may help many, however dollars are subject to the whims of the global markets, and most people prefer if basic income were spent only on necessities, and not on guns/ammo, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, casino gambling, etc. If housing, utilities, food, and non-luxury transportation were the only redeemable expenditures for a separate, supplemental currency, pegged to the dollar at a 1:1 ratio, the basics stay in-country without directly influencing currency markets. Basic currency with CCO, as opposed to primary-currency UBI, could both mitigate inflation, and stabilize currency markets.
A currency spectrum and tiered octave scale could usher in a whole new era of harmonized ratio economics and collective prosperity, and holds claim to both the fairest proposed solution to extreme wealth imbalance, and the best way to implement UBI. With a fresh and fair money supply and a transparent Creative Currency Octave system, everyone gains, yet none lose. And if they ask, “But how do we pay for it?” Reply simply: “By creating it, sans tax.”
The Vision
The Basics
Practically overnight the system could arrange and switch on a simple UBI, with a few non-invasive strings attached. Citizens could opt-in to receive a transaction card for foundational goods and services, e-replenished each month. Merchants could apply to accept Basics as payment, to be deposited for a same-as-cash value at their bank. ATM sized redemption machines can be placed at post offices, banks, markets, etc. The technology already exists to auto-print receipt paper with bar-code scans and transact cash & coin (a standard in modern casinos,) and by including a card reader, QR scanner, and a secure connection, in theory, the technology to support poverty elimination is ready to be implemented.
Main Focus
The guarantee to each citizen would be enough to provide:
-a residence (with postal address, front door with lock, bathroom with toilet/sink/shower,)
-kitchen (with sink, refrigerator, oven, and stove,)
-food assurance (focus incentive on spoilage prevention and improved logistics,)
-reasonable rate of utilities per individual, and
-reasonable transportation assurance.
Included in the deal, but not transnational, should be medical coverage for all emergencies and essential care. An additional stipend per child until age 18 would be welcomed by parents and guardians; youths in public school could also receive age-increasing allowance, and incentives for high scholastic marks and grade completion.
Primary Currency Is Still Earned & Spent
Those who earn a paycheck or receive structured or investment income, continue to save and spend as they please. All adult citizens are entitled to receive basic UBI currency. Although Basics can't be spent on luxuries, guns/ammo, casino gambling, prostitution, drugs/alcohol, etc., they can be redeemed (by members of the creative collective) for primary currency, money that can spent on anything- provided a willing party. Basic units expire, which provides incentive for the ambitious to join the collective to earn a multiplier rate of exchange, individualized and improved along the way, by participating in limitless options from civic and municipal projects- to classified-section type odd-jobs, or even developing one's own invention or creation. For those who don't join the collective, yet have more than enough, they'll likely be more willing to support others with their surplus and expired basics.
Zero Tax Burden On Basic Currency
The notion of taxes could become completely reformed. Imagine the ideal with far less waste, mismanagement, and misappropriations intending to improve efficiency and effectiveness going forward. Property tax and sales tax could still both be levied and collected by local governments- though ideally at decreasing rates, and income tax could become less necessary and therefore less burdensome given a more appropriate and effective economic system. When visualizing an economic maturation of capitalism, trial and improvement trumps trial and error, and this generation has the additional lessons learned from existing case studies of what's come, and failed, before.
Cutting The Glut From Our Systems
Let's actualize far less bureaucracy, and far more effectiveness by dismantling the conglomerates and hierarchies that lead to propagandized group think. A "Tree Of Democracy" (introduced in the article The Blueprint) could overshadow the current corporate media that seems to focus on entertaining an audience through emotional shock and stimulation, instead of what should be its chief purpose- honorably and respectfully informing an inquiring public- concisely. Most would prefer if the populous drives the narrative and sets the agenda, as opposed to a Wall St. enslaved, ad-fueled, rigged-rating driven, camera-and-spotlight aimed like cross-hairs to where only two opposing microphones polarize instead of unite.
Make People Less Compromised
Imagine a pleasant vision of "big power-of-influence gained-through-intimidation" getting weeded out, where war and military exploitation have become obsolete. Until then, transitioning the militaries of the world from operational to disarmament seems to be the most appropriate path- where "defense-as-a-show without an enemy or willing combatant" could encourage people to enlist for peace-time training and organizational development. Opportunities that promote a solutions-oriented focus as opposed to a conflict oriented culture, with far less world-wide military spending, benefits us all.
“True heroes are those who bring peace. Those who maintain peace, peacefully, are essential.” -Wise Proverb
Creative Currency Octaves & UBI
Harmonizing Economics via a Complementary Currency System with Potential to Recession-Proof Economies, and Enhance Cultures.
A further exploration of the concept first presented in January, 2015.
Overview & Proposed Details
Basic unit cash is redeemable at a 1:1 ratio to primary currency, and expendable only on primary housing, food, utilities, and non-luxury transportation. Basic units are distributed via basic income to all citizens who accept them, yet they expire. Once a basic note expires, only Creative Collective Members may trade-in expired basics for primary currency at a 1.) personal multiplier rate and 2.) amount dependent upon an octave level in relation to how much they receive per UBI distribution cycle. UBI recipients may choose to receive basic units on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.
Octaves, modeled on the music scale of doubling frequencies, times periodic UBI amounts of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc. determine the maximum conversion balance into primary currency per cycle. Octaves are scalable, therefore expandable and not necessarily limited.
Leveling up octaves and multiplier rates can be determined by participation, inventiveness, demand, project scope with transparent documentation, and other market forces such as what’s considered essential and/or deemed worthy. There could also be ways to differentiate population dense cities/regions from rural communities, age range, industries, etc.
Scale and octave levels could also be based on multiples or exponents of Phi, or maybe some other way, depending on what future accumulated data, expert economic opinion, and public consensus suggests to be the best, such as minimum wage, a maximum monthly cost of basic level housing, the typical price of counter-serve lunch fare, or another standard to establish a fair base.
If UBI cash and the primary currency are both sourced by the treasury, then the UBI cash stays local, while the primary remains global. In the USA, the IRS’s Personal Income Tax Department could become an obsolete bureau with this #BetterWayForward.
Members may save expired units, and naturally, trade them with other members. Creator Collective members may form groups, collaborations, organizations, firms, etc.- to conduct business/operate at elevated octave ratios. E.g. music bands, restaurants, grocery store suppliers, factories, etc.
UBI recipients may join the Creator Collective with intent to create and share something productive in a positive way, and are then offered fair and equitable rewards - with incentive to aspire, accomplish, and achieve via a Trade-In Scale:
Basic Member Level
(1x) - Productive Endeavors
(1.618x, or Phi) - Productive & Beautiful
*Phi - Mathematical “Golden” Ratio.
Enduring beauty, if maintained, qualifies
the Phi-rate to be applied in elevated levels.
Elevated Level (Productive &)
(2x) - Efficient, Effective, or Inventive
(3x) - Two of the above
(4x) - All three
(5x) - Wonderful
(6x) - High Quality
Top Tier
(7x) - Premiere
(8x) - Magnificent
(9x) - Exquisite
Question: Who decides who and what projects get elevated?
Reply: First off, similar to current systems, any person engaged in the economy can participate creatively with primary currency, however if they’re willing to join a collective, they then open-up their work for review, and scrutiny of course comes with that. Administrative support professionals can operate the logistics of peer review and discourse in self-organizing, trial-and-improvement based, fractal-type fashions where successful models are developed, information gets freely shared via open feedback loops, and what’s successful gets replicated and/or expanded upon. Elevated members may be obligated to review new proposals and other people's work, for say, an hour or two per week, or month.
Question: But if everybody’s basic needs are secured, who’s going to do the dirty jobs?
Reply: When prices go up to compensate essential workers, it offers more opportunities to design ways to make undesirable jobs obsolete for humans, via ingenuity, invention and/or automation. Some people want to work, and there will likely always be work that needs to be completed by humans, therefore the market will still play a part in what labor is worth. Volunteering also provides benefits in non-financial ways, and the more people who “find their calling,” and accomplish achievement, (or at least aspire to achieve and accomplish,) the better society becomes as a whole.
Also consider, two essential workers may each regard their current job to be pitiful, but if they traded jobs, they’d both achieve greater fulfillment. The job of admin support professionals would be to facilitate a good fit for all involved, to where willing-to-work participants become eager-to-work aspirants, considering the pay could/would enable their prospective creative endeavors in addition to improving their standard of living and/or quality of life. Hopes and desires aren’t always achieved, yet the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, according to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Some may have to abide until they achieve, but the choice to not abide, or to quit a job, is also the right of anyone working in the USA, proclaims the U.S. Constitution.
Question: If an elevated member has a personal multiplier rate of say 5x, they could simply trade 100 basic units from any UBI recipient for $200 (or another currency) and keep $300. Therefore, what’s to stop an elevated member from becoming a trading exchange service?
Reply: Would that be a bad thing? Shouldn’t an elevated member get to choose who to reward and support financially? Of course, for the elevated member, time then becomes an issue- how much energy do they want to expend being a type of bank teller? Once financially secure/comfortable, how much more do they need? However if there’s an intriguing project the elevated member is hiring for, this becomes a way for other members to participate and earn more. Coin it: Enablement Economics. Colloquially called the “EnableMint.”
This system, given time, would likely result in the successful folks choosing to develop others and the culture, thus enabling more, as opposed to the current way where some folks continue to accumulate money they won’t ever spend (extraction capitalism) simply for the sake of having more.
Question: If all citizens are eligible, how do Creator Collective members join and elevate?
Reply: Options are numerous, and potentially varied, though accepting UBI should be simpler than obtaining a government ID and debit card, and joining the collective could be as simple as registering to vote.
Question to You, The Reader: What’s the best way to establish Creator Collectives?
Proposed: credit union type locations, all connected via the internet similar to modern online banking. UBI cards would work similar to debit cards, basic UBI cash could be receipt paper with bar-codes, and ATM-type exchange machines (a standard in modern casinos) can be placed wherever ATMs are, including post offices.
Creator Currency Octaves could be the first currency in history that's backed by art and creation, and is exclusively earned, and not potentially won, inherited, stolen, found, etc. Then imagine instead of a bunch of gold bullion locked up in Fort Knox, each Creator Member Collective branch gets to display a gold bar in bulletproof glass, with finger holes small enough so the public can touch it but not take it, to back-up the dollar, or just for historic effect. Within view of the gold display, there can be post-up boards / display screens for community-chest type projects to pay expired basics forward into.
Members create online profiles, gain the ability to send/receive UBI cash and expired basics without a fee, and develop/manage a shareable portfolio. Web services can include job boards, stated goals/achievements, opportunities to solve known problems, transparent peer reviews, admin support, etc.
Elevating Member Level could be based on factors such as how much expired UBI currency one earns per month for say: musical performances, artists who sell original art, people who prepare and serve food at a restaurant that accepts UBI cash, etc. Similar to construction crews who build low cost housing and high-quality roads based on union-negotiated rates, other types of project teams could have collective-negotiated rates and pay scales. For those who invent, their peer group(s) and/or local admins can verify the concepts, and depending on the benefit to society such as resources saved or safety gained, and depending on how they profit personally, they can be rewarded individually via an elevated multiplier rate, and/or a greater amount of UBI cash to trade in each month (higher octave level.)
The Assumption: Each person should benefit if the system is established to enhance the culture, efficiently reduce costs and waste, mitigate human suffering, and heal/improve nature.
Intended motive: Make extreme poverty obsolete, ideally overnight, realistically in less than 60 days, while still providing incentive for essential work, participation, and creation. Extreme poverty is defined as: homelessness and starvation due to financial strain.
Prediction: If implemented properly, within five years, “extreme wealth imbalance” will be ‘problem solved.’ Before then, it’ll be ‘problem mitigating.’
If UBI cash is considered income equality, and creators are enabled with equity incentive, does “Equitable Economics” ring better than “Enablement Economics?” That EnableMint pun still sounds fashionable; and the phrase “Harmonized Economics” can be reserved for when these concepts become proven by at least one country's economy. Until then, #EquitableEconomicsViaTheEnableMint is catchy enough to get some mainstream press, right? How about a real discussion in congress?
Acknowledgement: Updating a developed economy's currency system is a monumental task, and on a generational timescale, a global economic transition seems likely in the near-to-mid-term future - considering the current ways have been deemed unsustainable. Therefore, what better alternative than to “improve and adapt?” If “collapse and regress” ensues, it’ll likely be short-lived, and the article “X-Cents” offers a Universal Currency Assurance Plan just in case governments become/remain obstacles to a better collective future as opposed to facilitators. As long as humans are surviving, it seems there will be a marketplace where people trade products and services, and since society has come this far, it appears within reach that technology and the human drive / entrepreneurial spirit could elevate economics, nature, and humanity into a flourishing age of Collective Thrival. #SurviveToThrive
Instead of a late-stage capitalism type of central bank mandated to “maximize employment and stabilize prices by moderating long-term interest rates and the money supply,” imagine a benevolent nation’s treasury established to “enhance both the public, and culture, with an effective and sustainable monetary system that ensures human wellness via fair foundational guarantees, appropriate incentives for essential work, and equitable rewards for beneficial creation.” Creative Currency Octaves and UBI can achieve these goals and much more with a complementary currency system that could be implemented, in theory, overnight.
What other mechanisms could be developed to ensure fair incentive and deserved reward that’s both equitable and appropriate, while also assuring a high standard of professionalism for essential work? Compared to how currency is currently earned / won / found / stolen / inherited / marriage absorbed / divorce divided / etc., can it be considered efficient? Effective? Inventive?
Public Trust Housing
Consider that in the 1970’s the average U.S. house cost ~8,000 hours of minimum wage work, yet today it’s over 40,000 hours. Does it feel as if each new generation’s house is being robbed before they even take possession of their homes, if they can afford to purchase as opposed to renting their living spaces?
Public Trust Housing Meme Text, Expanded
Imagine instead of paying rent or a mortgage, citizens could choose to pay into a collective housing option as a Public Trust, where anyone could contribute via simple terms to accrue equity on rent payments, and earn credit for upkeep and maintenance. Unit stays could be short and long term, posted on an inclusive and transparent online portal with attempts to optimize city neighborhoods for social harmony. Non-profit insurance fees could be accrued and paid forward to acquire and remodel properties that become available in newly-zoned neighborhoods, with priority for distressed units. Instead of realtor, bank, and landlord fees, local placement agents could assist the house-mate matching, moving, and settling-in processes with the goal to leave no citizen un-housed, and maintain a small housing surplus. There could be multiple levels and types of living situations available, from basic to luxury and beyond, single-units to families-with-children to all-adult households. By designing a system to level-up participants until settled and satisfied, while improving the base in perpetuity, both the real estate and culture gain value - which could be likened to an ever expanding collective inheritance as opposed to the current extractive model that leaves too many humans homeless and victimized while neighborhoods become dilapidated and dangerous. Congress could make citizens' housing a priority via tax incentives, and by limiting the monetary amount any person or entity can earn on another’s primary housing. It would also be beneficial to develop a few new green-efficient metropolitan cities, in say, the USA’s deep south, midwest region, and mid-pacific coast. If better ways are possible, aim towards best!
Considering a Citizens Basic Income with Creative Currency Octaves and Public Trust Housing, how could an inclusive web portal become optimized?
Suggested structuring:
Base- Decent at worst homes, and zones for adults without kids.
Recovering- Wellness placement for those who need help with addiction or other recovery.
Maintaining- Citizens currently satisfied in their housing situation.
Seeking- A lateral move, whether across the street, another side of town, or across the country.
Expanding- People seeking change, such as: kids on the way, or someone seeking to level up in land, living space, or luxury.
Contracting- Those seeking to sell property, reduce lot and/or living space, someone taking a step down from luxury.
Developing- Both new housing development, and remodeling projects.
Luxury living usually takes more to maintain such as manicured lawns and other maintenance, but when a large home is mostly unoccupied, there presents an opportunity to fill the bedrooms with young professionals, or perhaps live/work spaces for small enterprises and/or company teams.
What other factors are important to consider? Regardless, it seems obvious that human beings as a whole could do much better than current when designing and organizing how humans are housed.
Text from other memes not included:
“Bold Proclamation: The USA could reduce its crime rate by at least 50% with two policy changes: 1. End the drug war in a sensible, harm reducing way. 2. Implement Universal Basic Income with Creative Currency Octaves.”
“UBI with Creative Currency Octaves is a better retirement plan than your 401k. Change My Mind.”
The Blueprint
To A Healthy Society
Part 1. Political Arena
Part 2. Social Structures
Part 3. Economic System
Part 1. Public Policy Proposals for Perpetual Progress (First presented in January, 2015.)
The 4th Branch of Government
Imagine a Collective Arena for all issues facing The Populous. An e-forum. Think WikiPolicy, with a Collective Voting Platform.
Technologically, it's already possible. Therefore, it's only a matter of time before the current system is rendered obsolete. The question is, can We The People create a 4th Branch that satisfies all citizens?
It's not critical that the evolution of policy is generated from outside the establishment, though considering the proven ineffectiveness of the current political climate, we're best suited to either solve society's problems without government, or agree en-masse that a new system of governance is ready for implementation.
No one expects the power wielders to simply relinquish high-priced, hard-fought-over control, therefore it's up to our tech-minded brethren to make the 4th Branch an open-source reality, so we can then come together to begin the process of progress by The People, for The People.
Both a Portal, and a Platform.
To start, technology could (therefore should) revolutionize election and policy coverage. Media bias and political advertisements could be ignored if a Public Platform for politics is embraced. Each politician and candidate would have a profile that's tracked, shared, and compared. If you want to run for office, your public info becomes available for scrutiny, including your stance on every pertinent issue, campaign funds raised and by whom, previous voting record, etc. It's practically already built. Kids build more complicated websites in their basements. We just have to adopt a platform, foster it with transparency, and nurture it with engagement.
Evolve. Refine. Repeat.
Taking it a step further, imagine a Citizen Voting Platform for public polling, official elections, transparent referendums, and even a mirror vote for every ballot congress votes on, to measure public support. How would the collective vote differ from congressional votes?
When introducing the new eForum, We should first try to standardize the categorization. Each polar question (agree/disagree, yea/nay) could be sorted into one of 8 Categories:
If 95% or more agree - Collective Consensus
85% - Common Ground
3/4 - Strong Majority
2/3 - General Majority
60% - Basic Support
55% - Narrow Support
52% - Weak Support
Less than 51.9% - Wash
Imagine We The People setting the agenda for the elected officials.
If every citizen completes the same survey questionnaire, what would We agree upon? Citizens could priority score each issue, rating up or down to signify importance. “We decide. They implement.” -The People (of the Future)
Tree of Democracy
This evolved 4th Branch of Government would also be the Foremost, or rather the Tree of Democracy, roots and all. For Us, by Us. Ask ourselves and fellow citizens for an hour (or so) of participation each week for consideration of, and survey responses to, important issues facing the public. Engagement could consist of videos, debates, surveys in simple language, etc. Citizen participation can be conducted anytime online, without ads. Where do you stand as an individual on all issues? Find out how that compares to the rest of the populous. Why rely on corporate media and 3rd party pollsters when The People are willing to share directly in the eForum?
A Voice to the Voiceless
Yes We Can harness the the instrumental nature of technology to transform Our Government into the most effective and efficient version imaginable. If created and nurtured properly, it'll maintain a positive and productive direction, in perpetuity, at Federal, State, and Local levels. That's the goal.
How long until We the People phase out politicians and lobbyists in their current form? How would the Founding Fathers have established governance with today's technology? The Justice system certainly needs an overhaul. Could the 4th and foremost branch of government (with a strong tech system) render The House of Representatives obsolete?
“A democratic republic can be effective for collective interests, until corrupted.” -Uncle Sam
“If an effective democracy guards against corruption, a true and open meritocracy prevents it.” -Uncle Sam's Nephew
It's clear our system is both ineffective, and corrupt. In the eighteenth century, the House of Representatives was the most democratic form of governance The Founders could establish, but today's technology allows for the most meritocratic form of governance imaginable.
Additional Voting Sway
Imagine the more each citizen participates in the collective system, the more votes they could earn, fairly. There could be dozens of ways to earn them, and We could put a cap on how many votes any citizen is able to earn.
Call each vote a “Star” for patriotic sake, to remind us that the “Stars and Stripes” represent the good of Country, not the individual. Similar to earning stars as positive points in elementary school, many folks will aspire to improve and participate, especially when motivated by the prospect of creating a better future.
If open and transparent systems are the key to preventing corruption, to be fair, as soon as you claim a vote that carries additional sway, you become a public policy maker, and therefore must share your public profile and voting record. Would you be willing to do that?
Potential Scenarios
Every citizen receives a vote when they turn 18, but once someone has earned their, say, 5th Star, they're able to cast ballots in the eHouse of Representatives. A speaker of the eHouse could set the agenda by calling votes, and if need be, appointing committees of experts to interview.
Regardless of how the first version is molded, the goals should be to diminish lobbyist influence, eliminate excess, balance both the Senate and Executive Branch, and be refined for modeling the State and Local levels after. We still want smart people focused on policy, so the Senate should probably stay intact at first, but it would certainly get distilled into a purer version with the shadow of the Tree of Democracy looming, roots and all. Hopefully other countries follow suit, and The People begin to foster better forms of governance, and more honorable leaders, worldwide.
Political Collectives as opposed to Political Parties
It's apparent that the political parties inherited from previous generations are used and abused, and no longer serve The People. They should be diminished. The Youth & Truth Collective declares two simple oath declarations upon conception:
1. Truth and Honor are paramount in every decision made concerning Public Policy.
2. Intentions are to bestow the youth a healthier public system than the current, therefore I (We) commit to perpetual collective improvement.
A direct question to all ye elected officials and future candidates, are you Youth and Truth compliant? We The People (and your staff) will be scoring you with a “hypocrisy score.” It'll be similar to a golf scorecard, but for politics. Call it the New Youth Order: No More Secrets.
Sadly, We can't rely on the system's leaders to self-correct. Therefore, it's Our responsibility to be the Transformation Generation who unites to checkmate and re-balance the worn-out, three branch system of government. The Tree of Democracy could bear the fruit of perpetual socio-political-economic Meritocracy.
“If you will it, it is no dream.” -Walter Sobchak
Main take-away: Our system is outdated, and arguably does more harm than good. There are a plethora of fair ways Our system could be refined, but the first step is uniting to evolve. The Founding Fathers would be delighted at what the youth could create: a better way! Faster decision making, including all voices, fairly. A solution.
“Because We can come together collectively to update Government, We should.” -Internet Revolutionary
Part 2 will introduce novel ideas to harmonize the U.S. social climate.
Part 3 will offer an equitable and enticing economic alternative, defined as Compassionate Meritocracy.
Also introducing:
Rich Uncle John (Doe) Dot.org
Rich Uncle John is a mythical figure, who's a cross between Uncle Sam and Santa Claus. He's benevolent by nature, and loves to enrich the lives of children. Anyone can donate to the cause, and Uncle Sam will allow donations as tax write offs. Uncle John thinks Uncle Sam is an asshole much of the time, and Uncle Sam thinks Uncle John spoils the kids too much by paying them for good grades, giving them birthday money, Thanksgiving & 4th of July gifts, etc. We all like Uncle John better. He solves problems.
Part 2: Social Structures
Colored Zone Establishment – For Urban Settings
Accepting that America will never establish a mono-culture; setting internal boundaries could enable true freedom to ring & reign supreme. “The Great Shake Up” or “Unification by Segregation Migration” must be equitable, and participation should be by choice, not force. Perfecting society won't be achieved without a transition stage, but America can transform the socio-economic climate by providing new options of living through experimental community building.
Although We live in a “free” country, there's one demographic that The State has consistently restricted and protected: Children. So let's start there.
Kid Safe Purple Zones
The most precious gift a child can receive from family and society is a happy childhood, but one free from hunger, fear, and trauma should be striven for all human kids. Imagine no more orphanages, but purple-zoned, secure areas where tragic horror stories of gang gun violence or caught-in-the-crossfire scenarios are a thing of the past. Could it be done, effectively?
Create a model, then replicate at local levels by securing an area, whether it be a few blocks in radius to a school, or a whole town, where any kid is welcome to visit, play, or learn; but the only adults who may enter are parents, teachers, counselors, etc. There could be purple-zoned neighborhoods surrounding Purple Campuses where children are raised by their parents in regular family settings, but aren't exposed to the trappings of city life and strife.
If done effectively, within one generation, society could deliver to itself the wondrous gift of empowering orphaned children into advantaged adults. To achieve effectiveness, there must be a polarization, or an opposite area where adults are free to make adult decisions.
Red-Light Districts
Kids are never allowed to enter, until they're adults. And who cares what happens inside a red-light district? Who are We to judge morality? Prostitution, hard drugs? Sure, as long as kids aren't allowed inside and no one is forced to do anything they don't want to do. If you don't care to partake, just don't go. Less prisons and fewer prisoners sounds better for everyone, besides those making money by caging people, or those who seek to subjugate. Who loses in this scenario?
Green Zones
Think student / artist districts, where anyone (17+) is welcome all the time. Located in the part of town where people attend concerts, shows, or plays. The green zone “quiet hours” could be from 4-11am. No more loud music keeping Grandma or young kids awake in the suburbs, and no more police disturbing the parties. Imagine rent controlled, near free living for young adults to best prepare themselves to handle their future, debt free.
Yellow Zones
Safe areas, lots of elder folk. It would make sense to put the yellow zones next to the purple zones, and let the kids go for visits. The main restriction here is that quiet hours begin at 9pm, and end at 7am. No loud music or teenage drivers racing their cars around the neighborhood. Yellow zones may not even be necessary, but we don't want to exclude. Everyone should have a space in urban/suburban areas where they fit in. Painted curbs / street lights can denote zone color.
Gray Zones
Neutral zones, or areas to be redeveloped. Utah and other communities have found it costs society less to provide zero-payment housing and a social worker to homeless folks than it costs to keep them cycling through the system. The tiny house communities are prime success stories, and We could even retrofit motels for long-term living or restore whole blocks in cities such as Detroit, MI or Stockton, CA.
Why not rezone areas for folks with no other option besides sleeping on the streets? We could create plenty of comfortable spaces that the disenfranchised want to call home, thus making vagrancy obsolete. Making a space for everyone to safely sleep, take a shower, and stay warm/dry is common decency. All city dwellers benefit by preventing the scenario of witnessing a homeless person using the street as a toilet. No more harsh street life, no more body-littered sidewalks. No kids.
Hollow & Pink Zones
Where the naughty go to live. Prison cities. Any adult can come and go as they please, but some folks can't leave, at least until their sentence is served. Pink Zones are female-only. The best part is, these hypothetical criminals don't want to leave, because they feel right at home. There could be 4 or 5 levels, where the lower the level, the more dangerous the inhabitants.
Zero City might be rough and tough due to the inhabitants collective character, but it's still better than prison. Inhabitants are restricted from leaving, but are free to roam within the borders. They're neither a menace to decent society, nor a threat to children. Maybe it gets like the wild west in there sometimes, but at least no kids will be shot, or hear gunshots intended to cause harm. We could still keep a few prisons around for criminals who choose prison over hollow zones.
The intent in the higher level realms of the prison cities should be to rehabilitate, as opposed to punish. If inhabitants have kids, they should have accommodations met to maintain a relationship with live visits, or tech-facetime. Then, We could figure out a way to recycle the old prisons into factories, indoor gardening facilities, production studios, museums, event space for music festivals, libraries with private learning rooms, or retrofitted / artist-beautified green, gray, or temp zones. Maybe knock most prisons down for symbolic purposes, whatever.
Taxpayer Expense Gone Wrong
The annual per-capita poverty rate is below $22,000, yet the average cost to cage one inmate per year in the U.S. is about 50% more, $32,000. To hold one patient in a state hospital (someone who's plead guilty by insanity, or is being evaluated before trial) is $15,000 – 40,000 per month. For that sort of money, there's no doubt a better way, certainly one that doesn't dehumanize people for profit by predatory nature.
Blue Zones
City nightclub districts where any adult can hold residence. No violence allowed, but gambling, drugs, and adult themed living (like Las Vegas) is embraced. No kids.
Platinum Zones
Private gated communities, guests by invitation. Anyone can form a collective and create the foundations for a new private community to flourish.
If the current system nurtures a “divide and conquer” attitude, Colored Zones could “unite and liberate.” Wouldn't it be neat to create new metro cities, piece by piece, or retrofit block by block, in harmony with Earth and the people who choose to live there? Let the environmentalists prove a better way is possible. Plenty of folks are looking for honest work at decent wage rates, with honorable conditions and incentives.
A New Option
What do many unemployed / homeless people want? Somewhere to go, and something to do when they get there. What better opportunity for them than building their own space? America has offered similar incentives before, ages ago, when Uncle Sam gave out free land in the new territories, at the cost of Native American Trails of Tears. Imagine the opposite this time, people crying of joy because they actually have a place to go. A fair opportunity, for fair living.
Funding is of course the tricky part. Remember your Rich Uncle John (Doe)? He's got a fair plan. I don't want to spoil the fun for the kids, but he, Santa, and Uncle Sam came to an agreement. Santa's elves will help, but Uncle Sam has to manage the workers. Uncle John has the money, which Rudolph is guarding at the Federal Reserve. Once the kids go to sleep, adult Citizens can consider the funding in part 3.
Part 3. Economic System
Compassionate Meritocracy
If the current economic system was perfect, there would be no need to consider alternatives. Clearly the system is unbalanced if not broken; and regardless of the health of the electronic financial markets, many deem the current poverty rate no longer acceptable.
This Blueprint offers 2 proposals for preserving the positive aspects of the current system, and a path towards a fresh and fair economic system. Considering money flows to and through Government, both options proposed require US Government involvement, which may act as a hindrance in today's 3 branch system, but could be an advantage from a 4th Branch perspective.
Now that the kids are asleep, Rudolph doesn't exist, and neither does Uncle John's money. Uncle Sam had the Fed secretly audited, and it turns out, We've been robbed like a library. It's a mess in there. The NSA thinks they know who did it, but they aren't saying anything. We're pretty sure the trail trickles straight to the top. The CIA & FBI are going to use their torture techniques to get answers. In the meantime, let's concentrate on the important lesson learned so we don't get duped again.
Rule by Secret = Loss of Accountability / Ripe for Fraud
Lesson takeaway: transparency changes the game. Check. Auditing the Fed will of course result in shock and awe-ful realizations. Uncle John really didn't care about being robbed, because Our Country is still full of all the important stuff like roads, buildings, parks, plus the really important stuff, people and nature. And of course, We still have the machines that print money, and the Internet to connect it all.
Universal Basic Income
Obviously a basic minimum income guarantee is the simplest way to end poverty, but many reject that idea because it may foster dependency. A short term trial could test the idea without long term commitment, and provide a quick boost to the economy.
Option 1. Repair With A Booster Shot
Imagine a twist on Quantitative Easing, where the poorest 1/3 of US households / citizens receives a debit card account loaded with $25k. They could spend it online, or draw up to, say, $100 per day in cash from an ATM. Where's that money going to flow? Throughout the whole global system.
George W. Bush did this a few times on a relative small scale. Remember getting those rebate / stimulus checks? His administration realized that money, like water, is healthier for the system when flowing, not stagnant or frozen. No we don't miss him yet, but those checks were welcomed to many in the struggle.
We could call this new round of capital injection Q.E.Tree. The mascot could be the mythical tree that grows money, but really it represents grass-roots growth. Ideas like these could relieve so much stress from the inner-connected global economic system, and reverberate a booster wave called the multiplier effect. A ground swell of consumer activity could be felt far and wide.
YES We Can! afford to pay for it. How? It's fake money, turned real. Poof! “We” lock prices for 18 months on rental housing, groceries, and utilities to prevent rapid inflation on basic needs, if need be.
Just to be clear, most currency is backed by perception. That's no secret. Dollars are not backed by gold, but by the full faith and credit of the Federal Government, which has seemingly been hijacked by the Federal Reserve, which isn't even an official arm of the US Government, but a collection of private financiers. Any entity can replicate a currency model, and casinos are prime examples.
“If you leave a casino with their chips in your pocket, they hope the chips never return to be cashed in.” -Mobster Rule
Option 2. Complementary Currency, with Octaves
Imagine several levels of currency:
-Basic Bucks are provided for needs.
-Dollars are still earned / spent / traded.
-Creative Currency Octaves are rewards for creation.
“By introducing new currency into the system as opposed to more of the same currency, no one will lose money, but plenty will gain.” -True Banker
How Could This Work?
Dollars remain the same, they're still universally traded. If you work for a US company, you would still earn Dollars. In addition, imagine every citizen / household receives 2k Basic Bucks per month, value pegged to the Dollar at a 1:1 ratio. Basics Bucks could be spent on limited options, first and foremost basic needs. They also expire.
Basic Bucks could also be used as contributions to collective endeavors, or given as rewards to independent creators / artists. Of course, creators can also accept Dollars as contributions, but only the creators can trade Basic Bucks for Dollars at a multiplier rate, depending on their personal Creator Octave.
This scenario creates both a supply, and demand for Basic Bucks.
If you want to cash-out Basic Bucks at a rate higher than a 1:1 ratio, you must earn that privilege. It should be celebrated. Then once expired, only Creators will be able to accept Basic Bucks, therefore they stay stateside, and fuel creative productivity. If they disappear into into the aether or sink to the bottom of the sea, maybe they'll be traded or bartered with like dominoes, bones, casino chips, or whatever someone else is willing to peg to their current-sea currency to. Which is fine. Otherwise, they simply revert back to their source.
There is no currency model in history that's backed by art or creation, or is exclusively earned, and not potentially won, inherited, stolen, or found. Creative Currency could be the first. Creator Cash could be both backed, and tracked, by the creators, for the creators, through a Creator Collective that monitors and verifies creative work. It would certainly lead to inspiration and yield creation.
Imagine an exclusive currency as rewards for art, independent media, social-entrepreneurship, and collective projects as discussed in Part 2; where the creators (not investors) could cash-out earnings at a multiplier rate.
Introducing, The Creator Class
Each creator's multiplier rate is dependent on their success and output, based on the amount of contributions they've earned, or their project-based contract with the Collective. Members of the Creative Collective, which anyone can join, can deposit and save Basic Bucks.
The collective would operate as a transparent de-central bank, supporting the new cities and zoning developments, as well as a credit union for independent artists. For those who decide not to join the Collective, Basic Bucks expire. Due to expiration, folks will be more likely to support creative work with unused Basic Bucks, but either way, We're building the future, and the new money system is both fair and openly tracked.
Call that Q.E.Free, as in “free the ambitious” through empowerment. Human endeavors could be highlighted and society could flourish, all thanks to Rich Uncle John (Doe) and The People (of minimum tipping-point amount) uniting to manifest a better way.
What would this mean for the system? Basic necessities would be provided, but luxuries must still be earned in a way that could both balance and harmonize the greater system into a Compassionate Meritocracy, or a fair and fresh blend of capitalism and socialism, enriching both lives and the land. Main goal: end poverty, intended outcome: income fairness.
"Fair does not imply equal, but rather deserved. Equal opportunity is honorable." -Fair Judge
Artists and creators aren't the only awesome folks in society that should be rewarded with fresh incentive. Benevolent scientists and inventors who come up with the "next best thing" that benefits society (eg: free energy, cure to all disease, etc.) could earn, say, Tax-Free-Status for life. Think of it as a financial instrument.
“Tools can also be used for destruction, but instruments are for creation.” -Creator
“Rewarding compassion and inspired creativity is the key to a successful society.” -Wise Human
“Economic systems with abundant wealth, scarcity, and poverty, are both rigged, and ripe for revolution.” -System Analyst
“Peaceful revolutions preserve the beneficial aspects of the previous system, and pave the way to betterment. Violent revolts lead to re-building, possibly regression.” -Internet Revolutionary
“When the establishment participates in its re-birth that satisfies the disenfranchised, revolutions remain peaceful.” -Realist
“If you will it, it is no dream.” Walter Sobchak
The truth is, Uncle Sam, like Santa, never actually existed in the ways portrayed by fictional tales. That said, We've got millions of Uncle John (Doe)s and Brother G.I. Joe's who've died for this country throughout the ages in war and what not. It'd be a shame to misplace their honor by allowing our future and environment to be spoiled by the corrupt, selfish, greedy, powerful, or wicked.
The most valuable treasure is right under our noses, and its free like AIR. Imagine, We just might get to experience peace and prosperity. Hasn't that always been the goal of the honorable warriors? Isn't that why people volunteer to risk death for Country? Or was it really all just for oil, and an oil based currency to fuel a consumer-based burn-and-churn economy?
The Transformation Generation that unites to harmonize the Internet instrument just might actualize their collective cake, and eat it, also. Regardless, if the 4th Branch comes online to grow into the Tree of Democracy, the 2016 Presidential election could be the last of its kind.
Evolve. Refine. Repeat.
Creative Currency Octaves & UBI
Negate all arguments against Universal Basic Income with a multi-tiered complementary currency system that can strengthen any economy while effecting a Compassionate Meritocracy.
(First presented January, 2017.) Will the current generation succeed in developing the most effective socio-economic policy possible, or will future generations be forced to solve current problems? Any system that claims such ambitious heights is best suited to adopt the ethos of continuous improvement when considering the needs and desires of millions or billions of people.
Experts claim that significant portions of the workforce will continue to be replaced by automation, so what will people do when far less work is required? Should they celebrate a job well done? For isn't the goal of automation to construct machines that work for us, so we-as-humans have more free time for living, as opposed to working? Or is the goal to life to work hard, even if there isn't any more work to do? Would you agree it's better to work smarter rather than harder?
Working a job for a living is far different than, say, working for yourself, being productive personally or domestically, endeavoring in a social-betterment cause, or even being artistic. If you enjoy your work enough to continue without a paycheck, it's a calling, and you should be revered for finding your purpose! For everyone else, how would you spend time if all your basic needs were met indefinitely?
Working Hard or Hardly Working?
Incentivizing people to focus on their ambitions should be the ideal all economic models strive for, because harmonizing the instrumental element humans have to offer can serve both nature and humanity in wondrous ways. Alternatively, exploiting people to sell themselves cheap to avoid further desperation is a capitalistic tool that harms humanity and induces suffering by design. Solving all the problems of poverty (unfortunate by-products of capitalism,) while also providing a fertile space for the enterprising mindset which embodies the entrepreneurial Spirit (that which communism lacks,) is offered by the concepts coined: Compassionism and Compassionate Meritocracy.
Defining Poverty
Someone living in poverty today may be far better off than someone living in relative abundance a hundred years ago, therefore to be specific, poverty in this context pertains to unmet basic needs. The newest smartphone is not a basic need. Access to Wi-fi is available at the public library for free (in the USA,) and although it's better for society if Wi-fi is provided to all as a basic service, the following are sufficient for basic requirements: adequate housing, clean drinking water, ample food, clothing, utilities, and medical treatment. Fresh breathable air and livable, unpolluted land and seas are more than needs, rather demands that should never be challenged by industry or states.
Universal Basic Income
UBI may be the likely course of evolution for the future economy, however UBI by itself is not sufficient, and vulnerable to fail or worse if all else remains equal. If everyone begins receiving $2k/month, what's to stop your landlord from jacking-up the rent $2k/month? What's to stop the price of coffee from increasing to $20/cup overnight? By now, we should all realize the shysters-among-us who thrive on separating fools from their money will attempt to capitalize on the abundant opportunity; and in a world run by con-men in pinstriped suits, it'd be a shame to find ourselves back in a situation with people littered on the streets, starving and cold, while also providing a basic income. Therefore to be clear, the main arguments for Basic Income are to 1) provide a stable foundation for those displaced by inequitable economic policy and increased workplace efficiency, and 2) ideally, eliminate poverty.
The main arguments against UBI are 1) hyperinflation, a valid economic concern, 2) subsidizing laziness, which isn't necessarily a bad thing from a Taoist or Dudeist perspective, but it could lead to 3) stagnating innovation, a valid social concern. Multi-tiered currency with Creative Currency Octaves, along with the continuous improvement ethos when attempting to effect compassionism, could indeed negate these negative concerns while achieving the foundational benefits that UBI can offer.
Specifically Speaking
#CreativeCurrencyOctaves can be introduced into any existing financial system by offering citizens a complementary currency for Basic Income as opposed to the primary currency. Hypothetically, assume the USA with the primary currency of dollars. Dollars are still used for earning and spending, but instead of offering all citizens a basic income of $2k/month, which risks hyper-inflation by increasing the money supply and potentially devaluing the dollar against foreign currency, imagine each citizen receives 2k Basic Bucks per month, value pegged to the dollar (or any primary currency) at a 1:1 ratio. Similar to how food-stamps can only be spent on food, Basic Bucks would likely be spent on the basics, but due to their cash nature, they could be used generally. The typical exclusions for Basic Bucks would be luxury items, guns/ammo, stock trading, business expenditures, international travel, etc. Basics would be kept in country, therefore boosting the local economies via the multiplier effect in any locale that introduces the concept. These Basic Bucks also expire. Imagine the current term's Basic Bucks are printed with blue ink, next month's (or year's) notes are purple ink, etc.
Reforming Centralized Banking
A decentralized Creator Collective would have to be established to print, distribute, and manage this complementary currency, and similar to regional or community based credit unions, these transparent Creator Collectives would be open for anyone to join. This Creator Collective would be not-for-profit, or rather for-public-endowment, funding general betterment causes and an improved cooperative commons that incentivizes creation, innovation, and artistry. Creator Collective members with active projects could deposit and save Basic Bucks even when they've expired, and those who create/innovate on an individual or collective basis, or contribute on a public works endeavor, could earn an increased exchange rate to trade Basic Bucks into dollars at an elevated ratio.
Examples Given
Musicians who play instruments in the subway terminals could earn elevated rates of exchange based on how many donations they receive. Once a performance artist deposits, say, 5k Basic Bucks, they qualify for a 1.5:1 rate of exchange for one month. 10k Basics deposited by a registered artist could earn a 2:1 exchange. Of course, performers can also receive dollars and cents as contributions, but those who have expired Basic Bucks (or wealthy folks who don't need Basic Bucks) would probably donate their unused Basics to those deserving of support. Therefore it's far easier to be generous with expired money; and the term “starving-artist” could soon be obsolete. Either way, once a Basic Buck is expired, its value reverts back to its source- the Creator Collective, either by default, or by deposit in support of a deserving creator/performer/innovator/artist.
Octave scaling comes into effect to differentiate a street artist who performs a few hours a month from a musician who plays 40 hours/week from a musician who sells out stadium concerts at reduced ticket pricing. Similarly, a film crew who works on a student project is creative, but an experienced crew on a mega-movie blockbuster can receive greater terms of exchange if they agree to work on the feature being released at reduced ticket pricing. Many artists display their work for free, which is encouraged, so earning elevated exchanges would come from the collective by either a scaled peer group or a protégée/mentorship scenario. The idea is to harmonize the exchange in a way that's both fair and deserved, but not necessarily equal.
Author Point Of View
The ideal pay structure for rewarding artistic creators is probably the PHI ratio of 1.618:1, achieved for beauty at first level initiation, then leveling-up to earn additional pay by whole number multiples of PHI. Staying in line with the colored Tri-PHI-spirals of this book's cover image, Ratio Economics would satisfy numerologists, financiers, academics, and those concerned with the golden ratio of both Divinity and Nature. Then, hopefully if we're all lucky, the Tax-man proclaims, "Considering this better way, why in the world does anyone need personal income taxes paid or collected?" Then in the USA, Uncle Sam establishes the newest American holiday: Interdependance Day, to celebrate the day we became financially unburdened by taxation, colloquially referred to as: Tax Day. Yay!
Back to Work on Higher Level Projects
The team who builds the new renewable energy grid that will provide free energy to all could earn an elevated exchange rate of 2-8:1, depending on each individual's position. Public works and infrastructure projects can incentivize workers with collectively-negotiated pay contracts. The person/team who invents say, the cure to all disease could be awarded an exchange of 5:1 dollars for Basics for life, maybe more if they offer it not-for-profit. The sculpture artist who wins a contract to decorate the public space in your town could earn 5*PHI, or 8.09:1 for 6 months.
Existing Systems = Simplistic Mint
A street artist could set up an online account to accept contributions via QR scan. ATM-sized, cash and coin casino-ticket machines that exchange and print barcode currency could be placed strategically in your town and situation, next to a donation type of community chest for specific projects or endowments.
The Potential is Limitless
Let's face it, everyone loves freebies, and Basic Bucks would go a long way for those at the bottom, but there is no currency model in history that's backed by art or creation, or is exclusively earned, and not potentially won, inherited, stolen, or found- which Creative Currency Octaves offer. Proper planning propelled with a UBI incorporated multi-tiered money model applied to a 3rd world nation, with an eager and ambitious populous, could result in a wondrously astounding transformation where a population invests in themselves to reap an incredible endowment as reward.
Comprende?
Even if this concept negates all arguments against UBI, it still won't eliminate the parasitic nature of the profit-above-all capitalist mindset, capeesh? The optimum way to provide lasting improvement is to make living cheap, so life isn't. There are a plethora of policy ideas to keep housing insulated from rapid inflation, such as: rent control on a price/sqft basis, capping investments on other people's housing, initiating a cooperative-endowed tier-based housing collective with transferable equity credits for ease of relocation, a bottom-level model of housing terms where units can't be sold for a profit for X number of years, incentives to relocate entire neighborhoods to keep communities together when entire blocks become reconstructed for greater capacity and more efficient building techniques, maybe even build a few new cities to the best green-engineered standards. With guaranteed income, mortgages become less risky and easier to be approved for, which relieves pressure on rental housing markets. Regardless, housing first policies end homelessness and have been found to cost the public far less than cycling the disadvantaged through the prison/hospital/court systems.
Okay, but how does this prevent subsidizing laziness?
Do you really care if someone receives the basics and decides not to contribute? If so, what say you about those you already subsidize to be lazy, such as crop farmers during off years or even politicians who check-out once elected? How do you shame the folks who inherit fortunes and never work and/or contribute nothing throughout their lifetime? The ideal should be to entice production by celebrating contributions to the collective, not forcing people to work a job they hate via exploitation of desperation. If everyone's basic needs were met, volunteering time towards social-benefits would likely increase, which provides betterment without monetization while offering perhaps the most fulfilling rewards possible, those of the heart.
The real issue becomes: How do we pay for UBI?
We pay for UBI the same way taxpayers paid for the banksters to siphon the world's economic productivity to the top of the capitalist pyramid scheme. Remember when a relatively small group of financiers and politicians ruined the economy, then printed excessive hoards of new cash to stabilize their scheme and fund bonus paydays that resulted in a semi, only-on-paper recovery while the working class was forced to accept less for more as the new normal? They called it quantitative easing: a play on words because it was just that easy to quantitatively ease the majority of folks into a financially weaker position, while the economic-collapsing perpetrators insulated themselves with the fruits of The People's labor. And because capital is apparently worth more than hard work, the people have somehow been lulled into accepting the notion that financially rewarding those who already have an abundance of money is somehow more beneficial than rewarding those who truly contribute to the culture- those who are creative, innovative, and/or artistic.
Foundation-First Economics Trumps Trickle-Down
So yes, to pay for UBI, we print the money, but to effectively introduce UBI without dramatically altering a primary currency, economies are best protected and strengthened by printing complementary currency (Basic Bucks) while offering Creative Currency Octaves to delicately introduce both a supply of, and demand for, expiring currency that's freshly minted out of thin air, though still backed by contributions from a collective of creators and artists. That folks- is all-inclusive, creatively incentivizing, innovative, and financially artistic.
-To A Better Future
Inverse Elite
(First presented February, 2017.) Are parasitic organisms better in quality or ability than their hosts, therefore elite by definition? If not, why would a public consider the usurping-super-wealthy, some of society's most subversive and destructive agents, to be superior or elite in any way?
Surely we've reserved the label elite for those who've elevated to the prime in their field, such as artists, performers, and altruistic do-gooders. In athletics, business, science, law, and even academia, high achievers continually set increased standards for those who follow, but what about these so-called wealthy elitists who's only achievement was being born into a family whose ancestors exploited war or slavery like aristocratic royals? Why are influential faustians and misers, who advance nefarious secret agendas or strive to one-up each other on a superficial world's wealthiest list, considered elite?
Chopping Change
Does owning a helicopter make a person elite? If they engineered it or fly it better than anyone else can, then probably yes. If they inherited it or bought it with money from -say- drug trafficking, money laundering, or day-trading shill-game schemes that systematically extracts capital from ordinary people without providing a useful product or service, then probably not.
Athletic Icons
If the next “Michael Jordan of Skateboarding” is a teenager who lives on the other side of the tracks, his proven ability is what earns respect. Michael Jordan's elite status can never be lost like money, so why are the team owners, the billionaires who pay the elite athletes salaries, considered elite? Have they become the Michael Jordana of the business world? Would it diminish team-owner status if league ownership were taken over by current and former players, fans, and refs in an earned-in collective-type fashion?
Lasting Impressions
Due to art's subjective nature, artistic elite is a strange can of worms, but it's safe to acknowledge performance artists who consistently sell-out large concert venues as having earned the elite title. When artists' creations endure centuries such as the Mona Lisa or Beethoven's Symphonies, even if the actual piece doesn't tickle your particular fancy, it's hard to argue that an artist's work is undeserving of the claim, even if the artist didn't actualize tremendous success while living.
Who's Whom
A question for the inverted-elitist who possess inherited wealth, hoards real estate, placed lucky bets in stock markets, earns income from capital gains instead of labor, or gambles with institutional capital to cash-in on someone else's novel ideas: if the economy and dollar both collapse, would that so-called elite status still remain? When people like Donald Trump are assumed to be elite because of a perceived baron-esque bank account, a disservice is done to the true elite real estate developers: the architects and engineers who create masterpieces. Unabashedly stamping one's name upon a building because one has somehow glad-handled the deal making process by leveraging other people's money and utilizing dodgy accounting practices may lead to affluence, but can't be considered elite among authentic elitists. Although the political legacy of President Trump is still in its initial stages, no one would go so far as to say that The Donald, politically speaking, is the next Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul.
Drawing A Distinction
Someone who struck gold or oil on their family's property and now drives a supercar is fortunate, maybe even lucky, but not elite. The legacy ivy-league scholar who secured admittance to an elite institution via generous donation should not be in the same category as a brilliant scholarship recipient, even though they'll both earn the same degree. Major league sports team owners should not be considered elite because they proudly wear the same championship ring as the MVPs. Wealthy housewives who host black-tie galas to benefit tax-dodging shell organizations in the name of philanthropy are not elite, unless they actually end poverty, cure the disease, or save the rainforest. A sleazy politician propped up with dark-money to pander as a corporate shill on Capitol Hill is not elite just because s/he won an election, but if s/he unrigs the system, holds the corrupt accountable, and initiates lasting positive and productive change, they should be commended simply for doing their job.
Con-Ed or Con(n)Ed
The elite “Nichola Tesla's of tomorrow” are those who mitigate suffering, create masterpieces, provide inventive solutions to serious problems, or display superior talent and ability without usurping the collective or harming the environment in the process. Therefore, please caution others when this thrown-around term is used, for the fake inverse elite should not be confused with actual true elitists. Who would you nominate for elite status based on qualities besides wealth or political influence? What else should be considered disqualifying qualities for elite status?
CurrentSea X-Change
By Ting Tsu Yu
A provisional perspective on cash, coin, capital markets, and other original pecuniary options.
“Any thing is worth only what others are willing to trade for it, including time.” -Money User
(First presented April, 2016.) Tender, legal enough for tax collection, is of course minted by the powers-that-be in each locality, but what about gold, jewels, or other valued treasures small enough to fit in your pocket or satchel? How would a shop-keep or grocer even process a payment if someone offered to pay in gold? These days, retailers typically won't accept anything but local currency, unless the barter proposition is worth their while. Cash wasn't king before it was created, so whatever was, is worth investigating in attempts to inspire better-than-current options, maybe even manifest the best monetary system imaginable.
Local Paper
See Massachusetts Berkshire County's Berkshares currency for a live case study. If your community adopts a local complimentary cash system before any potential capital collapse or wild swing of value, your community is more insulated, insured, and better off weathering economic turbulence. If many communities adopt a similar approach, it could transform “too big to fail conglomerates” into banks “too obsolete to stay in business.” People power is the ultimate power-play, and an aligned movement can check any institution.
Electronic Currency
Money systems, electronic or not, are strengthened by wide acceptance and conformity of participation. If the general collective adopts transparent BitCoin-type money for online spending, its value is still entirely dependent upon electricity. Electronic exchanges are even better than cash for large transactions, but printed cash is dependent only upon the willingness of acceptance.
If someone offered you, say, a thousand, four-dollar bills, you'd likely laugh. But if you were offered four, thousand-dollar chips from a nearby casino, could you tell if they were fake? How about the unfortunate folks who've been, say, tipped a counterfeit bill?
“If any bill gets passed ten times before being exposed as fake, the first nine folks still got their money's worth.” -True Banker
Gold miners and ol'time smelters of new-found metal were, in a way, counterfeiters if they dipped a lesser metal into gold to create plated coins. Yet still, the coins added more value to the collective that wasn't counted before. But who says gold is valuable, anyways? It's certainly not edible. It may be nice to adorn oneself with ornamental shiny things, but have you ever held a bar of gold? Imagine carrying around a 25 lb block of metal worth 500k, just to make a payment. Or go grocery shopping.
Countries may build their currency upon precious metals for credibility, providing “reassurance” that their assets are heavy, yet today, gold standards have a reduced purpose due to being logistically burdensome for typical transactions. As an investment, hedging agent, or insurance policy, a giant stockpile of anything with high value also becomes a liability to protect. In this day and age, it makes zero difference on regular folk's bank statements if Ft. Knox is full of gold, or empty.
Hypothetical Situation
Say the day arrives when the US dollar collapses like a house of cards, and other countries aren't willing to touch dollars or US bonds. What then, for dollar users on US soil? It's a mental exercise for emergency preparation, so how would you introduce a new form of money in short time, but fairly? Of course the best answer is: consider all options, and put it to a vote. A wrong answer is: reward those whose failures brought about the emergency.
Quantitative Easy
Any government could spread the fruits of fiat currency out across the collective population, placing spendable cash into the hands of those who actually spend, as opposed to those who hedge, day-trade, or hoard capital. A Universal Basic Income could royally flush the system of piggy bankers, and expose the flaws in our current form of crony-capitalism as a clever cover for neo-slavery by focusing priority on making poverty obsolete. A function of UBI would put a real price on what everything, besides necessities, is truly worth.
A Blueprint
Multi-tiered currency as introduced by Duke Johnson in the article titled The Blue Print, can't be claimed as unfair if: basic bucks are provided for necessities, any existing currency (dollars, euros, pesos, etc) is used for earning and spending, and creative currency is reserved for rewards and incentives. Creative Currency Octaves offer money users a fresh and fair capital market with built in supply and demand that neither forces change upon anyone, nor excludes any adult, thus empowers communities by turning the tides on any capital system, especially those which are corrupted and rotten.
“By introducing complementary currency into the system as opposed to more of the same, no one will lose money, but plenty will gain.” -Rain Maker
This system can put both outward and inward pressure on any medium of exchange. The intentions are to, enable creation, foster innovation, support production, and eliminate poverty. The outcome could pave the way for a potentially pure form of meritocracy, where Creative Currency becomes the first monetary model in history to be backed by art and community creation, be exclusively earned, and not potentially won, inherited, stolen, or found.
Basic bucks are the opposite, abundant within the system, good for all until expired, then only redeemable by creators, to trade back into dollars (or primary currency) at their particular creator octave. For those who don’t need extra money, complimentary or not, basic bucks would likely be donated as compliments for work well done, or support for an admirable cause. Regardless, when basic bucks expire, their value reverts back to the source that created them, unless exchanged by those that society has decided to support with an earned elevated octave ratio, thus creating demand for abundant supply.
Wrap Your Bills
Creating low-to-no-cost complementary currency can be as simple as typical paper money enveloped in clear plastic cellophane or lamination, where collectives adopt a brand or sticker seal, possibly where employers or exchange agents add their personal logo or stamp. The goal: for bills to be transferred ten or a hundred times locally before being unwrapped to be sent back to their source, or traded outside the collective. Transactions could be counted by stickers stuck on the clear cover, sealed by the trusted local logo, to where the enveloped bill becomes worth one additional unit per use when traded back to the original seal agent. So instead of a gold-standard where bricks of precious metal lay dormant, and complementary to bonds where interest accumulates via time/risk, simple use of plastic adds value to an already established system, where local transactions, or primary use, get rewarded. Maybe even use stacks and rolls of common coinage for accounting, or a coin-standard, for additional function and feasibility. Maybe a sticker gets peeled per use, to be stuck onto any coin, to be worth a dollar at the source.
Key point: opportunity exists for innovation without using a mint, or including those who operate mints. Main takeaway: communities can use creativity and collaboration to augment any existing capital.
Hungry, For More Options?
If all your local food sellers accepted A new currency only, a choice would be thrust upon your community: either adopt, or adapt. If they began also accepting A new local currency, the transition would be far smoother to ease into.
Dispensing new tender of a predetermined daily amount, could be both fair, and fun. Existing banks could be excluded by utilizing ATM's, non-profit exchange agents, and community gathering places where, say, neat games transform Cents into more valuable currency than dollars, local participation by desire.
X-Cents
In case of emergency, or a citizen-driven movement where a government opposes significant change, it could make sense for citizens to revert to coins for common, low-relative value transactions due to coins tangible ability to restack value on a pure number basis. Coins aren't normally melted down for another purpose, so their advantage has staying power, and they possess a year date which could be important for creative differentiation. At that point, coins become recognizable resources of standardization by common origin, their value still entirely dependent on willingness of acceptance, but strengthened by conformity and increased participation.
The Power Of 1
A currency balance could be accomplished several ways, where say, all coins and cash carry the same value, of one unit, on all necessities, on weekdays only, but not during business hours or on holidays, or whatever. If every penny was now worth 1 dollar, hunger and housing-first become directly addressed, then down the road, more people become empowered in deciding how to spend time, as opposed to being constrained to trade time.
Dispensing by Design, and Chance
Employers of local citizens could, for example, trade quarters for hundred-unit bills to pay worker wages for top priority projects. In addition, by including a factor of chance where everyone wins, but some win more than others based on luck and age, would incentivize participation, enable debt clearing, and transfer real-estate ownership rights back to the people or local collectives, and away from institutions that operate for profit-above-all.
We Won!
Kids ages 5-12 could trade one penny for a new dollar everyday, but if the weekly Saturday kid wheel lands on their year of birth, a 1/8 chance, their payout is a twenty (assuming they can find a coin with the corresponding year.) Teenagers can be offered new fives for a nickel everyday, until their weekly wheel spin lands on their birth year, a 1/7 chance, then they can collect a fifty for a nickel. Adults could trade dimes for new paper tens everyday, min/max amounts based upon a tiered system varying by local requirements, official civic responsibility, or accumulated hours of community work, etc.
“Fair does not imply equal, but rather deserved.” -Truth
“When chance is involved, rigs lead to regret.” -Justice
Chew On That
If any community (on US soil) can bring the value of one penny to equal one dollar or more, that whole community deserves to be the toast of the future ghosts of Wall St. Change seems much better than giving bankers trillions of taxpayer bailout money as reward for defrauding the global economy, right? When institutions eat, sleep, breathe, live, and suffer like humans, they should be entitled to advantages that people receive, but until then, corporate tax incentives breed unnecessary human suffering by design. Exploitation can also be reversed, by tinkering with supply and demand, and swinging a tide of CurrentSea like a Tsunami in a directed wave pattern.
Kick This Around
Consider your tax bill if you only earned, say ten or twenty cents per day! If your buying power was still the same locally, let the high-fliers pay half their seven-figure salary to taxes while you enjoy one-cent meals and five-cent per night housing. When you want to travel or make a large purchase in dollars, simply change out your alt-currency with the local exchange back to dollars like a tourist. Currency innovation is strengthened by conformity, but requires acceptance only, especially on the underground current. Likewise, it's not cheating the system if you barter away a vehicle or house to your family member or friend for a dozen eggs, Fabergé or not, to avoid sales tax on a private transaction. It's simply excluding the system's protections where not needed, and reducing inefficiencies.
Thinking Like a Banker
Why talk trade without exploring debt? To inspire the creative head-scratchers and innovative thinkers, sound advice is to learn the rule of 72 concerning interest rates and time, and how often any principal doubles depending on compounding interest.
Then consider how easy it can be to clear debt by the weight of a feather, or a bill, by becoming matchmaker of those owed, to those in debt, and including another- possibly a shill with a bill.
Say What?
If Bob owes Tom 100, and Tom owes Larry 100, and Larry owes Bob 100, and none of them have any cash, then put them in a room and all debts can be cleared without any money changing hands, sealed with three handshakes, only. If one of them is a bank, it's still the same equation. If the three begin arguing that they're each owed money, send in Sheila the shill, with a fake bill, and see who figures it out first. “Did one of you guys drop this? I’ll just leave it here for you to figure out amongst yourselves.” Even if the bill is real, and she loans it to the guys to pass around once to clear all debt, then directly back into her hands, what’s the difference between a c-note, a counterfeit prop, or a personal check made out to cash?
Now instead of three entities, imagine three hundred (or more) who all identify with a similar debt load, all expunging their debts by utilization of a collective money-changing house with fresh capital, as opposed to a central bank whose presence is that of a foreign entity. It's tricky, but possible with a large enough collective of clever creators and determined citizens. Also, your lawyer reminded me that in lieu of payment, equations can also be balanced with services rendered. So, you can owe me... for the tip.
Banking is Also Tricky
Banks are kept in business by charging interest and fees, repossessing assets, and ensuring safe trading and storage spaces. But bankers are rewarded for driving up inflation and pushing down citizen purchasing power, relative to those at the top of the capital pyramid-scheme, thus making people more desperate and vulnerable by design. Banks in current form can be flipped out of business, or made obsolete, if enough determined folks are willing to both learn and adapt small scale local currency trading, and by leveraging fair and transparent money usage.
“Reverse the obverse by turning the tide on face values, Harriet Tubman style.” -Miss Jackson of the Underside
Part 2: Prime Existing Examples
Whose House is Who's?
Casinos have always had a seat at the currency tables, sometimes in the shadows, yet gambling existed prior to capital markets nonetheless. A casino operator seeks to host, entertain, and sometimes spa-spoil those who don't gamble just to bring in additional revenue, but the poker tables are a fascinating field for observing currency sets. Put a card-shark hustler near a monopoly-type banker and it'd be like a Labrador meeting a sea lion; obviously different, yet striking similarities. Both bark, breathe, and swim, but if set to compete in a SeaCurrent, underwater swimmers win every race. Dogmatic bankers can't legally tilt flow in stock markets, yet cheaters do so routinely, without punishment, thereby reducing determent.
“Hustlers are expected to lie at the tables, but bankers can be bluffed into laying down a loan.” -Chort Cellers
Fold Up or Showdown
By noting the difference between casino chips at cash games vs tournament poker chips, fiat currency on a micro, ratio-level is displayed for function and utility. At a high-stakes cash game, why push around and restack thousands of one-dollar chips each hand, when thousand-dollar chips can be utilized? Card rules are the same whether or not the stakes are high or low, but if a high-roller enters a low-stakes game with a single chip worth more than all chips currently in play, s/he who holds the weight advantage is obvious to the players, but not necessarily to casual observers. Any house would make the exchange simple, but in a game played in, say, jail, where the jail-birds were using pennies and nickels, how would they account for a new-fish joining their table with only one, hundred-dollar bill? How many times will that bill get traded before it leaves that jailhouse? What else could one piece of paper possibly be useful for in such a dark place?
A Moon-lit Meal?
A standard card house can illuminate why banks are also houses of cards, in the right light, and hint to why casino bankers operate in “cages.” If people want to play cards for a living, with private capital, they can in casinos. But do We The People find it acceptable that some folks earn billions of dollars by changing money, hedging against humanity, or hustling consumer markets with other people's savings?
A negative symptom of “too big to fail” bankers becomes their relative buying power to purchase, say, four or five luxury homes to let sit vacant, for the purpose of investment, thereby inflating housing prices for those who actually need one home, and reducing overall buying power of all others who use money or need housing. Leveraging other people's assets to exploit supply and demand by tilting favor and inducing poverty may be legal, but it's not moral.
“Wall St. doesn't actually make anything, except everything more expensive.” -Day Trader
Artificial Inflation
It's known that executives spend outrageous sums of institutionally funded, publicly-traded firm's money entertaining clients at lavish restaurants, or on absurdly priced bottles of wine or hotel rooms, to then “write off” as tax exempt expenditures. Aside from escalating the cost of doing business, executive’s willingness to pay any price if purchased on expense account drives up the overall price of dining, travel, and leisure for folks who aren't paying with other people's money. That's business, and how capitalism works, but when the service workers don't earn enough to also eat out or travel leisurely, they quit or protest, which is also how business operates when capitalism doesn't work well for all involved.
Dark Money
What benefit does a massive offshore savings account do for any tax-avoiding firm, besides rendering wealth temporarily useless? Similar extractions of capital become dangerous when scrutiny-avoiding criminal empires amass vast swaths of cash that can't be legally deposited into banks. Dirty money usually gets used for other shady activity such as payoffs to corrupt officials, money for kidnapping, contact killing, drugs and prostitution, etc, which in turn further fuels the corrupt underbelly, and unjustly rewards those who manage to stay a step ahead of the law, or whom authorities deem “too powerful to prosecute.”
Since the invisible hand of the market appears to have been severed from the long arm of the law, balancing over-compensated centralized banksters out of the collective equation is worth every penny, especially for those who pay the highest premiums to subsidize criminal behavior. So what's preventing us from manifesting a better money system?
Black Gold
Oil, and thus petro-dollars, has been a major force behind the currency trade for generations, but who wants billions of barrels of oil if the primary use just became obsolete? The only appropriate answer is The Ground, and neither The Sea nor The Sky wants oil at top or bottom dollar. Energy that doesn't require economic dependence or polluting the environment is available, yet suppressed due to the “powers that be- greedy.” *See Nikola Tesla and those his work has inspired.
Just to be clear, wars have been waged due to oil's forced demand and the energy industry's control apparatuses, therefore, it's risky business to power-play the oil cartel who protect their dirty assets with heads of states on puppet strings whom exert military muscle. Oil being used as money has made far too many people far too wealthy to ignore, therefore radical collective change is likely required to avoid the black-oil slick-falls of continuing to reward the wrong industries. Industrial hemp and cannabis seeds could transform the entire system, in a way that improves the bio-sphere as opposed to destroying our collective home, as Henry Ford claimed ages ago.
Get Your GreenBack
There is not one logical argument why industrial hemp was prohibited or is kept illegal, and those who claim that a rich natural resource should be off limits to farmers and/or consumers, are as dangerous to society as spilled-oil is to our ecology. Hemp is fuel for efficiency, and interestingly enough, hemp paper was at one point used for US dollars, aka greenbacks. *See WWII era film Hemp for Victory
Local Department of Common Cents
The true test of any currency value is its purchasing power per unit of account, and how many of those units your time is worth, especially when working for someone else. Money is far less valuable to greedy piggy bankers and capital hoarders if it's required for far less. So what other ideas can make money more efficient and fair for all? Hint: focus on providing what people need, for less, thereby countering those who seek to subjugate by doing the opposite.
“Financial freedom enables independence; and when living is cheap, life isn't.” -Ting Tsu Yu
Be Inspired.
Generosity, contributions, and support are welcomed and appreciated.