Adrian Kuzminski: Where do you come up with this messianic stuff? Seems to me we’ve facing a global eco-crisis on a finite planet with over 7 billion people facing resource scarcity, pollution and environmental degradation, species extinctions, and climate change, just for starters.
Me: You’re probably over reacting on a subconscious (and modernly biased) level to the traditionally religious word Grace. I’m a complete agnostic myself so nothing I write has anything at all to do with any Christian religious dogma, simply the linguistic and psychological aspects of it as applied to the economic and money systems…..and in my Duality Within Trinity-Unity Wisdom formula the Trinity mindset aspect of the that formula.
Regardless of whether or not that is so, as for ecological crisis, I’m just trying to free the economy from itself so that more money is free to be invested in both high and low tech means of creating more with less resources, and to free individuals from the economic slavery they are being forced into…so that they can think straight about those ecological problems and due to basing the economy and money system on the concept of Grace as in balance…enabling them to better develop a more balanced sense of material enoughness. Having the economy and all of Man’s systems based on a complete understanding of an intelligent and enlightened philosophy like Grace would undoubtedly do more to resolve the the ecological crisis than all of the protestations that still play on and within the paradigm and mindsets of Debt/Loans/Production ONLY…and hence is always thwarted…or even used against the sanity of the concept of Grace which is the only idea equal to and more powerful than those of Debt/Loans/Production ONLY…and as I have just pointed out will enable more rational thinking about the ecological concept of enoughness….balance as in enoughness itself being a major aspect of Grace.
Me: Dividend and Discount: Visualizing Monetary Grace
Everyone needs to imagine receiving $1500-2000 per month for the entirety of their adult life (18 years of age and over). They also need to imagine that it is tax free and given over and above whatever they might make via employment.
Students and parents need to imagine their children receiving this continuous dividend while they attend college/post secondary education of their choice.
Businessmen need to imagine how such a Dividend will guarantee a continuously adequate amount of actually available individual income to purchase their products and services. Businesses also need to imagine how implementing this Dividend would mean the elimination of taxes they pay for unemployment insurance, welfare and eventually also Social Security because they would immediately become redundant. Employees of course need to imagine not having to pay these taxes as well.
Progressive theorists need to imagine the incredibly increased economic democracy and freedom from domination by market forces that such a policy would immediately effect.
Conservative and Libertarian theorists need to imagine the incredible cost savings occurring as a result of eliminating the bureaucracies associated with welfare, unemployment and Social Security.
Politicians need to imagine the satisfaction of their constituents with these policies…and their dissatisfaction at not having them or losing them.
Clergy and other helping professionals, and all individuals concerned about values need to imagine how much more time they and their clients will have to teach/model/learn truly adult, responsible, gracious and wise values and behaviors.
Historians and the general populace both need to recognize that it was, much more often than not, the individual who did not have the constraints of worrying about where their next meal was coming from that the advancements of society originated from, and also that despite the onerousness which has characterized economic life for centuries that the overwhelming number of individuals were able to integrate a sense of constructive purpose into their lives, and increasingly so if they incorporated Wisdom, i.e. an integrative means of actually looking at their environment and life.
And so each and every individual needs to imagine the joyous, abundant and freeing results of what a society and a civilization truly based on the aspects and policies of the pinnacle of Wisdom, Grace and graciousness, would enable.
Then economists, businessmen and individuals need to visualize how a macro-economically derived retail discount would guarantee not only the elimination of inflation but a large percentage increase in purchasing power as well.
Microeconomics is concerned with profit. Macro-economics is simply aggregate numbers and (supposedly) deciphering the relationships between datums and crafting/recommending policies that will stabilize the macro-economy. In this sense profit, savings and any costs from whatever cause or causes over and above original financial costs…are actually waste/de-stabilizing. The Social Credit Discount percentage would be computed via the ratio of total costs of consumption over total costs of production for a given period of time, say monthly. As profit and savings are costs derived from production they will go into the denominator of that ratio. As interest as well as depreciation costs of replacing equipment and facilities is cost over and above original financing and all waste is also additional cost…all of these totals would go into the denominator. Some estimates place the percentage of the Discount, especially when waste, which has become such an accepted and so mostly missed aspect of modern economies, is accurately computed as as high as 75-80%, but even if it was only 50%….what would a 47% reduction in one’s total consumption costs amount to? Well, if you spent $5000/mo. that’s $2350 in creased purchasing power. Not bad, huh? If you were a husband and wife who did not work and say the dividend was only $1500/mo and lets say they spent $2500 of that, they would actually spend $1175 less essentially making their total purchasing power equal to $4175/mo.
And businessmen remember, the totals of all your discounts…are rebated back to you so you can be whole on your overheads and margins. This additional profit (good times mean more profits and so less need for additional financing which of course is a large cost for businesses) combined with the increased amount of demand for your products/services made a reality by the Dividend makes this an evolutionary win-win proactive set up that fits seamlessly within profit making systems.
Finally, everyone needs to visualize a gracious taxation system alternative that taxes business profits and personal savings at say-75-90% if invested in the derivative casino economy or simply some other purely financial vehicle like bonds, but say only 10% if such investments were in one’s own business, in some other traditionally productive business model or in speculative ventures that researched and/or applied more efficient resource usage.
Now that would be a truly abundant, efficient and freedom creating economy.