Here’s an exchange between me and a friend. I like these ideas .. what do you think ?
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Me to Bruce by email
Re: your Tweet …
"For $700B you could wipe out most mortgage and consumer debt. Solon’s wisdom? How come THAT’s "socialism" & big boy bailouts isn’t?
Quite surprised more people are not asking this question … pay it all off for everybody would be one heck of a stimulus for the economy. The problem of course, is that "the ecopnomy" is not for the average working stiff, they are just the raw material for continuing the ongoing growth of wealth of the relatively few "connected".
The average guy and gal MAY now be learning how the game works.
My friend Bruce to me by return email
It would be nice if they did but, alas, highly unlikely.
I have often thought Canada should do exactly that. Now that our finances are in better shape (and we don’t need to sell government bonds just to close deficits) we should:
(a) forgive all consumer debt (I would not do corporate as so much of our corporate sector is owned by outsiders anyway). Solon’s cancelling of all debts in Athens MADE Athens the pre-eminent Greek city-state for two centuries: it also wiped out the entrenched interests in ONE blow.
(b) back the dollar 100% with gold at $1,000/oz or more. (I’d knock a zero off at the same time, i.e. one "new" dollar is 1/100 oz. – thrift is taught by low income numbers and low price points, plus all the junk at China, Inc. (WalMart, etc.) would now be priced in pennies, i.e. indicative of its future worth.) My back of the envelope guess is that with the BoC reserves we’d need $2,000/oz. but an influx of metal as being a gold-standard country might allow a lower number.
(c) borrow nothing as a government. Live within your means. In other words, make choices.
(d) companies can accept US bucks, euro, etc. if they want. For government, you pay in specie (metal).
(e) then start restructuring our tax system to make it clear what’s going for what. You want a carbon tax – fine. Gasoline excise tax, deficit fighting tax, GST, PST, etc. come OFF – the product has a single kind of tax. (Note I don’t say lower taxes [I might like that, but it’s not the point] but make the relationship between policy and tax clear to even Joe and Jane Doofus.)
Won’t happen, any of it, of course, just as the $40B we spent on Broadband for rural and northern development infrastructure could have been tendered to a supplier to deliver broadband via satellite to the whole country, free of charge.
Cheers.
Bruce
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