Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [215]
5. Issue a tangible-asset based currency, forbid leveraged fractional lending and State expansion of credit (i.e. institute and maintain sound money).
6. Foster/defend/secure the FEW resources (food, energy, water) for its citizenry.
7. Limit transfer of wealth to Elites via the State and perverse incentives to misallocation of capital and the transfer of private risk to the taxpayers.
8. Encourage and enable diffused-ownership enterprise. Eliminate taxes on earned income, i.e. enterprise; the primary source of tax revenue is a simple low-percentage tax on all financial transactions (loans, mortgages, sales/trading of stocks, bonds, derivatives, sales of real property, goods and services, etc.).
Items 2, 4, 6 and 7 are the regulatory heart of the State mandated to protect the public trust. Oftwominds.com correspondent Steven Rodriguez describes the ontological challenges of limiting concentrated-wealth Elites' constant attempts to bypass or dilute State protection of the public trust for their private profit:
Think of regulation as a firehose trying to put out a fire. One interest puts its hand over the hose in order to preserve a profitable "fire"--some exclusive use of the public trust. The force emerges anew in two more locations. Two more special interests step forward to divert the stream away from their "HOT" projects and enforcement divides again into four streams. Reiterate ad infinitum and you are fighting the fire with a sprinkler instead of a fire hose.
Imagine being tasked to do some really great things but finding that you are blocked at every turn from doing what is needed to accomplish your charge. The size of state bureaucracy is directly proportional to special interest opposition to its mandates. The environmental consulting business dwarfs state resource agencies. It is an enormous misallocation of resources. Its only function is to permit resource destruction one parcel, one project at a time.
There is a better way. It is called collaborative planning. Collaborative planning cannot happen without an enormous public participation component. But the issue is far more complex than that. Everything about global industrial corporate capitalism is designed to conquer public spirit, and to conceal and subvert the right of the public to participate in all public trust resource planning and development decision making.
The public trust means any resource the access to which is essential for the development of healthy, thoughtful, fully enfranchised citizens with all the rights thereto. Cooperation with full participation of the community is the only development strategy that provides high quality habitat for humanity.
Weak, corrupt central states are soon taken over by Elites and devolve into kleptocracies. Loose confederations of small city-states devolve into fiefdoms in perpetual conflict weakened by shifting alliances and betrayals; they lose the economies of scale and the potential for widespread good governance.
The goal should be a re-set to a small central State with strong institutions capable of leveraging its powers to accomplish limited goals with limited funds.
The goals should be narrowly mandated, as per the Constitution: defense of the borders and national interests (which is not the same as global Empire), regulation of commerce and banking, issuing a sound-money currency, and the establishment of common-sense, transparent, accountable good governance.
The basic rules are simple: demand transparency, accountability and enable citizen oversight and engagement. At the risk of boring you, here are the principles of good governance:
1. An engaged citizenry
2. Transparency (trust and truth)
3. Accountability
4. Govern with an Adult Understanding (Triage and