Is Goodwill Capitalism a type of redistribution of wealth?
No. In a Goodwill Economy, those who cannot pay for life's essentials like health care, education or nutrition with money or Earned GeeCees, can always BORROW GeeCees from the Federal GeeCee Reserves, at a very low interest rate. They can do this for as long as they are need the assistance. However, the clock starts ticking for repayment from the time they borrow the first GeeCees. Repayment could be in the form of earned GeeCees, or cash, or from income taxes or by rendering services in the community. Therefore, although the borrowing of GeeCees is kind of funded by tax payers, everything has to be repaid.
Recovery of funds can be implemented in many ways. Think of the National Guards, where you have to attend the weekly or monthly training in order to get paid the reserve salary. But you have to report for work when national duty calls. The only difference in GeeCee Economy is that instead of salary or payment you can borrow GeeCees as and when you need them. At the time of borrowing, you may file your recovery and repayment plan - in terms of professional preferences or training programs that you want to enroll in, and the timeline for the repayment plan as well. You may also indicate your preference for industries or companies where you would like to look for the work. As soon as you have registered this information, your information is added to the national registry of available labor pool. This is the pool that the employers from all over the nation are supposed to select workers for employment or training . If you are not already enrolled in a productive, revenue generating service by the end of your submitted timeline, you may be picked up by any one of the employers who are in need of your skills and talents. Of course, employment in a GeeCee economy takes a whole new meaning, in that, it is not a permanent employment - rather it may be a series of part time or full time jobs that may be short term in duration. It is probably because of this short term commitment that businesses will be eager to pick up people of jobs because they have the flexibility to let them go as soon as it is not profitable for their business. Of course, long term employment is always possible - as long it is mutually beneficial for the employer and the employees.
In the long run, because of the higher probability of maintaining a 100% Full Employment, the GeeCees will pay for themselves and very rarely will it be needed to fund them with tax payer money.
What will be the role of government and non-profits in the GeeCee Economy?
Government will play the role of facilitator and exchange in the GeeCee Ec onomy. Government will create and maintain the technical and bureaucratic infrastructure needed to implement, maintain and enforce the GeeCee Economy. Government agencies (local, state and national level) under the direction of congress will be responsible to identify and mark products and services into the Life Sustaining Category. Some kind of government agency will be required to develop and run the computer system to implement GeeCee Tracking System. Part of the auditing of the system has to be done outside the government - but in general, the government would be responsible for maintaining and auditing the GeeCee transactions. As is the prevailing practice, the legislative wing of the Government will be responsible for setting the consumption tax rates and developing the Earned GeeCees rewards programs among other things. Government will also compute and publish the national and regional dollar conversion rate for GeeCees. The law enforcement wing of the Government will also enforce laws concerning GeeCee Economy . Most importantly, the Federal, State and Local governments will back and guarantee the value of GeeCees in circulation.
Government will honor all GeeCees earned within its national borders. It will not honor GeeCees earned outside of its national borders. Similarly, non citizens may earn and use GeeCees with the National Borders but they cannot borrow GeeCees outside their own countries. Limiting the usage of GeeCees within national borders helps in eliminating confusion that could arise in international trade and commerce and foreign exchange conversions. For trade purposes all GeeCees would be converted to cash before transacting across national borders.
Government will maintain the list of people who have borrowed GeeCees (and are queued in for returning into the work force) in a national labor registry along with an inventory of their skills and qualifications. It will work with local communities and private enterprises in setting up vocational and professional training centers. But the government will not be responsible for these programs. Similarly, the Government will not run any welfare program such as Social Security, Food Stamps, Medicare or Medicaid. In fact those programs will be discontinued in a GeeCee economy. The Government will maintain a skeleton agency for department of Education, Social Programs and Health and Human Resources to set the standards and to develop processes. The Government will also create and maintain a department to audit the working of GeeCees in the marketplace. Government will not run the Health Care services or programs. Instead government will dispense GeeCees when requested and will track their usage. These GeeCees could be used for purchasing health insurance plans and paying for services, co-pay and deductibles. The Government will compensate any institution, business or entity that submits their Earned GeeCees for conversion to Dollars. It will however, guarantee payments to providers of life sustaining goods and services and therefore, these service providers will be given priority treatment over others.
How much Earned GeeCees can a government give out? How many GeeCees can an individual borrow? How do you prevent people from borrowing beyond their limit - or lifeline? How do you prevent fraud?
What about people taking advantage of GeeCee System for health, nutrition and Education even if they can afford to pay for those services with money. What prevents them from saving that money to invest, grow and prosper in the money based marketplace. Would'nt they be exploiting both economies?
There is no limit for borrowing GeeCees. Which means that multiple checkpoints have to be inserted into the system that will monitor the usage and borrowing of GeeCees and appropriate audit and warning flags will be placed depending on each situation.
Secondly, because of the digital nature of all transactions, It is very easy to figure out if someone is a bum or is manipulating the system in a fraudulent way. For example: The GeeCee System can compare someone's Life time earnings in GeeCees with their Borrowed GeeCees or even Monetary Income. Comparing these three using some traditional algorithms can bring out inconsistencies that might raise a red flag.
There are many different ways to audit and flag bad practices in the system. For example, we could implement a process that checks that before borrowing any GeeCees, you have completely exhausted all your Earned GeeCees . You may continue to have money or property that you owned prior to borrowing your GeeCees, but as soon as the due date for repayment starts to kick in and you have not already started the repayment process, you must start liquidating all assets and cash until all dues are paid back. You are obviously in that situation because you are still unable to rehabilitate into the work force - so you can continue to borrow GeeCees to take care of your daily needs. But from this point onwards, you will begin appearing in the labor registry for any company to pick you up for jobs or paid internships.
Obviously, these kind of verification and validations are applied only when a person is flagged for audit or fraud. However, unless someone is a chronic bum or has some other emotional or physical problems, the great thing about GeeCee Economy is that there will be plenty of opportunities for people to repay GeeCees unlike debt in money based economic system where the only way to repay is with money - which can only be earned by providing a revenue generating activity or job - which in turn implies you must have a skill or qualification or experience that can land you such a job. But in a GeeCee assisted marketplace, even if one's skills are not enough to earn a lot of money, one can always earn a lot of GeeCees by providing social and cultural value, not counting out regular income, and pay back using Earned GeeCees. That aspect of GeeCee Economy is what will make it a sustainable economy.
Financially successful people earning income in money or those people who have no need for Earned GeeCees can always donate their Earned GeeCees towards repaying other people's Borrowed GeeCees or just return them back to the Government - which can then use them to balance it's books. Remember that GeeCees may not be inherited or passed down from generation to generation - except for a limited and fixed time and that too under special circumstances. There could even be other voluntary charitable exchanges where borrowers may choose one donor from a list of donors whose charity they would like to accept for paying off their own Borrowed GeeCees.
These are some of the ways that I suggest that the balance of GeeCees could be managed within the system as a whole - ensuring that there is a steady flow of GeeCees in both directions. It is noteworthy to recall that outstanding GeeCees are backed by the social and human capital that can always be recovered - through involuntary services even, in the worst case scenario. The GeeCee System will keep track of the Borrowed GeeCees going out and Earned GeeCees coming in to the exchange and will attempt to maintain a balance. Once the balance shifts one way or another - specifically, in the negative direction, which implies that more GeeCees are going out than coming in - then the government may use the warnings to take precautionary steps and manage the outflow or augment the inflow. One of the ways to augment is to implement tax at source or consumption tax in both economies - again easy to implement because of the digital nature of the new economies.
Will the government provide healthcare services or run the healthcare insurance industry?
No. Typically healthcare will continue to be delivered by the private enterprise constituting the providers and insurance agencies. People will continue to subscribe to a wide range of modified and refined health insurance plans that are already available. It is possible that there might be a room for a few plans which could be a national health insurance plan - the type that is offered federal government employees could be offered to everyone else as well. People are free to use whichever plan they want - however they have to pay for each plan. The only difference is that the payment could be made with any or all of the currencies including Earned and Borrowed GeeCees. Same applies to payment for copays, deductibles and so on..
What are the unintended consequences in GeeCee System?
People keep borrowing GeeCees and work at jobs that do not fully compensate - eg: low paying jobs - such that they never have to make enough money to repay their GeeCees. Or in other words, people borrow more than they can ever repay. What if they can never qualify for a high paying job - in order to earn enough to repay their borrowings? Of course, this situation is even more probable in our current economy, where people who enter the welfare system because of financial problems find it very difficult to get out of it. In a GeeCee Economy, where earnings is not always tied to revenue generation and where employers have greater flexibility in hiring and firing employees, people with special or limited skills will be identified in the system and placed accordingly in jobs where their skills are capitalized most - capitalized in Dollars as well as in Earned GeeCees.
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