Half-Money, Full Sustainability!

Half-Money, Full Sustainability!

Ganga Prasad Rao
http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar


The media was full of news – of the wrong kind. Food colors and flavors poisoning the young yet growing their brains, muscles, and bones (Kidneys are disposable, aren’t they? Hey,…what are stem cells for!). Plastic bags choking every drain, nook and corner of our commons. Detergents with chemicals so toxic they put nuclear materials to shame. Untreated effluents and solid waste despoiling the rivers and our landscape. Industries, caught in the capitalist ‘more profit’ trap, shunning every social responsibility to fulfil the lifestyle expectations of investors abroad. There was no resolution to the problem despite much talk, reams of paper, twitters, blogs, even U-tube videos. Wasn’t anyone smart enough to find a common denominator across these seemingly disparate issues and design a strategy that addressed them together, simultaneously?

Perhaps the media does affect our sensibilities, for an idealist who swore by Justice and was as ‘blue’ as the median on a straight highway, took up the challenge. Much like the mythical Lord Ram, he stepped up to the ‘Bow Challenge’ after his illustrious competitors had failed at it. He realized he’d have to integrate the conflict between equity and efficiency in to his grand ‘externality’ resolution. He appreciated that the resolution must be built around logic, and further, that in-built incentives and dis-incentives were necessary to guarantee the stability of the system. Further, the involvement of the masses and even entrepreneurs would be necessary for his solution to gain any credibility.

Choosing to depart from the ordinary, the Just Idealist, as he would like to be known (Ego is no sin, or, is it?), declared open membership to, and participation in the ‘Alternate Economy’. He created 3 pots of money, which he christened ‘Equity Half-Money’, EqHM, ‘Efficiency Half-Money’, EfHM and, ExHM, Externality Half-Money. The EqHM pot was the repository of funds meant to stimulate ‘equity’ beyond capitalist consumption. The EfHM, the efficiency analogue of EqHM, served to hold funds meant for investments in firms that enhanced the efficiency of the larger economy. Funds for the EfHM were sourced from Closed-Cycle 2key Bakey, and LT Bonds; the latter being ‘No Diligence’ funds that needed to ensure a ‘Full key’ (a ‘demonstration’ of intentions to be ‘Inefficiency-, Externality- and Inequity Zero’) before entering the Equity markets. The ExHM pot held reserves for firms meant to provide services to correct environmental externalities. The ExHM Money pot was filled by a ‘Green 2key’ plus an ‘Infrastructure Gaskey’. Funds for EqHM were drawn from Gold markets, which were ‘required’ to offer ‘Inequity Utility Compensation’ (and sponsor a ‘Diamond key IPO’) in ‘Equal Opposite’ of those ‘Peace’ firms that had given up and stepped down in Gold Gaskey, short of achieving ‘Diamond’ status. Consistent with the Half-Money Pots, the Just Idealist provided for three types of firms: ‘Equity Services firms’, EqSF, ‘Efficiency Services firms’, EfSF, and ‘Externality Services firms’, ExSF.

Participants in the Alternate Economy, whether a group of individuals, an association, institution, or a firm, that engaged in a pre-approved and pre-announced set of environmentally- and socially-conscious positive acts were issued with uniquely identified ‘Money Points’, and the same was recorded to their credit (not unlike eMoney/MobileMoney). Firms earned Efficiency Points, EfPt and Externality Points, ExPt, in return for providing ‘Efficiency Services’ and ‘Externality Services’ - services not supplied in an Open capitalist economy for want of economic feasibility or regulatory incentives. EfSF firms earned EfPt by engaging in activities as diverse as R&D for more efficient, new technological processes, refining uneconomic non-recyclables, producing environmentally safer, higher quality products, and offering alternative bio-degradable formulations. ExSF firms provided environmental services such as effluent treatment and solid waste management services, for which they were paid in Environmental Points, ExPt. ExSF provided ‘Utility Compensation (UC)’ services and earned Equity Points, EqPt, in return for those services.

To ensure the EfSF and ExSF did not exploit the dedicated money pots, the Just Idealist arranged a ‘See-saw Triangular Balance’ between, on hand, the EqHM-EfHM fund pair and, on the other, the EqHM-ExHM fund pair - the former offering ‘Utility Compensation’, UC, to households to balance the support given to Closed Cycle failures in the equity markets, the burden of which they paid in their purchases. The latter sponsored UE to the masses at large in return for supporting those environmentally imprudent in the equity market. In Boom times, the ExHM sponsored UE to balance the environmental excesses of an overstretched industry even while the EfHM funded Closed-cycle R&D, and cost-cutting technological developments. In Bust, the ExHM funded environmental restoration while the EfHM underwrote UC to households at large. By supporting Closed-Cycle inefficiencies and tolerating environmental excesses in the Real Economy, but providing for compensatory enjoyment, even remedial action in the Alternate Economy, the Just Idealist was able to bring about a quasi-competitive system in which the wrongs of the present were ‘paid for’ as utility compensation in the short run, but corrected physically/economically over the long run.

Individuals or Households earned EqPt in various ways: recycling batteries, motor oil, collecting & depositing ‘un-economic’ plastic and other ‘non-recyclables, buying certified ‘bio-degradable’ goods and certified organic produce, even volunteering in specified citizen/social duties. These Equity points, transferable among members, would serve as the equivalent of free money or tickets, and further, be valid for transacting with participating EqSF businesses/events thru credit/debit cards as well as thru mobile phones. Romantic Getaways, Cruise ship vacations, Concerts, Trekking trips – activities preferred by the youth whose participation was deemed necessary for the success of the program - were offered by EqSF firms, constituted of EqHM debt capital, exclusively to Equity Point holders, in order of declining EqPt balance. However, and to retain or liven up interest and participation among the masses, EqSF firms were permitted to discount EqPt for their services to randomly chosen members using a probability-distribution-based sampling lottery.

With umpteen ways, both consumption-based and by volunteering, to collect EqPt, and as many ways to spend them, an informal price-system developed around them, guiding participants in to optimal consumption choices. In a similar way, the demand for, and supply of various efficiency enhancement and externality abatement services generated transactions that enabled the discovery of implicit shadow value of EfPt and ExPt. The overlap, on one hand, of certain Equity activities with Efficiency activities, and on the other, with Externality activities, permitted the discovery of implicit exchange values between EqPt, EfPt, and ExPt, which in turn enabled the Just Idealist to optimize utility compensation, resource allocation as well as investment and divestment decisions across the entire Alternate Economy.

The funding arrangement for firms constituted of EfHM or ExHM capital explicitly specified that the debt capital be ‘redeemed’ with ‘Whole Money’ – money obtained by pairing Half-moneys of equal value, whether ‘EqPt-EfPt’ or ‘EqPt-ExPt’. Thus paired, ‘Whole Money’ discharged an equal amount of debt on the capital account. He further envisaged that, firms, whether EqSF, EfSF, or ExSF, would have the option to exit the Alternate Economy (or choose to expand with additional debt capital) upon entirely redeeming the debt capital with ‘Whole Money’ capital. For every EfSF or ExSF firm that discharged its debt with Whole Money and graduated in to the Capitalist Economy through an IPO, an EqSF could claim to have paid off its obligations and turn debt-free. The ‘Whole Money’ strategy permitted the Just Idealist to claim that he had indeed brought about a ‘Full key’ resolution to what was ‘tainted money’ - one that would obtain a 3-way balance in the see-saw Alternate Economy, and even gain in the Capitalist Economy.

Enamoured by the prospect of participating in a ‘green’ movement that rewarded participants for their economically and environmentally-conscious choices, even out of turn, the public, particularly the youth, joined in large numbers, providing budding entrepreneurs the consumer base necessary to kickstart their operations. With the availability of easy debt toward the capital for EqSF, EfSF and ExSF, and the opportunity of exploiting a ready market in UC, many entrepreneurs came forward to service the Alternate Economy. The Capitalist Economy and the Alternate Economy served as foils to each other - the former invading upon the latter when environmentally unsustainable, or, less than diligent in its services; the latter encroaching upon the former if they turned monopolistic or inefficient, or tardy in capitalizing on capitalist market opportunities. Between the tug-of-war of the Capitalist-Alternate Economy, and the 3-way see-saw within the Alternate Economy, the markets turned competitive, the society equitable, and the environment sustainable.

As for the ‘Bow Challenge’, the Just Idealist left it to the votes from participants in the Alternate Economy !