Category Archives: The economy

Trade with other countries, exports, imports, manufacturing, agriculture, forestry, building. How do we make ourselves a living. The economy’s purpose is not “to grow” but to provide every citizen with the basics of life and do this in an efficient way. Every section of New Zealand must be just as well served as every person deserves the basics of life.

Resource rentals

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b)             Resource Rentals
Untaxing the productive economy creates wealth while taxing nature conserves the planet. We would tax the use of land, metals, oil, electromagnetic waves, water, agricultural quotas, and any resource which is part of the commons. The principle is that we pay for what we hold or take, but not what we do or make (unless we make them using precious resources or the product is environmentally or socially harmful.)

All private companies which sell basic natural resources will pay an annual rental to the public purse.

If hydro electric power stations currently owned by Government were sold to private owners, then the new owners would have to pay a water tax for our public revenue.

Water tax. The worldwide demand for water is predicted to increase steeply and we have no reason to believe New Zealand will be an exception to this trend.

The irrigation tax proposed by the Greens is a good example of a resource tax. It is a tax on the use of a scarce common resource, water for personal gain. If farmers were taxed according to the resources they used, then water intensive farming would not be as profitable as dry farming. Dairy farms would give way to sheep and beef farms and horticulture, thus reversing the trend to dried up and polluted rivers. It would also mean overseas owned utilities and monoculture agribusiness would start to pay their fair share of tax.

Likewise a resource tax on scarce resources like oil would include petroleum based fertilisers and pesticides. This  would hasten the move to organics. Another effect would be to minimise taxes for sustainable farming and consumers with a low carbon footprint. Changing to resource taxes would simplify the tax system.

China has of late moved towards a rare earth tax and has adjusted its coal taxes upwards. Australia is proposing a tax on mining.

An Interest-free International currency needed for international trade

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International currency for international trade.
After prolonged and bitter debate, the international agreement at Bretton Woods in 1944 was to use the USA dollar backed by gold as the international currency, but this has given an unfair advantage to USA ever since. If people in a mutual credit scheme like a LETS scheme or a trade Barter Company can trade with each other without interest being paid, so can nations.

We would argue for an international currency with a clearing facility so we would promote an International Clearing Union with export credit accounts for trading among member nations.

In the banking crises of 1998 the Malaysian president brought in a policy to stop their currency from being used outside their country. If it came to Malaysia from the outside it was deemed worthless. This was a recognition of the principle of managed borders. Its economy as a result did not collapse to the extent that Indonesia’s and Thailand’s did and the IMF ended up noticing this.

The most powerful international currency we could use would be one invented by economist Richard Douthwaite of Ireland.

Trade dollars acceptable for paying tax

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Currencies of Barter Companies
Barter companies offer great advantages to small and medium sized businesses. Active membership of a barter company can increase the customer base of a business, sell excess stock and bring new trade.But governments have failed to recognise the alternative currencies of the trade dollars.

The currencies of barter companies currencies would be acceptable in the payment of tax at national level. These are generally referred to as Trade Dollars. The Inland Revenue Department has too long been inflexible in this regard. If they accepted the currency they could easily spend it with one of the members of the barter company. In New Zealand Bartercard has 75,000 members worldwide who could provide goods or services to government. It is time Government supported barter companies.

 

This section needs work done on it.

Community Currencies encouraged

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Community currencies.
Many trades do not require precious national currency or even a regional currency like an Auckland currency. At the community level a variety of currencies are possible and the X Party would encourage diversity. The recent spread of timebanks, where members in a community help each other and pay in Hours, is encouraging because it helps with building social capital and strengthens that community. Everyone’s Hours are equal. Organisations can join and teaching and learning can occur. The establishment of timebanks in every community would be encouraged so that people can exchange skills on an equal basis. Timebank coordinators would be funded. In this way community building can be fostered at local level for minimal cost.

Local Economic Trading Systems like the ones in Golden Bay and Wairarapa will be encouraged.

Local communities can establish local vouchers for the exchange of goods in their district. Local businesses would accept local vouchers backed by a certain quantity of goods produced in the area. One model for success is the Chiemgauer in Germany.

Green Monetary Reform

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GREEN MONETARY REFORM
Nearly every relationship essential to life depends on money. This gives ultimate power to those who control the creation and allocation of money. Most of our money is issued by private banks that manage it for the exclusive benefit of their top managers and largest shareholders. It is issued as debt to be repaid with interest. Not all borrowers can repay their loans with interest at the same time because there is not enough money in the system. So this requires at least one borrower to raise a new loan and so the total money supply must keep on increasing. This system leads to growing debt, a growing money supply and therefore the imperative for perpetual economic growth. This imposes an ever-increasing demand on the natural resources required for productivity growth – not to mention the social harm that results from a system of ‘winners and losers’. It widens the gap between the rich who are net lenders and the poor who are net borrowers.

Few people in the New Zealand realise that they are using privately created money without knowing it – and using a private service always comes with a price tag.

Any properly functioning economic system has as its purpose the provision of goods and services for a community. It is putting the cart before the horse if money supply is allowed to govern production. The financial needs of production and distribution should determine the money supply. It is only when there is enough money (whether national, regional or local) in the system that there can be full employment. If we don’t have full employment there is no hope for our youth and a complete breakdown of systems may be just around the corner. Full employment is not possible with a centralised money system linked to a global system dominated and tightly controlled by big banks, investment banks and wealth management companies.

A central service of governments — supplying money — has been privatised and it has been done by stealth in the western world.

The private interest-bearing money must be abolished and replaced by public money put into circulation by public bodies at all levels.  We would vest this money creation power throughout the community at different levels of organisation. There would be continuing negotiation between the levels to create a dynamic equilibrium.

A New Economic Model for a post-oil age

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A NEW ECONOMIC MODEL

It is time to rethink the broken economic system

A total transformation of the money and tax system is required to address the crises we face.

The economic metamorphosis we propose will move away from tax on work and production towards tax on unearned income e.g. on land.  Our philosophy is that the earth is for sharing, so owners of private land must pay an annual rent to the public.

Our solutions will go a long way to addressing resource depletion, climate change, environmental damage, unemployment and poverty, while at the same time unleashing the human creativity and entrepreneurialism required to meet the big challenges ahead.

We will change the way money is created. The current interest bearing debt money system provides the imperative driving the infinite economic growth paradigm, transfers wealth from the poor to the rich and causes growing debt, and environmental harm. Until we change the money system we change nothing.

Equality, according to research, makes everyone happier. The Mana Party has drawn attention to the growing gap between rich and poor, but so far its proposed solutions seem to have relied on centralist solutions and do not encourage green business. You cannot solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. To date the Green Party is timid in its remedies, preferring to talk of “better coordination of monetary and fiscal policy” rather than face the fact that our interest bearing debt money system leads to debt, instability, poverty and the destructive growth imperative.

Centralisation is not Nature’s model. In all our policies we try to imitate nature’s model of organisation.