What this image means:
Just as a business has a Balance Sheet, there is a Macro Balance Sheet between the private and public sectors of the economy within any national economy.
Every government in the world is in debt.
The political purpose of the study of economics is to create a free and just society.
With proper economic theories, government and businesses and the people can all thrive. Peace and prosperity are also the underlying goals of religion.
Different political systems (theocracy, democracy, communism, and monarchy) have all failed. Therefore, old and common economic assumptions must be the problem, not the political system. Volatility and wealth separation has occurred with both agrarian and industrial societies.
What is needed is a mathematical formula that explains the past and present, and can guide our actions in the future.
Numbers are infinite.
We can stay on both paths forever, or we can use reason and compassion to solve this problem.
A debt-free and inflation-free economy is possible!
A person you should know:
S O L O N
The Lawmaker of Athens (died 559 B.C.)by Plutarch
Athens, unlike Sparta, was a money-mad commercial city. The constitution written by Solon mitigated the class struggle between rich and poor, and allowed for the growth of democratic institutions.
Solon was born into a well-to-do family of Athens. He worked as a merchant in the export-import trade, and he considered himself relatively poor. He did not worship money, as is evident from these poems of his:
The man whose riches satisfy his greed
Is not more rich for all those heaps and hoards
Than some poor man who has enough to feed
And clothe his corpse with such as God affords.
I have no use for men who steal and cheat;
The fruit of evil poisons those who eat.
Some wicked men are rich, some good men poor,
But I would rather trust in what's secure;
Our virtue sticks with us and makes us strong,
But money changes owners all day long.
Poetry was for Solon a way to entertain himself, and he also used poetry to give his ideas easy access to the minds of the Athenians.
* * *
The seven wise men of Greece were well-known, both to each other and to the general public. 1 Anacharsis, who was one of these wise men, came to visit Solon in Athens. When Anacharsis saw Athenian democracy at work, he remarked that it was strange that in Athens wise men spoke and fools decided. Solon admired this man's ready wit and he entertained Anacharsis as his guest for a long time. Solon showed Anacharsis some laws that he was drafting for the Athenians. Anacharsis laughed at Solon for imagining that the dishonesty and greed of the Athenians could be restrained by written laws. Such laws, said Anacharsis, are like spiderwebs: they catch the weak and poor, but the rich can rip right through them.
When Solon went to visit another of the seven wise men, Thales of Miletus, Solon asked why Thales did not get married and have children. Thales gave no reply, but he hired an actor, who a few days later pretended to have just arrived from Athens. Solon asked this actor for the latest news, and the actor replied as he had been instructed by Thales. He said that nothing important had happened, except there was a funeral of some young man who had died while his famous father happened to be away. "Poor man," said Solon, "but what is his name?" With every question and answer, Solon got more and more worried, until finally he mentioned his own name. "That's the man!" said the actor, and Solon went into all of the usual expressions of grief while Thales watched impassively. After a while, Thales said to Solon: "You asked why I did not marry and have children. You now see the reason. Such a loss is too much for even your brave spirit to bear. But don't worry, it was all nothing but a lie."
Nevertheless, it shows a lack of judgment and courage to avoid having good things because we are afraid of losing them. Even our virtue, which is by far our most valuable possession, can be lost through sickness or drugs. The soul has an innate tendency of affection, and when it cannot fix itself on a child it seeks some other object, and grief comes just the same. When a dog dies, or a horse, smug bachelors collapse in sorrow, but some fathers can bear the loss even of a child without extravagant grief.
It is not affection, but weakness, that brings a man -- unarmed against fortune by reason -- into these endless pains and terrors. Because they are always worrying about what might go wrong, most are unable to enjoy their present opportunities for happiness.
My belief is that we need an economic solution to an economic problem that is mated with political solutions to political problems.
Democracy is a good framework, but is nothing more than a team mentality with a leader, the same as monarchy. It is worth remembering that the system the American colonies overthrew was a Constitutional Monarch. The major change was the right of hereditary privileges by individuals; structurally we still have the same political system.
The real questions are: Why does wealth divide? Why is there inflation? Why are there boom and bust cycles? It is these economic issues that lead to political conflict.
While economics is a social endeavor, as well as a physical one, it is the underlying mathematics that is the central problem. The 'lack of money' seems to be a constant. Another way to look at it is that inflation always wins. No matter how far one moves ahead, and what advantages they have, inflation eventually catches up.
This is a man-made problem. There are no conflicts in nature, no banks, no pricing, no laws and no taxes. Nature is a self-sustaining and balanced system. Man has somehow created difficulties for himself. Even if we remove the selfish and the rich from society (via revolution) the problems remain. Democracy has not solved the issue of greed, but sometimes works in containing the extremes. What I am offering is the next step: an economic solution to an economic problem. It is a plan for the open-minded and generous of heart to contain evil with something better than checks-and-balances.
There are many ways to begin to solve the problem once you understand it. The first is recognizing that we are 'a money-mad commercial city.' We can have commerce without the pain, if we are wise enough to change some bad habits.
What is offered in my citizen's petition is just an example of how we could do things differently. If you understand the principles that Solon (and others) were advocating in the importance of virtue over wealth, then you will see how easy it is to have a peaceful and prosperous society. Socrates, one hundred years later would advise the same: "The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death."
To be happy and free, we need to live virtuously in a virtuous society. As Gandhi put it: we must be the change we want to see in the world. Or as described in The Wizard of Oz: we need courage, a heart and a brain. We have been told what need to do a thousands times before. I am offering an explanation of the mathematical problem, and a practical way to apply these principles.