Never mind what you think you know about debt. Put aside the details that you have been taught to believe and take a step back to look at the big picture of what debt really is. Debt is like the evil midwife of productivity. Debt brings new assets into this world as liabilities and adds a private tax to everything made. Debt converts all human productivity into an obligation to repay and transfers the ultimate ownership of these assets to the creators of debt.
Consider this example. A team of tradesmen pool their talent and energy to build a new housing development. Useful existing physical resources and raw materials are transformed into individual family homes. Upon completion, a neighbourhood of wonderful, brand new assets has been created.
Give me one good reason why debt should usurp the asset value of these assets. Why should the cost of owning and using these homes be any higher than the value of the inputs used to create them? Why should users pay for the consumption of these assets any faster than the actual rate of depreciation that occurs from using them? If money is meant to represent the value of all existing assets, why should people surrender their money faster than their consumption rate?
The number one excuse that people give for this deception is “supplier inputs and government fees must be paid upfront before the project is completed so that accounts can be settled and workers can get paid”. This is absolutely not true. It is entirely possible to restructure our financial and economic system in a way that eliminates the private tax of debt interest. The only reason that things remain the way they are is because it serves the interest of the money lenders. The entire monetary system has gone rouge. Distortions, leveraging and deceptions have inflated and deformed values so that they are no longer tied to real physical assets. Value has become a subjective fantasy and true cost a hidden lie. Until money is permanently anchored to real value there is no escape from the debt trap.
One simple change in our economic thinking could free society from debt and usury forever. Remove the power to create money and credit from all governments and credit institutions and empower citizens themselves to create the money supply each time they contribute their productivity to society. Workers should be automatically and immediately fully paid by the act of working itself. Salary or wage credits should appear in the public blockchain instantly once they have been verified and confirmed. This method of money creation eliminates the need for employers to have sufficient money upfront to pay workers.
Similarly, if raw materials and production components simply move between trade suppliers without the need for upfront payment or money exchange (instead being simple accounting transfers) then again the need for upfront borrowing would disappear. Credit would automatically flow, without duplication, between trade partners all along the production chain. As transfers occur, shipper credit balances would be reduced, receiver credit balances would rise. Sales to final consumers would eliminate producer credits accordingly.
To fully understand the economic hoax that rigs the game of life against the interests of regular citizens consider this. We are in a game of poker and the house controls 3 of the 4 aces. Profit, interest and taxation are the 3 aces that control money and finance and support the existing power control grid. Through effective propaganda and programming workers have been conned into not using their own 4th ace to defend themselves. Most willingly submit to the self-proclaimed authority of the game controllers and add their ace to the hand of their masters. We are being played folks and there is no way out without disassembling our monetary and economic cage. Our ace is the trump card and we better start using it before CBDCs and the corrupted blockchain is used to finish us off.
Despite my best efforts, I have not been able to successfully reach and inspire other Canadians to mobilize against the political and economic tyranny that has now become all too obvious. Led by Carney, the globalists are now in a position to finish Canada off. Digital IDs and CBDCs will likely roll out in the fall and from then on Canadians will have little choice other than to obey orders. The unlimited promise and potential of our great country will be forever sealed off by our financial servitude to an unelected, technocratic, bureaucracy whose plans to control the future of all humanity are evil and insane. A shocking amount of our land, assets and prime resources have already been acquired by foreign entities. Why do so few Canadians seem to care?
I am tired and demoralized by my own irrelevance. My ideas are too far-fetched to generate public interest or support. Hopefully sometime in the future, fresh eyes will read my posts and a movement to start a resistance political party will emerge. There is absolutely no point in discussing freedom or reform without first identifying and understanding the fundamental flaws of our current social operating system, namely debt, interest and profit. So once again, I humbly submit my 30+ years of research and rabble rousing on my Monetary Reform and Financial Party websites, and urge you to connect and collaborate here with like-minded neighbours at Local Resistance.
Before I leave to enjoy what may well be the last summer of old-fashioned freedom, I offer this final look at the financial shenanigans of our federal government, and an update on an clever tax replacement idea… a Financial Transaction Tax.
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In 2007, the year before the financial crisis, the federal government of Canada owed $422 billion in debt securities and $678 million in outstanding loans. From 2008 to 2012 debt securities increased by $288.9 billion or 68% and outstanding loans increased by $8.5 billion. Total tax revenue in 2008 was just $204 billion so government handouts during the financial crisis equalled about 1.5 years of tax revenues.
In 2019, the year before the Covid crisis, the federal government of Canada owed $792 billion in debt securities and $9 billion in outstanding loans. From 2020 to 2021 debt securities increased by $435.2 billion or 55% and outstanding loans increased by $2.2 billion. Total tax revenue in 2020 was just $300 billion so government handouts during the Covid crisis again equalled about 1.5 years of tax revenues.
Since 2008, federal government debt has risen by over $1 trillion (245%) which equals about 2.4 years of current tax revenues. The government is now adding over $100 billion of new debt annually, half of which is just the interest cost of borrowing. This spending rampage has to stop. Taxpayers are maxed out. There is a much better way for the government to finance its operations… a Financial Transaction Tax.
Imagine for a moment that money is just a utility. Like hydro or gas, it flows through a distribution system to people who wish to use it. The flows are metered and a flat fee is charged to pay for government services and the costs of running the system. Most Canadians have no idea how much money circulates in the Canadian economy every year. GDP figures only measure the net change, or value-added component of the economy. In 2024, Canada’s GDP was just over $3 trillion. But according to Payments Canada, the gross value of the most common financial transactions, settled through the ACSS system, totalled $9.5 trillion. Another $97.4 trillion flowed through the LYNX payment clearing and settlement system in 2024. In addition, an estimated 20% or $21.4 trillion in internal, branch-to-branch transactions were settled privately by large financial institutions. All-in-all, financial transactions worth over $128 trillion kept the economy going. If each transaction was taxed at a rate of just 1%, it would generate almost $1.3 trillion in revenue. In 2024, the total combined tax revenues of all levels of government in Canada was just under $913 billion. By applying a 1% tax on all financial transactions the government could abolish all other taxes, including income, sales, payroll and property taxes and still have a revenue surplus of nearly $400 billion to pay down the debt. Even if government-initiated financial transactions accounted for one-third of the total gross spending in the economy Canada’s entire taxation system could be eliminated immediately.
Without income taxes to pay, the disposable income of all Canadians would rise by an amount equal to their current payroll deductions. Their purchasing power would be further increased by the abolition of the PST and GST. The removal of all of the other taxes which are embedded in the price of the goods and services that consumers buy (ie. gasoline, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.) would also increase their relative purchasing power. An increased demand for goods and services would stimulate productive investment and create economic growth. The disappearance of all payroll taxes would encourage job creation.
A Financial Transaction Tax (F.T.T.) would be easy for Canadians to understand. If you spend a dollar you pay a penny in taxes, that’s all there is to it. If you earned $50,000 a year and spent every cent of it, the total tax you would pay would be $500. The F.T.T. would be collected at the point of sale by the seller of goods and services or the broker/clearer of financial transactions and would be remitted directly to the government(s) on a monthly basis. Software modifications to existing computer-based clearing and settlement systems would be relatively inexpensive to develop and implement. The government’s savings on tax collections, processing and administration, and tax enforcement would be enormous. Displaced staff from Revenue Canada and the provincial revenue ministries could be re-assigned to other ministries that have been hurt by recent spending cutbacks. Individuals and businesses would save on tax preparation and tax avoidance costs. How much you earned would be irrelevant since no one would pay any income taxes. How you spent your income wouldn’t matter either since all transactions would be taxed at the same 1% rate.
By changing the environment of the speculative marketplace, a F.T.T. would reduce the turnover rate of short-term, speculative investments which do little for the economy except push up the cost of capital and raise the price of goods & services. In a more controlled environment, investors would seek stable, longer-term investments with innovative, growing companies. Balancing the budget, at all levels of government, would help restore investor confidence in the overall stability of the Canadian investment marketplace. Some investors, seeking to maximize their profits, may consider transferring their capital outside of Canada to speculate without the tax. Applying the F.T.T. to all wealth that is leaving the country would help discourage this response.
To avoid another financial crisis, the finance minister must do more than merely tinker with government expenditures in his next budget. He must simplify the tax system and reduce the burden of taxation smothering the economy. By metering the daily flow of money in Canada, the minister could stimulate productive growth and establish a sustainable debt-free foundation on which to build Canada’s economic future.
WOW! A friend of mine just sent me a link to this video. What a fantastic, important presentation of a genuine, moral, economic alternative and spiritual connection to Creation. Every school aged child around the world needs to learn and have an opportunity to practice the wisdom that Ron Colman brings forward in this documentary.
Please watch this amazing film that asks What Really Counts? and suggests the idea of measuring Gross National Happiness instead of GDP. Please spread news of this as widely as possible.
Here is the alert that I received...
What Really Counts is a visually stimulating film about enabling people and governments to look beyond monetary accounts and consider other conditions that affect the health and well-being of people and the environment we depend on.
Based on Ron Colman’s book: What Really Counts; The Case for a Sustainable and Equitable Economy (2021), this feature-length film presents the impressive efforts that have gone into opening society’s eyes to the spectrum of circumstances that affect our world today.
Ron Colman has spent decades working on better ways to measure well-being. “Indicators are powerful.” he says. “What we count and what we measure reflects our values as a society and literally determines what makes it onto the policy agenda of governments. As we proceed in this new millennium, these indicators tell us whether we are making progress, whether we are leaving the world a better place for our children, and what we need to change.”
At present, looking primarily at Gross Domestic Product (GDP) when making decisions risks serious unintended consequences. While GDP, the sum of all money spent, has its place, it mixes up positive expenditures like housing and education with regrettable expenditures like cleaning up natural disasters and murder scenes. A billion dollars spent making war isn’t as good for society as it would be if spent on education and tools.
Ron Colman was inspired by the October 1995 article in the Atlantic Monthly titled: If the GDP Is Up, Why Is America Down? He and a team of volunteers in Nova Scotia proceeded to develop ways to measure the state of forests, water and air quality, volunteer time, income distribution, population health, the cost of crime and other factors that affect well-being. Their reports showed how those things were changing over time and were used extensively to raise awareness of the issues.
After years of working on the GPI Atlantic, a Genuine Progress Index for Atlantic Canada, Ron was asked by the Prime Minister of Bhutan to help develop ways to measure the health of their natural environment and the well-being of the people. The measures developed provided substantive information to back up Bhutan’s indicator of Gross National Happiness.
Later, when called on to help with a GPI project in New Zealand, Ron found that the basic premise was already understood, in part because the indigenous Maori have always seen social, economic, cultural, and environmental phenomena as indivisible aspects of living.
This work and other GPI efforts culminated in 2012 with a high-level meeting at the United Nations in New York where over 800 participants, including the UN Secretary-General and top political, economic, and civic leaders including Nobel laureates, met to propose a new global economic paradigm based on measures of progress that focus on the well-being of people and ecosystems.
It was exciting to think that the world might accept a sustainability-based economic paradigm, and collect updated information on issues of concern! The mood, as the conference proceeded, was enthusiastic. Participants could feel the possibility of the world opening its eyes to, and acting on, the full spectrum of conditions that affect well-being.
What became of these efforts? Watch What Really Counts to find out, and to refine your sense of how our societies can focus clearly enough on important issues to deal with them. Then, share the possibility with someone else.
We need to get this sorted out. There is much to do.
