Make Poverty history, live 8, g8, Africa, economics, feed starving
children, anti-corruption, off-shore funds, tax evasion, corrupt dictators,
wealth distribution, eradicate poverty,
Charles handy, alex brummer, guardian on-line, guardian unlimited, fiscal
planning, president bush, tony blair, bob geldof, bill gates,
Updated Jul-05
BRIGHTSept99.doc
Return to: http://www.noelhodson.com
Best
seller of 2005 – see the future AD 2516 After Global Warming
BIRTHRIGHT.
Eradicating Poverty - September 1999.
The complete BIRTHRIGHT file is being considered by The Fabian Society, Commission on Taxation and Citizenship, Chairman Lord Plant
Contents
1. LIVE 8 Concerts – Make Poverty History - Africa
2. A
method to Make Poverty History – Example - Lesotho
Dear Sir Bob Geldof,
An effective way to get the money into the hands of the poor - avoiding
greed, incompetence, graft, corruption and off-shore bank accounts, is to learn
from the success of Micro-Loans (India and parts of West Africa) as
promoted by Senator Hillary Clinton and, in arid-zone agriculture, from
root-trickle-irrigation (delivering minute amounts of water underground directly
to the roots of the plants). The BIRTHRIGHT concept feeds weekly incomes to new
babies - protected by the donors and trusted banks. The new generation in turn
pay their families, teachers, doctors etc - creating a trickle-up or osmosis
system. Continuous evolution not revolution.
I can explain the detail if you are interested (or see BIRTHRIGHT on my
web site). I think it would be highly effective in any region, either rich or
poor, and would hugely improve the global economy.
Best wishes for your LIVE 8 events.
Noel Hodson
*************************
“Birthright”
applied in all regions, rich and poor, to eradicate poverty.
I have thought
this through for many years and fully believe it will eradicate poverty.
Briefing
BIRTHRIGHT
slowly replaces Pension Rights and social security. It is a tax on shopping,
collected in stocks and shares, which are held in Trust for (new) babies. Thus
income is delivered to new babies, who pay for their care, distributing money
upwards from youth. Over a lifetime (70 years), all citizens eventually have
money income.
Example – Coca
Cola trades in Lesotho, population 1.8M, and sells, say, a bottle or can per week per citizen at
US$0.20 (twenty cents) amounting to US$18.7M a year. It makes 15% profit or
US$2.8 thanks to the buying power of the
Revolutionary
Advantages:
Now apply the
principles to all countries and regions – including the impoverished people in
rich countries – e.g. the Food Stamp population of the
I have thought
this through for many years and fully believe it will eradicate poverty,
without causing inflation, by allowing all citizens, however poor, some tiny
measure of the unearned income enjoyed by the rich. And it will increase global
wealth, the commonwealth, immensely by enabling the billions of people
currently excluded from the money economy, to join it; a global market of 6
billion cash-economy consumers.
Some of the
technical arguments and rationale are rehearsed in the
Or contact me
for the papers.
Noel Hodson
Tel
00-44-1865-760994
14
OX3 7PJ
www.noelhodson.com
A new fiscal system for the Information
Society, to eradicate poverty world-wide.
The
reality, often denied by government, underlying this proposal for a new
taxation and wealth distribution system, is that automation, accelerated by
computerisation, is removing 80% of necessity or traditional jobs. We have
worked hard to abolish work - and have succeeded. The motor and banking
industries are clear examples of this increasingly rapid trend. New, complex or
high-tech jobs are replacing the lost jobs, but the traditional workforces are
not yet trained for them. There will be a long period of hardship, similar to
the century of piece-working and sweated labour during the Industrial
Revolution, causing social and economic disruption, unless, as jobs evaporate,
new methods to distribute the unprecedented wealth of modern economies are
implemented.
The
proposal is to levy a new tax, administered by local authorities, on operating
companies and organisations, paid in shares or bonds. The organisations to be
taxed are those with large market shares or quasi monopolies. Typically, they
will be reducing their traditional workforces; thus reducing the distribution
of wealth via earned income. The new tax will not take cash from the taxed
organisations. The shares paid over will be pooled via a computer system and
distributed as portfolio's of 52 shares and bonds to new-born citizens,
yielding a weekly dividend or interest payment to them. Thus, over an average
lifetime, all citizens will come to be guaranteed an income equivalent to the
average wage, as a Birthright. High earning citizens will have their Birthright
income taxed to zero. Non-earning citizens will have all social-security rights
through Birthright; thus realising the political visions of a Shareholders'
Democracy and a Stakeholders' Society; bringing middle-class benefits to all
families, liberating true potential and changing welfare from Pension Rights to
Birthrights.
Birthright
will phase out or reduce National Insurance taxes, VAT, and Income Tax on the
lower paid; transforming the fiscal system as the electronic revolution
transforms the economy. Citizens 2000 will pay for their own birth, child care,
nursery school, junior and senior school, university, imprisonment,
health-care, pension and all other welfare costs. Birthright is the ultimate in
efficient taxation and reality, transferring wealth direct from the automated
real economy to citizens, with government monitoring the system. The Birthright
Portfolio will be held In-Trust for each citizen, refreshed every 5 years at
the option of the citizen but protected from predators for life.
Citizen
2000 will be educated in the complexities of the interlocking nature of global
trade and economies, related to and focused on their weekly dividend income.
Reality will thus be introduced into every household. Children with a
Birthright income will be better regarded, reducing child abuse. Ideally,
Birthright will be a right of each newborn child, replacing Welfare and Pension
rights over a lifetime. Very high unemployment, as in
Note: January 04 – Economists calculated for Time Magazine
in January 2004 that the
A file containing letters to &
from MP's, details of the potential impact and arguments about the consequences
of BIRTHRIGHT is available by post, fax or Email from:- SW2000 Teleworking
Studies, 14 Brookside, OXFORD OX3 7PJ, UK. Tel. +44-(0)1865-760994 Fax 769384. Email:- noel@noelhodson.com or direct from
BRIGHT-1PAGE.doc/6/5/98
Q1.
Can society afford to support all these new babies for life regardless
of their work contributions to society?
Answer - Society
will continue to house, clothe, feed and provide basic services for all. Or
will collapse into chaos. The premise here is that in the Industrial-Electronic
Transition, 80% of traditional jobs will go, threatening the stability and the
markets that society and business relies on.
The Birthright Portfolio simply recognises that all citizens will - one
way or another - consume their basic needs to live, even if they are all imprisoned,
and provides for these needs with dignity, without rancour or argument, from
the outset. The Birthright Portfolio reverses pension concepts. The pension is
paid from birth and retirement, enforced idleness for the years between 55 and
95 disappears as a concept. There is no
additional cost on society, but the timing is changed and anxiety minimised;
converting Geriatric Economies, pension fund dominated planning, into Youth
Economies. Optimism coming to outweigh pessimism.
Q2.
Who loses out; who pays for all this generosity?
Answer - Nobody
pays, and it does not cost companies any immediate cash-flow. Real wealth
growth, and Jobless-Growth, is accelerating. The rich will only get richer in
absolute terms, but not in comparative terms. Providing a secure income and
removing anxiety about survival will empower the majority to apply their
energies more actively. All real wealth is the result of human energy being
channelled into useful activity. Depressed, frightened, ill-educated,
disenfranchised citizens do not apply their energies well. Slavery was hugely inefficient; employing thousands of people to beat other
people into doing work that each might happily do for themselves - making both
sides thoroughly miserable. Some businesses are still managed on the slavery
model which persists in the same way child abuse is continued by the abused. We
all work better if we are willing. If
"work" ceases to be a punitive enforced activity, far more human energy
will be applied to useful and productive work.
Liberating all human potential will produce such amounts of wealth, as
have never been dreamed of in the past.
Channelling income direct from companies to people is far more efficient
than collecting and distributing taxes via government officers.
Q3.
Why distinct shares - and not a Unit Trust Portfolio managed by City
experts?
Answer - Education
Value. Education will be focused on the complexities of interlocking,
interdependent industries, government, commercial activities, environmental
damage, geographical resources, distribution, consumption, pollution, etc. Do
not blur Citizen 2000's understanding by interposing obscurantist financial
instruments or experts. All Citizens 2000 must learn to at least add-up,
take-away, multiply and divide numbers accurately. We made the mistake of
teaching them how to read, now there is no option but to follow through and
teach them how to count. Each bit of dividend income should come to be
understood by each Citizen 2000 - with its social and environmental consequences.
Q4.
How does the central computer get the Shares to distribute?
Answer - local
government levies capital Taxes on major organisations, paid by shares. The
authority then pools the shares in the computer memory.
Q5.
Why local government as the capital taxing authorities?
Answer - Even the
most virtual of cyberspace activities has to come to earth somewhere.
Empowering local government to assess and levy capital taxes on quoted
companies operating in their region and communities, will better ensure that
commercial activities are not overlooked - and will ensure that local relevant
shares are available to be included in the portfolio's of local people. It is not only global players that have near
monopolies - many local companies have tied up the local markets years
ago. Citizen 2000 needs to see the
reality of their Birthright Portfolio and come to understand the complex
functions of business and government. Act locally, think globally.
Q6.
Will the shares be voting shares?
Answer - yes of
course. Citizen 2000 must start to take responsibility for the planet -
controlled by the major corporations - and voting as a shareholder focuses the
mind, driven by direct selfish interests.
Q7.
Might Citizen 2000 lose their Birthright Portfolio inheritance?
Answer - No. It
will be illegal to charge, trade, sell, or make any promises to pay from this
dividend income. So any contract or arrangement (say with loan sharks) is
illegal as formed. Both parties to such an arrangements will be fined substantially.
This will protect Citizen 2000 in the same way as family trusts protect their
sometimes feckless beneficiaries. The
dividend income is to be treated and protected legally as is pension income
today.
Q8.
Will the shares in the portfolio remain fixed?
Answer - No. The central computer will constantly review
all citizens portfolio's and look at the mix and the yield. Every 5 years from
that citizen's birth-date, sales and purchases will be recommended to each Citizen
2000 to action or not. This process is
vital to educate Citizen 2000 in the complexities and ethical choices of the
global socio-economic system.
Q9.
Are all Citzens 2000 equal for life?
Answer - No. Just
like a middle class child is secure from childhood and through their education
and can fall back on support if commercial initiatives fail, so will Citizen
2000 through ownership of shares be able to do the same. Citizen 2000 will,
like the middle classes, be educated to take a role in society - A job, a
vocation, a hobby - doubtless there will be dropouts - but no more than there
are from the middle-classes today. The secured income is a platform from which
citizens can grow to unprecedented heights, and shine like stars in the
firmament.
Q10.
Will Citizen 2000's children inherit the shares?
Answer - No. On
death the shares go back to the global pool. Citizen 2000's children will
already have their own portfolio granted to them at birth. The shares become a
birthright of all citizens.
Q11.
How will this system affect government?
Answer - The
Information Society will soon enable all citizens to live anywhere. The
ephemeral nature of cyberspace trade transactions will encourage all government
revenues to focus taxes on the property and land within their jurisdiction. Governments, local and regional and national
will therefore have to compete with each other for citizen-residents by
creating the most desirable living conditions at competitive prices. It is to
be hoped that government will apply Information Society tools to enable more
intelligent and subtle management of communities; creating a subtle patchwork
of infinitely diverse democracies under a global umbrella. ("Home Rule for
The need for Income
Taxes and VAT will reduce proportionately with the distribution of Birthright
Portfolio's. Such reduction of taxes will assist markets and more than
compensate companies which trade in taxing authority regions and which
therefore contribute Shares to the central fund.
Q12.
Will the Birthright Portfolio contain currency "shares" and
Government Bonds?
Answer - Yes, this
is a vital component of the global system and Citizen 2000 needs to understand
and integrate the information. Further, local and regional government might be
re-structured to be able to issue shares which would also form part of the
portfolio.
Q13.
Giving shares to all babies born after 2005 gives all new citizens a
stake - but doesn't it ignore the immediate needs and rights of all present
citizens?
Answer - No. The Citizen 2000's income is immediately
applied from birth to pay for food, lodgings, child care, nursery school
etc. A stay-at-home mother would be paid
a wage from the dividends. School will be paid for etc. In this way, all families and relevant
institutions will receive benefit from the child's inheritance and start to
share in the new distribution of wealth mechanisms. This system will have an
immediate impact on taxes and welfare costs.
Q14.
Giving away shares in companies and currencies will dilute the ownership
and the dividend income of existing shareholders. Will society's great entrepreneurs be
de-motivated if their shareholdings are to be watered down in this way?
Answer - No. Look
at the greatest entrepreneurs of this century - or indeed most centuries - and
you will find the majority come from wealthy countries and financially secure
backgrounds. They are mostly people who can afford to take commercial risks
without the risk of personally starving and being homeless. The average Citizen
2000 will be a much bolder entrepreneur than today's average citizen. And
existing company owners will still remain hugely rich - the Birthright
Portfolio income will support the markets for their company's goods and
services which will otherwise diminish as massive unemployment sweeps through
communities.
Q15.
Will all new businesses be taxed in this way and contribute shares to
the pool?
Answer - No. Only
the major players, local (e.g. Water, Electricity) and global, which have
substantial shares of markets, particularly necessity markets and which are
quoted on the world's stock-exchanges will be taxed on capital. The rationale
is that the Birthright Portfolio replaces the necessity jobs which automation
removes from the system. As new, novel activities take substantial market
share, create benefits which become defined as necessities and which become
fully automated, they will migrate into the classification of Necessity-Work
corporations. The guiding principle is to enable all citizens to share in the
benefits of production of real wealth, which is produced automatically with
very few people employed in the production or service processes.
Q16.
If millions of people hold shares which they cannot trade and do not pay
for, will this undermine and devalue the stock-markets?
Answer - No. There
will be many more millions of shares still being traded in the normal way.
Shares given to Citizen 2000 still carry their full price and are a
non-mandatory (companies may elect not to trade in any particular taxing
authority region) payment of taxes - they have monetary value at market prices.
Trading them only every five years from birthdate will provide a much needed
brake on market fluctuations and speculations. The Birthright Portfolio shares
are confined to the largest, most stable of companies engaged in Necessity-Work
products and activities. There will always be a more speculative section of the
market for other business.
Q17.
Over the decades, this is a substantial tax on shareholders of major
organisations, in that it waters-down their shares. How can it be justified?
Answer - Most
major, long established trading operations have built near monopolies or
substantial market share in most wealthy political regions. As they further
automate their processes, they are no longer putting back into a region the
wages they used to pay. Government revenues, about 50% reliant on payroll taxes
are therefore reducing. Government
costs, to support redundant communities are rising. This Shares-Tax will, over
60 years or more, completely shift the burden of providing pensions and most
social security onto trading operations. It might better be called the Reality
Tax, as ultimately all wealth stems from the real economy - not from the money
economy.
Q18.
It could be seen as an anti-free trade tax. What the Shares-Tax is
really saying is that corporations must pay local, regional or national
authorities, in shares, for the privilege of continuing to trade in their
area. Is it an anti-business tax?
Answer - on the
contrary; it is based on the premise that most traditional necessity jobs will
disappear over the next 30 years. If no steps are taken to re-distribute
wealth, the very companies which improve their profits by employing fewer
people will end up with no customers - to the disservice of all. This is very
much a pro-business tax which recognises the interdependency of global
transactions.
Q19.
If the Shares-Tax eventually replaces all state pensions and social
security obligations - surely Government income can be cut by almost half?
Answer - Yes. In
about 60 years time, all Citizens 2000 will have a background, inflation proof
private income. They will not need social security or a state pension to the
degree now required. Governments will be collecting the Shares-Tax, locally,
and contributing the shares to the National or Global pool for distribution to
new babies. So government role is as a
middle-man. Their own revenues will be
focused on their role of providing the best possible living environment -
collecting taxes on the land and buildings that the highly mobile Citizen 2000
wants to occupy. Government will truly
serve its citizens as customers.
Q20.
If all new babies are to get a substantial income, there will be an
enormous baby boom. Single mothers need
only turn themselves into baby breeders to secure a large family income. Will
this sabotage the Birthright Portfolio?
Answer - Yes it
would if it encouraged profligate breeding in the suburbs. The Birthright
Portfolio will need to be limited to the first one or two children. That way
parents who want many children will have to bear the costs of additional family
members. There are in any case, strong
socio-economic factors persuading people to have fewer children later in life.
It is the poor who rear large families as a hedge against old age. Citizen
2000, as a middle-class citizen, is likely to continue the pattern of having
one or two children.
An answer to this
dilemma might be to start the portfolio for second or third children at age
16. Thus would be parents of several
children will not be influenced by the thought of the BIRTHRIGHT income - on
the contrary, they will have to maintain later children from their own
earnings.
Charles Handy, Visiting Professor of Economics, University
of London, in response to reading my letter 11th June to Alex
Brummer and the Birthright-one-page summary, writes:-
Dear Noel Hodson,
Yes in principle, BIRTHRIGHT is a great idea,
but the practicalities are very difficult. It is very close to old ideas of
National Income, Citizens Dividends, etc. Do you know about the CITIZEN's
INCOME STUDY SCHEME ? If not you should get in touch with them (0171 955 7453
when I last spoke to them).
And
good luck - it's an important idea.
Yours
Charles Handy
Financial Editor, Guardian Newspaper,
Thank
you for your fax (One Page Birthright & letter) of
The essential BIRTHRIGHT
principles are:-
1)
All citizens must join the
money-economy; as traditional jobs disappear.
2)
Tax all entities active in
the tax authority's region. Collect in Shares.
3)
Distribute shares to
citizens. Yield equivalent to average annual wage.
4)
Reduce/replace social
security and pensions. Citizens pay for services.
5)
Protect portfolio's with
trust status. Focus education on the (52) divi's
6) High earners pay 100% tax on Birthright. Global income considered.
7) There is no limit to the amount of wealth the human race can create -
poverty is a base social habit maintained to enable the rich to bully the poor.
Noel Hodson - 14
Noel Hodson founded, built
and managed a successful accountancy and tax advice practice, which now trades
as Blackstone Franks, London EC1. He has
teleworked at home since 1980 and specialised in telework consultancy full time
since 1988. He built a teleworked team of business consultants 1980-1987 from
one to 38 offices - it now trades as Morton Hodson and Co. Ltd. (
He wrote the seminal paper
“The Economics of Teleworking” – BT 1992 and specified, part authored and
edited the book “Teleworking Explained” Wiley and Sons, Chichester & New
York, ISBN 0-471-93975-7. He is Product Development Director, of Telework
Analytics International, and proposed and originated TeleworkAuditstm methods. He developed the
cost/benefit formulas for TeleworkAuditstm
from 1992-1996 when advising major
Noel Hodson is a consultant
on telework to British Telecom and a partner in an EC, DGXIII, ACTS project
DIPLOMAT, producing the European Charter for Telework, in which he has special
responsibility for European fiscal issues within Telework Guidelines under
seven themes including Employment, Intellectual Property, Sustainable Economics
and Taxation. He is the Chairman of the
EC, ACTS programme, GAT Chain which develops Telework Guidelines and
disseminates ACTS project results. He
continues to develop practical management tools for teleworking and promotes
telematics for wired democracy and for interactive distance learning (IDLE in
In December 1997 he
published BIRTHRIGHT, a radical proposal dealing with unemployment and
exclusion from the money-economy in the light of increasing automated
production; for fiscal, welfare and capital reform.
In March 1998 he was
appointed a Director and Treasurer of the Work, Information, Society &
Employment Forum (W.I.S.E. Forum) an international group researching and
reporting to governme nts and industry on trends in the Information Society.
The first President of the
In
1999, Noel Hodson is launching Experts Unlimited in the
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