?

I just had an idea that seems beautifully seductive.  I was lying in bed thinking about George W. Bush’s plea to Congress to approve his administration’s $700 billion bailout proposal.  He said:  “The government  is the only institution patient enough to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until their prices return to normal.”

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/bush.bailout/

As I considered that statement for a minute, I was reminded of that clichéd but persistent noble truth that the government is nothing but the will of the people and the only thing bigger than the government  must always be the will of the people.  Then I suddenly realized that the internet age has started to do something amazing – it has given this truism something eerily tangible.

Obama’s campaign harnessed the internet with a spirit that is, in a way , old school:  It is the American Government  ethos: from each small vote emerges the ever changing one great nation.  But, suddenly the voice of the American people can be heard at a drastically different frequency.   What was once a low rumble in the ground that emerged every once in a while for an election is now a voice that speaks almost directly to us whenever  it wants.  In some ways this kind of zeitgeist is the same as it ever was – society’s art that we take up as our spokesperson.  But it’s different now.  The voice is emergent – chosen only by the net sum of the viral community, but it is made up of concise stories.  These stories are sporadic, seemingly random, and almost always inane.  This is the conglomerate voice of our young internet using demographic whose first word was hamster dance.  But infants soon say the darndest things.  Obama’s campaign showed us is that this rabble has matured and it has a little more up it’s sleeve than youtube inanity.  Sometimes this voice is crystal clear and speaks with alarming precocity.

Boy my posts are getting long winded these days aren’t they…

Here is the thought that kicked me out of my cozy bed and sent me to my laptop:
The internet generation is nothing short of an institution in their own right. They are born out of the spirit of democracy and arguably exude that spirit more genuinely than the American Government itself.  And they are the other (if not the only) institution that just might be patient enough to bail out the United States.  Here is an irreverent, foolish, and (I think) seductively beautiful scheme:

Obama creates a special a government bond.   Actually he doesn’t create it at all, he “inspires it” or “endorses it.”  Actually he has nothing to do with it.  People just make it themselves.  It is actually designed and implemented by the internet generation on a wiki site.  The young generation themselves design a system where they can buy government bonds which can only be cashed in 40 years later.  The bonds are $100 each but you can only buy one of them.  They are guaranteed to pay back better than any other retirement fund on the market. This is not promised by the government but by a social community pact that is not made law until the time comes to pay back the money.*

*participants are motivated to make sure that in 20 years or so at least half of the population joins in.  Has anyone tested a 20 year prisoner’s dilemma scenario?

So where does the money go?
But the government doesn’t get the money or decide what to do with it. The people decide.  Not though political legislation, but they literally decide in realtime.  Each young person (“young” only because the payoff is 40 years, but anyone can buy one) has an online portfolio tied to their social security where they can vote on which sector gets what percentage of the bond money.

Who controls the money?
How could this possibly work?  The answer lies in a question I have asked for years: what happens when you tear up a dollar bill?
(In my weird world view, I have always seen an interpretation that the “value” of that money is instantly distributed to all other dollar bill holders in the world.  I believe there is market-relevant  truth to this even though it seems impossible from a micro-economics scale example such as tearing up a dollar.  Not surprisingly, no one I have talked to thinks this idea has much value or relevance.)

But who controls the money?
No one controls the money.  Because there is no money.  When someone buys a bond with a unique social security number, their 100$ is simply destroyed.  But it is not a meaningless sacrifice.  The scarcity that they impose is felt as a benefit to the market around them.  It is the double negative of a stimulus package.  Instead of an average increase in buying goods, you have an average increase in work hours to make up for the sacrifice.  You might think that is would merely cause a lack of spending that would be twice as bad as a lack of stimulus package.  But these things are really all about two things confidence, and national debt.  This scheme boosts confidence and doubly helps the national debt by saving money that you would otherwise spend on a stimulus package and stabilizing inflation in a way that is the opposite of printing new money.

But what does the money pay for?
The money “buys” a weathervane poll that is valuable because people simultaneously have nothing invested in it, and a great deal of value placed on it.  The poll will affect markets, investors, and benefactors and will sway development towards that decided by the will of a voting public.  The information of these transactions and portfolio votes will be open source and anyone can host a redundant server.   For those who cannot afford the 100$, foundations are setup to help pay people’s shares an encourage participation.

The idea goes viral.  It is seductive and exciting and people can’t decide if it is a scam or an indication of the next market model.  The same young generation who pushed Obama into presidency – who have shifted their media nametag from the “spoiled plugged-in generation” to the “innovative and consciously connected  generation” – decide to take on one of the biggest national challenges of all time – With a shocking self-less heroism, we bail out the government  on our terms.  And we will do it because we are stubborn and insolent and audacious, and because it sounds like fun to create something truly baffling just because we can.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

How many times have you heard “What are we leaving for our children?  What if the children just get bored waiting to see what  inheritance might come their way?  We’ve got ourselves an internet kids!! Can you believe the darndest things we can do with this thing?!