Agenda for a new, vibrant economy:
1. The electoral system has to be changed to allow any individual to Stand for positions as Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers based upon their abilities and their knowledge. The Political Parties will not be able to appoint anyone to Cabinet.
2. The heads of all the political parties are automatically appointed to the Cabinet as Advisors, with equal voting power to Cabinet members. Where advisors outnumber Cabinet members, the Cabinet members will have the power of veto.
3. The Cabinet has total power to enact laws to govern the country.
4. Nothing can be passed into law without a 70% approval of Cabinet members and advisors.
5. MPs look after their local constituencies and have equal ability to present ideas to Cabinet.
6. A prerequisite to becoming a member of parliament will be a certificate of birth for the country, where the parliament is domiciled. This avoids divided loyalties that are currently destroying the very fabric of a country’s culture.
7. Multi-culturalism; which is now equated, by most people, as ‘Ghettoism’, will be replaced with a campaign of ‘One Nation. One People.’ No interest group will have more rights than any other unless those rights have existed, and been entrenched within the culture, for a period of 50 years or more. This protects native rights.
8. A capital pool will be set up to finance entrepreneurs, who want to start a new business and a lottery will be held to choose those, who are going to get the finance. A lottery can also be used to create the pool of capital.
9. A separate capital pool will be set up to lend money to those entrepreneurs, who are unsuccessful in the lottery.
10. Day care facilities will be set up to help single parent families. At $10 per day.
11. Companies will be subsidized if they want to set up their own day care facilities.
12. Welfare will be phased out, because it is unnecessary in a functioning society.
13. Meal programs will be installed in every school to make sure every child is adequately nourished.
14. At school, children will be allowed to advance at their intellectual level as opposed to their age. Many highly intelligent young people drop out of school because they are bored. Others drop out because they learn at a slower pace and feel they have no hope of graduating when they fall behind. Some of the world’s most brilliant people are slow learners, because the focus on minute details that are often missed by educators.
15. Healthcare and dental will be funded by the government to 100% until the child finishes school.
16. Retirement age is optional and retired people have the same healthcare benefits as children.
17. Retired people will have the right to apply for additional income benefits if they can show they are not adequately looked after in terms of accommodation, clothing and food.
18. Illegal immigrants will be deported within 24 hours unless their country is in a state of war. This is fair to those who are applying for immigration through proper channels.
19. Illegal immigrants, who return illegally, after deportation, will be jailed for 6 months and deported.
20. Native people will be given proper housing and education facilities.
21. New skills training will be developed around native culture to put people to work in new areas such as outdoor adventure holiday centers, spas and wellness institutes.
22. No foreign governments, corporations controlling more than 5% of world supplies of a commodity, or their agents will be allowed to buy national resource companies. Nor shall they hold more than 10% ownership of any other registered company of that country. This will help to end international price control and environmental terrorism, where the people are exploited and the environmental damage is never repaired.
23. When it is necessary to provide public funding to large corporations to save them from bankruptcy, the government will take shares and sell them to the employees. The employees technically take control of their own destiny. The government will lend the money for the shares to the employees until they can repay the loan.
24. In the event that the employees do not want to own the company, the government will allow the company to be liquidated.
25. Corporations will be limited to paying their top executives 10 times the lowest paid person in their companies. This will discourage the practice of stealing from the poor to ingratiate the rich and will stop the outrageous excesses that allow company owners to earn a Billion times their poorest employees. It will redistribute wealth and raise hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
26. Commissions will not be paid to any bank employee if it raises their income above limit set in the previous item.
27. Maximum income will be $1Million. Private individuals, who, by virtue of their status, earn more than $1 million per year will be allowed to place the excess income in an escrow account and draw upon it for up to 20 years. This will apply to people such as authors and sportsmen, who have a large income for a limited time. Therefore, if you earn $20 million from a 1 year contract, you can take $1million per year for 20 years. Everything above that amount will be taxed at 99%. This might seem outrageously low to some people, until they realize that 90% of the world’s population will earn less than $1 million in their whole lifetime.
28. People, who use weapons in the commission of a crime will be automatically sentenced to 5 years in prison, without parole, in addition to any other penalty. This discourages violence and terrorists. People involved in organized crime are also terrorists because they use fear and intimidation to create wealth.
29. Drug addicts will be subject to arrest and involuntary rehab. This will help to stem the drug trade, reduce crime and reduce need for prisons.
30. Homeless people will be housed and given free counseling and medical services in a sheltered environment. To relieve stress; no information will be requested in relation to their reason for their homelessness. No-one will be allowed to sleep on the street. Those, who wish to sleep out-doors will be relocated to a sheltered farm community, where indoor shelters are available without notice.
31. All legal cases will be brought in front of a judge within 28 days. Serious cases will have 3 judges. No time extensions will be available. This will clear the backlog of criminal cases. Cases will not be thrown out because it took too long to bring to trial. People found guilty will pay for the whole trial costs, even if their wages have to be garnished for life. This will cut the cost of our legal system by 50%.
32. All appeals of a court judgment will be with a jury of 6 people. A majority must be achieved for appeal to succeed. A one year launch limit will apply.
33. Family separations. The assets will be divided based upon the length of the marriage and how much each party brought into the marriage. The amount accumulated subsequent to the marriage will be distributed equally.
34. All child custody will be 50:50 unless one party can show why that should not be the case. Financial support will be based upon individual ability of the parents. This will slash the legal costs of divorce and reduce legal costs.
35. Employment: no-one will be able to employ anyone on behalf of a third party unless they pay the employee 80% of all moneys paid for the service. This only applies to temporary and other agencies, such as security companies, where the agent typically pockets 50-60% of the employee’s wages and there is no value added by the employer. This will raise millions of ‘temporary’ workers out of poverty.
36. People, who pay less than minimum wage will go to jail for a minimum of 1 year. They will also be forced to liquidate all assets to compensate their victims, with interest. They will not be allowed to hire anyone in the future.
37. The regular workweek will be 36 hours with time and a half paid for the excess. Maximum work week will be 48 hours unless there is a serious need in the case of services required to save lives. These limits can be reduced as years pass. Only 9% of the population produces products. The remainder is working in services industries and 50% of those jobs are totally unnecessary. For instance, tax accountants and lawyers are only needed because the government is full of lawyers, who love to complicate and change our tax laws every year in order to create jobs for themselves.
38. No healthcare worker can be forced to work for more than 13 hours without an 11 hour break, unless it is in the performance of major surgery. This will reduce the abuse of hospital staff and physicians.
39. Pensions benefits. Someone who has contributed for 40 years should be entitled to 10 times the pension of someone who has contributed for only 4 years. This is equitable.
40. Everyone should contribute to employment insurance and they should have an inalienable right, irrespective of the reason for becoming unemployed, to collect everything they contributed plus interest. This money should only be used as a temporary method of income support, when someone unexpectedly loses their employment.
41. When someone collects everything they contributed to EI, plus interest, the unemployment benefit ends. This will curb abuse of the system.
42. Everyone should contribute to medical insurance.
43. Everyone should be given 4 certificates for medical attention per year and when they return them, unused, they should receive a 50% refund of medical insurance payments. A 25% refund is due if only 2 certificates are returned. As soon as additional certificates are issued, at no cost, there is no refund. This encourages responsible use of the healthcare facilities.
44. The government should take insurance premiums from every car owner and cover Road Traffic Accident liabilities. This means that a person who is injured can claim up to $50.000 in damages if the driver is not insured. Any material damage to property is not covered. This would drop insurance costs dramatically.
45. False insurance claims would incur a jail sentence. This reduces insurance costs.
46. Drug dealers would automatically be jailed for 5 years without parole. This would take the negative role models off the street and show young people that crime does not pay. Consequently, the prison population would decrease.
47. Foreign criminals would be deported immediately at the end of their sentences.
48. Illegal possession of firearms would incur an immediate 5 year sentence. If the criminals don’t have weapons, no-one can get shot.
49. Anyone who gave false evidence in court would incur the same sentence as the person would incur, if convicted. There are many innocent people in jail because someone gave false evidence with impunity. This would discourage false accusations and reduce prison population.
50. All persons in government service would automatically receive a 3 year sentence, in addition to their sentence, for criminal activity. People in government must set a higher standard of conduct as role models.
51. Corporate criminals would receive a sentence of 1year for every $million they stole and receive a discount for every million they returned. However, they would still have to serve 1 year without parole, if they returned everything. This would encourage the criminals to return hidden assets of crime.
52. Someone who receives a gift from a criminal, who is subsequently sued by the victim, would have to return the property, because all gifts would be considered assets of the criminal. This means the wives and friends of criminals would have to return all the benefits they received from the criminal activity; this would include interest and capital gains.
53. Driving: anyone who has been driving for less than 3 years and is involved in an accident, for which they are responsible, will lose his/her license and have to re-sit the test.
54. Law: ‘precedent’ will be superseded by a law that says that common decency and respect overrules all other aspects of law. Everyone should treat others as they wish to be treated themselves. Getting off on a ‘technicality’ would not exist.
55. Nothing can be excluded from a crime scene, irrespective of how it is obtained. Therefore, when the weapon, used in a murder, is found in the trunk of a car, pulled over in a speeding violation, it cannot be excluded from evidence because the search procedures were not followed.
56. Employers will be allowed to hire anyone they please. There should be no barrier to an entrepreneur hiring the best people irrespective of race or colour.
57. Employers will be allowed to fire anyone they please as long as they give them one weeks severance for every year served. This is current law.
58. Employers do not have to give a reason for dismissing a person from employment. This is current law.
59. Every employee will be entitles to 2 days vacation per month of employment.
60. An employer, who fails to pay an employee, for work performed, can face 1 year in jail, as a penalty, unless he can show just cause for the failure to pay. Eg. Criminal activity. In the case of a corporation, the CEO and the PRESIDENT can go to jail because they are the ‘employers’. This effectively curbs slave labour practices, which are perpetrated upon poor immigrants, who have poor language skills.
61. Students and retirees will be entitled to free use of public transit.
62. Rapid transit projects will be initiated. This will allow people to occupy jobs far from their chosen area of domicile, which will increase the quality of life.
63. Farmers will be compensated for failed crops because we want to keep them farming.
64. Nurses, with 4 years experience, will be given two years credit towards a medical degree and government funding will be provided to encourage them to go to university. Reduces cost of healthcare and increases services.
65. Universities will be asked to provide more education from business people and researchers, as opposed to professional academics, who are usually 5 years behind in their knowledge base. Entrepreneurs and inventors are at the forefront of their chosen industry and can raise education to new heights.
66. New entrepreneurial courses that teach people how to start and run a business will be set up at colleges. This alleviates the pressure upon government to fund job creation programs with large corporations and thus allows for a lowering of taxation.
67. Businesses will be asked to integrate learning processes with educational facilities. Job skills will be a close match to industry requirements and reduce the cost of on-site training. Reduces cost of goods. Most university knowledge is not job specific and students typically use only 20% of their knowledge in their job. Setting up ONE YEAR intensive university courses, which are specific to one job, will reduce education costs and allow people to become integrated into the workforce at a faster rate. For example an engineering student, instead of learning Wind, Solar and Pneumatics Power, will concentrate on only one area at a time. If he needs all, then he completes 3 ONE YEAR courses.
68. Long term economic programs will be installed by Cabinet and continuously monitored by a team of experts, who will report to Cabinet.
69. There will be no long term unemployment. Every person, who wants to work, will be given a job. Unemployment insurance payments will provide income to those, who are temporarily unemployed. This reduces taxation and criminal activity because unemployment and high crime rates go hand in hand.
70. All new immigrants must have a job before leaving their country of origin. This will be facilitated by a government placement division.
71. Parents and family members of immigrants will be supported by the applicant and the dependants will be deported, when the applicant leaves the country or fails to support his dependants; if they are unable to support themselves. This will make it easier to gain entry for genuine immigrants. Reduces taxation.
72. All welfare support payments (only available in desperate circumstances) made to any person, are refundable to the government, when the person acquires a means of support. A person will not have to sell their home and car in order to qualify for welfare. However, the government will take a lien on those items until the welfare monies are repaid. This will reduce taxation.
73. Anyone who chooses not to work will not be entitled to government support.
74. The CEO and the PRESIDENT will be considered to be the principals, where a corporation is involved in illegal activity. Criminals should not be allowed to hide behind a corporate identity. The corporation cannot be sent to jail but these people can be incarcerated.
75. The maximum interest rate that can be charged for any financial service would be 1.5% per month for 6 months and 0.5% per month, thereafter, for any agreement. This effectively fixes the max mortgage interest rate at 6% and the higher initial rate covers all set up costs. Any other charges will be considered illegal, even when called ‘administration’ charges. This makes most ATM charges illegal. It also stems the inequitable flow of money from the poor to the rich and helps to bail poor people out of spiraling debt. Interest rates have only one purpose; to transfer money from the poor to the rich. How many poor people do you know who collect interest? How many do you know that pay 28% to 325% to bank, money stores and loan sharks? This will reduce inflation. The only effective way to absolutely control inflation is with credit restrictions and ZERO interest, where lenders receive a share of the profits from all the projects instead of interest. This encourages a more responsible approach to lending because there would be no reward for incompetence.
76. Anyone living off the avails of prostitution or involved in human trafficking will go to jail for 15 years without parole. No bail will be granted. This will help to protect the victims and encourage them to testify in court. Any person or organizations that finance an immigrant and takes money or services from that person, in repayment, will be limited to receiving the reasonable amount that it would cost for an economy class air fare from the country of origin. This stops the practice of people becoming exploited, for years, by traffickers.
77. Where a court awards money to an injured party in a law suite against an entity with a value of more than $100 million. The entity will have to pay the injured party, in full, before it can file an appeal. This will encourage ‘out of court settlements’.
78. The chronically ill, who need medical care that is only available country in another country, will be financed by the medical health service of the country of domicile.
79. Registered nurses with 5 years hospital experience will be allowed to set up medical practices in areas, where there is an inadequate supply of doctors. When the supply of doctors becomes adequate, these nurses will be given scholarships to attend medical school; or they can continue to practice in partnership with a doctor. The final alternative is to sell their practice to a doctor. This increases health services and reduces costs.
80. Law suites must be commenced within 3 years of the time the course of action is identified. This means that a person who has a lung disease from working in a factory can sue the factory owner within three years of the disease being diagnosed, which may be 10 years after leaving the job.
81. Patents will run from the date upon which the first sale or utilization, is completed and not the date upon which the first application was made. The product will be considered ‘patent pending’ until that time. After 10 years of no sales or utilization from the date of filing, the filing will be nullified because it is unreasonable to suspend development of beneficial products for an unreasonable time on behalf of someone who does not have the capacity to proceed with commercialization.
82. Foreign companies, which violate patents, will have all assets frozen and the company’s officers will be subject to detention until the dispute is settled.
83. Generic drug manufacturers will be required to give a royalty of 10% to the creator or inventor of a product, for a period of 30 years, subsequent to the end of the patent term which will be reduced to 10 years. This provides researchers with working capital to develop new products without entering into expensive legal battles with generic drug manufacturers.
84. Patent infringements will result in a compensation package equal to twice the revenues from such an infringement. These cases will be settled within 90 days and compensation paid before an appeal can be filed. Where the product is of inferior quality to the original and has cost the inventor his markets, damages are unlimited and must be set by a court.
85. Foreign inventors must file lawsuits under their own laws and jurisdictions.
86. Polluters must clean up their mess and compensate those who are damaged. Compensation will be paid monthly until the victims are totally compensated. If major medical problems result, the damages may continue for the rest of a person’s natural life. Ignorance of the consequences of a polluter’s actions is no defense.
87. The government will pursue all avenues to create alternative sources of energy, which do not cause pollution. Battery operated cars are not an alternative because they have to be plugged into a source of supply that is created through burning of fossil fuels and hydro dams that destroy the ecosystem. The toxic waste that will be created when they start to dispose of batteries will overwhelm the resources to contain the environmental damage.
88. All the officers of businesses that are involved in money laundering, or other organized criminal activity, will be held liable to the full extent of the personal wealth of their family. They will also be sentenced to 10,000 hours of public service in addition to any other sentence. The object is to keep them too busy to have time to commit crimes.
89. Inherited wealth and gifts will be considered as income in the year it is received, with no escrow for future withdrawals. This proviso effectively transfers wealth from the non productive to the productive people in society.
90. Entrepreneurs will be able to accumulate as much wealth as they want because all money reinvested in their businesses will be tax exempt. It is only when it is taken as income that it is taxed. The fact is 99% of the wealth makers take less than $500,000 per annum in income, more than 80% have incomes under $200,000, so innovation will grow because the innovators tend to reinvest heavily in new ideas. They are not motivated by money. It is unlikely that a corporation with a turnover of less than $50 million will accommodate an income of $1 million per annum. Therefore, there is an incentive to grow companies that have a high income and pay workers $100k per annum. If these rules applied today, every bank teller and grocery store check out assistant would be paid upwards of $1 million per year.
91. Listing a new stock on the stock market will be simplified and the cost will be reduced to $5,000 for junior stocks.
92. Short-selling stocks on the stock market will be discontinued. Stock exchanges suspended this activity in bank stocks to return them to stability. So it is widely recognized as a negative market force, which should be discontinued.
93. Any stock that falls in price by more than 20% will be suspended from trading for 12 hours. Where there is collusion or fraud involved in the collapse in price, all positions will be returned to pre-fall status, one hour before the collapse.
94. Schools will teach law, life skills and ecology to every student and a pass mark will be required to graduate. Training our young to stand up to criminals and protect the environment should start at an early age.
95. Everyone over the age of 90 years will be entitled to ‘sheltered housing.’ Government grants will be made available for those, who cannot afford such residences.
96. Everyone over the age of 70 years and those, who are chronically ill, will have the option of being treated at home by a qualified medical professional. The level of skill will be dependent upon the medical condition. This will free up beds in the hospitals and reduce healthcare costs.
97. All necessary medical and dental treatment and drugs will be free for people under the age of 18 years and over the age of 65 years.
98. All education will be free and no fee paying foreign students can be educated in any course, where there is a citizen waiting to occupy a space.
99. Any politician involved in any influence peddling or corruption, involving his area of governance, will be suspended from duty until the matter is settled by a jury or, in the case of minor problems, by a group of six people selected from his community, at random, from the electoral register. Where it is shown that he is guilty of a major crime, he will serve no less than 3 years in prison followed by 10,000 hours of community service. Where contracts were awarded to inferior contractors and death resulted from the work. The politician, the contractor and everyone working on the contract, would be subject to manslaughter charges and life in prison. This would make it almost impossible to get people to condone or help in the commission of a crime.
100. Any employee of any organization, who failed to report criminal or other activity that resulted in loss, damage or death to any person, would be considered liable and equally responsible to the injured parties. This would apply to nurses, who failed to report doctors, who violated their Hippocratic Oath. This also helps honest health care workers, who fear they will lose their job by reporting gross negligence of a surgeon. Instead of concealing misconduct, for fear of law suites, hospital administrators would halt or expose such conduct for fear of jail time.
101. No organization receiving tax exemption will be allowed to operate any commercial enterprise that competes with existing businesses. This stops churches setting up trucking businesses and forcing legitimate businesses into bankruptcy. They would not be allowed to buy property and receive rental income. All church buildings must be 100% maintained from donations in order to receive tax exemption. A record of the donators must be audited annually to ensure that the tax law is not violated in order to maintain a criminal organization posing as a church. More than half the groups claiming exemption as charities and religious organizations are de facto criminal organizations. Many are involved in human trafficking and modern day slavery. Churches finance poor immigrants and pay them less than minimum wage to work in church owned businesses. The government loses millions of dollars each year through the issuance of false tax receipts by such organizations. It also loses taxes through the bankruptcy of legitimate businesses that were competing with tax exempt church owned businesses.