A Bailout for You and Me, and the World

Abstract: This proposal is probably the only approach, for decades or centuries to come, by
which people of the less developed world, in peace, can become their own masters, can create
the sensible path to their own destinies as so many other nations have.

There is a better bailout proposal that would solve most of the problems we face. It utilizes the concept that if everyone is employed in making life better for all, that we shall all succeed. This plan could have been adopted about 19 years ago but it was not. It has some very unique aspects.

Here we provide only a brief summary; details are available.

The United States announces to the United Nations and to the World that it will provide the U.N. with “credit chits” (promissory notes) for less developed nations in amount 150 billion dollars per year (less than 20% of what’s being scattered about in 2009). The other developed nations of the world are also invited to contribute in total 150 billion dollars in “credit chits” to the U.N. So far no actual money leaves any nation. This offer is made regardless of cooperation from other developed nations, but with cooperation it means 300 billion per year, very roughly 10 times what is provided now, a great deal of which we know is wasted.

The U.N. makes these credit chits available to democratic nations of the less developed world and to those nations which are verifiably evolving toward democratic rule by non-discriminatory consensus; everyone participates. The chits are made available to developing nations on the basis of solicited application of: development proposals from them, verifiable need, and guarantees against misuse or corruption.

These chits from the U.N. may only be utilized for social and economic development, six specific self-sufficiency goals: 1) food production, 2) housing, 3) health care, 4) economic means, 5) civilian security, and 6) education and training to support items 1-5. All chits must be used for peacetime goods and services, and for labor costs within the developing nation. None of these credit chits can be used to pay off loans these nations may have from other nations or institutions such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.

The U.N. will not grant chits to nations where war is likely or where violations of rights: gender, religious, human, or ethnic, are active or likely. Repressive and military governments and martial law governments will not qualify for participation in this program, nor will any nation, regardless of its size, which is not fully participating and cooperating in the worldwide elimination of: armaments of war, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and illicit drugs.

We emphasize that chits will only go to democracies or nations verifiably evolving toward democracy because strong historical evidence indicates that true democracies do not wage war against each other; true democracies do not even prepare for war with one another. (1)

The development proposals submitted to the U.N. by developing nations are carefully evaluated, in terms of the proposed societal, cultural, economic, and environmental impact, and protection against abuse and corruption. Is the nation verifiably moving toward true but self-defined and equitable nondiscriminatory constitutional democracy? Does the proposal truly represent the desires of a great majority of the people? Will minority rights be protected? What proof, what evidence, what tests support the proposal? The U.N. may wish to reject certain proposals or return the proposals for corrective improvement.

When a proposal is accepted and to be funded, the U.N. awards the amount in “Developed World credit chits” for peacetime goods and services. The chits must make their way back to their origin nation within two years of issue, and may pass through several nations; all must be on the approved list of democratic nations which abide by the U.N. Charter and all Covenants.

Example: Tanzania, satisfying the requirement of an adequate and improving democracy, wishes to further expand its agriculture and tourism by improved water supplies, farm machinery, construction of tourist villages on the Mwambani Bay coast and near Ruvu Bay, and small hospital clinics in some remote areas. It has found that all the materials and consultants for this development can be obtained at a good price from India, Taiwan, and Finland. Tanzania exchanges its credit chits for those goods and services from those nations. It uses chits originally from Finland, but India and Taiwan receive chits which originated in the U.S. and Canada. So far no money has gone anywhere. The Finnish industries that supplied the goods and services take the chits they received and exchange them in the Finnish Government treasury for cash, to pay their workers and replenish their supply of raw materials. No money left Finland. India and Taiwan exchange their chits with U.S. and Canadian industries who in turn exchange the chits at their government treasuries to pay their workers and continue their industry’s growth. (India among other items ordered 25 Cray computers. Taiwan bought very sophisticated medical equipment. Some chits were considered to go through Israel but it has not yet met the specified conditions for participation; they hope to soon.) (One of the next projects: India and Bangladesh will cooperatively work on flood control projects to control the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Megha rivers, supplying adequate water for the fertile delta but also channeling excess water into some of the arid regions of India. Some chits will also be used to ingeniously solve the 48 year cycle rat infestation problem in Mizoram in Northeast India, between Bangladesh and Burma.) Everyone is working. No money has left any nation.

Developing nations which abide by the U.N. Charter and all Covenants, and which receive credit chits, can expect constant on-site verification and audit by U.N. inspectors, comptrollers, and visitors who will have the responsibility to see that the credit chits are used exactly as originally proposed.

Preference in the allocation of development credit chits will be given to those nations: 1) which are able to demonstrate a continuing reduction or lack of “war armament,” 2) which are part of a multination cooperative regional development, and 3) which have instituted UNESCO recommended educational programs designed to lead their nations through the 21st Century, rather than indoctrinating for the furtherance of international disputes and terrors.

When the chits arrive back in the nation of origin they do not go to the national treasury. They go to the nation’s suppliers of peacetime goods and services, thence cashed in at the treasury, thus enhancing productivity and employment in the original nation of chit origin. Everyone works.

Labor costs within a developing nation will also be funded by credit chits. The chits for labor will be deposited in the developing nation’s treasury (with U.N. provided security), laborers will be paid in the national currency. The nation will use the chits for importation of materials and services from outside the nation, as usual. A good use for chits here would be for improved laborers’ housing and their children’s schools.

Each Developed Nation annually deposits “credit chits” with the U.N.; the money actually remains in the Developed Nation’s treasury, until payout is due to the nation’s industries. There will be great advantages to all nations who make payments into this program, and considerable disadvantages to those who can, but do not. The more chits deposited, the greater economic value accrues to the depositor; it should be obvious.

Each less developed nation will keep a trained national militia suitably equipped for national and international disasters, and for maintaining civil order in times of need, but not for the burden of war. With the war burden gone in the less developed world, great changes could be obtainable in twenty years rather than 200. The developing nations in this program will be protected from outside interference by developed nations, acting when necessary as “police”. There will be penalties for those who interfere with this peaceful progress.

Of the current 192 U.N. nations, perhaps 42 of them will be depositing credit chits with the U.N. and thus for 150 nations, it means that there is likely deposited in the U.N. some US$300 billion, or more, each year for their use. If one nation does not make use of it, some other nation will. All they need to do is . . .

The only way life can improve in the less developed world is for those nations to increase their own productivity of their live’s necessities; they need to create their own wealth. We can help. Simply put: In the United States productivity is down, population has increased, there is less wealth created to be shared by a larger number of people. The President’s salary stays fixed. The leaders of banking, investment and industry do not generally decrease their incomes, no matter how stressed the nation’s economy; the actual creators of real wealth get frozen salaries, fewer benefits, unpaid furloughs, layoffs, or firings. Anyone can understand the future of such imbalance. Perhaps the salaries of national leaders should be tied to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product with an additional factoring in some ratio of exports and imports.

Each developing nation should insist on themselves creating “added value” to their natural resources (with due consideration to the societal and environmental impact) by processing these resources at home, rather than simply shipping only raw and crude materials abroad: phosphates, copper, chromium, aluminum, diamonds, uranium, oil, minerals, etc. By this means considerably greater “wealth” is created in each developing nation, and will allow them much greater economic power for importation of necessary goods from abroad, e.g., exports from developed nations. Chits will be available for this type of development. Each democracy-oriented developing nation shall decide for itself what ultimate relationship with outside nations and agents best fits its needs. They will ask, “Truly, who have been our friends? Who can we trust? Who do we respect?”

By this new policy the destiny of the Less Developed World shall be molded by their own hands. They could become free from exploitation by outsiders. It becomes their responsibility. Can the leaders of nations of the less developed world work together to make the 21st century *their* century? They should consider the especially appropriate example of Japan in the period 1945 to 1970, a mountainous nation, poor in natural resources, socially and physically destroyed by war but in many ways recovered in 25 years. Their greatest resource is their people, something that their old military government failed to understand and protect. After 1945 a democratic non-militaristic Japan accomplished a great deal with help from its democratic friends. In 2009 there still seem to be some nations who do not recognize the value of their people.

To further assure and advance self-determination, development, and confidence for the people of all nations it is necessary to establish government and private international exchange programs involving 10,000 to 50,000 people per year - students, teachers, workers, farmers, artists, government officials, scientists, athletes and upper-bracket bureaucrats - for the purpose of finding creative new approaches to cooperation and development for mutual and world benefit.

The “Sister Cities Program” should be greatly expanded to include more of the less developed nations. Does Timbuktu (in Mali) have a sister city in the Developed World? Does your town have a sister city in the less developed world? Important question: Why not? Shall we soon be able to have sister cities in North Korea? How about P’ungsan in the DPRK (North Korea)?

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was right on target with what Time magazine labeled “Kofi Doctrine,” urging world intervention to stop massive human rights violations, but the doctrine falls far short without the complete and essential ameliorative steps proposed here.

Each year this program will see returned to the nonmilitary economies of the developed nations, in total, some US$ 300 billion, to be used solely for peacetime goods and services! Hence, this proposed program should greatly reduce unemployment in any nation participating. Instead of providing multi-hundred dollar economic stimuli that many people used: to upgrade to digital TV, buying sets made in Korea or China, or to buy automobiles made abroad, or to simply save, this program puts American workers back onto the job, as well as workers throughout the world.

With nations in full peacetime production and with greatly lessened threats of war, national debts should become payable. What effect would a thriving well-managed economy have on social and economic problems in any nation, in the U.S, in Pakistan, in Iraq, Iceland, etc.? Would it make them more solvable?

An exchange can be made: — With self-sufficiency and self-defined but true democracy growing in the developing world and the virtual elimination there of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, neocolonialism, rights deprivation, indebtedness, exploitation, and slavery; — The entire world could have full economic recovery, elimination of the possibility for international nuclear catastrophe, and the practical elimination of war. In a world at peace the refugee problem is solved. The killing stops and world problems can be solved. The basic tool is proper incentives, not sanctions and deadly threats; justified benefits, not penalties; advantages for all. Consider, compare, what the 3,500,000,000 people of the developing world do not have, and who is capable of supplying it! There are abundant opportunities for all! But, patience; it cannot happen overnight.

Don’t I recall somewhere, someone recommending the creation of new plowshares manufactured from materials wasted on other devices?

The careful reader may have noticed that all the credit chits and the money they represent need never pass through the World Bank, or any bank, or the International Monetary Fund. Also noticeable is the fact that implementing this proposal could have considerable effect on military spending and on the opportunities for world peace.

Morrison and Tsipis, in their book (2), REASON ENOUGH TO HOPE, explore some of the problems facing the world should the impoverished billions of people be brought online to also benefit as we have from “the good life.” Food and energy needs, and overpopulation are likely to present many difficulties. Food requirements and overpopulation are linked. However, in any nation of fixed area which has made development advances in the last century without going to war, I think you will find that though population has increased, family size has decreased. I might be wrong in this conjecture but I think not. In the Japan of 100 years ago large families would not be uncommon especially in rural areas, families with four to eight and more children. It seems hardly conceivable in today’s Japan where now the ideal family will have two children, one girl and one boy. If food, education, health care, and economic opportunity are available, parents in a democratic society should rather quickly learn that a family of four will probably do better all around in contrast to a family of ten. Consider China also, with its desires for one-child families.

Which do you prefer: — $80 billion spent to support U.S.-Japan military activities in Japan, Okinawa, and elsewhere in Asia, in anticipation of conflict which may likely never occur, and more billions for the U.S. Space Command to achieve ‘full spectrum dominance’ and superiority in space weapons; — or $80+ billions to eliminate the threats of wars in Asia while simultaneously enhancing the lives of destitute, distressed, and sometimes oppressed people, bringing them much better life opportunities and international understanding, and steering $80+ billions into peacetime production and services from the Developed world, and fruitful cooperation with the people and wisdom of Asia?

This proposal is probably the only approach, for decades or centuries to come, by which people of the less developed world, in peace, can become their own masters, can create the sensible path to their own destinies as so many other nations have. This is not a threat to the Developed World. Peace with justice, and international cooperation, is preferable to war, anytime. If you know of a better, practical, and proactive approach, please make it public.

When regions and nations are at peace, they advance. It is not by mere coincidence that the nation of Japan, after its near total destruction in 1945, has in the past 62 years made astounding advances in all aspects of human activity without killing anyone in a war.

Should there be any doubts in the minds of people of the earth as to the desires of the United States for world peace with justice and fairness for all nations, proposal of this plan by the United States government to the United Nations would put such doubts to rest. It would renew the faith of many Americans that their own government was not imperialistic.

For the naysayers who would claim it cannot be done, such programs have in the past been carried out somewhat successfully. The Marshall Plan is an example. And the ideas espoused here were not only suggested by Morrison and Tsipis (2) but also by J. Robert Oppenheimer (3), some pretty smart fellows.

I wonder if I’ve forgotten to mention anything about morality and ethics in this proposal.

How altruistic and honest about peace are nations willing to be? For 200 years there has not been a war between truly democratic nations.

"...man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up,
walk over or around it, and carry on." --Winston S. Churchill

1. Spencer Weart, NEVER AT WAR — WHY DEMOCRACIES WILL NOT FIGHT ONE ANOTHER, Yale University Press, 1998.
2. Philip Morrison and Kostas Tsipis, REASON ENOUGH TO HOPE, MIT Press, 1998.
3. J. Robert Oppenheimer, “THE INTERNATIONAL CONTROL OF ATOMIC ENERGY,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 1, June, p. 1-5, 1946. Reprinted in THE ATOMIC BOMB, H. W.
Wilson Co., New York, 1946.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future