CorruptBstard Sat 07-Jul-12 21:14:44
Apologies for the length of this one but, here we go!
"I reckon you probably like the idea yourself, but disagree that it can be funded and therefore its flawed as a pipe dream."
I've said up thread that I think your idea is flawed but only because of the amounts of money you are throwing around. If you can't be arsed (and why would you!) to trawl through the previous 200-odd posts my position was that I was in favour of splitting the current welfare pot equally amongst the adult & pensioner population (more for disabled, infirm and, for the time being, pensioners) irrespective of income. This money could either be invested in a pension scheme for those that don't need it, spent immediately by the reckless, borrowed against in exchange of a higher (privately provided) unemployment 'allowance', used to pay for university fees / university living costs or just stuck in a high interest account for a rainy day. The fact that this is a universal payment means that it is an income for all, underwritten by the government, meaning that everyone's credit worthiness would improve. Because it is universal, there would be no feelings of animosity between the waged and the unwaged. There is no loss of benefit or even interaction with the state at all, when you re-enter work. Finally, because the overall money supply changes very little - this is currently funded expenditure and doesn't require the printing presses to be run up - inflation would not be a problem.
"Parity"
You are correct that if everyone took their money out of the Bank there would be a crash and that confidence underpins the system. However, consider this. If you paid £15,000 BristolQuids to everyone in Bristol, how many of them would buy, for example, a car with that money? Now, to my knowledge there are no motor manufacturers in Bristol, all Fords, Vauxhalls etc., are for the purpose of this discussion 'imports'. So the local garage (even if it accepts your currency) will still need to change that money into Pounds Sterling. At this point, the council will have to accept that exchange. In effect Bristol Council would end up buying a car for their constituents.
"Bristol pounds are acceptable to enterprises outside bristol"
The problem with this assumption is that the vendor is under no obligation to accept Bristol Pounds. Most businesses outside Bristol would rather be paid in Sterling just to keep the numbers simple if nothing else. It's also difficult to envisage how the internal marketing system of a business such as Tesco's - a business with multiple suppliers and retail outlets, often crisscrossing the Bristol / Britain 'border' would welcome having some stores paying in one currency, the rest paying in another, whilst some suppliers want one currency, others want another - likewise some staff will need to be paid in one currency etc. etc. etc. The other thing is that whilst BristolQuids are especially susceptible to higher inflation than the rest of the Sterling currency, it's difficult to envisage anyone holding on to BristolQuids for any length of time. Look at it this way. If you had a relie who kicked the bucket and left you a house in Bristol, if you sold it and had a couple of hundred grand sitting in a bank account, would you risk keeping your money in a currency that could devalue against your freely exchangeable neighbours currency at any time, or would you choose to buy Sterling in the first place?
"the £100 shopping example"
In simple terms, you want to pay everyone £15k. You need to do this with running the printing press. Obviously, you are going to have to raise this money in taxes somehow. Your preferred and chosen method of tax is a sales tax.
Now, there is a theory in economics (I can't remember its name but, then again, I'm not an economist!) which states that only individuals pay tax. Think about it. If you levy a tax on a business, either the customers pays more for the product, the shareholder receives less as a dividend or a combination of the two. If we take your example and work it backwards and we start with something easily imagined like an apple, what happens? Well, the apple goes from the farmer to the wholesaler for the cost of growing an apple, some profit for the farmer and a contribution towards a sales tax. The wholesaler then adds his own profit to the price he has just paid and sells it to the greengrocer (The cost of the apple now consists of the cost of growing the apple, the farmers profit, the farmers sale tax, the wholesaler?s profit and the wholesalers sales tax - this isn't including distribution or transport because my head may explode!). The greengrocer now sells that apple to you or me for the cost of growing the apple, the farmer?s profit, the farmer?s sale tax, the wholesaler?s profit, the wholesaler?s sales tax, the greengrocers profit and the greengrocer?s sales tax. So ultimately, who pays the tax? The answer is it's you and I.
Now here's the killer - on average, all those taxes have to equal £15,000 per person per year. To make this happen, your sales tax MUST raise £15k per year, which works out to £1250 per month, or around £300 per week. This is why I said it will have to push your weekly shop from £100 per week to £400.
"The sales tax is really the automated payment transaction tax and wouldn't need to be that big a tax percentage when you consider the vast amount of monetary transactions that there are on a daily/monthly/yearly basis"
Not true, for the reasons detailed above, it will need to raise £15,000 per person per year.