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Our Central Reserve Bank is STATE owned. Despite that, instead of being used for the benefit of its owners, the people of New Zealand , successive Governments have:
- Allowed the foreign-owned trading banks to create and issue nearly all of the nation's money supply and claim it as their own. Notes and coins make up less than three percent of the money in circulation. Ninety seven percent of our M1 money supply is on loan to us at interest from those banks.
- Actively encouraged banks to charge "rental" for this money at some of the highest interest rates in the developed world.
- Used high interest rates as a blunt lever to control inflation, while agreeing to exclude the resultant costs from the Price Index, so that their cost-inflationary effects do not allow pensions and awards to compensate for these.
- Deliberately used interest rate fluctuations to maintain an unemployed "pool" of about four percent of the workforce in order to hold down wage rates.
- Failed to use this nation's own money for non-commercial infrastructural works at either national or local level, so that interest charges double or treble the costs of non-commercial projects.
- Developed a skill-deficient, low wage economy.
The DSC will:
Return to the people the right to control the creation of the nation's money, so that it works for New Zealanders rather than the shareholders of foreign multinationals.
We will employ a system of accurate national accounting, by a non-political independent body of the status of the Judiciary, to determine accurately the monetary needs of the New Zealand economy. This will avoid either demand inflation or deflation, and will ensure less dependence on debt to buy the goods and services we all need for the standard of living we justly deserve.
This system will deliver interest-free funding for local and central government assets, thus reducing debt by eliminating the interest component of the loan. These measures will enable permanent long term tax reductions.
All New Zealand citizens, including students taking approved courses, will be guaranteed a level of tax-free income sufficient to live in dignity. As our economy recovers sufficiently from present and past mismanagement, we will introduce a guaranteed basic income.
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ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY
The present confrontational political party system is relatively new to the Westminster system and is not fully democratic. Far too much time in Parliament is wasted on petty point-scoring, while major decisions are made by Cabinet and forced into legislation without fair debate. This adversarial system increases the likelihood of outside influence on legislation and reduces the ability of Members of Parliament to vote according to the wishes of their constituents.
The DSC will:
Retain a system of proportional representation, but offer the alternative Single Transferable Vote (STV) system to the Electorate as a referendum choice.
Reduce the role and dependence on Party Whips because most votes will be free. Democrat Members of Parliament will have free votes on all legislation other than basic financial policy.
Introduce a system of Binding Citizen-Initiated Referenda, (BCIR), similar to the successful Swiss system. This allows direct voter participation in the parliamentary process with the right to petition for a referendum on any question and a binding outcome on the legislation.
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INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
Several factors currently hinder small and medium-sized businesses compared with large corporate monopolies:
- Artificial rises and falls in the "business cycle", driven by our outdated financial system, encourage takeovers of smaller businesses by larger ones. This tendency is increased by the fact that large corporations with links to those own and control the debt mechanism have easier access to funds than smaller independent concerns.
- Industrial relations often are marred by confrontation from both sides
- There is a clash between the obvious fact that increasing automation and computerization tend to displace workers from industry and the traditional custom that incomes can only be paid to "workers". Both recent administrations have used unemployment as an economic tool. None have worked out how to pay out equitably the "wages of the machine". Some try to force people into meaningless unproductive "jobs", but taxes levied for this purpose place a further burden on industry. Many who are denied work feel ostracized by the community. This is a major cause of crime.
- New Zealand industry endures relatively high taxation and high compliance costs. Businesses spend too much effort as unpaid tax collectors.
- Our exporters face not only some of the longest trade routes to transport their goods, but also some of the highest finance costs in the world.
The DSC will:
Reduce fluctuations by stabilizing the volume of money available.
Ensure that interest rates for industry are competitively driven down and stabilized.
Reduce compliance costs across the board. This will include replacing GST with a minimal financial transactions tax (FTT) on all bank account transfers. Instantaneous computerized collection will replace the costly accounting associated with GST and the much broader base of FTT will allow it to be levied at only a fraction of the GST rate. Its efficiency will not exempt the financial and speculative industries.
While continuing to allow collective bargaining, encourage cooperation in industry. Businesses of sufficient size will get financial incentives to adopt methods used successfully overseas, such as worker shareholding and participation in management.
Ensure that the decision to work or not is an individual choice, while making certain that those who choose to work benefit financially from so doing. Any capable person who wishes to work will be guaranteed a productive job.
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LOCAL DEMOCRACY
Local communities and local territorial authorities currently suffer from two serious disadvantages:
- They are forced to take out loans at high commercial rates for non-commercial infrastructural works, such as roading, bridges, sewage systems, and community centres. The interest charges on these loans result in the works being paid for several times over instead of only once.
- They face continually-increasing loads of work required of them by central Government, without access to the funds needed to carry them out.
The DSC will:
Direct the Reserve Bank to use the DSC Community Credit Mechanism to provide the funding stream required, free of interest , where infrastructural projects are necessary and desirable and the physical capacity of men and machinery exists to undertake them.
Ensure that any legislation resulting in a transfer of central government responsibility to a local territorial authority contains the mechanism for the required funding to be also transferred, thereby assisting with rating stabilization and reduction.
Over time these measures will reduce local and national debt. This will provide the opportunity to lower the ever-increasing rating levels imposed by the existing debt-finance system. Reduction of costs of community infrastructure would be between 50 and 66 percent; this will benefit individuals and their communities, as well as the wider economy.
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