Prosperity For Everyone
Collated by Silvio Famularo
Copyright 2002 Silvio Famularo
Smashwords Edition
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The statistics quoted in this book refer to the period when the book was last modified in 2006. So they are not 100% reliable.
1: The Essence Of My Theories,
3: Who Should Receive the Money,
9: Inflation,
10: Banks,
11: Recession,
14: Taxes,
16: Devaluation,
17: The Ideal Economic Situation.
Introduction
In order to have prosperity for everyone, what must be uppermost in our minds should be the right and the necessity for everyone, not just ourselves, to have sufficient resources to meet their everyday needs. To achieve this cause, we all need to make a commitment to it. It is not what we accumulate in life that counts, but what we contribute.
The inspiration for this book comes not from a study and a deep knowledge of economics but from a study of people's very basic economic habits. I used to own a second-hand shop in Newtown, Wellington, New Zealand. People were continually coming into the shop with hard-luck stories. Many came in every day almost begging to have things cheaper because they had very little money. Others wanted to sell their possessions because they needed money to buy food or pay the rent. Many also came in for help because they knew my wife would be a soft touch.
It wasn’t a hugely successful business, however, we noticed that on the days that people were paid their benefits, business boomed. Some people either couldn't wait to spend their money fast enough and many came in to pick up the goods they put aside till benefit day arrived. I also became aware that as I took more money on those days I tended to go out and replace my stock and pay my bills in a lighter vein than I did when I was conscious that over-spending might result in the bank's bouncing my cheques and charging me several dollars each time one bounced. I would presume that any time I paid my bills, the people who receive my money spent it just as quickly as my customers and I did.
This all made me think and think and think. I thought so much that ideas came to me while driving, lying in the bath, walking the streets and lying awake in the middle of the night. I wrote notes on bits of paper everywhere and then assembled them into this book, which will appear obviously disjointed and at times very repetitious. But no writer is perfect. In fact, I don't even class myself as a writer. If I am anything, I am a person who likes to share ideas.
I've tried to inject a bit of humour in the book here and there, partly to lighten the reading and partly because I can't help it. In preparing for the book I laboriously ploughed through piles of books on economics and found most of them extremely dull and boring. What's more they seemed to be written for people with advanced university degrees. Authors frequently used words for which I suspect even they themselves had to reach for the dictionary to fully comprehend. While researching, I was reminded of the famous American theologian, Bishop Fulton Sheen who said, jokingly, that the purpose of a theologian was to take the simple messages of life and complicate them. It would seem that the job of the economist is to do the same.
The ideas I have put forward are very simple; so simple that some might call them simplistic. In fact, I’m sure many will say they are. But nevertheless, I think that they are practical, so I feel compelled to put them down in writing.
I believe it would be very simple for any country to stimulate its economy and provide work for all those who wanted a job or wanted to start a business. Politicians and highly paid executives could increase employment conditions in a matter of months if they put their minds to it. But the improvements would not come about by legislation alone but by the involvement of all the people in the particular country. The secret to formulating the ideal society is in changing people’s attitudes. The truth is that the biggest obstacles to economic growth are cultural customs and philosophies, not insufficient funds.
As I intend to reveal through this book, it is Government policies that generally stop growth from taking place, not the attitude of the people. Yes, it would take a lot of work to create a whole lot more wealth, but then work doesn't have to mean drudgery or boredom. I enjoy working, provided that the work is constructive. Work can be very pleasant and most people would rather have jobs than not have enough money to spend.
The book will be as much about my personal philosophical thoughts as it will be about economics and I hope that those who read them wi1l forgive me if I tend to moralise at times.
The best economic policies are those that provide for the well-being and happiness of the greatest number of people. I am more concerned about ideas than statistics, so once again I ask to be forgiven if the statistics are not 100% correct. It seems that those who come up with the statistics don't always come up with the same figures every time anyway, and what's more, statistics alter from day to day.
If presenting my ideas does nothing more than make people think, then my efforts will have been worthwhile. This does not mean that I have serious doubts about most of the ideas I have put forward. They have been put forward after a thorough attempt by myself to search for the pitfalls before committing them to paper. At the same time, I would be the last one to suggest that I have dealt adequately with all that would need to be done to remedy every economic problem. The more I test my theories, the more I realise that any particular move that might benefit one group of people has the potential to have an adverse affect on another group, whether they be in the neighbourhood, spread about nationally or residing overseas. For instance, paying children to do simple jobs provides them with an income, but it can cut employment opportunities for adults; raising interest rates is beneficial for those who are able to save, but hard on those who need to borrow; exporting our most sought after food products brings in a lot of money for the exporters, but makes the cost of buying them prohibitive for the average local family. In this imperfect and highly competitive world, there are no perfect answers. The best one can do is try to suggest some theories that if employed are likely to improve the lot of the poorer members of society. If, in the interests of fairness, the wealthier members of society have to meet the costs, it wouldn’t matter, simply because they can afford it.
I have no doubt at all that many of my ideas will be disagreed with. However, my hope is that readers will wise enough to restrict their disagreement to the ideas, and not consider the writer disagreeable because he thinks differently.
The purpose of the book is not just to make suggestions so that governments will be able to balance their books better and increase their Gross National Production. Neither is it written for the purpose of encouraging the rich to get richer. The main aim of the book is to try to relieve the hundreds of millions of people in the world who are struggling to make ends meet financially. It's no secret that even the New Zealand, the country I live in, homelessness and hunger is a major problem for many thousands of people. A survey taken by the Christian Social Services, in November 2005, showed that 20% of New Zealand families lived below the poverty line. For many of these people things are getting worse each year in spite of a few positive signs in the economy. I acknowledge that at the time of writing the signs of economic improvement are there, but for most people these signs are merely arrows pointing in a direction. For many the destination is a long way off and the bus carrying them there is travelling too slowly. What's more, a lot of people can't afford the bus fare. And for many who can afford the fare it's going to be a wearying journey because all the best seats, as usual, have been reserved for the privileged rich. Many will even die on the way, partly because they can't afford medical attention.
I don't want to introduce gloom into the book; I'm merely referring to what is the reality. I sincerely believe, if one will forgive my immodesty, that if any country dared to put the ideas I put forward in this book in to practice, its economy would boom.
CHAPTER 1
The essence of my theories
It is my firm belief that most of the world’s economic problems can be attributed to one cause; not enough money in most people's pockets to pay for all the goods and services they require. Governments, instead of financing those needs, are worsening the situation by taking more and more money out of people's pockets through taxes. Not only that, in New Zealand, as in too many other Countries, the Government is encouraging people to waste money on gambling. It recent years the New Zealand Government has raised rents for state owned housing, introduced legislation that has made it harder for low income earners to get raises, made it harder for them to earn more money by wiping out penal rates for overtime, and over the last two decades it has made scores of thousands of public servants redundant. It seems that Governments are totally blind to the fact that if they take people's money away from them, they won't have it to spend, and this is the reason why all countries have economic problems. To bolster business and increase employment, money must circulate. If you take it out of circulation, business declines and this creates unemployment. This is an unquestionable fact.
As I see it there is a simple answer to these problems; Governments should simply ensure that every single person in their country who struggles to find enough money to pay for the basic standards of living should be provided with more to spend. This can be done two ways; firstly by not deducting income tax from their wages until they earn above the minimum basic wage, and secondly, by giving those on very low incomes more money to spend.
“What!” you are probably asking, “where is all this extra money going to come from?”
You will soon find out.
Every year, in virtually every country, inflation causes the cost of everything to go up in price. So because of this, there needs to be more money put in circulation to reflect it. Therefore, extra money needs to be released. However, I don’t believe that it should be released through the banks, where it is usually lent out at high interest rates to people who least need it and consequently burdens the populace with more debts. I believe that it should simply be given to those people who desperately need it. They would spend it straight away because their needs are urgent and this would instantly stimulate the economy and create employment. Everyone would benefit since money drifts upwards from those on lower incomes to those on higher incomes, not the reverse, as monetarists would have us believe. If this were not true, how come the rich end up with all the money?
Increased spending would lead to a greater demand for goods and services. This would lead to greater productivity and a greater number of working hours needed to meet the demands. This would lead to more jobs being created. With more people employed and having more money to spend, there would be an increasing demand for goods and services. And so the cycle continues. Earnings continue to increase, less people are unemployed, Governments collect more taxes because people are earning more, and Governments also save money because they are paying out less in unemployment benefits.
Money is not consumed
Here is something that is vitally important to keep in mind: money doesn't become consumed. By that, I mean that money very seldom gets lost, buried or burnt. It circulates. So if more money were given to the desperately poor, it would circulate faster, and as this happens, governments would reap back all the money they handed out in the beginning, plus more in income tax, goods and service taxes, excise taxes (taxes on fuel, alcohol and gambling etc.), company tax, road tax, import duty and whatever other forms of taxing they use. The more, and the quicker, that money circulates from person to person, the more governments save on unemployment benefits as unemployment is reduced. They also gain by receiving additional taxes from the newly employed.
So that's it. Since this is a very concise explanation of my theories, I ask the reader to re-read it and absorb it before I expand and provide answers to the anticipated questions that will no doubt run through the reader's mind.
Where do we find the money?
The first question that will come to mind is, "Where will all this money to be given away in the beginning come from?" This can best be answered by asking other questions. But first, lets consider the average Western country, where unemployment seems to be around seven to ten percent of the population. That is about 70,000 or more people per million, and most of these can be expected to be on the dole for many more years to come. Where do these Governments get the money to pay these people their unemployment benefits? If there were a war tomorrow, Governments would find the money to finance it. Where would that money come from? Well, the money to be given to the poor would come from the same places.
The question should not be, can governments afford to do it, but can governments afford not to do it? As I mentioned above, circulation would ensure that it all came back in taxes; it would cut down on the dole bill and gain further tax from the increased workforce. Also, perhaps to lesser a degree, but nevertheless a very significant one; governments would save on social costs such as the costs of dealing with crime and ill health, which are often the consequences of financial hardship. There would also be relief from boredom and mental depression, which can be brought on by poverty and unemployment.
While we are on the subject of unemployment, lets not forget that those receiving unemployment benefits are not the only people unemployed. For every person receiving remuneration because they are on the unemployment list, there are probably two or three others wishing they could find employment, but can’t; for instance, married women who don’t qualify for benefits because their husbands are working. On top of that there are always retired super annuitants who would like to earn extra money but find it difficult to get jobs because no one will employ them.
Perhaps the biggest misconception that people have about money, and one that governments use as an excuse for not giving people more - possibly through ignorance, is the tendency to think that money spent is money lost. Hardly anything could be further from the truth. Money isn't consumed when it is used to pay for something; it provides a stimulus for others to produce goods or services in exchange for it, which can later be passed on in return for other people's products and services. Money isn't consumed like food, drinks and tobacco; it doesn't wear out like shoes or cars; it circulates, creates work and, contrary to what many might say, makes people happier if they are able to pay their bills. Even when people squander their limited money on foolish things like getting drunk, or gambling, the money still circulates.
Inflationary?
The next obvious question is, "Won't this cause inflation?"
Once again, I will answer with more questions. “If a country could increases its exports by ten percent and could reduce its overseas deficit by, say, another ten percent, would the Government avoid it on the grounds that it might cause inflation within the country?”
“When overseas investors want to invest billions of dollars in a country, is inflation generally a prime concern?”
“What if a few oil wells were uncovered in a remote part of a country, would we hide the fact for fear of inflation?”
“What if some new gold mines were unearthed, would this cause a panic?”
There are many causes for inflation, which I will deal with in a subsequent chapter, but for the meantime, the short answer to whether all these things would cause inflation is, "No!" Inflation is mainly caused by demands for goods and services exceeding supplies.
When inflation is prevalent, not everything automatically goes up in price. When things are readily available, competition in the market is likely to keep prices from rising, but when there is a shortage of things, human beings, tending to be greedy, will try to sell them for as much as they can possibly get, whether it is necessary to do so or not. Two other major causes of inflation, as we shall soon see, are increases in high interest rates and money released at the top of the income bracket instead of at the lower income level.
If an increased money supply is used purely to re-purchase items that already exist, such as farms, buildings, ships and stock market shares, then, yes, the injection of money will be inflationary. But if it is used to produce new goods and services it won't. Consider this example: If a foreigner arrives in your country with a spare billion dollars and uses it all to buy houses for rental purposes without altering the houses, it is likely to be inflationary because he will have to pay more than competitors will be prepared to pay in order to purchase the houses. However, if he uses his money to buy old houses and restore them, he will be creating jobs and raising the level of housing. This would be constructive and a positive use of money, whereas, the other would simply push up the value of the average houses he bought. Worse than that, it would also be likely to push up the value of houses he didn’t buy, because the market value of houses is usually set by the prices fetched for those that were sold recently. Clearly it would have an inflationary effect on the cost of houses.
Will it lead to devaluation?
A third question might be, "Won't releasing more money, which could run into billions, into the hands of the poor cause the value of our money, compared to other currencies, to drop?" Forgive me for answering with another question. “In New Zealand, after the stock market crash in October 1987, twenty five billion dollars' worth of near liquid assets was wiped off the economy in the form of resalable shares. Did this cause the value of the dollar to go up?” If a reduction in the supply of money doesn’t cause its value to rise, why should an increase of it cause its value to drop? The value of the dollar in relation to other currencies reflects the strength of the economy, not the amount of money in circulation. Otherwise the American dollar and the Japanese Yen would be the weakest currencies and those of Bangladesh and Chad would be among the strongest. With more money circulating, the economy of any country would strengthen, but this would not be inflationary. Let us not confuse the strength of the dollar with inflation. Inflation takes place when prices rise. The dollar strengthens when there is greater demand for it overseas. Therefore, people overseas are willing to pay more for it.
One might say that countries can't just print money 'willy nilly'. So would I. I am not suggesting that countries do that. There has to be a balance between not having enough money and having too much. However, in virtually every country, not just the poorest ones, there are large portions of the population who need more money to spend, so why not print more and give it to the poor. Once there is near-full employment and the creation of employment leads to increased wealth, Governments can just as easily take the money back out of circulation if this leads to inflationary problems.
By the way, while I suggest that more money is needed in the pockets of those on lower incomes, it is not my belief that there is a lack of money in most, if any, Western countries. The poverty that many are undergoing is due to the lack of distribution of wealth. I'm not even sure that production growth is essential in the sense that each year we need to produce more than the year before. Concentration on growth is what is needed in undeveloped countries, whereas in most western countries, increased growth is always accompanied by increased pollution, increased traffic, destroyed lakes, the reduction of natural resources, the destruction of beautiful scenery, congestion and stress associated with urban living.
Although New Zealanders earn far less than our European and Australian counterparts, in November 1992, according to the department of statistics, the top 20 percent of households in the country had incomes in excess of $57,000. By now, this is now likely to have at least doubled. But note that that figure was not the average earnings for this group, but the minimum. Several New Zealanders now have salaries of over a million dollars a year and make much more from investments. Scores of New Zealanders have assets in excess of one hundred million dollars. Our country, like the majority of others, is by no means poor, but as in all other countries, there are far too many poor families and individuals. This is mainly because the economic system favours the rich.
What is needed to end poverty is not so much economic growth, although it may be desirable, but fairer distribution of wealth. One way to do this is to take more off the super rich, who won’t miss it, and give it to those who are poor. The rich will get that money back because those poor people who previously didn't have enough money to spend will now quickly spend their newly acquired money and this will generate more employment and thus more business. There is no question that since money flows upwards to the rich; the rich will still get richer, but at least the poor would be a little richer also.
CHAPTER 2
There is a theory being bred into society that full employment is a thing of the past because many jobs have been taken over by computers, machinery, cheap imports and improved organisation and technology. I disagree emphatically. It is true that with progress many specific types of jobs have been done away with, but that does not mean that general unemployment should be a natural consequence. Computers have cut down on clerical work but a whole new computer industry has been created. Machines have cut down on manual labour but the machine manufacturing industry has expanded considerably. There is a whole range of new industries that were not around a generation ago and there is no reason to believe that the trend won't continue. Using New Zealand as an example, consider the growth of the film, video and digital video industries; the tourist industry, the wine export industry, the electronics industry, the personal computer and accessories industry, the development of the licensed restaurant industry, the fitness and dietary industries and the shellfish farming industry just to name just a few.
Most industries are working well below their full capacity. If people had more money to spare they would buy more flowers, more jewellery, more clothes; they would replace their carpets and furniture more often, buy the latest digital cameras and television sets; purchase more books and compact discs; they would eat out more and support more live theatre; they would travel more and spend more time playing golf and fishing, etc, etc. All these amenities could not be supplied without increasing employment. The labour for supplying these commodities is available in abundance, but the investment of money, time and energy required to provide these extra goods and services will not be forthcoming without the expectancy of money coming in to acquire them.
It's estimated that the dollar generally circulates eight times in a year. Considering how quickly my income goes out once it comes in, this seems surprisingly slow, because it suggests that it changes hands only once every six and a half weeks. However, if something like one billion dollars were injected into the economy at the lowest income levels and it circulated eight times in a year that would generate eight billion dollars' worth of business. If one new job could be generated for every $80,000 worth of extra business, this would create 100,000 jobs. If it were done twice in two consecutive years it would create 200,000 or more jobs, including part time work for students, housewives, beneficiaries and those in retirement that require a little extra income. The Government would reap billions more in taxes and save billions more on social welfare.
All this extra wealth would not come out of thin air. It would be generated by work and would be manifested in increased productivity, additional personal possessions and alterations and improvements to houses, buildings, roads, vehicles, etc. The crime rate would be cut down also, as criminals would have less idle time and would have less need to burgle because they had jobs. Health standards would be better because people would be more able to afford medical services, and they would suffer less depression resulting from financial pressures. Family life would also be less stressful if financial pressures were relieved.
Unemployment figures
Unemployment statistics are misleading because they only represent those people receiving the unemployment benefit. Added to this, as I mentioned above, there are tens of thousands of people seeking jobs who are not on the list because their spouses are employed, so they don't qualify for the dole. Many who are on wages are working less than 30 hours per week. There are tens of thousands of young adults who are staying on at college till the seventh form when in the past they would have left after the fifth form, because there are no jobs to go to. Tens of thousands of older citizens who are struggling to survive on their pensions would welcome some part time employment to help them pay there bills. On top of these, there is always a large number of people who have chosen to be temporarily out of work without pay while they search for alternative employment. So whatever a government’s unemployment statistics are, the true figure is likely to be twice as high as the statistics might indicate, or even more.
But the unemployed are not the only ones bearing the strain of lack of employment. Many small businesses are working well below their full capacity because of the shortage of customers. The shame of it all is that unemployment leads to poverty, lack of self-respect, family break-ups, crime, social and political stress, and it frustrates and degrades people. The pity is that it is unnecessary. There is no doubt in my mind that the world trend in high unemployment is due to monetarist-induced policies favouring the rich at the expense of the poor who are not considered important since they are outside the social circle of the policy makers. The monetary procedures that monetarists are introducing allow greedy people to manipulate an economy’s system so that the major part of a country's wealth is generally controlled and changing hands among a small minority of rich people. Unemployment in most countries could be solved easily, but there is a lack of concern because of the prevalent economic theory that if jobs are scarce, unemployed people will offer, if they are not forced, to work for lower wages and this will cut the cost of production - and benefit employers.
The false excuse for this reasoning is that cheaper production costs will lead to more exports, which will, in turn, lead to more jobs. But even if more jobs eventuated, low wages will keep people struggling to purchase goods above the subsistence level. In other words, even if production costs reduce the price of goods, many people still won't be able to buy those goods in increased amounts because of their low wages. Basic necessities seldom come down in price since the demand for them will always take priority over luxury items. Therefore there is no incentive for producers to lower the prices asked for them even when they could easily afford to do this. The real object of lowering wages is to produce bigger margins of profits for major producers.
While on the topic of reduced wages I wish to emphasise a point that I will bring up further on in this book: lowering wages is not the answer to reducing production costs. The answer lies in higher productivity. About two thirds of New Zealand’s imports come from Japan, Australia, The United Kingdom and the U.S.A. In all of these countries workers are paid much more than workers in New Zealand. One of the reasons those countries are able to export certain goods to New Zealand because they can produce more of those items per hour than we New Zealanders can.
New Zealand politicians often boast about their country’s social welfare system, but except for cases where employment for certain people is not possible because of illness or physical disabilities, the best social welfare system a country could offer its people would be the assurance that there is enough money on hand to pay people for what they are able to contribute. For example, if I were to give an unemployed person ten dollars a week as a gift, I would probably be considered a good man. If ten of us were to give ten dollars a week to the same person we would all be considered to be good guys. Yet the unemployed person remains either an unwanted worker or a ‘bludger’. Wouldn't it be a much better social system to give that person something to do for the money he, or she, gets? Hence creating employment is beneficial to both parties, the giver of the money and the recipient. Creating paid employment for those who are idle, but able to contribute is the best social welfare system.
If one had, say, a furniture making business, there would be no point in hiring extra staff if the extra demand for furniture was not there. The same applies for any industry involved in production. Therefore, it is obvious that it is the demand that stimulates the supply, and thus builds up the labour force. To use other examples, an appliance serviceman won't fix appliances, and hairdressers won't cut people’s hair, until the request is made for these services, and it is presumed that the customers will have the money to pay for them. New hairdressing salons will open and more hairdressers will be employed only after more people can afford to have additional hair care. If not, when new salons are set up either they or the older established ones would fail through lack of business. There is another alternative of course; all the hairdressers could increase their charges to compensate. But that would result in customers having their hair attended to less often, which would also result in less business. But note also: that would be an inflationary step brought about by the lack of spending power and not through additional spending.
Fuller employment would allow people greater negotiating power over wages and it would counter the tendency for wage earners income rates to be at the mercy of employers, which is degrading.
When unemployment is high, wages tend to stand still, or drop, as labour is replaced, because there is so much competition for jobs. Consequently, lower wages results in lower spending power in the public purse, which leads to a drop in business in the domestic markets, which in turn leads to increased unemployment. I can't emphasise enough that the spiral downward caused by poor people not having enough money to spend needs to be reversed. As I see it, this reversal can only come about through more money being released to people at the bottom of the socio economic ranks.
I consider that where unemployment is rife, funds should be injected into the general money circulation system through an extremely wide group on the lower income brackets. In fact it should be done every few months if necessary, until a very significant trend in the lowering of unemployment is noticed. To ensure confidence in the business market, manufacturers and retailers need to know for sure that there will be enough people with a continual supply of money to purchase their goods. But once near-full employment was reached, the influx of free money would have to be cut altogether, excepting, of course, for normal welfare benefits which could stand an occasional slight increase, because most people, in the workforce would now have the opportunity to earn the extra money they needed to purchase what they needed, and businesses would have extra income through increased sales.
To keep things in balance, once real full employment eventuated; by that I mean that when virtually everyone who wanted work was employed, it would be appropriate for governments to even take steps that would take money out of circulation. It could do this by cutting back spending on large projects, investing surplus money overseas or even destroying the surplus. The reason for this is that if a country has a larger amount of money than the balance requires, suppliers of goods and services would not be able to meet the demand, so prices would go up - as it always does when the demands exceed the supplies - and inflation would shrink the spending power of the money supply by reducing the number of items that could be bought for certain prices.
Our aim, as I see it, is not to try to find a way by which everyone gets rich. What our economic aim should be is to give everybody the opportunity to earn the money required to buy their needs, and to ensure that there are enough financial customers out there in the market place to purchase what is being put up for sale. On top of this, people should be left with a little extra in reserve to spend on education, vacations and leisure activities.
People don’t need to be very rich, but they need to have enough to be able to purchase the basic needs common to their society. Whatever your total assets are, they could make you poor in one society and rich in another, because wealth is relative to common standards, conditions, generations and cultures. One particular danger of everybody being rich is that an excessive amount of money circulating will definitely push up the prices of things and make it tougher for young people coming into the workforce to save enough money to purchase their needs.
Getting back to the employment ratio, I do not desire to be critical, but it would be unrealistic to turn a blind eye to the fact that there is a small fraction of those unemployed whom most employers would prefer not to employ. One can understand the preference of individual employers to increase their own workload rather than try to deal with a small minority of those on the unemployment list who for one reason or another can be described as virtually unemployable. For this reason it is not too bad for a country to have a very small amount of unemployment. If people have to compete for jobs they are more likely to prepare themselves for the workforce with skills and education. What’s more, it is better for employers to be able to have a choice of whom they might wish to employ so that the job vacancies that need to be filled will be met with the more appropriate type of worker.
Early retirement
I believe that when unemployment is high in Western countries it makes sense to reduce the age for qualifying for a retirement pension, provided that a person stops working for a wage. A person aged between 55 and 60 who has been working all his, or her, life and who owns a home is more likely to be able to survive on a pension than someone in their twenties who has nothing. Allowing such older people to go on a pension, or the dole would not increase the number of unemployed, but would allow many younger people the dignity of being able to take up the jobs vacated. This would raise the standard of living of many formerly on the dole and make it easier for people who wished to retire earlier to do so and enjoy more years of leisure with less stress. Assistance, by way of a pension, from the Government for older people who are still strong and healthy enough to work long hours would free them up to venture out into various enterprises and experiment with new talents and skills discovered in later years.
Naturally if the person who retires early took another job or went into business, the dole money would have to be cut. But it would give many people a chance to have a long break from working if they wanted one. If they were to start out on a business venture, a pension paid during the first few months could help them survive the set up period when income is likely to be low. However, if one fully retires, and that person was subsidising one's dole with income investments that one had built up over the years, such as, income from rents, or money loaned out, or stocks and shares; then this should not affect the unemployment benefit, since the person has paved the way for another person to come off the dole and should not be penalized for retirement.
CHAPTER 3