FAQ

Because the corruption of our country by extreme money is the core threat of our time. Counts armed with extreme money push their whims and wants on all Americans, without our consent.

The Big Woods Declaration makes the problems clear and offers serious solutions.

The BWD echoes America’s Declaration of Independence.

On our 250th anniversary, we face another threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Big Woods Declaration of 2026 is an invitation to all Americans to say “Enough!” to the corruption of our country by extreme money.

Like the Declaration of Independence, the BWD is a rejection of a tyranny of entitled elites. Unlike the Declaration of Independence, the BWD is not a call for a new country. It is a petition for equal freedom, equal security, and equal opportunity, toward a better America.

The First Amendment of our US Constitution guarantees the right of the American people “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” In a time of threats to free speech, the Big Woods Declaration is protected speech under the First Amendment.

In this way, the BWD is part of the American tradition of petitioning our government for peaceful change to make America better.

The Big Woods is part of America’s heartland. It’s core to the American story. You don’t have to be from the midwest to feel rooted in and connected to America’s Big Woods.

Many innovators and makers and do-ers have come out of the Big Woods region of Minnesota. The Big Woods was home to American visionary Thorstein Veblen, and the Big Woods Declaration builds on many of Veblen’s contributions.

The core declaration of the Big Woods Declaration is 1,300 words, or about as long as two standard news articles. That’s the length of America’s Declaration of Independence.

The BWD also includes 13 Notes, 27 Dangers, and 16 Solutions, each on a single page. The entire BWD is a total of 21,000 words, or about the length of an elementary school chapter book.

There are also a few supplementary documents on the BWD website, including the official BWD announcement, charts on rates of Free Income to Counts, and “Why the BWD?”

The 103 photos in the BWD were all taken in the Big Woods of Minnesota.

They’re a visual reminder of themes in the BWD, including healthy balance, regeneration, staying rooted in real life, and adapting to survive and thrive.

Some of the photos have additional meaning. The cover photo is the view of the Big Woods from Valley Grove Church, where the parents of Thorstein Veblen are buried. The photo in BWD Note 9 is Wellstone Falls, named in honor of Paul Wellstone, who got his start in politics in the 1970s helping to empower the rural poor in the Big Woods region.

Numbers in the billions are often too big to really grasp. The tables of rates of Free Income to Counts are meant to help. Whatever amount of money a Count holds, the tables show how much he can take in automatically, just in Free Income, every day, hour, and minute.

For example, the 10% table shows that even the lowest E11-rank Count can get more than $27 million each day of the year. And that number will double every 7.2 years.

The Big Woods Declaration is based on core American ideas and values. This includes the work of America’s visionary from the midwest, Thorstein Veblen, who warned us of the dangers of allowing extreme money to be hoarded by a small, entitled elite.

The BWD is also based on work from the field of cognitive linguistics. For over 20 years, framing specialist Erik Christopher Sahlin and cognitive linguist Alyssa Beth Wulf have advanced that work to deal with complex problems in American society.

The BWD is built on realities of financial math. The exponential growth of extreme money causes a widening gulf in America between Counts and Contributing Americans. And that gulf is widening faster and faster every day.

The Big Woods Declaration is fundamentally about achieving life-supporting balance against life-threatening extremes. It puts a focus on the deep gulf in America between Contributors and Counts, and recognizes that almost all of us are together on the Contributor side of that gulf. It calls for an America in which we can all live and let live as equals with our neighbors.

Some Americans will read the BWD and notice parts that sound quite conservative. Others will notice parts that sound liberal. The bottom line is that the corruption of our country by extreme money is bad for all Contributing Americans, whether conservative or liberal or another political leaning.

No. The Big Woods Declaration is not limited to any political party or candidate or group. Any Republican, Democrat, member of another party, or independent is free to champion any part of the BWD.

Language matters. For the sake of our democracy and for the sake of our capitalist system, we have to be able to talk about the reality of the corruption of our country by extreme money. New language like “Counting Class” and “Counts” helps us do that:

The problem isn’t just “billionaires.” The problem is anyone who has crossed the Counting Class Line: centi-millionaires, deca-billionaires, centi-billionaires, and the coming trillionaires and deca-trillionaires. “Count” lets us talk about the whole group at once. And we can still name the different levels, like “E8 Counts” for “centi-millionaires” or “E10 Counts” for “deca-billionaires.”

Counts are not like us. The term “Counting Class” might sound a little alien, and that’s OK. Most Americans—richer and poorer—get up each day and work to make some kind of a contribution. Some Contributing Americans may even earn enough to become “super rich.” But Counts are different. E11 Counts, for example, get billions of dollars in Free Income each month, for no work at all. And that makes the gulf in America between Counts and Contributing Americans wider and wider.

Counts are not our American story. We are not a country of entitled elites who can just wait for Free Income to inflate runaway extreme Money Counts. The word “Counts” helps us notice how they are more like the British aristocrats America fought against 250 years ago, and more like the robber “barons” we rejected 100 years ago.

The reality is dull. Does the language of “Count” and “Counting Class” and “Money Count” sound a little boring? That’s OK, because it’s true to real life. The way the Counting Class collects Free Income is dull and repetitive, requiring no genius, no talent, no skill, no experience, and no effort. All a Count has to do is wait and count. It’s just automatic, clockwork gains, ticking on and on.

We don’t have to make it personal. Even as America faces an extreme threat, we still need civil language to talk about it. “Counting Class” and “Counts” avoid unproductive name-calling. The word “Count” says nothing about whether someone is a good or bad person, it just means he’s armed with a dangerous amount of extreme money.

Yes. The core declaration is just 1,300 words and contains all the essential language and ideas of the Big Woods Declaration.

The Big Woods Declaration was framed by Erik Christopher Sahlin with Alyssa Beth Wulf.

The Big Woods Declaration was released in print and online on January 16, 2026.

Many Americans received first-print paper copies of the Big Woods Declaration by USPS postal mail. The BWD went to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Recipients of the BWD have included politicians, college students, celebrities, business owners, artists, journalists, podcasters, academics, religious leaders, community activists, and many concerned American citizens.

The original Big Woods Declaration of 2026, released January 16, 2026, is intended to stand as written for years. The paper and electronic versions are identical.

Yes. Anyone can share and reuse the BWD under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. View a copy of this license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

That means the BWD can be shared freely with attribution, but not for commercial gain, and not in any derivative form.

No. Now that the Big Woods Declaration has been created, it costs little to sustain.

Anyone can print and distribute their own copies. PDF files already specially formatted for professional printers are available here: https://drive.proton.me/urls/2AAT2K5BCR#XYrgVVSjNpKp

Not for now. The Big Woods Declaration will use the handle @BWDeclaration for any future social media activity: https://linktr.ee/BWDeclaration

Spread the word. Try out the new language. Support a candidate or other leader who champions the solutions of the Big Woods Declaration. Or become that leader yourself.