America has been the greatest wealth generating machine the world has ever seen. Most of this wealth is the output of America’s special combination of Public Knowledge, Public Investment, Public Resources, and Public Extensions. Let’s call this American-made wealth the Public Gains of America. American Life thrives when we cycle Public Gains back into our engine of prosperity.
In our American capitalist system, we expect Public Gains to be cycled in two main ways: (1) Some Public Gains should be claimed by Americans through fair and balanced competition and, in time, cycled back into American Life. (2) Some Public Gains should be used by our governments to advance Public Knowledge, to commit to Public Investment up to American standards, to protect the health of our Public Resources, and to flex our power with Public Extensions.
The Counting Class corrupts both these ways Public Gains regenerate our American Life.
Counts take out a grossly outsized portion of America’s Public Gains through automatic Free Income. But unlike any Free Income received by Contributing Americans, this money does little to support American Life. Instead, Counts keep larger and larger hoards that pile up faster and faster. And those extreme Money Counts are little more than a dead end for the Public Gains of America.
Counts also burden Americans with massive national debt, and without the resources we need to renew Public Knowledge, Public Investment, Public Resources, and Public Extensions. Counts show a lack of gratitude for America’s KIRE Engine of Prosperity. They deny their debts to America, as they lecture us all about “self made” money. They leave Americans without equal opportunity.
What the Counting Class does best is collect a grossly outsized portion of our Public Gains. Doing nothing at all, a Count can get 10% gains yearly in Free Income, doubling his Money Count every 7.2 years. That starts at $5 billion a year in Free Income to a middle-rank E10 Count. It’s just clockwork math. And when a Count wields extreme money, he can prey on even more of America’s riches: America’s natural lands, America’s communication systems, America’s advanced science, and our most innovative companies.
When America is working, all Americans can share in the wealth of our Public Gains. That’s either through individual gains from healthy competition, or through the renewal of our Public Knowledge, Public Investment, Public Resources, and Public Extensions.
But today, Counts armed with extreme money collect more and more of America’s Public Gains as their own private entitlement.
On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Big Woods Declaration (BWD) renews the call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, free from the corruption of extreme money.
The BWD is a First Amendment petition to the American people and our government. It is not limited to any political party or group.
The BWD is a total of 60 pages: the Core Declaration (4 pages), the 13 Notes, the 27 Dangers to America, and the 16 Solutions for America.
The BWD may be shared and reused 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/
The BWD was created without the use of any AI, opinion polling, or focus groups. The BWD draws on many core American ideas as well as the work of Thorstein Veblen, America’s visionary from the Big Woods of Minnesota.
All photos in the BWD were taken in the Big Woods. The BWD was framed by Erik Christopher Sahlin with Alyssa Beth Wulf.