Crisis on Earth-Prime (retcon)

As if the debt clock and the global goals weren't uphill battle enough, now we have a pandemic that is slapping the global economy silly.  From the looks of it, the craziness is just beginning.  So, the question is, how the fluffernutter sandwich do we fight all of this?  Well, as it so happens, I have a plan of sorts.

Now, let's get the prerequisite boilerplate stuff out of the way first.  As far as Corona is concerned,wash your hands; I've seen this said time and time again to be the best way to prevent catching and spreading the disease.  It makes you wonder why we're having such a hard time dealing with it, but there you go.  Also, don't touch your face, wear a mask, and self-isolate as much as possible.  Oh, one more thing, and I'm surprised this doesn't get brought up more frequently, but don't eat bats.

With all that out of the way, we come to the main attraction.  As it turns out there are steps you can take to combat the threats that loom over the horizon.  Think of them like Dave Ramsey's baby steps, but you don't have to do them in any particular order and they operate on a much bigger scale.


1.  Greatergood


I found out about this site some time in 2008 and I've been going every day since.  You click buttons and, as a result, fund all sorts of great causes through ad revenue.  You can feed hungry people, support veterans, provide books to help kids learn to read, fund medical research and mammograms, preserve the rain forest, and help animals.  While you could just fund the cause of your choice, I think it's best to go across the board and hit all of them. 

*Even better, in response to the pandemic, you can now click up to four times a day.  The caveat is that it allows clicks once every four hours.  I get the logic, but the odds of going 4 for 4 is slim.  Depending on your schedule 2 to 3 a day is much more likely.  Still, it does allow for people to up the contributions.*

Similarly, freekibble and freetheocean are also great sites to frequent.  The prior may not have the same obvious impact, but providing resources to animal shelters is a great thing to do in its own right.


2. Charity Miles

Similar to the above, this app "sponsors" your physical activity (jogging, biking, or even walking).  Companies put money towards a charity of your choice based on how much activity you do.  Back in the day it was $0.25 for every mile walked or jogged and $0.10 for every mile biked.  They've moved to a more nebulous system, which is vexing, but it does still achieve the desired result of funding all sorts of great organizations.  I use it myself, and try to get a walk in whenever my schedule allows.

Like with Greater Good, you can fund pretty much anything: fighting poverty or hunger, health, education, the environment.  Not only is it empowering in the sense that it makes an impact, but it also encourages personal fitness, which has benefits of its own.

Both of these tools not only fund things, but also shift the burden off the government's shoulders.  It facilitates cuts (which are needed as you'll see below) while also still getting done the things that people want to see get done.


3. Make every Patreon greater than Spoony's

Right now, the big push to deal with the looming economic downturn is to cut everybody a monthly check for $2,000; emergency universal basic income, they call it.  Well, this basically mostly does that.  The difference is that, rather than wait for the government to do it, you just do it.

There is one other perk, though, and I think it's one that the more liberally inclined readers are going to like.  Whereas the traditional UBI is yet another government money sink, this is a tax revenue generator.  That's right, that's taxable income on the recipient's end, so as a result, more capital will be pumped into the government coffers.  It's a much more efficient method than what is often proposed.

Now, you might be asking what a "Spoony" is.  Well, he was an internet reviewer back in the day, fairly popular one at that.  He launched a Patreon of his own a few years ago that hit $5,000/month.  Now, at the time, one couldn't begrudge him that, as he had put quite a bit of effort into his content and had built a sizable fan base as a result.  The thing is, he just stopped.  He hasn't really done much of anything in about five years.  Despite this, he still gets funding from extremely devoted fans.  It isn't nearly as much as it was (rightly so), only about $350/month give or take depending on the day, but it's still pay.  Given the circumstance, I can't think of a better economic baseline indicator.

True, it isn't the $1,000 that is often cited as the standard amount for basic income, but it is a stepping stone that will deal with a lot of the oncoming problems and, in addition, will help address the government's fiscal woes in the process.


*Now, once this is done, you could take it a step further and fully fund every Patreon (and GoFundMe too, why not?)  How do you fully fund a Patreon? That's easy, push it to the highest milestone and keep it there in perpetuity.  Yes, this means that Spoony's Patreon would shoot back up to the $5K/month movie milestone, but fine, whatever.



4. Forever Donor (and friends)


This is a fairly new website setup by the Wallet Squirrel guys.  It's a pretty brilliant concept.  Rather than just donate directly to a charity, you use the site to put money into an interest-bearing account.  Every three months, the organization(s) of your choice gets a portion of the interest as a contribution.  Why only a portion? It's so that the principle can grow, which means that the power of compounding is put to use in a philanthropic fashion. Even if you just left it alone, the cause(s) would get more funding over time.  As they say, it's like your own little mini-foundation.  I haven't set up my account yet, but I very much intend to, as it is really cool.

Now, this won't exactly deal with the Coronavirus fiasco.  This one is more of a long-term tool, slowly strengthening social safety nets and laying the groundwork for a better future.


*Sadly, the site had to be taken down.  Apparently, it hadn't gotten enough momentum. I'm not sure what needs to be done to get the site back up and running, but it should definitely be made a priority, as this was too big a game changer to just let drop like this.  Of course, once the site is back up, we have to make sure enough "foundations" are established that the site can stay up and the power of compounding can be put to full use.  It would be pointless to get the site back only to have the same thing happen again.

I did come up with some other tools to use.  Initially, I was going to suggest them as substitutes to fill in while the site was in limbo, but then it hit me, why not just keep using them even when the site were to come back?

For example, AmazonSmile is a great way to raise money for charities.  With everybody cooped up at home, the online retailer has seen a surge of business.  Why not strengthen social safety nets (at no extra cost to you, no less) at the same time?

You can also buy Newman's Own products.  They make a variety of food products.  Said products are high quality and 100% of the money goes to charity. 

Another option is to donate to Humanity Forward.  After Andrew Yang suspended his Presidential campaign, he launched a non-profit focused on achieving the same goals he had planned to achieve as President.  Like his campaign, it's largely focused on universal basic income.  It's actually been doing pretty well so far and has managed to provide that income floor to hundreds of people. 


5. Pay the Debt


There's a lot of clamoring for the government to fund things.  The thing is, they have no money.  They've been hemorrhaging it for some time.  We've got $2,000,000,000,000+ annual deficits, $26,000,000,000,000+ in debt, and over $150,000,000,000,000 in unfunded liabilities.  People get vexed by the "how are we going to pay for it?" question, but it's perfectly valid.

For all the "raise my taxes" talk, this is actually better.  It's proactive, and it gives you the most bang for your buck. If enough people contribute, the amount the country pays in interest will slowly decrease over time.  That, in turn, will free up more capital that can be put to use elsewhere.  It'll take some doing, as the numbers increase at a rapid clip, but if a large enough number of people do it perpetually over time, it could be a real game changer.

Now, granted, this site focuses on U.S debt.  Other countries have their own fiscal woes.  I don't know if they have their own fundraising sites that act in a similar capacity, but if they do, feel free to leave links in the comments.  I'm all for expanding the scope to be as all-encompassing as possible.



6. Buy lottery tickets.

I'm not telling you this because your chances of winning are good.  I mean, you COULD win, but you probably won't.  I add this because I've seen it often cited as a tax.  Again, going back to those who view taxes as the ultimate solution to any problem and lament the fact that they aren't paying more, here you go.  Regardless of whether you win, you still fund schools, roads, healthcare, and other initiatives.  Granted, it's on the state and local level as opposed to federal, but it's still something.  In any event, they have their own debt clocks that also need combating.  Thus, it still fits  I'm actually kind of surprised that those on the left haven't tried to put this more positive spin on lotto tickets, but that's neither here nor there. Do other countries have lotteries?  I would assume so, if so, feel free to do the same.  Every bit counts.

7. Stock banking

OK, some of these cost money and if you're short on income, it makes things tougher.  As such, let's move back to something that doesn't cost you anything out of pocket, stock banking.  What is this?  It's a life hack that I came across via the "Yang Gang", who used it as a way to raise money for Andrew Yang back when he was vying for the Democratic nomination.

How it works is that you use a RobinHood referral link (like, say, this one) to get a free share of stock.  Then you and/or the person who's link you used sell their respective shares and donate them to a thing. This effectively makes Wall Street foot the bill to help achieve whatever goal you're most passionate about.

So, there it is.  I think it covers all the bases and attacks things on multiple fronts.  There's a lot to deal with and it's all pretty large in scope.  What we're up against is bigger than anything we've faced, that's why it's going to take all of us.  We've got the tools, now we just need to show the talent.