Zane Austen
@zane
The two fundamental values I want to see in new countries are: 1. Safety 2. Abundance We don’t have a livable country if you don’t have safety. And if we aren’t doing this to get to post-scarcity, what are we even doing? Here’s a spec for both: https://www.zaneausten.com/p/cities-that-pay-your-rent
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Zane Austen
@zane
The thing that people might not be able to get enough of in the 2020s is *safety*. The universe tends to disorder. And without thoughtful leadership willing to see the obvious and make the hard changes to fix it, our neighborhoods will continue to degrade. Murders are rising. https://i.imgur.com/ZvOYKNa.jpg
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Zane Austen
@zane
People don’t move because one city is slightly better. They move because they can’t bear crime-ridden legacy cities and you can deliver a beacon of safety in an sea of chaos. Unfortunately, I don’t see the majority of existing countries getting any better.
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Zane Austen
@zane
So we must build alternatives. Start with safe neighborhoods, then safe cities, and safe countries. Then use the enormous chance we’ve been given to help our citizens reopen the frontier. The efficient frontier. The best possible country we can build.
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Zane Austen
@zane
That means different things to different people. To me, it means safety and a safety net. What if your country could pay your rent? And utilities? And food, water, transportation? How is this possible? LVTs and SWFs.
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Zane Austen
@zane
An LVT is a Land Value Tax, a tax thought to keep housing prices low, which is a multiplicative cost basis in the economy, and also not induce extra economic drag. A SWF is a Sovereign Wealth Fund, a fund that invests on behalf of a nation state and its citizens.
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Zane Austen
@zane
By driving down costs and earning a real and reasonable yield on assets, a country could pay for its citizens basic living costs in perpetuity. The bottom two levels of Maslow’s hierarchy: ✅ We’re working on the love part. We’re thinking about robots, but aren’t quite sure yet. https://i.imgur.com/0M7UK9U.j
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Zane Austen
@zane
Read more here: https://www.zaneausten.com/p/cities-that-pay-your-rent
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