Further Regarding Currencies

Conversion of SIFAs into National Currencies

Inflation and Deflation

All participants (ideally, everyone in the world) receive an equal amount in SIFAs in purchasing power which is spent exclusively through the SIFA Administrative Agency, so that monitoring becomes both very easy and public for all interested parties. Leaks thus become impossible, because the supplementary economy is a closed circuit between extra production and extra consumption, and fraud is unlikely since all are subject to the same rules and the system is open for all to monitor. Moreover, it is constantly overseen by specially trained professionals.

Because there is simultaneous knowledge of both supply and demand and the balances of all people are directly linked to the interest-free prepayment to all producers, there is a breakthrough in economic relations. The SIFA Administrative Agency can create the maximum amount of hard currency possible at that point in time, fully covered from the outset by the extra production, ordered by citizens worldwide through the SIFA Administrative Agency.

Besides this first closed circuit, a second will come into being in the old economy, because all salaries received in SIFAs from the supplementary economy (by development workers, employees of the Administrative Agency and suppliers/contractors/employees) cannot be spent outside of the supplementary economy unless they have been exchanged for a country’s national currency.

In order to pay salaries in national currencies, the SIFA Administrative Agency will have to buy the required amount of national money from each state, thus providing each country with an equivalent balance in SIFAs. SIFAs in the form of digital transfers which are free from inflation are thus received in exchange for money that is subject to inflation, and so the SIFAs will begin to play the role played by gold reserves.

However, nations will be required to spend the SIFAs they gain within the parameters set by the SIFA Administrative Agency. In the poor countries, they will be spent to create a stronger infrastructure; and in the rich countries, for debt payment. Debts of poor countries are, as mentioned above, paid from the sustainable supplementary economy’s general funds.

The dangers of inflation, or a too-great increase in purchasing power in the national economies, are not as great as may be expected, if we remember that almost all those who will spend a salary of SIFAs in the national economy also have a previous income from the old economy, and that the extra purchasing power consists only of their additional income. 

If this is 10%, then only that 10% would become a burden on the national purchasing power, because 90% has already been paid by the SIFA Administrative Agency from the specially created Fund to counteract inflation and deflation, as mentioned above. For example, in the Netherlands, the increase in purchasing power with accompanying danger of inflation would only equal 0.08% of the GNP.

If, because of this, unexpected inflation were to occur in a national economy, then it can be compensated by the reserve fund of $25 billion, mentioned above.

It should be noted that this figure set out in 1989 will have grown significantly when the plan is actually implemented. In all calculations, we are assuming that the SIFA currency has the same value as the U.S. dollar. Once the SIFA has been introduced, however, its value would have to be determined on the basis of the average value of all national currencies.

It Would Be Impossible to Achieve the Same through World Taxes

The SIFAplan would be more effective than using world taxes to reach the same purpose. Organizationally, it would be very complicated and financially impossible to levy any form of world taxes to generate a worldwide development income for all people, administered by the SIFA Administrative Agency. 

In 1989, Nobel Prize winner Jan Tinbergen calculated that the U.S.A. would have to provide 2/3 and the EU 1/2 of their means if every citizen in the world were to receive a reasonable income. 

He quite rightly considered this impossible. 

Rich countries would collapse through a lack of funds. Money would become too expensive, and the poor countries would only be helped in an ad hoc fashion. Soon, there would be a lack of purchasing power.

Great Advantages for Existing Economies

Because the sustainable supplementary economy creates a constant upward pressure on existing economies, there are many advantages. After all, the same producers deliver to both economies.

Because of their extra income from the new economic circuit and the higher demands in terms of quality and environmental friendliness, producers could manufacture better quality products in the original economies. There is a wholesome interaction between all private businesses and those activities performed for the sustainable supplementary economy. This produces profit, spent differently in each economic circuit.

Thus, both economic systems can be transformed, enabling the development of body and mind of the individual citizen. This expansion of this economy will never cease as human creativity is fostered to further develop human ingenuity, while a part of human work is taken over by Artificial Intelligence. 

The supplementary economy synthesises market and planned economic approaches, and the resulting balance benefits all people in every aspect of their existence. Every consumer is encouraged to function as both a national and a global citizen through the use of their supplementary income. 

As a global citizen, they are directly connected to the SIFA Administrative Agency. No national government or organization can take away these human rights. At the same time, the increased individual well-being provides the stability required by governments to carry out their mandate.

The sustainable, supplementary income for all would help achieve the much-needed human rights economy, in which the development of body, mind and spirit are in balance. In this way, we can respond for the first time in history to the calling to produce a more equitable, compassionate and reasonable world community, to which every individual can contribute in their own unique way.

Precedents for the Creation of the Currency

The creation of SIFA currency applies commonly accepted economic practices that are used in many other situations.

Creating currency in anticipation of future sales of goods and services

Since the abolishment of the gold standard, central banks ideally create currency according to the value of goods and services that people within those particular countries expect to sell.

Hard currency is created in anticipation of goods and services that a borrower at a bank can sell in the future. If there seems a high degree of certainty that the borrower’s assessment of sales is correct, i.e. that the sale will take place for the anticipated amount, hard currency is created in anticipation of the sale. In the SIFAplan, the SIFA currency is created to enable the sale against the goods and services that are guaranteed to be sold later that same year.

Creating currency backed by future sales of goods and services can have a margin of error, as the exact amount of sales may not actually take place. Goods and services may, in fact, be sold for more or less than the amount initially assessed. If errors are made, the amount of money in circulation in a country has later to be readjusted to prevent inflation or deflation.

The SIFA is not subject to such miscalculation, as it is ONLY produced for those goods and services which have actually been ordered and can definitely be produced. Any supplementary income credit not spent in the space of a year elapses. People cannot accumulate SIFAs.

The SIFA is a hard currency, more stable than today’s hard currencies, as we shall see below.

Precedents of international currency

After the Second World War, two proposals were put forward for a new global monetary system: one by the U.S.A. and one by the U.K. The U.K. proposed an international currency. Eventually, the U.S.A.’s proposal was adopted, with the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions.

Now the European Union has the Euro, an international currency.

On July 28, 1969, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officially created an international currency, called “Special Drawing Rights”, formed from contributions from Member States, to be administered by a new facility within the IMF. It operates as a supplement to the existing money reserves of member countries to offset balance of payment deficits in the same manner as gold or reserve currencies. Hence, it is called “paper gold”.¹

Special drawing rights (SDRs) are thus conceived to be similar to other currencies, except that they are an international currency.

Since the IMF receives new funds annually to back that year’s activity, SDRs can be backed by anticipated future income. The SIFA currency is similar to SDRs both as an international currency and because of the quality that it is currency created in anticipation of future backing.

It differs from SDRs, because it is backed by actual marketable goods and services and not, as is the case with SDRs, by currency, which is a symbol for marketable goods and services and thus subject to a greater margin of error.

The SIFA currency would be used by people everywhere, not only by governments, whereas SDRs, although planned also for wider use, have been used only by governments.

Problems encountered by SDRs

SDRs are created by agreement. Instead of having the U.S. Dollar as the standard, the interest rates paid on SDRs are the average of the interest rates paid on the currencies involved. Originally the idea was to move toward making SDRs the standard for the international currency.

The value of the SDR is currently based on five currencies: the US Dollar, the Euro, the Chinese Renminbi, the Japanese Yen, and the British Pound Sterling.

Several problems frustrate their use: