How an Idea Whose Time Had Come Brought in an Era of Ice Cream for Everyone
by David Gardener
In the year 2050, the green revolution of the past 25 years had established a new way of being on planet earth. Let’s listen in on a typical family conversation from this new era of applied intelligence…
“Grandpa, grandpa, tell us about the old days again.”
“You mean back when the big banks and corporations ruled everybody’s lives by controlling all the money?” OK children, gather round…”
“Many years before you were born life was very different. Not everyone had a place to live or enough to eat in those days and the weather was getting worse and worse with terrible floods and huge fires and gigantic tornadoes because humanity was in the throes of something called late-stage capitalism. In fact, things got so bad in the mid to late 2020’s that it was doubtful that we humans could even survive at all anymore because of the widespread toxic chemical use and industrial air and water pollution caused by the corporation’s greed.”
“I’m so glad that you kids don’t have to worry about anything like that today. It was really scary there for a while. Grandma and I had to eat cans of beans because it was all we could afford when I lost my job to something called AI. But thank goodness, a couple of things happened that really turned things around for people everywhere.”
“Now we refer to it as “the great awakening” but back then we were just happy to see some positive changes happening. One thing that really helped was that the vast majority of politicians who were helping the corporations to control all the money got old and died. Back then the life expectancy was only around 75 or 80 years old. I’m now 102 and still running a few miles every morning.”
“So that fact of life certainly played a big part in new ideas coming to the fore, ideas about fairness and care for all people. It didn’t exactly happen overnight, but as the government became populated with younger and younger people who thought more clearly about the terrible costs of a capitalistic society, the pursuit of the almighty dollar (that’s what it was called back in the day) became less and less almighty and the quality of daily life for all people was the new priority. The new younger politicians worked towards making sure that the income equality gap was not only closed but eventually became reversed.”
“Grandpa, what does that mean- income equality gap?”
“Oh, yes, I understand that you have never experienced the misfortune of directly knowing what that was but there was a time when only a few people controlled all the money and most of the people didn’t quite have enough to live comfortably and pursue their creative potential like you do today. Back in the day, most all people had to have what were called jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables. We were kind of like your pet hamster running around on his wheel, but unlike Fuzzy Boy, if we got off the wheel we wouldn’t be able to live in our houses anymore. You and I are fortunate today to have a system of wealth distribution that makes sure everyone can be warm and safe and fed and has enough free time to be creative. We are so much more healthy today because of art and literature and music and dance and theater, natural medicines, organic gardening and good laws that prioritize people over profits. In the days of the income inequality we were so concerned about just surviving that we had to have a word for what we didn’t have- that word was thriving. Now we don’t need that special word anymore because what we used to call thriving is just what we call normal life today.”
“But grandpa, what was life like for you back in those days when banks and corporations were making sure that everyone was stuck on a hamster wheel? Were you able to do anything about it?”
“For a long time, I wasn’t, but in 2024 I learned of a very wise man from Australia who came to America with a brilliant idea he had to help people get out from under the power of the big banks and corporations. Part of his plan depended upon everyday people telling everyday people about his idea and asking them if they wanted to join in to spread the word also and get paid to do it. Since AI had put me out of my job I was ready for anything that could help grandma and I keep our house and I joined up to become an emissary of his brilliant idea… and the funny thing is, his company used AI to enable its inner workings, so in looking back I see that AI wasn’t really a bad thing if it was used for good reasons.”
“This man created a company to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat of social impact by helping small community owned banks thrive by bringing them more online customers; and in exchange for bringing these minority and community owned banks more depositors, these small banks happily agreed to send his company half of the interchange fees that they would collect every time a customer of those small banks used a specially programmed debit card they issued. And when this man’s company received those interchange fees, his company in turn shared them with us, the people who were getting the word out about a new way to accomplish financial literacy and well-being.”
“What are interchange fees, grandpa?”
“Well, you kids know what credit and debit cards are, right?”
“Yes, grandpa, we have our junior cards with points on them that we earn for doing creative projects and having good ideas. We can get stuff with them that we like.”
“It’s kind of like that for grown-up cards too. Every time grandma and I, or your parents buy something with our cards, a certain amount of the price we pay goes to the banks that issue us our cards as a fee for the service of having their card. Those are called interchange fees and about 3% of every card tap goes to the bank.”
“Well, this man’s revolutionary idea was, that for the first time in history, the banks would agree to share half the interchange fees with the man’s company and the company would pay we emissaries a portion of those fees if we helped him find customers for the small banks. This was very easy to do because owning this specially programmed debit card doubled people’s buying power without them having to make any more money, and over time, it grew their financial well-being to the point where they would always have enough money to keep their rooves over their heads and for grandpa (and the other company emissaries) I was able to earn a little bit on every tap of thousands and thousands of people’s everyday purchases that I didn’t even know. And I wasn’t the only one. This brilliant Ausie man recognized that because there are billions and billions of card taps daily, just a little bit of which, if directed towards a central purpose, could easily house and feed every needy family in America, he built a company expressly in order to do this; and today his concept has spread all over the world and there are now many millions of emissaries just like your grandpa.”
“With this kind of passive income, I was eventually able to become a philanthropical contributor to our government’s Central Well of Abundance program that makes sure that all Americans have a place to live and enough to eat today.”
“We didn’t know it at the time, but over the years this man’s social impact concept and mechanism of empowering small banks caused the gigantic late stage capitalism banks to change their ways and prioritize human well-being over just making profits, no matter at what terrible cost; and this is why we live in a world today where everyone’s basic needs are taken care of. And because the big banks underwent this transformation, all the corporations that depended on their funding had to stop polluting and start doing things that were good for the environment, and now we don’t have such terrible natural catastrophes much anymore.”
“What do you say, kids? Shall we go out and get some ice cream now? I’ll pay for it with my special card that automatically contributes to the Well of Abundance program so that when we eat our ice cream we can know that little boys and girls all over the world can be safe in their homes tonight when they go to bed. And I’ll be that a lot of them had ice cream for desert too.”