Getting Into It

Where have you been? We stopped taxing investments in worker-owned cooperatives decades ago. They all have missions to do one or two of two possible things, To recycle matter to highest use with least carbon-based effort/loss of reinvestment values, And to repurpose creatures, great and small, to highest and deepest multiculturally healthy purpose, rooted in our mutually-held co-empathic trust and faith in regenerate, co-redemptive, health. Oh. Where was I when all this happened? That was when you were helping convert both non- and for-profit corporations, and most of Earth's governors and political and economic scientists to worker-consumer-resident-owned cooperatives. Anyway, consumers and residents oversee their budgets including third-party payers but the front-line staff workers and caregivers are in political charge of administration within boundaries ecologically supported by consumers/residents. I'm confused. How do consumers exercise responsibility for a cooperative's budget development, much less oversight of implementation? Well, it varies between active through one-time-exchange, depending on what type of collective budgeting we speak of. For example, Ballots for elected government positions are written for economic empowerment decision-making, showing a range of proposed expenditure budgets with line items showing intended categorical outcomes. Wait, I have one right here. There's education, security, transportation, utilities, health and nutrition, recreation/therapeutic mindbody treatments. Oops. Wait a minute, that's my household budget. Well, close enough for governing work. Are you telling me your ballot looks like four budgets, one for each active political party? Essentially, yes. Then, once results are tabulated, the power-party nominees "owning" the most preferred economic/ecological plan become the elected public office-holders. Their job is to balance the diverse ranges of support found within their consumer/resident market populations through their diverse economic co-investment ballot choices, expressing their highest and best ecotherapeutic values for themselves and their families and all of Earth's Tribes. How do they have time to do that and still figure out how best to deliver services? Well, the elected positions are supported by power-policy analysts decomposing the ratios of annual categorical expenditures to total corporate expenditures, including labor and carbon investment. These ratios are then compared to the combined budget election ratios, and either reported as up or down from prior precedent. Reports, as I said, go to... well, everybody, but the elected reps and the non-elected civil executors of this public budgeting process are the only ones who actually study them. But then there are the academic researchers, and the independent reporters. The elected legislators and administrators either adopt by implementing any therapeutic adjustments expected or explain to future consumers/residents why they think they know better how they can be of service than we might have gratefully intended and thanked them for by voting for our cooperative economic-political stability and long-term health outcomes. Oh. Where do you live again? You ask me that every time we talk. You're getting old. I will live in The Promised Land's EcoTribe with you.