On October 24, 2011, Carl Person, candidate for the Libertarian Party’s Presidential Nomination, revealed his "Prosperity Plan" inviting small towns throughout the United States to implement his program, with or without his assistance, to create prosperity for its residents and small businesses.
Carl Person explained his Prosperity Plan in 21 Points, which are the following:
Preliminary Concepts To Help You Understand My Prosperity Plan
1. A town with a population between 7,500 and 12,500 is recommended. The Prosperity Plan for a town (the “Town”) within this population range can be implemented in about 2 months, with a team of 10 and a team manager.
2. My plan is 100% “viral” as to the Town, because we reach everyone in the Town through direct solicitation. Although it’s impossible to obtain anywhere near 100% viral on the Internet, you can obtain 100% viral in a small geographic area, by knocking on every door and bringing your message to each person in the area. This is being done successfully by religious groups (Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) and by numerous door-to-door salesmen of various products (e.g., vacuum sweepers, cleaning supplies, magazine subscriptions and home improvement products). The Libertarian Party features door-to-door marketing with its Libertarian Door Hangers [http://www.lp.org/take-a-look].
3. The plan results in obtaining a list of the email addresses for all residents and small business owners/managers in the Town, which means that the plan results in ownership of an electronic newspaper with almost everyone in Town (of working age) as a subscriber. The newspaper (actually, a weekly newsletter sent by email at no cost) is able to provide information to the residents and voters about Libertarian values, candidates and projects that the Town’s existing single newspaper fails to publicize.
4. The marketing area for the Town is going to be, approximately, a 75-mile radius from the center of the Town [the reach of the 10,000 Watt local radio station(s)], which is almost 18,000 square miles, with perhaps 100 to 400 other towns within the area, or approximately 15 counties (averaging 1,207 square miles each).
5. A 1-minute commercial run on a local radio station should cost approximately $1, for the advertising of a catalog of all the offered goods and services of perhaps 5,000 residents and small businesses of the Town, at an annual cost of advertising per participant of less than $10.
6. A technical course to qualify residents to work for small businesses and self-employed persons will be the first part of a free college education for each resident; the rest of the college equivalency curriculum will be the more traditional college courses.
7. The education to be provided in the Town’s tuition-free equivalency college for residents only will be 1st class as to the vocational training and economic sustainability components and traditional courses (English, history, etc.) as to the rest of the program.
8. The Town’s Voters have rights under New York’s Municipal Home Rule Law (for example) to overturn actions by the Town’s legislative body through a referendum. The right to a local referendum gives state residents a formidable political power for exercise when needed.
9. The principles involved in my Prosperity Plan are Libertarian, involving self help of the Town’s residents and small businesses.
10. If the Prosperity Plan is successful, the Town Voters can be expected to vote Libertarian, and all of the offices up for election in the area should have Libertarian candidates with an excellent chance of winning.
11. The surrounding Towns will demand the same Libertarian reforms, because the Prosperity Plan is actually a grass roots plan for spreading Libertarian principles by showing they work and creating a demand for the same reforms as the implementation successes become known.
Here Is My Plan for Creating Libertarian-Based Prosperity In Any Town In The United States
12. A Team Of 10 Trained Representatives And A Team Manager Goes Door-To-Door (which is how 100% “viral” is created) to disseminate the Libertarian message and explain how prosperity can be created for the Town and its residents and small businesses through the implementation of four reforms. This would be a good way to put volunteers to use, and to bring in local members of Occupy Wall Street and its 99% to further their objectives.
13. A Town of 10,000 population will have about 3,750 housing units to visit and an estimated 200 retail businesses.
14. The Team will obtain the email addresses of every Town resident and small business owner/manager; and create email addresses for those not having an email address (and set up several retail locations where they can receive email. (This creates a local newspaper with a near 100% subscription rate, at a cost of about $6 per subscriber (or $20 per household). [Note: During the 1980’s, newspapers sold for about $1,000 per subscriber.]
15. The Town’s Mayor Will Be Encouraged To Have The Town’s Lawyer Function As The Town Attorney General to protect the rights of the Town, its residents and small businesses at public expense, and obtain refunds (or “clawbacks”) from entities that have breached their contracts with the Town. These amounts could lower real estate taxes and pay 100% of the costs of the Town’s tuition-free equivalency college for residents only.
16. Set Up A Tuition-Free Equivalency College For Residents Only; courses would be “live” and not internet-based. Students would live at home. The costs of running the college would be $2,000 per year per student (30 students in a class), or $2/hour for instruction. The college would provide a 1st class technical education as the first year of the curriculum, to train students how to earn a living working for local small businesses or to create their own small businesses. The 2nd through 4th years would be a more traditional curriculum, but including courses in manufacturing, business, farming, creating renewable energy and creating a sustainable economy. The students who complete their 1st year of the equivalency college will be in demand by the Town’s local businesses. [Note: the equivalency college will be area-wide, serving more than the Town, but residency in the area required, with students not residing in the Town having to pay the low-cost tuition.] The equivalency college has a low cost of operation because it would have no regulation, no student loans, no dispensary, no parking lots, no Chancellor’s home, no dormitory, no library, no trucks or grass to be cut.
17. Area-Wide Payroll Administrator (“AWPA”) As A Workaround For My Plan “The 1st 3 Are Free”. The AWPA will make it easier for local small businesses and households to hire employees. The AWPA will act similar to an office temporary service and handle the payroll withholding, reporting and insurance requirements. The business or household merely notifies the AWPA each week the number of hours worked by each employee. This does not have to be a cooperative, and it could and perhaps should be privately owned, with competitors. Each Town business and household pays for whatever use it has of the AWPA. The AWPA will make it easier for small businesses to manage payroll and induce small business to put on more employees of the classic type (involving payroll withholding) and enable local businesses to grow and add more employees.
18. Electronic, Searchable Catalog Of All Goods And Services Being Offered By All Of The Town’s Residents And Small Businesses. The Sears Catalog (a thick, printed paperback book) was a successful marketing tool for 100 years, but was discontinued in 1993. The catalog had almost everything anyone wanted to buy and was far less costly to advertise than trying to advertise separately each of the items in the catalog. Ebay is today’s electronic equivalent. My idea is to have a catalog for all goods and services being offered by a Town’s residents and small businesses because of the economies of scale in marketing the catalog. By using local radio advertising, the cost of advertising the offerings of 5,000 residents and small business is only $1 per minute, or less than $10 per year per catalog participant.
19. Keyword Advertising, Zip-Code Based, Making It An Improvement Upon Craigslist. When a member of the Team visits a household, he/she will provide consultation services to the resident(s) to identify the services and/or goods the resident should offer (as a way of increasing their income). For each identified, a keyword ad needs to be created, for inclusion in the “catalog”, which is in reality an online searchable database. Each resident and small business owner will be encouraged to prepare as many ads as needed to advertise each of the services or types of goods that the resident would like to offer and sell (or to buy). Here are 3 samples: “Tutor quantum mechanics, high school level, $25/hour”. “Have car truck with plow, shovel or remove snow from home driveways for $50 flat”. “Have car truck with plow, shovel or remove snow from parking lots for $125/hour, $75 minimum”. “Consultant on creating keyword ads for town database or catalog. $20/hour”. “Create website landing pages. $28/hour”.
20. Group Sessions Or Online Videos To Reduce Cost Of Instruction For Creating Keyword Ads. There are two critical things for every catalog participant: (i) keyword ads that use words and terms that will be used by prospective customers seeking the goods or services being offered by the participant; and (ii) the appearance and content of the landing page that a website user will see when jumping from the participant’s keyword ad to the participant’s landing page for such ad. The landing page needs to include pictures, prices, recommendations, descriptions of services, contact information, and anything else that will help to sell the offered products and services. Participants should learn how to create their own landing pages based on the first landing page created for them by a landing-page consultant. The use of good keywords ads and landing pages for the ads will bring in more income for the participant, and will result sooner or later in the hiring of employees by many of the catalog advertisers. Group sessions and online videos can provide the needed instruction after the team member, during his door-to-door visit, has provided the initial information and sample keyword ads.
21. Surrounding Towns Will Demand The Same Prosperity Reforms And Vote Libertarian. Because of the 1-minute radio advertisements of the Town’s catalog, residents and small businesses in the surrounding 2,000 square miles will be purchasing from the catalog and wondering why they can’t offer their services as well. This should result in demands for the same reforms to create prosperity in these other towns on a grass roots reform basis, similar to the growth of Craigslist. The reforms are Libertarian and most of the beneficiaries will know this and vote Libertarian as a result. It would be no major task to recruit residents of the Town or surrounding area to become candidates to compete for all or most of the elected positions in the counties involved.
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