In 2008, when the system broke, the only shelf-ready rescue plan was written by the institutions being rescued. This project exists so that never happens again. We draft the emergency response before the emergency: model legislation, stress-tested by economists, sitting in the hands of the people who will need it, before the next shock arrives.
Of the ideas on the anvil, this one survived the pressure test easiest. It requires research and relationships, not capital. It doesn't need an election, a cofounder, or a lucky room. And it works with the crisis cycle instead of hoping to prevent it: policy windows open during shocks, and the framework that wins is the one already sitting on the shelf. Milton Friedman described this mechanism plainly, and his side used it to reshape the world. The mechanism is neutral. It's time someone used it for the other 99%.
The goal is not to predict the next crisis. It's to make sure that when it comes, the coherent, credible, pre-vetted response on the table is one designed for ordinary people instead of asset holders.
These three are the fast bands of elastic capitalism: the coupling that engages when crisis hits, written as law first because the window opens there first. Each document ships in two versions: full legislative text with drafter's notes, and a plain-English companion an ordinary citizen can read in ten minutes. Both live publicly with version history.
No public rescue without public upside. Any firm receiving emergency government support issues equity or warrants to a public trust, so taxpayers share the recovery they funded.
TARP's warrant provisions returned a profit to the US Treasury on many positions. Sweden's 1992 banking rescue took equity stakes and recovered most of its outlay. The mechanism works; it's just never been made automatic.
Economic airbags. Support for households that deploys on impact, triggered by published indices, without waiting for a committee vote, with democratic override retained.
Existing US stabilizers (unemployment insurance, SNAP) work but are weak and slow. Chile's structural balance rule proved counter-cyclical discipline is possible in a democracy. The COVID stimulus showed speed matters more than perfection.
When crisis produces extraordinary profits in essential sectors, a defined share seeds a permanent public wealth fund, converting the crisis cycle's upside into public ownership instead of pure private gain.
The UK's 2022 Energy Profits Levy and Norway's petroleum taxation both captured windfalls; Norway routed them into the fund that now exceeds $2 trillion. The missing piece elsewhere is the destination: revenue vanished into general budgets instead of building permanent assets.
No document ships until it clears every line. This bar is the product. A thousand think tanks produce white papers; almost none produce work their opponents concede is honest.
Stress-tested by named economists, including at least one reviewer who is skeptical of the underlying policy. Reviews published alongside the document.
Counterarguments included in the document itself, steelmanned, with honest responses. If a critique can't be answered, it stays in as an open question.
Plain-English companion that passes the dinner table test: a smart 25-year-old with no economics background follows it and feels smarter, not talked down to.
Public version history. Every revision visible. When we're wrong, the correction is part of the record, not a quiet edit.
Precedent-grounded. Every mechanism cites where it's been tried, what happened, and what the trade-offs were. No policy fiction.
Honest values, cross-partisan work. This project has commitments, stated openly so nobody has to guess them: an economy built to reward "me" needs structures that answer for "we." Public risk should earn public upside. Ownership should be broad. What stays out: endorsements, tribal language, candidate alignment. Every document should be citable by a legislator from either party without embarrassment.
Each phase ends with a gate. If the gate isn't met, the phase doesn't advance. Momentum is good; false momentum kills credibility.
The road // Four phases, three gates, eighteen months to shelf-ready. No phase advances until its gate is met.
Gate: Three one-page specs complete. First economist conversation booked.
Gate: Document 01 published with at least three named reviewers, one of them skeptical.
Gate: Documents in the hands of 100 staffers. First unsolicited request received.
Gate: Permanent. The shelf stays stocked and current until the window opens.
What we offer collaborators: named credit on every document, a rigorous container that protects their reputation, and association with work built to outlast the news cycle.
Legislative drafting experience, ideally former committee counsel or legislative services staff. Turns specifications into real bill text with drafter's notes.
Two to three per document, including one skeptic each. Academic or institutional credibility required. Compensated with honoraria and named credit.
Translates legislative text into the ten-minute companion documents. The dinner table test is their entire job description.
Former staffers, state legislators, policy conference organizers. People who can put a document on the right desk with a warm introduction instead of a cold send.
The Civic Forge: sets the container, holds the rigor bar, produces the public-facing content, and keeps the project honest and nonpartisan. This role is filled.
Channel viewers surface precedents, flag errors, and recruit reviewers from their own networks. The forge is open; the work is shared.
Carried over from the playbook and answered. These stay published because pretending risks away is how projects die surprised.
COVID fit no template. A playbook drafted for energy shocks may miss the next shape entirely.
MitigationDraft mechanisms, not predictions. Equity-for-bailouts works whatever caused the bailout. Stabilizer triggers key off outcomes (unemployment, prices), not causes. The 72-hour mapping protocol in Phase 4 handles the novel part.
Staffers are buried in white papers. Distribution without relationships is shelf-ware nobody knows exists.
MitigationPhase 3 is relationship-built by design: warm introductions through the economist network, briefings over blasts, and the success metric is unsolicited requests, not sends.
Twenty economists don't sign on to a YouTube channel's homework. Rigor has to be demonstrated before it's believed.
MitigationStart with one document and one reviewer, not twenty. The rigor bar and public version history are the proof of seriousness. Each named reviewer makes the next recruitment easier. This is compounding, and it's why Phase 1 starts small.
The moment this reads as one tribe's project, half the staffer list stops reading and the reviewer pool shrinks.
MitigationCross-partisan by design: values stated openly so nobody has to guess them, skeptical reviewers required, tribal language banned, precedents drawn from governments of every stripe, and no candidate or party endorsements ever.
Startable Monday. Each has a done-state, because a plan without one is a wish.
Write the one-page spec for the Equity-for-Bailouts Act. Problem, mechanism, precedent, open questions. One page, no more.
Build the reviewer target list. Fifteen names with published work on bailout design, stabilizers, or windfall taxation, tagged friendly or skeptical.
Draft the outreach note. Three paragraphs: what this is, what we're asking (one conversation), what reviewers get. No pitch deck energy.
Stand up the project page on the Civic Forge site with the three specs and public version history from day one.
Send the first three outreach notes. Not fifteen. Three, chosen carefully, so each conversation improves the next.
Outline the launch episode: "The next crisis is already scheduled. Here's the plan nobody's written." Recruits collaborators and scouts in one move.