Interactive engine for tuning Citizens Standard monetary parameters and comparing against alternative systems.
The Citizens Standard · the engine
Audio overview
The Citizens Standard, start to finish
A guided walk through the whole framework.
0:0040:00
Interactive Model Builder
Tune the monetary issuance dials. Project a representative cohort 65 years. Compare against real-world median outcomes under seven alternative systems.
The Citizens Standard is a constitutional monetary framework that replaces central-bank discretion with four rules-based issuance channels. Every dollar of new money is distributed equally to all citizens — split between locked citizen equity (the Stable Floor) and monthly dividends.
How to use: Pick a Mode, or choose Custom and move any slider. Everything updates live. Zero-Issuance snaps every channel to zero — the hard-money corner — showing the engine is a dial, not a printing press.
Growth budget → 100% locked floor (K2) · 0% spendable dividend (K3). Always sums to 100%: raising the dividend lowers the floor by the same dollars, and total money issued is unchanged.
Asset Circuit · price-protected
Transactional · spendable
KI — Inflation-gap0.0%
K1: % of GDP per capita, deposited once per new citizen. K2: how much of the real-growth-matched budget is issued — 100% is the full-rate 60/40 split (Mode B), ~17.5% gives mild deflation (Mode A). κ_d: splits that one budget between locked floors (K2) and monthly dividend (K3) — price-neutral, since it moves money between locked and spendable, not the total. KI: % of M2 issued above the growth line — the only channel that creates inflation (Mode C).
Macro environment
Real growth2.0%
Pop. growth0.5%
Realizable equity return4.3%
Real growth: sets the size of the budget the channels above are drawn against — issuance matches output, so a faster economy issues more without moving prices. Pop. growth: how many new citizens receive a K1 deposit, and how far the dividend is spread. Realizable equity return: what the locked floor actually earns once every citizen holds one — the universal deposit deepens the capital stock and pulls the return down, so it is mode-dependent (Macro Model §6.7).
Implied inflation0.0%
Derived from the channels above — not set by hand.
Stable Floor at horizon
—
launch-year purchasing power
Annual real income
—
at 5% withdrawal
Monthly dividend / citizen
—
year 1 · κ_d + KI
Issuance / M2
—
total annual, year 1
Cost / GDP
—
total annual, year 1
Lifetime dividend
—
cumulative, real
Total lifetime value
—
floor + dividends
—
Economy-wide structural buyer · launch yearaggregate FDCA flow, not the single cohort above
Structural-buyer flow
—
A* as % of mkt cap / yr
Citizen market ownership ψ*
—
realized ≈ c·annuity(g,dur)
Active float (tradable)
—
1 − ψ*
—
What you get
Stable Floor
Channels
M2
Inflation
Stress test
Mode Ω
Mode Λ
μ & Stability
The “vs. today” comparison is calibrated on US retirement data only.
The status-quo baseline below (Vanguard median 401(k), SSA benefit, Alaska PFD) is US-specific. Equivalent median-savings and public-pension figures are not yet calibrated for this country, so rather than dress US dollars in a different currency symbol, the comparison is hidden here.
The Stable Floor, dividend and inflation figures on the mode cards below are fully country-calibrated, as are all the other tabs. Switch to the United States to see the full comparison.
Compared against the state pension alone.This country publishes no median private pension pot at retirement — this is structural, not a gap in our sourcing. Switzerland never collects individual 2nd-pillar balances; Sweden has no agency responsible for occupational-pension statistics and much of the current cohort holds defined-benefit rights with no capital value at all; Norway, Japan and Korea publish means only. So rather than invent a savings figure, the baseline here is the public pension actually received: . Private savings are therefore counted as zero, which understates the status quo — the real comparison is a little less favourable to the Citizens Standard than shown.
What you’d actually retire with — verified real-world data, not theoretical maximums.
Median 401(k) balance from Vanguard's 2025 How America Saves report ($95,642 at age 55-64). Average Social Security benefit from SSA's March 2026 Statistical Snapshot ($24,953/year). The "after SS trust depletion" scenario applies the 23% benefit cut projected by the 2025 SSA Trustees Report. Half of Americans actually retire with less than the median values shown.
Your current configuration:—
How this differs from other monetary proposals: a UBI pays a monthly cheque, but it is funded by taxes the same people pay — for a median earner it nets to roughly a wash. MMT’s jobs guarantee provides a paycheck for work, not wealth. Bitcoin, the Chicago Plan, and Friedman’s k-rule change who controls money creation but route none of it to citizens. The Citizens Standard is the only one that hands newly-created money to every citizen as locked, equal, rules-based wealth — on top of the same private savings (median 401(k) ~$95,642) and Social Security (~$24,953/yr) everyone already has.
Reading the modes: Floors differ because the modes issue different amounts into the floor — not because inflation erodes it. Mode B's is largest; Mode A issues less; Mode C pays more out as dividend, and dollars paid out don't compound for decades. But the wealth column undersells the dividend modes: cash is liquid, carries no market risk, and can go to debt, a home, or a credential — none of which an at-horizon total can see. Locking versus paying out is a trade-off, not a ranking, and the dividend can be funded at any inflation stance, including zero (Mode B already does), because the κ_d split is price-neutral. Figures are in constant launch-year dollars, so they miss each mode's effect on the purchasing power of wages and cash: Mode A is worth a little more than it looks, the inflationary modes a little less.
Inflation paths: Each system's CPI trajectory over 65 years. The Citizens Standard rate is derived from your issuance settings, not assumed.
The Citizens Standard's four Modes are deliberate constitutional targets.
Other systems' inflation paths reflect their actual or theoretical behavior.
A supply shock cuts output for a span — the stagflation case, where output falls and prices rise — and it hits every system at once. None can pre-empt the first-round bump; what differs is the response. The Citizens Standard line is bounded and self-corrected — the floor cushions the hit and KI returns the price gap to target with no lag and no interest-rate channel (the same Proposition 6 mechanism the Tool 14 panel runs against 1980 and 2022) — so it holds lowest through the shock and snaps back to target the moment it passes. The Fed takes the full spike, then grinds it down with rate hikes — at the cost of the recession the Tool 14 panel quantifies. Bitcoin and the k-rule have no stabilizer, so the bump persists or overshoots; UBI and MMT accommodate it. Stylized; magnitudes illustrative.
Citizens Standard — computed from your channels (issuance − real growth). Under a shock, KI self-correction holds it near target and returns it there with no interest-rate channel; K2 at 100% with KI off sits at zero, and raising K3 (κ_d) pays a dividend without moving the line.
Fed status quo — takes the full first-round bump, then cures it through the rate channel: with a lag, and at a recession cost (quantified in the Tool 14 panel).
Bitcoin — fixed supply, no stabilizer: structural deflation normally, and under a shock it takes the full bump and persists until the shock passes.
UBI · MMT — fiscal accommodation: the shock sticks on top of a secular drift, and MMT monetizes most.
Friedman k-rule — prints k% straight through the slump, so inflation = money-growth − real-growth and it overshoots most.
Chicago Plan — price targeting without an active counter-cyclical tool: partial pass-through of the bump.
Tool 14 vs. real inflations
The same machinery, run against history. The red line is what actually happened (BLS CPI-U). The gold line is the framework’s primary defence — its rule-bound issuance never creates the demand-driven share of the inflation (the share is taken from the SF Fed’s published monthly decomposition), with the Tool 14 surcharge shaving what remains. The grey dashed line is Tool 14 acting alone on the realised inflation: at its real capacity it is slower than a rate shock. So the framework’s gain is a far lower peak and no interest-rate channel — not faster disinflation. Counterfactual, not a prediction.
Actual peak
—
—
Framework peak
—
—
Its real cost
—
—
Framework drain
≤3% M2/yr
no rate channel
What this answers: "OK, but what if there's a Great Depression?" Each scenario embeds a real historical bad period into the citizen's working life and shows what they retire with. For a fair test, the same sequence is run through a market-only 401(k) (dashed gold), calibrated so its shock-free path lands at the real median ($95,642); the gap between the lines is the sequence-of-returns risk the Citizens Standard's structural floor is built to blunt.
Stable Floor under stress
—
vs. smooth baseline
Real income at retirement
—
at 5% withdrawal
vs. median American
—
$95,642 Vanguard 2025
Sources for historical sequences:
Robert Shiller's annual real returns dataset (Yale, 1871-present). Great Depression: 1929-1944 produced ~1.5% annualized real return after the crash and recovery. 1970s Stagflation: 1966-1982 produced ~−1.0% annualized real return alongside ~7.5% CPI. Lost Decade: 2000-2009 produced ~−3% annualized real return. Each scenario applies these sequences as a contiguous bad period during the citizen's working life, then resumes long-run normal returns. The market-only 401(k) comparison is a working-life accumulation calibrated so its shock-free path reaches the Vanguard 2025 median ($95,642) at retirement, then re-run through the identical sequence at the same ages; only the return path changes, so the endpoint is measured, not assumed. It captures that contributions made just before a crash suffer most, which a static benchmark hides.
What this answers: "What if conditions change — aging, depopulation, an AI productivity boom?" Mode Λ is the adaptive configuration: instead of fixed channel settings, its K1, K2, and KI respond automatically to demographic and productivity conditions by published formula — no committee, no discretion. In calm conditions it runs conservatively (≈60% K2 capture, mild deflationary bias, no KI); its governors engage only when conditions warrant and revert at 25%/year once conditions normalize. Pick a scenario to watch the governors respond; the lifetime figures are the architecture paper §10.6's simulation results.
Stable Floor at 65 (real)
—
the architecture paper §10.6 simulation
Annual real income
—
at 5% withdrawal
Governors
—
—
Mode Λ guardrails (Architecture §10): every multiplier, threshold, and reversion rate is formula-specified and publicly auditable — adaptive means the formula responds to observable data, not that anyone exercises judgment. K1 is capped at 2.0× base; combined issuance is capped at 3.5% of M2; the conditional KI issues 0–0.6% of M2 (split 60% to Stable Floors / 40% spendable), activates only on sustained deflation (>1.2%) or demographic stress with weak wage growth, and carries a 36-month sunset with mandatory reaffirmation. Governors above baseline revert at 25%/year once the trigger resolves. Floor figures are the paper's §10.6 results; the three negative-pop scenarios share the same governor path and differ only by equity return. Governor paths shown are illustrative of that response (cf. Figure 5). The Stable Floor line is accumulated from each scenario's own governor path, with the real return solved so the path lands exactly on the paper's §10.6 endpoint — so the three negative-pop scenarios share one governor path but separate on the floor line, which is precisely the capital-share difference (implied realizable return 4.91% high-α vs 3.40% low-α).
What this answers: "If Mode Ω holds prices flat, what actually moves?" Ω solves the split (and, where needed, KI) so derived inflation stays at zero as conditions change. Vary this economy's real growth and watch the result: prices stay pinned near 0% while the citizen dividend scales with growth and the split barely moves near the balance point. Growth sets the size of the dividend, not the split that keeps prices stable. Below the growth floor (where issuance ceases) Ω's lever is exhausted and contraction becomes the Surge Brake's domain, not Ω's.
Prices held at
—
Ω derived inflation, this growth
Stabilizing split
—
standing dividend share
Citizen dividend
—
new money to citizens / yr
What the curve shows (Architecture §8). The gold line is Ω's derived inflation across real-growth rates for this economy: it holds at approximately zero wherever the growth-funded budget is positive. The teal line is the citizen dividend in local currency, which scales roughly linearly with growth. Near an economy's balance point the split is nearly flat (the budget size does the work); away from it the split moves more to keep prices pinned. The marked growth floor is the structural point where issuance ceases (real growth at K1's aggregate draw); below it the dividend budget is zero, Ω's trim-or-inject lever cannot act, and removing residual inflation requires active money retirement (Tool 14a), not Ω. Curve is computed live from this economy's calibration.
What this answers: "Is a fixed split actually price-stable?" No — not universally. Under a fixed 60/40 split (Mode B), whether an economy holds prices flat depends on one structural number: μ, the share of broad money that sits in transaction accounts rather than time deposits. Economies below the balance point (μ* ≈ 0.51) run inflation; those above it run mild deflation; only an economy sitting on the point is stable. The US lands there by coincidence of its monetary structure, not by design. Mode Ω removes the coincidence: it solves the split per economy so every point below lands on zero.
This economy's μ
—
transaction-active share
Fixed-split drift
—
Mode B derived inflation
Ω stabilizing split
—
κ_d* ≈ (μ − 0.20)/0.80
The closed form (Macro Model §5). Setting derived inflation to zero on a fixed split gives the stabilizing dividend share κ_d* ≈ (μ − 0.20) / 0.80 — a function of μ alone. The real-growth rate cancels: it enters both the money injected and the deflationary pull it must offset, so it drops out. Price stability under a fixed split is therefore a structural property of an economy's monetary plumbing, essentially independent of how fast it grows. What growth sets is the size of the dividend, not the split that keeps prices flat. Each dot is positioned by that economy's actual μ; the vertical line is the balance point where the fixed 60/40 split is itself stable (μ* ≈ 0.51, where the US sits). Mode Ω solves κ_d (and, above the balance point, adds KI) to bring every economy to the line.
Interactive Tool
Public Debt Trajectory Simulator
Debt compounds on itself: interest on a growing stock creates the next round of borrowing. Every number below is that country's own 2026 fiscal position, projected forward to 2125 with nothing changed. Switch countries with the selector at the top of the page.
Debt(t+1) = Debt(t) × (1 + r) / (1 + g) + primary deficit | r = effective interest rate · g = nominal GDP growth · all as % of GDP
stays in sync with the country selector at the top of the page
—
Actual debt/GDP, — published data, not modelled
Debt/GDP — current policyDebt/GDP — Citizens Standard transition150% threshold
Calibration (2026 baseline, held constant to 2125).Gross debt: general government gross debt, % of GDP — IMF WEO / Fiscal Monitor, April 2026 — one series for all 15, so the chart is like-for-like.
Effective rate: gross interest ÷ gross debt.
Primary deficit: derived by identity (overall balance − interest), so the three inputs always reconcile.
Nominal growth: IMF 2026 real growth + the central bank's inflation target — not that year's realised inflation, so one shock year isn't frozen in for 99.
A mechanical projection, not a forecast. It asks one question: what if the 2026 fiscal position never changed? No country's will. Debt is floored at 0%. Fragile inputs are flagged on the chart.
Citizens Standard path: KT retires legacy debt as an asset swap (≈1.5% of M2/yr), pulling debt/GDP into the 30–60% operational band (≈45% central) by roughly Year 26 — Statutory §4 (2026c). The band, not zero: the standing stock is the safe-asset benchmark and the base for reverse-KT.
Already in the band? The channel doesn't idle — “within the band, KT routes the growth-matched seigniorage to citizen Stable Floors by default, and to redemption only as needed to hold the band” (Statutory §4). Those citizens receive the issuance that would otherwise have gone to bondholders.