Chameleon Magazine

Forget “raising taxes.” That’s the bedtime story politicians tell when they’ve run out of imagination and accountability. The truth? The money’s already there — just sleeping under the bureaucratic mattress, drooling into a pile of misfiled procurement forms and zombie spreadsheets. We’re not broke; we’re just spectacularly bad at using what we own.

🕳️ The Black Hole Economy — and How to Stop Feeding It

Governments talk about efficiency like gym members talk about “getting back into it.” Meanwhile, billions vanish into the cosmic soup of waste, fraud, and lazy accounting. Imagine if your Netflix subscription cost £40 billion because nobody remembered to cancel it — that’s public procurement right now.

AI could spot fraudulent claims faster than a politician spots a camera. Performance-based spending could turn government departments into something resembling meritocracies (steady now). And if ministers had to meet KPIs like the rest of us, half of them would be on performance reviews instead of panels.

But it doesn’t stop there. We’re living in a rentier monopoly carnival, where landlords, utility barons, and corporate “owners” collect unearned rent while producing absolutely nothing — like economic barnacles glued to the hull of progress. A little land value recapture here, a sovereign wealth fund there, and suddenly Britain starts behaving less like a leaking wallet and more like Norway’s responsible cousin. 🇳🇴💼

And don’t even get me started on public assets. Governments sit on billions in data, land, patents, and cultural IP — but treat them like the attic boxes marked “misc.” Your grandmother’s spoon collection gets more attention than national datasets that could fund healthcare.

Meanwhile, innovation is sitting in the waiting room while politicians argue over which century to regulate the internet in. Why not fund R&D directly through National Innovation Bonds, where citizens invest in progress instead of propping up outdated systems?

And when economists panic about “creating money,” just remind them we already do it — every time the Bank of England blinks. The problem isn’t printing; it’s pointing. Aim the cash at infrastructure and productivity, not speculative real estate and yachts.

Oh, and here’s a revolutionary idea: stop paying rent on our own debt. Rebuy it internally, cap interest, and watch as we stop bleeding wealth to the same financial institutions that caused the mess in the first place.

By the end of it all, we’re talking £150–200 billion in new liquidity — without a single new tax. Just intelligence. (And possibly a few pink slips for the “waste management” experts currently managing to waste everything.)

💥 Challenges 💥

If governments can unlock all this value, why don’t they? Is it fear, incompetence, or just the irresistible comfort of the old gravy train? 🚂💸

Drop your theory — serious, sarcastic, or savage — in the comments below. Let’s crowdsource the accountability they keep outsourcing. 💬🔥

👇 Comment, like, and share if you’ve ever wondered where your taxes actually go (spoiler: not to potholes).

The best insights and rants will be featured in the next issue of the magazine. 🧾⚡