Cutting red tape, bullshit jobs and the equalization and environmental fund

The analysis is divided into eight chapters and covers the following key areas:

1. The bureaucratic colossus - With concrete figures: Germany's bureaucracy costs up to 146 billion euros/year (ifo Institute), every fifth working hour in the pharmaceutical industry is spent on documentation requirements.

2. Graeber's Bullshit Jobs - The five types of pointless work, empirically confirmed: 19% of employees see no social benefit in their work; around 40% of office workers feel their job is superfluous.

3. How Gradido structurally reduces bureaucracy - Triple money creation eliminates the entire tax and social security apparatus. Gross = net. No means tests. No tax offices.

4. Energy and resource savings - With a quantified table: bureaucracy alone consumes 2-3% of global energy; the savings potential is 60-70%. Overall system: 40-60% global energy reduction possible.​

5. The Equalization and Environmental Fund (AUF) - The decisive element: debt-free, permanent, proportional to the world's population - and structurally committed to the good of the „big picture“

Executive Summary

The prevailing economic system structurally generates gigantic amounts of unnecessary work, superfluous administration and pointless waste of resources. In Germany, bureaucratic burdens alone cost the economy up to 146 billion euros a year, while a significant proportion of employees perceive their own work as socially useless. The Gradido model addresses this waste on a systemic level: by abolishing taxes, simplifying the entire money creation process and introducing the Active Basic Income, a significant part of the bureaucratic underpinning becomes obsolete. At the same time, the Equalization and Environmental Fund (AUF) represents a permanently flowing, debt-free source of financing for ecological restoration and climate protection - structurally financed by the Triple Money Creation of Life.

1 The bureaucratic colossus: figures and structures

1.1 Bureaucracy costs in Germany

The bureaucratic burden on the German economy has reached alarming proportions. The Munich-based ifo Institute estimates the annual costs of excessive bureaucracy at up to 146 billion euros in economic output. A study by the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA) estimates that by 2024, around 67 billion euros direct bureaucracy costs, which corresponds to around one and a half percent of economic output. The annual bureaucracy costs for the economy have increased from 50 to 66.6 billion euros since 2018 alone.

One in five working hours in the pharmaceutical industry is already spent exclusively on fulfilling documentation and reporting obligations. For decades, the German Council of Economic Experts and the DIW have observed that bureaucracy reduction laws are regularly overcompensated by a much larger flood of new regulations - the EU alone recently introduced 14,000 new regulations.

1.2 Where does the bureaucracy come from?

A significant part of the German administrative burden does not arise from sensible public services, but as a direct consequence of the debt-money principle: the existing financial system with taxes, social security contributions, compulsory insurance, interest and debt management generates an immense need for regulation. The result:

• Extensive Tax administration (payroll accounting, value added tax, corporation tax, trade tax, income tax, etc.)

• Elaborate Social security audit (contribution statements, audit authorities, appeal proceedings)

• Means testing for state transfer payments (citizen's allowance, housing benefit, BAföG etc.)

• Compliance bureaucracy regulatory complexity (data protection, reporting obligations, documentation requirements)

The Gradido model summarizes this succinctly: „Taxes and other levies are unnecessary in the Gradido model and are therefore not envisaged.“ As everyone receives a tax-free basic income and the state budget is directly covered by the triple creation of money, the entire fiscal control apparatus is eliminated.

2 David Graeber's bullshit jobs: pointless work in the system

2.1 Graeber's theory

In 2013, anthropologist and professor at the London School of Economics David Graeber (1961-2020) coined the term Bullshit Jobs - and developed the theory in a book of the same name in 2018. His central definition is:​

„A bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary or harmful that even the employees themselves cannot justify the existence of the employment.“​

Graeber identified five types of meaningless work:​

Graeber's thesis is particularly momentous: the productivity gains from technology should actually have led to a 15-hour working week (as John Maynard Keynes predicted) - instead, masses of pointless jobs were created to simulate full employment.​

2.2 Empirical confirmation

Graeber's intuition is confirmed in empirical studies. According to surveys conducted in 2015 and analyzed by sociologist Simon Walo from the University of Zurich 19 percent of all respondents stated that their work „never“ or „rarely“ makes a positive contribution to society. Further surveys show that around 40 percent of office workers in Western countries consider their job to be of no benefit to society.

Particularly susceptible are:

• Financial sector and distributiontwice as often rated as socially useless

• Managers and executives: 1.9 times more often than others

• Office assistants and secretariats: 1.5 times more often

Walo was the first to confirm quantitatively that the occupational fields that Graeber described as particularly meaningless actually have the most negative assessments - even if other factors such as alienation and poor working conditions also have an impact.​

2.3 Bullshit jobs and wasting energy

Pointless work is not only psychologically destructive - it has massive energetic consequences. All work is based on the consumption of resources and energy. This means​

• Millions of employees commute to pointless office jobs

• Heating and cooling of office buildings for activities without added value

• Operation of servers, printers and computer systems for superfluous bureaucracy

• Production and distribution of goods that nobody needs

In 2024, German data centers alone - a significant proportion of which operate administrative systems - consumed around 20 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, A significant proportion of this is accounted for by bureaucratic IT infrastructure for tax administration, compliance and benefits monitoring.​

3. how Gradido structurally reduces bureaucracy

3.1 Triple money creation as a simplification of the system

The gradido model replaces the complex tax system with an elegant triple money creation system: 3,000 gradido (GDD) are created for each person every month:

• 1,000 GDDActive basic income for the individual

• 1,000 GDDPublic budget (in Germany roughly corresponds to the current state budget including health and social services)

• 1,000 GDDEqualization and Environmental Fund (AUF)

This structure makes the entire apparatus of tax collection, auditing and collection superfluous. The Gradido e-book lists the specifics: Tax exemption and freedom from social security contributions, much less state control, Reducing bureaucracy, and Gross equals net.

3.2 Concrete bureaucratic structures that are eliminated

Under Gradido, they are eliminated or shrink massively:

Fiscal bureaucracy:

• Overall tax law (income tax, corporation tax, VAT, trade tax, inheritance tax, etc.)

• Tax authorities (tax offices, tax investigation, tax court)

• Payroll accounting in companies

• Tax consultants and auditors (for the most part)

Social control bureaucracy:

• Means tests for citizens' allowance, housing benefit, BAföG

• Social security auditing and accounting

• Job center as a supervisory authority

• Complicated application systems for transfer benefits

Financial market bureaucracy:

• Large parts of the financial supervision of interest rate speculation and derivatives

• Compliance systems for the existing banking system

• Rating agencies and credit assessments for the debt money system

The Gradido Academy FAQ summarizes: „The Gradido model is many times simpler than the current monetary and economic system.“​

3.3 Active basic income: Developing potential instead of bullshit jobs

The Gradido model elegantly solves the structural problem of bullshit jobs. If nobody has to take on a meaningless job out of existential fear, meaningless activities will dry up of their own accord. The Active Basic Income makes this possible:​

• Everyone does that, what he is really good at, likes to do and what benefits the community

• Care work, volunteering, education and nature conservation are honored and visible

• Nobody has to play „box tickers“ for pointless compliance anymore

• The Harvard Grant Study shows: People who do meaningful work are healthier and live longer​

Gradido calls this „unconditional participation“ - the right to contribute with one's own gifts. The consequences are far-reaching both psychologically and economically: when the potential of all people is unleashed, not only does well-being increase, but so does genuine social productivity.

4. quantification: energy and resource savings

4.1 Reducing bureaucracy as an energy policy

The Gradido analysis on gradido.net quantifies the potential energy savings from the system change in a detailed table:​

Total potential: 40-60% Reduction in global energy consumption through systemic transformation.​

4.2 Elimination of useless economic sectors

The Gradido e-book explicitly lists the positive effects: „Elimination of unnecessary and harmful work“ and „significantly less production without social disadvantages“ and thus „Significantly less resource consumption and less waste“.​

The advertising industry, for example, consumes around USD 700 billion globally - a sector that essentially stimulates overconsumption. In the gradido system, in which no one hoards out of existential fear and status is defined not by possessions but by contribution, this sector is shrinking drastically.​

4.3 Degrowth evidence

Scientific degrowth studies show that a reduction to the energy demand of the 1960s is possible - despite a threefold increase in the world population. Sufficiency policy alone could bring 21-29% energy reduction without loss of prosperity. In the Gradido system, the systemic Growth compulsion completely: Since no interest burden has to be serviced, the economy no longer has to expand endlessly.​

5 The Equalization and Environmental Fund (AUF): Ecological restoration as a system function

5.1 Basic principle of the AUF

The Equalization and Environmental Fund is the third pillar of the Triple Money Creation. It provides an additional amount of money equal to the state budget - for 8 billion people, this would be 96 trillion GDD annually for environmental projects. This enormous sum is raised without debt and without raising taxes.​

The FAQ of the Gradido Academy describes the AUF: „The Equalization and Environmental Fund (AUF) is an additional pot in the amount of the state budget. It is used to clean up contaminated sites.“ On gradido.net it is specified in more detail as a fund for:

• Remediation of economic and ecological contaminated sites

• Environmental remediation and recultivation

• Nature and climate protection

• Restoration of natural ecosystems

5.2 What the AUF can finance

The ecological challenges that the AUF is intended to address are immense. Current funding gaps in environmental protection illustrate what is possible:

Soil and contaminated site remediation:
In Saxony alone, there are around 21,100 contaminated sites and suspected contaminated sites. Hundreds of thousands of contaminated sites from industrial times are known throughout Germany. Current funding programs are always limited to individual projects and are structurally underfunded. The AUF could systematically reduce this.​

Reforestation and biodiversity:
The African „Great Green Wall“ - a reforestation project across the continent - has so far only achieved a fraction of its goals, partly because funding is chronically insecure. A globally funded AUF could make such projects possible in the long term.

Access to clean water and healthy food:
Bernd Hückstädt: „The measures financed by the environmental fund give all people worldwide access to clean water and healthy, GMO-free food and clothing.“​

Permaculture conversion:
The AUF can finance the conversion from conventional to regenerative agriculture on a large scale. The latest studies (2025) show that permaculture achieves comparable productivity to conventional agriculture - with 60-80% less energy input.​

5.3 Structural superiority over current environmental funds

In the existing system, environmental investments are always in competition with other government spending and are often the first to be cut during budget crises. They are financed by debt that has to be repaid. The AUF, on the other hand:

• Will debt-free scooped - without repayment obligation

• Is proportional to the world population - grows with the community

• Is permanent and automatic - No political failure can abolish it

• Used exclusively for For the good of the whole - No competition with other public expenditure

Margret Baier, co-founder of the Gradido Academy: „The Gradido model ensures that each and every one of us can afford to live in a nature and environmentally conscious way. In this way, we can provide our earth with the care it needs so that we all have a good future on this planet.“​

6 The transformation chain: systemic effects

6.1 From the need for growth to a circular economy

The existing debt money system forces permanent economic growth in order to service the interest burden. This Growth compulsion is the real root of overproduction, waste of resources and ecological destruction. Gradido eliminates this compulsion by abolishing interest and creating money through life instead of debt.

The circular economy - today a political goal that has to fight against economic interests - becomes the natural standard in the Gradido system: if no one has to finance overproduction and planned obsolescence enriches no one, products optimize themselves organically for longevity and reparability.​

6.2 Psychological transformation: from scarcity to abundance

Compensatory consumption is an often underestimated energy factor. People buy to fill emotional emptiness, to demonstrate status or to compensate for existential angst. The Active Basic Income structurally eliminates existential fear; status through contribution rather than possession reduces status consumption. The Harvard Grant Study (85-year long-term study) shows: Human relationships - not wealth - are the most important factor for a long, happy life.​

6.3 Complete chain of effects

7 Critical classification and open questions

7.1 Reliability of the quantifications

The energy saving potentials mentioned on gradido.net (40-60% global) are analytically plausible, but are based on model assumptions - a direct empirical verification is naturally lacking, as such a system has not yet been implemented. The individual data mentioned (bureaucracy costs, bullshit job percentages, permaculture study), on the other hand, are documented in recognized specialist sources.

7.2 Implementation challenges

The transformation from a global debt money system to Gradido is a historically unprecedented step. Key open questions:

• How does Gradido behave in a transition scenario alongside the old system?

• How are international exchange rates and trade balances handled?

• Which political coalitions and social forces could support an introduction?

Gradido itself proposes a step-by-step model: complementary to the existing money, starting with local communities and pilot projects.

7.3 Consistency with scientific consensus

The basic ecological assumptions of the Gradido model are largely compatible with the scientific mainstream: planetary boundaries, degrowth research, the circular economy and regenerative agriculture are established paradigms. The linking of these findings with an alternative monetary system is Gradido's original contribution.​

8. synthesis: the systemic picture

The existing economic and financial system produces in a structurally necessary way:

1. Massive bureaucracy as a control apparatus for debts, taxes and social benefits

2. Bullshit Jobs as an employment simulation in an affluent society without a basic income

3. Growth compulsion as a consequence of the interest system with forced waste of resources

4. Underfunding of environmental protection because it is always in competition with other public expenditure

Gradido addresses all four pathologies at the same time - not through individual measures, but through a Systemic redesign of money creation based on the model of nature. In nature, there is no debt, no interest, no taxes - and yet the system has been functioning in overflowing abundance for billions of years.

The equalization and environmental fund is the key innovative element here: it transforms the principle of „nature as a resource“ into the principle of "nature as a resource". „Nature as a partner“ and ensures that the big picture - the earth itself - is already structurally considered and financed in the creation of money.

„Nature's ingenious recipes for success, which we have integrated into the Gradido model, ensure that sensible environmental protection concepts can be easily financed without burdening citizens.“
- Bernd Hückstädt, co-founder of the Gradido Academy​

This report is based on sources from the Gradido Academy for Economic Bionics, the ifo Institute, the DIW, the VFA, the University of Zurich, the German Council of Economic Experts and the works of David Graeber. The energy saving potentials on gradido.net are understood as analysis scenarios, not as empirically verified forecasts.