the Gentle Cabinet: the Democratic Triple Bind — the financing crux — "The third flank, Chet, of the…"

Tine's puppet lays out the political-economy trap the calendar-auction is invented to escape: the "Democratic Triple Bind" is "Outflows required, inflows restricted, balance demanded" — the electorate demands programs (the Reconfiguration among them), forbids new taxes, and the markets demand a balanced budget, three incompatible mandates at once. This is the anthology's clearest account of WHY Subsidized Time exists: not vision but a fiscal checkmate, a democracy that has promised everything and taxed nothing needing a fourth kind of money that isn't a tax.