Alternative Money and Economics's topics - tribe.net

Gold & Soft Dollar ? -----or equities?

2009-12-20T14:28:41Z

What sectors will you bet on and why?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 10 replies

Crash Course in Economics

2009-09-23T14:31:21Z

This is, by far, the best material I've found on the subject.
There's about two hours of video here.

This is good though provoking introduction from Daniel Amerman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLTa-ylnxsY

But if you're really serious about understanding what's going on,
you'll want to take the full course over at Chris Materson's web site:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

Timetable on the Coming Crash

2009-07-05T00:27:22Z

Message from John L. Petersen on the Coming Crash
http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/07_Money/071120.John.Petersen.html

November 19, 2007

It appears that the world in general and the United States in particular are on the edge of a major disruption in the global financial system. Here’s the summary as we see it.

At a recent Board meeting of The Arlington Institute, Dr. David Martin, CEO of M*CAM and one of the members of the Board was asked for his assessment of the global financial situation in the coming months.

Here are my notes from his response:

I stand by my commentary in July of ’06.

The next shoe to fall is consumer credit
Currently as reports came in on the 3rd quarter, foreclosures were up 470% this quarter alone. They will be up over 500% this coming quarter (4th). A foreclosure in our terms is when the bank has officially declared an account insolvent and tries to regain the asset (if it exists). The person who is foreclosed upon can no longer secure any traditional consumer credit. This in turn goes straight to the banks as no one will be able to get the store issued charge cards.

A minority of people pay off their consumer debt every month. When one considers the combination of consumer credit card debt and the compounded debt of “home equity” financing, we estimate that less than 20% of people actually carry no consumer credit from one month to the next. Many of the ones who don’t pay off their carried consumer debt have at least one credit card at its limit and therefore lack credit capacity. Most have their paycheck directly covering bills and servicing the minimum balance due.

Therefore people who are foreclosed upon will not be able to obtain credit and since their paychecks will be maxed out, there will not be extra cash left over from the paycheck to service a new debt.

Next, everybody buys things at Christmas. As much as 40% of retail sales are done in the 4th quarter of the year – i.e. the retail miracle. The purchase decline in retail goods this fourth quarter will occur because many credit-only consumers will lack the credit capacity mentioned above. Frequently, people overcharge their limit and the banks (albeit a profit center for subprime credit users) levy a penalty by increasing interest rates and charging additional fees. In the 4th quarter of 2007, the amount of people overcharging their limits will be too many for the banks to handle. We do not have a system in place to deal with overcharge on that scale. A substantial number of this December’s purchases will go into an overdraft on credit limits.

CDO – Collateral Debt Obligation – Consumer Credit

Consumer credit pooled debt investment instruments (a form of CDO) are originated and rated based on underlying historical credit behavior and a complex series of predictive models for repayment dynamics. CDOs have “strips” which are a combination of similar profile tranches within a larger investment product. Based on the market’s appetite for risk, investment performance guarantees (or credit enhancements) are packaged with the credits. These credit guarantees are issued by insurance companies, reinsurance companies, and other specialty finance companies – many operating with extra-territorial jurisdiction rendering fiscal oversight more complicated.

These strips come in several categories:

* Investment grade
* Almost investment grade
* Junk and
* Why did we give them a credit card?

All of these grades are priced on historical default rates. The credit insurance companies (AIG, MBIA, Ambac, Financial Security Assurance, Channel Re, XL, Zurich Re and other reinsurers) have, from time to time, issued credit guarantees to the securities. Banks sell debt in the form of a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO).

Minor shifts in default actuarial activity (+/- 25 basis points) from normative behavior is absorbed within pricing of these financial guaranty contracts. However fundamental shifts (hundreds or thousands of basis points in one quarter) are not built into the model and result in credit enhancement insolvency on a major scale. When the insurer cannot pay based on its own liquidity impairment, the bank is left with catastrophic (an insurance term for excessive loss outside of expected) exposure.

If in a single quarter we have an increased foreclosure rate of 400% (or 4000 basis points) the insurance contracts simply cannot handle that kind of drastic shift as evidenced by the write offs in the third quarter. When we will follow the drastic third quarter with a loss of 500% in the fourth quarter, the trajectory becomes clear.

Neither the banking nor the insurance industry has a historical experience in dealing with this type of challenge and neither has the liquidity linked to these contracts to support system wide collapse.

Where was the announcement of this? There was no announcement.

However Hank Greenberg is resurfacing in AIG leadership even during an SEC investigation because without him, no one else can remember where the counterparty risks are. In order to save the insurance industry, shareholders have looked past alleged SEC violations as there is no one with Mr. Greenberg’s awareness of the market and counterparty agreements who can hope to navigate the coming challenges. In the 4th quarter, the US will have another record foreclosure announcement. Once you’re over 25% (25 basis point) foreclosure, all models are broken.

Under a consumer credit melt-down, Capital One and/or Wachovia are likely going to put a massive foreclosure liability to an insurance company and the insurance company will not have liquidity to cover the exposure.

This is the problem we got into when we issued credit card debt on top of secondary mortgages – (inflated the value of the home) and gave out credit based on faux equity that no one really had.

The reason why this problem is the second shoe to fall (subprime mortgage collapse was the first shoe) is because consumer credit has a different foreclosure frequency than traditional mortgage credit.

December is when the maturity of the giant buyout of the economy moves.

By December, you’ll have a second round of charge offs based on consumer credit. The real big problem – when you foreclose on consumer credit, people stop buying things. When people stop buying things, we don’t have a tertiary way to pump liquidity into the market. People won’t have extra cash from their paychecks and won’t have capacity on their cards.

Try this case study:

Go to the mall and stand in front of counter at Victoria Secret. Watch what happens when someone wants to pay with cash. The clerk won’t know how to ring up cash. They will need a manager to come over to give change and unlock drawers. When you don’t have capacity on those cards, you don’t buy things. VISA credit cards actually denigrate using cash in their run-up-to-Christmas add campaign.

Next, go to any savings bank data set. If you were going to spend $1000 in cash this Christmas, can you do it? For the most part, the answer would be “no” because we have had a net negative spending for the last 5 years.

Therefore there will be depressed consumer spending this Christmas but what is spent, people will overcharge. This will take what used to be good investments in CDOs and will change the dynamic. If you used to be a person who paid their bills on time, you will now only pay half. If the credit companies are counting on the top two tranches to pay their card off in full and they don’t, they won’t have liquidity to cover the rest. The banks cannot afford the top tranch paying half.

The estimates are out. There will be at least $400B in the first round of charge offs in the CDO market.

We’re not going to be done with the subprime mortgage when the CDOs fall. Therefore we will have an insolvency problem with the banks that are mentioned above.

This is the kiss of death of a privately held Federal Reserve. For the Federal Reserve to function, its stakeholder banks (like JP Morgan Chase) must remain viable and liquid. When one of them, or any major bank in the U.S. (like Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York, Washington Mutual, etc.) is impaired or ceases to exist, the architecture of the Fed’s capacity to respond to systemic challenges is unsustainable.

If the banks have no money, they can’t pump liquidity into the market. Taking half of a trillion dollars out of market in a single distressed write down becomes problematic. The US banking system does not have the liquidity to take the hit.

The actual solvency of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is relatively indecipherable due to the fact that their treasury management processes (and the risks of their own investment strategies) are not uniformly disclosed with sufficient transparency. The FDIC was set up for isolated problems with a few bad banks but is NOT prepared to “insure” the system in an industry-wide crisis. The actual liquidity reserve of the “insurance” that Americans view as their safety net is 1/100th the actual exposure of outstanding deposits. The actual coverage ratio for the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF) fell below 1.25% in 2002, the same year that less stable credit practices were adopted by America’s leading banks.

The funny part is that the Federal Government will be on holiday when all of this happens. There will be no one to put freeze actions and moratoria on actions. The only way you stop the cataclysm is to put together civil actions on deposit withdrawals.

As I discussed previously, the Chinese currency wild-card may become relevant far sooner than expected. An effort by China to convert its $1.4 trillion U.S. Treasury holdings into euros is not viable for many reasons – not the least of which is the European Central Bank’s inability to absorb such an event. As China continues its rush away from supporting U.S. Treasuries and as Middle Eastern investors are buying them up in more diversified holdings, a new “currency exchange” is unfolding. Realizing that they cannot liquidate their holdings, it appears that the Chinese are currently using their U.S. Treasury holdings as collateral for euro denominated purchases and long term infrastructure transactions. In other words, they may be “liquidating” their holdings as collateral and, in so doing, effectively migrating to non-dollar value without ever having to officially dump their current Treasury holdings.

Therefore, collateralize the credit in dollars – especially if you’re long in dollars. The lender/financier won’t call the note because you have it structured in such a way to both allow it to perform and hold illiquid collateral that no one wants. This essentially inflates euros. Although you can’t sell dollars, the whole purpose of collateral is that it is a second source of payment – collateral is there to down rate the risk of the loan. Secondary becomes irrelevant.

When February comes, the Chinese are going to do something as they will have to decide what the exposure is going to be with the treasury. As I see it they have to just dump the treasury. They only keep it because they can use it – they have 43% direct/indirect of US treasuries so they’ll dump them on the market.

The US Congressional pressures to decouple the RMB will work, but not in the way we want. Our plan includes helping them hold on to the treasuries, it does not involve them not holding the dollar anymore. The US wanted the tether to be part of the float. This will cause disenfranchisement of the US electorate (during primary season). February is also when public (media) will realize we won’t pull out of this.

Side note: Mayor Bloomberg could enter the race at this point, being the savior candidate (at least economically), but has $1B dollars in non-liquid money so he may not be able to enter.

March is when we realize that the dollar doesn’t come back.

OPEC price with the whole fluctuation of oil futures presages the event. They are going to run the price of oil as high as they can get it on the dollar, while buying US treasuries from China with the money. When the dollar does collapse, they’ll flip denominations. The wild card is long about March when the OPEC cuts spot oil off the dollar to the euro. One can look at the current oil price at close to $100/barrel and fail to see that, as this premium price is currently turning around and investing in a weakening dollar, the effective price (less the dollar investment hedge) is probably closer to $50/barrel than the spot price reflects.

Currency problems will change the game – they are financially structuring themselves to take the hit.

When we can’t afford to buy oil commodities on a spot market – it compounds the problem however the consumer that Saudi Arabia ships to is liquid (China). In the US it is a big problem. There is still a market for oil; it just changes. When you come out of Straits of Hormuz, turn left.
__________________

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 7 replies

The Lewes Pound

2009-07-04T22:36:45Z

Lewes (near Brighton, UK) recently launched its own local currency:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/business/businessnewsbusiness/3659940.Lewes_Pound_great_value_with_10__off/

Soon after, its value went up somewhat as it was being sold on eBay:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/3676659.Lewes_pound_makes_money_online/

Is it best to just leave this to happen? Or should/could it be controlled somehow? What if notes "expired" after a time period, unless renewed somehow when spent?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 5 replies

USA Today: Communities print their own currency to keep cash flowing

2009-07-04T22:27:37Z

Communities print their own currency to keep cash flowing

By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY
A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.

Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.

The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.

Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.

Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.
...
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-04-05-scrip_N.htm

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

Is the US ready for an alternative?

2009-07-02T21:31:47Z

A recent MSM article gave an industry figure that more Americans are now using debt cards than credit cards. Something like 52% to 48%. (Who use cards). Does this mean people are now in the mindset to start looking at alternatives to the dollar as well?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 4 replies

hello

2009-07-02T09:48:21Z

Thanks for sharing this useful information. It's great.

[url=http://creditauto.net/][color=#FFFFFF][u]credit auto[/u][/color][/url]

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

time dollars

2009-04-02T05:06:22Z

http://realitysandwich.com/currency_time

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Crisis of Credit explained Visually

2009-04-02T05:00:03Z

This is a GREAT illustration of how and why the financial system is collapsing:

http://vimeo.com/3261363

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

An alternative currency put into action

2009-03-11T07:37:29Z

http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/5158

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

What's Dead? (Short Answer: All Of It)

2009-03-08T15:53:01Z

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/denninger/denninger030909.html

Just so you have a short list of what's at stake if Washington DC doesn't change policy here and now (which means before the collapse in equities comes, which couldstart as soon as today, if the indicators I watch have any validity at all. For what its worth, those indicators are painting a picture of the Apocalypse that I simply can't believe, and they're showing it as an imminent event - like perhaps today imminent.)

* All pension funds, private and public, are done. If you are receiving one, you won't be. If you think you will in the future, you won't be. PBGC will fail as well. Pension funds will be forced to start eating their "seed corn" within the next 12 months and once that begins there is no way to recover.
.
* All annuities will be defaulted to the state insurance protection (if any) on them. The state insurance funds will be bankrupted and unable to be replenished. Essentially, all annuities are toast. Expect zero, be ecstatic if you do better. All insurance companies with material exposure to these obligations will go bankrupt, without exception. Some of these firms are dangerously close to this happening right here and now; the rest will die within the next 6-12 months. If you have other insured interests with these firms, be prepared to pay a LOT more with a new company that can't earn anything off investments, and if you have a claim in process at the time it happens, it won't get paid. The probability of you getting "boned" on any transaction with an insurance company is extremely high - I rate this risk in excess of 90%.
.
* The FDIC will be unable to cover bank failure obligations. They will attempt to do more of what they're doing now (raising insurance rates and doing special assessments) but will fail; the current path has no chance of success. Congress will backstop them (because they must lest shotguns come out) with disastrous results. In short, FDIC backstops will take precedence even over Social Security and Medicare.
.
* Government debt costs will ramp. This warning has already been issued and is being ignored by President Obama. When (not if) it happens debt-based Federal Funding will disappear. This leads to...
.
* Tax receipts are cratering and will continue to. I expect total tax receipts to fall to under $1 trillion within the next 12 months. Combined with the impossibility of continued debt issue (rollover will only remain possible at the short duration Treasury has committed to over the last ten years if they cease new issue) a 66% cut in the Federal Budget will become necessary. This will require a complete repudiation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, a 50% cut in the military budget and a 50% across-the-board cut in all other federal programs. That will likely get close.
.
* Tax-deferred accounts will be seized to fund rollovers of Treasury debt at essentially zero coupon (interest). If you have a 401k, or what's left of it, or an IRA, consider it locked up in Treasuries; it's not yours any more. Count on this happening - it is essentially a certainty.
.
* Any firm with debt outstanding is currently presumed dead as the street presumption is that they have lied in some way. Expect at least 20% of the S&P 500 to fail within 12 months as a consequence of the complete and total lockup of all credit markets which The Fed will be unable to unlock or backstop. This will in turn lead to...
.
* The unemployed will have 5-10 million in direct layoffs added within the next 12 months. Collateral damage (suppliers, customers, etc) will add at least another 5-10 million workers to that, perhaps double that many. U-3 (official unemployment rate) will go beyond 15%, U-6 (broad form) will reach 30%.
.
* Civil unrest will break out before the end of the year. The Military and Guard will be called up to try to stop it. They won't be able to. Big cities are at risk of becoming a free-fire death zone. If you live in one, figure out how you can get out and live somewhere else if you detect signs that yours is starting to go "feral" - witness New Orleans after Katrina for how fast, and how bad, it can get.

The good news is that this process will clear The Bezzle out of the system.

The bad news is that you won't have a job, pension, annuity, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, quite possibly, your life.

It really is that bleak folks, and it all goes back to Washington DC being unwilling to lock up the crooks, putting the market in the role it has always played - that of truth-finder, no matter how destructive that process is.

Only immediate action from Washington DC, taking the market's place, can stop this, and as I get ready to hit "send" I see the market rolling over again, now down more than 3% and flashing "crash imminent" warnings. You may be reading this too late for it to matter.

Mar 5, 2009
Karl Denninger

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

they are pringing a lot of money right now

2009-01-28T14:46:05Z

Perhaps, we need to do the same now, who cares now? :-)

Now, how would you call your new money?

Michael Ruppert thought - "The Bullwinkel" would be funny.
I perhaps, because of my internal inclination would call my new money "The Stella."

"The new Obamalot" this athletic knight who safes us all would look good I think and people would grab at it, perhaps hang on to it and not spending it.

Michael Ruppert's Blog is very daunting -
http://www.mikeruppert.blogspot.com/

Yeah, but perhaps he does not know about the Mayan Calender. At Dec. 21 2012 we all gonna be enlightened because our hearts align with the earth, the sun and the galactic heart, :-) - except we perhaps made mistakes in our calculations being only 80.000 years off - yo well, but the intention may go far anyway. We only kinda align...

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=45753381148&h=KRTSY&u=43eLY

Guess, we can align our hearts anytime and then get to work and get dirty growing our own food?

What next? I hardly even have a full grasp of what is happening to the banks - as this is too big. I read about it and a fog sets in... wondering, what kind of abundance was all of this?

Yet, it is good to be happy as that uplifts us and the universe. So, how will you call your local currency? :-) - "The snuggle," or "the treehugger" - many need some warm thoughts right now -

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 9 replies

The "US dollar dilution & hyperinflation" Tribe

2008-12-17T08:29:20Z

http://tribes.tribe.net/usdprotection

The "US dollar dilution & hyperinflation" Tribe

Learn how to protect your wealth in US dollars from the freefall in the value of the US dollar. This forum is for sharing information that is hard to find. Learn how to move out of US dollars and into foreign currencies, offshore accounts, multicurrency accounts, and precious metals.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

Can U.S. bankrupt China with Cheap Gas?

2008-12-05T03:30:28Z

I was told that the U.S.,The Fed was able to drop the price of oil so that
it would bankrupt India, Russia and China. Is this possible, practical?
It makes no sense to me but what do i know...

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 4 replies

What happens in Iceland

2008-12-02T23:01:19Z

is a total economic meltdown:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/magazines/fortune/iceland_gumbel.fortune/

It's hardly discussed in the US - but I am sure they would benefit greatly to
introduce Gesell's ideas.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 4 replies

A production based currency: What would it look like?

2008-12-02T07:18:10Z

We know that the current debt-based monetary system is doomed to failure over the long term.

So, what if we borrowed from the best aspects of all known systems of trade, and created a viable alternative?

Credit, ie, debt based currencies have the benefit of being versatile and tradable for anything you need, but suffer from inflation and the long term exponentiality of debt growth versus money circulating in the system to pay those debts.

Gold based systems have the benefit of retaining value long term, but suffer from deflation as they fail to scale to expansions in production. This sets up a situation where it is more advantageous to hoarde wealth than produce wealth, and makes loans extremely difficult to repay or long term investments difficult to secure a return worth the risk.

Barter systems have the benefit of keeping the production of wealth in the hands of those that actually produce it, but they fail in terms of versatility, as what you have to offer might not be what any given counterparty needs or wants. This makes trade unnecessarily complex/creates barriers.

Given the pros and cons of each system, I believe the next evolutionary step is to create a monetary system that is based on production itself instead of debt, or precious metals. This means that producers, instead of banks, would essentially have the ability to print currency, just as was the case in the days of barter, while providing the versatility of debt-based currency, and balancing out the pressures of deflation and inflation that result from a monetary system that otherwise fails to scale precisely to production.

Such a system would hold supreme production of real wealth versus leveraged financial investment, and allow for expansion or contraction without risk of systemic collapse. The inherent need for perpetual growth that is found under debt-based monetary systems would be forever abolished, but growth would still be highly incentivized to provide for general increases in our standard of living and to provide reward for investment risk. Growth or contraction could scale to population changes with ease, regardless of population boom-bust cycles.

This is the general idea of it...

Now, how to make it work?....

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 10 replies

The Housing & Economic Recovery Act of 2008

2008-10-03T07:43:44Z

~Catherine Austin Fitts solari.com/blog/
"Since all financial frauds – from the manipulation of the precious metals markets, the engineering of the mortgage and housing bubble, ongoing naked short selling, Enron, the pump and dump of the internet and telecom stocks – come back to the same cast of characters, protecting our families and assets necessitates an integrated understanding of “the real deal” — who is really in charge and how the economy is really managed. Hence, it is useful to have a basic understanding of the missing money and missing collateral mysteries."
Why do I trust this source? Because she was Assistant Secretary to HUD under Clinton, began investigating the 59 billion dollars that disappeared from that organization during Bush. After discovering it went into government accounts, she was told to STOP, she set up a website to provide people with government transparency on money. She was placed under house arrest, all equipment was seized and she feared for her life. Surviving that she went on to write articles on government fraud, give business reports on KPFA, lecture around the country, and work as an investment banker with a purpose. I believe in this woman's integrity and incredible intelligence. As a woman I have ignored money because of it's strange complexity, but after hearing her talk...I now see a money pattern that makes sense, and gives me power. Power over Walmart, The government, Suffering in my community and the raping of the environment. They are all connected by our dollars, corporate greed, and financial trickery. We are feeding the beast with our credit, our gas, and our addiction to stuff. There are ways to disengage with knowledge. She provides it here:
solari.com/

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Chris Martenson Crash Course

2008-09-19T10:23:11Z

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Everything you need to know about our current economy boiled down to 3 hours worth of video.

I *strongly* encourage everyone to watch his course. If you watch it, please post in this thread w/ your thoughts.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

New OPTIMAES

2008-08-25T22:05:50Z

OPTIMAES now has a new site : http://optimaes.ning.com/

And I"m working on a new codebase.

For those interested in trying to understand how economies work through computer simulation.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

The extinction of the Middle Class American.

2008-08-20T18:12:55Z

Hello All.

My views on the Extinction of the Middle Class American.

http://beyondsuccess.wordpress.com/

Thank you.

+Baker

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Naomi Klein Debunks Bush's offshore drilling plans

2008-07-26T14:33:15Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlEt86dMFTE

Fox Business Channel has an “after-the-market-closes” show, called Happy Hour, which appears to exist in a surreal space of unreality: bar setting, complete with a bartender and business men with their brewskis in the background, host Rebecca Gomez looking like she’s ready to hook up and whose only research before interviewing Naomi Klein ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein ) appears to be skimming the reviews of The Shock Doctrine ( http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine ) on Amazon, and to top it off, guest host Eric Bolling admits to not only being an oil trader, but never looking at the book! That’s respect, I’ll tell you, for the collective intelligence of their viewers as well as Naomi.

Still, with all the obstacles FBC places in the way of having an intelligent discussion, Klein manages to get in some great points that leave the embarrassingly ill-informed Faux hosts with little to do but sputter inanities like “Naomi, do you like capitalism?”

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

10 of the Most Important Economic Events of the Last 10 Years: Collapsing the Economy in the Buildup to World War III

2008-03-25T14:58:02Z

http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1638

The following is an update of “7 of the Most Important Economic Events of the Last 7 Years: Collapsing the Economy in the Buildup to World War III.”

Since 1999, the following events have either caused or been the symptom of the present economic crises:

1. Year 1999: Introduction of the euro to world financial markets - In 1999 the euro was introduced as an accounting currency (travellers' cheques, electronic transfers, banking, etc.) and then launched as physical coins and banknotes on 1 January 2002. The euro replaced the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1, however its value quickly began to drop, reaching a low of 0.8252 relative to the US dollar on 26 October 2000. This proved to be a solid support level for the next two years, and in 2002 the euro began its appreciation reaching a high of 1.577 as of 17 March 2008.

click to enlarge source

Aside from consolidating power for the new European Union, the euro added liquidity and flexibility to the financial markets which in time have made the euro a very attractive and safe investment as a major global reserve currency. Two of the main reasons why the euro was introduced are:
1. A new power had to be created to fill the vacuum left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The challenge to US hegemony could not be done on a military level therefore it had to be done on an economic level. The euro was created to challenge the US dollar as the preferred reserve currency. Since its inception, it has gain market share while the US dollar has lost market share. According to third quarter reports for 2007, US reserve currency market share is 64.6% and the euro is at 25.8%. Less the 1998 levels of Swiss and French francs, and German marks, this means that the euro has gained 9.3% of the global reserve currency market in less then 9 years, and this trend is accelerating, even though the European Union seems to be quite concerned about the rapid rise of the euro.
2. It was predicated that the United States would not be able to survive the collapse of the Soviet Union since its existence was fatally connected with that of the former Russian Empire. As a result the euro was created to provide a safe haven for the transfer of wealth. As of the beginning of 2007, within five short years, euro notes in circulation have exceeded the value of circulating US dollar notes. Considering that the dollar has been devalued by approximately 50% since reaching its high relative to the euro in 2000 (euro has gained more than 90%), we can only assume that the transfer of wealth has been going smoothly and that this trend will continue, especially since US government policy has been that a weaker dollar is good for American exports . (More on the euro and the US dollar below).

2. Year 2000: Collapse of the Dot-com bubble - The dot-com bubble, which had its climax on 10 March 2000 with the NASDAQ peaking at 5132.52, was a period during which “stock markets in Western nations saw their value increase rapidly from growth in the new Internet sector and related fields.” Aside from being a stock market bubble, numerous other reasons caused the correction that occurred in the value of shares across the border in the technology sector. Three of these were:
1. During the peak of the NASDAQ bubble margin debt was at an all time high. Investors and speculators were borrowing against their holdings to be able to purchase additional stocks. When the correction occurred, the value of their securities dropped, which meant that they were required to deposit funds or securities into margin accounts to maintain margin requirements set by their brokers. This in turn created a chain reaction. To cover margin calls, stocks were sold, reducing their value since there were more sellers then buyers, which in turn reduced the value of securities in margin accounts, which in turn resulted in additional margin calls which caused more selling.

This was one of the main reasons for the rapid decline in stocks in the year 2000, and this is one of the main fears of what may be happening with the markets right now. In 2007, the amount of margin debt hit a record $285.6 billion in January on the New York Stock Exchange “raising concerns on Wall Street about what might happen if a major correction occurs.” These concerns raised in 2007 have proven to be valid. Bank writedowns from subprime mortgages have resulted in margin calls to mortgage lenders that may deplete Wall Street banks of $325 billion due to ‘systemic margin call’.
2. From 1999 to early 2000, the Federal Reserve had increased interest rates six times, increasing the Fed Funds Rate from 4.75% to 6.5%, an increase of over 35%. This meant the end of cheap money for investors, venture capitalists, and technology companies whose lifespan was measured by their burn rate. In essence, the Federal Reserve brought an end to Greenspan`s irrational exuberance, or more accurately stated, the end to expansion of wealth. A self-induced prophesy many have argued.

During the boom, companies were able to bypass banks and raise capital through private venture capitalists. This meant that banks, which in the past were able to acquire shares in companies seeking startup money, were no longer getting in at rock bottom prices. Many individuals during this period created wealth by investing in multiple high-tech companies. Even if 1 out of 10 proved to be a success, then those who had invested were easily made independently wealthy. This went against established banking and investment practices and forced the Federal Reserve, a centralized private bank that sets the monetary policy for the United States, to increase interest rates until an adjustment in the markets occurred.

The belief is that interest rates were increased rapidly to induce a crash, consolidating assets, and increasing the powers of the elite in our centralized governments.
3. Standard & Poor's composite price-earnings ratio (real prices divided by the 120-month average of trailing real earnings) was at 46 even after the March correction in 2000. Until the NASDAQ boom, “the highest it had ever been (the data go back to 1871) was 33, in September 1929 -- the month before the crash.” The dividend yield on the Standard & Poor's index stood at 1.1%, the lowest ever. “The previous low was 2.6% in January 1973, just before the 1973-74 crash.” Margin debt had also increased 87% in the previous year, hitting $265.2 billion. (Note: as stated above, margin debt in 2007 was higher than that of 2000). All of this was a very good indication that at some point a correction would have to come (which is also the fear of what might be happening right now in the markets).

click to enlarge source

The Dot-com bubble crash wiped out approximately $5 trillion in market value of technology companies from March 2000 to October 2002 in paper wealth on the NASDAQ alone. The peak was $6.7 trillion in March 2000 and the trough was $1.6 trillion in October 2002. “It was the largest stock market collapse in the history of industrial capitalism”, however, exit rates of dot com firms were “comparable with or perhaps lower than exit rates of entrants in other industries in their formative years. Five year survival rates of Dot Com firms approach 50%,” a testament to their strength and importance. However, the crash did slow the exponential dissemination of information that was taking place though the Internet.

“The bursting of the dot-com bubble marked the beginning of a relatively mild yet rather lengthy early 2000s recession in the developed world.”

3. Year 2000: Iraq dumps the US dollar and switches to the euro - The following article, “The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq”, which was written before the US invasion of Iraq, lays forth an argument that the war in Iraq was not just about oil but about the currency in which oil is traded. It is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand the basic concepts of American foreign policy, economics, and its military operations around the world. This article states that the principle reason why the United States invaded Iraq was because Saddam Hussein in the year 2000 went "ahead with its plans to stop using the U.S. dollar in its oil business" and start using the euro.

Iraq switching from the US Petro-dollar to the euro meant that countries would no longer be obligated to buy oil in US dollars, so they would no longer have to maintain their US dollar reserves.

Since reaching a double top in the year 2000/01, the US dollar has been devalued approximately 50% relative to the euro (the euro has gained more then 90% from its low).

click to enlarge source

Even though Iraq dumping the US currency is no longer an issue because the United States is now occupying Iraq, many countries continue to sell the dollar, converting their reserves to other currencies. Some of these countries include: Sweden, Cuba, U.A.E., China, Russia, India, Indonesia, North Korea, Venezuela, and many more. If the tipping point has been reached, it would explain the dollars dramatic devaluation.

4. Year 2005: Rewriting the U.S. Bankruptcy Law - After years of lobbying, the “dream bill for credit card and financial service companies finally came into effect in the United States. Three years ago the financial institutions that were preparing for the coming crash were able to lobby Congress to pass the ‘Bankruptcy Bill’. This law that took effect in 2005 created what is now widely referred to as Debt Slavery and is “the biggest rewrite of U.S. bankruptcy law in a quarter century”.

The Bill was conveniently introduced at a time when US household debt was at an all time high.

click to enlarge source

Those who were wise enough to realize what the implications of the Bill would be declared bankruptcy before it took effect. Those unfortunates to have been caught unaware are now just realizing that corporations, who’s debts are wiped clean when they declare bankruptcy, have more rights then they do. Unfortunately, since personal bankruptcies have been surging, many people are finding out about their slave status the hard way.

5. Year 2006: Discontinuance of M3 - “On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System” ceased publishing the M3 monetary aggregate. The M numbers (M1, M2, and M3) are “components of the United States money supply”, which “show the amount of dollars in circulation”.

click to enlarge source

“M1 is the most volatile, equivalent to cash on the loose. M2 is less volatile, equivalent to savings account deposits. M3 is least volatile, equivalent to Rich Folks Money which they park.” One of the most important things that the M numbers are used for is to measure inflation. Clearly, the data indicates that “there has been substantial money growth since 2000”.

If there is more money in circulation then it becomes devalued. The downside of devaluing a currency is that it can cause inflation and force the government to increase interest rates, but there are positive effects.

As the Federal Reserve states, “a key effect of devaluation is that it makes the domestic currency cheaper relative to other currencies. There are two implications of a devaluation. First, devaluation makes the country's exports relatively less expensive for foreigners. Second, the devaluation makes foreign products relatively more expensive for domestic consumers, thus discouraging imports. This may help to increase the country's exports and decrease imports, and may therefore help to reduce the current account deficit.”

However, not knowing how much money the Banks are printing means that there is no longer an accurate indication of how much currency is in circulation. This basically means that we are playing Monopoly with people who can take money out of the bank anytime they want, because they are the bank. This should be raising alarm bells across the United States the way it has done across the world, as the dumping of the US dollar by most countries indicates. After all, why would anyone want to hold on to a currency that has lost more than 67 percent in five-years relative to its peers?

With the discontinuance of M3 and the apparent flooding of US dollars into the economy by creating money "Out of Thin Air", the US currency has been devalued to the point where “central banks and finance ministries (of other countries) are setting up obstacles to keep the falling dollar from threatening company profits and economic growth.” The ultimate question is, how long are other countries going to be able to keep the American economy from collapsing in on itself, specially since there is "talk of worst recession since the 1930s."

6. Year 2006: Iran moves from US dollars to the euro - At the end of 2006 Iran announced that they would “use the euro instead of the US dollar in the country's budget for the next Iranian year”. This announcement is at least an order of magnitude more significant than Saddam Hussein saying that Iraq would start selling oil in euros.

If the United States was willing to invade Iraq to prevent oil from being traded in any other currency then the dollar, then it would be logical to assume that they will also confront Iran regarding their plans to permanently and absolutely phase out the US dollar. The United States now finds itself between a rock and a hard place, because they will either need to invade, bomb, or enforce sanctions against Iran along with any other country that decides to stop using US dollars in their oil exports, or they will have to watch the complete collapse of their economy and the devaluing of the Federal Reserve currency known as the US dollar.

click to enlarge source

On 17 February 2008, Iran accelerated its plans to eliminate the US dollar from its finances when the first phase of Iran's oil and petrochemical bourse in Kish Island was inaugurated, paving the way for “all major currencies of the world” to be used in future oil transactions. The implications of what this means to world financial markets can not be over emphasized. Further information regarding this unprecedented economic crisis for the United States at: “The Implications of the opening of Iran’s Oil Bourse: The Final Nail in the Coffin for the American Empire.”

Where this will lead is yet to be determined but we now know that the United States is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives, both American and foreign, and is willing to execute the leaders of sovereign countries to prevent them from switching from US dollars to the euro.

7. Year 2006/07: Subprime Market Collapses - “Subprime lending , also called B-paper, near-prime, or second chance lending, is the practice of making loans to borrowers who do not qualify for the best market interest rates because of their deficient credit history. The term also refers to paper taken on property that cannot be sold on the primary market, including loans on certain types of investment properties and certain types of self-employed individuals. Subprime lending is risky for both lenders and borrowers due to the combination of high interest rates, poor credit history, and adverse financial situations usually associated with subprime applicants.”

In the US the competition between these lenders became so fierce that “when the rates were getting too low, they switched to competing by way of advance ratio versus selling price.”

“In other words, if lender ‘A’ was offering 90% financing, lender ‘B’ would go to 100% financing, then lender ‘C’ would advance 100% of selling price plus costs, then to 105%, etc. We have seen the U.S. equity lenders now go to 130% of selling price, giving back 10-15% to the purchasers to help buy furniture, large electronic products, groceries, while the remaining 15-20% was eaten up in fees.”

Why would a lender risk giving someone 130% of the value of a property, especially if the people are considered to be high risk? Fractional-reserve banking of course: a system that has been established to allow financial institutions to “loan their customers many times the sum of the credit reserves than they hold”. It’s a pyramid scheme in which everything continues to work until the bottom falls out, and the bottom has fallen out in the United States where “States have subprime exposure between 18% to 30%” and early payment defaults are rising. This problem with the subprime mortgage market is intensifying with the US and UK housing market crashes.

Just how bad is the housing bubble? The diagram below paints a clear picture of what is about to hit the United States and a few other Western economies.

click to enlarge source

The following animated documentary contains further information on our present monetary system, and is a great introduction to fractional reserve banking: Money As Debt (47:07)

With this kind of banking system where money is created from debt, is it any wonder that the International Monetary Fund is warning that “house prices in the UK are overpriced by as much as 40 per cent and the bubble might burst” in Britain as well as other European markets as it has in the United States.

8. Year 2007: Run on The Bank in the US and UK - “A bank run is a type of financial crisis. It is a panic which occurs when a large number of customers of a bank fear it is insolvent and withdraw their deposits,” and this is exactly what happened to Countrywide in the United States and to Northern Rock in Britain, the financial capital of the world, in August and September of 2007.

“The queues that formed outside Northern Rock, the country's fifth-biggest mortgage lender, represented the first bank run in Britain since 1866. The panic was prompted by the very announcement designed to prevent it. Only when the Bank of England said that it would stand by the stricken Northern Rock did depositors start to run for the exit. Attempts by Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, to reassure savers served only to lengthen the queues of people outside branches demanding their money. The run did not stop until Mr Darling gave a taxpayer-backed guarantee on September 17th that, for the time being, all the existing deposits at Northern Rock were safe.” This was in essence the same scenario that played out with Countrywide.

These banking crises in the US and UK are not individual anomalies that just became realized. Banks in the rest of Europe are also facing a crisis and all indications are that this “Force 5 economic-hurricane” is gaining strength.

The following documentary is worth viewing to fully understand the causes and implications of what is taking place: ZEITGEIST, The Movie: Part 3 of 3 (47:05)

9. Year 2007: 52% Support U.S. Military Strike Against Iran - In a Zogby Poll released 29 October 2007, the “majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election.”

Why would an attack on Iran be considered an economic event? Because war is the perfect consuming machine and a racket. “It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” (Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC)

The US economy was on the verge of collapse before 911 and again before the invasion of Iraq, but it was saved thanks in large part to the wars. “What do the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economic recovery in the United States have in common? More than one might expect, to judge from the last couple of rounds of US growth figures (2004).”

click to enlarge source

How much did the Iraq war contribute to boasting the economy? “During the second quarter of 2003, when the war in Iraq was in full swing, some 60 per cent of the 3.3 per cent GDP growth rate was attributable to military spending.”

“The war has been a large part of the justification for the Bush administration to run ever-widening budget deficits, and those deficits, predicated largely on military spending, have in turn pumped money into the economy and provided the stimulus that low interest rates and tax cuts, on their own, could never achieve.”

This however has run its course and the American economy has taken a serious downturn. As it is the case with delaying the inevitable, the present economic crisis is much graver than it was pre-Iraq, hence a bigger intervention is required to rejuvenate the American economy with its cannibalistic corporate structure.

Thanks to these wars, US debt is at historic levels, $9 trillion and counting, and all indications are that it is going to go a lot higher.

click to enlarge source

So what is this ever-widening budget deficits mean? The above chart is a “projection of the US budget” for the near future. “These are the US government’s own projections—and we all know they have every incentive to accent the positive. If this is the best they can do at this point, then you know things are not just bad, they are calamitous.

“This glimpse at the future clearly shows that the debt of the US will, in the foreseeable future, go from being a troubling yet manageable fraction of the economy to being several times the size of economy. That can’t happen without serious repercussions.

“The US government will be spending money they don’t have, which means creating more of it out of thin air and diluting the value of all the dollars that came before. It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to know that the kind of deficits projected above guarantee a persistently weak dollar, higher inflation and higher interest rates going forward.”

So how does a collapsing empire as large as the United States recover from such disastrous fiscal policy? If history is any indication, a World War is the only solution. “The Great Depression ended as nations increased their production of war materials at the start of World War II. This increased production provided jobs and put large amounts of money back into circulation.” Hence in large part, WWII helped to bring about the end of the great depression.

Unfortunately however it was not the general public that benefited from the war. “World War II spending often required a conversion of plants designed for civilian good production into military factories and back again over the 9 year period. Substantially higher federal tax rates that were paid by the majority of households imposed much stronger fiscal drags on the benefits of the spending. Finally, less of the military spending was earmarked for wages and use of locally produced inputs, which reduced the direct stimulus to the local economy.” In essence, World War II just helped to consolidate corporate assets for the privileged few.

This attack on Iran will be nothing short of World War III which happens to be the mantra of the neocons who, with their corporate connections, would have everything to gain while the human race would have everything to lose, specially considering that this global war to save the American Empire is about to begin with the use of Nuclear weapons.

Unwittingly, the American populace is beginning to support the Bush administration’s plans to attack Iran, but they fail to realize that the decision to start World War III is solely an economic one to prevent the banking institutions from collapsing.

10. Year 2008: US comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office resigns - David M. Walker, The Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office, in February announced that “he will resign in March to lead a new foundation focused on long-term public policy challenges … Walker, 56, has repeatedly warned that the government faces a long-term fiscal crisis as the baby-boom generation retires, driving up spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

“As GAO chief, Walker has warned that the government is ignoring threats to the nation’s long-term fiscal security.” The latest audit of the federal debt have revealed that “deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000”. This is exclusive of the personal debt that each person may carry. In the following interview, Walker explains the seriousness of the situation.

Walker’s resignation six years prior to the end of his 15 year term is a few orders of magnitude greater than the Chief financial officer (CFO) of the largest corporation in the world resigning. The position is so crucial to the functionality of the corporate structure of the United States of America that its subject to Senate confirmation. “The selection process is somewhat unusual.

“A commission made up of congressional leaders presents the president with at least three candidates for the job. The commission is made up of: the Speaker of the Houses, president pro tempore of the Senate, the Senate majority and minority leaders, the House majority and minority leaders, and the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Oversight and Government Reform committees.

“The president chooses one of the three candidates for the job. His nominee must be approved by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel and then confirmed by the Senate.” This, indeed, is one of the most difficult and important positions in the United States.

What has transpired with Walker jumping ship and in the first three months of 2008 is nothing short of the beginning of the greatest consolidation of wealth in the history of the United States. Walker’s resignation has removed the last obstacle for those controlling US fiscal policy to readily make available cheap money. The Federal Reserve has already lowered the Primary Discount Rate from 6.25% to 2.5% since August of 2007. What has followed is a blank check to bailout and buyout banks, defusing a global financial Chernobyl in the derivatives markets some have argued, while at the same time impoverishing American citizens.

Walker’s resignation has been an amazing event, a harbinger of what is to come, but has virtually received no coverage in Western Mainstream Media!

So what are the implications of all this?

In a recent lecture, Seymour Hersh, an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, stated that he feared what would happen if American citizens began to believe the propaganda from the Bush administration now that the rhetoric to attack Iran has changed from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons to stopping them from killing American troops in Iraq. He states that this change in tactics by the US administration seems to be working and Americans are starting to support an attack on Iran. As the Zogby Poll indicates, Hersh’s fears are becoming realized.

The US economy is showing signs that it is in a recession and heading for a hard landing, due in large part to the subprime crisis and the inevitable end to fractional reserve banking. Unfortunately economists believe that the short term solution to saving the banking theocracies from completely collapsing, with a crisis of this magnitude, is to wage war. However this strategy has the reverse effect, and completely collapses an economy if the war drags on by mushrooming the national debt and depleting the resources of the warring nations. This kind of economic lifeline has two major consequences: First it devastates the populace and the environment, and second it consolidates assets for the elite.

There is also one major setback to this proposal of a war with Iran: An attack on Iran would be nothing less then World War III. But then again maybe that is what the US economy needs to stay alive, a World War: The Perfect Consuming Machine. After all it was World War II that decisively ended the great depression, and since most economic indicators are worst now then they were then, it would be reasonable to assume that the United States will start World War III for nothing else then to continue the American lifestyle, maintain the banking plutocracy, and consolidate world assets into the corporate coffer.

If World War III, the minimum expected death toll for which is 200 million, is allowed to take place to save the banking institutions from collapse, then it is a true sign of corporate economic intelligence and control, however this well not resonate well with humanity, but then again, corporations are anything but human and war is everything but humane.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

gold is $1000 dollars an ounce

2008-03-19T16:25:17Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7294040.stm

anyone remember what it was when this tribe started?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

America’s Top Accountant Resigns: U.S. Comptroller General and head of the GAO warms of US bankruptcy

2008-03-17T18:47:46Z

apologies about cross posting but i though this was huge news ... info at my blog

chycho

America’s Top Accountant Resigns: U.S. Comptroller General and head of the GAO warms of US bankruptcy
http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1580

David M. Walker, The Comptroller General of the United States and “head of the Government Accountability Office, announced Friday that he will resign in March to lead a new foundation focused on long-term public policy challenges… Walker, 56, has repeatedly warned that the government faces a long-term fiscal crisis as the baby-boom generation retires, driving up spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”…

“As GAO chief, Walker has warned that the government is ignoring threats to the nation’s long-term fiscal security.” The latest audit of the federal debt have revealed that “deficit spending and promised benefits for federal entitlement programs have put every man, woman, and child in the United States on the hook for $175,000”. This is exclusive of the personal debt that each person may carry.

This means that every newborn in the United States of America has $175,000 of debt that they are responsible for before they take their first breath. This also means that every person that takes his or her last breath in the United States dies with at least $175,000 of debt.

Since debt slavery came into effect by the passing of the Bankruptcy Bill, this basically means that everyone in the United States is essentially a slave to the banking institutions since interest continues to accumulate on this debt. Now that personal debts are no longer cleared upon declaring bankruptcy, almost every person in the United States will die a slave.

How did the United States economy become so devastated and the populace so indebted? The Federal Reserve and the Military-industrial complex have most of the answers. The American lifestyle has the rest.

The simplest remedy to the American financial crisis is to change the American lifestyle from “the person(s) who accumulate the most possessions ‘win’ the game” to the person(s) who accumulate the most amount of goodwill ‘win’ the game. The reason that this has to happen is because “the carrying capacity of the planet will not continue to support” the American lifestyle. It is unsustainable, both economically and environmentally.

The second remedy is to eliminate the Military-industrial complex. “USA is responsible for 48 per cent” of the world’s total military spending, consuming over 41% of “US tax payer’s money”, not including hidden costs. When a country spends almost half its income on warfare, then it is doomed to economic oblivion and every other public priority, from healthcare to education and community development to social programs must be cut.

click to enlarge
source

The most important cure for what ails the US economy is to dismantle The Federal Reserve: A private banking institution headed by private individuals who represent conglomerate and the financial elite who act as “fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury”. They decide how much money is in circulation, they print it, sell it to the United States Federal Government who in turn distributes it to the American people. In return they get all the interest, paid for with American taxes.

If you think this is absurd then you are not alone. John F. Kennedy tried to "strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power" before he was assassinated, and more recently, presidential hopeful Ron Paul had a few choice words for Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

How large is the economic crisis that has hit the United States? With the discontinuance of M3 and the apparent flooding of US dollars into the economy by creating money "Out of Thin Air", the US currency has been devalued to the point where “central banks and finance ministries (of other countries) are setting up obstacles to keep the falling dollar from threatening company profits and economic growth.” The ultimate question is, how long are other countries going to be able to keep the American economy from collapsing in on itself, specially since there is "talk of a worst recession since the 1930s."

2008 should be a very interesting year.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 6 replies

Looking for an Earth Woman Friendly community style living solution?

2008-03-10T22:45:41Z

Looking for an Earth Friendly community style living solution?

There is a Meeting of the Kindred Spirits coming up March 29th! And
we do need to see some more Positive well integrated Female Energy in
this group who can work closely with others.

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

We are still looking to organize a group of volunteers to
help out some good folks one day out of the week, with some
organic gardening and we still do need someone to take Minutes
at the next meeting.

It would be possible, I would think, if there is a single female or
two out there who is cool about living closer to the Earth then
I may be able to provide a place for you to live, for
maybe 6 months out of the year up where I live in Northern
California.

If you can simply come to our next meeting on March 29th. - T

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

WANTED

2008-02-28T14:21:49Z

I am a consumer lawyer in Georgia and I need some research assistance as soon as possible:

I need a macro economist who will talk to me and help me locate the statistics/numbers that describe the effect on our overall economy of
(1) the collection industry
(2) the collection of legitimate debt, and
(3) the collection of "zombie" debt, that is, debt which is uncollectible for good legal reason, e.g., the debt did not exist in the first place, the debt was paid in full, the debt was compromised and settled, the debt was discharged in bankruptcy, the debt was extinguished in a year's support petition, the statute of limitations has expired

The consumer pundits all tell you that debt collectors "cannot" sue you on zombie debt. This advice is FALSE. The collection industry buys and sells zombie debt over and over and over again, duns on such debt over and over and over again, and, in fact, SUES on such debt, over and over and over again, in hopes of obtaining a default judgment, turning a legally indefensible allegation of debt in a real, collectible judgment which provides the legitimate basis for garnishments and levies against personal and real property. If you are sued YOU MUST REACT, GET A GOOD ATTORNEY AND COUNTER-SUE, not just for the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act violations, but for fraud on the court and you; and you must find an attorney willing to sue the lawyers representing the debt collector for abusive litigation in violating their ethical rules by bringing a claim they knew or should have know by reasonable inquiry was without merit. You MUST contact the bar authorities and bring their attention to the suit and the unreasonable investigation of the allegation they conducted prior to filing it.

Just a thought experiment tells you that the numbers associated with zombie debt are much larger than the numbers associated with legitimate, fresh, collectible debt. Churning zombie debt gives debt collectors an UNLIMITED supply of claims. I suspect, but I do not know how to prove, that the zombie debt phenomenon, which came to the attention of the media some five or six years ago and has just entered the legal lexicon two years ago, may play a significant role in the so-called "subprime meltdown" and, if it did/does, if it remains an unrecognized drag on consumer confidence, tax rebates or interest rate changes will not assist in changing the direction of our economy.

I need to find a macroeconomist who can point me to strong, defensible, authoritative numbers on the subject of zombie debt. Please send me an email here on tribe if you can help.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Costa Rica Real Estate is just doing Great!!!

2008-02-24T15:00:57Z

Real Estate Corporations are for grab by anyone

groups.google.com/group/com...costa-rica
posted by:

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

economy of abundance

2008-02-08T01:33:44Z

I am trying to work out a "game" and I was wondering your perspective.
By game I mean a new complementary currency for the community I am a
part of in Seattle. In short my I hope to introduce a catalyst into
the morphogenetic field of my community to create a type of open
source economy of abundance.

If you have any resources or concepts, I would love to hear them. As
for below I am just going to ramble on about my theories of the games
operational system. Feel free to skip it.......
_________________________________________________________

I have a novel idea of how to input the new information, or physical
voting system we call currency, into the community. There would be a
type of festival with a bunch of local vendors. For instance I am an
herbalist and would sell my tinctures. People would by my product for
10 dollars. I would give them the potion, and 10 of the new currency.
I would not take the new currency until the next day.

A wide variety of services are being paid for, but also gifted in a
way. Then the next day the real trading will begin. Another important
key is this currency would be connected to a website so you can see
what services these currency can be exchanged for. Also above all else
this currency expires. The community would hold this type of economic
fest.

So I am sure there are a lot of logic gaps in this game. My main
question is about control. Would there need to be a type of community
panel to be a watchdog of the system or is there some type of open
source platform that can implemented? I am really reaching for
abstract and innovative concepts. Do you have any suggested reading or
resources?

Please feel free to tribe me with links and some abstract theories. I really believe an alternative curancy, no mater how flawed, is still a step in the right direction.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

Housing overview

2007-12-24T15:03:56Z

This is worth reading. Very good, if scary, explanation about the current US meltdown.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/martenson/2007/1217.html

Anyone on this tribe currently doing anything in response to this crisis? Care to share your tactics? Ideas?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

alt.coin-collectors

2007-12-20T03:00:02Z

http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/12/worldnetdaily-e.html

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

The first social networking site to actually give back to its users!

2007-12-18T23:13:52Z

A couple of facts...

1) Facebook makes over $8 million a MONTH from advertising alone.
2) Myspace makes almost $25 million.

WE, the users, don't get any of this, even though WE are the ones making the pages, writing the blogs and uploading the pictures!

There's a brand new social networking site called Yuwie, which actually pays it's members just to use it!

You think Facebook has everything you need - That's fine! I love facebook, and only use Yuwie to make money. Simply join Yuwie with this link,
http://r.yuwie.com/jn33
and then you can do the same!

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Video: Ditching the Dollar

2007-11-26T23:08:08Z

Here's a very good video about the current dollar situation.

Click link to watch. Then wait through stupid 15 second ad.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=597238697&play=1

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 7 replies

Exiting US dollars -- offshore accounts, multicurrency accounts, yen, francs, yuan, gold, etc.

2007-11-21T05:33:53Z

The US dollar is now in a free-fall. The M3 data shows inflation at 15% and a GDP of less than 1%. This inflation rate is increasing rapidly and is showing no signs of declining.

I am looking to get entirely out of US dollars. I would like to open an offshore account so that I can move everything into yen, Swiss francs, and yuan and trade my account like a regular brokerage account -- buying stocks, ETFs, CEFs, etc. on the US exchanges as well as foreign exchanges.

Any ideas?

I am also interested in working with an overseas broker that I can open an account with, who will allow me to trade a "multicurrency sandwich."

HSBC bank in Singapore allows Americans to open a multicurrency account that will let you move all your US dollars into up to 9 other currencies. The Hong Kong HSBC branch will let you move into Chinese yuan. You do not have to be present to open these accounts, although you will likely need help from the Buffalo NY branch of HSBC to communicate with these foreign branches properly.

I am willing to share more information such as this if others can answer my initial questions about offshore accounts and multicurrency sandwiches. Please post web links or post phone numbers/email address.

Thanks in advance!

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Fourth Corner Exchange

2007-11-07T23:20:26Z

I was wondering if my tribe in the Great North West knew about this
and or have any comments, complaints or concerns.
http://www.fourthcornerexchange.com/

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

2007-10-24T14:37:46Z

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

In 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba experienced an 'energy famine.' Transportation and agriculture virtually came to a stop due to lack of diesel fuel and fertilizer shortages. This film explores what changes were put in place. The makers of the film "The End Of Suburbia" went to Cuba to explore it as a test case for what the conditions after Peak Oil would look like. This is that story.

This documentary takes you through various aspects of life in Cuba - Economy, transportation, health-care, agriculture, education - and explores how they dealt with the dramatic reduction of fossil fuels to a mere fraction of their pre 1990 levels. It was nice to meet the people, see the sights, and hear the sounds. The overall feeling was that the Cubans had improved the quality of their life (after a difficult "Special Period"). Their health was better, greater sense of community, better food and healthier land. I was left with the question: Why should we wait until we run out of oil? Let's do it now. The part that I did not expect was how it challenged my understanding of the difference between a Communist country and Capitalism. Did you know that a greater percentage of Cubans own their own home than in America? More farmers now own their own land? Sort of turns the notion of what a "Free-Market" is on its head!

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4981871524314644822&q=peak+oil+cuba&total=18&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Permaculture Credit Union

2007-10-10T23:02:12Z

Permaculture Credit Union: http://pcuonline.org/index.html

want to know why credit unions are so much better than banks?: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

want to know more about permaculture?: http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/index/

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Amero

2007-09-21T12:55:09Z

So what are your opinions on this then?

http://www.halturnershow.com/AmeroCoinArrives.html

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 18 replies

Money as Debt -- highly informative video

2007-08-19T05:38:06Z

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&hl=en

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it all is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its "Duncan Initiative" received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

JAMAICA: Life and Debt

2007-08-04T10:17:31Z

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5277094596195828118

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Collectivist Successes

2007-06-25T06:25:46Z

Brought to you by the brilliant govenment officials
who know what the people really need...

You got it the -- same people who collectivized barley farming in arid Tibet
by insisting that the locals who know the land and whay grows there grow
rice instead. What greater progress can we expect? Yes! They're forcing
momads to settle down and kill their heards, therby creating a new class
of poor needing support. They can now bring even more Chinese into
this land Socialist paradise and land of plenty. Read the Glorious details...

BEIJING - China is forcing nomadic Tibetan herders to settle in towns to clear land for development, leaving many unable to earn a living, a human rights group said in a report issued Sunday.

Herders have been forced to slaughter herds of yaks, sheep and goats and Communist officials have paid minimal compensation and failed to protect Tibetans' legal rights, Human Rights Watch said. It said tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of people have been affected.

Chinese authorities explained the changes as a response to overgrazing by Tibetan herds that was causing soil erosion, Human Rights Watch said.

The group appealed to the government to suspend the resettlements until a review can be put in place and to allow Tibetans to return to their land if they were forcibly moved or received no compensation.

"Many Tibetan herders have been required to slaughter most of their livestock and move into newly built housing colonies in or near towns, abandoning their traditional way of life," the report said.

Human Rights Watch said the resettlements in Tibet and in adjacent ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces are linked to the effort, launched in 1999, to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it to the bustling east.

China's foreign ministry and the local governments of Tibet and the provinces cited did not respond to requests by phone and fax for comment.

The resettlements began in 2000 and have taken place more intensively since 2003, Human Rights Watch said.

"Many Tibetan agricultural communities have had their land confiscated, with minimal compensation, or have been evicted to make way for mining, infrastructure projects or urban development," the report said.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 6 replies

How do you define: Worth

2007-06-25T00:27:45Z

Aloha, Souldancer here . . .

I just self-published a book, "Pay Me What I'm Worth" that's received great reviews so far. The goal of this book is simple: rediscover your natural, ever-evolving balance between receiving and giving. How? Re-discover ALL of who you are - inside and out! (That's what happens if you dance with any one of the 33 highly unique exercises sprinkled in each chapter.)

Given my spiritual (shamanic) studies and teachings over the past two decades, I've come to know the more I allow myself to receive what is in the highest and greatest good for all of us, I more effortlessly GIVE - worry free!

Kindly consider joining a tribe I created to support the launch and use of this book:
http://tribes.tribe.net/payme

as well as sharing your thoughts on how you come to know the concept, "worth."

Should you feel so inspired, click on the "add to friends" button on my profile page! The more bright smiles - the merrier!

Namaste
Soul

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

The Money Men < interesting book

2007-06-23T21:48:43Z

Just finished an interesting book on the history of central banking and government finance in the United States. It's a very readable book aimed at the lay person. It's probably the most balanced take I've read on the topic.

Most of what I read, say, the Federal Reserve ranges from the myopic to the hysterical, either for or against, so it was nice to have someone take a reasonable, balanced approach to the history, pros, and cons of banking and finance.

Anyway, worth a read if you want some general background on the Capitalism vs. Democracy conflict in America.

The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years War Over the American Dollar
by H. W. Brands

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

New Massachusetts Money

2007-06-20T16:35:47Z

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.

So it is fitting that the artist's face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

"I just love the feel of using a local currency," said Trice Atchison, 43, a teacher who used BerkShares to buy a snack at a cafe in Great Barrington, a town of about 7,400 people. "It keeps the profit within the community."

There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.

In their 10 months of circulation, they've become a regular feature of the local economy. Businesses that accept BerkShares treat them interchangeably with dollars: a $1 cup of coffee sells for 1 BerkShare, a 10 percent discount for people paying in BerkShares.

Named for the local Berkshire Hills, BerkShares are accepted in about 280 cafes, coffee shops, grocery stores and other businesses in Great Barrington and neighboring towns, including Stockbridge, the town where Rockwell lived for a quarter century.

"BerkShares are cash, and so people have transferred their cash habits to BerkShares," said Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Society, a nonprofit group that set up the program. "They might have 50 in their pocket, but not 150. They're buying their lunch, their coffee, a small birthday present."

Great Barrington attracts weekend residents and tourists from the New York area who help to support its wealth of organic farms, yoga studios, cafes and businesses like Allow Yourself to Be, which offers services ranging from massage to "chakra balancing" and Infinite Quest, which sells "past life regression therapy."

LOCAL PRIDE

The BerkShares program is one of about a dozen such efforts in the nation. Local groups in California, Kansas, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin run similar ones. One of the oldest is Ithaca Hours, which went into circulation in 1991 in Ithaca, New York.

About $120,000 of that currency circulates in the rural town. Unlike BerkShares, Ithaca Hours cannot officially be freely converted to dollars, though some businesses buy them.

Stephen Burkle, president of the Ithaca Hours program, said the notes are a badge of local pride.

"At the beginning it was very hard to get small businesses to get on board with it," said Burkle, who also owns a music store in Ithaca. "When Ithaca Hours first started, there wasn't a Home Depot in town, there wasn't a Borders, there wasn't a Starbucks. Now that there are, it's a mechanism for small businesses to compete with national chains."

U.S. law prevents states from issuing their own currency but allows private groups to print paper scrip, though not coins, said Lewis Solomon, a professor of law at George Washington University, who studies local currencies.

"As long as you don't turn out quarters and you don't turn out something that looks like the U.S. dollar, it's legal," Solomon said.

FULL CIRCLE

The BerkShares experiment comes as the dollar is losing some of its status on international markets, with governments shifting some reserves into euros, the pound and other investments as the U.S. currency has slid in value.

But the dollar is still the currency that businesses in Great Barrington need to pay most of their bills.

"The promise of this program is for it to be a completed circle," said Matt Rubiner, owner of Rubiner's cheese shop and Rubi's cafe. Some local farmers who supply him accept BerkShares, but he pays most of his bills in dollars.

"The circle isn't quite completed yet in most cases, and someone has to take the hit," Rubiner said, referring to the 10 percent discount. "The person who takes the hit is the merchant, it's me."

Meanwhile, Berkshire Hills Bancorp Inc., a western Massachusetts bank that exchanges BerkShares for dollars, is considering BerkShares-denominated checks and debit cards.

"Businesses aren't comfortable walking around with wads of BerkShares to pay for their supplies or their advertising," said Melissa Joyce, a branch officer with the bank, which has 25 branches, six of which exchange BerkShares. "I do hope that we're able to develop the checking account and debit card, because it will make it easier for everyone."

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Wal mart and 80 million

2007-06-18T16:18:48Z

Wal-Mart plans to launch a payments card aimed at the estimated 80m US residents who do not have access to a bank account.

Called the Wal-Mart MoneyCard, the prepaid product would be launched with GE Money, the retailer's financial partner, nd branded a Visa card, Wal-Mart officials said. An official announcement of the pilot programme could come as soon as this month.

more...

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19057574/

------------------------------------------------------

80 million people. That is the army for change. But Wal Mart will capture them and enslave them into the army of people buying cheap Chinese goods putting more US companies overseas or out of business or out of business.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 71 replies

Warning signs

2007-06-13T15:40:09Z

One of the warning signs of a economic crash is when too many people start “playing” in the stock market. Last week my barber was telling me about his strategy and how much money he was making in the market. Of course he was buying on margin, borrowed money. I remember visiting a friend in Hong Kong many years ago. He said it was time for him to leave, I asked why. There was some trepidation about the hand-over to China but not a lot of fear yet. He said the elevator man was bragging about how much money he was making in the stock market and to my friend that was a sign things were going to crash. And it did.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 8 replies

Is Becoming Wealthy Inherently Evil?

2007-06-11T22:49:54Z

I wonder if it is possible in the current economic structure of the world to be ethical and wealthy. I've heard many people say "money is neutral" but I doubt that's true and I suspect there are many here who would agree with me.

This is a fascinating blog (many of his blogs are very thought-provoking) that actually makes me think it MIGHT be possible to be wealthy without being evil. What do you think?

I've only posted the beginning of the blog (it's fairly long). The last paragraph I've posted is particularly interesting to me. You can find the rest of the blog here:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/is-becoming-wealthy-inherently-evil/

Is it morally wrong to attempt to become wealthy?

It’s no surprise to me that the Million Dollar Experiment, while mostly getting a highly positive reception, has also uncovered some opposition from people who believe the pursuit of financial wealth is inherently greedy, selfish, immoral, or just plain evil.

How do you feel about the whole idea of having more money than you need? A lot more. Excess cash. Does that concept excite you or make you feel uncomfortable? Is is attractive or repulsive? A mixture of both perhaps? Do you feel you’d have to compromise your integrity in order to achieve this goal?

What about earning money very quickly? A fast turnover. Making a quick buck. Does that raise some level of indignation within you?

If a friend were to say to you, “You know what. I’m going to go ahead and become rich,” how would you react? Would you assume this person has become a “sell out” or is about to compromise their integrity? Would you ridicule them for even setting this goal? How would you feel after they achieved the goal? How would you feel if they failed and gave up?

Isn’t it interesting to witness the complex feelings that arise when we examine our beliefs about money? Notice that I haven’t even addressed the actual process of acquiring money in any of these situations, merely the notion of wealth itself.

What role does intention play in the pursuit of wealth? Is the very idea of intending to be wealthy inherently evil, corrupt, or somehow wrong? Or can one become wealthy and still have integrity?

The level of “good” or “evil” you associate to money comes from your own beliefs and intentions, not from any innate quality that money possesses. By itself money is neutral and powerless. Your own thoughts will serve to define the role of money in your life.

If money or wealth are somehow connected with evil, greed, or selfishness in your mind, imagine what effect that will have on your financial decisions. Sounds like a good way of preventing yourself from ever becoming wealthy, doesn’t it? Is that a choice you’ve made consciously? Do you feel it’s the right one?

It isn’t money or the pursuit of money that has any moral connection — you might as well be collecting rocks, beads, or sea shells. It’s the energy you bring to money that matters. Money will play the role in your life that you intend it to play, and that intention will largely arise from your pre-conditioned beliefs. If you’ve been conditioned to associate negative qualities to money (especially through your upbringing), then money will play a largely negative role in your life. If you associate positive beliefs to money, then it will play a positive role.

But most likely you have mixed associations to money because socially conditioned beliefs are inherently incongruent — it’s a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Your concept of money develops mixed associations to both good and evil. You want more money for yourself, but not too much more. You step towards greater wealth and then back away from it. You dance around money for fear it might be dangerous to acquire too much of it, but then when scarcity overwhelms you, you think of little else. Eventually you figure you’re better off thinking about money as little as possible.

Been there, done that. It’s all so much nonsense.

Your money will derive its energy from you, from who you are as a person. Greater and greater wealth will simply squeeze out more of who you already are. If what’s inside you is good and noble and of high integrity, that’s what will come out. But if what’s inside you is fearful and uncertain, then fear and uncertainty will come out.

If you feel good about yourself, your thoughts, and your behavior, then having more money will only enhance those positive feelings and help you spread them to others.

What are you doing to earn money right now? Is your work devoted to the highest good of all? Or have you put yourself in a situation where you’re earning money in such a way that’s neutral or negative? Do you make money by creating or by competing? Are you giving your best value to the world or trying to get a free ride on the value creation of others?

We all grow up with a mixed bag of socially conditioned beliefs about money, especially from the media. By the time we’re working adults, we become bogged down with the heavy baggage of these limiting beliefs, causing us to behave very strangely and incongruently. Think about it for a moment… how rational is your financial behavior right now? Would an outside observer describe your financial decisions as truly intelligent and congruent when taking a deep look into your income, expenses, assets, and liabilities? Do you earn and spend money intelligently?

The only way out of the quagmire of limiting beliefs is to step back, uncover such beliefs one by one, and then consciously decide whether or not they’ll continue to be true for you.

Is money the root of all evil? Is the love of money the root of all evil? Or will money simply take root in the soil of your own thoughts?

Does making money quickly imply greed and selfishness? Or is it just being efficient and intelligent?

Does making extra money mean that someone else loses (scarcity mentality)? Or can you make money while simultaneously increasing the wealth of others without hurting anyone (abundance mentality)?

Is it intelligent to make only enough money to survive and cover your basic needs? Or is that really just being lazy and uninspired?

Have wealthy people compromised their integrity? Or is it possible to genuinely pursue greater wealth in a manner that serves the highest good of all?

Is the best way to fight poverty to give more cash to people who possess a deep-seated scarcity mentality? Or is it better to challenge this mindset and plant the seeds of abundance in their thoughts?

In order to acquire greater wealth, is it necessary for you to take more than you give? Or can you become wealthy by giving much more value than you receive in return?

How many wealthy people do you know intimately as opposed to through sensationalized media stories? What is their motivation?

If you had absolute financial abundance, what would you do with it? If that money were to allow you to express more of who you already are right now, what would you express? A noble purpose? The need for security? Fear and uncertainty? Self-sacrifice? Abundance and increase?

If you become wealthy and then teach hundreds of other people to do the same, have you done them a disservice and corrupted them? Or have you given them a tremendous gift?

Did you ever conclude that becoming wealthy would be out of your grasp? Have you ever thought about changing that belief?

These are all questions to consider when deciding what role money will play in your life.

One of my favorite quotes about money comes from the late, great Earl Nightingale:

Nothing can take the place of money in the area in which money works.

So amazingly accurate when you take the time to think about it.

I’ve had to face down a lot of these incongruencies within myself. What role is money to play in my life? Should I earn just enough to get by? Should I aim for financial independence? Do I serve people best by being broke, by earning just enough to cover my expenses, by achieving financial independence, by getting rich quickly?

Eventually I decided that it would be a good thing for me to become wealthy. Given that my purpose is to grow and to help others grow, I cannot ignore the financial dimension of personal development. If I become financially wealthy, then through my purpose I’ll naturally strive to help others do the same.

Working on my wealth is really no different than working on my self-discipline, my health, my productivity, my relationships, etc.

Once I made this decision, the first thing I had to do was to purge all those limiting beliefs about money from my psyche. I found quite a bit of rubbish in there, and I just let it go and decided that I would find a way to be wealthy that would be congruent with the highest good of all. Then I took some time to adopt more empowering beliefs about wealth and money.

Can achieving greater wealth for myself serve the greater good? I definitely believe this is possible. After all, it was my pursuit of passive income streams that gave me the freedom to create this web site in the first place. Those streams of income allowed me to spend my time writing and posting hundreds of articles without charging for them. I was able to spend months working full-time on this new career before I earned a dime from it. I think it should be obvious to anyone that this site is designed to give away a lot of value without requiring you to pay for it. But I could just as easily have taken a scarcity approach, charging for every shred of info and blocking access to it for those who couldn’t afford it. As I see it, this is one of those areas in which money does work — my passive income gives me the freedom to focus on giving without worrying about receiving.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 88 replies

Eliminate taxes, use debt interest payments to support government

2007-05-31T22:35:00Z

Could it work?

Could we re-federalize "the fed", ie, make it no longer a private for-profit corporation, and then use the mass of interest payments that flow in to support necessary services provided by government?

The problem of how to control inflation immediately comes to mind as a major obstacle.

What other problems might make the idea unworkable?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

the current money system and its influence on politics explained

2007-05-21T01:33:34Z

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&hl=en

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Chase Bank

2007-05-12T05:31:57Z

The money lenders, the Pharisees (New Testament definition), how do we bring them down legally. They truely are a scourge to the world community. So, How do we bring them down legally?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Your comments on this will be appreciated

2007-04-30T03:11:50Z

Money

Everybody (well almost everybody) wants more of it, there never seems to be enough money to go around and almost all governments spend more money it has. You spend an enormous amount of time working for, thinking about, spending and being frustrated about money but do you really know what it is, where it comes from, who controls it and how it is created? There was a point in time that I thought that I knew where money came from, I was misinformed. Misinformed by an education system that only tells part of the story and ignores many of the not so obvious and not so pleasant facts. Misinformed by a financial industry that has an agenda of profit, gluttonous profit.

Sometimes the misinformation is not intentional. The mass media will print or broadcast statements made by members of the Federal Reserve, Bankers and economic experts. These statements always steer scrutiny for the current economic situation away from the institutions they represent and toward the actions of other countries, foreign banks and even people like you and me. You may find it hard to believe today but in the history of banking there were periods of extreme opposition to banks.

There are several problems facing almost every country today, unemployment, inflation, and ecological destruction as well as a large and rapidly growing debt. Invariably the blame is cast on the politicians running the country, the workers in the country, maybe even the weather of the country but never on the currency systems of the country.

The Current Economic System

Sometimes we want to believe things that simply can't be supported by research or facts. One is that the current monetary system benefits the majority of the people and is environmentally responsible. War, environmental destruction, loss of bio-diversity, poverty are not isolated political or corporate problems. They are problems with one root cause that the financial system of the world is horribly out of whack.

The current financial system has diverged from its two main roles those being a standard of value and medium of exchange.

Today more money is traded as a commodity than it is used to move commodities and pay wages. Currency trading takes away control from people, corporations, governments (social good) and put it in the hands of a few traders whose interest is only in profits not stability. In fact instability generate more profits. The suffering that the instability causes generates profits. This will continue until an instability that is too large to control occurs.

Witness today the mantra of economic growth and free trade that are not leading us toward economic justice and environmental sustainability. Rather they are taking us in the direction of increasing economic injustice and environmental destruction.

When it cones to environmental concerns the debate always turns to jobs versus the environment. These arguments not only miss the point they are constructed to instill fear and sustain the status quo. The evidence is mounting that in a resource scarce world, neither is possible without the other.

The current economic system produces an irreconcilable conflict between the goal of creating economically just and environmentally sustainable societies and embracing sustained economic growth. The current policies are constructed to produce more millionaires and billionaires. They are not designed to achieving justice (social, economic or environmental) and sustainability.

Economic War

The economic war, and it is a war, for control of the worlds supply of money is being waged every day. It is a war for energy supplies and the currency used for exchange of the energy (petrodollars). Ruinous interest rates and onerous terms of trade are killing millions of people on a plundered planet. Hunger, sickness, homelessness, unemployment and criminality kill them. At the extreme some people receive millions a day in interest and children are sold into sexual slavery to pay off her parents debts.

Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control
whole continents; who controls money can control the world.
Henry A. Kissinger

Workers within countries are being forced into a war of wages and benefits with the current “free trade’ and Globalism movements. C. H. DOUGLAS predicted some of the current problems with trade and the protests against Globalism in 1924. His proposal of “Social Credit” does not receive a lot of course time in college economic courses if it is even brought up at all. When it is there is a certain amount of intellectual dishonesty in the discussion.

In all wars there are casualties, dead soldiers, homelessness, a damaged and polluted environment. You are involved in an economic war every month when you have to pay your home mortgage or your credit card bills. You have been drawn into an economic war with your neighbors and other people like you across the nation and across the globe and you probably didn’t even notice it.

Like all wars governments are involved. In the USA it is Congress that passes the laws and in the economic war this is where the battlefield is very heavily stacked against the individual consumer, citizen, voter, man or woman. In Congress the largest political contributions are credit cards companies and consumer financial service companies. Not big oil, not big pharmaceutical! A great big multibillion-dollar industry talking to Congress, whispering in their ear. Just like in a shooting war big money buys bigger and better guns. As in all wars, to the victor go the spoils, or in this case profits and not just good profits but extraordinary profits, unreasonable profits, unconscionable profits. This is a “feature” of government that is being copied all over the world from first world countries to third world countries. It is any wonder the third world countries are so heavily in debt?

Less than 1% of the population is now claiming ownership to almost 50% of the wealth and the trend is not in favor of the many but in favor of the few.

People control money (if they want to)

The Chinese parable of “The Monkey Master” is a story of what happens when a people wake up the their enslavement and take back control of their destiny. Money is a system designed by people, if it doesn’t serve us we can redesign it. Many people in the past have done exactly this. There are examples of alternative currencies functioning for the benefit of all the people. Where there has been too much success, Worgl for example, the central bank of the country had stepped in and outlawed the alternative currency plunging the community back into economic depression.

Alternative Currency, Alternative Economy

Changing the worlds economic system won’t be easy. There is an enormous amount of inertia to be overcome. There is also a huge body of myths about the current system of money. The money system is intentionally obfuscated to make it difficult for people to understand. Replacing the current currency system with an Alternative currency is not a popular idea especially with many of the governments in the world, the captains of industry and especially the financial industry.

History shows a better world is possible when committed people work hard enough for it. A small number of committed people ended slavery. Committed people helped workers win the right to organize and bargain collectively. The women’s suffrage movement won women the right to vote and regain control of their own bodies. Minorities won important civil rights.

Changing the world’s economy will be far more difficult than any of the proceeding changes in history. A change in the economy would shift control from a few powerful governments and a small group of people to majority of people. This type of change like overthrowing never comes easily. The current system is an economic dictatorship and history has shown that eventually all dictatorships fall under its own weight, greed and corruption. You can see some of this happening every day. By constructing and using an alternative currency now the transition from economic dictatorship to freedom will be possible.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 17 replies

Damanhur

2007-04-29T18:54:27Z

Here in Ashland we were fortunate to have representatives from the Federation of Damanhur come speak to us. They have a very successful currency which is now accepted outside of the village area. It was an inspiration to see a community of 1,000 living together with such joy. The website is: http://www.damanhur.info
Click to credito to find out more about it.

During the conference ‘MONEY MOVES–away from Greed and Scarcity’ held in the Ecovillage of Lebensgarten, near Hanover in Germany, July 2003, the economist Bernard Liaetar one of the creators of the Euro and best selling author of ‘The Mystery of Money’ and ‘The Future of Money’, said: ‘In the West the only reality I’m aware of where a complete complementary currency system is working, is the Federation of Damanhur’.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Resource Based Economy

2007-04-27T03:41:09Z

Energy Accounting.

So here is a solution I would like to put forward. It is not so much about alternative money but about economics.

It is not my creation but I heartily endorse it.

What if every human being on the planet received a portion of the energy value of the total resources; natural and technological?

Imagine the incredible growth and sustainablity we could create!
The drop in waste created by profit imperitive and competition.
The drop in crime if there is no incentive to steal.
The drop in sickness and disease if true health care costs no more than the current disease and symptom care that is offered today.

What if every human being's needs are provided for from cradle to grave?
This has been answered more than once by a sentiment that goes:....

"if people dont have to work, they wont"
If that were true there would be no purpose for hobbies, for retired people to volunteer etc.

The point being that people are creative and all of us have the need to feel useful and to contribute. No, we may not want to dig ditches or clean toilets; we already have adequate technology for that anyway.

But if we are freed from the drudgery of a job we dislike, we do find satisfaction in pursuing those things which interest us. We can invest a lot more energy in something that feels like play rather than something that feels like work.

In our current system human potential is going to waste. Free them from having to earn a living for themselves and their families and everyone benefits.

The much misunderstood resource of human engenuity is our greatest.

The Venus Project web site has an excellent article on Resource Based Economy.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/resource_eco.htm

Buckminster Fuller in his book Critical Path mentioned that at least 75% of the jobs at the time of writing were not providing any life support. He mentions professions such as lawyers, insurance brokers and poloticians. But there are many more.

Life support being pretty self explanatory.

Technocracy for most of us is a bad word. Wikipedia defines it thus: a government run by the highly educated

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Technocracy is not a form of government at all but a scientific way of using technology to manage resources for the good of all. The Technical Alliance created during the Great Depression laid our practical plans for this as it related to North America.

http://www.technocracy.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=6&page=1

Again: Resource Based Economy as described on the Venus Project web page..
Rather than repeat information on these 2 web sites, I merely post them and let you make up your own mind.

Now more than every we have the technology to accomplish this. If this has already been mentioned here I apologize.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 6 replies

An Experiment in Worgl

2007-04-20T18:52:13Z

The year was 1932; the world was gripped by the greatest economic depression that it had ever known. One man in a small town decided to try something new to help the people of his community. In doing so the town made economic history. The town was Worgl in the Bavarian province of Germany. To understand the Worgl experiment you have to understand the man behind it. The towns mayor Michael Unterguggenberger.

Michael Unterguggenberger

Michael was born into an old Tyrolean peasant family. He lived the life of a poor European without falling into the mental trap of heavy blue-collar work. He apprenticed himself to a master mechanic. After apprenticeship he became a journeyman mechanic. At the age of twenty-one he had his first post at the Worgl railway station. His striving for social justice jeopardized his personal advancement. In taking a stand for his fellow workers as a trade union man, he was not promoted any higher. In 1912 he was elected representative for the union of Innsbruck Rail Engineers in the committee for personnel. Yet to the officials of the Austrian Railroad network he was seen as the person who represented the concerns of the workers against the moneyed interests of the railroad. Later Alex von Muralt would write that Michael Unterguggenberger always stressed that he was not a Marxist.

Wörgl

Worgl was a small town that had grown rapidly in the early 1900’s. Then came the crash of 1929, which quickly spread, into Europe. Michael was town councilor, he soon became deputy mayor. In 1931 he was elected mayor of Worgl. As mayor he had a long list of projects he wanted to accomplish. Projects like repaving roads, street lighting, extending water distribution across the entire town and planting trees along the streets. But in the midst of the depression out of the towns population of 4,500, 1,500 were without a job and 200 families were penniless.

Silvio Gesell

Michael read and re-read “The Natural Order” by Silvio Gesell. He talked with people in the town and convinced the members of the Worgl Welfare Committee to hold a session on July 5, 1932. In this session he gave a short summary and then proposed a “Distress Relief Program”. He stated that slow circulation of money is the principal cause of the faltering economy. Money as a medium of exchange increasingly vanished out of working people’s hands and accumulates into the hands of the few who collect interest and do not return it back to the market. He proposed that in Worgl the slow-circulating National Bank currency would be replaced by “Certified Compensation Bills”. The council would issue the Bills and the public would accept the Bills for their full nominal value. Bills would be issued in the denominations of 1, 5 and 10 shillings. A total issue of 32,000 Worgl “Money Bills” was printed and put into circulation.

Worgl Money

On July 31, 1932 the town administrator purchased the first lot of Bills from the Welfare Committee for a total face value of 1,800 Schillings and used it to pay wages. These first wages paid out were returned to the community on almost the same day as tax payments. By the third day it was thought that the Bills had been counterfeited because the 1000 Schillings issued had already accounted for 5,100 Schillings in unpaid taxes. Michael Unterguggenberger knew better, the velocity of money had increased and his Worgl money was working.

Worgl money was a stamp script money. The Worgl Bills would depreciate 1% of their nominal value monthly. To prevent this devaluation the owner of the Bill must affix a stamp the value of which is the devaluation on the last day of the month. Stamps were purchased at the parish hall. Because nobody wanted to pay a devaluation (hoarding) fee the Bills were spent as fast as possible.

The reverse side of the Bills were printed with the following declaration: “To all whom it may concern ! Sluggishly circulating money has provoked an unprecedented trade depression and plunged millions into utter misery. Economically considered, the destruction of the world has started. - It is time, through determined and intelligent action, to endeavour to arrest the downward plunge of the trade machine and thereby to save mankind from fratricidal wars, chaos, and dissolution. Human beings live by exchanging their services. Sluggish circulation has largely stopped this exchange and thrown millions of willing workers out of employment. - We must therefore revive this exchange of services and by its means bring the unemployed back to the ranks of the producers. Such is the object of the labour certificate issued by the market town of Wörgl : it softens sufferings dread; it offers work and bread.”

Worgl Success

Over the 13-month period the Worgl money was in circulation, the mayor carried out all the intended works projects. The council also built new houses, a reservoir, a ski jump, and a bridge. The people also used scrip to replant forests, in anticipation of the future cash flow they would receive from the trees.

Six neighboring villages copied the system successfully. The French Prime Minister, Eduoard Dalladier, made a special visit to see the 'miracle of Wörgl'. In January 1933, the project was replicated in the neighboring city of Kirchbuhl, and in June 1933, Unterguggenburger addressed a meeting with representatives from 170 different towns and villages. Two hundred Austrian townships were interested in adopting the idea.

One eyewitness report was written by Claude Bourdet, master engineer from the Zürich Polytechnic. "I visited Wörgl in August 1933, exactly one year after the launch of the experiment. One has to acknowledge that the result borders on the miraculous. The roads, notorious for their dreadful state, match now the Italian Autostrade. The Mayor's office complex has been beautifully restored as a charming chalet with blossoming gladioli. A new concrete bridge carries the proud plaque: "Built with Free Money in the year 1933." Everywhere one sees new streetlights, as well as one street named after Silvio Gesell. The workers at the many building sites are all zealous supporters of the Free Money system. I was in the stores: the Bills are being accepted everywhere alongside with the official money. Prices have not gone up. Some people maintained that the system being experimented in Wörgl prevents the formation of equity, acting as a hidden new way of exploiting the taxpayer. There seems to be a little error in that view. Never before one saw taxpayers not protesting at the top of their voices when parting with their money. In Wörgl no one was protesting. On the contrary, taxes are paid in advance; people are enthusiastic about the experiment and complain bitterly at the National Bank's opposing the issuing of new notes. It is impossible to dub it only a "new form of tax" for the general improvement of Wörgl. One cannot but agree with the Mayor that the new money performs its function far better than the old one. I leave it to the experts to establish if there is inflation despite the 100% cover. Incidentally price increases, the first sign of inflation, do not occur. As far as saving is concerned one can say that the new money favors saving properly so-called rather than hoarding money. As money lost value by keeping it at home, one could avoid the depreciation by depositing in the savings bank.

Wörgl has become a kind of pilgrim shrine for macro-economists from a variety of countries. One can recognize them right away by their learned expressions when discussing the beautifully maintained streets of Wörgl while sitting at restaurant tables. Wörgl's population, proud of their fame, welcomes them warmly."

The Central Bank

The Central Bank panicked, and decided to assert its monopoly rights by banning complimentary currencies. The case was brought in front of the Austrian Supreme Court, which upheld the Central Banks monopoly over issuing currency. It then became a criminal offence to issue “emergency currency”. Worgl quickly returned to 30% unemployment. Social unrest spread rapidly across Austria. In 1938 Hitler annexed Austria and many people welcomed Hitler as their economic and political savior.

Germany was headed towards WWII and with the aftermath of the war much of what happened in pre war Germany just like what happened during the war was suppressed by the world. Germany was being rebuilt in the West’s image. The Worgl experiment was relegated to history.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 12 replies

credit unions - non-profit banks :)

2007-04-18T05:31:37Z

I've been a member of a credit union for so many years, and it's saved me so much money. Much better service as well (no horror stories like B of A!!)

Here's a link to basic credit union info & how to find / join one near you:
http://www.creditunionswork.org

Just wanted to post this here, since people sometimes ask me questions about how to find & join, etc.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Non-Profit Org Seeks Programmer to Comission for open source project

2007-04-09T18:40:24Z

Non-Profit Org to Commission Programmer[s] for OpenSource Freeware (Charlotte)

Reply to: AINPO@care2.com

We are seeking windows/apple/Linux/Pocket PC capable compilers and open source publishers (C++, Perl, python?), and ANY Artificial Intelligence, Random Number Generation,or bot implementation specialists. Decompiler capable folks welcome as well.
This Project will pay from a Small non-profit grant/stipend and will be distributed Copyleft/open source.

This program will need:
-Full duplex bandwidth p2p access similar to bit torrent infrastructure
-IP telephony (capable of 28k modem success, primarily for 48k and better-OGG compression?)
-ability to view cad files & pdf
-*generic voice command (simple short syllable recognition that wouldnt require vocal mapping)
-skinnable GUI
-Media player unit
-alternative to gps for satellite positioning interface
-ability to induct volunteered computers for shared-load data processing via network
-chat/bulletin capable with realtime image conveyance(EX. drawing/tutoring software)
-(GRAMMER SENSITIVE)LANGUAGE TRANSLATION VIA TEXT WOULD BE AWESOME
-database inc. almanacs, smog counts etc (see bots)
-Self Contained to a disk?
-Spyware immune
-BBS, webcam, Ham, shortwave integration-(upgrades)

Most of the code for these functions is available open source already.
This Non-Profit Org is seeking compiled and open source versions of a program to facilitate organized bartering/communications amongst (registered?):

WWOOF participants
Intentional Communities
User groups
Professional Travelers
International Communities
Shelters
Refugee Camps
Sudents
Senior Citizens
Holistic practitioners
Independant Media
Community Gardens
Anyone & Everyone

Part of the interface would mimic the NYSE/NASDAQ/etc boards with Glyphic/Iconic
representations of Goods (ex. bag of rice/spirulina/well pump/shovel/automobile bus part VIA Original FONTS LIBRARY) in surplus or demand for local/international barter / donation. IP Telephony would allow for conference calling(virtual PBX) or bandwidth-quota controlled 1 on 1 telephony that could occur on a 28.8k landline successfully.

Anyone with sufficient skills can collaborate with us to design this.
Our coffers are small but the job pays. You will be collaborating with a Graphic designer and Digital audio producer. This product will give credit to the designers but be -Copyleft- and opensource.

We are a non-profit organization preparing for 501c3 status and you can see our under construction website at the link below.
Click the icon on the left.
Peace Love & Progress from the Angel Initiative Non-Profit Org

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

What can one say?

2007-04-07T17:04:28Z

What does a person say to convince people to abandon the current financial system and adopt a sustainable one?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

DNDN

2007-04-06T20:28:05Z

Check this stock out. I got the tip yesterday and it's up nearly 200% today!

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 14 replies

Purpose AND Prosperity

2007-03-16T03:39:28Z

I invite you to sign up for a FREE 14 day prosperity challenge. www.awakeningbusiness.com. Easy and fun! Kaya

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

China moves to "fence off" virtual economies

2007-03-14T04:51:27Z

Interesting. I guess it makes sense that the next alt ec comes from virtual practicality:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6e4d7c84-cc17-11db-a661-000b5df10621.html

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

Corporates as facilitators of local money exchange?

2007-03-12T00:57:37Z

It's no big secret that large companies such as Tescos, Starbucks etc like to portray a "community" image in order to stem off some of the "get outta our towns!" resistance they get when infesting a new area. Reading over the Magdeburg article again (see other thread) got me thinking.

If the big chains are going for this "glocalised", friendly image, then surely it would make sense for them (from their point of view) to back local currencies? The chances that most of their transactions in one area will switch over to one particular currency are low, and probably outweighed by the extra income and extra "reputation points" garnered.

In addition, their national/global reach puts them in a peculiar position, whereby they could possibly quite easily be able to perform exchanges from one local economy to another. I haven't really thought it through, but by tying trad money prices to local economies, they would effectively be setting up exchange rates. Once that's in place, why not let people make a transfer (through the corporation, for a small fee) to someone on the other side of the country in a different economy?

The marketing side takes care of itself... "Encouraging communities, and helping communities trade with each other." Then, if they wanted to encourage take-up in particular areas (e.g. those where resistance was highest, say), then they could do some special offers for people paying with local currency. Badda bing.

I'm not saying whether this is A Good or A Bad Thing. But is it likely? If local currencies got taken up, what reasons would the big players have for *not* getting involved?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 5 replies

The great global action 2007

2007-02-14T21:14:39Z

La gran acción global 2007
The great global action 2007

Castellano:
Si quieres conocer la gran acción global mira este video
www.youtube. com/watch? v=EwHlbBbZNT4

English:
If you want to know the great action global 2007 it watches east video
www.youtube. com/watch? v=EwHlbBbZNT4

Deutsch:
Wenn du die große Tätigkeit globales 2007 kennen möchtest, paßt sie Ostbildschirm auf
www.youtube. com/watch? v=EwHlbBbZNT4

Italiano:
Se desiderate conoscere l'azione grande 2007 globale guarda il video orientale
www.youtube. com/watch? v=EwHlbBbZNT4

Portuguese:
Se você quiser saber a ação grande 2007 global presta atenção ao vídeo do leste
www.youtube. com/watch? v=EwHlbBbZNT4

Français:
Si vous voulez savoir la grande action 2007 global elle observe la vidéo est
www.youtube. com/watch? v=EwHlbBbZNT4

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Magdeburg alt money

2007-02-12T16:57:55Z

Had this in my tabs for ages, been meaning to post it. An interesting look at an alt money in Magdeburg, Germany. It's technically illegal, but the Bundesbank don't mind it as it's definitely seen as a *social* thing. It runs out after a period, too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6333063.stm

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

newdream.org has ideas

2007-02-06T16:49:37Z

it might be a site people can peek at. it's at http://www.newdream.org

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Bancor

2007-01-25T00:26:38Z

Via 3Quarks Daily http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/ is a link to and article by Susan George in Le Monde Diplomatique regarding John Maynard Keynes" ideas for an international trade organization.

In response to the collapse of the Doha Round, George observes: "The absence of cancer is to be desired but the absence of an international trade regime just leaves the field open to bilateral and multilateral deals which are always even more invasive and dangerous for weaker partners than is the WTO."

Susan George's discussion about why the ITO never got off the ground in the first place is really informative and interesting--worth reading the article for that alone. But what really caught my attention was a scenario of how a ITO might actually come around:

"In these circumstances, how could the global justice movement help to make fair trade a reality, since the WTO and its disastrous rules already exist? The writer George Monbiot believes that the South could use its $26,000bn of debt as a “nuclear threat” against the world financial system unless it consents to establish an ICU. The South could begin by creating its own, smaller clearing union: perhaps Latin America could launch such a plan. Perhaps a new government in France could put it on the agenda; stranger things have happened."

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Any truth here?

2007-01-03T04:56:13Z

http://www.worldreports.org/news/38_paulson_and_cheney_s

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 7 replies

Parecon,Life After Capitalism

2006-12-16T07:19:39Z

My roomie showed me this book i can't wait to look at more on the theme of participatory economics. It's by Michael Albert published by Verso endorsed by Howard Zinn & Noam Chomsky.

www.versobooks.com

Also check ZNet (www.zmag.org and www.parecon.org)

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 20 replies

Edwin Riegel

2006-11-28T05:59:15Z

Anyone know anything about this guy?

http://www.newapproachtofreedom.info/

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 6 replies

Alternative Economy dependent on Alternative Fuel?

2006-11-27T06:43:36Z

I know fuel and economies have come up before, but it's a Saturday, etc. Long article (part 2, indeed) on the clash between fuels and currencies here:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HK23Ag01.html

which got me thinking (see [1]) - if the success of a currency depends on demand, and demand is related to demand for basics (i.e. fuel), then does the future of alternative economies lie in tying it to alternative sources of energy, e.g. local micro-currencies for local (renewable) micro-generation? Is this being investigated/trialled anywhere?

[1]: http://describe.blogspot.com/2006/11/energy-markets-vs-contracts-nuclear-vs_25.html

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

The Red Queen's Money

2006-11-24T22:15:49Z

http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/nov/22/the_red_queens_money Sirling Newberry has some interesting observations about the USA and money.

"[I]t is that there are two world's of money. Those who are playing with retail dollars piled up from ordinary people, and those playing with hot money from Japan's carry trade and Federvention liquidity, as well as the profits from low, low, no, no taxes on wealth."

The essay is worth a read, but the main reason for posting it here is that Newberry notes that money wonks are thinking and discussing the "meaning of money." Newberry points to Morgan Stanley http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2006/20061114-Tue.html

I wonder if any of you have picked up on stories covering the discussion of the meaning of money?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

The Problem with LETS

2006-11-03T21:02:17Z

Via the blog Transition Culture an interview with Paul Mobbs, known for his involvement with the electro hippie collective http://www.transitionculture.org/?p=509 The interviewer posed an interesting question:

"So you could argue that LETS schemes have become a reflection of how useless we have become?"

Mobbs had pointed out that every LETS scheme seems to fail because "there are 2 gardeners and 50 shiatsu consultants, and that just can’t work." There hast to be a balance between services people want and services provided. It's very difficult to do within small communities. And the in the context of the interview, the point that collectively we may probably don't have the set of skills necessary for surviving some sort of systems disruption.

IMHO alternative currencies are particularly attractive for the sort of social production which happens online. People write entries for Wikipedia just for the heck of it, but it seems similar contributions could be rewarded in some alternative currency. One big advantage for using a currency to keep track of this sort of social production might be to enable people to provide incentives for applying their particular skills to a common effort. In some ways the problem that Mobbs points to for community LETS is mitigated in many online contexts.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

Micro Loans

2006-11-02T13:52:13Z

I took note recently of the Nobel Peace Prize, the issue was Micro Loans. It is a good idea long overdue for those of us that feel the bureaucracies are inefficient and make our donations meaningless. Welcome to the modern era of international internet P2P loans and it is not even a Nigerian Spam Scam.

http://ascendalliance.org/page.php?microfranchises

http://www.grameenfoundation.org/welcome/muhammad_yunus/?gclid=CJ--_vnGp4gCFQ5PHgodQEg_5w

And then there was tonight's Frontline segment on PBS about a new start up in international P2P microloans; http://www.kiva.org/ Kiva.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/index.html

Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/

Watch the segment, share the idea and participate as you can. Perhaps this is a real way make the world better one person at a time and make banks compete to do the right thing.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

no way!

2006-10-16T14:44:19Z

This tribe is on a fast downhill curve. I'm out of here.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 11 replies

Do 2 gifts make a transaction?

2006-10-11T21:56:08Z

In the truth, everything belongs to its creator. We create thoughts and rearrange matter to create form, but can we own the atoms that make up the substance of art, or the substance of our bodies? I say no, we are stewards. This frees us from the weight of the concept of ownership. When I give you something, it is a gift. Your receipt of the gift completes the interaction. End of story on a non-taxable event. When you give me something... ditto. This is our freedom in natural law. In legal fiction (man's law), when you write down symbols representing both gifts (create an invoice, receipt, bill of lading, etc.) you create a demon (life-stealing thought) that one thing, a good or service, given out of mercy (com - merce: with mercy) turned magically (not) into a piece of irredeemable paper (lucky you, you will now be punished for this: taxation = power to destroy). How could you ever make a profit by turning stewardship of tangible or intangible resources (e.g. your irreplaceable time and life energy) into irredeemable debt slave notes? Better to make yourself a real prophet, and join the Exxodus from the fiction into the real world where we can freely give our gifts (how many are born to give their life juice to a corporate cubicle?), where we can be received with loving gratitude, rather than an orc (work-er) focused on the funny money, where we can make space within ourselves to more fully receive each other's gifts. Biological processes are the fundamental basis of abundance. From one seed can come many. Let's plant the seeds of an organic revolution in which we can dance and sing with joy and love, and bring the good news that the Kingdom of Peace is at hand, within us... Who will be ready to 'just say no' to the mark of the beast, when it comes to globalized control of all buying and selling? All who know the simple truth that we cannot buy or sell anything in the truth anyway. The truth will set us free.

Freely given, freely I receive.

Dr. Glen
Steward of The Shire

P.S. some of you may enjoy my musings on a possible scrip system for the regional burn "Rebirth" at The Shire, posted on The Shire tribe...

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Save money by carpooling

2006-09-15T14:29:55Z

There are several reasons why I recommend carpooling to my friends and customers, but the biggest may be that it saves money by reducing costs of gas, insurance, parking, and car maintenance. I recommend either Craig's List or www.hitcharoo.com.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Art as currency - Practical request for alternatives

2006-09-13T14:17:49Z

In case anyone here is interested, I am a dedicated collage artist looking to barter artwork for travel and lodging
(until I can buy my own with cash, but hopefully that won't be necessary.. get it?) :-).

This is what I will do with the resources I receive:

1. Fly from Denver to New Jersey to see my children and/or bring them to visit me during the summer months and perhaps winter holidays.

2. Travel to local and international art hubs (New York, Santa Fe namely) to research, network and sell art.

3. Buy or Rent a place to live for extended periods of time (6 months +)

PM me to negotiate further.

Sincerely,

Mr. Tufani Mayfield
Multimedia collage artist
Virtual art studio: http://www.cafepress.com/tufani
Blog: http://tufani.blogspot.com

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

True Story

2006-09-07T05:21:53Z

I walked into the federal reserve bank of St. Louis and asked for change. No security guard would give me a tour or even shake my hand. They forced me to leave, and I got stuck in the revolving door on the way out.
Two gun toting guards I actually lured outside the building into the daylight and they did not melt. I was surprised.

peace without cash,

/\/\ike

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Spanning virtual and traditional moneys

2006-08-10T20:40:48Z

"Gamers can earn cash by accumulating PEDs via the acquisition of goods, buildings and land."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4953620.stm

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

does the future need cash?

2006-08-10T09:33:45Z

I was just wondering that there must be many ways in which the future could go. If the world goes into singularity and all resources become non-scarce, then would we
even need currency?

say for instance if we all lived inside computers, connected to each other through p2p connection network called the internet9, lived somewhere you didn't have to pay
for your property, and did not have to worry about any physical existance because you have backups alll over the place and all your friends have a copy, and basically
no one has to worry about dieing.

where would the need for money arise? we will no longer need to borrow money for resources because, all resources including processed things would not cost you money
(everything is virtual or copyable in a similar way). so basically old information will not cost anything, it's just whatever you choose to adopt, (benefits others for
you to adopt cause then you can have a copy of their memory). Alright, and assuming bandwidth and all hardwarde limitations will not exist either (quantum entangled
particles, created universes etc). and then if our existance is not questioned either in terms of the universe ending or anything making us "immortal gods". as we
could create our own realites and even realities for others, (maybe universes too).

so basically, we will not have to do anything in a hurry, so time would not be a problem.

the point is i wanted to know if any of you could think of perhaps some examples of a necessty for money, in any form existing in such a world

here is an example i thought i had but it seems as if it's not necessary afterall:

i was thinking that perhaps we might want someones attention for a problem that we have. So the possible replies to a request for attention, is to give attention and
to not. the reasons why someone might give attention, are A because they find it interesting, or B you expect the repayment of a debt. I guess if there is an unlimited
amount of information, then a finite amount of people or finite amount of storage space, and it's even more doubtful you could store multiple copies.

with no institutions however there will not really be anyone to hold the money, or rather to enforce it's repayment. so the person being paid will have to trust the
money they are being given. the easiest way is to verify with the issuer of the money. I was thinking that perhaps the money could be issued from a group of people so
any of the members are liable to repay the debt, and just the one person that initiated the debt.

There is the problem however that you may initiate some debt, that was not approved by the group. that means you would have to verify with the "group". now what can
happen is that you could list a few other people that benefit from the purchase of knowledge creation that you are making, that would be willing to do x worth amount
of creative information for it. there should not be a problem of people stock piling a certain person then asking a lot of things at once from the same person as they
could just make a few copies of themselves to do the work, or work on these things in the "background". processor space really wont be an issue and it would be rare
that something would require all of your consciousness to do creative things, and when it is, i think by definition you'd find it interesting, and even in that case
you could create a copy of yourself that only lived to complete that mission if your really didn't want to, though you would by doing this give it the option of
actually killing itself. that's really the only thing you lose when you give out copies of yourselves, you risk them becoming more valuable than yourself. and then you
wouldn't be asked to do so many things, though your name might not be as weighty on such a list.

the question though is, what's stopping you from asking those people now. if they could just make a copy of themselves that would most likely die of depression once it
finishes whatever task you sent it out to do. most people probably wont mind making copies of themselves, and those that do, could have probably a large group of
people convince them to do it themselves if they bother them enough or what not (though you could always ignore them, you probably wont want to ignore all your
friends, unless they aren't friends that is). so even this form of creative money system is probably not necessary. perhaps it would exist in some earlier instance
where people can't just make instances of themselves whose sole purpose in life is to do the task assigned.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 6 replies

Business Week Prediction Markets

2006-08-07T19:43:16Z

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ceo_guide/index.html?chan=top+news_top+news

Business Week has an interesting feature on the corporate world using Prediction Markets for planning:

"Prediction markets offer executives a new way of forecasting future events such as revenue targets and product completion dates by aggregating information from many different employees. These markets work much like the stock market, except that prices generally reflect the probability that specific events will occur at a future date. Prediction markets are just making their way into corporate planning sessions."

The "Guide to Prediction Markets: A Tip Sheet" is a pop-up window that's worth looking at. The "Dos and Don'ts" seem quite smart to me. One of the "Dos" is:

"Pony up some cash (even if it's not real dough) Employees will show more interest in participating in play-money markets if they start with a sizable nest egg, say $10,000."

I suspect that "alternative currencies" are going to become commonplace in work places in the near future. Such currencies aren't replacements, but have the potential to be accurate measures of value. I wonder how the proliferation of portfolio's measured in alternative currencies will mean for the way we think about money?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

art market based on alternative economics

2006-07-29T14:56:25Z

Hello,
I am a new media artist and art market reseracher. I create a new and democratic business pattern for the art world. Many decisions are based on alternative economics like parecon. You can find more information at www.stockartist.net

I m looking for your opinion, advice, refrences and support in order to become this project real.

Best,
David Hinojosa
Berlin

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

(Urban) BarnRazors Tribe!

2006-07-25T21:31:17Z

The Amish practice of "barn raising" is a wonderful community practice. While we may not be ready to grow beards, wear homespun bonnets or give up our technology, we do want to follow this admirable example of spirit-in-action.

Let's all help one another. Together, we can fix up that room, redo that yard, build that shed, clean up that garage... All while building community and making friends. This is the Gift Economy actualized!

tribes.tribe.net/barnrazors

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

BillMonk

2006-07-25T05:24:07Z

"Web 2.0" automates personal debt management.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/20/billmonk-social-money/

How different is this now from a LETS type personal credit system? They say they won't charge you for using it. So you could probably easily use this service to run a small PC style economy.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

Gold as Money in an Anti-Usury System

2006-07-22T08:05:32Z

Starting this new thread to try to be more precice than my earlier thread of "Why an alternate currency"

[quote]Something else we should clarify: Even back when we had a gold-based currency, back before the Federal Reserve system, banks still "created" money by making loans, accepting that loaned money into a new account, then loaning money from the new account. All gold did was limit the original batch of money, not the total available. I can't quite tell if you want to end that practice as well. Can you clarify?[/quote]

Ideally, I think we'd be just fine if we used gold coinage as money. Banks as we know them today would cease to exist and would instead become more like "Venture Capitalists" Banks would be safe places to hold your wealth (real wealth not fiat money) and you would pay them going market rate for that protection. Say you want to start up a coffee shop, you go to the bank and sign a contract for a repayment schedule (think of it as a stock buy back) the bank will earn a portion of the proffits of the coffee shop until the stock is all sold back to the owner of the shop. This makes the "banker" much less inclined to shut down a venture that can be made proffitable just because of a missed payment. Instead of a disinterested banker expecting his payment you get more of a partner who has a vested interest in your sucess. Also with a fixed currency and increased productivity you'll have deflationary pressures (which in our current system would be devistating) that will mean that the stock buy back will actually earn the "Banker" a proffit, as the gold he gets back will have more purchasing power than when he loaned it out.

[quote]Regarding gold itself vs. gold-backed currency: You might be able to convince me that a gold-backed currency is a good idea. I doubt you'll be able to convince me that shipping gold coins around instead of tracking it in a computer is a good idea in today's world. The transaction costs of transferring money that way would enourmous. Any long distance commerce by regular people would die. Right now, I can order a book from a London publishing house and only pay to for them to ship the book to me. Using solid gold, not only would I have to pay for shipping both ways, but I'd have to pay an additional amount to have my gold guarded on the way to London. Can you imagine what would happen to mail, FedEx, and other drop-off boxes once criminals realized they were filled with untracable gold? The mail would have to be moved in armored cars. The Post Office would become the most heavily armed building in town, or it would have to be combined with the police station. Mailmen would have to be armed. In would, in fact, get quite silly very quickly.[/quote]

When you look at E-Gold.com you'll get a quick idea of exactly how that can all be accomplished with REAL GOLD, securely and efficently and for only a very small convienence fee that is far less burdeoning than having a VISA or American Express.

[quote]Actual gold isn't very practical, in my opinion, whatever the upside.[/quote]

Can be, look at the E-Gold and think of it not as a total solution but rather as a prototype used for a portion of your funds when needing to conduct business at a distance.

[quote]I agree that easy access to credit combined with cultural and media-based pushes to acquire cause people to take on absurd levels of consumer debt.[/quote]

If interest couldnt be charged and the loaner of the money became a partner in the future of the person to whom he had loaned the money he would be much more careful in what he loaned the money for. Few 18year old would be getting a real money loan for a CD player but with a credit card no one cares what you do with the money so long as you put yourself deep in debt to the system thus have to work as a wage slave to pay it all back. I am not necessiarly saying that banking/credit cards etc should be illegal only that if our money system were more legitimate they would be rare. If a bank wants to make a loan it should come from the bankers store of gold not from his depositors. Interest shouldn't be illegal but should become quickly un-necessary as the new system takes more and more hold.

[quote]Yes, that's true. Validating is more a "weights and measures" sort of thing, not a banking thing.[/quote]

Yes which is a task more suited to government. Banking as I've said quickly becomes un-necessairy when people get real money and find out that if they hold on to that money it increases in value with out needing to loan it out to bankers at interest. Debt plunges as people start to treat money with a different respect because few people are willing to risk their own money for unsecured debt like credit cards. Imagine if the President of Visa had to hand over his own money each time some one used one of their cards.... would he still be so quick to hand out cards like candy? Even at outrageous interest rates?

[quote]One thing I'd like to clarify: When you say "Fed," do you mean the Federal Reserve System as a whole, the twelve Federal Reserve banks, the Open Market Committee, or what? Or do you lump all banks that are FRS members as being one thing?[/quote]

I speak of the system as a whole. Private banks being granted the right to create money from nothing and determine by that power the stock market and job creation at our economy as a whole. That much power in those few of hands cannot help but corrupt.

[quote]I think this is a distinction between a gold-backed currency and gold. If prices are in dollars, then I have to figure out how many dollars an ounce of gold is worth at that moment, even if the currency is backed by gold. If, however, the stereo is priced at 1 ounce of 22 caret gold, then no calculation is necessary. Are you talking about using weight of a particular purity of gold as your units of money?[/quote]

Think of it like the old sliver certificates, a silver dollar and a paper dollar are both equal to the value of one ounce of silver. Personally I'd like to see it go right back to coinage but as that may prove to be too much for people to readapt to without a middle ground. Plus $1 is so small an amount of gold in reality that it could only be represented by paper redeemable for gold.

[quote]Do you still believe there should be an FDIC to protect your cash, or should that go away with the rest of the national banking apparatus?[/quote]

Private insurance companies could insure banks. By going private with them competeing against each other it would insure the best rate for the service provided.

[quote]I know that Muslims take the old prohibition against usery much more seriously than Christians. (At some point, Europeans weaseled the definition of "usery" from "interest" to "excessive interest.")[/quote]

Orthodox Jews take it very serriously too. The loop hole being I can't charge a fellow Jew interest but the goyiem.... well that is legal. I think that inside the US at least we should clean up our banking system and play nice with fellow citizens.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 4 replies

Why an alternative money?

2006-07-20T00:35:10Z

I think this is a valid question to ask and one we should probably define down to a few bullet statements as part of a FAQ. Is it because we are poor and we think if we come up with something else we'll be wealthy? Or maybe because we think people value the wrong things so we're seeking a different way to get them to value them more? Or my personal take on it, we think the current system of "fiat money" is rigged and want a more stable alternative if it runs into problems.... Why really are we here? An alternative to good ol' US green backs, but to what purpose?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 43 replies

Markets are social

2006-07-16T00:37:23Z

http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2006/07/markets_are_soc.html

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

P2P and The Gift Economy

2006-07-08T04:38:26Z

Via 3 Quarks Daily http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2006/06/can_napster_hel.html a paper by Martin Giesler http://www.mymacexperience.com/GieslerJCR1.pdf a version is published in the up-coming edition of The Journal of Consumer Research http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JCR/home.html

Giesler presents ideas about gift systems from anthropology which have these systems providing an oppositional economy to that of market exchange. He notes that market research into gift giving has been restricted to dyadic relationships and that P2P file sharing systems have much in common with gift systems, but are not restricted to dyadic relationships.

The article is interesting to me for two reasons: First, probably minor, is that Giesler doesn't use the term "gift economy" rather explores gift systems as having implications for the market economy. Second, that while P2P filesharing shares attributes with gift systems as defined in anthropology and sociology, they move beyond the "organs" of social solidarity such as church, family and neighborhoods. He writes:

"[M]y findings locate solidarity in more separate, autonomous social segments of consumption connecting with other segments, no longer of necessity and mutual dependency but on the basis of individual choice."

Sometimes here at tribe.net nowadays I wonder, "Where are they now?" It seems to me that some of the previously most active participants here haven't been around much for about a year. Tribe provides good tools for finding solidarity-union of interest--but the more nomadic preferences of which segment of the gifting system people attach themselves.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 4 replies

Living Wage Business Certfication program

2006-07-07T04:48:11Z

Saw this on a list from Ithaca, NY (home of Ithaca HOURS, well-known local currency) and am sharing it here:

----------------------------------------------------------------
The Living Wage Business Certfication program

Dear all,

The William Henry Miller Inn is one of 17 local businesses, non-profits and
governmental bodies that have received "Living Wage Certification" in our
ongoing program to reward and acknowledge businesses that pay a living
wage. So if William Henry Miller Inn can do it, why not Holiday Inn? If Morris Men's Wear can do it, why not Wal-Mart? If Alternatives [Credit Union] can do it, why not Bank of America? If Tompkins County can do it, why not the Ithaca City School District?
If Blue Spruce Painting, Sparks Electric and Custum Construction can do it, why can't all the other contractors? If GreenStar can do it, why not Tops? If Autumn Leaves can
do it, why not Barnes and Noble?

Please show the businesses and others we certify that you care about the
living wage by spending your dollars with them or by sending them a note
thanking them for showing that good business practices and good values can
go together, and for valuing their employees.

"A Living Wage is a Moral Value" stickers and bumper stickers available now at Living Wage Center for suggested donation of $1.00

http://www.tclivingwage.org/employer/

#

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

someone told me my previous post is considered spam, apologies if it looks that way

2006-07-01T11:25:34Z

but that book changed my life!

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 5 replies

Reliable Active Trading Systems for San Francisco Bay Area Residents Only

2006-06-15T21:07:58Z

People live their lives in fear of money.

We are experiencing a global market meltdown.

How can people make consistent profits without depending on the beached whale public institutions?

There is only one answer.

Active trading in the currency and commodities markets with a high probability of profit.

I discuss this subject at great length in the blog on my website.

http://www.dcgfinancial.com

This is not a sales pitch because I have nothing to sell.

Financial advice is exactly that. It is advice.

When you learn for yourself that my advice is superior to that of others. When you learn that you can make more money with your money than a registered Merril Lynch financial advisor like my wife.

Then we may discuss compensation .

No contract, no lawyer, no corporate fraud.

This is the independent currency market research of one person hereby offered to another.

I am not a licensed broker. I am a trader, a programmer and a statistician. I solve problems using the scientific method.

Maturity is the ability to make decisions based on your own thoughts information. Don't you think it is about time we take a more mature approach to money? Don't you think that as an adult subject to the tides of the markets you should have a clear understanding of all of the financial markets?

I do. I want to share this with you. Because you are a resident of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and that is my community. When the community is at risk its members must come together in the defense of the community. The San Francisco Bay Area is filled with people with great minds and decent incomes. People with mediocre minds and towering financial powers want to remove us from our income.

Successful currency traders are the robin hoods of finance. We are literally making money by predicting the emotional behavior of the major banks. Let's do this.

http://www.dcgfinancial.com

Start the discussion that can afford you the rest of your life.

After social security is gone, after the market has crashed, after your IRA is stolen and after the dollar has lost all its value on this planet earth, good traders will still be making money make money.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

Brian Goodwin Interview

2006-06-03T08:00:50Z

Over at Transition Culture is an interesting interview http://transitionculture.org/?p=329 with Brian Goodwin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Goodwin Goodwin makes some interesting observations about alternative currencies. Here's a little snippet:

One of the keys in natural phenomena is the diversity of different strategies used. We have adopted a single strategy for currency and economics and our economic system is based on and driven by that. We need to diversify our currencies...

In Argentina the economic system has collapsed, that is the conventional dollar-based system has collapsed, but they’ve put in place an alternative. They are trading and exchanging goods, and they are using their own local currencies. This is therefore a spontaneous thing to happen, it’s part of the process of localization, going local, developing appropriate local currencies, connected to useful resources, like energy, food, buildings and so on.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Zimbabwe Introduces $100,000 Note

2006-06-03T01:00:34Z

http://backgammonmotherfucker.blogspot.com/2006/06/who-wants-to-be-millionaire.html

"Last week I filled a single trolley with $30 million of groceries, and I had to count out 600 notes of $20,000 at the checkout counter," John Robertson, an economist, said.

Despite the economic gloom, he said that at least the new note "means when we go shopping, we don’t have to take a suitcase of money: we can carry it in a shoulder bag".

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 2 replies

My Idea For An Fixed Supply Private Digital Currency

2006-05-26T15:50:31Z

Hello,

I recently came up with a plan for a fixed supply digital currency. How it'll be measured, how it'll be launched, etc. I'd like you to check out my proposal in its incomplete form:
http://www.alimatu.com/Mono.currency.system

I'd also like you to tell me what's missing in the article and what might be wrong. Do you think it's practicable? valuable? flawed? Interesting? Exciting?

I look forward to your suggestions, comments, and probing questions.

Thanks,
Seun Osewa.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 16 replies

"Maybe with Drexler's nanofactories"

2006-05-25T03:14:37Z

Vlad brought this up in the thread below.

Thats something i havent thought about in awhile. I remember reading about nanotech and Drexler about 10 years ago when i was far to the left and figured that it would eventually lead to essentially this socialist paradise on earth where everyone "haves" and no one "have nots".

What would the world look like if any possible product could be created for essentially nothing?

My view now is that things would look virtually no different than today.
The flaw in my thinking was the fundamental purpose of life which i believe is to struggle. If the entire world had everything it could possibly want it would quickly find a way to create a struggle. You would quickly get highly irrational behaviour(insanity), blow up the nanotech machines of another country just for something "to do".
The whole system would eventually collapse, and then you would have this struggle again to rebuild the nanotech world that once was.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 15 replies

looking for 3 AMBITIOUS young women in LA to be biz partners

2006-05-09T08:37:56Z

Hello, okay this is kinda long but if you have a burning desire to be wealty, its well worth the 3 minute read. If your not that desperate or frustrated with money, and working for others doesnt bother you, then i suggest this isnt for you, but here it goes:
My name is Diana,Im 24, I recently started a business oportunity that gives unlimited cash potential and residual income. All you do is "copy and paste" whatever the other succesful people did with it. I am looking for women like me to work together toward financial freedom for the next 2-4 years. If the description of myself below sounds like you, i want to talk to you: I am REALLY AMBITIOUS, I want to make a lot of money, and I am always open to look at oportunities that have a cash potencial of making lots of money. I am not scared of getting up on stage to speak in front of people, i dont care if i need to talk to people down the street, pass out flyers, talk to my friends, purchase how to make money books or tools to help me get financially free, devote 2-4 years of my time to retire rich, give up procrastination. I am willing to get out of my comfort zone and have fun trying to things and testing myself. I dont care what other people think of me, and i refuse to hang out with negative people, ill do whatever it takes to be fianancially free. I hate working for other people and people telling me what to do for a measly paycheck. I am a positive thinker and i look at the posibilities not the limitations. I understand that my success in this business that i am involved in requires team work, everybody that is successfull doesnt do it without teamwork. A business is always about teamwork and that is exactly what i am looking for. 3 young ambitious women who want to retire rich in the next 4 years so that all four of us in Los Angeles can help eachother and make this happen. If it serves better for all 4 of us to move in together in a house or residence within a few months or a year, then please consider this if you are planning on replying.
The company that i work for is an awsome company with business all over the world. you can see the my page at www.dianataylor.usana.com But before you go there I want to say, that I did not join so much because the products are great or because the people who work for this company have a high income return if you really work it. My only reason for joining, is because i realized that this company is an oportunity for me to be free to have time to do and achieve my dream. And my dream is to become an art director and have the money to hire whomever i want so that i can teach or express things to humaity or whomever cares to see my art.
But what is your dream? See, I cant achieve my dreams unless I help you achieve yours. Whatever you want, I can guarantee to you that i can help you get it. If you feel like you are a lot like me in your twenties who is willing to set time and energy to achieve fiancial freedom, then I want to help you achieve your dreams and this biz oportunity is a veichle to free up your time to do what you REALLY want to do. Basically I would be your trainer along with the people who have already been training me. I am also not so much looking for business partners, but I need to be albe to be friends with you. If we are going to be spending time together as business parnters, then we are going to have to like eachother and be able to be genuine friends, anyhow, let me stop rambling, but I would love to speak with you if this sounds like something you would like to explore. my number is 818-741-6263 and there is another number on my website at www.dianataylor.usana.com
Thank you
Diana

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 3 replies

Income Gap Between the Uber-Rich and Us Folks

2006-05-09T08:37:02Z

Especially read the 6th paragraph.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/19/income_gap_mentality?mode=PF

Income gap mentality
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe Columnist | April 19, 2006

AS TREASURY SECRETARY John Snow meandered through his thoughts about the pay gap between CEOs and workers, it brought back memories of 1992 when the first President Bush toured a mock-up of a grocery checkout counter, watched a carton of milk, a lightbulb, and some candy ring up via a scanner and said about the technology, ''This is for checking out?"

The scanner came to mind because, as the average American worker watches corporate America slash pensions and healthcare, as the average American has seen real wages decline in the last quarter century, and as the average American family has to work harder to maintain the standard of living it inherited, Snow talked about this as if it were not much of a problem.

He told Globe reporters and editors yesterday that the pay gap was symbolic of the nation's ''aspirational" compensation system, a star system in which, for example, top baseball players are paid $30 million. But he thinks that the US economy shows there is still plenty of trickle-down money to go around, making our country one that still ''shares the spoils of the game."

Snow was asked by Globe editorial board member Alan Berger about professional football. The National Football League has supplanted baseball as the nation's most popular spectator sport precisely because the NFL's socialist system of giving teams an equal share of television revenues offers more teams a chance to aspire for the championship. Berger mentioned to Snow that the Patriots won three of the last five NFL titles without a star system.

Snow did not address the Patriots. All he said was the ''aspirational compensation system works pretty well. People will get paid on how valuable they are to the enterprise."

All we are left with is our aspirations in a game where the average share of the American dream is being spoiled. The Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, the two liberal think tanks that annually chart the gap between CEOs and workers, currently list the gap at 431-to-1, or $11.8 million to $27,460. That compares with a gap of 107-to-1 in 1990. If salaries of the average worker had kept up with that of a CEO, he or she would be making $110,136. Had the minimum wage risen at the same pace as CEO compensation, it would stand today at $23.01. The federal minimum wage of $5.15 has not risen since 1997.

In 1980, the gap was only 42-to-1. Where the spoils go are quite clear. According to 2005 federal data from the Congressional Budget Office, the share of America's income that went to the highest 20 percent of households increased from 45.5 percent in 1979 to 52.2 percent in 2003. The remaining 80 percent of American households all saw their share of the nation's income drop.

The higher you go in that top 20 percent, the more the rise in their share of the income. The top 1 percent of Americans saw their share of America's income zoom from 9.3 percent in the last quarter century to 14.3 percent. The top 10 percent saw their share go from 30.5 percent to 37.2 percent.

How Snow thinks that 10 percent of Americans holding 37 percent of the income represents a sharing of the spoils is checkout-counter economics. His claim falls especially short considering that 46 of the nation's 275 largest companies, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, the United for a Fair Economy, and another liberal think-tank, Citizens for Tax Justice, paid no federal income tax in 2003. Eighty-two of the largest 275 companies paid no federal income tax at some point during 2001-2003 as the current President Bush cut taxes for the wealthy.

Despite this, Snow went on and on about how corporate governance has actually gotten better. He said ''the marketplace" is the best place to leave the issues of pension and healthcare cuts to workers. ''The best place to leave compensation is set in a market system," Snow said. But as to that pesky pay gap, he said, ''A full explanation is still awaiting a full exposition."

Like the first President Bush, who did not know that checkout-counter scanners had been common in American supermarkets a decade before his discovery, Snow, in the guise of defending the fiscal policies of the second President Bush, talked about waiting for a full explanation of an American condition that for the average American is fully exposed as a betrayal of average aspirations.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 22 replies

May 6 - DC Petrocollapse Conference - Surviving Peak Oil: Culture Change and Post-Petroleum Sustainable Living!

2006-04-23T07:19:27Z

* The May 6th DC Petrocollapse Conference - www.petrocollapse.org

SURVIVING PEAK OIL: ECONOMIC DOOM OR TRANSFORMATION?
Culture Change and Sustainable Post-Petroleum Living *

~ Sponsored by Culture Change -- culturechange.org ~

You are invited to attend!
All Souls Unitarian Church
16th and Harvard Streets, NW, Washington D.C.
Adams Morgan (Red) or Columbia Heights (Green) Metro Stations
Saturday, May 6, 2006 9 am - 7 pm
Register online now! petrocollapse.org

FEATURING DC PREMIER OF NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM:
"The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil"

The sudden effects of perpetual oil shortage are likely to strike within
the next three years. Are we prepared? Sponsored by Culture Change, the
DC Conference will present the facts behind the hype about Peak Oil,
explore the root factors of our present "oil-addicted" condition,
AND envision the strategies that we need to bypass unhelpful institutional
barriers and achieve post-Peak Oil economic sustainability.

Speakers at the DC Petrocollapse Conference will include the most widely
read peak-oil author, Richard Heinberg. Experts on peak oil, small-scale
agriculture and alternative energy will discuss "petrocollapse," the imminent
failure of the petroleum infrastructure to continue to provide the myriad goods
and services that our consumer economy has grown accustomed to. Multimedia
presentations and multiple films will demonstrate solutions to the audience.

Listen to online interview about DC Petrocollapse Conference!
http://globalpublicmedia .com/interviews/693

DC PETROCOLLAPSE CONFERENCE SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
*Albert Bates, Global Ecovillage Network; author
*Richard Heinberg Author, The Party's Over and Powerdown
*Jan Lundberg, Oil industry analyst; CultureChange.org
*Diana Leafe Christian, Communities Magazine
*John Darnell, Ph.D Energy advisor
*Faith Morgan & Pat Murphy, Community Solution, Inc.
*Michael Kane, From the Wilderness publications
*Mark Robinowitz, OilEmpire.us; author, Permatopia
*Joel Salatin, Organic Agriculturalist, PolyFaceFarms.com
*Jenna Orkin, Moderator, World Trade Center Environmental Organization

YOU ARE INVITED TO ATTEND!

Register online via PayPal at petrocollapse.org /register.html

Scholarships, work exchange arrangements, and "sliding scale"
options are available for students, activists, and others!
Send us an email with the details of your situation, and/or
what time or energy you may have for volunteer activity
for the conference. Send to conferences@culturechange.org

Registration cost of $100 will pay for lunch
AND attendance at a special noontime press
conference. "Sliding scale" options ($10 - $99)
are also available.

Please contact the registration coordinator -- Ethan Genauer --
if you have any problems registering, or for more details,
by email at : ethan@culturechange.org

For more information, see petrocollapse.org and
the DC Petrocollapse press release below

*********

MEDIA ALERT -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DC Culture Change Conference: May 6, 2006
All Souls Church, Unitarian 16th & Harvard, Washington, D.C

A conference on the effects of peak oil and the growing global energy
crisis will take place in Washington, DC on May 6th at the All Souls
Church, Unitarian from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. Speakers include popular
peak-oil author Richard Heinberg.

Conference organizer and speaker Jan Lundberg is a former oil industry
analyst who ran the market research firm Lundberg Survey. Lundberg,
who quit serving the oil industry so he could put his knowledge to use to
protect the environment, says "M. King Hubbert, who developed the
theory of peak oil, observed that we do not have an energy crisis but
rather a culture crisis. This fits with the theme of the Washington DC
Culture Change Conference that there is no technofix for our energy
dilemma. Society will have to bring about a closer level of community and
rediscover what local economics are about."

The May 6th Petrocollapse Conference will feature Richard Heinberg,
the most-read peak oil author (The Party's Over, and Powerdown).
Films and music will be also offered as part of a varied program to
stimulate discussion and action by attendees. Heinberg and Lundberg
and others will perform music including oil-satire songs. Films will include
premiers of "Our Synthetic Sea" (plastics pollution in oceans) and
"The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil."

Lundberg says the Culture Change Conference asks, "What we can do in
advance of the social upheaval and chaos that may produce a 'national
New Orleans,' to prepare or mitigate? What will the future look like during
and after a transition to non-petroleum living?"

For more information, see petrocollapse.org

Contact Conference Coordinator - Ethan@CultureChange.org

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies

A sort of intro...

2006-04-16T05:01:31Z

Hey everybody!

I would introduce myself - but its all in my profile

I wanted to post some abundance resources I've recently found that might get you excited and allow you to generate some monetary support -- or give it (oh it aint the only thing but it helps!) to projects that you would like to start, have started or you think just plain deserve it. These are some really innovative web based tools.

Here you go:

www.fundable.com
www.dropcash.com
www.pledgebank.com
www.kiva.org

I'd love to hear about any successes you have with these or other web 2.0 tools.

Namaste!

Cityzen Jane
(I'm looking for friends so drop a note!)

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 1 reply

Alternative Money For Creativity

2006-04-11T02:30:23Z

Via The Creative Generalist http://creativegeneralist.blogspot.com/2006/03/idea-markets.html an New York Times article by William C. Taylor about "Rite-Solutions, a software company that builds advanced — and highly classified — command-and-control systems for the Navy" which uses an interesting scheme of idea markets for generating new products for development http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26mgmt.html?ei=5090&en=0d90ed5116e769d0&ex=1301029200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

One of my interests in alternative currencies is a mechanism for allowing people in developing countries to share what they've got. Many are so poor in terms of real money but have good educations and ideas. By making connections with ohters to share their talents alternative currencies, it seems to me, could encourage entrepreneurship and participation in the real money economy.

Rite-Solutions by creating an idea market within the company is an interesting model of how this can work.

"At Rite-Solutions, the architecture of participation is both businesslike and playful. Fifty-five stocks are listed on the company's internal market, which is called Mutual Fun. Each stock comes with a detailed description — called an expect-us, as opposed to a prospectus — and begins trading at a price of $10. Every employee gets $10,000 in "opinion money" to allocate among the offerings, and employees signal their enthusiasm by investing in a stock and, better yet, volunteering to work on the project. Volunteers share in the proceeds, in the form of real money, if the stock becomes a product or delivers savings."

The article quotes Tim O'Reilly:

"[C]reativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but who has the most compelling "architecture of participation." That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products?"

There is a great "digital divide" between rich countries and poor countries. There maybe a ironic advantage for wired users in devloping countries in their use of the Internet in the sense that people there know that they must leverage what is a limited resource to make connections happen. At least they have ot work a little harder at it. Alternative currencies maybe a good way to do it. Any ideas?

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 6 replies

OWNERSHIP OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

2006-03-13T18:36:08Z

http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/federal_reserve.shtml

posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 4 replies

the former Enronization of Argentina

2006-03-10T23:18:04Z

the former Enronization of Argentina

I am posting these articles on how Argentina had economically
collapsed several years ago, because I believe the Amerikan Empire
is very near this too especially in the next couple of weeks as the
US FED discontinues reporting M3 (March 23) and the Iranians switch
from petrodollars to petroeuros. Ofcourse a US attack on Iran could
add more chaos as corporatists use a nuke or "conventional"
smokescreen to rob more of the masses.

Just as a side note also remember Enron "owns" PGE.

I believe we, Cascadians, need to know how the Argentines pulled
themselves out after the economic collapse. But before we export
the autonomoist movement in Argentina we need to look at what happen
first.

Please circulate (mass spam) the following articles to others people
with URLs ofcourse:

Enron's plundering of Argentina

In 1990, at the height of the neoliberal privatization fever, upon
returning from his visit to George Bush, Sr., Argentine President
Menem received a letter from US Ambassador Terence Todman implying
that eight US companies would walk away from their investment plans
unless Argentina stopped favoring domestic corporations. The first
company on the list was Enron. As reported in the march 2000 edition
of Mother Jones, former Argentine President Carlos Menem, at that
time a golf partner and buddy of the Bushes, signed off on a $300
million deal for a US gas pipeline company in Argentina. The deal
involved a huge tariff and tax cut. Spearheaded by the opposition, a
congressional investigation ensued and a special prosecutor was
appointed to the case. Menem, exercising his supreme powers, fired
the investigator and that was the end of the matter.
A few years earlier, George W. Bush had lobbied heavily on Enronąs
behalf. Former Raul Alfonsinąs minister of public works, Rodolfo
Terragno, recalls G.W.ąs phone call, mentioning his relationship
with his recently-elected dad. Terragno informed him that Enron
wanted to get the gas company for 20% of itąs international
commercial value. The international media attacked him for refusing
to give in to Enronąs demands.
Although the Houston-based corporation ended up abandoning the
project when gas prices fell, an Enron subsidiary later bought into
the pipeline and now owns almost a third of it. Transportadora de
Gas del Sur (TGS), partially owned by Enron, delivers more than 60%
of the natural gas used in Argentina through the nation's largest
pipeline system (4,300 miles). In 1998, 48% of energy used in
Argentina came from natural gas, a fact that tends to explain the
enourmous pressure that this company exerted on the corrupted
Argentine establishment through itąs allies: two US presidents, the
corporate media and a US Ambassador.
Found at http://www.autonomista.org/enron.htm

Argentina and Enron -- Peas in a Pod
by Paul Krugman

LAST WEEK, the Web site SatireWire.com ran a mock news story: "Enron
Admits It's Really Argentina." It was pretty funny, though quite
unfair -- unfair, that is, to Argentina.
Yet, the satire was more on point than its authors realized. Not
long ago Argentina, like Enron, was a darling of the financial
community. And like Enron, Argentina was held up as a role model, to
a large extent by the same people -- Argentina's monetary system, in
particular, was lauded in the pages of Forbes and the Wall Street
Journal, and feted at libertarian think tanks.
Why did the same people tend to admire Enron and Argentina? Because
in their different ways, both the company and the country tried to
turn back the clock to 1913. Both were experiments testing the
libertarian credo: that the great expansion in government's role
between the two world wars was unwarranted. Both were supposed to
demonstrate that government activism is unnecessary, and that
radical laissez-faire works.
The Enron experiment was, in essence, about doing away with
regulation -- regulation of prices, regulation of financial trading.
Most of these regulations had their origin in fear that consumers,
workers and investors would be exploited by those whom Theodore
Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth."
Enron used its political clout to create what one of its own
executives called a "regulatory black hole" in which it could
operate freely.
What Enron's admirers believed was that experience would demonstrate
fears about unregulated markets to be unjustified. Unfortunately,
what disappeared into that black hole was not bureaucratic clutter
but billions of hard-earned dollars, including those of Enron's own
employees. Or maybe it wasn't a black hole, but rather a wormhole,
and those billions of dollars emerged in some other universe -- say,
overseas bank accounts. For it turns out that malefactors of great
wealth do exist, and some of them were running Enron.
If Enron was an experiment in doing away with regulatory activism,
Argentina was an experiment in doing away with monetary activism.
Argentina returned to a colonial-era monetary system, a "currency
board," which took government out of the loop. No more lurching from
crisis to crisis, no more disruptive government interventions:
Argentina would provide sound money, and leave the rest up to the
free market.
Though Argentina attracted the usual opportunists, I'm pretty sure
that both the creators of its monetary system and many of its
admirers sincerely believed that they were working in everyone's
interest. Alas, these particular good intentions paved the road to
hell.
In the last few weeks, the bitter irony of Argentina's situation has
become almost too much to bear. The country's monetary system was
introduced in the name of laissez-faire. Now, in its desperate
efforts to save that system from imminent collapse, the Argentine
government has imposed drastic restrictions on economic freedom.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think that
markets are evil, that the profit motive is always wrong. On the
contrary, I believe that markets are very good things indeed. But
the great economic lesson of the 20th century was that to work, a
market system needs a little help from the government: regulations
to prevent abuses, active monetary policy to fight recessions. The
twin debacles in Houston and Buenos Aires demonstrate that this
great lesson has not lost its relevance.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
Found at http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1212-06.htm

IV Online magazine : IV338 - March 2002
Argentina
Enron in Argentina
Andrew Pollack
Do a quick search of the Web on the terms Enron and Argentina and
you mostly get either references comparing the two, or a recent
satire in which Kenneth Lay claims immunity by claiming Enron IS
Argentina. You might even stumble on the Mother Jones article
detailing Dubya's lobbying of the Argentine government on behalf of
Enron when he was governor of Texas.

It turns out (not surprisingly given the extent of Enron's global
interests) that Enron is very deeply involved in Argentina. Its
holdings there are in Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), whose
website describes the company as "the leading gas transportation
company in Argentina, operating the most extensive gas pipeline
system in the country and in Latin America." Enron's own website
says "The company serves 4.3 million customers, 3.1 million of which
reside in the greater Buenos Aires area."
To understand the significance of these figures it's worth noting
that in 1998, 48% of energy use in Argentina came from natural gas
(as quoted in a report posted by the Brazilian Embassy in Washington
DC, which tracks such things because of the international pipelines
being laid across countries in the region.)
And here's one from MSN's 'Moneycentral' site: 'Don't cry for
Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), Argentina. The company delivers
more than 60% of natural gas used in Argentina through the nation's
largest pipeline system (4,300 miles). Formerly state-run, TGS holds
exclusive license (until 2027) to transport gas from southern and
western Argentine sources to distributors nearby and in the Buenos
Aires metro area. TGS's gas services include treatment, processing,
and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) marketing; the company plans to
export energy to neighbouring countries. It is also building a fibre-
optic network in Argentina. The firm is 70%-owned by Compańía de
Inversiones de Energía, which is jointly controlled by Perez Companc
and US energy giant Enron.'
That's right, Enron. TGS's own website spells this out in more
detail, where it says its controlling shareholder is Compańía de
Inversiones de Energía S.A. (CIESA), "which together with Pecom
Energía group and Enron Corp, hold approximately 70% of the
Company's common stock. The remaining 30% ownership in the Company
is currently held by local and foreign investors."
And who is CIESA? Again, from TGS: "CIESA is owned 50% by Pecom
Energía (whose controlling shareholder is the above-mentioned Perez
Companc) and 50% by subsidiaries of Enron. CIESA has the ability to
direct the management of the Company, to control the election of the
majority of the Board of Directors, to determine the dividend policy
and other policies of the Company and to determine the outcome of
any matter put to a vote of the shareholders of the Company.'
TGS arose through a privatisation process of the kind which Enron
has pushed around the globe. (See 'Enron: The Global Gospel of Gas',
www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/enron.html). 'We started
our operations in late 1992, as a result of the privatisation of Gas
del Estado S.E. ("GdE"), the former state-owned company.'
And TGS has a significant investment in telecommunications through
its Telcosur subsidiary, through which it is 'positioning ourselves
as an independent carrier of carriers and also offering services to
large companies within our area of influence.'
'Telcosur,' says TGS, 'was born at the end of 1998 in order to take
advantage of TGS's existing telecommunications assets and
infrastructure, as well as the upcoming deregulation of the
telecommunications market, and the experience of power companies
from other countries that were successful in the telecommunications
business.' The 'experienced' power companies, of course, means
Enron. And their success in that business was, as the Wall Street
Journal recently documented, a bust - and not just because of fraud,
but because of the glut in fibre-optic capacity (that is, a mismatch
in supply and demand which tends under capitalism to lead to
precisely the kind of fraud Enron specialized in.)
But despite Enron's failures in the telecom field elsewhere,
Telcosur is following its 'experience' in avoiding direct sales in
favour of trading access to commodities, services, and financial
instruments: 'An important difference in connection with other
telecommunication operators is its independence, since it serves the
wholesaling market and therefore does not compete with its customers
in retail operations: switching, frame-relay, telephone services,
among others.' It provides 'value added services; in other words,
[it is] a carrier of telephone carriers and of large corporate
users.'
Telcosur is also 'installing a high-capacity fibre optic network
that will link Buenos Aires, Bahía Blanca and Neuquén, the most
active routes in its service area.'
Enron is currently in the process of divesting various subsidiaries
around the globe to raise cash, and at least one potential buyer for
its Argentina subsidiary has been mentioned. That buyer is Sempra
Energy International, which owns a 43-percent interest in two
Argentine natural gas utility holding companies, Sodigas Pampeana,
S.A., and Sodigas Sur, S.A., and which 'serve 1.3 million customers
in central and southern Argentina, delivering approximately one-
third of all the natural gas distributed in the country.' Sempra, a
big operator in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America, also owns
Southern California Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric, and has just
bought Enron's London energy trading operations. It's not clear if
the deal will go through.
In the meantime workers in Argentina are demanding the
renationalisation of firms in a variety of sectors. On February 5th
Argentines marched on the offices of Repsol to demand jobs. Repsol,
according to the Partido Obrero, 'is the 7th largest [oil company]
in the world, which has reaped fabulous profits from privatisation,
and which is responsible for widespread layoffs, pay cuts and
refinery closings.'
If the mobilizations in Argentina continue to deepen we can expect
that calls for renationalisation - this time under workers control -
of the entire energy sector will deepen. And if Enron's Argentine
subsidiaries are targeted that might even encourage some in the US
to think about similar solutions here.

Andrew Pollack is a computer instructor in Brooklyn and author
of "Information Technology and Socialist Self-Management," in
Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the
Global Communication Revolution, edited by Robert W. McChesney,
Ellen Meiksins Wood, and John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review, 1997.
Found at http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/article.php3?
id_article=494

Don't Cry for Bush, Argentina
NEWS: George W. may not recall the names of world leaders, but when
it comes to foreign affairs, he knows the value of his own family's
name.
By Louis Dubose and Carmen Coiro
March/April 2000 Issue

Texans watched with interest last winter as Governor George W. Bush
was home-schooled on international affairs by former Secretary of
State George Shultz and other veterans of his father's foreign-
policy team. Even Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden,
was brought in for a tutorial at the governor's mansion, in the hope
that his recent U.N. experience in the Balkans could help Bush
understand that Kosovars are not "Kosavarians" and that Greeks are
not "Grecians."
But no one had to prepare a prompt card to remind him who stepped
down as president of Argentina in December. Shortly before Bush
announced his own campaign for president, he had received a visit
from Carlos Saul Menem, the right-wing leader of Argentina for the
past decade. The two men retired to an Austin country club, where
they were joined by Bush's father. Governor Bush had the flu, so he
contented himself with riding along as the former president and
Menem played a round of golf.
The capitol press corps trailed along, dutifully recording the
governor's cordial relationship with a visiting head of state.
Unknown to the assembled reporters, however, was the story of how
Bush and his family became immersed in Argentine politics. The
little-known tale begins with George W. making a phone call to
secure a $300-million deal for a U.S. pipeline company -- a deal
that provoked a political firestorm in Argentina, drawing scrutiny
from legislators and a special prosecutor. The episode marked one of
George W.'s first ventures into foreign affairs, demonstrating the
fundamental rule by which the Texas governor and his family conduct
business: Always know that the Bush name is a marketable commodity.
Bush first made his presence felt in Argentina in 1988, shortly
after his father was elected president. At the time, the junior
Bush's political career was just beginning -- and the political
career of Raúl Alfonsín, who was approaching the end of his term as
president of Argentina, was ending. Alfonsín had returned his
country to civilian rule, prosecuted those responsible for human
rights abuses during Argentina's rule by a military junta, and
struggled to manage an economy that seemed to defy management.
Determined to complete one major private-sector industrial program,
he pushed for the development of a "gasoducto" that would connect
Argentine gas fields with domestic and foreign markets. And he
appointed his minister of public works, Rodolfo Terragno, to oversee
the pipeline project.
Unlike Bush, Terragno achieved political prominence the old-
fashioned way: through a life dedicated to public service. A noted
journalist and public official, he was forced into exile for 10
years after the military seized power in Argentina in 1976. Only
after Alfonsín restored civilian rule did Terragno return to his
homeland, where he went on to serve as minister of public works, a
member of congress, and most recently as cabinet chief to the newly
elected president, Fernando de la Rua.
In 1988, Terragno was considering two proposals for the $300-million
pipeline, one from an Italian firm called Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi
and the other from Pérez Companc, an Argentine company working in
partnership with Dow Chemical. After a year of consideration, the
minister was close to making a decision when Enron, the largest
pipeline company in the United States, suddenly entered the bidding.
At the time, the Houston-based Enron had no experience in Argentina.
It had formed a business relationship with Westfield, a small
Argentine firm, but Westfield wasn't much of a player either. El
Boletín Oficial -- the Argentine equivalent of the Federal Register -
- reported that Westfield's only asset in 1988 was $20, its
corporate filing fee. Westfield was a prestanombre, literally
a "borrowed name" used to provide a domestic front for a foreign
firm.
Terragno was concerned that a newly formed corporation with no
resources was attempting to land a contract that companies with
proven track records had been working on for a year. "I had a lot of
reservations about Enron because the company wasn't well established
in Argentina," Terragno told Mother Jones, providing details of the
episode for the first time.
The minister recalls that Enron sent him "a one-page outline"
proposing a price Terragno now describes as "laughable." Enron
wanted to pay "something like 20 percent of the international market
price," he says. "It all seemed so inadequate. Enron asked the
country of Argentina to practically give them the gas."
Terragno was unenthusiastic about the pipeline bid, but Enron
initiated a full-scale campaign to pressure him. Pro-business
newspapers attacked the minister for blocking the proposal, and
Terragno recalls that Ted Gildred, the U.S. ambassador to
Argentina, "called me and visited me constantly" to push the deal.
Terragno wasn't concerned about the ambassador's lobbying -- that
was politics as usual. "It was good that he was representing the
interest of his country's businesses," he says. But Terragno found
that some of the politics surrounding Enron's campaign were anything
but usual.
A few weeks after the U.S. presidential election in 1988, Terragno
received a phone call from a failed Texas oilman named George W.
Bush, who happened to be the son of the president-elect. "He told me
he had recently returned from a campaign tour with his father," the
Argentine minister recalls. The purpose of the call was clear: to
push Terragno to accept the bid from Enron.
"He was taking a moment to call me because he knew that I was
dealing with this," says Terragno, adding that Bush told him that
he "viewed with some concern the slow pace of the Enron project."
According to Terragno, the president-elect's son noted that a deal
with Enron "would be very favorable for Argentina and its relations
with the United States."
When a brief report on the attempt to influence the Argentine deal
appeared in The Nation and the Texas Observer years later, the Bush
team reacted angrily. His staff produced a copy of his day planner
to show that Bush never placed the phone call, and a top-level
adviser personally called reporters to dismiss the story as a
fantasy by "some guy in Argentina." Bush's staff continues to deny
his involvement, and no other media outlet ever reported on the
episode, despite the high-ranking source.
More than a decade later, Terragno still recalls details of the
phone call clearly -- as well as his outrage. "It looked bad and it
surprised me," he says. "There was this political endorsement,
apparently from the White House. I don't know if George Bush the
father was aware of it, or if it was only a business contact by his
son, who hoped that his family name would have some influence."
George W. wasn't the only Bush plying the family name in Argentina.
His brother Neil had tried to funnel $900,000 in loans from
Silverado Savings and Loan, where he served as a director, into a
failed attempt to drill for oil in Argentina. The S&L eventually
collapsed, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion to bail out, and
federal regulators banned Neil from certain banking activities.
But Terragno was unimpressed by the family connections. He told
George W. the pipeline concession would be awarded according to
Argentine law. It hardly mattered -- Argentine law was about to
change. Time had run out for Raúl Alfonsín. His party lost the
election, and he left office four months early to make way for his
successor, Carlos Menem.
Enron, for its part, couldn't have appointed an Argentine president
more favorable to its interests. A right-wing follower of Juan
Peron, Menem was eager to open his country to American enterprise --
and his own lavish spending. He took to traveling with a huge
entourage aboard Tango-01, his $66- million presidential jet. The
Bushes took an immediate liking to him. The day after the 1989
election, Neil Bush arrived in Buenos Aires for a tennis match with
the president-elect. The following year, President Bush made the
first of eight trips to see Menem, becoming the first U.S. chief
executive since Eisenhower to visit Argentina.
Several days after the president's trip in 1990, Bush's ambassador
to Argentina, Terence Todman, wrote a stern letter to Menem's
minister of the economy to follow up on issues that Bush
had "intended to address, but failed to do so for lack of time."
Todman went on to imply that eight U.S. companies would walk away
from their investment plans unless Argentina stopped favoring
domestic corporations. The first company on the list was Enron,
which the ambassador described as being "poised to invest $250
million" -- as soon as the Argentine government met its demands for
tax breaks. Todman closed his letter by warning that the Enron
decision was "extremely urgent," as the gas company would make a
final decision on its investment in less than a month.
Todman prevailed: Menem agreed to the company's terms, signing a
presidential decree that included Enron in a national program
freeing it from tariffs and valued-added taxes.
Reports of the Enron deal outraged Argentines, who had supported
Alfonsín's struggle to create a democracy out of what remained after
10 years of military dictatorship. Lawmakers demanded a
congressional inquiry, and a special prosecutor launched an
investigation. Menem dealt with the scandal in a forthright manner:
Since his own justice department was looking into the tax giveaway,
he simply fired the investigator.
Enron ultimately abandoned the project when gas prices fell, but an
Enron subsidiary later bought into the pipeline and now owns almost
a third of the gasoducto. Among the subsidiary's board members is
Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to former President
George Bush.
George W. has certainly benefited from his association with Enron.
Kenneth Lay, the company's chief executive, has personally
contributed $100,000 to Bush's two gubernatorial campaigns. When
Bush announced in 1999 that he was running for president, executives
and political action committees connected to Enron contributed
$89,650 to his campaign in the first three months. Lay signed on as
a "Bush Pioneer," pledging to raise $100,000.
The involvement of George W. and Neil in Argentina has become
something of an m.o. for the Bush brothers in foreign affairs. The
sons of the former president have certainly not been shy about using
their family name to enrich themselves and their friends. Jeb sold
$74 million worth of water pumps to the Nigerian government in 1988.
Marvin tried to sell electronic fences to the defense ministry of
Kuwait two years after the Gulf War, while Neil sought contracts to
provide oil-field antipollution equipment. And George W. lent his
name to tiny Harken Energy to help secure a huge offshore drilling
contract in Bahrain (see "Slick W.," page 48).
Undoubtedly, the family name will continue to open doors
internationally if George W. is elected. Last November, an airplane
with Houston registry numbers landed in Buenos Aires; on board was
former President Bush, who had arrived to spend the night with his
friend, President Menem, 10 days before the end of Menem's final
term. The two men attended a dinner at the home of Argentine banker
José Rohm, where they were joined by the vice president of Chase
Manhattan Bank, the director of Credit Suisse First Boston, the
president-elect of Argentina and the former president of Uruguay.
What was the purpose of President Bush's visit? "Fishing," says
Michael Dannenhauer, a Bush spokesman. But when the Buenos Aires
daily, Pagina 12, asked several of the dinner guests why the
president was in town, they smiled and quietly replied, "Business."
Bush's "real interest," they added, was to learn how the new
government would deal with CEI, an Argentine media company whose
former chief had fled the country under investigation for fraud. One
of CEI's principal investors, the paper noted, is Tom Hicks, "one of
the funders of the presidential campaign of Bush's son, George, the
governor of Texas."
Found at
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/03/argentina.html

USA: Don't Cry for Enron, Argentina

by Paul Krugman, San Francisco Chronicle
December 12th, 2001

Last week, the Web site SatireWire.com ran a mock news story: "Enron
Admits It's Really Argentina." It was pretty funny, though quite
unfair -- unfair, that is, to Argentina.
Yet, the satire was more on point than its authors realized. Not
long ago Argentina, like Enron, was a darling of the financial
community. And like Enron, Argentina was held up as a role model, to
a large extent by the same people -- Argentina's monetary system, in
particular, was lauded in the pages of Forbes and the Wall Street
Journal, and feted at libertarian think tanks.
Why did the same people tend to admire Enron and Argentina? Because
in their different ways, both the company and the country tried to
turn back the clock to 1913. Both were experiments testing the
libertarian credo: that the great expansion in government's role
between the two world wars was unwarranted. Both were supposed to
demonstrate that government activism is unnecessary, and that
radical laissez-faire works.
The Enron experiment was, in essence, about doing away with
regulation -- regulation of prices, regulation of financial trading.
Most of these regulations had their origin in fear that consumers,
workers and investors would be exploited by those whom Theodore
Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth."
Enron used its political clout to create what one of its own
executives called a "regulatory black hole" in which it could
operate freely.
What Enron's admirers believed was that experience would demonstrate
fears about unregulated markets to be unjustified. Unfortunately,
what disappeared into that black hole was not bureaucratic clutter
but billions of hard-earned dollars, including those of Enron's own
employees. Or maybe it wasn't a black hole, but rather a wormhole,
and those billions of dollars emerged in some other universe -- say,
overseas bank accounts. For it turns out that malefactors of great
wealth do exist, and some of them were running Enron.
If Enron was an experiment in doing away with regulatory activism,
Argentina was an experiment in doing away with monetary activism.
Argentina returned to a colonial-era monetary system, a "currency
board," which took government out of the loop. No more lurching from
crisis to crisis, no more disruptive government interventions:
Argentina would provide sound money, and leave the rest up to the
free market.
Though Argentina attracted the usual opportunists, I'm pretty sure
that both the creators of its monetary system and many of its
admirers sincerely believed that they were working in everyone's
interest. Alas, these particular good intentions paved the road to
hell.
In the last few weeks, the bitter irony of Argentina's situation has
become almost too much to bear. The country's monetary system was
introduced in the name of laissez-faire. Now, in its desperate
efforts to save that system from imminent collapse, the Argentine
government has imposed drastic restrictions on economic freedom.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think that
markets are evil, that the profit motive is always wrong. On the
contrary, I believe that markets are very good things indeed. But
the great economic lesson of the 20th century was that to work, a
market system needs a little help from the government: regulations
to prevent abuses, active monetary policy to fight recessions. The
twin debacles in Houston and Buenos Aires demonstrate that this
great lesson has not lost its relevance.

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posted in Alternative Money and Economics - 0 replies