IT Really should be called the Money Crisis, as in our Civilization up to this point in its evolutions, our idea of what money is has been one of private creation and ownership. The measures discussed below named A., B. And C. are just a few ideas that could be useful. Money is the other top value besides the Boss, these values guide our worldview. Our economic model is based on interconnected concepts which function together somewhat like the game of Monopoly. Most understand the game well. Imagine the board is grids of city streets and the names are all the multinational energy corporations, financial institutions, military/industrial contractors, Insurance companies, etc.This may seem silly, yet most of the real worlds monetary activity follows very very similar patterns.
The Euro, the Yen, the Dollar, the British Sterling, the debt crisis in every government and in every market, the pressure of cash for debt and then debt which is in default, the creation of trillions in credit/debt all add up to a very unstable and fragile economy. Jobs are becoming sacred and the sacred is becoming profane. Corporate "personhood", capital controlling by job blackmail, true democracy and freedom being eroded severely. The use of physical force in all forms to form dominions in every aspect of life.
In the previous civilization of agricultural based commerce the values of King/Land were on top, and the worldview operated just as the game of chess. Before that we had top values of Survival/Procreation and life was like a hide and seek game. Today we are at the end of the Monopoly Game and the start of the Electronic Civilization worldview with the top values of Society and Environment. The effects of the breakup of the Industrial Civilization are predictable and can be very severe. Hopefully we will be transitioning as soon as possible. Its up to each of us to do what we can to enter it.
Today we have crisis situations globally. Easily understandable with our worldview of this paradigm of: Debt creating Money. Money being the sole necessity to purchase needs and desires. The competition for money creates winners and losers and as the game progresses it creates a very few billionaire winners and billions of losers. As it progresses further it creates .... collapse. The poor and the working poor, and those unemployed and those underemployed and those who can no longer maintain their lifestyle and those who are going bankrupt is becoming the majority of people, we are living on too much credit and debt on all levels and it cannot be sustained for very much longer. How long, is a big question.
Recently the news is on the Climate Change Conference, and its lack of effectiveness. The conflicting agendas are all dependent on the monetary dimension. Within the constraints of present monetary realities no substantial change from the present status quo is possible. The issues of greenhouse gases causing climate change, massive planetary pollution from the fossil fuel energy sources, are eclipsed by fossil fuel energy production and jobs/products equilibrium. Individually we want our cars, stores, and finances to be available without limits. Globally we are in the debt/money crisis and just as in the game model, the few are winning and the many are losing, and soon we will be facing collapse. Some sooner than others, Italy is in the spotlight now. Will it default ? The Eurozone appears to be moving to reinvigorate reserves of the Euro and continue with more central authority which is necessary to maintain stability as a single market and currency. We shall see, France and Germany are the most influential players and have yet to come to an agreement as to what kind of authority can be given to a central body.
How to proceed ? We are each in different circumstances, we understand and accomplish at our own level. I think that we can have steps in the positive direction within the monetary system by having a another philosophy of "All of Us taking care of All of Us", instead of what we have which is " I'll take care of me, you take care of you". The "US" or "YOU" can be individual or any organization such as a corporation or government. The philosophy we have of everyone concerned only for themselves, and their organizations rather than everyone concerned with everyone's wellbeing, is the foundation for the debt crisis. If this shift of consciousness did occur and the new philosophy of sharing came into effect, several steps are possible. One is to reinvent how we think of money, by thinking of it as having many forms. We have credit cards and we may spend what we do not have, on the promise of repayment with interest over time. As the game model clearly shows the inevitable outcome of declining income on all levels overall for the vast majority of humanity, we cannot make the time payments and default, Italy is in that process now. Presently we are simply adding "credit" in at the top by the trillions paid to banks which make more loans to creditors who then do not immediately default , but who now have even more debt and bigger payments.... one can easily see this is only delaying and enlarging the debt crisis. So with the new way of thinking , we can change that structure. As Buckminster Fuller recommended we can invert the equation. Instead of : Work for money, hence limiting what one earns by what one can do, we can invert this to: money for economic activity, hence limiting what one can spend.
By limiting what we spend instead of what we earn we can keep the wheels of production turning and forego a collapse, because if people have NO MONEY and stop buying all the products and services the global markets and currencies will fail outright. This works by ( again only under the new philosophy of sharing , because the previous behavior of private wealth creation this is unthinkable) creating the new money directly into personal accounts instead of as presently from the central banks like the Federal Reserve into National banks, like Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, etc. , and then only loaned, and with interest due. These payments from democratic governments directly into citizens accounts will equal the Gross Domestic Production.
In other words the equation is changed from: Unrestrained speculative capitalism with its inevitable debt crisis to : consumption based on supply. The creates a money that has value based on goods and services produced not "the value of money on a currency money market". It also creates stability as the desperate will not creating turmoil of all kinds and decent people from being evicted from their homes by the millions. When we think in terms of WE instead of Me, it can change everything. We are all making the goods and services we need we should all share them on the basis of sustainable resources for raw materials for production from our only planet, which we must respect and protect in order for us to exist.
We must understand our money presently comes from privately held Central banks that makes it out of thin air by their own authority and exchanges it for debt taken on by our governments.
A. WE the People, democratically forming a government actually are the authority and WE can make our own money without interest and without debt, we can utilize our currency and base its value on the value of the goods and services the country makes.
Backed by real goods and services the currency becomes only a medium of exchange and not a source of political power. The personal accounts would have to mirror production of all the goods and services and so the "money" would have new characteristics. For one it would have to be a percentage of a communities production and it would have to be limited shelf life. Saving for later, and stockpiling luxury items would disturb the balance. The goal of the highest standard of living possible for the highest number of people necessitates certain characteristics. The minimum level would have to be high enough to provide a better than present standard of living. If automation with computer/robotics are used that will be a enormous boost to production without human labor, unlike presently where it has the effect of massive unemployment.
Once money was mainly gold or metal minted into coins by city/state governments, then paper backed by gold reserves printed by governments, then computer numbers sold to governments by central banks who hold computer numbers of debt with interest, The central banks also loan to the major banks who then loan to minor banks and to corporations and individuals. The authority to create currency resides in the central banks who have domination , a complete monopoly on making money out of nothing , with no backing whatsoever. The game of speculation accounts for 70% or so of the finances in the world the rest is the "real economy" of goods and services; GDP. Derivatives, credit default swaps, stocks, bonds, debt insurance, etc. are all "unreal" or a secondary economy of gambling. This secondary economy is speeding up the natural accumulation of wealth at the top and the decline and collapse of the base. In our Industrial Civilization of capitalism, and hidden oligarchy by the mechanism of Domination by the threat or use of Violence.
The real : resource depletion, pollution, energy inefficiency, climate change, and financial crisis, are inescapable problems which must be solved or we will face the consequences. We have already seen World Wars and Great Depressions which result from financial competition and political extremism in order to compete for power. We don't need further examples or we could have extinction.
B. Fund credit accounts directly to all citizens. Instead of funding the chain of central banks, to major banks to minor banks, corporations and individuals. Fund individuals directly. The credit is not to be repaid. It is limited: in duration, it cannot be used to hoard or control. It is only a medium of exchange based on the GDP. Individuals are compensated as members of society, in other words corporations are in business to create the highest standard of living possible for all society and are not "individuals" with rights and that the profits for corporations are taken out of the equation entirely. Corporations exist to serve the people, instead of as now that people (majority of population including workers and the dependent) exist to serve corporations private wealth accumulation.
By creating debt free money (A.) and by limiting what can be spent instead of earned (B.) the production can be maintained. Now we have another piece of the puzzle that could be proposed which is to:
C. Separate the gamble game from the real game. This is quite a challenge ! As if A. and B. were easy..... however an idea for stability is to establish authority over all speculatory financial transactions, making a charter agreement which is revocable to all parties which orders interactions between the two worlds to be highly limited. Investments (bets) must be of limited amounts, and for limited payouts.
I know this is wishful thinking and one might think I was quite simple minded to suggest these measures as possibilities because these measures are impossible with the current authority/dominion control mechanism of force... to defend the status quo. The elite control it and they aren't going to just "let the game go". However all major changes have come from large scale social pressure to introduce democratic reforms of the social order all the way from the creation of democracy by the greeks taking back the Parthenon from a tyrant to the American Revolution and the campaigns for womens vote and the civil rights movement to ending the war in Viet Nam.
Even if (and that is highly unlikely I believe), A. , B. and C. were enacted they would only be a temporary relief from the Monopoly Game paradigm results occurring . Only when we completely change to the next civilizations values and advanced systems of resource use, efficiency , justice and equality, for real, truly for all the human race will the "crisis" be over and sustainability enacted. The systems of production and distribution, of pollution free energy with Solar, Wind , and Geothermal. With the fully functional Electronic Exchange System in a Resource Based Economy, with the redesign for super energy efficiency homes, businesses and public buildings, with high speed trains and pedestrian designed communities.
These I believe can be started with small new community structures for local currencies, food and energy production and community businesses tasked with production for supporting the community not creating private wealth accumulation. This of course is beyond the competitive monopoly model which makes it beyond the understanding of most, yet that is the transition we must make to continue to evolve and adapt to our new circumstances of a population of 7 billion, with the climate change and monetary instability and our continued decline worldwide. High technology is now capable of creating a new world without war and poverty. To try for a "utopia" and not make it is better than trying for an extension of the crisis and getting it. The longer the debt crisis goes on the worse will be the correction. T.
The Euro, the Yen, the Dollar, the British Sterling, the debt crisis in every government and in every market, the pressure of cash for debt and then debt which is in default, the creation of trillions in credit/debt all add up to a very unstable and fragile economy. Jobs are becoming sacred and the sacred is becoming profane. Corporate "personhood", capital controlling by job blackmail, true democracy and freedom being eroded severely. The use of physical force in all forms to form dominions in every aspect of life.
In the previous civilization of agricultural based commerce the values of King/Land were on top, and the worldview operated just as the game of chess. Before that we had top values of Survival/Procreation and life was like a hide and seek game. Today we are at the end of the Monopoly Game and the start of the Electronic Civilization worldview with the top values of Society and Environment. The effects of the breakup of the Industrial Civilization are predictable and can be very severe. Hopefully we will be transitioning as soon as possible. Its up to each of us to do what we can to enter it.
Today we have crisis situations globally. Easily understandable with our worldview of this paradigm of: Debt creating Money. Money being the sole necessity to purchase needs and desires. The competition for money creates winners and losers and as the game progresses it creates a very few billionaire winners and billions of losers. As it progresses further it creates .... collapse. The poor and the working poor, and those unemployed and those underemployed and those who can no longer maintain their lifestyle and those who are going bankrupt is becoming the majority of people, we are living on too much credit and debt on all levels and it cannot be sustained for very much longer. How long, is a big question.
Recently the news is on the Climate Change Conference, and its lack of effectiveness. The conflicting agendas are all dependent on the monetary dimension. Within the constraints of present monetary realities no substantial change from the present status quo is possible. The issues of greenhouse gases causing climate change, massive planetary pollution from the fossil fuel energy sources, are eclipsed by fossil fuel energy production and jobs/products equilibrium. Individually we want our cars, stores, and finances to be available without limits. Globally we are in the debt/money crisis and just as in the game model, the few are winning and the many are losing, and soon we will be facing collapse. Some sooner than others, Italy is in the spotlight now. Will it default ? The Eurozone appears to be moving to reinvigorate reserves of the Euro and continue with more central authority which is necessary to maintain stability as a single market and currency. We shall see, France and Germany are the most influential players and have yet to come to an agreement as to what kind of authority can be given to a central body.
How to proceed ? We are each in different circumstances, we understand and accomplish at our own level. I think that we can have steps in the positive direction within the monetary system by having a another philosophy of "All of Us taking care of All of Us", instead of what we have which is " I'll take care of me, you take care of you". The "US" or "YOU" can be individual or any organization such as a corporation or government. The philosophy we have of everyone concerned only for themselves, and their organizations rather than everyone concerned with everyone's wellbeing, is the foundation for the debt crisis. If this shift of consciousness did occur and the new philosophy of sharing came into effect, several steps are possible. One is to reinvent how we think of money, by thinking of it as having many forms. We have credit cards and we may spend what we do not have, on the promise of repayment with interest over time. As the game model clearly shows the inevitable outcome of declining income on all levels overall for the vast majority of humanity, we cannot make the time payments and default, Italy is in that process now. Presently we are simply adding "credit" in at the top by the trillions paid to banks which make more loans to creditors who then do not immediately default , but who now have even more debt and bigger payments.... one can easily see this is only delaying and enlarging the debt crisis. So with the new way of thinking , we can change that structure. As Buckminster Fuller recommended we can invert the equation. Instead of : Work for money, hence limiting what one earns by what one can do, we can invert this to: money for economic activity, hence limiting what one can spend.
By limiting what we spend instead of what we earn we can keep the wheels of production turning and forego a collapse, because if people have NO MONEY and stop buying all the products and services the global markets and currencies will fail outright. This works by ( again only under the new philosophy of sharing , because the previous behavior of private wealth creation this is unthinkable) creating the new money directly into personal accounts instead of as presently from the central banks like the Federal Reserve into National banks, like Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, etc. , and then only loaned, and with interest due. These payments from democratic governments directly into citizens accounts will equal the Gross Domestic Production.
In other words the equation is changed from: Unrestrained speculative capitalism with its inevitable debt crisis to : consumption based on supply. The creates a money that has value based on goods and services produced not "the value of money on a currency money market". It also creates stability as the desperate will not creating turmoil of all kinds and decent people from being evicted from their homes by the millions. When we think in terms of WE instead of Me, it can change everything. We are all making the goods and services we need we should all share them on the basis of sustainable resources for raw materials for production from our only planet, which we must respect and protect in order for us to exist.
We must understand our money presently comes from privately held Central banks that makes it out of thin air by their own authority and exchanges it for debt taken on by our governments.
A. WE the People, democratically forming a government actually are the authority and WE can make our own money without interest and without debt, we can utilize our currency and base its value on the value of the goods and services the country makes.
Backed by real goods and services the currency becomes only a medium of exchange and not a source of political power. The personal accounts would have to mirror production of all the goods and services and so the "money" would have new characteristics. For one it would have to be a percentage of a communities production and it would have to be limited shelf life. Saving for later, and stockpiling luxury items would disturb the balance. The goal of the highest standard of living possible for the highest number of people necessitates certain characteristics. The minimum level would have to be high enough to provide a better than present standard of living. If automation with computer/robotics are used that will be a enormous boost to production without human labor, unlike presently where it has the effect of massive unemployment.
Once money was mainly gold or metal minted into coins by city/state governments, then paper backed by gold reserves printed by governments, then computer numbers sold to governments by central banks who hold computer numbers of debt with interest, The central banks also loan to the major banks who then loan to minor banks and to corporations and individuals. The authority to create currency resides in the central banks who have domination , a complete monopoly on making money out of nothing , with no backing whatsoever. The game of speculation accounts for 70% or so of the finances in the world the rest is the "real economy" of goods and services; GDP. Derivatives, credit default swaps, stocks, bonds, debt insurance, etc. are all "unreal" or a secondary economy of gambling. This secondary economy is speeding up the natural accumulation of wealth at the top and the decline and collapse of the base. In our Industrial Civilization of capitalism, and hidden oligarchy by the mechanism of Domination by the threat or use of Violence.
The real : resource depletion, pollution, energy inefficiency, climate change, and financial crisis, are inescapable problems which must be solved or we will face the consequences. We have already seen World Wars and Great Depressions which result from financial competition and political extremism in order to compete for power. We don't need further examples or we could have extinction.
B. Fund credit accounts directly to all citizens. Instead of funding the chain of central banks, to major banks to minor banks, corporations and individuals. Fund individuals directly. The credit is not to be repaid. It is limited: in duration, it cannot be used to hoard or control. It is only a medium of exchange based on the GDP. Individuals are compensated as members of society, in other words corporations are in business to create the highest standard of living possible for all society and are not "individuals" with rights and that the profits for corporations are taken out of the equation entirely. Corporations exist to serve the people, instead of as now that people (majority of population including workers and the dependent) exist to serve corporations private wealth accumulation.
By creating debt free money (A.) and by limiting what can be spent instead of earned (B.) the production can be maintained. Now we have another piece of the puzzle that could be proposed which is to:
C. Separate the gamble game from the real game. This is quite a challenge ! As if A. and B. were easy..... however an idea for stability is to establish authority over all speculatory financial transactions, making a charter agreement which is revocable to all parties which orders interactions between the two worlds to be highly limited. Investments (bets) must be of limited amounts, and for limited payouts.
I know this is wishful thinking and one might think I was quite simple minded to suggest these measures as possibilities because these measures are impossible with the current authority/dominion control mechanism of force... to defend the status quo. The elite control it and they aren't going to just "let the game go". However all major changes have come from large scale social pressure to introduce democratic reforms of the social order all the way from the creation of democracy by the greeks taking back the Parthenon from a tyrant to the American Revolution and the campaigns for womens vote and the civil rights movement to ending the war in Viet Nam.
Even if (and that is highly unlikely I believe), A. , B. and C. were enacted they would only be a temporary relief from the Monopoly Game paradigm results occurring . Only when we completely change to the next civilizations values and advanced systems of resource use, efficiency , justice and equality, for real, truly for all the human race will the "crisis" be over and sustainability enacted. The systems of production and distribution, of pollution free energy with Solar, Wind , and Geothermal. With the fully functional Electronic Exchange System in a Resource Based Economy, with the redesign for super energy efficiency homes, businesses and public buildings, with high speed trains and pedestrian designed communities.
These I believe can be started with small new community structures for local currencies, food and energy production and community businesses tasked with production for supporting the community not creating private wealth accumulation. This of course is beyond the competitive monopoly model which makes it beyond the understanding of most, yet that is the transition we must make to continue to evolve and adapt to our new circumstances of a population of 7 billion, with the climate change and monetary instability and our continued decline worldwide. High technology is now capable of creating a new world without war and poverty. To try for a "utopia" and not make it is better than trying for an extension of the crisis and getting it. The longer the debt crisis goes on the worse will be the correction. T.
