Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Redistributing wealth or income isn’t a new idea, but what if redistribution wasn’t necessary at all? What if the system that created money did it in a way that was more fair or more responsive to everyone up front?
Join the Crazy Townies as they swap stories around the virtual fire about spending virtual money in the virtual world. And get advice on how to do the opposite from Nate Hagens, expert on energy, ecological economics, and finance.
Against the backdrop of the fire and rage in Minneapolis following the police murder of George Floyd, reminiscent of police beating of Rodney King in LA in 1991, nearly 30 years ago, with many black deaths in between, what could possibly be the relationship of financial independence and the FIRE community to the unraveling in our society?
So to the question ‘how will humanity’s collective household pay for Covid-19?’ my answer is neither to squeeze the poor, nor to squeeze the future by closing your eyes and believing in the magic of the money tree. Instead, I’d suggest you look out your old spade and hoe from the back of the garden shed. There’s work to be done.
A nationalized money supply would transform government spending into the monetary creation mechanism and embed justice and sustainability as hallmarks of how we manage our national economy.
Ann Pettifor has a 160 page book that all serious people— organizers and activists, farmers, workers, intellectuals, teachers and students—should read; it’s called The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of the Bankers.
When I was recently at the #CTRLshift conference in Wigan, one project that many people were talking about was Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn’s ‘The Bank Job’, currently underway in a former bank in Walthamstow. It had just been featured in The Guardian under the headline ‘The rebel bank, printing its own notes and buying back people’s debts’, and was generating a real buzz.
Most people don’t really understand how money is created and what political choices are embedded in that process. As a result, the privatization of money-creation is largely invisible to public view, and the anti-social, anti-ecological effects of privately created, debt-based money go unchallenged.
Money creation, like alchemy, is shrouded in ambiguous language and yields eternal wealth! For most of history these secrets have been used to empower sovereigns to spend money without the painful business of taxing or borrowing.
Money is not a store of value. It is a claim upon value.
The world is undergoing a populist revival.
A well-functioning monetary system is essential for a well-functioning economy and thereby, for the common good.
