BANISH BLING

 

on the way to earth community :

http://www.sabine-lichtenfels.com/en/Donations.html

Grace Foundation for the Humanisation of the money

We put our work in the service of the global peace force. We do this in the name of GRACE. We invite all concerned individuals to participate in this new global peace force and we invite them to help to open up funds to be invested in the building of self-sustained peace models. All funds which are put at our disposal are invested in the projects named below.

Pilgrimages in crisis areas - Confrontation with the situation on the ground

Building of the Global Campus - Education for the building of Peace models

Supportung actions for crisis areas - technological and ecological direct help

Conferences for peace workers - Knowledge sharing and deepening of the cooperation

We will provide all interested parties and contributors with information about where the incoming funds are to be invested. We ask all everyone who is concerned for help and support. Please set up contacts to experts from economy and especially to financial experts who might be interested in new projects for the future.

 

Peter Koll

Tamera Team

“From Wall Street to Earth Community”

A Review of David Korten's
Agenda for a New Economy
by Dick Burkhart

Here's a sample of David Korten's hard-hitting rhetoric: "Since Wall Street behaves like a criminal syndicate, government should treat it like a criminal syndicate" (p. 124). And judging from the standing ovations Korten has been getting, Obama had better listen.

But the heart of this book is actually a revolutionary "12-point New Economy Agenda". His diagnosis is that the casino known as Wall Street creates "phantom wealth" that acts as a cancer to devour the "real wealth" of Main Street, enriching the few by swindling the many.

In the New Economy only government would issue money, government would facilitate stakeholder buyouts to democratize corporate ownership, and government would tax to create an equitable distribution of wealth and to dampen speculation. The underlying theme would be local self-reliance, including the breakup of large corporations, to restore the kind of competitive market eonomy envisioned by Adam Smith.

However Korten's agenda still falls short in some respects. For example, he asks for "full-cost market pricing" (prices which include environmental costs and all other "externalities"), but people have been working on this since the 70s with only marginal success.  What we need is a better agenda for how to do it.

Korten is quite accurate in saying that (p. 120) "a market system has an appropriate set of rules enforced by government to maintain conditions essential of efficient market function". However, he fails to note that this applies to all levels of economic activity, including the global economy. Only primitive societies can function largely outside of the global economy, yet the global economy, both in trade and finance, is full of failures and inequities due to the absence of acceptable mechanisms for making and enforcing rules. Poorer countries quite rightly rebel against the exploitive capitalist interests that dominate the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund.

The only answers to making and enforcing "appropriate rules" are new forms of democratic global governance, yet Korten shies away from this obvious conclusion. The irony is that Korten's previous book prophesied the "Great Turning - from Empire to Earth Community".

It's time for Korten and his followers to take Earth Community seriously. Since Wall Street is now global, the real agenda must be for a new global financial system, democratically created and enforced. This is a golden opportunity to lay the ground work for the kind of global teamwork it will take to tackle the crises that are combining to threaten human civilization itself, epitomized by global climate change, peak oil, and population explosion.

This book is a great resource for anyone seeking real answers on how to react positivley to the current financial crisis. Korten wrote it expressly to coincide with Obama's inauguration.  Though it is reiterating things Korten has said elsewhere, it's concise (187 pages), targeted message needs to be spread far and wide in these troubled times. 

 

I'm only on chapter 3, but I'm already captivated by Korten's brilliant and accessible summary that compares and contrasts "Wall Street" capitalism (bad!) with "Main Street" capitalism (good!). This is exactly the kind of clear thinking and strong guidance with real answers on how to rebuild the economy the right way. Highly recommended reading! It's message needs to be rung out loud and clear across the land so it  can become part of the civic debate on this current historic crisis -- which is also an incredible opportunity to make real change. 

Have to check this out!