The sound of the new - living economy...

Local Economy, Local Currency and the Local Multiplier Effect

Yes Magazine just published some articles on Local Currency and the benefits they have for local and regional economies...the article states:


Local currencies can help a community counter some of the problems with conventional money. For example, bank-issued currency tends to flow toward the money centers for investment. If you shop at a chain store, the profit gets whisked out of town and into the corporate coffers and then, often, to the speculative market. A local currency stays in the community, encouraging local business and trade, adding value to local products and services, and supporting the local infrastructure.

Reliance on national currency means being at the mercy of the national credit situation. As we’ve recently seen, credit constriction can paralyze local economies. Despite the availability of goods and the need for business, when there’s no money, consumers don’t buy. Stores don’t sell. Start-ups can’t get a toe-hold. An alternative currency gives people another way to buy, sell, lend, and borrow. If the community creates its own currency, local business can go on even if the supply of national currency dries up.

At the most basic level, currency functions as a means of exchange (I give you a dollar and you give me an ice cream cone), a unit of value (a dollar, pound, etc.) and a store of value (you can hold onto a dollar as it maintains its worth). It’s also a source of information about relative value, and about what is needed to keep trade flowing, for instance, by adjusting the supply of money or the exchange rate so that those in other markets can afford your goods.

With local currency, a community can meet currency needs that the national tender isn’t fulfilling. If the idea seems fanciful, there are models up and running—some for many years.

Amma, Indian Saint Endorses Earth Charter's Principals

Well known and regognized Spiritual Leader Amma (AKA Mata Amritanandamayi) formally endorsed the Earth Charter Principles as part of her mission.

From the MA Center Website:

The Earth Charter—a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful world—has been translated into 40 languages and signed by more than 5,000 organizations. The charter started as an initiative of the United Nations in 1987 and was finalized in 2000 as a civil-society project. On July 7, 2009 in New York, Amma also added her signature to its list of endorsees.

Steven Rockefeller, who coordinated the drafting of the charter by consulting representatives of the world’s major religions, was on hand to welcome Amma to New York and to request her to endorse the Earth Charter’s principles. The Earth Charter’s ethical vision proposes that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. Steven Rockefeller is the son of former United States Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller and fourth-generation member of the renowned Rockefeller family.

“What a great blessing it is to be here tonight in the presence of Amma,” Rockefeller said. “I would like to extend deep thanks to Amma… for her very gracious offer to endorse the Earth Charter. In addition I would like to express heartfelt thanks to Amma for being a spiritual and social leader who, through love for all people, her teachings, her many humanitarian good works and her educational initiatives and her work on behalf of the environment is helping us make that transition to the better world that is envisioned in the Earth Charter.”

Rockefeller continued, “When I think of Amma and her life of devotion and service, I see a shining example for all of us of the spirit of reverence, compassion and care. … Amma, all of us associated with the Earth Charter Initiative want to share with you our deep gratitude for the light and joy you have brought into the world.”

Also on hand to welcome Amma to New York were M.S. Singh Puri, Ambassador & Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations since March 2009; and Upendra Chivakula, a member of the New Jersey General Assembly and State Office.

2012 Investment program....

Question from a client today: "So, what are the Mayans Investing in?"

A: Hmmmm....

Mountaintop Coal Removal - Bad Math!

Simply put, it is has been widely recognized by thinking people around the nation that Mountain Top Removal mining for dirty coal is bad.

Scott Badenoch, CEO and Co-Founder of Creative Citizen recently wrote in his article for MNN

"Mr. President, it is your duty as a citizen of this planet to put an immediate and irrevocable moratorium on Mountaintop Removal today. Go to Appalachia and see for yourself. There is no time to waste; there is no compromise. Human lives and nature’s mountains are at stake."

It's mysterious that our own Obama administration continues to look the other way.

Hmmmm... well perhaps it is creating JOBS and making MONEY for the coal industry.

Hmmm... money, jobs. Hot commodities in this greed plagued economy.

Well how much money?

A recent article by Rob Perks published on NRDC's blog cites a study that the money math just doesn't pencil out.

The article states:

Consider that coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths as the industry provides to the region in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits. This is according to a new study which finds that coal is more a curse than blessing for the region.

"Coal-mining economies are not strong economies," said West Virginia University researcher Michael Hendryx, who co-authored the study. He added that coalfield communities "are weaker than the rest of the state, weaker than the rest of the region, and weaker than the rest of the nation."

According to the study, the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic benefits for the Appalachian region. However, the conservative estimate of coal's costs -- in terms of the value of premature deaths attributable to the mining industry across the Appalachian coalfields -- comes to $42 billion.



"Natural resources such as forests and streams have substantial economic value when they are left intact, and mining is highly destructive of these resources," the study says. "For example, Appalachian coal mining permanently buried 724 stream miles between 1985 and 2001 through mountaintop removal mining and subsequent valley fills, and will ultimately impact more than 1.4 million acres.


"Coal generates inexpensive electricity, but not as inexpensive as the price signals indicate because those prices do not include the costs to human health and productivity, and the costs of natural resource destruction."


"In response to this and other research showing the disadvantages of poor economic diversification, it seems prudent to examine how more diverse employment opportunities for the region could be developed as a means to reduce socio-economic and environmental disparities and thereby improve public health.

"Potential alternative employment opportunities include development of renewable energy from wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, or hydropower sources; sustainable timber; small-scale agriculture; outdoor or culturally oriented tourism; technology; and ecosystem restoration," the study says.

"The need to develop alternative economies becomes even more important when we realize that coal reserves throughout most of Appalachia are projected to peak and then enter permanent decline in about 20 years."

This is just a case for bad math, bad economics. Why does this continue? Who's watching the henhouse here?

These are questions that many are pleading the Obama administration to address.

Let's all hold the space that Mr. Obama will actually lift the rug, see the dirt and get out his calculator.

Then he has only one choice - end MTR.

And to drive the point home - here is a testimony from RFK Jr. at the end of 2008 which states the issues as clearly as I have heard.

The End of Money and the Future of Civilization by Thomas Greco, Jr. - Chelsea Green

Thomas Greco is author of many books on money, debt, currency, etc. His latest book The End of Money and the Future of Civilization by Thomas Greco, Jr. - Chelsea Greenclarifies the money mystery, origins of money and provides some clear pathways for improvements to our economic system.

"Throughout the world today, local communities are struggling to main­tain their economic vitality and quality of life. The reasons for this are both economic and political, and are largely the result of external forces that are driven by outside agencies like central governments, central banks, and large transnational corporations. In brief, decisions made by others outside of the community are having enormous impacts on life within the community. Be that as it may, it is possible for communities to regain a large measure of control over their own welfare and to ameliorate the effects of those exter­nal forces by employing peaceful approaches that encourage human solidarity and are based on private, voluntary initiative and creativity."

The key solution he proposes is a concept known as "alternative currencies" or "complimentary currencies" which actually have a long history and widespread use currently.

Platforms for Collaboration - Article in Stanford Social Innovation Review

I have been doing alot of thinking about the power of co-creating, collaborations, community economics, mimicking "the web of life" in organizational development, etc. as key factors in helping get our civilization out of the mess we have created for ourselves.

I read in the What is Enlightenment? Mag that collaborative behavior is the hallmark of evolution in our society.

David Korten wrote "Using magnetic resonance imaging to take portraits of brain activity, scientists have found that during laboratory excercises that the experience of forming a cooperative alliance with another person produces a storng positive response in the pleasure center of the brain - rather like eating chocolate or engaging in good sex."

A New York Times Article describes the experiments in greater detail.



Stanford Social Innovation Review just published an article by Satish Nambisan, associate professor at Renssaelaer Polytechnic Institute. "Platforms for Collaboration"

His recent book "The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World." outlines the keys for corporations to work with stakeholders inside and outside the enterprise to bring new ideas and products to market.

It begins with

"Some of the brightest ideas for social change grow in the spaces between organizations and sectors. Yet few organizations have systems that make collaboration happen. To foster innovation, organizations need to develop places where they can come together and work creatively—that is, platforms for collaboration. In this article, a management expert identifies three kinds of collaboration platforms—exploration, experimentation, and execution—and then outlines what organizations can do to put these platforms to work for them."

In the article, expert Satish Nambisan discusses the importance of understanding the different platforms of collaboration - Exploration, Experimentation and Execution.

Exploration - Define Core Problems, connect with problem solvers
Experimentation - Develop Solution Prototypes, test prototypes in near-real-world contexts
Execution - Build and disseminate solution templates, Help Adopters adapt to system-wide changes

Additionally he articulates the basic ingredients for collaboration platforms:

KEY INGREDIENTS:

A NETWORK-CENTRIC PERSPECTIVE

Organizations must be able to:
- play supporting roles, rather than controlling the innovation processes
- adapt to the potentially conflicting goals of other partners
- embrace nontraditional partners
- leverage network resources and facilitate two-way flow of ideas and solutions

MODULAR OR PLUG AND PLAY EXPERTISE
- deploy specialized expertise in diverse contexts both quickly and cost-effectively
- integrate expertise with that of partners

A PORTFOLIO OF SUCCESS METRICS
- agree on measures that reflect all stakeholders' concerns
- define project goals in ways that subsume organization-specific goals

What difference does it make where you buy your cup of coffee?

This video from the "Mile High Business Alliance" reveals the power of local economy!

Bootstrapping a business for growth.

As a financial advisor, I frequently get calls from entrepreneurs seeking capital for their emerging or expanding companies. Although venture capital is of great interest to me, it is outside the scope of the work I do for my clients.

Even so, I find the whole process of creating companies, and financing their growth to be a very interesting and important process to understand.

I came across a whitepaperfrom a firm called Kennet Partners titled "Bootstrapping Your Business for Success - Knowing When and How to Approach VC Firms."

The brief whitepaper addresses the questions I often get asked. And is a good read for most entrepreneurs seeking capital, and common sense on growing their companies.

Food, Inc. the latest from Participant Productions

Just last night I attended a private screening of "Food, Inc." from Participant productions. The movie did a very good job of presenting the challenges, and opportunities for change in the way we create food - through the industrial food system. Some of the film told the story of meat production as shown in the entertaining classic short film "The Meatrix" by Free Range Studios.

It surprises me how ignorant many environmentalists and "conscious people" are of the health and environmental impacts of the food choices we make.

From the movie trailer: "...you have a small group of multinational corporations who control the entire food system from seed to the supermarket. This isn't just about what we're eating, this is about what we're allowed to say,it's not just our health that is at risk... They don't want farmer's talking - they don't want this story told..."



What to do?

Buy organic.
Know where your food has come from, and how it was prepared.
Shop at a farmer's market or local food co-op.
If you must eat meats - eat less, eat organic.
Educate yourself on the industrial food system, talk about it.
Change the way you eat.
Eat consciously.
If you must eat fish - eat Marine Stewardship Council approved seafoods.
Vegetables and fruits? Avoid the foods with the most amount of chemicals - find out on www.foodnews.org
"Don't eat anything you see advertised." - Michael Pollan said in the interview below.

You'll be healthier, and the planet will too!

Michael Pollan, author of "Omnivore's Dilemma" and featured in Food, Inc., was interviewed on Democracy Now.

Van Jones talks to Progessive Christians...

A couple of months ago I attended the benefit dinner for "Progessive Christians Uniting" where Van Jones, Obama's special advisor on green jobs, enterprise and innovation gave the keynote.

I especially liked the parts of the conversation where he asked all Christians to consider the role of their faith in creating the "problem." His comments encouraged deep reflection of our interpretation of the tenets of the Christian faith, in light of the current environmental crisis, and how such reflection can change the way we relate to Nature.



Part 2



Green genius blogger Karl Burkhart of Greendig shot these videos and posted them on MNN.

Banking regulators stress Test Overview

Federal regulators conducted a study to determine the health and viability of banks based on scenarios over the next two years. From that they determined how much capital banks would need in the event of a significant worsening of financial and economic conditions with an intentionally stringent view. Read overview here.

Food Not Lawns... How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community

Gardens of gratitude is a community event to plant vegetable gardens all over the Los Angeles Region to inspire people to take out their lawns, plant organic food gardens. Reducing their footprint, water usage, etc. Just like the "victory gardens" of the WWI & WWII the current effort is to inspire people to grow their own food. Yet today there is not a "war effort" to support, nor is the effort being initiated by the national government... personal gardens are no less important.

I just planted my own garden with one of my neighbors in a plot of dirt next to my apartment building last weekend - tomatoes, squash, kale, rasberries, herbs. A true pleasure - brought neighbors together to have a pleasant afternoon - and even inspired some other residents of my building to start a garden of their own on a different part of the property where there are just weeds.

What fun!

From their website: "Everyone can have a garden. Grow herbs in your kitchen, a potted garden on your balcony, a fruit tree in the front yard, or replace your whole lawn with an edible food forest. Growing food can also help you cut your water usage dramatically, very important in our Mediterranean climate. Our resource page is full of guides to help you plan edible estates big and small. We can even help supply volunteer labor and the know how. It is the responsibility of the homeowner to come up with the design and materials for the garden (subsidized gardens are available for low income projects). Help us meet our challenge by signing up your site today!"

If you're in the LA Region (or not) start your own garden next weekend and plant for our collective victory!

If you like to read - I suggest you check out "Food Not Lawns International" a blog connected to the book of the same title as this blog post published by Chelsea Green Publishing.

I like the quote on the Chelsea Green Website for the book :'"Food Not Lawns is radical (rooted), subversive (underground), and seeded throughout with treasures that will sprout into savory, beautiful flowers. Don't just buy this book: Read it. Don't just read this book: Do it. Grow a garden. And let the weeds grow; they're good medicine."—Susun Weed, Wise Woman Herbal Series

S0 - bottom line. Don't bother with the book, just rip out grass and plant a vegetable garden!

Image from Wikipedia commons

Want to start a business in Gardening?

See this video:

Interview On Air America

This is a link to an interview of Greg on Air America. Listen now!

Earth Policy News - "Plan B - Mobilization to Save Civilization"

Want to read Earth Policy Institute's book "Plan B 3.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization" - but just don't have time.

Here are the "cliff notes"

in the form of an excellent slide show on their website.

The Gospel of Consumption

Most of us are unaware that we are religious fundamentalists - market fundamentalists... in the "religion" of traditional economics. The values of the current economic system are rarely in question of us operating in the global economic system. Many of us rarely consider whether or not concepts of limitless growth, ruthless competition, more stuff and other "fundamentals" of today's business environment are even up for question.

And most of us don't think twice when we hear that, according to modern economic thinking, that our primarly role in society is limited to a role "consumers" - mere functionaries in vast economic machine for the "growth" and the accumulation of money. And to boot, when we hear the growth of the economy we may not consider what is growing, and at what cost. More? Always good? At what cost?

Hmmm... Did the Beatles really have it right? "Money Can't Buy You Love."

Whether we like it or not - most of us are programmed through a barrage of media to have the appetite of simply having more cool stuff over quality of life, whether it be time for self improvement, with friends, family, and other forms of "quality time." In other words, according to a recent article by Jeffrey Kaplan in Orion Magazine, to some extent you can't live in this civilization without being indoctrinated, or at least heavily saturated with the "Gospel of Consumption."

Kaplan speaks of the reality that technology and industry were created to provide for our basic human needs, and enjoyment of life - anyone remember "the pursuit of happiness"?

Once machines make enough stuff, turn them off, and go live - was the basic thought behind Kellog's 6 hour work day in the 20's...

Then something changed - the "marketplace" turned Kellog to pursue something else - Money. More work hours, to make more stuff, to make more money. Workers were shifted to an eight hour work day... and quality of life was reduced for the workers.

"As far back as 1835, Boston workingmen striking for shorter hours declared that they needed time away from work to be good citizens: 'We have rights, and we have duties to perform as American citizens and members of society.' As those workers well understood, any meaningful democracy requires citizens who are empowered to create and re-create their government, rather than a mass of marginalized voters who merely choose from what is offered by an “invisible” government. Citizenship requires a commitment of time and attention, a commitment people cannot make if they are lost to themselves in an ever-accelerating cycle of work and consumption."

"We can break that cycle by turning off our machines when they have created enough of what we need. Doing so will give us an opportunity to re-create the kind of healthy communities that were beginning to emerge with Kellogg’s six-hour day, communities in which human welfare is the overriding concern rather than subservience to machines and those who own them. We can create a society where people have time to play together as well as work together, time to act politically in their common interests, and time even to argue over what those common interests might be. That fertile mix of human relationships is necessary for healthy human societies, which in turn are necessary for sustaining a healthy planet."

"...Our modern predicament is a case in point. By 2005 per capita household spending (in inflation-adjusted dollars) was twelve times what it had been in 1929, while per capita spending for durable goods—the big stuff such as cars and appliances—was thirty-two times higher. Meanwhile, by 2000 the average married couple with children was working almost five hundred hours a year more than in 1979. And according to reports by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2004 and 2005, over 40 percent of American families spend more than they earn. The average household carries $18,654 in debt, not including home-mortgage debt, and the ratio of household debt to income is at record levels, having roughly doubled over the last two decades. We are quite literally working ourselves into a frenzy just so we can consume all that our machines can produce."

"Yet we could work and spend a lot less and still live quite comfortably. By 1991 the amount of goods and services produced for each hour of labor was double what it had been in 1948. By 2006 that figure had risen another 30 percent. In other words, if as a society we made a collective decision to get by on the amount we produced and consumed seventeen years ago, we could cut back from the standard forty-hour week to 5.3 hours per day—or 2.7 hours if we were willing to return to the 1948 level. We were already the richest country on the planet in 1948 and most of the world has not yet caught up to where we were then. "

"Rather than realizing the enriched social life that Kellogg’s vision offered us, we have impoverished our human communities with a form of materialism that leaves us in relative isolation from family, friends, and neighbors. We simply don’t have time for them. Unlike our great-grandparents who passed the time, we spend it. An outside observer might conclude that we are in the grip of some strange curse, like a modern-day King Midas whose touch turns everything into a product built around a microchip."

Read the entire article here.

photo Orion Magazine taken by Photograph: Brian Ulrich

The Future of Money - a book for today written 8 years ago...

The following entry is a cut and paste from a website that reviewed Bernard Lietaer's book which came out 8 years ago. As many are beginning to wake up to the reality that conventional economic theory is crumbling under the current crisis - and we just need to redesign our financial system from the bottom up.

Ideas expressed in the book - now out of print - are very timely and valuable fodder for the new economic paradigm emerging.

Of note that he uses the same phrase "global casino" as Hazel Henderson when referring to the global financial system.

It's time to create complimentary currencies everywhere - to support our collective well being.

"The Future of Money:
Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World


by Bernard Lietaer

The following bullets are reality-checks extracted from The Future of Money (published in January 2001, also available in German from http://www.futuremoney.de), illustrating the dramatic changes we face in the near future.


Your money's value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises which shook Mexico in 1994-5, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system. Unless some precautions are taken soon, there is at least a 50-50 chance that the next five to ten years will see a global money meltdown, the only plausible way for a global depression.
The Information Age has already spawned new kinds of currencies: frequent flyer miles are evolving toward a "corporate scrip" (a private currency issued by a corporation) for the traveling elite; a giant corporation you never heard of is issuing its own "Netmarket Cash" for Internet commerce; even Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, foresees "new private currency markets in the 21st century."
Exorbitant compensations are paid to the very few at the top: it started with movie stars and sports heroes, and has now spread to top lawyers, traders, doctors, and business leaders. In the 1960’s CEO’s salaries were only thirty times greater than those of the average worker, compared with two hundred times today. Is this the dawn of a society where "Winner-takes-all" or a short-term last gasp of the transition out of the Industrial Age?

1,900 local communities in the world, including over a hundred in the US, are now issuing their own currency, independently from the national money system. Some communities, like in Ithaca, New York, issue paper currency; others in Canada, Australia, the UK or France issue complementary electronic money.
The value of barter transactions — exchanges which do not use any money as medium of exchange - totaled almost $6.5 billion in 1994 in the US and Canada, and is increasing three times faster than normal exchanges. The magazine "Barter News" covers the industry’s development and now has 30,000 subscribers. It estimates the total barter worldwide at $650 billion in 1997, and growing at an annual rate of 15%.
All of the above is part of an irreversible process of change in our money system and our societies. We are now in a transition period, an interval of great risk but also of great opportunity. The risks are not only financial, some of the emerging money technologies could create a society more repressive than anyone of us thought possible. More importantly major opportunities are also becoming available: now more than ever it has become possible to address some of the most critical issues of our times, such as enabling more meaningful work, fostering cooperation and community, even realigning long-term sustainability with financial interests. None of this is theory, real-life implementations have pragmatically demonstrated such results. Combining these innovations can make available a world of Sustainable Abundance within one generation.

Specifically in Europe, the traditional ways to handle unemployment are increasingly failing. In areas with high unemployment, people have already demonstrated that living conditions can be significantly improved by creating their own complementary currencies instead of just relying on welfare. Surprisingly, it is in fact not the first time that such solutions have been successfully implemented in the Modern world. During the 1930’s many thousands of such initiatives were operational in the US, Canada, Western Europe and other areas affected by the Depression. Complementary currencies could become a key tool to buffer a region from the shocks caused by failures and crises in the official money system. Finally, this approach is a win/win for both locally owned businesses and society at large.

The degradation of the environment due to short-term financial priorities can similarly be addressed with pragmatic money innovations. Short-term thinking is shown not to be due to human nature, but to the prevailing money system. It is also possible to reverse this process, by using a currency designed specifically for multinational trade and contracts which would make long-term thinking a spontaneous process, focusing the attention on long-term sustainable solutions without the need for regulations or taxation. Historical precedents have proven such results, some of them lasting over several centuries."

Reforming the Global Casino - advice from an Economic Sage

Hazel Henderson has been a hero of mine since I saw her speak in 1989 at an environmental conference...

She recently released a piece on the current financial crisis entitled "MORE ADVICE FOR SUMMITEERS ON REFORMING THE GLOBAL CASINO" in which she underscores the core of the problem: the flaws in the fractional reserve banking system upon which our entire financial system is built...

I excerpt here-
"The 800-pound elephant still not acknowledged is the need for monetary reform of fractional reserve banking itself, which allows banks to create most of a nation’s money-supply as debt – out of thin air. Restoring the right of democratic nations to coin their currency directly (as required in the US Constitution) is now essential, particularly in the USA where debt is now crushing every sector and the Federal Reserve along with the Treasury are now printing money in clear sight of taxpayers. In Britain, there are many such proposals for reforming the Bank of England, including those of the New Economics Foundation, banking experts James Robertson and those of Canada's Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (www.comer.com). The American Monetary Institute has introduced a bill in the US Congress to achieve the gradual change needed in our banking system (www.monetary.org).

The market-fundamentalists abetted by the economics profession and the Bank of Sweden have waged a 30 year campaign to portray economics as a science. They succeeded in persuading the Nobel Committee to set up a $1 million prize in the 1960s with the late Milton Friedman of the laissez-faire Chicago School as its early recipient. This so-called Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel is now being criticized by many, including Nobel's heir, lawyer Peter Nobel, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan (2007), myself and many mathematicians including Ralph Abraham, Benoit Mandelbrot and other scientists. Too many of these subsequent Bank of Sweden "Nobel Memorial" prizes have been awarded to laissez-faire economists, particularly those whose research purported to prove (using specious mathematics) why central banks must be free of all political control – even by the most democratically elected governments. Today we see central bankers out of control, printing money, awarding favored treatment to large banks, reckless insurance companies like AIG, and claiming the privilege of secrecy. The US Federal Reserve Board even refused Freedom of Information requests by Bloomberg, Fox News and other media with questions as to which companies have been so favored and by how much. Now that the US Treasury is at last disclosing where the first $350 billion of TARP funds went, perhaps the Fed will follow suit.

More fundamentally, the failures of global monetary systems are rooted in the expansion of human knowledge and innovation as we transition from the early fossil-fueled Industrial Era to the cleaner technologies of the information-rich Solar Age (see figure 2). Just as the gold standard failed to provide enough “bandwidth” for all the growth, innovation and new communication and transactions of the Industrial Age, so today’s money circuits cannot provide enough bandwidth for the greatly expanded communications and trading of today’s growing Information economy (see figure 3)."

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

Just got this from EnlightenNext Magazine - hilarious, and true... worth the 5 minutes.

"In a recent appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, stand-up comedian Louis C.K. offered a poignant and hilarious wake-up call when he pointed out one of the tremendous ironies of our time: the fact that, in the midst of the most highly evolved and technologically sophisticated civilization in human history, we still often overlook our incredible privilege and manage to feel strangely blasé about it all..."

The world's rich pouring money into "green" deals

Many of the global wealthiest people are making investments into industries and causes considered green. The Times posted a list of some of the largest investments in green done by mega wealthy along with associated article.

They're pouring money into the usual suspects like wind power, renewable fuel, renewable energy, solar power, electric cars, packaging, etc.

Yet I'm particularly delighted by funds flowing into some notable categories oft underlooked by the typical VC and Wall Street mindset which are very encouraging developments:

Hansjörg Wyss Switzerland £6bn Open spaces conservation
Dennis Washington USA £2.7bn Conservation
Alicia and Tannetta Fentener van Vlissingen Holland £2.4bn Conservation
David Rockefeller USA £ 1.7bn Sustainable agriculture
Nicky Oppenheimer S Africa £1.5bn Wildlife conservation
Ted Turner USA £1.2bn Wildlife conservation
Morris Kahn Israel £350m Environmental protection
Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, £1.8bn in biodiversity
Felix Dennis,UK £500 Tree planting

Go here for the entire list and get all the details on the players and their investments...