Mike Lofgren — Former Republican: How the GOP Turned Into a Racket Ripping Off Vulnerable Americans

How a party degenerated into a scam.

AlterNet
Former Republican: How the GOP Turned Into a Racket Ripping Off Vulnerable Americans
Mike Lofgren | former GOP congressional staffer

Acquiring Ferraris vs Acquiring Adaptive Rate (making good time while lost?)

commentary by Roger Erickson

One Ferrari does not a recovery make - Bill Mitchell

Ferrari's vs Adaptive Rate. That also generalizes to static value vs dynamic value. It's telling that we've been trying to discuss this for AT LEAST 2300 years - along with the Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance. Yet still we have too few even paying attention. Everyone could learn to swim if we could get 'em to go into the water - especially at an early age. Figuratively, however, that's less likely in Nebraska, the Sahara, Death Valley, etc, etc.

Humans are more cooperative than any other species, but only when they share a context, and are allowed to cooperate freely. Much of our difficulty stems from lack of interaction, and the resulting lack of shared context exposure. No amount of isolated knowledge will overcome failed distribution or overcome the greater population penetration rate of competing ideas which are propagating faster.

It doesn't matter what unique group options diverse individuals in a social species can each see - only what they can get the moment-of-gravity of their group to see and coordinate responses to.

Which means? Paying attention to recursion fundamentals - i.e., ALL the distributed operations, not just the one's you've become expert in - e.g., swimming? If you want the Titannic to be a bit more agile, don't bother leaning over the rail and shouting? Go down in the guts and recruit people to help retune some out of sight fundamentals? You won't BE a success since no one will notice. But you will DO something that matters to the people, groups and species you care about.

Good thing we have at least some people stubbornly making the right choices about BE or DO choices.

Have More Options Than We Can Imagine. ... Won't Explore Them. [helluva calling card]

commentary by Roger Erickson

Does Central Bank Independence Frustrate the Optimal Fiscal-Monetary Policy Mix in a Liquidity Trap?

While it's a very useful discussion, these guys are either being diplomatically over-cautious, or can't see the options for the fees. Answer sure seems to be "all the time," not just in certain situations. Central bank "independence" or "dependence" are just euphemisms for public-institution coordination. Select whichever method works better - but at least do it quickly? And keep changing it, as often as situations require? What happened to American ingenuity?

The deeper issue is that everyone isn't setting their sights 10x higher, and then openly discussing leanest/fastest/best ways to get there. Every process is too important to be left to the presumed process owners! That's what evolution means, for Pete's sake!

Have More Options Than We Can Imagine. ... Won't Explore Them.
[That's a helluva calling card. Don't expect the future to hire us unless we change what we broadcast about ourselves, and what we practice.]

Even the minority arguing for recognition of a liquidity trap don't see the simultaneous Fraud Trap. And, many of the people seeing the Fraud Trap don't even grasp what a liquidity trap is.

In any given situation, there are always multiple, simultaneous traps facing a culture with many degrees of freedom! If we don't maintain a citizenry - or at least a minimum set of leaders - capable of efficiently AND QUICKLY discussing situations from that perspective ... we're doomed? We already know that success tracks the quality of distributed decision-making. Yet we won't openly acknowledge and set about optimizing that metric!  Not openly exploring unimaginable options and organization traps - with agility - is our greatest known trap? Let's name that, and call it by two names.  An Adaptive Rate Trap, and an OBT&E trap.

"Leaders" are the emergency fallback for an incompetent electorate? Gods help us!

We're All Lerners Now? Or should be.

commentary by Roger Erickson

Was Keynes a Keynesian, or a Lernarian?

I've heard of lifelong learning as a consultant's mantra. Yet cultural-lifelong-learning seems to be a curiously neglected topic. Yet most people would readily agree that cultures that don't keep learning, and keep acclerating their Adaptive Rate, simply don't last.

Exceeding few things should be selected for permanent inclusion into our cultural toolkit, but this discussion of Lerner's concise writings should be. Why doesn't every student go through this in depth, before age 16? How are we supposed to have a dynamic, coherent culture when the electorate never learns even he rudiments of it's own currency operations? We try to teach teenagers relativity and quantum mechanics, but not currency operations or even return-on-coordination? No wonder our DoD has to search harder every year for people qualified to enter Officer Training programs. And we're left wondering why there are no good political candidates to choose from, and no leaders whatsoever.

Ever seen Ayn Rand choreography, "AR" war games, or AR culture? No? There's a reason why they never even make it into practice. They can't learn, can't perform, aren't agile but have been tried in Russia! Wotta resume! Yet now there are AR acolytes in Wisconsin, of all places! Worse, we've elected Congresspeople who have never read anything EXCEPT Ayn Rand. Go figure. Tom Paine & Alexander Hamilton must both be turning over in their graves, along with all their founding peers.

Is Libertarian choreography an oxymoron? Is that what cat herds refuse to practice? How about Libertarian group agility?

We had common sense in 1945 - and deliberately chose to hide it from the common people ever since ... why?

From the article: [why don't we just print and distribute an adequate currency supply?] ... "It's the art of statesmanship to tell lies, but they must be plausible lies."
67 years on, and little but lying to ourselves all the while?

Instead of lying to ourselves, we should all be Lerners now, in early & open discussion of this and all other optional outcomes.

The last thing we need are so-called leaders terrified that the common person might know as much as they do? Avoidance and delays in addressing the separation between the options they fear and our optimal group options is most of what's slowing us down. Hiding won't help, and group practice at carefully accelerating group parsing of that gulf definitely would. An electorate is a huge, massively parallel analog computing system. It's functions, outcomes and agility improve as a direct function of the number and rate of feedback-loop iterations it runs. This is NOT a mysterious subject.

Neil Wilson — New Keynesian? More like New Procrustean

The problem with mainstream economists is that they have a model that they believe in. They believe in it absolutely. It has become part of their core identity. And because the model is pure and perfect in their eyes it is therefore obvious that everything in the world must be adjusted to fit the model.

So we end up with governments that have their hands tied, we end up with persistent unemployment and we end up with silly inflexible system designs like the Euro.

And when the real world throws up endless evidence that the model is utterly wrong, the mainstream economists scream that, no, the world must be forced back into the model.

3spoken
New Keynesian? More like New Procrustean
Neil Wilson

Model fetishism or ideological advocacy?

Bill Mitchell — Progressive narrative should be human focused and uncompromising

Apparently, the latest from the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) attack squad (the squads that are forming to attack MMT) is that MMT sets up “strawman” targets which it calls mainstream economics and in doing so fails to address what mainstream economists actually think and advocate. 

This is becoming a repeating theme among those who seek to challenge the statements we are making. It is a good sign – a sign that the mainstream is recognising that an increasing number of people are seeing through the fictions that the economics profession has been trading on for years.

Apparently, the latest from the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) attack squad (the squads that are forming to attack MMT) is that MMT sets up “strawman” targets which it calls mainstream economics and in doing so fails to address what mainstream economists actually think and advocate.

This is becoming a repeating theme among those who seek to challenge the statements we are making. It is a good sign – a sign that the mainstream is recognising that an increasing number of people are seeing through the fictions that the economics profession has been trading on for years.

Bill Mitchell — billy blog
Progressive narrative should be human focused and uncompromising
Bill Mitchell

Frances Coppola — Floors and ceilings

No, this isn't a post about derivatives. It's about the relationship between reserves and safe assets. I think it is time I brought the two together and created a unified explanation of the behaviour of safe assets in the presence of excess reserves which earn a positive rate of interest....

It is not sensible to ignore non-banks in the conduct of monetary policy, especially in a financial system as disintermediated as that in the US. Both money and government debt are needed by the financial system: the balance between the two is currently distorted and this is having untoward effects, especially on the shadow banking system whose lifeblood is the collateral that is becoming scarce. A large part of the problem is the assumption that money is solely the responsibility of the central bank, and debt is about government financing. As I've said before, for a sovereign currency-issuing government neither of these is true.  Monetary and fiscal policy are both ways of managing money: they affect the economy in different ways because of the different institutions through which they work. And short-term government debt and currency are both "money" as far as financial markets are concerned.

The central bank is the lender of last resort - or perhaps more accurately, as Perry Mehrling suggests, the DEALER of last resort - for banks. And because non-banks don't have central bank support but can use government debt as a risk-free asset, effectively the Treasury is the lender or dealer of last resort for non-banks. Banks and non-banks together make up the financial system. Therefore we can regard fiscal policy as monetary policy applied to non-banks, and monetary policy as fiscal policy applied to banks. Interest rates are monetary taxes: taxes are fiscal interest rates. They do the same job on opposite sides of the bank/non-bank divide, i.e. controlling the total amount of "money" (in its broadest sense) in circulation. And there is of course a considerable overlap, since in reality the divide between banks and non-banks is entirely artificial: interest rate policy affects non-banks and taxation affects banks. Central banks and governments therefore are partners in the management of the financial system as a whole. 

Coppola Comment
Floors and ceilings
Frances Coppola
(h/t Andy Baltchford via email)

JKH — ‘Loans Create Deposits’ – in Context

Introduction
Loans create deposits. We’ve heard it many times now. But how well is it understood? The phrase is typically invoked accurately, in conjunction with a rejection of the ‘money multiplier’ fable found in economic textbooks. From an operational perspective, banks do not “lend reserves” to their non-bank customers. “Loans create deposits’ is an operation in endogenous money. And where central banks impose a level of required reserves based on deposits, the timing of the demand for and supply of reserves in respect of such a requirement follows the creation of the deposit – it does not precede it. The money multiplier story is bunk. And ‘loans create deposits’ is correct as an observation.

Nevertheless, there is a larger context for deposits, which includes their fate after they have been created. Deposits are used to repay loans, resulting in the ‘death’ of both loan and deposit. But there is more. As part of the birth/death analogy, there is the lifetime of loans and deposits to consider. This sequence of birth, life, and death in total may be helpful in putting ‘loans create deposits’ into a broader context. There is potential for confusion if ‘loans create deposits’ is embraced too enthusiastically as the defining characteristic, without considering the full life cycle of loans and deposits. Indeed, we shall see further below that ‘deposits fund loans’ is as true as ‘loans create deposits’ and that there is no contradiction between these two things.

Monetary Realism
‘Loans Create Deposits’ – in Context
JKH
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

Money & banking 101. Very clear step by step exposition of what goes on in contemporary banking wrt to institutional arrangements, how the accounting works, and what the institutional implications are. A chief implication is that bank money involves risk and banking is therefore an exercise in risk management to great degree.

Fabius Maximus — The world of wonders: Democratic Party takes center, pushes GOP right to madness

... under Clinton and now Obama the Democratic Party might have found a long-term winning hand. They’ve abandoned their Left base and adopted a lite version of GOP policies. Pretty words and minor policies initiatives keep the Left happy, while they:

• A new record for deporting illegals
• Nominating Republicans as SecDef
• A Wall-Street friendly bank regulatory system
• Expansion of military operations into new lands
• Welfare reform (Clinton and soon-to-be Obama)
• Massive increase in prosecution of whistleblowers
• Spending cuts to pursue a balanced budget (Clinton and soon-to-be Obama)
• Erosion of civil liberties, increased domestic surveillance, greater police powers
• National implementation of Heritage-designed RomneyCare, health care reform done in the interests of drug and insurance companies

And so forth.

How has the GOP responded to this wholesale adoption of its policies? To his national security policies: strong praise (more than Obama got from the Left), criticism for not going enough. To his domestic policies: condemnation as socialistic. But the major response has been a shift to the Right, into madness.

Fabius Maximus
The world of wonders: Democratic Party takes center, pushes GOP right to madness

The Democrats do Realpolitik.

Prepare for the global currency wars. Take my 3-day intensive Forex trading course!

One week to go to my intensive Forex trading boot camp.

 More info here.

Get the skills to take advantage of the coming global currency wars. Let clueless ideologues, central bankers and fiscal authorities finance your road to riches!!!

Occupy Wall Street — On Consensus

All groups run up against Dunbar's number as "the cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships." Overcoming this limitation is the primary challenge to consensual decision-making as groups grow. This presents a challenge to emergent protest organization and coordination that are confronting hierarchical organization and coordination based on the military model. The solution usually lies thorough adopting asymmetry, decentralization, local control, and avoidance of direct confrontation. Occupy is now debating this.

The post also contains a brief history of consensual societies.

Occupy Wall Street
On Consensus

Joshua Wojnilower — The Dangers of Misunderstanding "Helicopter Money" and Higher Inflation Targets

Woj analyzes Ashwin Parameshwaran's Helicopter Money Is Not Dangerous, All Macroeconomic Policy Is Dangerous in terms of the real interest rate and the real wage, showing why a monetary approach is too blunt an instrument, so that a targeted fiscal approach is needed.

Bubbles and Busts
The Dangers of Misunderstanding "Helicopter Money" and Higher Inflation Targets
Joshua Wojnilower

Randy Wray — How To Teach Money: Presentation at UNAM

Link to Randy's slide presentation on framing and teaching money.

Economonitor — Great Leap Forward
How To Teach Money: Presentation at UNAM
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, UMKC

Andrea Terzi — Do exports LOWER a nation’s living standards?

In the U.S. and (particularly) in euro countries, policies aimed at stimulating exports are (sadly) considered an effective response to lagging growth (U.S.) and recession (Euroland). Viewing a net export balance (i.e., an international trade surplus) as an economic virtue and a growth engine is a relic of Mercantilism that has had a powerful comeback, not coincidentally, with the abandonment of fiscal policy as a counter-cyclical tool.

MEPOC — Mosler Economic Policy Center
Do exports LOWER a nation’s living standards?

Andrea Terzi | Professor of Economics at Franklin College, Lugano, Switzerland

Michael Stephens — No, the Euro Crisis Is Not Over. An Interview with Jörg Bibow

Europe is on track for economic suicide. The U.S. recovery remains too weak and is subject to fiscal uncertainties too. I doubt that China will carry the torch alone. This crisis is not nearly over.

Multiplier Effect
No, the Euro Crisis Is Not Over. An Interview with Jörg Bibow
Michael Stephens

Chris Dillow — Leftist Tories?

As James O'Connor wrote:

"The capitalistic state must try to fulfill two basic and often contradictory functions - accumulation and legitimization...This means that the state must try to create or maintain the conditions in which profitable capital accumulation is possible. However, the state also must try to maintain or create the conditions for social harmony." (The Fiscal Crisis of the State, p6)

Insofar as the Tories have been successful down the decades, it's because they've been able to balance accumulation and legitimization; Thatcher stressed the former, Disraeli the latter, but they are two legs of the same beast.

This raises two questions. First, how strong are the material pressures on the Tories to adopt a more egalitarian stance? I'm in two minds here. On the one hand, working class power is sufficiently weak that it can be ignored, which means there's little need to "bribe the working classes", in Bismarck's phrase. But on the other hand, the social norm against corporate tax-dodging is strong, and the hope that enriching companies would encourage investment and growth seems to have been dashed - both of which point to the need for more legitimization policies.

Secondly, if redistributive policies can be adopted by the "right" (eg Disraeli, Bismarck), and if they can be shunned by the "left" under pressure from capital (eg New Labour), could it be that we over-rate the importance of the colour of the government, and under-rate that of the social norms and class power which constrain governments? At least some economic research (pdf) suggests the answer might be: yes.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Leftist Tories?
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle (UK)

David Ruccio — Income redistribution in the United States 1913-2011 (2 graphs)

What you'd expect, but the graphs make it clear. This is a new gilded age and it has been building for some time — like since the election of President Reagan and the neoliberal assault on workers.

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Income redistribution in the United States 1913-2011 (2 graphs)
David Ruccio | Professor of Economics, Notre Dame

Marcin Jakubowski — The Open Source Economy

Marcin Jakubowski - The Open Source Economy | @marioninstitute

(h/t P2P Foundation)

Connecting for Change: Bioneers by the Bay conference hosted by the Marion Institute is A SOLUTIONS BASED gathering that brings together a diverse audience to create deep and positive change in their communities. The conference connects the dots between food and farming, health and healing, indigenous knowledge, women and youth leadership, green business and restorative living.

MARCIN JAKUBOWSKI - "Growing up in Poland, and having a grandparent in the concentration camps, I was aware even at an early age what happens when materials are scarce, and people fight over opportunity."

"It's what drove me to identify the 50 machines that are necessary to build a modern economy. 50 machines, from cement mixers to 3D printers to moving vehicles that will allow a working society to be created. My goal, and my daily life, is dedicated to open source these tools, so that anyone - from the remote villages in Third World countries to the rural farms of Missouri, can have access to these meaningful tools to create a better life for themselves. EVERYONE needs access to these tools - it's why we're creating them with an open source model, and with the most advanced digital and physical technology known to us today. Let's be clear...this isn't about mere survival, it's about THRIVING. The intended outcome for these tools is for 12 people working for a mere 2 hours per day, are able to sustain themselves, and take advantage of a modern economy. The goal is to build cities from the ground up, allowing for normal thriving life, while living in harmony with each other, and in harmony with the very nature of the planet we inhabit. With these tools, and with this outcome, I hope to decrease the barriers to human potential - freeing up human capital to achieve their higher goals of awareness and actualization, with an ultimate benefit of freedom for all humanity - for themselves, and for the continued growth of their spirit. And hopefully, the very planet itself."

Marcin came to the U.S. from Poland as a child. He graduated with honors from Princeton and earned his PhD in fusion physics from the University of Wisconsin before shifting direction and starting a hydroponic vegetable farm in Madison, WI. Lacking real experience in practical matters, he then began his education from scratch, and in 2003 he founded Open Source Ecology in order to make closed-loop manufacturing a reality. He began development on the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), an open source DIY tool set of 50 different industrial machines necessary to create modern civilization from scrap metal. OSE has prototyped 8 machines and intends to build everything from an induction furnace for melting metals to an open source combine.

Vineet Nayar — The Intention Experiment

A 2007 book, The Intention Experiment, explored the science of intention, drawing on the findings of leading scientists around the world. Author Lynne McTaggart uses cutting-edge research conducted at Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and other universities and laboratories to reveal that intent is capable of profoundly affecting all aspects of our lives. In the book, William A. Tiller, a professor emeritus at Stanford University, argues: "For the last 400 years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call physical reality. Our experimental research of the past decade shows that, for today's world and under the right conditions, this assumption is no longer correct."

This is a key teaching of perennial wisdom, which is now being confirmed by modern science. The teaching is that the "stronger" one's consciousness, the more powerful one's intention. The internal Chinese marial arts are based on "energy work" (qigong, chi kung), a fundamental principle of which is, vital energy (qi, chi) follows intention (yi, i). This is something that those we practice self-cultivation discover in their own experience.

In order to communicate intent to others to get things done as a leader, one must actually have the intention. Intention has to have the concentrated force of one's consciousness behind it. Attention focuses consciousness on a point, and intention propels the energy of one's consciousness. Some people are born with greater capacity in this regard than others, and they are natural leaders. However, it is possible for anyone to progressively master attention and intention by cultivating the potential of attention and intention.

Harvard Business Review | HBR Blog Network
The Power of Intent
Vineet Nayar | Vice Chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd., an India-based global information technology services company

Summary: A Nation Failing To Discriminate And Prioritize Dynamic Over Static, Transient Values

commentary by Roger Erickson

“The only downfall of our beautiful free-enterprise system is profit at all cost,” Billy Mills said. “When you pursue profit at all costs, you’re having to let go of some beautiful strengths you still have within you. You lose sight of virtues and values that ... make all of us." “We all make mistakes — ... it’s the virtues and values that keep us going forward.” ... Billy Mills nodded again. “The greatest degree of freedom ... calls for the greatest degree of discipline.”

It's telling that supposedly advanced statistical and engineering principles are also ancient tribal practices.

Somehow we've fallen way behind on methods to scale distributed discipline as fast as our population and degrees of freedom have grown. What happened to the maxim that methods drive results? Our methods are chasing to catch up to our ongoing outcomes, and barely treading water.

Sure we have to explore options. Yet it's the methods used to approach exponentially increasing options that matter. That's something we call parsing, or critical thinking, or accelerated pattern analysis. Those methods make all the difference in whether our methods drive, chase or diverge from survivable outcomes.

We're no longer a recognizable tribe. We're not even a coherent nation. Our country may fall apart very quickly if we don't quickly find & aggressively use methods for driving adaptive change everywhere. Knowing what to do doesn't matter as much as the universal concept of recruitment methods - knowing how to get enough system components to contribute to doing what's needed.

The very fact that most words in any language require disambiguation drives home the nature of our system management challenges. Most meaning in any language is supplied by context. A distributed democracy simply cannot grow without citizens who are able to think, and who are also deeply practiced in applying that skill.  Without distributed thinking about the ambiguity in every message an electorate hears, every day, we cannot adaptively manage our exponentially growing degrees of freedom.

Harold James — Designing a federal bank

Do economists and policymakers know how to design a federal bank for Europe? Is there a template? This column explores the history of the US Federal Reserve, gleaning lessons for the future of the European banking system. Getting to grips with the historical and empirical details shows how different the two really are. Overall, evidence suggests that the mechanism of the TARGET system might well create demand for Europe to move further towards fiscal federalism.

VOX.eu
Designing a federal bank
Harold James

Actually, it's a short history lesson about the Fed.

Charles Hugh Smith — The Pareto Economy

My cousin is an engineer, and he taught me how to use many rules of thumb in figuring and estimation. The 80-20 rule is a useful heuristic that has served me well. Take a minute to read this. Many gems.

Of Two Minds
The Pareto Economy
Charles Hugh Smith
(h/t Zero Hedge)

Michael Perelman — The Power of Economics vs. The Economics of Power

Most of the other papers at the conference were of a similar bent, showing how markets evolve naturally and work efficiently. Nowhere was there any consideration of power. The participants clearly understood the discipline of economics very well, but that was their problem. Part of the training of economists is the development of an instinct to avoid any consideration of power, other than presumptive abuses of government, which interfere with the functioning of markets. In conventional economics, power is reduced to a metaphor. We have the power of the market or the power of competition, but corporate power is nowhere to be found. 2

This exclusion of power from economics has a long history. In researching The Invention of Capitalism, a study of classical political economists' attitude regarding primitive accumulation, I was struck by their cavalier treatment of this abusive exercise of raw power....

Although the political economists were too much concerned with showing the justice of markets to address such obvious exercises of power, in their more private writings -- diaries and letters -- they applauded the forces that pushed workers off the land and into wage labor. Contemporary economists generally follow this tradition describing the evolution of markets as a purely voluntary phenomenon, virtually universally understood as beneficial to all.

As a partial corrective to this problem, I recently published a book, The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism: How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers. As the title suggests, an important part of the book is to show how both business and economic theory have destructive consequences. The other main thread of the book describes how economists have gone out of their way to create a theory that excludes all considerations of work, workers, and working conditions.

The main benefit of this exclusion is that it conveniently eliminates all considerations of power from the discipline of economics. In this sense, the participants at the conference were blameless. They did exactly what "good" economists are supposed to do. The problem is that "good" economists do not make good economics, except to the extent that their work provides useful ideological cover.

This cover, however, is incapable of covering up all of the intractable problems of capitalism. Once the damage becomes obvious, power may briefly enter into the picture. After the crisis passes, power quickly becomes invisible again. What is most remarkable is that a clear consideration of mainstream economic theory should be enough to alert economists to the inherent contradictions of the capitalist economy. Such a perspective, might, at least, be capable of moderating some of the more destructive results of untrammeled capitalism.

The Power of Economics vs. The Economics of Power
Michael Perelman
(h/t Chris Dillow at Stumbling and Mumbling)

This is good. Brief and to the point. The subtitle might be, "What's reallly going on with the myth of the market." 

My first mentor used to say the understanding power is key.

Book: After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action. Dada Maheshvarananda

P2P Foundation
Book: After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action. Dada Maheshvarananda. Innerworld Publications, 2012
Franco Iacomella

General descriptions

A grassroots movement for economic democracy based on cooperatives and local economies is quickly growing throughout the planet. After Capitalism, inspired by P.R. Sarkar’s Progressive Utilization Theory, offers a compelling vision of an equitable, sustainable model which economically empowers individuals and communities. Filled with successful examples from six continents as well as many resources, activities and tools for activists, After Capitalism will fill you with hope and the conviction that a new, democratic economy is indeed possible. 

Includes a conversation with Noam Chomsky and contributions by Frei Betto, Johan Galtung, Leonardo Boff, Sohail Inayatullah, Marcos Arruda, Ravi Batra and others.
In 2003 I published After Capitalism: Prout’s Vision for a New World. It was subsequently translated into nine other languages and sold a total of about 15,000 copies with no distribution or marketing. However, when I undertook to update it, both the world and the development of Prout had changed so much that I wrote 80 percent of the 390 pages new content. Economic democracy, a fundamental demand of Prout, is also starting to resonate with the indignados movement of Spain and Portugal, the global Occupy Movement and with many other progressive activists.”

What’s new in this book? There are six new essays by Prout activists and two revised ones, a conversation with Noam Chomsky, many more examples of successful cooperatives and Prout projects, a number of resource tools and practical techniques to effectively present Prout to the public, and a deeper analysis of the fundamental principles and how to apply them. The book has new sections on leadership training, Sadvipra governance, guerrilla street theater, a greatly expanded and improved section on the exploitation and liberation of women, a block-level planning exercise with detailed questions, instructions for the popular Sarkar Game, and much more.

See also PROUT — Dada Maheshvarananda's Blog concerning PROUT, the Progressive Utilisation Theory

Trudge Toward Freedom: A Review of “After Capitalism” by Bill Ayers in "Left Eye on Books"


 KGNU Interviews with Dada Maheshvarananda about Prout

Chris Dillow — Power, skill & wealth

We have enough cases here to show that power matters more than neoclassical economics would have us believe. In many cases, the idea that financial success is a reward for ability and service to others is just a fairy tale.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Power, skill & wealth
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle (UK)

Another false assumption of neoclassical economics that sits at the core of neoliberalism. What this suggests is that power involves the ability to extract rents.

Merijn Knibbe — Graph of the day – a deflation shock in Japan

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Graph of the day – a deflation shock in Japan
Merijn Knibbe

Vasilis Kostakis — Occupied Greek Factory Begins Production Under Workers Control

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 is the official first day of production under workers control in the factory of Viomichaniki Metalleutiki (Vio.Me) in Thessaloniki, Greece. This means production organized without bosses and hierarchy, and instead planned with directly democratic assemblies of the workers. The workers assemblies have declared an end to unequal division of resources, and will have equal and fair remuneration, decided collectively. The factory produces building materials, and they have declared that they plan to move towards a production of these goods that is not harmful for the environment, and in a way that is not toxic or damaging.

P2P Foundation
Occupied Greek Factory Begins Production Under Workers Control
Vasilis Kostakis

Gaius Publius — America faces more than a dozen deadlines, all caused by billionaires and wealth transfer

Here they are, numbered in no particular order, but grouped:

1. Accelerating transfer of wealth to the .001% (“the billionaires”)
 

2. Accelerating transfer of manufacturing out of the country 


3. Marginalization or destruction of effective labor unions
 

4. Destruction of the middle class (i.e., the consumer class)

5. Capture of government by billionaires of both partie


6. Capture of the Republican Party by anti-Constitutional billionaires via Tea Party-financed candidates

7. Constitutional changes, including changes in practice to rule of law and an ever-widening circle of elites with immunity from prosecution

8. Creation via trade agreements of a transnational state that enshrines corporate sovereignty

9. Permanent war and a permanently expanding military


10. Permanently expanding national security state, including militarization of police, widespread spying and punishment for political crimes


11. The ticking time bomb of increasing numbers of returning untreated war-damaged battle-trained veterans

12. Oil dependence without recognition of oil as a soon-to-be-depleted energy source


13. Deterioration of the environment, largely due to oil and carbon dependence, among other causes


14. Destruction of the integrity of our food supply

15. Destruction of public education

16. Climate catastrophe and the collapse of human populations and level of civilization

Every one of these has the potential to run to a destructive and permanent end-point.

I don’t want to discuss them at length here — that  article is still in draft. I just want to present the list for your consideration. A few will be discussed below, but only for illustration. My bottom line, and the surprise discovery, is that every single one is driven by one common cause — internationalist billionaires.

America Blog
America faces more than a dozen deadlines, all caused by billionaires and wealth transfer
Gaius Publius
(h/t Naked Capitalism)

It used to said that knowledge is power, now it is wealth is power. This is the underlying issue with rising inequality and the rise of a global super-class as the new oligarchy.

Mike Whitney — Obama, Housing and the Next Big Heist

Obama doesn’t care if struggling homeowners get a break on their refis or not. It’s all a joke. He’s just helping his bank buddies cut their losses while they set the stage for their next big heist.

Counterpunch
Obama, Housing and the Next Big Heist
Mike Whitney
(h/t Naked Capitalism)

Eleazar David Melendez — Financial Crisis Cost Tops $22 Trillion, GAO Says

The 2008 financial crisis cost the U.S. economy more than $22 trillion, a study by the Government Accountability Office published Thursday said. The financial reform law that aims to prevent another crisis, by contrast, will cost a fraction of that.

"The 2007-2009 financial crisis, like past financial crises, was associated with not only a steep decline in output but also the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s," the GAO wrote in the report. The agency said the financial crisis toll on economic output may be as much as $13 trillion -- an entire year's gross domestic product. The office said paper wealth lost by U.S. homeowners totalled $9.1 billion. Additionally, the GAO noted, economic losses associated with increased mortgage foreclosures and higher unemployment since 2008 need to be considered as additional costs.

The report, five years after the collapse of mortgage-focused hedge funds in late-2007 set off a yearlong banking panic and a deep recession, was published as part of a cost-benefit analysis of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2010. The GAO tried to determine if the benefits of preventing a future economic meltdown exceeded the costs of implementing that law....

Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, on Thursday praised the GAO report, saying in a statement that while "Wall Street and its many allies baselessly complaining about the cost" of Dodd-Frank, "they never mention that it was Wall Street’s reckless investments and trading that caused the biggest financial collapse since the Great Crash of 1929 or the trillions of dollars in costs they inflicted on our country.

"That economic wreckage can still be seen from coast to coast in unemployment, foreclosed and underwater homes, lost retirements and educations and so much more,” Kelleher said.

The Huffington Post
Financial Crisis Cost Tops $22 Trillion, GAO Says
Eleazar David Melendez
(h/t Naked Capitalism)