August 2011 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

The Fed Audit - $16 trillion in secret loans,...
by Dante-Gabryell Monson 03 Aug '11

03 Aug '11

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dc… July 21, 2011 The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office<http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf> to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said. The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans. For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed's emergency lending programs. In another disturbing finding, the GAO said that on Sept. 19, 2008, William Dudley, who is now the New York Fed president, was granted a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time AIG and GE were given bailout funds. One reason the Fed did not make Dudley sell his holdings, according to the audit, was that it might have created the appearance of a conflict of interest. To Sanders, the conclusion is simple. "No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed's board of directors or be employed by the Fed," he said. The investigation also revealed that the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, many of which also were recipients of extremely low-interest and then-secret loans. The Fed outsourced virtually all of the operations of their emergency lending programs to private contractors like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. The same firms also received trillions of dollars in Fed loans at near-zero interest rates. Altogether some two-thirds of the contracts that the Fed awarded to manage its emergency lending programs were no-bid contracts. Morgan Stanley was given the largest no-bid contract worth $108.4 million to help manage the Fed bailout of AIG. A more detailed GAO investigation into potential conflicts of interest at the Fed is due on Oct. 18, but Sanders said one thing already is abundantly clear. "The Federal Reserve must be reformed to serve the needs of working families, not just CEOs on Wall Street." To read the GAO report, click here<http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf> . http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf

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feminist urbanism
by Michel Bauwens 03 Aug '11

03 Aug '11

interesting, in one of the works of A. Allen Butcher, one of the foremost experts on community economics: https://we.riseup.net/assets/4969/ELAN.pdf (more at http://p2pfoundation.net/Jarin_Boonmathya?title=Special%3ASearch&search=%22… ) "Historical Efforts in Developing Community as Industry There have been many efforts in the past to develop community as industry, and we can see some of these in the "material feminist" proposals, projects and even patents presented in writings by Dolores Hayden (see: Redesigning the American Dream: Gender, Housing, and Family Life, and The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities), Hayden's work includes mentions of Ebenezer Howard's "Garden Cities," Frederick Law Olmsted's "Garden Suburbs," and Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Green Belt" housing and community development program, part of the 1930s New Deal initiatives. See the following. • Hayden: http://www.architecture.yale.edu/faculty/ professors/hayden/hayden.htm • Howard and Olmsted: http://www.asu.edu/caed/ proceedings98/Garvin/garvin.html • Roosevelt: http://www.mdmunicipal.org/cities/ index.cfm?townname=Greenbelt&page=home" -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Re: [P2P-F] New P2P blog entry?
by Michel Bauwens 03 Aug '11

03 Aug '11

Hi Bryan, it's too long for us, but interesting, so I have excerpted from it for August 12, and people can then discover the original for more. My take is that you can't totally uproot a society in one go, so RBE networks have to predate any more fundamental change ... So you would have to create a network of phyles, i.e. community-based, mission-oriented enterprises, which network together through open book management, and can start to mutually coordinate an ever larger part of their exchanges in a new way ... Michel On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:12 PM, Bryan Hugill <bryan.hugill(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Note sure whether this link may be of interest to your website or not: > http://www.theresourcebasedeconomy.com/2011/06/will-a-resource-based-econom… > > Cheers, > Bryan > -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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inquiry
by vin 03 Aug '11

03 Aug '11

DEAR SIR: I WISH TO ASK A LIST OF FOUNDATION THAT HAVE A HIGH PROBABILITY OF GETTING A JOB, THANKS!

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McConnell: ‘The debt ceiling will not be clean anymore’
by Kevin Carson 03 Aug '11

03 Aug '11

There's an interesting analogy here to Peak Oil. Those who say high oil prices are the result of "above ground" factors like speculation rather than declining rates of extraction miss the point: rising speculation, terror attacks on pipelines, etc., are all secondary epiphenomena of the declining rate of extraction. The less elastic supply becomes, the more it becomes in someone's interest to leverage that inelasticity by attacks on supply. The less elastic oil supply becomes, the higher the ROI on terror attacks on pipelines and other obstructions of supply. Likewise, the closer states approach to fiscal exhaustion, the more leverage can be extracted by threats of default. Sent to you by Kevin Carson via Google Reader: McConnell: ‘The debt ceiling will not be clean anymore’ via Ezra Klein by Ezra Klein on 8/2/11 The most honest man in Washington did some more truth-telling on CNBC last night. Speaking to Larry Kudlow, Mitch McConnell made perfectly clear that the hostage situation we just went through wasn’t a one-shot deal. It’s the new normal: What we have done, Larry, also is set a new template. In the future, any president, this one or another one, when they request us to raise the debt ceiling, it will not be clean anymore. This is just the first step. This, we anticipate, will take us into 2013. Whoever the new president is, is probably going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again. Then we will go through the process again and see what we can continue to achieve in connection with these debt ceiling requests of presidents to get our financial house in order. Previously, I’ve compared the debt ceiling to a bomb ticking away at the base of the economy. We don’t much notice it because it’s always been there and, despite a couple of close calls, it’s never gone off. But that doesn’t mean it won’t ever go off. Particularly if these sorts of showdowns become the norm. And even if it doesn’t go off, Congress’s decision to make the risk of default more visible might well be enough to scare the markets. If you were an investor, would you want to put your money in a country that regularly held bitter partisan brawls over whether you would be paid back? Or would, say, German bonds begin looking like a comparatively better bet? We have an increasingly polarized country. We have an increasingly dysfunctional Congress. One way to respond would be to make it easier for Congress to operate in a partisan manner and to work to reduce the risk that gridlock and grandstanding could harm the country. But that, of course, won’t happen, as the people who could rewrite the rules are part of that dysfunctional system, and answer to our increasingly polarized political parties. And so we’re raising the stakes rather than lowering them. We’re setting up the exact sort of catastrophe we should be laboring to avoid. Hearing McConnell’s comments last night, economist Jared Bernstein was shocked. “This is not the way of great nations,” he wrote. I disagree. The political system that doesn’t modernize and eventually finds its vulnerabilities exploited by interest-group pressure, internal divisions and reckless politicians? This is certainly the way of great nations. It’s the way they fall. Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to Ezra Klein using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

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Fwd: [OK] Re: <Coalition> Re: Eco-villages Taxonomy
by Michel Bauwens 02 Aug '11

02 Aug '11

thanks Dante, Michel ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 9:51 PM Subject: Fwd: [OK] Re: <Coalition> Re: Eco-villages Taxonomy To: econowmix(a)googlegroups.com Forwarded conversation Subject: <Coalition> Re: Eco-villages Taxonomy ------------------------ From: *BenB* <solaureum(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 2:41 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Cc: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com Hi, can I suggest: instead of a taxonomy of Ecovillages, how about a taxonomy of ecovillagING--that is to say, the range of activities, technologies, structures, skills, arts, opportunities, etc. that enable and maintain such spaces in a great variety of settings (some of which could be outside the general idea of 'ecovillage' but still interesting and important). I have taken several taxonomies from social and media sites around the web combined for this 3D model, which still needs work but could be a good reference for you (or please let me know if you want to work together on developing it further!): https://cacoo.com/diagrams/0JBtZevhQg233EBL --several entries would have more sub-headings or tag clusters (ongoing research...) -- -----------Coalition of the Willing----------- The Coalition occupies several spaces for communication and action. Keep the discussion on this list civil & assume good faith. Strive for brevity. For the what-why-where of Coalition work, look to http://cotw.cc. That wiki functions as a routing-portal and a locus for some of the work. All group efforts should maintain an updated statement of current focus, channels and spaces of work and anything necessary to support orientation & keeping up-to-speed. "BetterMeans" is where we coordinate our work: making proposals, endorsing & signing up for work, and tracking tasks. https://secure.bettermeans.com/projects/163 Share the film: http://cotw.me/film ----------------- You are subscribed to coalition(a)googlegroups.com To unsubscribe email coalition+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com For more options http://groups.google.com/group/coalition?hl=en ---------- From: *Mark Roest* <marklroest(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 3:59 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Hello Ben, This is great! I love your concept of what is good in each area. I'd like to help you work on it, and also share it with people working on regional transformation design. It can also be used for marketing things that augment good -- you link them to the goods they augment. In the layer below that, you explain why they augment it, perhaps with links to certifications, etc.; in the next layer down you show the analytical model, provide the evidence, etc. Similarly, building the taxonomy of good, what you have could be the top layer display. When someone wants to see more detail, they get a layer that has one cluster from the top layer as its main elements, and one or two layers of detail below that linked to it. It will help people remember the context, and think of useful links, to have a thumbnail of the layer (or layers?) above shown alongside the active layer. The map can go down many layers, as you move from a major category, to its subcategories, to why some approaches are good, to methods of making them happen, to specific technologies and other resources used in those methods, and networks of groups and individuals who are developing and / or using those methods. Under that last level, you can create specific directories, with peer ratings, access information, relative safety data, and more. One area that could use adjustment is that the top half of the Culture cluster is obscured by the window that holds information about the mind-map. Gotta run! More later. Mark ---------- From: *George Mokray* <gmoke(a)world.std.com> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 4:47 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com I second that proposal. "Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous behaviors that will avoid extinction." R. Buckminster Fuller Bugout bag to refugee camp - what is the toolkit of "spontaneous behaviors that will avoid extinction"? We need a tool set for, at least, emergencies and disasters. It should be portable, adaptable, and resilient, made of readily available materials that can be easily repaired. I say start with Solar IS Civil Defense - flashlight, cell phone, radio, extra set of batteries all from a few square inches of solar electric panel. Add a hand crank or bicycle generator and survival level, refugee camp level electricity is available day or night, by sunlight or muscle power, anywhere around the world. I suspect it is also now affordable or could be made so for the 1.5 billion or so people in the world who do not yet have access to reliable electric power. There are similar solutions available for disinfecting, cleaning, and heating water, basic human sanitation transforming human manure and urine into energy and fertilizer safely, without stink, stank, or (much_ funk, shelter and housing, what's the wish list? Appropedia has many of the resources already available for compilation. All we need to do is compile that list. Open-E Farm adds another layer and scale as well. Broadcast the tool kit on all media available, in all languages, to all the people who need or want it. Think of it as updating Gandhi's Constructive Programme for the 21st century using currently available technology for local production, swadeshi. Marry this educational and economic development with the social network revolutions sweeping around the world and we might be able to start transforming living conditions for the better virally. ---------- From: *Mark Roest* <marklroest(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:07 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Right on, George! Mark ---------- From: *Mark Roest* <marklroest(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:28 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Ben's mindmap at https://cacoo.com/diagrams/0JBtZevhQg233EBL is a very good start on just that. I replied to it with an explanation of how the taxonomical nature of his mind-map can be deepened, so you can get down to the level of specificity you are addressing below. By cross-referencing this taxonomy with the eco-regions, ecosystems and cultures in each place, which require different responses in the same issue categories, we can avoid the confusion of having to list all the different ways an issue needs to be addressed depending on the variables. In each of the 827 terrestrial eco-regions, and in each of their ecosystems, you (i.e., lots of different people who know them) state the conditions that exist for a given issue (like growing food, for example), and you provide the solutions that work for that kind of system. Then, people of the cultures that inhabit that kind of place say what solutions are valid for their cultures, and those get tagged with that information. Now a person in a culture can drill right down to where they are, what kind of ecosystem it is, what works in which circumstances, and what is 'right' for their culture. Voila! There is also a unifying force. Permaculture is essentially a collection of lessons about the general principles, and many specific solutions, that humanity has uncovered over the millenia, for living in harmony with all our relations. Same for each indigenous culture. It is a matter of Unity and Diversity -- the basic principle of life. Lessons that apply (perhaps in somewhat different ways) in many different ecosystems are another layer of the knowledgebase, and a good starting point for people not immersed in a particular culture. This is a major part of what I have long wanted to do in what I call the Environmental, Economic and Land Use Planning Knowledgebase. Let's play! Regards, Mark Roest ---------- From: *Wael Al Saad* <globalpalestine(a)googlemail.com> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 7:35 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Cc: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com Ben, I have brainstormed Ecovillaging for my idea concept here http://www.mindmeister.com/de/19349055/home-cooperative-association Your 3D model is providing simple, logical and rich language. I will see how to implement it for my particular case. For my venture I plan to study and analyse existing models through taxonomy model, diving for perles, which will enable me after to present my project to local forces and put the correct proposal for it. I think we can start from Devin work and discuss new format. I am very much interested in eco-villages with self-sufficience appropriate economic activities (healing economy) so I would start analysing these using the new format. I might travel for several days to Jordan this week, so I wont be able to meet on SKYPE or deliver any proposals .. What do u think of creating a circle "Eco-villaging Taxonomy" on G+ to try the hangout function? ---------- From: *Devin Balkind* <devin(a)sarapisfoundation.org> Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:04 PM To: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com Cc: coalition(a)googlegroups.com, Patrick Gibbs <patrick0(a)riseup.net> An open, accessible database of eco-communities is an essential element for the emergence of a network of collaborative spaces that develop and deploy a global knowledge commons. The more effective the taxonomy used to categorize these places, the easier it will be to create a strong network. I'm cc'ing Patrick Gibbs on this conversation as I think he could contribute to this effort. Please include me in your G+ or whatever platform you settle on using. This is a message from the OpenKollab Google Group located at > http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab?hl=en > To post to this group, send email to openkollab(a)googlegroups.com -- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation devin(a)sarapisfoundation.org @devinbalkind -- This is a message from the OpenKollab Google Group located at http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab?hl=en To post to this group, send email to openkollab(a)googlegroups.com ---------- From: *Pamela McLean* <pamela.mclean(a)dadamac.net> Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 2:00 AM To: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com I also like this development of the idea of a taxonomy of eco-villages to a taxonomy of ecovillagING. It certainly widens things out. I'm also interested that Mark suggests ideas at a personal level, and disaster scenarios, and that Wael is looking at longer term community aspects. This puts me in mind of Vinay Gupta's work on "six ways to die" (too hot, too cold, lack of food, lack of water, injury, disease) and ways to avoid dying on an increasingly complex levels - individual level, family group level, community level etc. I wonder if some of his thinking/diagrams would be a helpful addition to this thread. - This link is to the outline of a talk given by Vinay at the Temprary School of Thought and includes a link to the six ways to die diagram http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/personal/talk-outline-for-jan-7th-in-lo…. - This link has a video explaining the ideas with visual aids http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/other/vinay-gupta-six-ways-to-die-shelt… Pamela ---------- From: *BenB* <solaureum(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:56 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Thank you Wael, Mark, George for stimulating an exchange here, this is great stuff. I think we're homing in on some important fundamentals of wisdom systems in this arena--perhaps the most important area to find global understanding and language for a semantically empowered info-web! Let's definitely make a bit of visual and realtime workspace to take these things further. I am currently working hard to write out more complete picture of what I'd like to do with such tools, and connecting to several other work groups where related applications are in development. Maybe G+ is a good idea, since I think it integrates well with google docs (including drawings tool) although I actually like Cacoo better for this. Just signed up: gplus.to/bneb if anyone wants to jump in with that, or suggest other spaces/strategies... Wael, I remember some good posts from you many months ago on this mail list, but would love to hear again what is your current focus for implementation? Are you trying to coordinate one or more ecovillage projects in your area, or network existing sites, or just collect and provide tools for anyone? ---------- From: *Wael Al Saad* <globalpalestine(a)googlemail.com> Date: Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:52 AM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com this thread should help me with your support to set up something on the ground (open-source eco-village for healing economy). After two years investgating the situation locally (Jenin/WestBank//Palestine) and what people are driven for, I found out it is very complicated to start such a higher culture infrastructure, where all are focusing on their individual economic streangth and security. On the one hand, I am still not in the position to present the concept the way which make it succesful. To do it right I must get in the eco-villages "business" and learn from exising experience, thats why the tele-web field study through developing the Eco-villaging Taxonomy and data gathering . The other thing I have started is developing my own permaculture home-scale garden and planing to use that as study case for 3days workshop as short intro to permaculture and some homescale applications. Hopefully tomorrow i will start a docu reflects the outcome of the discussion as I think it is applicable for me. There I will see the categories impulsing the questions as eco-villaging sectors map taxonomy ---------- From: *Wael Al Saad* <globalpalestine(a)googlemail.com> Date: Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 7:55 PM To: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com Cc: coalition(a)googlegroups.com, Patrick Gibbs <patrick0(a)riseup.net> I have started adding the missing sectors from the point of my re-search. http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show/106841534 help is needed to better concentrate the data and categories. Devin, do you see any possibility to organize any of these topics into your data-base scheme? Is it possible to send me the current database in excel format to see if I can find patterns and trends within? ---------- From: *Devin Balkind* <devin(a)sarapisfoundation.org> Date: Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 7:34 PM To: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com Cc: coalition(a)googlegroups.com, Patrick Gibbs <patrick0(a)riseup.net> Really enjoying your map. I like to organize things into three categories: people, places and projects. People describes individuals and groups (worth adding to your scheme), places describes physical locations and their features ('architecture') and projects describe how people and places turn inputs into outputs ('economic fields') The coworking/registry project is still on step 1: get the minimum amount of information about the maximum amount of spaces. You can see the info at 7.corowkingregistry.org. I've also listed fields in a bunch of relevant databases here<https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArhSktWsQi1VdDl4MGcwdX…>. Please feel free to use/edit this spreadsheet to meet your needs. Let me know how I can be of more assistnace. ---------- From: *Wael Al Saad* <globalpalestine(a)googlemail.com> Date: Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 9:25 AM To: openkollab(a)googlegroups.com Cc: coalition(a)googlegroups.com, Patrick Gibbs <patrick0(a)riseup.net> Suresh, this thread is the most active one .. I have started with this mindmap http://www.mindmeister.com/106841534/healing-economy-eco-villageing-forming… to reflect what I think is missing in IC directory with the focus on economic space. I am interested for the task to update IC directory database scheme and gather new test information . i do not know if we yet if Devin/IC people are interested for this update, to be done on their database. If not I would use the new scheme individually with whom else is interested. ---------- From: *Mark Roest* <marklroest(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 4:58 PM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com Hello Wael and Suresh, The map is a decent start. It needs to have links between related systems, such as communications and governance, that show the potential of a whole systems approach. Maybe there need(s) to be (a) sandbox version(s) to encourage collective brainstorming and iteration across communities and cultures. Regards, Mark ---------- From: *Mark Roest* <marklroest(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 4:59 PM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com It also needs to reflect the pervasive relationship with the specific ecosystems and cultures of each place. Mark ---------- From: *Mark Junkunc* <thefreshclassics(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 9:20 PM To: coalition(a)googlegroups.com This is starting to sound more and more like a facet of the catalyst system that I am working on. I encourage those who are interested to look this attached design comp over and let me know if you see this discussion fitting into this interface? If not does anyone see something else tangible coming from this discussion? -Mark -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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6 reasons why filesharing is great for music
by Michel Bauwens 02 Aug '11

02 Aug '11

http://torrentfreak.com/6-reasons-why-filesharing-will-go-down-in-history-a… hi chris, could you republish this august 14 or after? many thanks! -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc ([email protected])
by Michel Bauwens 02 Aug '11

02 Aug '11

*Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8, A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Pluto Press, 2010. * *1. Key Structural Problem:** The dispossession of labour - the separation of the majority of the population from access to the means of subsistence; the ownership of the means of production - productive resources and the technologies to extract and exploit them - by an elite minority.* * * *2. Key Structural Problem**: The globalization of capitalist social relations the total domination of the world's productive resources by a minority, and the corresponding worldwide dispossession of labour. * * * *3. Key Structural Problem**: Cyclical generation of socio-economic crises of over-accumulation and underproduction (‘boom and bust'); which exacerbates inequalities between historically advantaged core capitalist states and labour peripheral states relegated to being suppliers of cheap raw materials and labour, and markets for core agricultural (and other) exports. * * * *4. Key Structural Problem:** The capitalist social relation's pressure to exploit ever larger quantities of the world's natural resources for production for profit, on an ever expanding geographical scale that will soon be beyond the natural world's ability to self-replenish. * * * *5. Key Structural Problem:** The systemic over-dependence on hydrocarbon resources for industrial production, sustained by an international division of labour designed not to meet the needs of local populations, but purely to maximize profits for primarily Northern banks, corporations and governments. * * * *6. Key Structural Problem:** The world monetary system is based on fractional reserve banking - that is, the creation of fiat money as credit at interest which serves to subjugate the population to an enlarging and un-repayable debt that is the basis of self-reproducing profits for banks; and which compounds the imperative for unlimited growth through unconstrained exploitation of natural resources. * * * *7. Key Structural Problem:** Computational finance effectively transformed the banking system's ability to create fiat debt-money through the development of fraudulent quantitative models concealing ballooning levels of risk, making possible the creation of exorbitant profits virtually ex nihilo - but the costs were socialized and backlogged until the banking system collapsed under the weight of its own un-sustainability.* * * *8. Key Structural Problem:** Nation-states and national identity, as the primary loci of 'legitimate' political representation, are increasingly detrimental both in terms of their negative impact on democracy, and the categories by which human social groups ascribe identities to themselves. While current forms of representative democracy are increasingly susceptible to erosion and manipulation by nondemocratic military-financial forces, ethnic and national markers of difference can increasingly be exploited to polarize communities and legitimize political violence against the 'Other'. * * * *9. Key Structural Problem:** Global governance institutions are mobilized primarily as mechanisms for the US to regulate the international system in its own interests, rather than the interests of the majority of the system's members. Calls to reform these institutions (such as to make the UN more democratic, or to make the World Bank more transparent) have therefore consistently failed. * * * *10. Key Structural Problem:** The implicit philosophical and ontological assumptions underlying neoliberal capitalism posit an extreme form of materialism, reducing the world to a collection of physical, disconnected, atomistic, self-interested and thus inherently conflictual units. These assumptions are clearly mistaken, as they implicitly shape a global political economy that is simultaneously destroying itself and the natural world. * * * *11. Key Structural Problem:** Neoliberal capitalism is premised on a materialist value system which penetrates the entirety of human life, commodifying everything from human life to the natural world in the service of maximizing a 'good' defined largely in terms of material consumption. Yet this ethical system is responsible not only for the escalation of multiple global crises, but simultaneously for high levels of psychological illness and distress among neoliberal capitalist nations. It is therefore a value system divorced from reality, incommensurate with human nature and the natural world. * ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: christopher macrae <chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk> Date: Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 12:40 AM Subject: Re: one simple leadership system failure: pro-youth versus anti-youth Re: Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc ( chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk) To: "Alan Rayner (Plus)" <alan(a)admrayner.plus.com>, peterchallen(a)gmail.com Cc: jbunzl(a)simpol.org, patrick(a)pineapple.cc, rebeccaharding(a)deltaeconomics.com, sabine(a)3dmetrics.co.uk, lilly3653(a)aol.com, sofia(a)londoncreativelabs.com, mostofa12(a)yahoo.com, pilar(a)gmail.com, rodney.shakespeare1(a)btopenworld.com, lesley.williams(a)the-hub.net, jonathan.robinson(a)the-hub.net, peter(a)brandenergyresearch.co.uk, ghbuzt(a)gmail.com, dennisharding(a)deltaeconomics.com, asmitchell(a)aol.com, hattoribleu(a)yahoo.co.uk, charlie(a)p3capital.co.uk, klong(a)justmeans.com, Mark Chaplin <caplinski(a)gmail.com>, tommy(a)i-genius.org, robert(a)omniworldview.com, zasheem zasheem <zasheem(a)btinternet.com> *this is a grand sentence* *“For once men have been made to realize the crippling mutilations imposed by an objectivist framework – once the veil of ambiguities covering up these mutilations has been definitely dissolved – many fresh minds will turn to the task of reinterpreting the world as it is, and as it then once more will be seen to be.” * but then to show how non-mathematical academia has become, I thought einstein's main finding was objectivism is always a top-down approximation, and the only way to progress (when you find you are running out of spac ) is to map more micro so if 60 years of the top-down monopolies of professionalism and academia havent even bothered to change itself from the simplest maths advance in the 20th c (and in the last 20 years with the internet as the simplest tool that ever could have emdiated chane) I dont expect the vast majority of academia will help build a sustainable world in time which is why one of the top 50 most exciting projects in the world I want to see (say) 10 unversities come together to develop the un-mba and devalue all the others that still preach MBA I suspect that 2 of these 10 universties will be MIT and national uni of singapore - anyone got other nominations and if so at what level should I be trying to issue invitation to the 10 unis who sustain theworld chris --- On *Mon, 1/8/11, Alan Rayner (Plus) <alan(a)admrayner.plus.com>* wrote: From: Alan Rayner (Plus) <alan(a)admrayner.plus.com> Subject: Re: one simple leadership system failure: pro-youth versus anti-youth Re: Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc ( chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk) To: "Alan Rayner (Plus)" <alan(a)admrayner.plus.com>, "christopher macrae" < chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk>, peterchallen(a)gmail.com Cc: jbunzl(a)simpol.org, patrick(a)pineapple.cc, rebeccaharding(a)deltaeconomics.com, sabine(a)3dmetrics.co.uk, lilly3653(a)aol.com, sofia(a)londoncreativelabs.com, mostofa12(a)yahoo.com, pilar(a)gmail.com, rodney.shakespeare1(a)btopenworld.com, lesley.williams(a)the-hub.net, jonathan.robinson(a)the-hub.net, peter(a)brandenergyresearch.co.uk, ghbuzt(a)gmail.com, dennisharding(a)deltaeconomics.com, asmitchell(a)aol.com, hattoribleu(a)yahoo.co.uk, charlie(a)p3capital.co.uk, klong(a)justmeans.com, "Mark Chaplin" <caplinski(a)gmail.com>, tommy(a)i-genius.org, robert(a)omniworldview.com Date: Monday, 1 August, 2011, 15:07 PS You might also like the attached piece, published at www.bestthinking.com. ----- Original Message ----- *From:* Alan Rayner (Plus)<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> *To:* christopher macrae<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; peterchallen(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> *Cc:* jbunzl(a)simpol.org<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; patrick(a)pineapple.cc<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; rebeccaharding(a)deltaeconomics.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rebeccaharding@deltaeconomics.…>; sabine(a)3dmetrics.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; lilly3653(a)aol.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; sofia(a)londoncreativelabs.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; mostofa12(a)yahoo.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; pilar(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; rodney.shakespeare1(a)btopenworld.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rodney.shakespeare1@btopenworl…>; lesley.williams(a)the-hub.net<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; jonathan.robinson(a)the-hub.net<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; peter(a)brandenergyresearch.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; ghbuzt(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; dennisharding(a)deltaeconomics.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]…>; asmitchell(a)aol.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; hattoribleu(a)yahoo.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; charlie(a)p3capital.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; klong(a)justmeans.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; Mark Chaplin <http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> ; tommy(a)i-genius.org<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; robert(a)omniworldview.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> *Sent:* Monday, August 01, 2011 3:03 PM *Subject:* Re: one simple leadership system failure: pro-youth versus anti-youth Re: Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc ( chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> ) Dear Chris, As it happens, I recently circulated the following message concerning 'Mathematical Nonsense' to my discussion group: I have just 'double-tweeted' '@InclusionAL'<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=%27@InclusionAL%27>, partly in response to Marcus du Sautoy's outrageous statement in his trailer for 'The Code' (along the lines of 'mathematical abstraction is how we make sense of the universe'). "For all its apparent utility, mathematical abstraction makes nonsense of Nature and a mess of life.... ...We need to understand, work with and mentally represent REAL space and boundaries, not deceptive constructs founded on unrealistic premises" I feel these points are especially relevant for all kinds of practitioners, because practitioners have to work with reality, and so unrealistic models of reality may seriously impede and impair their creative potential. My enquiries into what I have come to call (only for the sake of having a 'label' for it) 'natural inclusionality' began with a feeling of discomfort about how biological reality was being represented mathematically and conceptually. There was something about the ABSTRACT QUALITY of these quantitative representations that didn't relate well with my actual practical experience and that, moreover, had very nasty implications if followed through to their objective conclusion (as per the holocaust and recent happenings in Norway ). To work out what was wrong about/missing from these abstract representations, I had to go all the way back in my own mind to first principles, without, for the time being, being concerned about what other people might or might not have said. This led me to think about the way abstract logic represents space and boundaries, and to recognise that this is not consistent with my actual experience of life and love. So, I asked myself (and others with whom I engaged in conversation) - what representations of space and boundaries ARE consistent with and do make sense of my actual experience. First, I thought about boundaries - and recognised (in my book, 'Degrees of Freedom - living in dynamic boundaries) that boundaries are always to variable degrees dynamic, permeable and connective and that they SIMULTANEOUSLY face both inwardly and outwardly. This led me to think about space as the limitless, frictionless 'medium' in which boundaries are 'suspended' like 'solute in solvent'. Then the penny dropped. Oh My God! Abstract rationality has really screwed up our understanding of reality and is making a horrible mess of our lives and habitat. To make amends, we have to bring the infinite depth of space as an intangible presence back into our understanding of dynamical form as an energetic configuration OF space, not an abstraction FROM space. All this came from first principles and real personal experience. It didn't come from academic scholarship. As far as Academia is concerned, I still feel like a babe in the woods. Slowly I have been trying to unravel the many layers of academic complication that have obscured what at heart seems like such a basic and simple truth. Real space is a receptive (non-resistive) presence everywhere, and real boundaries are zones both of dynamic distinction and mutual inclusion. Form is energetic. Space cannot be cut. Real-world practitioners need in their praxis (theory and practice) to understand, work with and mentally represent (re-imagine) real space and boundaries, not deceptive constructs. At heart, it's very simple. The difficulty comes in dealing with the mess made by impositional abstraction in every kind of human endeavour. Dealing with that mess is where the need arises for many talents to come together. In the words of Michael Polyani: “For once men have been made to realize the crippling mutilations imposed by an objectivist framework – once the veil of ambiguities covering up these mutilations has been definitely dissolved – many fresh minds will turn to the task of reinterpreting the world as it is, and as it then once more will be seen to be.” Warmest Alan ----- Original Message ----- *From:* christopher macrae<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> *To:* peterchallen(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> *Cc:* jbunzl(a)simpol.org<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; patrick(a)pineapple.cc<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; rebeccaharding(a)deltaeconomics.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rebeccaharding@deltaeconomics.…>; sabine(a)3dmetrics.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; lilly3653(a)aol.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; sofia(a)londoncreativelabs.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; mostofa12(a)yahoo.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; pilar(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; rodney.shakespeare1(a)btopenworld.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rodney.shakespeare1@btopenworl…>; lesley.williams(a)the-hub.net<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; jonathan.robinson(a)the-hub.net<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; peter(a)brandenergyresearch.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; ghbuzt(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; dennisharding(a)deltaeconomics.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]…>; asmitchell(a)aol.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; hattoribleu(a)yahoo.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; charlie(a)p3capital.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; a.d.m.rayner(a)bath.ac.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; klong(a)justmeans.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; Mark Chaplin <http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> ; tommy(a)i-genius.org<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]>; robert(a)omniworldview.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> *Sent:* Monday, August 01, 2011 2:45 PM *Subject:* one simple leadership system failure: pro-youth versus anti-youth Re: Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc ( chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> ) THE GREATEST MATHS ERROR IN THE WORLD these 11 may be right but I search for a simpler overall slogan and I believe what is common between all these problems is *their short-termism robs youth to line the pockets of ever fewer elders* (orwells big brother end game of superpower beating super-empowerment - given only one of the 2 will spin tech's interconnected global villages) ** *in other words all these people who rule and boundarise the world with top-down economics and media and polarised politics are in one meta-network computing a way ahead that disinvests in every community's capacity to support youth's productive future - if you look at my dads 40 years of daries<http://normanmacrae.ning.com/forum/topics/norman-macrae-books-surveys>at The Economist you will see how he tracked with ever incraesing horror but optimistic tone this takeover of a discipline (celebrated for first 145 years of The Economist) which was orignated by french and scots to invest in our childrens children more productive lives* is pro-youth versus anti-youth an agreable headline to the people you network with or not? -in terms of communicating the 2 approached that my famjily's friends have found netwirk over 30 years is one slogan or catalogue solutions that match elders life legacies with youths heroic gaols- http://leadersandyunus.ning.com that's why the second leg of what macrae foundation partners want to focus on is forming a league table of 50 exciting projects- ones that if you find solutions to help nyouth in one nation can network across to other youth's nations we circulated over 400 books around rebeccas world entrepreneur net at start of 2008 which showed how yunus plays the game whenever he assembles exciting projects; nick and sabine took 1000 people meetingts; my dad invited 40 of you to lunch and yet london still doesnt seem to have come up with one exciting project the world youth could use or if you think it has please tell me or EU <http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi?thread_id=564>where its bookmark is incidentally I believe brazil is coming up with several top 50 solutions uniting youth; if www.simpol.org still has activist networks into tehre who could I chat to first chris macrae 1 301 881 1655 *Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8, A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Pluto Press, 2010. * *1. Key Structural Problem:** The dispossession of labour - the separation of the majority of the population from access to the means of subsistence; the ownership of the means of production - productive resources and the technologies to extract and exploit them - by an elite minority.* * * *2. Key Structural Problem**: The globalization of capitalist social relations the total domination of the world's productive resources by a minority, and the corresponding worldwide dispossession of labour. * * * *3. Key Structural Problem**: Cyclical generation of socio-economic crises of over-accumulation and underproduction (‘boom and bust'); which exacerbates inequalities between historically advantaged core capitalist states and labour peripheral states relegated to being suppliers of cheap raw materials and labour, and markets for core agricultural (and other) exports. * * * *4. Key Structural Problem:** The capitalist social relation's pressure to exploit ever larger quantities of the world's natural resources for production for profit, on an ever expanding geographical scale that will soon be beyond the natural world's ability to self-replenish. * * * *5. Key Structural Problem:** The systemic over-dependence on hydrocarbon resources for industrial production, sustained by an international division of labour designed not to meet the needs of local populations, but purely to maximize profits for primarily Northern banks, corporations and governments. * * * *6. Key Structural Problem:** The world monetary system is based on fractional reserve banking - that is, the creation of fiat money as credit at interest which serves to subjugate the population to an enlarging and un-repayable debt that is the basis of self-reproducing profits for banks; and which compounds the imperative for unlimited growth through unconstrained exploitation of natural resources. * * * *7. Key Structural Problem:** Computational finance effectively transformed the banking system's ability to create fiat debt-money through the development of fraudulent quantitative models concealing ballooning levels of risk, making possible the creation of exorbitant profits virtually ex nihilo - but the costs were socialized and backlogged until the banking system collapsed under the weight of its own un-sustainability.* * * *8. Key Structural Problem:** Nation-states and national identity, as the primary loci of 'legitimate' political representation, are increasingly detrimental both in terms of their negative impact on democracy, and the categories by which human social groups ascribe identities to themselves. While current forms of representative democracy are increasingly susceptible to erosion and manipulation by nondemocratic military-financial forces, ethnic and national markers of difference can increasingly be exploited to polarize communities and legitimize political violence against the 'Other'. * * * *9. Key Structural Problem:** Global governance institutions are mobilized primarily as mechanisms for the US to regulate the international system in its own interests, rather than the interests of the majority of the system's members. Calls to reform these institutions (such as to make the UN more democratic, or to make the World Bank more transparent) have therefore consistently failed. * * * *10. Key Structural Problem:** The implicit philosophical and ontological assumptions underlying neoliberal capitalism posit an extreme form of materialism, reducing the world to a collection of physical, disconnected, atomistic, self-interested and thus inherently conflictual units. These assumptions are clearly mistaken, as they implicitly shape a global political economy that is simultaneously destroying itself and the natural world. * * * *11. Key Structural Problem:** Neoliberal capitalism is premised on a materialist value system which penetrates the entirety of human life, commodifying everything from human life to the natural world in the service of maximizing a 'good' defined largely in terms of material consumption. Yet this ethical system is responsible not only for the escalation of multiple global crises, but simultaneously for high levels of psychological illness and distress among neoliberal capitalist nations. It is therefore a value system divorced from reality, incommensurate with human nature and the natural world. * --- On *Sun, 31/7/11, peterchallen(a)gmail.com <peterchallen(a)gmail.com>*wrote: From: peterchallen(a)gmail.com <peterchallen(a)gmail.com> Subject: Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc ( chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk) To: chris.macrae(a)yahoo.co.uk Date: Sunday, 31 July, 2011, 15:36 Attached: Eleven Key Structural Problems from Chapter 8.doc Message from peterchallen(a)gmail.com<http://uk.mc273.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> : Dear Chris, I think this extract spells out strongly the fundamental structural faults we have to tackle -soooon ! Perhaps this should be converted intoa short and pithy article. Peter Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations. [image: Logo for Google Docs] <http://docs.google.com/> -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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integrated financial reform proposals
by Michel Bauwens 02 Aug '11

02 Aug '11

http://www.neweconomyworkinggroup.org/sites/default/files/LiberateAmericaON… -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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revolution not a tea party, excellent blog entry
by Michel Bauwens 02 Aug '11

02 Aug '11

Dear Chris, I would like to republish Gregory's article, first entry at http://www.darkmatterarchives.net/?page_id=502 it's really all good and dificult to quote from, I'd like to republish in toto, can you post-date to august 12 or after? Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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