On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 7:41 PM, <ideasinc@ee.net> wrote:

------- Forwarded message -------
From: ideasinc@ee.net
To: p2p-foundation <p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org>, "Michel Bauwens" <michel@p2pfoundation.net>
Cc: chris@cataspanglish.com
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] money as debt p. 2
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:20:51 -0400

Thank you, -Michel

I watched the entire video, and have seen Money as Debt One several
times. First, the sophistication of Grignon understanding of economics has
greatly expanded. There are a few quibbles in details and the development
and identification. He is advocating for a version of MMT/FF. He never
actually addresses the state origin of money per se, and it is a major
objective. He never explicitly defines money as a COMMONS, and it is
central to his narrative.

You will have to excuse me on two points of irony. Grignon mentions both
the Money Masters crew and the American Monetary institute, and he never
mentions MMT/FF or any of the participants in that discourse. It is a bit
like rolling out a plan and then not giving credit to the community which
has co-developed that bundle of ideas and principles. Not posing the
MMT/FF position as a legitimate participant in this immediate discussion
becomes a significant problem for me. The MMT/FF position on monetary
reform is actually the discovery that the bus named "Our Economy" actually
has a steering wheel and other control features. The advocacy of monetary
reform ends up being a bit pointless unless there is a substantial body of
practice that can propose new policies and move toward new fiscal
objectives.

To a large degree, MMT/FF is what we can do with monetary reform that
reoccupies the currency commons being held as a privately held franchise.
The MMT/FF people are also of the opinion that new major legislation is
not necessary, the reforms that are needed could be done as easily as US
Pres. Nixon closing the Gold window in 1971 by executive order. Most of
the banking process that would be necessary to support the MMT/FF
instrumental process as already established though currently under private
franchise.

The MMT/FF people seem to feel that the move for legislation, is more of
an educational and political strategy toward a public discourse, not
necessarily having a value in the literal reform agenda. In his roll out
of "alternatives" he mentions LETS (1.0) and Timebanks, which are
specifically debt based exchange models. They are credit union based, in a
sense, currencies that operate under banking laws and conventions. In that
there is a strong similarity between credit unions/thifts and debt based
"alternatives," it would likely be that there could be a legal point here
that debt based "alternatives" should be placed under the same banking
legislation and regulations. Operating across national boundaries would
seem to attract the same sort of scrutiny as is being given the hawala
networks.

The second irony here for me is that although Grignon seems to advocate
for MMT/FF practices and principles, that energy is primarily directed
toward debt based alternatives. The CRX becomes a sort of missing link in
the process and in the discourse of what alternatives are possible. To
rely so much upon the MMT/FF discourse only tacitly acknowledged, and then
channeling reform energies into the centralization of electoral politics
and toward debt based semi-alternatives does not seem particularly
progressive in detail. There are nuances of the word "Open" that seem to
be absent in the named cast of participants. Perhaps there will be a
"Money As Debt III: Money as Asset/Sustainable Economics".

as we go, Tadit

On Sat, 15 Oct 2011 03:43:07 -0400, Michel Bauwens
<michel@p2pfoundation.net> wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsmbWBpnCNk

hi chris, could you embed this with the youtube abstact, post-date oct 25 or
after,

perhaps Tadit could offer an extra comment to add to it,

Michel