---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To: http://matslats.net/protest_currencies -- 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
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core. Tadit On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me. I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group. On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
http://www.bbrace.net/islands/gip-coins.html GIP COIN EDITION Currently contains 7 coins -- the lowest common denomination currency from each of the GIP islands. Island 7.0 is now available online! ==================================== http://bbrace.net/islands/island7/island7.html http://bradbrace.net/islands/island7/island7.html Global Islands Project -- ongoing series of multi-media pdf-ebooks/field-recordings -- a pastoral, pictorial and phonic elicitation of island parameters. An intensive examination of small islands and their paradigmatic solutions to globalism. Your feudal-world is based on mutual relief at your common corruption. Maybe some cultures are based on even worse. But that wouldn't change the bad faith of it and as years go by, you wake at night in terror of your whole life being an act of bad faith, where everything is self-interest and nothing more, where every human interaction is driven by a silent, even subconscious calculation of some ulterior motive, to the point that a sea of bad faith has taken over your whole life, there's no small island left from which you can even try to build a bridge of good faith, because even that effort becomes suspect, even good faith is nothing but self-interested, even altruism is nothing but solipsistic, even your professed agonizing right here right now is nothing but a gesture, made to the conscience in order to assure it that it exists. http://bradbrace.net/id.html http://bbrace.net/id.html Island 1.0 is Ambergris Caye, Belize Island 2.0 is Koh Si Chang, Thailand Island 3.0 is Lamu, Kenya Island 4.0 is Narikel Jingira, Bangladesh Island 5.0 is Isla Mais, Nicaragua Island 6.0 are The Grenadines, West Indies Island 7.0 is Hateruma (Yaeyama), Japan Global Islands Project: Island 1.0 -> http://bbrace.net/islands/island1/island1.html or http://bradbrace.net/islands/island1/island1.html -- over 800 images and hour-long audiotrack -- 69mb -- (acrobat 6) Island 2.0 -> http://bbrace.net/islands/island2/island2.html or http://bradbrace.net/islands/island2/island2.html -- over 535 images and hour-long audiotrack -- 78mb -- (acrobat 6) *** http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_1.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_2.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_3.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_4.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_5.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_6.0 *** Global Islands Project -- ongoing series of multi-media pdf-books -- a pastoral, pictorial and phonic elicitation of island parameters... Vientos del pueblo me llevan Vientos del pueblo me arrastran Me eparcen mi corazon Ye me aventan la garganta http://www.bbrace.net/id.html http://bradbrace.net/id.html bbs: brad brace sound http://69.64.229.114:8000 http://www.bbrace.net/undisclosed.html Waters Colours: http://bradbrace.net/webgallerywc/wc.html Eroticized Japanese/Malaysian Snack Foods: http://bradbrace.net/greenscreen.html Additional GIP texts/blog: http://bbrace.net/wordpress/ http://bradbrace.net/wordpress/ 12 mailing list: You cannot politically defy the institutions when all you really wanted was to be clasped to their bosoms and hope in time to be cherished under the very framework of oppressive values you are thinking of overcoming. That would be co-optation, revolution only in the sense of a circulation of elites rather than the extirpation of the very impulses of elitism. To subscribe to 12-list, simply send a message with the word "subscribe" in the Subject: field to [email protected] /:b On Mon, 10 Oct 2011, Devin Balkind wrote:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me.
I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group.
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
not only hasn't it made Matthew rich, it has rather made him very poor ... to be clear, Matthew is working his ass off for a better world, and fully engaged through personal sacrifice. as much as I appreciate your technical expertise, it seems to me there is an underlying tendency to personalize the criticisms as flaws in the person that is critiqued, for example assuming that Ellen Brown was financed by the banking cartel, while nothing could be further from the truth .. I think we can air our grievances and critiques without necessarily imputing ill will to those we disagree with ... (I'll make an exception for the banksters myself <g>, in view of overwhelming evidence ... but I haven't seen evidence of malfeasance in people like Ellen and Matthew) On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Devin Balkind <[email protected]>wrote:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me.
I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group.
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- 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
Here's the nub of it. Yes, the Community Forge may be working their collective asses off, perhaps. And two points stand out for me. First, we, locally, went through an extensive process of attempting to work with him and his crew toward adapting the programming from their utility. A piece of our intent being that we have been working to establish an MMT/FF based community exchange utility. My major complaint with the model being used to define the Community Forge is that it is a debt based process, and thereby a version of the same sort of relationships as being exploited by the banksters. I provided links to the summaries of the economic model we wanted to use, and basically we were brushed off. The ere were basic elements of the process which could have been reused, and we are intent on putting together was substantially different from the libertarian lite variety of Thomas Greco's "Free Banking" advocacy. We were prepared to adapt their system into a debt-free exchange system. At the bare minimum there is a value to having multiple alternatives. So, if you have a plumbing problem, who do you call? A programmer? Aside from the unwillingness to work out a constructive solution mutually beneficial to all, we were presented with the sole option of using the debt based model and paying for remote hosting. The side point is that pop-level economics persists primarily by its self righteousness, and that most of the advocates remain steadfastly unwilling to do the homework obliged to actually judge the value of an informed economic/monetary model. In this case the assumption that "hard Work" entitles anyone to just compensation, when the core information/principles reproduce the same problems and at a level of no regulation or standards at all Much like hiring a contractor that makes it a habit to ignore building codes and standards. How does the abuse of the adjective "Protest" in any validate the content and principles of the economic model, except to exploit good will whenever possible? It is primarily a branding strategy, selling substantively second rate economics. This is a disjunction between appearances and functionality. A further bit of nonsense from Matthew Slater came from him posting upon the major MMT/FF blog in the US, New Economic Perspectives, critical of Randall Wray's explanation of a piece of banking practices and monetary theory. Wray was much too reserved to bother taking Slater's (signed as Matslat) comment to task. I posted an entry describing Slater's level of interest and investment, and alerted the person there who monitors that blog. The audacity to flame a group involved in a serious discussion for no good reason, is a form of trolling Add another piece and tactic, this one is on Thomas Greco. Go to the US Amazon.com page, search The Lost Science of Money BY Stephen Zarlenga. Go into the comments/reviews and one of the earliest reviews was from Thomas Greco who gave a highly critical review. Ordinarily that would not be an issue, BUT because Greco used that context to also promote his own material, this became a major conflict of interest favoring self interest. If you are familiar with Zarlenga's book it may have a few flaws, but he did a massive job of putting a lot of monetary history in one place. On another level I am short of patience of what I see as fraud, either intentionally or even unintentionally by a lack of interest in the details between here and an entitlement based upon dys-education. There has been a lot of technology which has been replaced by something potentially better, and it becomes a simple monopoly sustained by public relations rhetoric to obstruct innovation in the favor of a questionable economic model. Tadit On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:02:55 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
not only hasn't it made Matthew rich, it has rather made him very poor ... to be clear, Matthew is working his ass off for a better world, and fully engaged through personal sacrifice.
as much as I appreciate your technical expertise, it seems to me there is an underlying tendency to personalize the criticisms as flaws in the person that is critiqued, for example assuming that Ellen Brown was financed by the banking cartel, while nothing could be further from the truth ..
I think we can air our grievances and critiques without necessarily imputing ill will to those we disagree with ... (I'll make an exception for the banksters myself <g>, in view of overwhelming evidence ... but I haven't seen evidence of malfeasance in people like Ellen and Matthew)
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Devin Balkind <[email protected]>wrote:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me.
I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group.
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
hi Tadit, thanks for the explanations, just wondering what you mean by Matthew forcing a debt-based process? just to make sure I don't misunderstand: was it that he rerquesting 'regular' monetary payment, and that you proposed another arrangement? I think it would also be useful to present in general the idea of debt-free arrangements or debt-free money. I understand that you are convinced you have with MMT a complex and correct understanding of monetary economics, but can this really be a requirement for dialogue? As tiring as it may be to explain again and again, isn't that really the only way. Now perhaps I should be reading Wray, but also I should be reading Nikos Salingaros, perhaps even people I really don't want to read such as Lacan or Derrida, but I can't possible read everything that I should or asked to, and I think a lot of people would be in the same situation. Possibly these are very compelling propositions, but convincing people must start with micro-dialogues ... I know Thomas quite well since he visits me regularly here in Chiangmai, while I disagree with the libertarian bent, again, here is a person who has sincerely studied a complex subject for several decades, has a proposal for mutual credit commons that is well respected amongst the grassroots, that is perhaps limited to local and regional projects but immediately usage, and is all but a hack, living very modestly. That he writes a review of a book he disagrees with, and points to his own different tack, I don't see anything illegitimate in that, especially when it is open and transparent.
From my point of view, it's always more interesting to learn why a person is wrong in ideas or practices through arguments, rather than presuming the differences arise from fraud or any other personal quality.
People like Thomas and Matthew can certainly not rely on any public relations, they are just presenting their own point of view, however flawed or right it might be. Michel On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:42 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Here's the nub of it. Yes, the Community Forge may be working their collective asses off, perhaps. And two points stand out for me. First, we, locally, went through an extensive process of attempting to work with him and his crew toward adapting the programming from their utility. A piece of our intent being that we have been working to establish an MMT/FF based community exchange utility. My major complaint with the model being used to define the Community Forge is that it is a debt based process, and thereby a version of the same sort of relationships as being exploited by the banksters. I provided links to the summaries of the economic model we wanted to use, and basically we were brushed off. The ere were basic elements of the process which could have been reused, and we are intent on putting together was substantially different from the libertarian lite variety of Thomas Greco's "Free Banking" advocacy. We were prepared to adapt their system into a debt-free exchange system. At the bare minimum there is a value to having multiple alternatives.
So, if you have a plumbing problem, who do you call? A programmer? Aside from the unwillingness to work out a constructive solution mutually beneficial to all, we were presented with the sole option of using the debt based model and paying for remote hosting. The side point is that pop-level economics persists primarily by its self righteousness, and that most of the advocates remain steadfastly unwilling to do the homework obliged to actually judge the value of an informed economic/monetary model.
In this case the assumption that "hard Work" entitles anyone to just compensation, when the core information/principles reproduce the same problems and at a level of no regulation or standards at all Much like hiring a contractor that makes it a habit to ignore building codes and standards. How does the abuse of the adjective "Protest" in any validate the content and principles of the economic model, except to exploit good will whenever possible? It is primarily a branding strategy, selling substantively second rate economics. This is a disjunction between appearances and functionality.
A further bit of nonsense from Matthew Slater came from him posting upon the major MMT/FF blog in the US, New Economic Perspectives, critical of Randall Wray's explanation of a piece of banking practices and monetary theory. Wray was much too reserved to bother taking Slater's (signed as Matslat) comment to task. I posted an entry describing Slater's level of interest and investment, and alerted the person there who monitors that blog. The audacity to flame a group involved in a serious discussion for no good reason, is a form of trolling
Add another piece and tactic, this one is on Thomas Greco. Go to the US Amazon.com page, search The Lost Science of Money BY Stephen Zarlenga. Go into the comments/reviews and one of the earliest reviews was from Thomas Greco who gave a highly critical review. Ordinarily that would not be an issue, BUT because Greco used that context to also promote his own material, this became a major conflict of interest favoring self interest. If you are familiar with Zarlenga's book it may have a few flaws, but he did a massive job of putting a lot of monetary history in one place.
On another level I am short of patience of what I see as fraud, either intentionally or even unintentionally by a lack of interest in the details between here and an entitlement based upon dys-education. There has been a lot of technology which has been replaced by something potentially better, and it becomes a simple monopoly sustained by public relations rhetoric to obstruct innovation in the favor of a questionable economic model.
Tadit
On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:02:55 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
not only hasn't it made Matthew rich, it has rather made him very poor ... to be clear, Matthew is working his ass off for a better world, and fully engaged through personal sacrifice.
as much as I appreciate your technical expertise, it seems to me there is an underlying tendency to personalize the criticisms as flaws in the person that is critiqued, for example assuming that Ellen Brown was financed by the banking cartel, while nothing could be further from the truth ..
I think we can air our grievances and critiques without necessarily imputing ill will to those we disagree with ... (I'll make an exception for the banksters myself <g>, in view of overwhelming evidence ... but I haven't seen evidence of malfeasance in people like Ellen and Matthew)
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Devin Balkind <[email protected]>wrote:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me.
I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group.
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- Devin Balkind Director, Sarapis Foundation [email protected] @devinbalkind
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
-- 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
Short response, maybe more later. The core issue is the choice between ideology and real world functionality. Emulating or operating to seem to validate fictions, is really little different than the neo-classical theology. Pop-economics is all about persuasion and political posturing minus a serious regard for the related history or real time practices to identify the source of the problems. It is the substitution of persuasion for real time and praxis. In terms of Greco's rush to criticize he really provided nothing substantial, and then "Oh by the way... He happens to believe that he has the solid answers and when those issues are tracked he ends up in a whole different universe of self congratulatory ignorance. Again, when seeking out real information the divide shows up as to who actually understands the context and principles, and who is trying to literally sell tooth fairy economics. Greco's material is largely based upon a recitation of factoids that generally don't knit together very well unless the value being added is mostly at the level buzz words. The libertarianism that posits that all government is bad by its simple premise, does not generally go to the effort to validate the. Using the example of "reserve accounting" which is actually how the privatized central banks operate, the profound absence of any awareness of the real practice under cuts the credibility of these non-solutions. If Economics was conducted as a science with methodology appropriate to domain, we would have less of a tendency to accept the theology being dispensed by the neo classical courtiers. It isn't and this results in a massive level of fear and willingness to accept carte blanche assumptions that seem oh so very comforting and familiar. It is all about the actual science behind pop-economics and its continuing positing of fictions, versus history, present practice, and actual functionality. I am only calling out these patterns of dys-education and dys-function. In an open discourse of course people can make their decisions based upon what seem familiar and comforting, but it has no additional certainty that is predictive as having a positive contribution. Perhaps the lack of interest in the LETS 1.0 is another reason to support alternative discourse. Why is it that when the absence of an appropriate stock of knowledge is apparent, by someone such as myself, people beg to preserve their illusion of comfort and the appearance of a lack of dissent. Tadit On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:36:12 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
hi Tadit,
thanks for the explanations,
just wondering what you mean by Matthew forcing a debt-based process?
just to make sure I don't misunderstand: was it that he rerquesting 'regular' monetary payment, and that you proposed another arrangement?
I think it would also be useful to present in general the idea of debt-free arrangements or debt-free money.
I understand that you are convinced you have with MMT a complex and correct understanding of monetary economics, but can this really be a requirement for dialogue? As tiring as it may be to explain again and again, isn't that really the only way.
Now perhaps I should be reading Wray, but also I should be reading Nikos Salingaros, perhaps even people I really don't want to read such as Lacan or Derrida, but I can't possible read everything that I should or asked to, and I think a lot of people would be in the same situation. Possibly these are very compelling propositions, but convincing people must start with micro-dialogues ...
I know Thomas quite well since he visits me regularly here in Chiangmai, while I disagree with the libertarian bent, again, here is a person who has sincerely studied a complex subject for several decades, has a proposal for mutual credit commons that is well respected amongst the grassroots, that is perhaps limited to local and regional projects but immediately usage, and is all but a hack, living very modestly. That he writes a review of a book he disagrees with, and points to his own different tack, I don't see anything illegitimate in that, especially when it is open and transparent.
From my point of view, it's always more interesting to learn why a person is wrong in ideas or practices through arguments, rather than presuming the differences arise from fraud or any other personal quality.
People like Thomas and Matthew can certainly not rely on any public relations, they are just presenting their own point of view, however flawed or right it might be.
Michel
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:42 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Here's the nub of it. Yes, the Community Forge may be working their collective asses off, perhaps. And two points stand out for me. First, we, locally, went through an extensive process of attempting to work with him and his crew toward adapting the programming from their utility. A piece of our intent being that we have been working to establish an MMT/FF based community exchange utility. My major complaint with the model being used to define the Community Forge is that it is a debt based process, and thereby a version of the same sort of relationships as being exploited by the banksters. I provided links to the summaries of the economic model we wanted to use, and basically we were brushed off. The ere were basic elements of the process which could have been reused, and we are intent on putting together was substantially different from the libertarian lite variety of Thomas Greco's "Free Banking" advocacy. We were prepared to adapt their system into a debt-free exchange system. At the bare minimum there is a value to having multiple alternatives.
So, if you have a plumbing problem, who do you call? A programmer? Aside from the unwillingness to work out a constructive solution mutually beneficial to all, we were presented with the sole option of using the debt based model and paying for remote hosting. The side point is that pop-level economics persists primarily by its self righteousness, and that most of the advocates remain steadfastly unwilling to do the homework obliged to actually judge the value of an informed economic/monetary model.
In this case the assumption that "hard Work" entitles anyone to just compensation, when the core information/principles reproduce the same problems and at a level of no regulation or standards at all Much like hiring a contractor that makes it a habit to ignore building codes and standards. How does the abuse of the adjective "Protest" in any validate the content and principles of the economic model, except to exploit good will whenever possible? It is primarily a branding strategy, selling substantively second rate economics. This is a disjunction between appearances and functionality.
A further bit of nonsense from Matthew Slater came from him posting upon the major MMT/FF blog in the US, New Economic Perspectives, critical of Randall Wray's explanation of a piece of banking practices and monetary theory. Wray was much too reserved to bother taking Slater's (signed as Matslat) comment to task. I posted an entry describing Slater's level of interest and investment, and alerted the person there who monitors that blog. The audacity to flame a group involved in a serious discussion for no good reason, is a form of trolling
Add another piece and tactic, this one is on Thomas Greco. Go to the US Amazon.com page, search The Lost Science of Money BY Stephen Zarlenga. Go into the comments/reviews and one of the earliest reviews was from Thomas Greco who gave a highly critical review. Ordinarily that would not be an issue, BUT because Greco used that context to also promote his own material, this became a major conflict of interest favoring self interest. If you are familiar with Zarlenga's book it may have a few flaws, but he did a massive job of putting a lot of monetary history in one place.
On another level I am short of patience of what I see as fraud, either intentionally or even unintentionally by a lack of interest in the details between here and an entitlement based upon dys-education. There has been a lot of technology which has been replaced by something potentially better, and it becomes a simple monopoly sustained by public relations rhetoric to obstruct innovation in the favor of a questionable economic model.
Tadit
On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:02:55 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
not only hasn't it made Matthew rich, it has rather made him very poor ... to be clear, Matthew is working his ass off for a better world, and fully engaged through personal sacrifice.
as much as I appreciate your technical expertise, it seems to me there is an underlying tendency to personalize the criticisms as flaws in the person that is critiqued, for example assuming that Ellen Brown was financed by the banking cartel, while nothing could be further from the truth ..
I think we can air our grievances and critiques without necessarily imputing ill will to those we disagree with ... (I'll make an exception for the banksters myself <g>, in view of overwhelming evidence ... but I haven't seen evidence of malfeasance in people like Ellen and Matthew)
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Devin Balkind <[email protected]>wrote:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me.
I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group.
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM Subject: "protest currencies" ? To:
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I'm not seeking comfort, but rather the fleshing out of arguments for collective learning; and I feel that arguments and information do the trick better than hypothizing personal failures ... I want to know what is faulty in the proposals of people like Thomas, Ellen etc ... and what are the better proposals .. and it must be possible to make the argument without recourse to an a priori knowledge of a whole body of specialized knowledge ... it's through the detailed and 'local' arguments that interest for the further body of work can be generated .... On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 10:35 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Short response, maybe more later. The core issue is the choice between ideology and real world functionality. Emulating or operating to seem to validate fictions, is really little different than the neo-classical theology. Pop-economics is all about persuasion and political posturing minus a serious regard for the related history or real time practices to identify the source of the problems. It is the substitution of persuasion for real time and praxis. In terms of Greco's rush to criticize he really provided nothing substantial, and then "Oh by the way... He happens to believe that he has the solid answers and when those issues are tracked he ends up in a whole different universe of self congratulatory ignorance. Again, when seeking out real information the divide shows up as to who actually understands the context and principles, and who is trying to literally sell tooth fairy economics. Greco's material is largely based upon a recitation of factoids that generally don't knit together very well unless the value being added is mostly at the level buzz words. The libertarianism that posits that all government is bad by its simple premise, does not generally go to the effort to validate the. Using the example of "reserve accounting" which is actually how the privatized central banks operate, the profound absence of any awareness of the real practice under cuts the credibility of these non-solutions. If Economics was conducted as a science with methodology appropriate to domain, we would have less of a tendency to accept the theology being dispensed by the neo classical courtiers. It isn't and this results in a massive level of fear and willingness to accept carte blanche assumptions that seem oh so very comforting and familiar. It is all about the actual science behind pop-economics and its continuing positing of fictions, versus history, present practice, and actual functionality. I am only calling out these patterns of dys-education and dys-function. In an open discourse of course people can make their decisions based upon what seem familiar and comforting, but it has no additional certainty that is predictive as having a positive contribution. Perhaps the lack of interest in the LETS 1.0 is another reason to support alternative discourse. Why is it that when the absence of an appropriate stock of knowledge is apparent, by someone such as myself, people beg to preserve their illusion of comfort and the appearance of a lack of dissent.
Tadit
On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:36:12 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
hi Tadit,
thanks for the explanations,
just wondering what you mean by Matthew forcing a debt-based process?
just to make sure I don't misunderstand: was it that he rerquesting 'regular' monetary payment, and that you proposed another arrangement?
I think it would also be useful to present in general the idea of debt-free arrangements or debt-free money.
I understand that you are convinced you have with MMT a complex and correct understanding of monetary economics, but can this really be a requirement for dialogue? As tiring as it may be to explain again and again, isn't that really the only way.
Now perhaps I should be reading Wray, but also I should be reading Nikos Salingaros, perhaps even people I really don't want to read such as Lacan or Derrida, but I can't possible read everything that I should or asked to, and I think a lot of people would be in the same situation. Possibly these are very compelling propositions, but convincing people must start with micro-dialogues ...
I know Thomas quite well since he visits me regularly here in Chiangmai, while I disagree with the libertarian bent, again, here is a person who has sincerely studied a complex subject for several decades, has a proposal for mutual credit commons that is well respected amongst the grassroots, that is perhaps limited to local and regional projects but immediately usage, and is all but a hack, living very modestly. That he writes a review of a book he disagrees with, and points to his own different tack, I don't see anything illegitimate in that, especially when it is open and transparent.
From my point of view, it's always more interesting to learn why a person is wrong in ideas or practices through arguments, rather than presuming the differences arise from fraud or any other personal quality.
People like Thomas and Matthew can certainly not rely on any public relations, they are just presenting their own point of view, however flawed or right it might be.
Michel
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:42 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Here's the nub of it. Yes, the Community Forge may be working their collective asses off, perhaps. And two points stand out for me. First, we, locally, went through an extensive process of attempting to work with him and his crew toward adapting the programming from their utility. A piece of our intent being that we have been working to establish an MMT/FF based community exchange utility. My major complaint with the model being used to define the Community Forge is that it is a debt based process, and thereby a version of the same sort of relationships as being exploited by the banksters. I provided links to the summaries of the economic model we wanted to use, and basically we were brushed off. The ere were basic elements of the process which could have been reused, and we are intent on putting together was substantially different from the libertarian lite variety of Thomas Greco's "Free Banking" advocacy. We were prepared to adapt their system into a debt-free exchange system. At the bare minimum there is a value to having multiple alternatives.
So, if you have a plumbing problem, who do you call? A programmer? Aside from the unwillingness to work out a constructive solution mutually beneficial to all, we were presented with the sole option of using the debt based model and paying for remote hosting. The side point is that pop-level economics persists primarily by its self righteousness, and that most of the advocates remain steadfastly unwilling to do the homework obliged to actually judge the value of an informed economic/monetary model.
In this case the assumption that "hard Work" entitles anyone to just compensation, when the core information/principles reproduce the same problems and at a level of no regulation or standards at all Much like hiring a contractor that makes it a habit to ignore building codes and standards. How does the abuse of the adjective "Protest" in any validate the content and principles of the economic model, except to exploit good will whenever possible? It is primarily a branding strategy, selling substantively second rate economics. This is a disjunction between appearances and functionality.
A further bit of nonsense from Matthew Slater came from him posting upon the major MMT/FF blog in the US, New Economic Perspectives, critical of Randall Wray's explanation of a piece of banking practices and monetary theory. Wray was much too reserved to bother taking Slater's (signed as Matslat) comment to task. I posted an entry describing Slater's level of interest and investment, and alerted the person there who monitors that blog. The audacity to flame a group involved in a serious discussion for no good reason, is a form of trolling
Add another piece and tactic, this one is on Thomas Greco. Go to the US Amazon.com page, search The Lost Science of Money BY Stephen Zarlenga. Go into the comments/reviews and one of the earliest reviews was from Thomas Greco who gave a highly critical review. Ordinarily that would not be an issue, BUT because Greco used that context to also promote his own material, this became a major conflict of interest favoring self interest. If you are familiar with Zarlenga's book it may have a few flaws, but he did a massive job of putting a lot of monetary history in one place.
On another level I am short of patience of what I see as fraud, either intentionally or even unintentionally by a lack of interest in the details between here and an entitlement based upon dys-education. There has been a lot of technology which has been replaced by something potentially better, and it becomes a simple monopoly sustained by public relations rhetoric to obstruct innovation in the favor of a questionable economic model.
Tadit
On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:02:55 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
not only hasn't it made Matthew rich, it has rather made him very poor ... to be clear, Matthew is working his ass off for a better world, and fully engaged through personal sacrifice.
as much as I appreciate your technical expertise, it seems to me there is an underlying tendency to personalize the criticisms as flaws in the person that is critiqued, for example assuming that Ellen Brown was financed by the banking cartel, while nothing could be further from the truth ..
I think we can air our grievances and critiques without necessarily imputing ill will to those we disagree with ... (I'll make an exception for the banksters myself <g>, in view of overwhelming evidence ... but I haven't seen evidence of malfeasance in people like Ellen and Matthew)
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Devin Balkind <[email protected]>wrote:
Tadit. I'm surprised at your response. First, the CommunityForge people have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it easy for groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular Drupal CMS. I don't think it's made them rich. Second, the author's idea is general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our monetary system. Sounds good to me.
I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a little deeper and explain your response to the group.
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by the "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the variety of community currencies which they run their business by hosting one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as the federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a fraud at its core.
Tadit
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> > Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM > Subject: "protest currencies" ? > To: > > > http://matslats.net/protest_currencies > >
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participants (4)
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Devin Balkind -
ideasinc＠ee.net -
Michel Bauwens -
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