[P2P-F] money as debt p. 2

Sat Oct 15 14:20:51 CEST 2011

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 at 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
>
>