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Re: The Wrecking Crew

johnmerryman — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:11:09 -0000

This is my theory on where to go from here;

http://www.dissidentvoice.o...

Re: Fed to Quietly Begin Soaking Up Money Supply - Business - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:18:52 -0000

Jim,

It still seems as though they are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Three hundred years ago, a debt based currency made sense, because it grew along with productivity and so provided an effective measurement to allow the money supply to grow at the same rate as the economy. Now it's all about expanding debt to create more chips for the casino and the money supply far exceeds the size of the productive economy.

Money is drawing rights on productivity, which means we will have to develop a production based monetary system when this one implodes, which it seems close to doing. Given we have sufficient economic information, it shouldn't be too difficult to fit the money supply to the growth of the economy. The political problem is that excess money accumulates to those with an excess of wealth, but economic growth is bottom up, not top down. So the question is how best to drain off the reserves from those most adept at holding onto them and distribute it those who are most productive? This isn't a rich, vs. poor conflict, as there are certainly unproductive poor. I think it might best work through increased taxes to control inflation and increased tax refunds to control deflation.

Re: The Color of Money - The Future of the City - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Sat, 15 May 2010 19:56:57 -0000

The fact is that we do need another monetary model. Three hundred years ago debt based currency was a pretty smart idea, since there were few economic measures to determine how much money was necessary and debt grows at roughly the same rate as productivity. It does create a problem in that productivity must constantly increase to service this debt, which goes a long way to explaining the inherent voraciousness of capitalism. The situation now is that the financial system has been allowed and encouraged to turn the entire economy into a debt production machine to create the illusion of wealth far exceeding the productive capacity of the economy and often subverting actual production in the process. Which is to say that it was not deregulation that caused our current mess, so much as that deregulation was the presumed solution to the flaws inherent in a debt based currency. A lot of the money has been borrowed into existence for the purpose of speculation and the powers that be are more concerned with maintaining its value, at the expense of society, the productive economy and the environment.

Since money is drawing rights to productivity, the question is how to formulate a viable and healthy production based currency system.

Money serves as a store of value and a medium of exchange. As a store of value, it is private property, but as a medium of exchange, it is a public utility. As property, there is the desire to accumulate as much as possible, but as a medium of exchange, more money than productivity eventually destroys the value of the money. Money should only be treated as a public utility. In that way, it would be similar to a road system. You own your car, house, business, etc. but not the roads connecting them and no one seriously cries socialism over that. The fact is that money already is a government owned public utility. Just try printing some, if you think otherwise.

The reason banks and government like us to think of money as property is because it encourages us to use it in all economic transactions, which makes them potentially taxable. Treating money as form of public commons would make people very careful what value they would take from social relations and environmental resources to convert into currency in the first place. This would be healthy for society, the environment and the monetary system. Of course, it would create a slower, but more sustainable economy. We all like having roads, but there is little inclination to pave more than we need. If we applied the same principle to money, life would be in better shape. Instead of valuing ourselves by how big our bank accounts are, our sense of worth would be on how strong our community is and how healthy our environment is. A much smaller money supply would go a long way to limiting the size of the government and the banking system.

The function of the central bank is to make maintaining the value of the currency a public responsibility, while leaving private banks to profit from managing it. This is their error. Political power also started as private enterprise and eventually became monarchy. When monarchs lost sight of the fact that their purpose was to guide their people, as opposed to simply exploiting them, they tended to be overthrown and eventually the whole system of hierarchal power was replaced by political power as a public trust. Democracy works by pushing power down to the level it is responsive. If we were to make banking a public function, it would also be bottom up. Local credit unions would use local deposits to loan to local enterprises and use the profits to fund local needs. They would then form regional banks for broader investments.

With a debt based currency, there is an overwhelming need to create debt. A good example is government spending. The current system is designed to overspend by buying votes for enormous bills that can only be passed or vetoed. This serves to create debt in order to store capital, as government debt is the primary investment vehicle. In the spirit of actual budgeting, a possible solution would be to break the spending bills down to their constituent items and have every legislator assign a percentage value to each item and then re-assemble them in order of preference. The president would draw the line at what would be funded. This would divide responsibility, allowing the legislature to prioritize, while giving the president final authority over total spending. Since making the cut would be graded on a curve, there would be much less incentive to trade favors and the percentage system would allow legislators to fine tune their granting of favors to other legislators and lobbyists. Since this would likely reduce funding for local projects, a system of local public banks would fill this need.

Another issue would be the variability of needs by different communities from their currencies, so possibly a system of various currencies could be developed, of different exchanges rates, inflationary expectations, etc. Then countries/banking collectives could join what most suits their needs and if necessary, switch from one to another, or start new ones. Obviously somewhat chaotic, but it would be an evolving system and would engender a deeper understanding of economics among the larger population, thus making them less vulnerable to financial predation.

Rather than borrowing it into existence, there are other possibilities of managing the money supply. For one thing, the current method requires ever accelerating productivity to pay down the debt incurred and this in itself is running up against serious consequences. Not to mention that rent seeking from others productivity can be just as economically destructive to actual productivity, as authoritarian allocation of rewards, irrespective of productivity, can be.

For one thing a viable system needs to recognize excess money is inflationary and even by the Fed's logic of selling bonds to reduce the money supply, excess currency is in the hands of those with an excess of wealth. So, since the stability of the currency is a public responsibility, it should be taxed, not borrowed. If we tax out excess currency to contain inflation, then how about tax credits to introduce money into the system, when prices seem to be deflating? That's what they are doing now, with all these rebates and it does serve to support productivity. Another method is for the government to spend it into the economy. This has been tried with various levels of success over the ages, but needs prudential management to not get out of hand.

Re: Unedited video from raid of Gaza Flotilla

johnmerryman — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:52:00 -0000

Just a technical note, but that's close to exactly one hour of video. Maybe she had to switch out the chip.

Re: http://www.rollingstone.com/preview.php/politics/blogs/national-affairs/my-crisis-of-zionism-and-ours-20120502

johnmerryman — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:49:22 -0000

I think the larger discussion that is being ignored, is the distinction between spirituality and religion. Organized religion is a communal function designed to enable and enforce civil conformity. It is a society's vision of itself, as government is the management of society. While some form of religion is as necessary to a healthy society as a common language, it is equally idiosyncratic. Keep in mind that it was Greek polytheists who first formalized democracy. When you have a religion where the gods argue, a political system based on debate is sensible. On the other hand, a religion where it's just the Big Guy in charge tends to validate similar forms of top down autocracy in the political realm.

Logically a spiritual absolute would be the elemental essence of conscious being from which we rise, not an ideal form of it from which we fell. A proper symbol would be the newborn babe, not some creaky old man. Knowledge is the interaction of this essence of awareness with a complex physical environment and it is a process of continual growth, not some static set of laws. The most elemental principles are also the most generic patterns. As reality and our appreciation of it grows more complex, so do the patterns and principles it manifests.
Good and bad are not an overarching moral iconography, but the primal biological binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental. What's good for the fox is bad for the chicken and there is no clear line where the chicken ends and the fox begins.

While Judaism seems most defined by its tribalism to outsiders, it should be also noted the relationship Christianity and Islam have with the role of government. For its first seven hundred years, Islam was a very successful political movement and largely coasted on that for the next six hundred and has only been decisively surpassed by the industrial west within the last hundred years. On the other hand, Christianity was seriously oppressed by the various institutions for its first several hundred years, before being co-opted by an empire in decline. So there is a political/religious split inherent to Christianity that is completely foreign to Islam.

I think in the history of humanity, we are more likely at the end of the beginning, than the beginning of the end, as it seems life on earth may be trying to form a central nervous system, in human civilization. Yet we have a long way to go, as the purpose of such a function is the preservation and support of the larger organism, not its exploitation.

Re: Greece and Europe fall victim to the socialist cargo cult

johnmerryman — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:17:26 -0000

Money is a contract. It is drawing rights on the rest of the community. Its value stems from the willingness of the participants in that contract to honor it. Contracts are not owned by any one party. They are an agreement among different parties. To the extent the financial system is the circulatory system of society, money is the blood flowing through it. Its effectiveness is dependent on its fungibility. We no more own the money in our pocket, than we own the road we are driving on. Yes, we are in sole possession of any one spot on that road at any one time, but its value is due to the connectivity with all other roads. We own our cars, houses, businesses, etc, but not the roads connecting them and no one cries socialism over that. We have to think of money in the same way.

If people understand that money is a form of public utility and not actually private property, then they will naturally be far more careful what value they take out of social relations and environmental resources to put in a bank account. This would serve to make people's own self interest a mechanism to put value back into the community and the environment and allow more organic systems of economic connectivity and reciprocity to grow, as well as reduce the power of large financial and governmental systems over our lives.
http://www.exterminatingang...

Re: The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise - Eric Garland - International - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:22:14 -0000

The conceptual elephant in the room that banks would prefer people not to know, is that money is a contract, not a commodity. Yes, to the banks it is a commodity, much as legal contracts are a commodity to lawyers, but to the rest of society it serves as a contractual medium. It is in the interest of banks to create as much money as possible, which they do by promoting demand for it, ie. debt. On the other hand, it is far more healthy for society to have as much interchange and value be organic reciprocity and stored wealth in the environment and communal bonds. Using currency as a replacement is like processed sugars. Quite useful and pleasant in controlled amounts, but extremely destructive when overused.

An essay I wrote on mediating the relationship between corporeal individuals and corporate society:http://www.exterminatingang... " Human nature is such that we will always be looking for a way to grow and progress and will do so with whatever resources are at hand, whether it be scratching two sticks together to make a fire, or building vast structures and societies. In order to do so, we need two things; Organization and energy. Within the biological body, there are two systems to enable these functions. The central nervous system processes information and organizes responses, while the circulatory system enables energy collected by the respiratory and digestive systems to be effectively transmitted to where it is most necessary. Within society, these systems are mimicked by government and finance." "To the extent the financial system is the circulatory system of society, money is the blood flowing through it. Its effectiveness is dependent on its fungibility. We no more own the money in our pocket, than we own the road we are driving on. Yes, we are in sole possession of any one spot on that road at any one time, but its value is due to the connectivity with all other roads. We own our cars, houses, businesses, etc, but not the roads connecting them and no one cries socialism over that. We have to think of money in the same way. If people understand that money is a form of public utility and not actually private property, then they will naturally be far more careful what value they take out of social relations and environmental resources to put in a bank account. This would serve to make people's own self interest a mechanism to put value back into the community and the environment and allow more organic systems of economic connectivity and reciprocity to grow, as well as reduce the power of large financial and governmental systems over our lives."

Re: The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise - Eric Garland - International - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:04:23 -0000

Keep in mind there are only two ways to save. Either taking it out of circulation, which means more has to be constantly added, until people start to realize there is too much and start dumping it, causing inflation. Or lending it, but this is constrained by the amount of debt the economy can absorb. The current problem is the bad debt deregulation promoted, along side add the synthetic debt, ie. gambling. Banks cannot starve a profit out of the larger economy. When general incomes are reduced, those taking these profits have to lend their excess back out to maintain demand, in order to maintain production. There has to be a convection cycle of appreciating assets and precipitating benefits. Otherwise you get large storm clouds of surplus capital hanging over an increasingly parched economy, eventually resulting in a spiral into feudalism, as the surviving mechanisms of security and corruption join forces.

Re: The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise - Eric Garland - International - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:07:42 -0000

You can ride that wave, though it seems likely others would do the same and the only way share prices go down would be in a crash and lots of margin calls forcing people to sell. With lots of 'liquidity" chasing limited investment, it mostly inflates asset prices. People seem to forget there has to be some balance between supply and demand, even with capital.
From an essay I wrote:
" In the early 1980’s, Paul Volcker was credited with bringing inflation under control. As Federal Reserve Chairman, Volcker’s main tool for reining in the money supply was to raise interest rates and make money more expensive to borrow and thus reduce the amount going into the economy. He could also draw money out of the economy by selling government bonds that were bought by the central bank to create money in the first place. The logic of this is problematic though, as higher rates punish those who want to borrow money and reward those with money to lend. This has the perverse effect of trying to solve an oversupply of capital by raising the cost and reducing demand.
It also happened that around that time, Ronald Reagan was elected president and initiated what came to be known as Reaganomics. This was to cut taxes, increase spending on the military and borrow lots of money. To the extent the tax breaks were spent, rather than saved, it increased demand for production, helping the economy to grow. What is overlooked is that the large amounts of government borrowing served to increase the demand for capital. Since the Treasury sells far more new debt then the Federal Reserve sells of what it is holding, this government demand for capital had to be a significant factor in bringing inflation under control. Not to mention that spending the borrowed money served as a Keynsian stimulus to the economy, further increasing the private sector demand for capital."   http://www.exterminatingang...

Re: The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise - Eric Garland - International - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:50:40 -0000

I'm not arguing there are healthy aspects of the economy. It's certainly been the most productive and dynamic economic system, by many orders of magnitude, in history. The point is that like a car moving down the road at a rapid rate of speed, you don't want any wheels flying off, or the consequences will be much greater than with a slower moving economy. As it is, there has been quite a bit of funny noises and shuddering, so people are asking questions.

Re: The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise - Eric Garland - International - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:23:54 -0000

"Your money?" Does it have your picture on it? Can you just run some off on the copy machine when you get a little low, or does someone else already hold the copyright?
Frankly the banks and government love to have us think of it as our money, much as a fisherman likes the fish to think that's just a tasty little worm. If we learned to treat money as the public utility that it really is, we could still value its usefulness, but might not fawn over it quite so much and place more value in other aspects of life.

Re: The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise - Eric Garland - International - The Atlantic

johnmerryman — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:36:16 -0000

You might want to read up on the history of money. Historically the only time the average person saw any real benefit in a precious metals based currency was when they could go dig it up out of the ground. The problem is that eventually it gets spent and the deposit institutions(the ones with the safe) end up holding it all. Then they start issuing script because it is easy to carry, less inviting/obvious to thieves, easy to give change, etc. Then it becomes a gold based money. Then the issue of backing becomes something only bankers and governments care about. Until you end up where we are today....
Keep in mind the only basis of value gold and silver have as money is the value others accord it. It is another form of social compact. Money is a contract. Its value is trust. Have that and it's good. Lose it and it's just paper, or a piece of metal.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:58:33 -0000

The problem isn't just with the current banking system, but our notion of money as a commodity, rather than a contract.
From an essay I wrote on the nature of money and mediating the corporeal individual and corporate society:

" Money is a contract. It is drawing rights on the rest of the community. Its value stems from the willingness of the participants in that contract to honor it. Contracts are not owned by any one party. They are an agreement among different parties. To the extent the financial system is the circulatory system of society, money is the blood flowing through it. Its effectiveness is dependent on its fungibility. We no more own the money in our pocket, than we own the road we are driving on. Yes, we are in sole possession of any one spot on that road at any one time, but its value is due to the connectivity with all other roads. We own our cars, houses, businesses, etc, but not the roads connecting them and no one cries socialism over that. We have to think of money in the same way.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:40:59 -0000

That "store of value" thing is a bit of an economist's mantra. The value is the faith in the promise. I can write you an IOU for a ton of gold, but there is no value in it if you don't trust my word. What gets me is these idiots who hate government, but love money. Whose picture is on that piece of paper? Who holds the copyrights?Who enforces them? Hint; It's not the banks. The banks pulled a sleigh of hand by creating the Federal Reserve, to make government responsible for the value of the money, while retaining the rights to profit from managing it. This will eventually prove to be a mistake, because rights and responsibilities cannot be separated forever. So eventually we will go back to private issue currencies, as before the Fed, or go to some form of banking as public utility. The complexity of the situation makes it far more likely to become public, than revert back to private currencies. Nature moves slowly, but inexorably.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:56:11 -0000

I think that's why there needs to first be an effort to define what money is. We are led to believe it is some form of commodity that should constantly grow, but it's a joint contract with the rest of society. When we enter into other contracts, marriage, business, etc, we understand there are both rights and responsibilities and if these get too unbalanced, it weakens or breaks the contract. Instead we have this ponzi casino where lots of people think they are wealthy, but it's based on unpayable loans, or wagers against other "investments." It's like enormous storm clouds of surplus currency hanging over an increasingly parched economy. Currently we are destroying actual wealth in order to increase the amount of money in circulation. Deciding the best formulation of the banking system would be more attainable after society better understands what money is.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:58:57 -0000

What is it called and how well does it make its argument?
Admittedly I don't have much extra time, but haven't found much in the way of discussion of this, outside academics. I think it needs to be something with broad appeal and understanding.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:24:40 -0000

Ellen,
Sorry about that reply. In the morning rush, I didn't look at the name and thought it was someone referring to a book they were reading, not one you were writing.
If I may offer up some extended thoughts on the subject, they would be in the essay I linked in my first post. It tries to draw together a very broad overview of the human condition and focuses it on our economic relationships. Part of the intent is to use the current crisis to draw some attention to what I see are basic patterns which civilization has overlooked, given our increasing emphasis on expertise over generalization. They are not necessarily issues you may want to include, but might help with context.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:51:45 -0000

You would be in popular company, as most people don't think of it as a contract. To the banks, money is a commodity which is manufactured by creating demand for capital, ie. debt. But that's a bit like legal contracts are a commodity to lawyers, yet we understand that society couldn't exist without everyday informal agreements and had to have lawyers draw up a contract for every handshake.
We refer to our economic model as capitalism, because it is this medium of exchange which allows complex markets to function, yet it has grown from a necessary medium to the primary feature of our economy. Why? Could it be due to the assumption that money is a commodity and the more there is of it, the richer we are? How would you go about putting that genie back in the bottle? Wouldn't it involve dissecting the very nature of the beast and see what has allowed it to become such a large tumor on society?
What is a commodity and what is a contract? How would you differentiate the two and what would fall on what side of the line?
Even gold would be just one more metal without the broad social compact that assigns it value. It's certainly not even the rarest of metals, just the one which best fits the needs of a system of exchange, with silver as an ancillary.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:54:43 -0000

Thanks. There is a bit incorporated into that, so if you want me to expand on any points, just ask.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Thu, 24 May 2012 22:39:30 -0000

I'm not sure I see how you differentiate between water and electricity as natural monopolies, but money as not. One could certainly have multiple water or electricity systems serving the same area, but it would be inconvenient to do so. Just as it's possible to have multiple currencies, but is inconvenient. Consider one of the main reasons for the Euro was such convenience. One point to keep in mind about money is the degree of leverage those controlling it have over every other aspect of the economy in ways those controlling water or electricity would never be able to bring to bear, because everyone would always know whether the water or electricity is functioning and about how much it costs. On the other hand, it is far more difficult to keep track of what the money is doing and who might be getting favors, or punishment.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Sat, 26 May 2012 23:36:10 -0000

How we treat the function of time is one of my pet peeves and this Mayan calender thing is a good example of how shallow modern media often is. What is occurring is the precession of the equinoxes from the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius. Since each age is about two thousand years and some oral histories, Indian, I recall, say humanity has been recording this long calender for over one cycle and possibly more than two cycles, that's over 24,000 years and possibly up to 50,000 years. Which is something worth thinking about, even if you are skeptical. Instead we have to hear all this nonsense about the world coming to an end, because some calender makers, 500+ years ago, didn't bother making a calender that went on forever.
Frankly our calender is a mess. Among other things, we no longer relate months to the cycles of the moon, because it would throw our holidays out of wack, so they are just segments of the year.
In fact there is a foundational political motivation for this. What binds a group of people together most effectively is some common foundational narrative history. Political governance can't admit to a bunch of stories just weaving around each other, like threads in a tapestry, because it implies the group isn't singular. It's much more cohesive to think of the group as a narrative bunch, like all the threads bound into a larger rope. For much of human evolution it made sense, since people functioned primarily as members of small, reasonably cohesive groups. It was only as groups grew larger, than could exist as organic units, that the need to regulate acceptable histories became necessary. Coordinating all those celestial motions in a single framework is part of that.
I'll let it go at that, but just wanted to point out there is a larger "story."

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Sun, 27 May 2012 05:55:54 -0000

I think that if one looks at it organically, life on this planet is trying to organize into a ever more singular unit, with humanity as its central nervous system, but that we have a long way to go. The function of nervous systems is to protect and direct the larger body, but currently we are simply top predator in a collapsing ecosystem. I think a big part of the problem is that what makes us capable of being who we are, our well developed pre-frontal cortex, is best designed to make distinctions and judgements, but it's the connections/context that gets lost as we become ever more focused on details. Yes, eastern philosophies/world views are more context oriented, but the western object oriented, linear perspective is much more effective at short term success in building technologies and political advancement... As I rush off to work....

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Sun, 27 May 2012 15:14:41 -0000

Hmmmm,
I think the internet is more of a network, but that to the extent something leads, it would be more of a foundational paradigm. Religion fills that role in principle, but there is no agreed on model. In that essay I made the point that while religion is a society's vision of itself, government is its management. In the west, we have this mind/body dualism and project the mind side out as a singular God and assign it mental characteristics of intellect and judgement/ knowledge and morality, but then the framing gets muddied by the various versions. Islam was a phenomenally successful political movement for its first 700 years, coasted on that success for the next 600 and has only really been overshadowed by the industrial west since the fall of the Ottomans, while Christianity was an underground spiritual movement for its first 400 years, before being co-opted by an empire in decline, which then repressed all the uncooperative versions. So there is a profound split between religious vision and governmental management in Christianity that is utterly meaningless to Islam.
To the extent a foundational vision will have to arise, that will undergird life on this planet as a singular organism, it will have to be an extension of Gaianism, but one framed as a bottom up mechanism, where the neural function is focused more on the foundational feedback processes out of which neural systems evolved, rather than the top down authority function it is isolated as. We think our mind controls our body, but it is the input from our body which controls our mind.
Consider that it was polytheists who invented democracy in the first place. When you have a religion where the gods argue, it makes sense to reflect this vision onto the governing systems, so a process based on debate makes sense. Monotheisms have tended to support monarchies and other forms of top down autocracies. When it's just the Big Guy in charge up there, it gets reflected down here. The "divine right of kings."
I think the internet serves and modals neural connectivity, making us all brain cells in a hive mind, but it's bit like monetary systems model an organic trust factor that provides an infrastructure to allow societies to grow far larger than than their organic precedents. I've spent my life working with racehorses and find there a very broad area of connectivity below the conscious functions and that the consciousness is simply designed to work in isolation from this deeper awareness, in order to provide a regulatory oversight function for these deeper networks. Much as shining a light through a magnifying glass will form an area of focused light at the center, but do so by causing shadow in the surrounding area. As you go further up the mental and civil orders, this quantizing function isolates itself even further. So the next most important aspect of this foundational philosophy are the feedback concepts implicit in taoist yin and yang. Having the top down firmly rooted in the bottom up.
I better shut up now...

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Sun, 27 May 2012 23:07:53 -0000

I'm afraid the internet has been heck on my reading time. Other that the occasional trip, I rarely open a book and less frequently finish one. The problem with horses is there are no vacations. Or weekends.
I suppose all the point I'm making have likely been developed far more extensively elsewhere. My tendency is to try to connect as many of them as possible and see what gaps are missing. I make up for my attention deficient disorderlyness by being my own little swarm intelligence.

Re: Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future | | AlterNet

johnmerryman — Sun, 27 May 2012 23:31:13 -0000

Then again, considering what's coming over the internets, books are no match:
http://www.salon.com/2012/0...