Tag: money

Bad Pragmatism pt. V: Reconstituting Capitalism

The various outrages over the “bailout” typically imagine it as a species of robbery — but what needs to be seen here is that the “bailout” is an attempt to “reconstitute capitalism” given the threat to it (see the Economist editorial “Capitalism at bay“) which was prompted by the deflation of the credit bubble and the current economic crisis.  If we look at the “bailout” with a sober, steady focus upon its meaning in political economy, we see it, and the capitalism it is reconstituting, for what it really is: a system of domination, where an investor class gets “bailed out” whereas the rest of us are viewed as being lucky to find work and are supposed to be placated through “jobs programs.”

(Crossposted at Big Orange)

post-capitalist environmental design: money and the Echo Park Time Bank

One of the things we will have to include in post-capitalist environmental design is a new system of money.  This diary is a preliminary investigation of this, continuing from the last diary on post-capitalist economic design.  Here I will discuss in brief the fate of the US dollar, the idea of the “time dollar” as explained by the founders of the Echo Park Time Bank, and the ideas of Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen’s The Politics of Money.

(Crossposted on Big Orange)

An alternative to bailing out Wall Street

There is another way to solve the banking problem on Wall Street and that is to abolish money as debt. Here is a movie, Money as Debt, from Canadian animator Paul Grignon from 2006. The film is 47 minutes long. Please give it a view.

The film has been around in a shorter form since at least 2002. I think it is important to at least view before we sign $700 billion over to the Wall Street and international banks.

Bad Pragmatism pt. 2: Benjamin Ginsberg’s The American Lie

Book Review: Ginsberg, Benjamin.  The American Lie: Government by the People and Other Political Fables.  Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007.

This, part two in a series, will analyze Benjamin Ginsberg’s book The American Lie as a “cynical realist” take on the American political process, suggesting that even though it’s marginally useful to be “cynical,” we still must be against “bad pragmatism” and in favor of politics for the greater good even when confronted with the corrupt system we have today.

Next: either a history of bad pragmatism, or a diary on the latest bad pragmatist outrage.  There WILL be a Bad Pragmatism pt. 3.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Updated May 31)

Right here -> (*). But that just means they’re going to get away with it.

UPDATE – May Thirty-One Oh Eight

The above link is to McClatchy 5/23/08. It looks like everything is going off on schedule. It’s amazing how nimble the Global Corpse can be when they set their collective minds and will to it.

This was predicted by the Ka-Ching. 😉 ;-(

Shanti.

Twenty Theses About Money

Since almost all of you forgot to read my diary of last February about Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen’s The Politics of Money, I’m going to try to encapsulate the wisdom contained therein in a series of bullet points, with links added.  Maybe I was too long-winded back then.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

There is another way: “The Politics of Money”

This is a review of Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen’s The Politics of Money, a critique of the money system that contains lots of good material, especially insofar as the authors’ discussion of the money system can be used to debunk the Republican dross about the sacredness of capitalism, but also insofar as the authors suggest a number of alternatives to the money system we currently have.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

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