Does anyone at all question the fact that big, BIG things are going down in the World economy? That our future is about as economically and politically uncertain as it’s been since the dawn of the Great Depression? I cannot fathom how anyone who has even the remotest sense of history cannot be deeply worried about what is going to happen on the Global stage in the next 12 months, nevermind the next 12, 20, 50 years. The system that we were born into and have taken for granted all our lives is falling apart. Something will replace it. But will the transition be a smooth one or a sudden and disruptive one? Unfortunately history would suggest the latter.
More and more I think part of the challenge is that we have become unhinged from the horrible and difficult lessons of the early 20th Century. We think that we are somehow better, more intelligent that the generations that have preceded us. I beg to differ. Now, while the Internet is playing a starring role in destroying business models that have succeeded for centuries it is also our best hope at keeping citizens worldwide informed about how the system is breaking down and enabling these citizens to have a discussion about what kind of system we would like to have in its place. What money is, how it functions and how it enables us to apply human labour and ingenuity to transform the Earth’s resources into not only what we use but what we are as organisms gets to the very heart of our existence as a species on Earth. The infinite growth model is unsustainable and yet it is at the core of how Central Banking and western capitalist economies function. So nothing much is going to change unless we redefine what money is and what purposes we want it to serve. How much longer before we realize that economies are, from now on, about enabling the survival of our species and not maximizing shareholder profit?
If you are worried about the future and are trying to better understand what the hell is going on and what can be done to limit the damage and turn it around read this:
Matt Stoller was the former Senior Policy Advisor for Democratic Representative Alan Grayson. In this post he discusses how, in the socially connected Universe that is rapidly changing how we conduct our affairs, the U.S. Federal Reserve can no longer operate with the secrecy that it has benefitted from since its inception in 1913 which has allowed it to behave as America’s defacto shadow government with nothing more than the needs of Wall Street as it’s main consideration. The implications for how the United States is governed (and thus the rest of the World) are profound. A MUST READ. And don’t skimp out on the comments either!
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