Economics – Page 36 – Public Intelligence Blog

Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

Today's economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. However, as David Korten shows, the steps being taken to address it do nothing to deal with the reality of a failed economic system. It's like treating cancer with a bandage. Korten identifies the deeper sources of the failure: Wall Street institutions that have perfected the art of creating “wealth” without producing anything of real value: phantom wealth. Our hope lies not with Wall Street, Korten argues, but with Main Street, which creates real wealth from real resources to meet real needs.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Books on Real Wealth Economy”

2009/11/262009/11/26

Review: Global Warming False Alarm–The Bad Science Behind the United Nations’ Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming

5 Star, Communications, Corruption, Crime (Government), Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Righteous Good SLAM of IPCC Fraud & Intimidation

November 26, 2009

Ralph B. Alexander

I read a lot, and I confess to have been among those who “bought in” to the celebrity alarmism of Al Gore, but I never displaced the totality of the threats to Earth for an obsessive focus on carbon emissions. Among the three books I have always recommended that are far more balanced than anything by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are:

High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)

That having been said, I was generally supportive of the Kyoto Treaty and the concept of carbon reductions.

Then I read The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity and within weeks, read Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage) and finally, just the past week, noticed the Hacktivism that outed all of the fraud and deception in the Climate Research Unit central to the IPCC (Climate Change Fraud is now a global meme).

Continue reading “Review: Global Warming False Alarm–The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming”

2009/11/262009/11/26

Review: The Practice of Peace

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Peace Through Open Space

November 26, 2009

Harrison Owen

The author gave me a copy of this book as a gift, after inviting me to lunch to discuss my review of Wave Rider (EasyRead Large Edition): Leadership for High Performance In a Self-Organizing World.

This book needs to be re-issued. It is a perfect complement to Tom Atlee's forthcoming Refelctions on Evolutionary Activism (Tom is the author of The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All–read my review of EA at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog.]

Although I knew the author was the founder of the Open Space Technology (OST) process, and recommend his book Open Space Technology: A User's Guide, I learn in this book that the other essential reader is his earlier book, The Power of Spirit: How Organizations Transform.

This book does something I was not expecting: it directly relates, in a tight DNA-like spiral, the use of open space technology (process is really a better word) to the practice of peace. This is not a book on Quakerism–the author has made an original contribution that has moved me further down the road toward Evolutionary Activism (focus on connecting all humans to all information, not on arriving as specific answers)-but I better understand the value of such books as Practicing Peace: A Devotional Walk Through the Quaker Tradition as a result of this reading.

ALSO unexpected, I found this book to be a handbook for a “Whole Systems” approach to peace and prosperity. The author writes of “Multi-Factorial Development” attempting to do that, but i have the margin notation that putting a bunch of singular discipline experts (one from each discipline) in a room together does not create in any of them the ability to *do* systems thinking (or sustainable design). See Critical Path and The Philosophy of Sustainable Design.

Continue reading “Review: The Practice of Peace”

2009/11/012009/11/01

Review: The Genius of the Beast–A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), History, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Deep Look at Soul of Man, Society, and Capitalism

November 1, 2009

Howard Bloom

I received this book in pre-publication form so as to offer a blurb for the jacket. Below is my take on this book.This book will simultaneously tease your brain, arouse your emotions, and motivate you as it probes deeply into the soul of man, society, and capitalism as the engine of Western civilization.

The author gifts us with a counter-culture manifesto that resurrects the goodness of capitalism while also connecting to the roots of humanity, of the human soul as a microcosm of the soul of society.

Be patient, the first third of this book will amuse, enlighten, & provoke, at which point it will grab you by the throat and shake your fundamental perceptions of life. The author is compelling in both a scientific sense, weaving psychology, biology, economics, and sociology together; and in an artistic sense, delivering theater of the mind, new visions, poetic turns of phrase page after page, and a massive amount of purpose-laden provocative minutia, all of which culminates in blinding flashes of insight that explain the mind-expanding role of circuses, the failure of religion, and the natural cycles of fission and fusion, splintering apart and coming together.

Continue reading “Review: The Genius of the Beast–A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism”

2009/10/312009/10/31

Review: Business Stripped Bare–Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Best Practices in Management, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Disease & Health, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Leadership, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Inspirational and Practical as Well

October 31, 2009

Richard Branson

I picked this up half-price at Copenhagen airport, and I liked it so much I have ordered Screw It, Let's Do It (Expanded Edition): 14 Lessons on Making It to the Top While Having Fun & Staying Green.

I must note that normally I would reduce one star–Virgin Books evidently has no clue–or no interest–in using the many Amazon tools provided to publishers (I am one) and therefore we are not seeing so little as a Table of Contents and the Index (always huge for me in evaluating a non-fiction book for possible purchase) or even better, “Look Inside the Book,” which is no harder than uploading the book pdf via Amazon Advantage. Bad dog.

Here are my fly-leaf notes.

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2009/10/31

Review: Prisoner of the State–The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Biography & Memoirs, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Country/Regional, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Leadership, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Editors Did Great, Could Have Gone Extra Mile

October 31, 2009

Zhao Ziyang

Most people miss the two bottom lines that I found engaging:

1. China's government is a screwed up bureaucracy with petty egos just like ours.

2. China produced moderate pragmatist Premier Zhao Ziyang, promoted him, and empowered him.

With all due respect to all those wailing and moaning about the years of house arrest, this book is phenomenal for documenting the above two points alone, and Premier Zhao Ziyang will stand in history as one of the greatest leaders along with Mao Zedong (their rendition, I always preferred Mao Tse-tung) and Deng Xiaoping.

2009/10/182009/10/18

Review: 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make A Difference

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Censorship & Denial of Access, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Phenomenal Overview, Reference, Exceeded Expectations

October 18, 2009

Glenn Croston

I bought and read this book along with Green Intelligence: Creating Environments That Protect Human Health and Careers in Renewable Energy: Get a Green Energy Job.

This book is everything I could have wanted and more–it exceeded expecations. For each of 75 “opportunities” sorted within eleven chapters it provides a summary table (Market Need, Mission, Knowledge to Start, Capital Rquired, Timing to Start, and Special Challenges, along with a multi-page discussion and a variety of “sidebar” elements that vary but generally address Related Trends, In the Long Run, Green Leader, Industry Information, Information Resource, Eco-Tip, or Eco-Issue.

Continue reading “Review: 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make A Difference”