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.
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:
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.
Gold could be about to get disorderly also as it approaches the key $1200 call option strike. The strong rumour is the large $1200oz Dec call owner is the Peoples Bank of China. Gold traders increasingly believe that China will force physical delivery of 2.8moz of gold instead of the usual cash settlement. My contacts suggest short-term mayhem may be about to break out in gold for a few days as those who have sold the call and get exercised scramble to buy physical for delivery.Ā Ā To put this in context 2.8moz is around 80 tonnes of gold. Yes, it's that big and you can see why there is short-covering everywhere in gold.
Phi Beta Iota: If John Mack becomes Secretary of the Treasury, we anticipate China having a subtle but respected influence on the US Treasury as a condition for selective cover-ups, and China managing the situation so it ultimately gets compensation for all the gold stolen by Japen and confiscated by the US to create the Treasury Black Eagle Trust and Golden Lily slush funds.Ā China did NOT sign the San Francisco Treaty and is on solid ground.Ā We respect John Mack, he might possibly be the first truly multinational Secretary of the Treasury, and if he can make a commitment to Open Money and Real Wealth as a future path for the global economy, he could conceivably be the single most important person in the 21st Century.Ā For background see
Global Warming False Alarm: The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming
In language that a layman can understand, Ralph Alexander explains how the whole global warming claim got started, who started it, and how it has been maintained by too many scientists (and others) using deliberately false or distorted science. ā Bookviews by Alan Caruba
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Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science
‘This is a very powerful, clear, understandable and extremely useful book . . . [Plimer] convincingly criticizes the UN, the IPCC, U.K. and U.S. politicians, as well as Hollywood show business celebrities. He strictly distinguishes science from environmental activism, politics, and opportunism.'āVaclav Klaus, President, The European Union
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Dr. Richard Lindzen–Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T., member, the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, says global warming alarmists “are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right.”Ā …Ā and many others
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Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed
