How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule by David Korten

A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group,  How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule is the product of extended discussions among representatives of a diverse group of organizations committed to deepening and reframing the conversation on financial reform to focus attention on the serious financial system restructuring required to build a strong new American economy adequate to the social and environmental challenges of the 21st century. It may be freely shared, reproduced and distributed with appropriate citations.  To see or download full report, click below.


http://www.yesmagazine.org/pdf/liberateamericadownload.pdf

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.

1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.

This is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned.  We need to get this done!

Radical Homemaking

I have been talking to some of you about the fact that there are things we can do to change how badly screwed up the world has become.  Most people feel that huge individual sacrifices would be necessary to fix the world's problems.  And these sacrifices are much too difficult and painful to undertake.  But what people are finding out is that the changes we can make, also make us happier.  They aren't sacrifices at all.  Each tiny step we make to take personal control of our own human well being, works to the benefit of our families, friends, communities, the country and the planet as a whole.

In other words, what we have come to believe is the only way for individuals, communities, governments and economic systems to function, may not only be wrong but recently manufactured belief systems as well.  We have forgotten what my great-grandparents knew in their bones.  Human beings have forgotten deep, important truths that we didn't ever consciously realize we knew.

This magazine takes a positive approach to the worlds problems.  For those who want to face heavier reading, try the several books written by the economist David C. Korten.  He is at the forefront of a movement trying to imagine what a healthy, life enhancing, sustainable economic system would look like.  Check these ideas out on http://www.community-wealth.org/  The ideas are simple and obvious but very hard to imagine because we have forgotten so much.

These are extremely radical ideas!  But threatening only to those who have a need to amass money and power.     yesmagazine.org

Gunboat Granny