Ann,
I’m in complete agreement with your fears and your recognition of the primary area of the problem (finance and financialization). Please understand, my only problem with yourself and the other leading edge researchers like Keen, Hudson, MMTers and Ellen Brown is that your excellent, accurate and important work…still puts the cart before the horse in that, paradoxically, simplicity is the key to not only systemic change, but paradigm change in that paradigms are (Caps are for emphasis not yelling) SINGLE OPERANT APPLIED CONCEPTS that change the realities of ENTIRE complexities/patterns. Again, deciphering the complexities of the problematic area is great and necessary also, BUT, being fully conscious of the new IDEA guides, focuses and enables one to philosophically align and apply policy in the operant area in the most operant way.

New applied, operant ideas resolve problems because they’re the core of the core deepest problem. They are helio-centrism instead of geo-centrism, and Monetary Gifting integrated into the monopolistic Debt Only present paradigm.

Identifying Monetary Grace as in Gifting as the operant idea also enables one to apply it to resolve the other thorny aspects of finance/the economy like the Greedy Rule of Profit and Speculation in a way that enables such but resolves their present toxic effects. It enables a thirdness greater integrative oneness (think Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis) that is the signature of Wisdom.

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The key is understanding that paradigms are single concepts, that applied, change everything in entire system/pattern under analysis. System’s analysis is largely about finding problems which of course is good, but paradigm perception is recognizing THE RESOLVING applied concept. It’s the proper starting and guiding point. Its the difference between knowing data and completely understanding both its mental and temporal realities as well as how to resolve the system’s problems. It’s Wisdom, the true integrative third way past the conundrum of Duality, Scientific Reductionism and Unconscious Orthodoxy Only which is a hurdle instead of the proper tool. Wisdom resolves and progresses everything including religious and paradigmatic orthodoxy. Let us embrace Wisdom.

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LC: I look forward to reading your book Ann which I know will be well researched and referenced.

Yet, if we talk about dismantling Wall Street, surely you have to persuade those working there to work with you so they can dismantle their operations and rebuild their usefulness in the service of remedying the ecocide challenges, such as described in Barbados?

Cooperation with the banking sector to put them in service to our planet ‘for the benefit of all living things’ could be their mantra.

Me: Your motto is good, but I would suggest finding economic policies that strongly and directly benefit virtually everyone not directly in control of private finance…just in case private finance isn’t willing to cooperate with the effort. The 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale is one such policy because it is the very expression of the new paradigm of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting and it directly benefits everyone because everyone participates in retail sale…even Banking CEOs and their employees come to think of it…by doubling their purchasing power, ending inflation for them and potentially doubling demand for every enterprise’s goods and services. Such a policy with its universality of effect and integration of traditionally opposed self interests could result in what Marx expected, namely a revolt of the bourgeosie against Finance.

Let us embrace Wisdom and Wisdom’s pinnacle concept the natural philosophical concept of grace as in love in personal action, and as policies are the actions of systems, systemic policy.

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I affirm anyone’s research and policy ideas so long as they represent and accomplish alignment with the new monetary, financial and economic paradigm of Gifting, the concept behind every historical new paradigm and the pinnacle concept of Wisdom, namely grace.

Ideas are basic and new paradigm concepts/paradigm changes are the most integrative, beneficial and powerful human phenomena humanity can experience. Start at the actual starting line…conceptual/paradigmatic analysis, and with the simple tool of logic and the beatific chains of the necessary human consideration known as ethics…you can thread the needle of resolution with any problem.

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AP: Got it Steve…But those ideas have to be written about and shared…no?

Me: Yes of course, I’m in no way opposed to research and education. Wisdom/the integrative intellectual impulse and process after all does not thrive without a full knowledge of the subject at hand. My plea is actually only that along with the education we recognize that an activist, awakening and ethically resolving thirdness should be our conscious goal and intention.

I just finished reading the last discussion between you, Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai on Michael’s site and along with the factual content it was delightful to see the intellectual interplay of agreements, disagreements and consensus that took place between you three. Thats Hegel’s trinity unity oneness dialectic in practice.

I also agree with you that fascism is a lingering problem for China and every major power because fascism is power with distorted or even the absence of ethics. The trinity of thought, action and humane ethics has been a neglected problem since we consciously emerged from the mere “ethic” of Survival Only by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the solution to the problematic dualism of good and evil is the trinity of good, evil and ethics as the rational consideration of morals.

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LC: Is ‘everyone’ those who live in the US and in a position to participate in retail?

Me: Any country that has a currency…which is virtually every one of them.

Money and accounting, the latter of which is the means of approximately 97% of money’s creation by private banking and shadow banks, are among the greatest tools/inventions of humanity. Steve Keen taught me that. But he didn’t come up with the monetary paradigm changing policy of a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale, I did. Actually, a guy by the name of Clifford Hugh Douglas did back between the two world wars, but I innovated it from just an attempt to counter inflation into making it perform one of the signatures of historical paradigm changes which is the complete inversion of a problematic temporal universe reality into a beneficial one. That is changing chronic erosive inflation into beneficial price and asset deflation where you can now buy a $400k house for $200k and with my 50% debt jubilee policy at the point of loan signing you end up financing only $100k. With the equal and reciprocal debits and credits tool of accounting all merchants get their full price and the long neglected individual consumer benefits instead of gets stung.

I admire Steve Keen for his advocacy of “a modern debt jubilee”, but maybe because he hasn’t cognited on the fact that the effects of every historical paradigm change have always been an aspect or aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace, like continual process and flow for instance, he didn’t think to integrate continuous debt jubilee into the economic process with such a policy. The benefits of conceptual/whole system/paradigmatic analysis as opposed to only reductionism make all the difference in the pace and quality of change.

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Nice posts Linda. And don’t forget that the only reason the US economy didn’t totally tank (not sure of the policies used by the UK) was the series of stimulus checks, i.e. monetary gifting that got distributed to those who lost their jobs.

What are fiscal deficits? Revenue Gifting to government contractors and employees. UBI? Direct monetary gifts to the individual. Debt jubilees? Monetary Gifting to reduce indebtedness. 50% discounts at retail sale? Monetary Gifting. Hint, hint, hint.

LC: How would this work if people need shelter, food, safety after suffering a devastating climate event? Is it a top down accounting arrangement? Are there obstacles to accessing funds if you have lost your ID proof as a result of the disaster? If you have no insurance due to living in a high risk area, are you excluded from funds?

Me: Every merchant with two brain cells would register with the FED or other monetary authority to opt into the rebate aspect of the policy so that they got their full price after discounting their price to the consumer by 50%. They would have to pledge not to inflate their prices in order to qualify for the rebate. If they broke their pledge any revenue they garnered from such inflation would be taxed at a rate of 100% and if they continued to inflate they’d lose their rebate privileges altogether which means they’d have to get 100% of their price from the consumer which would mean they’d basically go out of business because their competitors who abided by the gracious rules of the new paradigm would only have to get 50% of their price from consumers. Every business gets an account at the central bank which could quickly be accomplished and commerce proceeds as usual except every individual and commercial agent benefits wildly…except finance of course, but then they ARE the problem afterall.

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LC:

We live in possibly end game times. There is no time for experimenting. Whatever the solution it has to be perfect first time. I have not seen any proposed plan that would rescue people from impossible situations of crippling national and personal debt; or routes to escape the increasing perils caused by climate change and conflict.

Me: We do live in perilous times, but one must adhere to a motto expressed by Antonio Gramscii of “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Grace is love in action. This is why any new economics must be aligned with grace. There is no perfection in life only gamble and adventure, but the best possible way to personally live life and insure our systems are as ethical and robust as possible is by self-actualizing/implementing policies that align with, the aspects of grace all of which are the integrative thirdnesses of Wisdom.