Will greatly simplify and enable the integration of micro and macro-economics.

DT:  What is at issue is not knowledge but what is necessary for one to acquire and share it, i.e. language complex but uncomplicated enough to express it and motivation sufficiently other-directed to be willing to. Without that, sure, humans may remain or degenerate into animal predators and prey, but they still have the same brains now as they did in the 19th and 20th century. All that is different is that we now know rather more about how they work, which sadly is being more widely used to mislead other people than to follow the ancient advice to “know thyself”.

So ignorant or self-serving people in UK and US governments deny the economic unity of the world?

G K Chesterton, in a little book (Orthodoxy) it might take you – as it took me – decades to comprehend, gave a couple of comprehensive answers in respect of this and changes in social relations:

Ch.4 . “Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. … happiness depended on NOT DOING SOMETHING which you could at any moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should not do”. [Hence subsidiarity: only globalise insofar as one needs to].

Ch.7. “We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier”. [From a brief comparison of evolution, progress and reform].

JB:  Dave, we are speaking to different audiences. I deal mostly with Master’s in Engineering & Business, often from poor nations or poor families in wealthy nations. My students are more from Asia that the West. Their daily lives are about measurements & job performance. Chesterton would make no sense to most, nor would they want to try. While I don’t wish to emphasize their closeness to Trump, he seems to be a materialist whose mental depth goes to insuring his ego is dominant if possible in every social encounter. Not so my students.
That said, I also was raised with philosophy, history & anthropology. In my years in the Uni Calif & State Uni of Calif systems the engineers & biz faculty were seen as largely different from those in the humanities, for sure. Actually I went between anthro & those other two faculties at several uni’s. And that was a cultural shock each time….
Keep up your interesting comments, my friend.

DT:  James, be careful you don’t smear Chesterton by juxtapositioning his name by that of Trump. Chesterton, having been shunned by British academics after he became a Catholic, is now usually (if at all) known for his Fr Brown detective stories. Yet in fact he was an intuitive polymath: an artist and poet who studied language and personality differences, became a renowned art, literary and social critic, turned down a professorship in order to educate the uneducated via journalism, became one of the leading lights in the Distributist school of economics and in retrospect was recognised by Jaki as “a seer of science”. If you pick up a copy of any of the old “Everyman” edition of Dickens, you will find it prefixed by a Chesterton tutorial about both the story and the writing of it.

The point is the one Kate Raworth makes so tellingly in her “Doughnut Economics”: all your erudite Masters and PhD’s began as students and often still see the world and their part in it in the way these were first presented to them: as misleadingly oversimplified and specialised. The academically despised Distributist picture is of localisation (as in families and sustenance farming) so that we can see and learn directly from what others are doing. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful” as against automated mass production (for sale only to those with money).

JB: Dave, of course Chesterton cared for others, which is not a suit which Mr Trump seems to know. My point was simply that when the world wants excellence in anything–whether with a Luther translating the Bible into German or an Albert Einstein with his re-ordering of our understanding of physical nature–it typically calls on specialists. I recall from my undergrad years that our famous professors in any subject could stand up and speak for hours without notes, often writing lines of poetry or mathematics, just because they were specialists.

Me:  Dave and James,

You’re both right of course because you’re both thinking integratively…..and integration of truths is the very process of wisdom, its self actualization and so maintenance. All we as economic thinkers and human beings then need to realize is that the pinnacle concept and experience of wisdom is grace/graciousness which is continuously dynamic INTEGRATING. It’s why R. Buckminster Fuller wrote I Seem To Be A Verb.

And then to realize that in addition to its personal benefits the aspects of grace as a concept are imminently applicable to any human system and in fact are the highest wisdom APPLIED…which is another one of the definitions of wisdom itself, that is, the best possible integration of the practical and the ideal.

So let us hustle up and apply the policies of Monetary Grace As In Direct and Reciprocal Gifting….and the nation and the world will be a much more flowing, ethical and enjoyable place.

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KZ: Craig, how did the “Great Depression” unfold? It was not slow and deliberate but changed almost every aspect of life in America within a few months. It devastated jobs and lead to hundreds of bank closures. This crisis leads to FDR’s “New Deal” which included Social Security, unemployment insurance, etc. We’ve not seen anything like this related to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. TARP saved most the banks and financial investment houses, and thus most of the investors. But little help has been offered or provided to home owners, small businesses, hourly workers, and city and state governments. Now this “crisis” seems in limbo. The wealth share of the upper class separates from that of the middle- and working-class more with every passing day. Yet, even with no help and ever declining share of national wealth, the middle- and working class have not rebelled. The only sign of rebellion is the election of Donald Trump. And this seems about to finish the subjugation of both classes. It’s time for the professional revolutionaries to take over. That seems to be happening with the rebirth of the “Progressive” Party, not seen as active for over 75 years. Our struggle then is between two populist parties. Neither reluctant to use forces, propaganda, and blackmail. This likely will reshape the USA for next 50 years, if not longer. The last time these two fought, the Progressives claimed a clear victory.

Me:  Ken,  We agree on so much. But my perspective on the events you reference is slightly different.

The Great Depression was indeed a terribly disruptive event but there were actions and inactions that preceded and precipitated it. History as I’m sure you would agree is a continuum. Yes, the New Deal lead to lasting reforms but did not touch the deeper reasons why modern economies are plagued by serial de-stabilizations. Hence the business cycle continued and set the stage for ever greater future idiotic de-stabilizations like the various derivative products we saw building up to 2008. Hence from an historical perspective it was still a mere reform, a mere palliation of the real problem…the rule of the economy by Finance’s monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only and also IMO the unfortunate continuance of the economically illegitimate business model of private finance. Private Finance is not only a paradigmatic problem it has also devolved into a tremendously parasitical amount of additional costs…post retail sale. Retail sale is actually the only legitimate end of the economic/productive process….not finance. Thus a publicly administered national banking system is a part of the solution to our economic problems. The last 4-500 years of private finance has so hypnotized us as to its legitimacy that economists cannot see through and past it. Ellen Brown’s Public Banking movement is a great reform. All it needs is to make the integration to national instead of state banking and then to further integrate with the new paradigm thinking and policies I’m advocating. And yes, David Graeber has shown us that the paradigm of Debt Only has been with us for 5000 years and that the government/church controlled variety of finance was just as problematic and tyrannical as private finance has become. All the more reason to end its dominance and tyranny with economic and monetary policies based on and aligned with the benevolent universal solvent concept of grace as in monetary gifting.

As for Trump, he and Bannon espouse the fascistic, disruptive, dis-integrative and inevitably chaotic idiocy of “the fourth turning” which is actually just the historic failure to accomplish what economics and civilization has always required in order to evolve past the paradigm of Debt Only….the integrative wisdom/thirdness greater oneness of the natural philosophical concept of grace thoroughly applied to our technologically advanced economies.

KZ:  Craig, I understand that quantum physicists often connect quantum dimensionality and transcendence with spirituality and religious experiences. I don’t understand all of what they propose, but I agree with most of what I do understand. Having said this, it’s important to point out quantum physics is still a science. Thus, is based on empirical research and empirical evidence. Evidence, I agree of forms and depth not pursed by most only science today.

In terms of grace and science, I can’t agree that grace as science is the solution for anything. Scientists revealed the world of the atomic. No universal solutions followed. Scientists revealed thousands of earth-like planets in the universe. Still no universal solutions. Scientists reveal in intimate detail the structure and functioning of the human brain. No universal solutions. My version of grace is Sapiens expanding its insights, its understandings until it sees itself in the universe and the it sees the multiverse, per William James. “Visible nature is all plasticity and indifference, a multiverse, as one might call it, and not a universe.” (“The Will to Believe,” and “Is Life Worth Living?” I figure that’s a few thousand years away.

Me:  “In terms of grace and science, I can’t agree that grace as science is the solution for anything. Scientists revealed the world of the atomic. No universal solutions followed. ”

That’s because they didn’t make the relevant mental integrations between the quantum universe, their own minds and the cosmos as a whole. Science and its now rigid orthodoxy of abstraction and knowledge as data only jumped in and wrecked/missed the experience. When you contemplate

1) grace as in utter and complete integration on the cosmic/quantum level and the same on the individual mental level….they perfectly reflect each other

2) similarly the reflectivity of the very actions of our consciousness reaching out to and then withdrawing from whatever it was experiencing at any moment to the popping into existence (reaching) of particles in the quantum universe and then their popping back out of existence (withdrawing)

3) you begin to see that temporal/physical reality however delightful, interesting and necessary for temporal progress….is actually the reflection of the deeper more fundamental reality of the panentheistic quantum universe…that is, even though it’s also quite real it is the maya illusion of separateness and arrogance in its claim to ultimate reality spoken of in hindu and buddhist wisdom traditions. And finally

4) the truly complete reality is the integration and self actualization of BOTH of these realities….and that is the state of grace. And that’s why wedding/integrating a philosophy of grace with reflective policies/actions in economics….is the wise and effective thing to do.

The same applies to the other examples you gave.

“My version of grace is Sapiens expanding its insights, its understandings until it sees itself in the universe and the it sees the multiverse”

There you have it. That is exactly the same as my viewpoint. There’s no detraction from the experience itself, It’s just that sometimes it takes the discipline of internal (and external) attentiveness and an addition by subtraction mental sanctification process of non-integrative blocks….to make it fully real to oneself.

Me:  The current paradigm of economics holds power and its negative effects in place. The only way to begin to stop that is implementing the new economic paradigm….and then using the same concept behind both the new paradigm and the only thing bigger and more mentally potent than a paradigm, a zeitgeist/new ethic of the age, and that concept is grace as in benevolence.

KZ:  Craig, creating a new zeitgeist requires a lot more than wishing it. It usually requires a break down of the existing ways of life as to make continuing with them impossible and dangerous. That’s not within the control of any one human, or even most human groups. It requires crisis. Same can be said for creating the new zeitgeist. Can’t be done without the crisis to force it and then a lot of interactions by angry and distrustful humans.

Me:  “creating a new zeitgeist requires a lot more than wishing it.”

You’re right, that’s why I’m not wishing I’m assertively advocating, here and elsewhere, and I’ll be speaking about it to students, businessmen and whomever else will ask me in very short order along with at least two books I’m compiling.

“It usually requires a break down of the existing ways of life as to make continuing with them impossible and dangerous. That’s not within the control of any one human, or even most human groups. It requires crisis. Same can be said for creating the new zeitgeist.”

Well that’s exactly what occurred in 2008 and we’re in a deceptively slo-mo dead cat bounce that will wreak even more havoc than 2008 because we haven’t escaped old paradigm thinking.

“Can’t be done without the crisis to force it and then a lot of interactions by angry and distrustful humans.”

Again it’s already happened, and what is most critically needed in the chaos of crisis and collapse is people who have the clear vision with the right guiding concept to sublimate the anger and mistrust so that evolution occurs instead of the merely reactionary and non-progressive event that is revolution.

GC:  Communism is an evolving idea that blossomed from human evolution. Capitalism did the same. As did socialism and every other step in social advancement from the last ice age until now.

Will humanity throw off the yoke of wage slavery serving capitalist institutions who destroy life for personal profit? A new calendar will begin at that moment. The age of a mature specie willing to think new thoughts in order to survive. Its now or never. Do or die.

Me:  You’re quite right that both capitalism and socialism are (or should be) evolutionary….and integrative. And the trinitarian completion of the dialectic is synthesis as in something that has aspects of both parts of the dualism that precedes it and yet is a genuine thirdness greater oneness. That’s why the correct dialectic equation is:
[ (capitalism x socialism) <–> the profit making system of direct and reciprocal monetary distributism ] because it integrates the best aspects of the dualism within the parentheses.

An integration I hasten to add is neither some wishy washy compromise nor the poison pill object of mere conflict that most politically implemented economic policies are, but a dynamic and truly progressive combination of the truths and only the truths in opposing perspectives. It’s actually a sanctifying process in that sense that requires the utmost of personal and mental/theoretical honesty.

Me:  There are no free markets presently, only relative degrees of chaotic ones. When an economic system is bounded on neither the lower end by cost nor the upper end by price it is by definition chaotic. There is no such thing as a TOTALLY free or even stable let alone ethical human system, only one’s that allow the freedom existent between known barriers.

The two primary problems of modern economic systems are monetary austerity for both enterprise and the individual, and until an historically routine debt deflation occurs….chronic inflation.

Savings and profits and the pooling of same in investment vehicles like bonds remove money from the flow of the economy, and their re-investment incurs additional costs. Depreciation of fixed assets also incur additional costs. As the cost accounting convention that all costs must go into price is an informative and valid one the only correct way to resolve monetary austerity is via a policy that does not incur additional costs to the individual, enterprise or the system itself. That means, no matter how powerful or resistant finance may be to giving up their monopoly monetary paradigm of Debt/Cost/Burden Only….there must be a form of monetary gifting…or austerity will end profit making systems.

Monetary inflation is a misnomer because money itself is not the operant factor in “monetary” inflation. The operant factor is the TOTAL freedom, when the economy is not stopped or recovering from a debt deflation, for business decision makers to be able to raise their prices when they see more money coming into the system. Given the chronic problem of austerity the trick to eliminating this somewhat understandable temptation is to devise a policy that not only eliminates inflation, but accomplishes what is presently considered impossible, that is, that painlessly and beneficially integrates price deflation into profit making systems.

New paradigms are always conceptually oppositional to old ones, and they also invert problematic dualities within the old paradigm to the point of thirdness greater oneness and so essential and unmistakably progressive transformation of the area of human endeavor/body of knowledge that they take place in.

And this is why a universal gift of a monthly dividend to the individual and discount/rebate policies at the point of sale throughout the entire length of the legitimate economic/productive process including final retail sale….are the policies that will implement the new paradigm.

HS:  In the current chains of non-governance and lawlessness, all regulatory regimes, including funding regimes are null and void. Exported to the entire universe and the outcome will remain the same. This particular process started some time ago, reached its maturity with the advent of “globalisation” and is currently out-sourced at untraceable speed and velocity. What is to be done? This remains the key question.

Me:  Helen,

Your observations and laments are well taken. The answer is: Graciously impose direct and reciprocal, rational, ethical and beneficial order at the specific problematic points in time in the economic process, and also free the individual with a direct monetary gift.

PCR:  There is a fundamental flaw in the way that both Donald Trump and his critics generally talk about trade. They make it an issue of country versus country, raising the question of whether China, Canada and other trading partners are treating the United States fairly as a country.

Me:  A large component and strategy of International trade is really simply a very inefficient way for nations to try to garner enough additional individual income to make their domestic economies function flowingly and well. This was never actually “up to the job” and is becoming increasingly problematic.

Again, the only workable and universally beneficial thing to do is to integrate costlessness/monetary gifting digitally/intelligently into economies as it will stabilize them immediately and enable modern technologically advanced ones to be prosperous without attempting to dominate or manipulate their neighbors and less developed ones to industrialize/re-industrialize quickly and ecologically sanely.

Grace as the most basic concept and personal experience is the place to start…and where understanding inevitably ends.

Grace/graciousness being love in action is the fulfillment of any law and the only personal decision that truly frees humanity.

Mankind can be both blessed and cursed by its intellect. High order concepts like honor, duty, loyalty and obedience if coupled with the highest ethical concept of grace/graciousness can guide and redeem mankind. Animals such as dogs know these things instinctively and follow them within their mental capabilities which is one of the things that makes them so admirable and lovable.

Economic reformists are always well intentioned, and yet equally cowardly and/or shallow. A history of economic reform will show failure to maintain itself in every instance, and the continual ruminations of economists and economic pundits over theoretical purity and yet failure to craft policies that are deep enough to long persist or even to craft policies at all is the surest of signs of this fact. This is because reformers are hypnotized by Finance’s monopolistically dominating paradigm of Debt Only, and further by the acceptance/normalization of private finance as a legitimate business model…which it is not. Financial services can be legitimate retail business models, but the money creating powers of private banks/finance is errant if not psychotic, and governmental control of money is also doomed….unless the new paradigm and the concept of grace behind it is thoroughly understood and policies are crafted that essentially perfectly align with it.

The only change that is permanent is a paradigm change, and this is historically verifiable as well.

Personally, it is joy. It is abundance. It is not just the highest purpose it is purposefulness itself.

Systemically, grace is gifting, continual gifting and gifting back. It is freedom and free flowingness. Because it is process itself grace is the actual most basic woof and warp of the cosmos.

Pursuit of paradigm perception and paradigm change is the greatest pursuit of grace.

Grace/graciousness is love inwardly and also love in action, and no matter whether you attribute it to yourself or someone outside yourself, it exists, it is an actual and continual existential reality and even though there be other realities and occurences in the temporal universe these are apparencies-maya and not the deep and more basic truth.

KZ:  The movie Gladiator from Ridley Scott depicts what life looked like in the Roman Empire at its height. Many reviewers and audience found great relief in Russell Crowe’s killing of the Emperor Commodus. A killing that gave the happy-ending most movie goers like. While some of the ways of life depicted in the movie reflect historical research accurately, the ending of the movie does not. No gladiator killed Commodus. Members of the Roman Senate assassinated him. Strangled in his bath after poisoning failed. And even after his death nothing changed in the form or structure of the Roman Empire. Romans had no notion of progress. Today we do, thus the “happy-ending” filmed by director Scott. The static and hopeless world of Scott’s Gladiator general would create such psychic distress in today’s humans that most would be senseless within a few weeks. The moral: don’t assume humans always knew about, understood, or wanted progress (technological or otherwise). This is a relatively recent cultural invention.

Me:  Correct. Humanity is actually only vaguely and shallowly conscious/self aware and thus lacks the wisdom and ethical fortitude to do….what is even obviously in their own self interest. And are becoming more and more “distracted from distraction by distraction.”

All the more reason to create a social, political, economic, monetary and anthropological infrastructure that aligns with and supports the highest concept of wisdom….that is, grace and its economically relevant philosophical and policy application….monetary gifting.

KZ:  The first and most durable socio-political-economic arrangements for the species Sapiens is communism. Thusly, such arrangements are ingrained in the biology and culture of Sapiens. Other arrangements have supplanted communism for periods of time, especially after 5,000 BCE. These were forced into place mostly by biologically deviant humans and kept in place by physical force and threats. Various forms of predatory economics were part of these aberrations. Including monarchy, manorialism, mercantilism, and capitalism. The current version is an extreme form of financial capitalism maintained in power by 10-12 resource and political power rich deviant humans. These deviants work to enslave humans and steal both resources and the authority to decide the future of the species. These newest versions of “elite humans” taunt and degrade the rest of humanity. Intent on shaping the species to it own ends. We can’t allow this to continue, for the sake of species survival.

Me:  “The first and most durable socio-political-economic arrangements for the species Sapiens is communism.”

Correct again. Of course the new monetary and economic paradigm of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting is both reflective of communism (it’s directly monetarily distributive into the many hands of individuals and reciprocally monetarily distributive to enterprise) and yet is also an integratively evolved form of profit making systems.

Wisdom is the process of the integration of the truths, workabilities, applicabilities and highest ethical considerations….of opposing perspectives.

HS:  The real issue was, is and will remain POVERTY.

Me:  “The real issue was, is and will remain POVERTY.”

Poverty is the inevitable effect of the paradigm of Debt Only. A $1000/mo. universal dividend paired with a 50% discount/rebate policy at the point of sale throughout the entire economic/productive process and also at the point of retail sale, immediately gives every adult $2000/mo of free and available purchasing power….and thus immediately ends poverty! And as a kicker, being strategically implemented at the terminal expression point for any and all price inflation, turns that chronic vice of profit making systems….into painless and beneficial price deflation!

KZ:  The idea that the USA trade deficit with China provides an edge in negotiation isn’t just wrong, it’s entirely backward. More than a third of China’s exports to the US are parts used in building things at factories already in the US. Raising the price on those goods leaves companies little choice but to pass that additional cost on to customers.

Me:  Correct. The currently constructed international economic system has been set up to keep seemingly unresolvable cost and profit problems in suspension. The conundrum of tariffs and free and fair trade is one such.

Your cost accounting observation that “Raising the price on those goods leaves companies little choice but to pass that additional cost on to customers.” enlightens the cost accounting convention that all costs must go into price, and points not only toward the tool that integratively undergirds and applies to every point of exchange, that is double entry bookkeeping, but where in commerce (the point of sale) policies can be implemented to resolve the above conundrum that the monetary paradigm of Debt Only enforces and keeps in suspension.

GC:  Communal human is somewhere between a pack and herd animal. Even in a comfortable ocean view communal cave we probably had our own private bed. I’ll stay home and tend the garden makes excess abundance for my community. That’s what I’ll do, It fuels evolution accelerating at an accelerating rate.

Will this fuel the power Econoclast has kindly offered to help keep track of itself?

Me:  The current paradigm of economics holds power and its negative effects in place. The only way to begin to stop that is implementing the new economic paradigm….and then using the same concept behind both the new paradigm and the only thing bigger and more mentally potent than a paradigm, a zeitgeist/new ethic of the age, and that concept is grace as in benevolence.

JB:  Hi, Craig, over my long existence I have found few who do what we do: try to stand back & view the entirety. Most are into their immediate familial & personal situations. Trump builds his family’ wealth/political future. Few in Parliament are any different, I expect.
With such rapid change in national clout & personal settings, it is really hard for most to grasp universal values, as we are on a tumultuous ocean voyage or at least earthquake-prone land with rutted roads. Then of course we have much of the media engaged in stirring the emotional pot, it seems to me.

Me:  Yes, that (individualism) is an accurate observation. The only thing is…its completely irrelevant after the paradigm change has occurred because most will simply accept the new paradigm, go back to being unconscious of it the same as they were of the old one and yet be fully accepting of its lasting progressive effects. Again, humanity is still in its infancy so far as conscious self awareness is concerned.

Now your concern about individualism being an inhibition to paradigm perception and initial acceptance is also valid, but as the Chinese (or is it Japanese) character for crisis is synonymous with change, mankind cannot long endure sustained crisis and the mass socio-economic and political movement I’ve been advocating here will need to be intelligently targeted to those constituencies whose self interests obviously dovetail with the new paradigm and its policies. (The new paradigm is actually in everyone’s self interest, except perhaps those who are employed and/or inured to the old paradigm…because that is the nature and definition of a paradigm change.)

Finally, recent sociological research regarding tipping points and the power of a dedicated small percentage of activists has strongly suggested that majorities are actually not needed for new ideas to become the norm. Ken can probably confirm this sociological research fact.

KZ:  Craig depends on what is meant by grace. Often it is identified as act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency. Christians have difficulty agreeing on one meaning of grace. For many Protestants grace is “the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not necessarily because of anything we have done to earn it.” The Catholic Church holds that it is because of the action of Christ and the Holy Spirit in transforming into the divine life what is subjected to God’s power that “the sacraments confer the grace they signify”: “the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through [each sacrament], independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them. And while I agree that humans generally are far from completely self-aware or able to exercise significant control of some of its actions, I cannot agree with the conclusion that grace is the only solution for this deficit. Sapiens is the only imaginative creature on earth. The only creature on earth that fabricates its life whole cloth from its imagination. Fabricating Sapiens culture of equality, sharing, and communal economics and politics is our only hope for salvation.

Me: Ken,
All of the things you enumerated are separate definitions/aspects of the Christian doctrine of grace, not separate conclusive descriptions themselves. Grace being not just a religious belief, but a simultaneously encompassing and interpenetratively panENtheistic cosmic reality inverts/ends any merely fragmentary perspective on it. Grace is a continual dynamically interactive and integrative mental state in humans also known as a higher state of consciousness…that is, in comparison to most people’s normal garden variety state of same. No put down intended by that, just the truth. Grace is also the temporal reality and expression of the more fundamental quantum reality, its just that it happens to have more time and space intruding upon it and hence it presents tremendous and endless puzzlement for humans….to resolve.

“I cannot agree with the conclusion that grace is the only solution for this deficit.”

That is simply the temporally biased perspective intruding upon the more fundamental truth….that grace is the cosmic, complete and more underlying reality. This is not to say that a fragmented perspective doesn’t have reality or value, just that it isn’t the complete solution. The complete solution is a complete exegesis and understanding of as many of the relevant aspects of the universal and cosmic reality of grace, in whatever system/area of human endeavor is under examination, that a new cognition (theory) and action (policy) is the result. That’s also the definition of a new paradigm.

Hence, contemplating grace in all of its aspects is simultaneously capable of being the highest application of the fragmenting, objective mental mode of thought known as science and an enlightening and personally beneficial study of human consciousness….at the same time.

Economists need to contemplate grace. It would be well worth their time, and a faster means of progress than advancing “one funeral at a time.”

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Regarding Why The Euro Cannot Be Saved

LS: The euro has taken away the possibility for national governments to manage their economies in a meaningful way — and in Italy, just as in Greece a couple of years ago, the people have had to pay the true costs of its concomitant misguided austerity policies. 

The unfolding of the repeated economic crises in euroland during the last decade has shown beyond any doubts that the euro is not only an economic project but just as much a political one. What the neoliberal revolution during the 1980s and 1990s didn’t manage to accomplish, the euro shall now force on us.

But do the peoples of Europe really want to deprive themselves of economic autonomy, enforce lower wages and slash social welfare at the slightest sign of economic distress? Is increasing income inequality and a federal überstate really the stuff that our dreams are made of? I doubt it.

History ought to act as a deterrent. During the 1930s our economies didn’t come out of the depression until the folly of that time — the gold standard — was thrown on the dustbin of history. The euro will hopefully soon join it.

Economists have a tendency to get enthralled by their theories and model and forget that behind the figures and abstractions there is a real world with real people. Real people that have to pay dearly for fundamentally flawed doctrines and recommendations.

Me:  Making domestic economies abundantly profitable and free flowing with the new paradigm policies of a universal dividend and discount/rebate policies throughout the entire economic/productive process is the way to resolve both the vices of reserve currency manipulativeness and the domineering strategy of being an export platform.

With sovereign and rational publicly administered finance making money no object or problem, and AI increasingly removing the need for human economic input each country could then re-industrialize in the most efficient and ecologically sane manner possible. Then, if we grow a couple of extra neurons by implementing an intelligent program for the acculturation of the populace to leisure (self chosen and self directed focus on purposeful activities…NOT idleness) we’d have a much more positive, happy, constructive and creative world. And if anyone was having trouble finding purpose without traditional employment a job guarantee could fit easily within the mental and economic set described above.

Also, within the above paradigm an objective analysis allows for chiding the Italians for inefficiency of economic strategy and effort, and chiding the Germans for their occasional drift toward dominance via moralistic rectitude. Being of German descent I’m well aware of the tendency.

PB:  ”The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.”

― Mikhail Gorbachev

For those who wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes, here:
https://professorwerner.org/eu-basics-your-guide-to-the-uk-referendum-on-eu-membership/
Is a review of how the EU was created and by whom. Hint: it was the CIA.

Me: That’s actually pretty standard operating procedure for the CIA and for the primary force behind American foreign policy, namely finance and its current monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only. And actually, not to belittle the stress, institutional destructiveness and loss of life it has caused, there probably wasn’t a group of bankers and financiers slavering over some vector analysis board laughing evilly while it was all planned out. It was much more likely that the CIA consulted “the best financial advice they could get” that was based on the fallacies in DSGE, and so everyone felt they were actually doing the right thing for everyone. Conspiracies, especially large ones, are almost non-existent. It’s the systems that are built on fallacious thinking and well meaning experts that are unaware of the deeper problem of way outmoded paradigms and who also have no idea of their new replacement….that are the real problem.