Ed Dowding

Category: Money

Finance, trade, economics, and what we think of as money.

The Shepard Tone Economy

The economy depends a lot on the concept of growth. Infinite growth on a finite planet isn’t going to work. This is why humanity’s been trying to decouple growth from resource consumption. So the million-dollar question is: Can we have an economy which grows infinitely, but does so without actually expanding and consuming all the world’s ...

Capitalism analogy.

Capitalism, like nuclear power, has been one of our most successful ideas for creating order from chaos, but left unchecked it will swiftly create chaos from order. It demands our constant vigilance in order not to fail catastrophically. It can go wrong very quickly – and costs for a fortune to clean up when it does ...

God helped society put its thumb on the scales

When thinking through new ways of configuring society’s organisational models (ie how together we can work, live, trade, and agree goals and values most effectively) it’s useful to reflect on the characteristics of the most successful models humanity has used thus far. Amongst these are the village, guilds, armies, and religions. These have independently evolved ...

Enough is enough.

This film is full of ridiculous utopian ideas which are completely possible and utterly workable. And even if we could do them, it would take only years to bring them into existence! Don’t waste your time.

At-a-glance: Queen’ Speech 2013

You’re only allowed to stay if you were on the guest list we wrote 18 years ago. You are to clean up after your dog. You will work harder, longer, and when you die you’ll be able to know exactly how your privatised hospital is failing. We acknowledge that prison is a crap solution, so ...

14 big trends to watch in 2013

http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/12/14-trends-for-2013.html

Manifestos for life

Posters in the Hub Westminster with typographical design by Robert Reed. Source: This is Reed

Debt forgiveness. For everyone. For ever.

Still no idea why this wouldn’t work if you think big enough. One could slash private debt by 100pc of GDP, boost growth, stabilize prices, and dethrone bankers all at the same time. It could be done cleanly and painlessly, by legislative command, far more quickly than anybody imagined. The conjuring trick is to replace ...

Public spending by UK government department

Open this one – the embed below is too small, sorry. Public spending by UK government department: an interactive guide

Where does money come from?

You can not EARN more than about £1m / year. Tops.

Another great chunk from Forty Signs of Rain, by Kim Stanley Robinson. “The average surplus value created by American workers is thirty-three dollars an hour.” Anna said, “I wonder how they define surplus value.” “Profit,” Frank said. Edgardo shook his head. “You can cook the books and get rid of profit, but the surplus value, ...

Permaculture principles

It seems this list can bring wisdom and insight to pretty much everything we do. Apart from the more specific ones (like ‘keep water high on the land’, but maybe just try to metaphor these as taoist haikus to trigger bewildering insights.) Relative Location Components placed in a system are viewed relatively, not in isolation. ...

A 10% strike by the 99%?

This is a work in progress. I first wrote it after Copenhagen failed to agree anything, and am in the process of updating and amending for the Occupy movement. Please get in touch if interested. Problem Sigh. Where to begin? Broadly speaking, however.. Most of our critical anatomy was never designed for the world we ...

UK’s first local electronic currency

This is a MAJOR step in the 21st century! The Brixton Pound was London’s first ever local currency. Now it is set to be the UK’s first independent e-currency. Visitors to independent shops will soon be able to “Pay-by-Text” using their mobile bones. thanks to a new electronic payment system called Monea. The new system, ...

Visualising an economy of plenty

New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo. via Visualizing a Plenitude Economy on Vimeo.

American spending, in perspective

The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling – James Fallows – The Atlantic.

Let them yearn for tat.

We have a political system divided between ‘let them work for tat’ (the right) and ‘let them buy tat’ (the left). The result is a deep and valueless materialism that allows hundreds of young people across London to go on violent and thieving rampages simply because they can get away with it. We have a ...

How algorithms shape our world

Kevin Slavin argues that we’re living in a world designed for — and increasingly controlled by — algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can’t understand, with implications we can’t ...

Economic development not economic growth.

People who should know better are forever banging on about ‘economic growth’ as being something which we should make a priority. Really? How’s that going to work? We keep on doing more stuff, which begets more stuff, which begets more stuff… so… you really don’t need to be more than about four years old to ...

Dollar dumped

I’m very pleased to see that the BRIC have agreed to use their own currencies for trade, rather than pushing everything via the dollar. More competition, less hegemony, more resilience. Marvellous.