Ed Dowding

Tag: money

Neo-Classical elements: Time, money, energy, politics

The world used to be (perceived to be) made up of four elements: Earth, air, fire, and water. A few years back Ollie and I figured all the problems in the world would go away if only we could sort out the energy thing. Not least because if we really nailed it we could just ...

The Future of Money

Key quote? Allow different types of money to compete in the same way that markets compete, to open up new ways of doing business. The Future of Money on Vimeo

Economic reality check

I’ve written quite a lot about money, and plan to write a lot more. In the meantime Tim Jackson’s economic reality check video at TED summarises a great deal of it rather nicely.

Money says 'no'. Money is broken. Keeps saying 'no' to everything sensible, and 'yes' to lots of stupid things.

There are 2,470,000 people unemployed in the UK. There is an energy supply crisis. We know how to insulate houses, make solar panels, wind farms, community heating systems, and so on. So on the one hand we have a major problem, and on the other we have a major solution. And yet we have an ...

Tired of ISMs?

YouTube – ISM Inspired by Slow Money.

Is there a useful time to have money?

I rail against money quite a bit, since the facts suggest that as it is currently structured it has ceased to be the servant of humanity’s needs. So consequently I’m not that fussed about having a lot of it, since why would I want to be part of the problem? But within this reasoning there ...

Earning vs making

Just to be very clear to anyone who makes a lot of money: there is a BIG difference between making money and earning money. There’s nothing wrong with earning lots of money, of course. Just be sure you spend it wisely. Tip: If you get more than £200,000 per year you could probably be running ...

Growth or no-growth?

Economic growth or no economic growth? Which way is best? As with most questions with only two allowed answers, the real answer is “almost certainly both, and neither.” We have plenty of resources, if only we were to use them properly. Whichever model we choose we have to start from where we are right now ...

Money is getting in the way of progress

It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Henry Ford (1863-1947), Founder of Ford Motors via Thomas Seidler

Sacrifices on the alter of efficiency

“I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. ” Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, 23 October 2008 I do love that quote. It’s to brilliantly demonstrative of the problem: “I thought the world worked like this. I was ...

Links for the week

Where you consume water in your daily life http://www.good.is/post/transparency-how-much-water-do-you-use/ Training the young to fix our problems http://www.yesworld.org/ and http://www.csl.org.au/ The gift economy in Mali http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ELNsQdSMOc Twitter users skew towards the older crowd http://www.inquisitr.com/21484/twitter-userbase-skews-toward-older-crowd-data-suggests/ (I’m beginning to think I might have to add yet another Twitter post qualifying previous posts.) Facebook unlikely to release currency http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/04/07/facebook-unlikely-to-launch-universal-virtual-currency-anytime-soon/ ...

Market failures: bridges vs tunnels

There are some areas of major importance to human beings: air & water, food, security, shelter, energy, ethics, and economy. In all except shelter, and that one is debatable, there are huge market failures. The economic models that we use do not satisfactorily regulate supply and demand for these good. Take a moment to think ...

The Ancient Greek economy

On the other hand, ancient Greek values held in low esteem economic activities that were not subordinated to the traditional activities of managing the family farm and obtaining goods for necessary consumption. So-called banausic work, which included manufacturing, business, and trade (which were not tied to the land and the family farm), and what we ...