43 Comments

1. Once again, we witness Ms Fitts taking a confounding subject and making quick work of it, giving an understandable analysis of the politics behind the business and economic world.

2. Dear Ms Fitts: You once again hit the nail on the head, and so I ask:–WHO IS LISTENING–???
   I have been investigating teh global financial fiasco through reading numerous websites and incorporating these well reasoned arguments with my own experiences now headed to the 6th decade. The financial and political demise of the “late great USA” has been a long drawn out meticulous process. My sincere respect to you, as one who has removed herself from the clutches of the inner federal beaurocracy and high rankings of Wall Street and the investment banking community. I too “dropped out” after the Nixon Administration after my many attempts at opposing the Viet Nam War; then raising a family apart from the mainstream ( a nearly impossible task ) ; then in an attempt to “retake the land”- a Jeffersonian Constitutionistic stance in the 1980’s joined the Home Grown marijuana movement ( was it a movement? ) in Humboldt County, CA. Then a series of low level manual labor logging and construction jobs and becoming a certified aviation sheetmetal repairman; Then after a layoff, a bout with the federal penal system in 2000 for marijuana distribution ( it was an intermediary step to acquire a HEMP FARM )!!! Yet all along the Cheney’s Law followers and PNAC composers; and Bush’s War cabal were syphoning the wealth of America the country I love from our vaults as an accounting manipulation!!!! covert economic warfare is not a new concept and one wonders who of great stature will stand and announce the “emperor has no clothes”???? The numbers are so vast that Mr. Walker and friends are announcing that the $53 trillion in what is commonly known as “entitlements” is due….BUT I am certain they completely neglect to include the nearly or is it multiple QUADRILLION DOLLARS in unfunded and non-collateralized dereivatives that are also due… ACCOUNTING— yes they will continue to hide the facts and the truth while they go through yet another billion dollar presidential/congressional election cycle…I once was awarded a belt buckle for growing the largest zuchini at the Harvest Home Festival near Rapid City, SD in 1981- It had an inscription: MORE ZUKES NO NUKES!!! Best of all to you from So Florida, Richard

3. Greg,
   lol
   Sorry. No insult intended. I am actually from gen-x. I would suppose that the circle of people you work with are quite different from the ones I work with. My generation and the subsequent one have fresh ideas, good with abstract thoughts, and are quite creative. However, they/we tend to lack focus and attention to detail and, sometimes, even sensitivity to others. Of course, please understand that these are merely stereotypes and not descriptive of everyone within that generation. You are correct in that we are all responsible.

   With regards to my comments on extensive gov’t corruption, I am currently rethinking this.

4. YIKES!
   James, as a Gen-Yer I am a bit concerned with where you are going with your comment…
   I could just as easily blame all the worlds problems on the ethical and moral laziness of the thick headed Boomers and WWII Generations who unquestioningly banged their heads against mother earth and created the globalized trash heap we call western civilization…
   well done
   and how
   But instead I will say, why don’t we open up the discussion as to what skills and knowledge does my generation have that yours does not? and Vice Versa…because we are not going to get out of this by pointing fingers…
   I am grateful for the hard work of my father, my father’s father and my father’s father’s father.

   I am grateful for the fortitude and work of all my mother’s.

   I am grateful (in a funny kind of way) for the big mess that’s been left for my generation to clean up…I am grateful for the internet that allows this inter generational dialog to take place…
   But my gratitude does not stop the fire in my belly from expressing itself as a strong work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit…
   But i refuse to be goaded into taking some half assed corporate job to full fill the older generations idea of “work”. In fact that would be an act of selling out to the Tapeworm.

   Instead I am fighting through the tangled web of ethical ambiguity to try and create a path towards regeneration of our culture and world. I call this path ecosocial regeneration, and it is the intersection of many disciplines of knowledge and craft.

   …Some of the characteristics you call lazy in my generation are nothing but the necessary response to an ambiguous world of lies and backroom deals…

   Why go charging ahead when you cant see whats beyond…
   this is the time for thoughtful and careful interventions, not cowboy George Bush-Loan Ranger Antics…
   This time calls for teamwork…and my generation is equipped with the skills, knowledge and ethics to serve as leaders in a new movement…You can only move as fast as your slowest member, and the assertiveness and “workethic” of prior generations needs to be softened by acknowledgment of the whole, our membership of a family of cultures and species that we need to survive and thrive.

   Unlike the past, real leaders do not simply command…instead they walk the tightrope of empowerment and accountability, creating the opportunities for people to thrive and work together.

   Many of us are busy trying to come up with shoestring budgets to save the world while the corporate world barrels towards a cliff like a juggernaut dragging the rest of us with it. The majority of our olders (not elders, for that would imply wisdom) look at us scurrying around hither and yon as if we are nothing but confused children who ought to “get a real job”

   If you hear little bitterness in my words it is because I have been struggling my whole life to overcome some insane expectation of my generation to work harder and faster and be stronger…
   all the while we point out the real issue at hand…SLOW DOWN…WALK SOFTLY…WORK TOGETHER…

   So, who is complacent?
   Is it the Gen Xers with thier college debt? who tried to do what their parents wanted?
   Is it Gen Y with its wanderlust? trying to walk away form the problem and realizing that if you go straight long enough you end up where you started?
   Or is the the boomers and WWIIers who are sitting around griping about the state of things…a system they HELPED SHAPE!

   I think we are all going to take some of the blame…smile…WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE

   …its time to get back to work, the world needs us, our children, and their children’s children’s children need us, and they need us together, able to work as a team.
   The real work is connection…the system wants to alienate us from one another, pointing to abstractions and “character flaws” and saying in triumph…THAT IS THE PROBLEM!

   well, i for one refuse to get sucked into that viscous cycle.
   Its time to open the dialog and start dealing more intimately with finance, politics and community.

   The New Housing and Economic Recovery act is a sharp reminder that we need to take matters into our own hands and start empowering ourselves. The first step in that process is finding venues to come together that can support the kind of conversations we need to have.

   If that’s lazy than I am a rapscallion and a vagabond.

   http://www.gaiapoiesis.blogspot.com

5. Stephanie,

   What I learned from Mrs. Fitts from my short time perusing this site is the depth of corruption which pervades the government. It seems that it occured on a grand scale in the 1980’s. To oversimplify in a nutshell, good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things. No laws, due process, policy and procedures will deter such people to circumvent the system. The problem seems largely spiritual.

   If I could also comment on people in general, I have noticed the x-gen and y-gen seem to be much more complacent and have much poorer work ethic than the generations prior. To me the epitome of work ethic and assertiveness was possessed by the WWII generation. Not surprisingly they are also the ones who also survived the Great Depression. The rise of modern conveniences and easy and abundant wealth/materialism has resulted in dissolution of American character. I fear that future generations will not have to fortitude to step forward to address these formidable challenges.

   Given the depth of monetary obligations, economic collapse appears to be a mathematical certainty.

6. Could this be the model that incorporates traditional American values?
   Permaculture Community Investment Bank

   The following is an idea for setting up a local Investment Bank that would finance small business start-ups under a Brand such as “Permaculture Enterprise Network.” This Bank would provide training and mentoring for its borrowers, as well as an ethical basis for its businesses: “Earth care, people care, fair share,” from Bill Mollison’s “Permaculture, A Designer’s Manual”(1988). Permaculture is a way of designing place-based ecological economies. It is capable of providing sustainable water, soil, food, fuel, and shelter while generating community along the way. Permaculture is intelligence-dense and capital-light. It is a whole systems approach to designing environmentally regenerative support structures for human nurturance.
   Under the Bank’s auspices, business plans would be written by prospective owners for specialties such as rainwater harvesting, edible landscaping, firesafing, alternative energy, fertility and energy crops from marginal lands, water sequestration using earthworks for ponds, swales and keylining, aquaculture, natural building, sustainable forestry, constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, small scale dairies, food processing and preservation, among other things. These are basic capacities that make a place prosperous –capacities that add up to real productivity and local security.
   There are many proven techniques, not difficult to master, that young people willing to work, could pick up and get good at. The Bank would sponsor the basic permaculture design certification course, an established 72-hour curriculum with a hands-on design project pass-fail requirement, which would be a prerequisite for a basic business management course in which students would learn to write, with expert coaching, the well-thought-out, customized-to-place business plan most appropriate to their abilities. The Bank would retain majority ownership and provide ongoing mentoring for enterprises selected for support until the business passed a financial assessment proving viability, whereupon, with ample cash flow, the owner could realistically buy out and become fully independent. Maintenance contracts for installed systems, since many of the techniques are new, would be a common feature offered, providing ongoing employment and developing experience until systems maintenance for these new approaches has become as familiar and mainstream as maintenance of private autos, septic systems, lawns, homes, and major appliances are today.
   The Bank, in its function as small business incubator, would provide bookkeeping and marketing services for its start-ups. These are the tasks business-owners starting out have the hardest time with. The Bank would provide training, loans for equipment (each start-up not very capital-intensive), mentoring, legal services, accounting, as well as customers for each new business. The moral support supplied by such an arrangement would be a powerful insulator against the high failure rate common to small business starts in the mainstream economy.
   The Bank, in its function as promoter of permaculture solutions, would lobby local government to remove regulatory obstacles. It would set up specially permitted model projects to demonstrate quality standards. It would obtain economies of scale in purchasing materials and equipment. It would coordinate flows, one enterprise’s waste becoming fuel for another’s production. It would also help with allocating labor between enterprises seasonally as needed. The different specialties once launched, might form their own associations, interact with experts in their fields, sponsor research, and nurture ongoing innovation in their area of expertise. Competencies would be developed and best practices established.
   The Bank would be a conduit for philanthropy as well as a source of information about available subsidies and tax credits. In its function as an investment vehicle, The Bank would provide a secure home for local investors to place their money into shares of locally productive, visible hard assets generating income streams. In its function as holder of an ethical mission, The Bank would assure the customers of its protégés monitored, high quality services. As a part of its ethical mission, The Bank would demonstrate financial transparency, for the purpose of building trust.
   An apprenticeship program would develop ongoing expertise. It would provide a sense of belonging to a challenging and meaningful mission as well as a structure to stimulate inventiveness among the young. People care services could be integrated with these activities, such as child care, allowing adults in their most productive years maximum convenience and peace of mind as they work.
   In the current economy people are losing their jobs, just as a great deal of work needs to be done to get alternative support systems in place. The time for this is ripe. Due to the hole made in the mainstream economy by a falling house of cards, state and local governments, pension funds, financial institutions, even the federal government, are rapidly becoming insolvent and are already being forced to cut services. It looks like communities are going to be left on their own. Investment vehicles that only a year or two ago were fine, now seem uncertain: stocks and bonds, real estate, even bank accounts no longer seem as secure as they once were. Investment in real-world productivity, building local skills and basic self-reliance using the best knowledge available, would leverage investors’ assets into practical systems for maximum community-based long term security.
   The organization described here could start with where we are today, doing those projects which are legal, productive, and financially viable now, while remaining observant, adaptable, and open to evolutions as conditions change. It could safeguard an ethical basis for ecological human nurturance. Permaculture’s whole systems perspective is capable of revealing efficiencies which can then be designed in to highly effective systems for prosperity in a given place.
   The Bank would also be an appropriate venue for the creation of a LETS –Local Energy Trading System: an alternative currency. Once a community of small businesses got production for local needs up and running, a local currency could protect an area from inflation, deflation, supply disruptions, and failures in the existing financial system. In prosperous areas, the network of businesses would be integrated with the regular cash economy, and evolve as needed. In low income areas with high unemployment, it could operate under work-trade or other types of barter arrangements.
   This is an idea that is not very hard to do, not very expensive, can start small and grow, and can end up with local prosperity capably building up in a climate of trust and cooperation, with a fair and understandable moral foundation.

7. Author and attorney Ellen Hodgson Brown wrote an article entitled “Fannie and Freddie: Giving Away The Farm” (8/6/08) which was published on the GATA webiste. In this article Ellen Brown says: “As for Fannie and Freddie they may be too big to fail but they aren’t too big to be nationalized. If we the people are paying the bills, we should get the stock.” Doesn’t that say it all? “If we the people are paying the bills, we should get the stock.”

   Socialism or corporate fascism or whatever it is seriously begins to mar the body politic of the nation, yet no shot is fired. People just keep going to work, washing dogs and babies and playing cards–or whatever it is we do. Days don’t appear to be different than average normal days. Yet the very absence of strangeness in the national air is itself strange. How can everything be so normal when ideas so abhorrent to the core of the American psyche are deftly implimented into US life through this Housing Bill.

   Though I have begun to learn a little of the scope of graft in government in the USA, there is something which I find even more challenging. Catherine Austin Fitts has begun to educate me that if the problem is centralization than the answer is decentralization. But what if learned helplessness is pervasive among individual American? Then what happens?

   In the primaries leading up to this current US election, what seemed to be verbalized in social settings so very often was: “Well I like this guy more than anybody and he represents what I believe more than anybody else running but we all know he can’t win. He doesn’t have a ghost of winning so I will vote for the lesser of two evils.” There you have it–people consciously voting for those they define as an evil. Who has called us to vote for an evil? Who has called us to vote expedience and learned helplessness? Who has called us to pull a lever for someone we think of as an evil and to not vote for the candidate we most admire? Something in me thinks that unless this very pervasive thinking pattern changes, then the rest cannot change. We actually do not vote our own self-interest–we vote the tapeworm.

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