America’s Deficit Attention Disorder

[ashling]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/13-5

We can only borrow money from each other. The idea that we borrow money from the future is an illusion

The deficit-hawks recoil in horror and assure us that we can reduce government debt while leaving the financial assets of the rich untouched. It makes perfect sense in the fantasy world of pure finance in which profits and the financial assets of the rich grow perpetually even as growing inequality and wasteful material consumption deplete the social capital of community and the natural capital of Earth’s biosphere.

A viable human future, however, must be based on living world realities rather than financial world fantasies.

Real capital assets have productive value in their own right and cannot be created with a computer key stroke. The most essential forms of real capital are social capital (the bonds of trust and caring essential to healthy community function) and biosystem capital (the living systems essential to Earth’s capacity to support life). We are depleting both with reckless abandon.

[HiPointDem]

1. +1. "The most essential forms of capital are social capital and biosystem capital..." Darn right.

And capitalism relentlessly destroys both.

[ashling]

2. more - excellent article

To achieve true prosperity, we must create economies grounded in a living systems logic that recognizes three fundamental truths:

The economy’s only valid purpose is to serve life.
Equality is foundational to healthy human communities and a healthy human relationship to Earth’s biosphere.
Money is a means, not an end.

So long as money frames the debate, money is the winner and life is the loser.