A Post-Wall Street Economy......

[marmar]

"We can trace each of the major failures of our economic system to the misperception of money as wealth: the boom-and-bust cycles; the decimation of the middle class; families forced to choose between paying the rent, putting food on the table, and caring for their children; the decline of community life; and the wanton destruction of nature.
Once the belief that money is wealth is implanted firmly in the mind, it is easy to accept the idea that money is a storehouse of value rather than simply a storehouse of expectations, and that "making money" is the equivalent of "creating wealth." Because Wall Street makes money in breathtaking quantities, we have allowed it to assume control of the whole economy - and therein lies the source of our problem.
Financial collapse pulled away the curtain on the Wall Street alchemists to reveal an illusion factory that paid its managers outrageous sums for creating phantom wealth unrelated to the production of anything of real value. They were merely creating claims on the real wealth created by others - a form of theft.
Spending trillions of dollars trying to fix Wall Street is a fool's errand. Our hope lies not with the Wall Street phantom-wealth machine, but rather with the real-world economy of Main Street, where people engage in the production and exchange of real goods and services to meet the real needs of their children, families, and communities, and where they have a natural interest in maintaining the health and vitality of their natural environment."

- David Korten, from Agenda for a New Economy

[Vincardog]

1. K & R & R

[brewens]

2. Is this kind of like telling us we need loggers to have healthy forests?

Much of the world was always covered with healthy forests for millions of years before we cut down the first tree. People had all kinds of ways to have functioning societies without anything like Wall Street in the past.

[glitch]

3. K & R and on that note:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/fix-the-economy-not-wall-street
Fix the Economy, Not Wall Street
Why regulate a broken system when we can build a better one? Welcome to New Economy 101.
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by David Korten

Financial reform is the Congressional political issue of the month. Democrats say their bill will place essential controls on Wall Street to prevent abuse and a repeat of the financial crash. Republicans say it will encourage further Wall Street risk-taking by giving the big banks a guarantee of a future taxpayer bailout if reckless decisions trigger another financial crash.

Each party would have us believe that its side has the better answer about how to prevent another financial collapse, limit future taxpayer exposure, and protect consumers from financial fraud. These are good objectives, but their focus is fixing Wall Street.

No one in official circles seems to be asking the more fundamental question: “How do we create a financial services sector that directs money where it is needed: toward creating living wage jobs that provide essential goods and services for all Americans in ways consistent with a healthy environment?” Fixing Wall Street, as we presently know it, will do little, if anything, to achieve what should be our real purpose. Since the September 2008 financial collapse, Wall Street has conclusively demonstrated that it is concerned only for its own profits and bonuses.

Thanks to the taxpayer bailout and a constant flow of nearly free credit to the big banks from the Federal Reserve, Wall Street is once again reporting record profits and bonuses. Main Street, which has received far more modest public support, has not been so quick to recover from the effects of the crisis: high unemployment, low wages, consumer debt, bankruptcies, and foreclosures. It is a stunning contrast not lost on the properly outraged American public.

[bemildred]

4. Right, get rid of the parasites, make them go on welfare or get real jobs.

Then maybe things will start to get better.