TRUE ECONOMICS - Introduction

WE ARE MISSING THE POINT OF ECONOMICS & FINANCE


Are we going to do the same tired routine of patching and fixing a financial system that keeps going through endless cycles of growth, recession, depression, bubbles and frauds, etc.? There are proposals to bail out the banks, builders and homeowners, make loans to the car companies, make more jobs, cut taxes, raise taxes, rebuild infrastructure, and give another taxpayer rebate. AND, NO ONE can say for sure if or when any of it is going to work. We don’t know what will work because we don’t recognize basic facts or how to properly measure economic activity.

We are in a new paradigm. We need to look from a different perspective on the entire issue. And as is true with all paradigm shifts, things that are unsolvable, unrecognized, unconnected and contradictory are suddenly simpler and capable of resolution. Climate change, extremes of wealth and poverty, working just to pay the bills no matter how unsatisfying the job, “saving money is good for the consumer, but might not be good for the economy” are some examples.

The Industrial Revolution began the rapid development of machines that can do what human beings can not do: apply large amounts of power, produce great quantities of an item and pieces that are identical from one to the next. Another thing it is doing is to produce machines to do what human beings can do: wash clothes, do math calculations, assemble parts and perform repetitive functions.

The purpose of these machines is to increase the standard of living and to enable people to spend less time doing it. However, the standard of living is being reduced almost everywhere, now. Also the time that people spend working is not going down in many places, but in fact is rising.

In his book “Critical Path” Buckminster Fuller states: “…60% of all the jobs in the U.S.A. are not producing any real wealth - i.e., real life support”. If this is true, then it is quite clear that “putting people back to work” is not a truly feasible solution.

In the United States we: get training; to do a job; to make money; to buy health insurance; to pay for health care. What we really want, and can actually provide if we so choose, is to simply have health care available when needed. The complex, wasteful and dehumanizing systems that we currently use are not the only ways in which we can produce and deliver real wealth.

We have a financial and economic crisis in large part because we don’t understand the actual problem. The actual problem in this new paradigm is: How do we produce and distribute the highest standard of life support to every human being, quickly?

We are in the midst of an unprecedented opportunity for human beings and this planet. The technical hard part is complete. The stage we are now in is a matter of education and choice, both individually and collectively.


William Daniels Copyright. Please distribute this freely for non-commercial purposes.
503-314-6902 I am available to speak, write on specific topics, etc.
wdinpdx@yahoo.com see: BillionsofBillionaires.blogspot.com; BFI.org; “Critical Path” by
1/23/09 R. Buckminster Fuller