- The banking bailout is a fiasco because it is taking money from future generations to restore the lending-based economy. I believe it would be cheaper and better to use a tiny fraction of the money to actually employ people, and to educate communities in how to rebuild local economies.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the global economy has to go away–just that it be balanced by local activity. This doesn’t necessarily mean computers go away, or that we lose our internet. We can still work in big groups making really complex stuff. We can still enjoy cities and farms, Radiohead and Britney. We can still ship refrigerators from South Korea to Australia.
It’s just that this activity would be based less on the requirements of corporate debt structures than it would on actual supply and demand. It would be a much more efficient economy, by virtue of being one that would require people to create real value. I think it’s that final part that scares people so much at the mere mention of such reforms: they think the last time people actually created value was back in the Middle Ages, when folks made shoes or raised chickens.
Well, there are many different things people can do to create value for one another. And a few people can still be bankers and brokers. Just not so many of them.