Peer2Politics

Few commentators have mentioned that the Volkswagen scandal would not have happened if the software for the pollution-control equipment had been open source

We are constantly told that large corporations are ‘wealth creators’, however as is common in the Alice-In-Wonderland world of corporate propaganda, in fact the precise opposite is true, at least when one looks at the big picture.

As host of the weekly C-Realm podcast, KMO holds a singular position, acting as facilitator for a wide range of perspectives on economics, consciousness, resource depletion, techno-utopianism, climate change, etc. KMO’s own evolving worldview combines all of the above into a very unique and nuanced analysis that informs the underlying, and not always immediately evident, C-Realm narrative.

In terms of greenhouse gases, there has been a modest improvement in the U.S. over the last 20 years in emissions per hour of work. If I may put it crudely, in 2011, the average worker emitted about a ton of GHGs per week compared to about 1.12 tons in 1990. Of course the workers didn't emit the GHGs but when you look at the historical relationship between hours and emissions it's easy to get that impression. There is a very strong correlation between hours of work and GHG emission -- stronger than the correlation between population, labor force or GDP and emissions. Here's a little chart I cobbled together to illustrate:

Extracted from Andrew Jackon’s and Ben Dyson’s book, Modernising Money. The authors analyse the current situation: Money created as interest-bearing debt will always necessitate more growth, at the expense of our rapidly decaying living systems. There are, however, plenty of solutions being put forward to end this vicious cycle of destruction.

Economics as we know it today is broken. Unable to explain, to predict or to protect, it is need of root-and-branch replacement. Or, to borrow from Alan Greenspan, it is fundamentally “flawed”. But where do we look for inspiration in facilitating what is the mother of all paradigm shifts? Interestingly, the most insightful and strikingly innovative ideas are coming from all directions other than the economics profession. Ecology offers the insight that the economy is best understood as a complex adaptive system.

“One of the results of the contraction of the real economy is that the costs of intermediation, financial and otherwise, have not merely gone through the roof but zoomed off into the stratosphere, with low earth orbit the next logical stop. Health care, again, is among the most obvious examples. In most parts of the United States, for instance, a visit to the acupuncturist for some ordinary health condition will typically set you back well under $100, while if you go to an MD for the same thing you’ll be lucky to get away for under $1000, counting lab work and other costs—and you can typically count on thirty or forty minutes of personal attention from the acupuncturist, as compared to five or ten minutes with a harried and distracted MD. It’s therefore no surprise that more and more Americans are turning their backs on the officially sanctioned health care industry and seeking out alternative health care instead.

Watch the recommended video here:

A living whale swimming in the ocean has no economically recognized value to anyone, but harpooned, is worth up to a million dollars as meat. A 2,000 year old redwood tree that produces oxygen, sequesters CO2, cleans toxins from the atmosphere, stabilizes topsoil, prevents flooding, and creates habitat for pollinators and other species that are crucial to the functioning of our biosphere, confers economic advantage to no one. But cutdown, makes $100,000 worth of virgin lumber.