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All Change Please

Written by: Neil Crofts

Article Overview: Swirling commodity and currency prices, banks that won’t lend, insurance that does not ensure, imperiled ecology and jobs becoming rare. But do we actually want these systems to recover?

All Change Please

Swirling commodity and currency prices, banks that won’t lend, insurance that does not ensure, imperiled ecology and jobs becoming rare.

But do we actually want these systems to recover?

It seems that our current economic distress was largely caused by a combination of energy price speculation (remember last summer’s oil prices) and the over leveraging of already unsafe debts (banks using debts as security for further borrowing).

All of this created a bubble worth more than twice the value of the global economy - according to some estimates. The economy was awash with money based on debt and rising property value. Now the bubble has burst there is far, far less money in the system.

But money is a human invention, created simply to facilitate the exchange of energy between people and organisations. There has been no bubble in available human energy and there is no less human energy available now.

As our industrial age systems have puffed themselves up to their hubristic peak and burst, they have shown us that we have to find another way. We do not want to rebuild these unreliable systems, we want new systems that are more reliable and more in tune with the times.

In the midst of all of the fall out of exploding bubbles the seeds of a new economy are germinating. Some are real innovations, some are a return to more personal ways of doing things.

Here are some examples:

Electric and solar powered cars promise an alternative to reliance on oil. With the grip of the US Motor/Oil lobby now released, I believe that electric cars will happen with amazing speed - within five years. See these video clips for Betterplace, Aptera and Venturi.

Non cash alternatives like Timebanks and Lets schemes which enable people to trade and share without relying on cash.

Community based banking systems like Zopa and Grameen.

Anecdotally I have also heard of people selling houses and offering to loan money to the purchaser to help them buy it.

I have heard of businesses offering the credit (and effectively the credit insurance) to customers to keep trade moving.

True value resides in relationships, ingenuity, innovation and honest hard work. No credit crunch, recession or even depression can diminish true value. For more on this take a look at my free Authentic Wealth e-book.

Our opportunity lies not in waiting for the old systems to recover, but in inventing new systems based on sustainable value, honour, trust and authenticity.

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Article Tags: aptera, banking systems, cash alternatives, currency prices, economic distress, electric cars, energy price, exploding bubbles, global economy, grameen, human energy, human invention, loan money, motor oil, new economy, oil prices, purchaser, solar powered cars, venturi, zopa



Related Forum Posts
Re: Spellcheck? - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":2f894q6j]When discussing the majority of people I would definitely say that most people hit the "Change" or "Ignore" button without thinking too much about the correct spelling of a word. All bosses are concerned about is getting the report to the Directors meeting on time.[/quote:2f894q6j] That probably depends on what the "majority" are trying to accomplish. I have word set to alert me about misspellings and grammatical problems, so I fix most as I go. But I also add names etc to the dictionary because I get tired of seeing the red and green squiggles when I know the info is right. If you're only going to click "Change" or "Ignore" then why bother to take the time to use spell check????? Business people that I work for want the info compiled in a timely manner and they want it right - which is fine because that's the way I strive to do any project. Sending out a memo, letter, report etc with obvious spelling and grammatical mistakes makes the person and the company look bad as far as I'm concerned. Shri
Re: e-Commerce and e-Payment providers - Hi GT It is only fairly recently that people in South Africa have been able to get full use of Paypal as we were only able at one time to make payments but not receive them. Fortunately this has now changed. I have received money through Global X Change for one of the affiliate programs that I promote and have found them pretty good as the money is normally transferred directly into my bank account within 2-3 days and I have not had any problems with them. MichelleJ
Re: Obama Wants Social Security for Illegals - [quote="Alan Mater":3kaa8sg4] Obama WILL make changes... but they're not the changes we as a country need or should look forward to.[/quote:3kaa8sg4] Sad but this is exactly how I feel about it. Change is coming - but unless I'm really wrong, it is not a change this country needs. Amazing how much a good speaker with a good speech writer can do. If you paid attention to the things he said "off script" - much of it is frightening. Chris
Are you an Opportunity Addict? - 1) if you find yourself saying yes without thinking about how it will affect your other priorities 2) you have over 10 projects/inventions going on at the same time and this seems normal to you 3) you have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on manufacturing, prototypes, etc. not to mention thousands of hours of your time....but you havent followed through on any of it 4) most of your projects are falling behind or have completely fallen off your radar....which is fueling your frustration The first step in recovery is to recognize this as a pattern of self sabotage. If you are clear in what your overall goals and objectives are, you should be able to create a lens through which you measure opportunities. You create your life, and your to do list. Change, Add, Remove, Adjust time-lines - whatever you like. But remember that every piece of unfinished business - stays that way J
You are too young - I don't really believe (I've been into web designing for 7 years now... I started in 2000) there is any web design laws. Besides the fact that you can't use copyrighted images on web design without permission from the original author. Also, any web designs you do you may want to have it copyrighted so other's can't steal your idea's or whatever... of course, you can offer a "Copyright Change" option for a bit more money that will allow you to be able to transfer the copyrights and give exclusive rights to the purchaser. All in all, don't worry about the laws... you should be fine, just remember that if your in the U.S. that if your making over $400 (or maybe its $600) in revenue, you'll have to pay taxes to the government... and please get a LLC, although its not a big thing with web designs, you could get into legal trouble somewhere in the business. Lastly, use contracts for when your selling or use agreements to clear the air so that you can have a safe business and you'll have some backing up if you ever are taken to court.


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