Open Left

Let's Build a New Real Economy with Real Sustainable Jobs Starting Right Now (4.00 / 6)

Great post, Mike.

It's getting clearer every day that Congress and the White House are going to continue shafting the American people and whittling away the job base with their trickle down policies favoring big corporations and big banks.

It's also getting clearer every day that we're going to have to rebuild the economy from the bottom up using our own resources and entrepreneurial ingenuity.

A blueprint for how we can do this has been provided by Harvard economist David Korten and Sarah van Gelder, executive editor of Yes! Magazine, which Korten founded.  

Here are a couple of links to their work:

Sarah van Gelder, The New Economy Won't Be Like the Last One, YES! Magazine and Common Dreams, June 25, 2009.

In it, she writes:

The new economy is built on new forms of money, and on democratic finance and business. In the summer 2009 issue of YES!, we report on worker-owned cooperatives that distribute the benefits of hard work to employee-owners who call the shots in democratic workplaces. These co-ops spend locally and are rooted locally, so they are long-term boons to their local economies. And they don't close down in favor of sweat shops in low-wage regions.

In the new economy, credit is provided through local banks rooted in the communities they serve. Credit unions, community development banks, and other democratic institutions also serve, rather than cannibalize, the real economy.

I also recommend the following two articles by David Korten:

Don't Fix Wall Street, Replace It: Why not an economy of real wealth?, Yes! Magazine and Common Dreams, February 13, 2009.

Why This Crisis May Be Our Best Chance to Build a New Economy, YES! Magazine and Common Dreams, June 6, 2009.

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by: Nancy Bordier @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 09:25:49 AM CDT

Gary Null has "A Progressive Stimulus Package for America's Future Sustainability" (4.00 / 1)

Link here

I don't think that it has nearly enough details to impress an economist (not that I have a good idea about how much detail an economist would need), but as a starting point for developing a plan with lots of charts, graphs, and spreadsheets, it seems good.

DemocracyABC.org
TheRealNews.Com
http://www.pdamerica.org

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by: metamars @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 10:41:53 AM CDT

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Oops, bad link (0.00 / 0)

This will work.

DemocracyABC.org
TheRealNews.Com
http://www.pdamerica.org

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by: metamars @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 14:32:32 PM CDT

[ Parent | ]