Building Cities of Gold Blog

The Problem.......Some Solutions.

2011-11-10T22:07:00.004Z

The Problem:

The modern banking model started in 1694 in London. For over three hundred years we have allowed private organisations, namely central banks, create money and issue it into society. They have three ultimate customers; individuals, businesses and governments. We deal with local national banks for our daily commerce, but ultimately they are just agents who are getting their money from the central banks of the world.

The central banks do not have the money to supply to their three customers. They are allowed create it out of thin air by a process known as fractional reserve banking, i.e. they only need a fraction of the money they issue into society on deposit to back up their loans. If a member of the public did this they would be jailed for fraud. In our society it is considered sober and proper finance. However this is far from their most devious action. In performing the sleight of hand of issuing money they do not have into society private central banks have never once created a cent of interest that is payable on our debts to them. Let’s repeat that. Interest, although owed to bankers, is NEVER created by bankers. All of the money in circulation is just the principal owed on our debts, and not the principal plus the interest. Hence there is not enough money in circulation in our world to service our collective debts. It is why our businesses are suffering, why our governments are imposing austerity, why taxes are rising and why people are working harder and harder just to tread water. All three subsets are fighting each continuously for ever more scarce monetary resources. It is a rigged game. We always lose.

Many may doubt that our central banks are privately owned. In 2011 the Federal Reserve in America finally admitted, after much pressure, that it was not a public entity. The same is true of the ECB, the central bank of England, the Irish central bank and indeed the central banks of all but four countries in the world. The proof is in the pudding. If the Irish central bank was a public entity would our governments from the 1940's onwards have allowed a branch of government to give money to the nation state and charge interest that did not exist, when the nation itself was in a permanent recession? Perhaps the reason the state was in a permanent recession was that its government was repaying vast sums of money to a private organisation masquerading as a public entity. Would the hundreds of thousands who emigrated from our shores in the 20^th century have had to go if we were not paying erroneous interest to our supposed national central bank?

Since 2008 I think we would all agree we have been living through a collective nightmare. The middle class is shrinking by the day, suicide is rampant due to financial pressures and our sovereignty and sense of security and control is vanishing by the day. We have invested an awful lot of time listening to economic commentators telling us we need to tighten our belts, to get more efficient, to work harder, to accept austerity and then maybe in some hypothetical long term future we may possibly return to some semblance of normality. It is now time to identify the real cause of our problems.

The reason that we are in this nightmare at this moment in history can easily be explained. Even though the central banking model is fundamentally flawed, it worked for three centuries because our population was growing so fast. As an example the worldwide population in 1900 was 1.75 billion people. In 2008 the population was close to 7 billion people. Therefore in just over one century the population of the world quadrupled. Like any good Ponzi scheme there were always more and more participants coming to the table to take on this monetary model. Therefore the scheme thrived, i.e. the rate of monetary creation through new debts being issued exceeded the existing debt plus interest repayments, even though the interest due on old debts had not being created. For an economy to repay its debts it needs a GDP rise per annum of roughly 2-2.5%. In the century just gone the average rate of GDP rise across all countries was approximately 4%, i.e. proof that the flawed system was at least functional. Existing debt could be serviced.

However the system crashed in 2008 because the rate of population growth slowed dramatically. In the next century the population will rise up towards a maximum of 10 billion. That may seem huge but going from 7 to 10 billion is only a 50% rate of population increase. By applying the formulas above we see that this will only yield a GDP rise per year of roughly 0.5%, i.e. far less than the 2-2.5% required to repay our existing debts. Therefore our rigged game has permanently crashed. The only way to return to perceived economic prosperity with our current model is if our worldwide population rose to 28 billion by 2100, i.e. another quadrupling, thus giving us our 4% rise in standards per year. I am sure we would all agree that a population of 28 billion is not desirable, or even possible. As a point of interest Ireland’s GDP rise for the last year has been less than 1%, exactly as predicted by current population growth and far less than we need to repay existing debt obligations.

I think the time has come to say enough is enough. The whole world is in a process of foreclosure. Some are up for the chopping block first, but ultimately everyone will get there. Until economic commentators address this fundamental question of how money is issued into society then nothing else should be up for discussion, most certainly not austerity programs. The time has come to outlaw private central banking and reset our economies. If we allow the system to continue we are heading for a very dark future. If you supply money to people that ultimately they cannot repay, as we have proven above, then eventually the day will come where you seize all their assets, secured against the loans made. That is already happening; examples being one million homes seized in America, Greek national infrastructure up for sale and Ireland being forced down the route of preparing its assets for sale.

Now we can wonder if the private central banks are doing this by design or by accident. If I say they are doing it by design I am labelled a conspiracy theorist and my message gets lost. Therefore I say it doesn’t matter how this system came to pass. The fact is that the system is rigged to take ownership of you, your businesses and your governments. Do we allow it to continue as it is, or do we change the system?

There are many healthy alternatives. I examine some of them very briefly below. Firstly it is much more important to correctly identify the real problem, before the solutions are discussed. Once we do this we will be free in a very short period of time. The world could permanently thrive if we broaden our horizons. The ball is in our court, not theirs. A system can only be implemented on you if you accept it. In our soberness can we continue to accept the model as outline above? I contend the answer is no and that it is time we showed our strength.

Solutions:

Stay out of fear. If people are afraid they will accept any change that is foisted on them, however inappropriate it may be. Wake up to the fact that our fellow man provides our nurturance and our beautiful earth our sustenance. The economy should never be the absolute center of our lives, as it has become.
Absolutely refuse any solutions from the private central banks - and/or by extension their corporate and governmental proxies - who got us into this mess. These include, but are not limited to, the following “solutions”; a new global debt backed currency, more centralized political control of the Euro zone countries, a financial transaction tax (guess who pays for that!), selling national infrastructure and most especially any further austerity or taxation
Wipe out all existing debt to private central banks, on monies that were issued into society through fractional reserve banking and through the issuance of debt where no corresponding interest was created and released. This will see almost all private and public debt wiped out worldwide. This legitimate amnesty and wiping of the slate allows a new system to be birthed into existence that allows a functional and healthy economic model to exist
Reclaim any real physical assets from these banks that were wrongfully acquired from people, businesses and governments through their fraudulent practices. Use these refunds, especially to governments, as a start up fund for the new public banks
Set up public central banks that will be controlled by the people through their elected governments. The notion of national debt will become obsolete.
Ensure all future loans made to people and businesses are backed by real assets.
Ensure all future loans issued into society also have the interest payable on them issued into society, or else ensure they are issued interest free into society. This will eliminate the scramble to obtain scarce monetary resources from dominating our lives
Abolish the majority of taxation as it has been proved that it is mostly needed just to pay off governmental debt to private central banks and also to pay the wages of public sector workers and welfare recipients, who in turn need it to pay off their debt commitments to private central banking.
As a result just one flat tax rate could exist across all society, at a nominal figure of say 15%. The proceeds of this could go to help build public infrastructure and pay much more reduced public wages as the people will not need such high remittances
Prioritize the real needs of people and define true security. I contend it is to have guaranteed access to home energy, quality food and clean drinking water. Outside of these basics our needs are not necessarily universal, but more personal. Endeavour to build the infrastructure into people’s lives that provides these commodities free from the need to have money to obtain them. Wake up to the fact that nearly 4000 patents around the area of “free” energy and devices that require minimal finance to provide energy are actively being suppressed by the petrochemical industry. If these devices existed we would have no home utility bills or ever need fuel for vehicles again. This is real security. We could also build local permaculture, aqua-phonics and many other food producing models in our communities that would provide high quality, organic and healthy food in perpetuity, free from the need to earn money to obtain them. The same could be done with drilling wells to ensure we always have access to fresh water. With a major wipeout of existing fraudulent debt and a huge surge in building life enhancing infrastructure like above we would suddenly see a mass freeing of humanity
With this freeing we would see an exponential surge in creativity. People would not be forced to work in jobs they despise when they can find the very real security as above. This creativity would inevitably lead to new discoveries etc. that would benefit mankind.
We could see true bartering come into fashion, to further free us from the grip of centrally controlled money. This is often denigrated and scorned. However we live in a digital age with electronic accounts dominating our commerce. This notion could be transferred to our daily lives. We could list all the goods and services we could offer a community, however minute the task or menial it may seem. We could have a trading account and engage in commerce with our local community. A steering committee (that rotates) could rank each task on the listings page a value from 1-10 points depending on complexity of task, duration etc… If I need a service I request it. The task is completed by a fellow participant and their account is credited, mine debited. My debt is not to this person but to my account, i.e. my account can not go too far into overdraft. (maybe 20 points or so). I now need to offer my services elsewhere and work off my debt to my account. Similarly one cannot go too much into credit, i.e. it is no use expecting to build up huge credit by offering just one service to a select few people. In this case an upper limit should also exist. This model replicates money, but does exactly what money has failed to do, i.e. it lubricates commerce ensuring we all give and get what is needed, with security for all. To date we have all been so concerned with debt repayments that we clamp money when we get it or do whatever it takes to get it in the first instance.
In a generation or so we will see our current money become very unimportant. We will quickly realise that it is our beautiful mother earth that provides all of our needs and not some fictional economy. When we are in balance with ourselves, our community and our world all of our needs are met, in perpetuity.

These bullet points are the merest hint of the limitless potential that awaits mankind when we free ourselves from the false tyranny of our debt backed currencies. In each and all cases the points can be vastly expanded upon in greater detail. There are many people who will become the architects of a new and functioning society. The solutions above are but a drop in the ocean of our collective ideas and potential.

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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It's TIME to rebuild.

2011-04-08T23:00:00.039+01:00

In the time of the famine the potato was blighted. That was a small problem that became catastrophic due to our over reliance on the very same potato. Today our money system is equally blighted. Again it is a problem that has become catastrophic due to our complete over reliance on cash in our society.

All talk of bond burning, debt restructuring, interest rate reductions etc.. is a massive waste of energy. It is trying to root out the blight from the crop. That is not going to solve the long term problem; namely that modern society provides no security for people, save for those who can guarantee they can get their hands on this fascinating resource that is money, whenever or wherever they so wish. Even our sovereign government is proving that it cannot guarantee this.

What we need is simple Project management and for us all to get working at de-leveraging the power of cash. We need to diversify, as we should have done pre- famine.

Our current Monetary system is highly dysfunctional. All governments have relinquished their sovereign rights to print their own money and instead allow PRIVATE central banks to issue and sell them their national currencies. This evolved with the Bank of England in 1694 and extends right through today, including the Irish central bank (in the past), ECB, FED etc...in fact all but 4 countries worldwide.

When selling this money to local banks as loans (like Anglo/AIB/BOI etc..) or to governments, these central banks DO NOT CREATE the interest payable money on the loans. They only create the principal, i.e. if they create 1million Euros of a loan, they only create that sum and not the hundreds of thousands of Euro of interest due on it. Hence their ultimate customers, mortgage holders/businesses/governments are always striving/fighting/competing for scarce money to repay both the principal AND interest. While the principal on our loans does exist in society and since the interest does not, then it is only possible to find this elusive interest when others also take out loans. This is a RIGGED game. Everyone has to be in debt, always. It is a system that is designed to foreclose on the entire world. It has taken over 200 years to reach the point where this is starting to happen, but start to happen it has. The middle class worldwide is being wiped out, resulting in an ever unfolding stark future, i.e. a permanent working poor class and an elite, all ruling financial class. The more time that passes the more this future is taking hold.
All of this is a Ponzi scheme of such blatancy that we can't even see it. The house always wins, we always lose. Remember "WE", is not just me and you, but our governments and our businesses. And once again these are PRIVATELY owned central banks that are issuing our money.

Our current highly toxic worldwide situation is as a direct result of this. It worked ok while the population of the world was rising rapidly, as during the 20th century. The worldwide population quadrupled from 1900 to 2000 resulting in an average GDP rise of 4% per country. However from 2000-2100 the world population is only set to rise by 50%. Therefore simple maths (One eight of 4%) yields a GDP rise per annum of only 0.5%. Simply put we will never find the money to repay today’s debts, and never will. The rate of money creation has slowed down and the elephant in the room is coming into focus, i.e. that all the money created in the past 100 years plus was not issued into society with an equal release of the interest owed on the monies. This is why our efforts in Ireland to grow our way out of our problems through exports, while a noble concept, is very naive. The current financial system will not allow this to happen. No export boom will save us.

These central banks know the Ponzi scheme has finally collapsed and hence the reason there is a credit crunch that is so prolonged: a) they know there isn't enough cash to pay off the debts and b) vast swathes of cash have been sucked out of the system (by them) and transferred into precious metal assets etc., since they knew this debt crisis cannot be solved. All because there is not enough money created (by them) to pay it and not enough future people to work to pay it off.They have had our number for too long. We need solutions among ourselves. We need to take the power away from them.

Solution 1:
Outlaw private central banks. Since we are only concerned with Ireland in this discourse, establish an Irish sovereign controlled public central bank. Create money and if it continues to charge interest - see below, as we may not need to charge interest - then make sure the interest money is also created with the principal when loans are issued in the future. This will lead to a massive reduction in stress trying to find interest elsewhere, depending on others to borrow, to then fight them for this money in our current model.

Solution 2:
Build the infrastructure to de-leverage the power of cash. A great public works so to speak, to regain full employment. If a black swan event hit our lives tomorrow, like ATM's not dispensing cash, we have to ask ourselves what are the essentials that we need, that should be decoupled from needing cash to provide them. My answer would be,
A) Food
B) Water
C) Home Energy

Outside of them we do not need anything else in an emergency. Sure, individuals need medicines etc. but the typical person just needs those 3 things as basic necessities. Build those into our lives and provide them free to people. Yes free, but free as in we do not need cash to obtain them. This gives a huge baseline of security in our lives. Remember as consumers we have come from using pen and paper 50 years ago to nano technology today. Yet we still live in a society where even the basics can only be obtained by having this so called precious resource called money.

A) Build local community permaculture and aqua phonics solutions (high yield providers of quality organic food from small footprints) to provide food at a community level of 200 people or so. Let a few people work there and their "wages" paid from a mutual credit system with their neighbours, i.e. a sharing of services and resources. Alternatively, all adults could donate 2-3 hours per week to help cultivate food and therefore not need to purchase it with cash. This is very practical, even in cities.
B) Build water infrastructure. Scrap plans to introduce water charges (more taxes = longer working life = needing more cash) and to pump water from the Shannon to Dublin(madness!). Instead employ thousands of unemployed construction workers to install rainwater harvesting devices from roofs, to capture brown water. Also drill wells in housing estates etc. to always ensure fresh water is available, again without needing ongoing cash or taxes to purchase.
C) Energy. Example: Build something like Spirit of Ireland project as a national project. Do not let CRH or private companies profit from it. Nationalise untapped quarries etc. and create concrete at cost. Build the wind turbines in Ireland, but again not in private hands. This renewable project could be achieved at a cost of circa 10billion, providing free electricity for ever more to Irish people. Why Not? (Of course any consumption over an agreed standard would have to be paid for in some way).

If every citizen of this country had the security above it would mean that over 50% of pensioners and unemployed peoples welfare cheques could be met FREE from cash needs. That means we now don't need to pay them as much cash, something that is devaluing by the minute anyway. We could potentially save 10 billion per year on our welfare bill of 20 billion. Similarly a percentage in the public sector would not choose to work 40 hours per week if they had security like above. Hence we would also see a massive saving in annual public sector wage bills.

So for a modest outlay as a percentage of our current public expenditure we could secure all the people of Ireland with a massive public works scheme to give free energy, water and food into perpetuity. TAKING the power away from cash and putting real security into people’s hands. Diversifying from those rotten spuds!

Solution 3:
As mentioned let government issue its own money. It could greatly reduce, if not eliminate, income tax, vat etc... by choosing to charge interest on the money it sells to its citizens. Alternatively, it could keep some taxes and decide to issue money free from interest payable. There are so many options here as unnecessary government debt to outsiders (private central banks) will be eliminated.

Solution 4:
People can explore the infinite potential of mutual credit systems once they know they have food , water and energy security. Their work lives will greatly reduce in formal taxable employment but will greatly increase in supporting each other in the local community. e.g. plumber fixing a heating system for an accountant (one guys account credits, one guys debits, with no cash transactions) , who then both go and trade elsewhere. An infinite loop of work, services and goods that can circulate free from the need to obtain cash to partake.
____________
Of course the big question is what of the current debt legacy. Well as mentioned this is mainly owed to private individuals in central banks. They have got enough to date over the centuries. Their time is up. All interest should be cancelled on debt and a VERY hard deal done on the principal in our new currency. As for all the private pension funds etc. that are invested in government/bank debt, well some of that commitment should also be transferred into our new national currency, but again if we provide real solutions like the infrastructure above these future retirement funds will not be needed as much as before. Therefore people will accept a hit knowing life is becoming more secure.

As for mortgage debt, well again it should be transferred into the new currency but free of interest, and made payable to our government, possibly in lieu of taxes. Again there are many creative options available to us.

There is an infinite supply of goods, services and work needing to be completed in this world. What is in restriction is man made currencies. We need to completely change the game. Money should not restrict our lives. It is simply a logistical problem that could get addressed in a matter of months. We are meant to live in abundance, not restriction. Money is not our God, we simply have allowed a few people to convince us that it is.

As for the argument that we cannot possibly issue our own currency to clear our debts, as it will lead to hyper-inflation etc. Well that would be true if we allowed our private central bank to do so. You see it is not the printing of money that creates hyper inflation. It is when the banks use that new surge of money to then leverage out even more debt to society that causes the inflation. Remember they roughly loan out at least ten times the money then have on deposit. Once a careful management of the control of new government money ensues, as in money created by government has to be used to build national infrastructure like above and pay wages etc. then we will not see hyper inflation by clearing our debts and resetting our economy on to a truly sustainable footing.

Our current plans for a smart economy in this country require others to get in debt elsewhere, i.e. we wish to become leaders in technology etc., but for that to happen we need consumers elsewhere. Those consumers will have to work ever harder to purchase our products. Remember we are facing a population peak, hence IT IS NOT smart to build our future economic prosperity on consumption industries. What is a smart economy though is one that meets the basic needs of its people in perpetuity, free from the unsustainable need to obtain ever more deflating cash resources. We can have that with simple project management and planning.

Now for the crux. No politician or current institution will do this for us. The only ones who can force this change are us ourselves. That is our challenge. To realise we are the ones we have been waiting for. The question is will we realise it. Grass root movements have to start, to force the change. Mutual credit systems are ideal in that case, as they require no outside forces to set up. Just people helping people. In time this grass root movement will awaken those in power to what a real economy should be and do.

I have often wondered why the people of Ireland didn't take to small punts to land fish in the time of the famine, especially those around the coast. I now believe it was because they were so emasculated by the system of tenancy, single crop dependency, competition amongst each other etc. , that they failed to make the small changes to help themselves. Then all of a sudden it was too late. We are not in the time of the famine, but the circumstances do resonate. A political and social discourse that is totally self defeating and seeking villains. We are emasculated all over again. It's time to get to work, before it's too late. What if that ATM fails to dispense cash. It nearly happened in September '08. Could it happen again? One may not agree with my ideas on project management if it did happen. But pretty soon we all could be challenged and faced with the opportunity to think up and implement our own ideas. It really is that exciting, exhilarating and scary all at once. Yeah but the destination is sooo worth it - A reclaiming of true individual and community sovereignty, with more security and freedom thrown in.

p.s. There is a precedent for what I discuss. Canada is probably the only Western country that had a public central bank in recent times, namely 1935-74. They were so sick of the carnage post the '29 crash that they booted out the bankers and issued their own money, free from interest. For the next forty years the national debt flat lined at 18billion (this was a legacy debt) , public works soared, there was no visible poverty and there was a huge sense of social cohesion. Then in '74 the bankers wormed their way back in. Debt in Canada is now at 550 billion over a similar period of time, i.e. approx. 40 years. That shows the carnage of debt accumulation when private central banks run the world.
p.p.s. We only looked at the main crime of not creating interest on loans in our analysis of central banks. The even more potent crime is fractional reserve banking in itself, i.e. creating money that one doesn't have. In essence banks can create anything up to 20 times the deposits they have in their enterprise. This is morally unacceptable and once again has just been accepted as a part of modern economics. In essence this is fraud, but unless our legislators act on this it will continue. There are so many viable and just "outs" from the toxic economic models that run our world. We need to start taking them, to free the peoples of the world.

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

Available Now From Amazon
(Paperback or Kindle)

http://tinyurl.com/22t3mkc
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm

False and Farcical DEBT - We can be free, NOW!

2011-02-13T12:16:00.009Z

Until governments reclaim the right to issue their own monies this banking and personal economic crisis will continue and just get worse. After all, economies or lives cannot run on debt. Usury or the application of interest on borrowed money is the single greatest malevolence in our world. It only works when the population is rapidly expanding, as during the 20th century. Now that the rate of population growth starts to slow down, the traditional deflation of debt will not hold true, as before. In simple terms there will never be enough working people to pay off all the debt.

This debt serves no useful purpose in society, save for lining the pockets of all the privately owned central banks of the world. Yes, privately owned! We do not coin our monies as nations, they are not backed to any real assets anymore (like Gold or Silver) and it is all a scam. Our debts are not real. The banks (central banks) know this; they are terrified of the day we will learn it and act on it, en masse. Thankfully that day is coming, across the world. In the meantime stand together, stand firm and do not let your neighbours suffer unnecessarily. Nobody should lose a home in this crisis, nor should it be tolerated in civil society, in any country, around the world.

Individuals created all of our home mortgages somewhere on a computer screen. Literally they were created out of thin air. These private institutions will end up getting close to 100% profit over and above the principal mortgage loans just to do that ONE transaction. Our governments allow this farce to happen. They could have issued our mortgages at 0% interest. We would be freer, happier and have shorter working lives. You never know there may even then be enough work to go around, for one and for all. That just looks at household debt. The same could be said for business debt, government debt etc. Hear the words of a very courageous man on this topic, for it is not a recent phenomenon.

“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.”
- Abraham Lincoln

Or another

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson
… The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating. -Thomas Jefferson

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. – Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)

Or another
History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance. -James Madison

Or another
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
--------------
First we have to believe we can have a better system, then one day soon we will, because nothing can beat the empowering evolution of mass consciousness. It is too powerful a force to control.

P.S.
If we had dug up all the fertile soil on the earth, or if we had poisoned every last drop of fresh water, or if our sun threatened to not rise, then and only then would we have real debts. When we owe pieces of paper to handfuls of men we do not have debts; we have the illusion of debt. We are like the caged birds who fail to see the latch has been lifted on the door. Our earth provides for all our needs, always has, always will, we just repeatedly fail to see how to distribute the bounty.

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

Buy Now From Amazon
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Publishing house: ATTM Press.
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Public Debt - What a Whizz!

2010-12-14T20:14:00.013Z

USA public debt rises by 1 Million Dollars every 18.5 seconds.
That's 4.6 Billion dollars per day!!!
The average US citizen owes circa $44,750 and incredibly this debt is
rising by circa $3,000 per year!
That’s before they even begin to plan their own personal finances.
****************************************
UK debt rises by 1 Million pounds every 6.5 minutes.
That’s 221 Million pounds per day!!!
The average UK citizen owes circa 14,500 pounds and incredibly this debt is
rising by circa 1,000 pounds per year!
That’s before they even begin to plan their own personal finances.
****************************************
Global outstanding public debt is circa 40.66 trillion dollars.
That’s $5,930 per person in the world. Considering half of the world's population live on less than $1,000 per year, it shows that that half would need to give all of their cash for 6 years to pay off their share of the debt, debt that they most likely never profited from in anyway.
****************************************

We are an evolving and advanced species and yet we see nothing wrong with any of the above. Having huge outstanding public debt means we are constantly paying off excessive loans and interest. There is not, nor will there ever be, a population level capable of ever paying off these debt levels. It is a virus that grows and grows.

Inefficient governments and credit pushing bond dealers are priming this debt spiral. But there are only part of the problem. The real problem of course is those who issue and validate these monies. For hundreds of years we have allowed private central banking institutions issue and control our public money. They are free to set punative interest rates and cream vast profits off the public purse. The inability of governments’ world wide to set their own fiscal policies by
issuing their own money and setting their own interest rates has led to the intolerable situation as above. None of the real problems of the world, like poverty and/or poor public infrastructure will ever get tackled effectively as long as we allow this position to continue. No private banking institutes should have ever gotten their tentacles into public expenditure. It is time to root them out.

Canada is a great example.
From 1935-1974 Canada as a nation state managed the issuing of its own monies and setting
of its own interest rates. This process started in '35 to drag them out of the great depression. During the subsequent 40 year period Canadian debt flat lined, at approximately 18billion dollars. Many great public projects were undertaken during that time, like the repatriation to the workplace of thousands of WWII veterans and the building of the great cross country railways. However the public debt stayed on a steady flat line. Why? Because no private greedy mitts had their hand at the tiller. It serves no purpose to charge yourself high interest rates and crucify your peoples. Many who lived their adult lives throughout this time spoke of a sense of social cohesion and a lack of visible poverty. Post 1974, due to significant lobbying from the banking industry, Canada ceded control to the private bankers. Its public debt acquired an exponential curve ever since then. It now stands at 544 billion Canadian dollars!!!!! (That's right, 18 to 544 in 36 years).
It has been estimated that roughly 10% of that bill is actual spending that the state has undertaken, while the other 90% is compounded interest, amassed through the recent years.

And so we come back to the 40trillion world wide figure above. How much of that is real spending? How much is just compounded interest? Interest on interest on interest ad infinitum for the past few hundred years. We owe this money to private banks. Private individuals profit from the payment of these debts. These debts serve no other purpose in society. If we took the Canadian figures above we could guess we may actually only owe 4 trillion, as opposed to 40 trillion.

It really is as simple as declaring a large portion of this debt null and void, then moving on with reset currencies and a more inclusive and socially responsible method of controlling public finances. Political courage would fix this problem in a really short space of time; however intense lobbying and false and fearful propaganda is keeping the old dysfunctional ways in situ.
DEBT (of this kind) - Debilitating Emasculating Bespoke Tyranny

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"
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The Farce - Act I, Scene (God only knows)

2010-12-06T18:25:00.010Z

A report has highlighted how respectable and solid investment funds from the pension and insurance industries are planning to take the Irish government to court, to seek a reversal on, or even damages for, the governments decision to deeply discount the payments to these funds on sub-ordinated bonds in Irish banks.

We all know by now the crazy situation where our government had agreed to honour all senior bondholders in the Irish banks, but thankfully they have at least decided to not honour 100% of the monies invested by junior debt holders, or those sub-ordinated bondholders from above. Usually these bondholders would slink off into the night licking their wounds, recouping their energies, to proceed onto newer markets. But, considering the ineptitude and naivety of our ruling class in Ireland, they figure in this instance they may negotiate higher remittances, especially with the threat of court cases against the government.

All of this again beautifully highlights our dysfunctional modern relationship with money. If these guys had slinked off, we would never think about them and what they represent in our lives. By speaking up and demanding more they have shone a light on themselves.

We are told they are from trusted and respectable industries like the insurance and pension funds. Obviously commentators think that means we are to treat them better than rich private investors or vulture funds. However they only have money because we, the individuals who make up society, give them money. By investing in our future security, as the pensions and insurance industries promise us, we allow these companies amass massive funds that are then often invested in the bond market to generate vast profits for these companies. Our future security is drawn down when we need an insurance claim or when we retire, monies that are only a fraction of that generated by these companies on their investments in the long term.

As we all know by now the bond market is the main funding vehicle for our countries. Any revenue that is needed over and above taxation from the people is raised in the bond markets. So on one side we have investors needing somewhere to invest, i.e. pension and insurance companies seeking reliable, yet profitable investment opportunities. On the other side we have governments, mainly inefficient and inept, who repeatedly run their economies in deficit and so constantly need extra funding. So as well as paying individual taxation to run a country, our invested monies are also feeding back into our countries to meet the spending shortfalls.

Try explaining that to a six year old. I’m sure they would tell you it is madness. A circulation of money, your money, that is feeding two addictions. The addictions of the investors for fat returns and the addictions of our governance for access to easy credit. Now we can waste vast amounts of energy bemoaning morally bankrupt financial types or we can spew our venom at Muppet politicians but, and here is the crux of it, NOTHING will change. Nothing will change. Let it sink in. Nothing will change. Why? Because whatever legislation is passed to curb the tendencies of those trading in bonds and markets will always be bypassed and superseded eventually. Also no matter how much governance bleats on about change and root and branch reforms, the old inefficient ways will always kick back in.

Surely then we should despair. Throw our hands in the air. Well no we shouldn't, because there is an answer. I am sure too that the six year old would tell us how. STOP giving away our money to these industries. The promise of your future security is being used to trap you into committing your hard earned money. There is another way. Retain your money in your life today, use it to build real security and then you will not need to draw down cash at a later stage of your life. Form local community insurance models that create jobs and build real life enhancing infrastructure to provide services like ongoing free energy. These projects have the added benefit of building strong local communities.

Only when we stop priming these companies with our cash will they start to shrink in size and subsequently start to have less cash available to loan out to governments. Only then will huge profits and bonuses that attract risk takers, stop being paid. More importantly if the cash source is gone only then will our governance learn to balance their budgets and live within their means. You guessed it, only then do they become efficient. That is real effective change.

I’m sure our six year old would also question why it is considered totally acceptable for any Euro zone state to post a budget deficit year on year of 3%, and receive kudos for this. 3% of the Euro zone GDP equals the economy of Austria or Greece for one whole year. So every year the Euro zone is building up debts equal to one of the large countries above. I’m sure he/she would say, "But how do you spend money all the time that you don’t have". Exactly how do you?
It’s not like a huge population spike is coming down the tracks to pay it off. It's accepted and endorsed because it is feeding the two addictions. The only problem then is we, the bill payers, have to run faster and faster on the treadmill to meet these voracious addictions; longer working weeks, longer working lives, more taxes, higher premiums to offset risky losses etc.. etc..
p.s. If they are so respectable what are they doing investing in higher risk sub-ordinated debt? Higher returns in good times, thats why.

The folly of the Euro masters defies belief !

2010-11-24T17:18:00.014Z

History tells us that the monks of Ireland held steady during the dark ages. As Europe lay in the grips of fear, terror and repression after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Irish maintained their heads and subsequently proceeded to spread education and reason back across the continent over the ensuing decades and centuries. I believe our little island is about to inherit/assume another important role, albeit reluctantly, in the evolution of our collective societies.

Are we as a nation in the middle of a huge second Karmic role, giving us far more influence internationally than our small population should hold? After all we are being used as an experiment in crazy fiscal policy. We are being drowned in public debt, as much as 250billion, or roughly 60,000 per head of population. That's right, even the newly born owe that amount of money! Now Ireland hasn't suddenly lost lots of land or seen its natural resources decimated in anyway. Far from it, the sun still rises and night follows day. In fact we are having a beautiful winter to date. So the natural rhythm of our lives is still the same, as in mother earth continues to provide for us, but somewhere along the line we have been shafted with obscene levels of human financial debt.

Our European masters/bond holders have ensured we are going to fail and default, by allowing a small number of people build up this level of debt and then forcing of all of us to pay for it. The need for higher and higher premiums and more and more security to bond holders has meant that we in Ireland cannot hope to pay our debts as a nation. They are just far too excessive. By forcing us to assume this debt, they have inadvertently signed their own economic death warrants. The Euro itself, it seems, could potentially fail.

But this catastrophe may have some hidden upsides for us in Ireland. I believe we are going to be one of the first to truly highlight the dysfunctional relationship humans have with money and debt. If we are smart we can then use this opportunity to come up with some sensible alternative paths. Europe has set us up to be the teachers of this great lesson. There is nothing to do now but hold our heads, and take on the role that has been thrust upon us.
______

Our fundamental relationship with money and debt is highly dysfunctional. Our basic needs (food/water/home energy) are tied into the requirement that money is needed to obtain them. That means we can never achieve security as we always need cash remittances from somewhere (work/welfare/pensions), to even access the basics. Hence, when we have a black swan event, like September 2008, when ATMs came perilously close to not dispensing money, then we have no recourse for the most basic items as listed above. If we do not have cash, we do not eat or power our homes. That has become pretty much a universal constant, this over reliance on money. It has led to the complete emasculation of our populations.

We in Ireland are now saddled with the obscene levels of debt outlined above. However in the paying of it we will get no security. It doesn’t put food on tables or electricity into a home. All it does is sate the needs of investors. But those self same investors are us, ourselves!!! Bond holders are us; in the form of pension funds, insurance companies and private/public corporations. We invest in the market economy to provide us with future security. Hence we expect a return at a future date, as in a pension policy that allows us retire. Bond markets simply administrate that money for us. So we see the farcical situation where bond traders/holders across Europe are bringing down countries based on fears of default on investments. What we as individuals fail to see is that these bond traders are using our money to screw us! The promise of your future security is being used to penalise you today.

The double irony is that when you do receive your future remittances, by yielding cash back from pensions or investments etc., then it still does not give you security. You are still relying on these paper notes to fund your lifestyle; down to obtaining even the very basics of water, food and home energy.

If it was the year 1910 I would be more confident in our ability to pay off these percentage levels of debt. After all the worldwide population, of 1.75 billion in 1910, will increase 6 fold up to 2070, when the worldwide population will peak at 10 billion. However in 2010 the worldwide population is already 7 billion and is set to only expand by less than 50% up to the population peak in fifty years or so. Therefore the customary deflation of debt is going to be far less effective going forward. Our market economies need population growth to survive, not to mind thrive. Population growth is a finite commodity; therefore dependence on it is highly dangerous and in fact poses the greatest threat of all to our future security. So it is easy enough to see Ireland will not be able to deflate its debt mountain through dramatic population increases.

So it seems inevitable that we are heading for a default at some point in the future. How scary is that vista? All commentators tell us it is not possible to even contemplate such an action, based on the market retribution and subsequent treatment of us as a nation. But what it really means is that ultimately your present self will default on your future self! In real terms that is what is happening. So what should be our answer? Big Deal. Our future self will get over it. I’m sure they will make up in time.
We have also outlined how we don’t actually get any true security from those invested monies anyway. So why fret so much if we don’t pay off others foolishly gained debts. As shown our current model of a market economy is going to really crash at some future point, as long as we blindly follow the need for population growth dependency. So as long as we continue to pay back debt to our future selves and allow young pups to trade bonds like drunken brats at roulette tables, then we are just delaying an inevitable future guaranteed mega crash. What we need is to decouple from this market economy madness.

Why not draw a line in the sand and decide to make security of resources the new mantra to run our economies. If every citizen is guaranteed that they can access fresh food, clean water and home energy as a basic human right, without the need for cash to purchase these items, then we have provided security to our people. Then cash has far less power over our lives, we get to work less crazy hours and we do not need to invest all of our money into the market economy, in the fingers crossed hope of attaining future security. We can get basic security today and into the future.

How do we get these items in our lives without needing money to purchase them on an ongoing basis? Divert the money we normally put into pensions and other investments and use it to purchase local infrastructure like community energy generation (wind turbines/solar panels), permaculture and local community fruit/vegetable/meat production and local water generation (well drilling for clean water/rain water collection and harvesting devices for brown water).

In real terms just a fraction of our new national debt of 250billion would provide food, water and energy for all the households of Ireland in perpetuity, free from cash needs. I roughly estimate around 50 billion would meet all of these needs in perpetuity (approx. 30,000 per household). - (money sunk into Anglo plus Pension reserve fund equals 50billion!!). Therefore one fifth of our new national debt used in such a proactive way would mean we do not need money to buy food, provide water and power our homes. If we diverted that money into these projects, achieving that goal over a period of 5-10 years, then we are providing an invaluable service to our future selves. Our older self will now not need these monies so much as they will now have the basics guaranteed in life, thereby greatly reducing the need for pensions. Instead of thinking we are delinquents our older selves will think we are geniuses. A new, leaner and less voracious market economy can then build on these strong foundations of individual security.

Therefore it is not a disgraceful act to default on debt. What is disgraceful is to default and to continue running an economy in the same way. Default and build real security with a fraction of that money and you are suddenly a pioneer in designing true sustainable economic policy.

We have been thrust into the role of a future villain. Our hands are tied. We are going to default. How we react will be our greatest test. At the very least we are going to highlight how all western nations have built up too much debt. If we really want to spread the light like our forefathers did, then we will use the opportunity to get smart and divert the debt into building true security. It will finally free us from population growth dependency and show how humans can get a healthy relationship with resources and money. We were never meant to live in debt, as it is not natural law. Debt only works with rapidly increasing population levels, which as we know are going to stop soon.

The earth provides for all of our needs, always has, always will. We have never been smart enough to divvy them up fairly, to gain true security. This debt noose around our necks has given us the greatest opportunity in our history. We truly could be pioneers and gain a similar place in history that our monks of old attained.
So to our Euro masters implementing their foolish experiment I say, let it commence. Your foolishness will tear down the old dysfunctional ways and bring everyone with it. Have no doubt though that fresh healthy roots will flourish. The human is too ingenious a beast to allow anything else but rebirth to take hold.

p.s. Already we have to be grateful to bond traders. This crisis has highlighted how much power we have given you guys. The average Joe and Josephine is starting to see how much fat and cream you take off the top. A light has been shone on your lifestyles. That can only mean one thing. We are not going to accept it long term. We are going to start meeting our needs in our lifetimes, free from debt. No longer will the trading of debt allow you to grow fat. Stock up on the fast cars and champagne, while it's going.
Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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"Smart Economy" - Right words, wrong plan !

2010-09-30T14:31:00.017+01:00

In Ireland our government is telling us that the way to grow out of our self inflicted recession is to embrace the "smart economy". This is a term coined to define an economy type that they wish us to pursue. This economy type focusses strongly on building world class digital hubs, advanced broadband capabilities, etc. etc.. You get the message, build loads of techy stuff and things will be grand lads!

If only that were true. First of all there will be the inevitable governmental and state instituional incompetence in delivering the finished product. Secondly, by the time the product is delivered it will already be out of date as a concept, considering the scale of change in the world, but most especially in any IT related technological sphere. Thirdly, there will always be someone else doing things faster,cheaper and more efficiently in this field of endeavour.

So maybe pursuing this type of "smart economy" is not the best route for a country on its uppers. What though, if we were to pursue a different type of "smart economy".
One that built real solid foundations in our daily lives. One that meant that access to basic requirements like clean water, food, waste water recycling, heating and electricity could never be denied at any time, but especially not in times of economic recession. Currently we have half a million people out of work struggling to pay for many of these basic human needs. The lack of money though should never mean we are unable to meet these daily needs.

In effect there is a core of goods and services that should be removed from the grip of money. We should always be able to access these resources, even if we have no money! I am not saying we just get handed them, but in fact am saying we should be able to work collectively together to provide them for ourselves, without needing money to purchase them on an ongoing basis. This would remove so much stress over the loss of income and also greatly empower our daily lives.

Examples:
- Wind/Solar Energy:: Stop wasting money on investing in stock markets/pension funds (letting young pups gamble on your future security at financial roulette tables). Invest that money NOW as you work and earn, into building local wind energy (or solar) supply. Then you are providing free energy for your future. If you, or one of your neighbours lose your jobs, then since you all invested in buying the technology, you all should still get to receive power, even though some people are struggling with money levels. If one cant even afford to contribute part of the money that buys the technology, then maybe one can "earn" their free power by maintaining the infrastructure, or by performing some other social service for the community.

- Food supply:: Food is going to rise in price soon. No doubt. Also, it is becoming more and more unhealthy a product, as it is tweaked and prodded to meet all sorts of "preferred"specifications. Start growing food locally. Again take a share of our current earnings and pool together to get seed/eguipment/machinery etc. Now we also have future food security, and hence even if we lose our jobs, we can at least get out of bed and help others to work the soil, to feed our families. Even if we dont lose our jobs, it also provides future food security into retirement age etc....

- Water:: Drill our own wells. As water charges come more and more onstream, own your own water supply. Then you can be guaranteed of its quality and cleanliness. Again without money, we can now pump drinking water to our taps daily without depending on centralised and costly services. Also build rain water capture devices to utilise grey water for toilets and washing machines.
Many more examples could be listed.....................

If we could get to a situation where each individual in our society had this level of future security of resources then we have truly built a "smart economy". It is an economy that guarantees, at the very least, that basic human needs can always be met locally, external from the traditional monetary loop.

All else can follow on from there, i.e. market economies can build on those foundations. Build as many digital hubs as you like then, once you can access the basics. This would be a revolution in economic policy and finally start to de-leverage us from bond markets and depending exclusively on a healthy market economy as the only barometer to measure success in our world.

Where does the government fit in?
Stop peeing our money against the wall like a bunch of drunken teenagers. Stop wasting money on quangos/reports/advisors/ PR/ media/excessive salaries/advertising/ special interest groups/ saving face to other countries etc.. etc.. Use some of that money that is normally wasted and enable the process of allowing the people to meet their needs,

i.e.

make any of the funds used to purchase this infrastructure, like wind turbines or solar panels, tax exempt

remove all red tape, to help foster creativity, enterprise and innovation at a local level
Sell country abroad as one that is self sufficient, thereby marketing us a experts in sustainable economic development

A smart economy should be able to always meet the basic needs of the people, regardless of external conditions like recessions or unemployment. Without that, anything additional is just building on weak foundations, that will eventually give way some day.

Barry Fitzgerald

Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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My New book is for Sale

2010-08-05T21:45:00.005+01:00

Barry Fitzgerald

Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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Fix it locally!

2010-07-30T19:19:00.017+01:00

Dublin city council and a state agency are planning to pump water from the River Shannon, in the midlands of Ireland, up to the catchment area of Dublin, a distance closing on 80 miles. They are proposing to pump 350million litres of water per day to the city, to help serve as drinking water for the next 70 years.

Obviously, this is stirring up huge controversy. I am not going to get involved in either side of a passionate debate like this. I am more interested in the sanity/logic of this project, as more and more proposals like this will be mooted by governments worldwide, as a reactionary measure to counteract against increasing population levels and climatic changes. In this instance the project proposes moving water 80 miles for drinking purposes for a large urban area, at a proposed cost of 500million euro!

If I were a resident in the Dublin region, then two things look apparent. Firstly, it looks like my future water supply is in jeopardy and secondly, I am going to have to pay a lot of money over the years towards meeting that 500million bill, if this project goes ahead. However, by paying all this money in taxation is one actually guaranteed good quality water going forward? Im afraid not. Then, the question becomes why does one need to pay for this water to be moved. Why can't my council meet my water needs from water in my region?

If Dublin is running out of water then there has to be a reason. One has to question if Dublin may have significantly less rainfall than the rest of the country. It is slightly drier than the West, but still receives a large rainfall of approx. 900mm per year. Also, the beauty of a temperate climate is that this rainfall is fairly evenly spread out over the year and does not fall in a short monsoon season. Therefore the water cycle has a chance to keep working. This must mean that a lot of water is getting wasted in the city. And as it transpires this is the case. Victorian era pipe work leaks water like a sieve underground throughout the city.

So it is deemed sensible to move a great mass of water 80 miles to feed into pipe work that is totally inefficient. This is madness of the highest order. All at a cost of 500million euro. A pretty expensive bill for an illogical and poorly thought out proposal.

How to fix things:
Preservation of water has to be key. Don't even allow it into the pipework in the first instance. Trap water at source, e.g. capture rain water from roofs and store in individual household tanks. Get this tank plumbed into toilets/washing machines etc. Now less and less clean water is required from the council for these services. Now fresh water demand drops exponentially and the need to ship water cross country is negated.

Of course there will be a cost in implementing hardware in houses to capture water and feed it into the houses. However, if tens of thousands of houses across the region are getting this retrofit, then it could be done at a much reduced rate. Let’s just say we still spend this 500million euro, but instead redeploy it. If 500,000* houses, (nearly all of Dublin hinterland houses) all received a rain water harvesting system at a cost of say 1000*Euro (reduced price due to the quantity), it means we are empowering all those householders to help meet a lot of their water needs. If we get them to pay for this retrofit themselves, either up front if they can afford it, or over time if they can't (years if needs be), then they will not be hit with huge water charges going forward to pay for moving water by their council. This 1000*euro should also be written off against individual taxation. It is an investment in sustainability that means the government needs to perform less central delivery of services, and therefore it should be supported financially in the means of tax reduction. This means it will cost significantly less than the 1000*euro for the individual.

Of course people will cry foul at having to pay at all. However, with the plan of moving water the housholder will be forced to pay index linked taxation and water charges indefinitely into the future. Hence, they will pay a lot more than 1000Euro! However, if they paid 1000Euro now as a set amount to install their own collection system, then they know they cannot be forced to pay off a piece of state infrastructure indefinitely into the future.

Since we do live in a democracy it is a choice to implement a solution like this. However, those who do install it should be rewarded. Perhaps they would become exempt from all water charges going forward, or indeed just pay a token contribution (50Euro/year), whereas those who refuse to install their own water collection system should be those who need to install a full water metering device and pay for their usage. This also solves the crisis of how to apply water charging.

This project has the added benefit of creating thousands of jobs in installing these systems NOW, hence stimulating economic activity in the region. While a great big pipe from the midlands will create jobs, there would be far less due to large machines performing the bulk of the work. House to house retrofits are much more labour intensive and hence will create many times more jobs.

Now water doesn't need to be moved. It is generated at source.

We have to start coming up with local solutions like this. It is too easy for planners/councils/governments to sit in offices and make sweeping infrastructural decisions that have no long term benefit without pushing back and proposing better alternatives.

We gain security when we invest in these projects. It is far better putting our individual finances/savings into solutions like this, than investing in places like the stock exchange. We gain security when we invest locally. Now we know, at the very least, that we can meet a lot of our water needs, a somewhat basic human right. Shipping water 80 miles does not guarantee us this.

Also someone needs to explain first principles to these decision makers. A leaking bucket will always need more water. 350 millions litres today, 800million in a few years, where does it end!

Fix the leaks, coupled with introducing a widespread water saving project like rain water harvesting would secure water needs permanently for the region of Dublin city.

* These figures are not exact and are only used as illustration of the possibility of redeploying this money into better local solutions.

p.s. While obviously it's a major project to retrofit houses like above, it is not too outlandish an idea. There was once a time where every house in the Dublin region (albeit less houses) all had single glazed windows. Then this new fangled concept came to pass where they put two panes of glass together!.......try to find more than a handful of houses nowadays with single glazing throughout. That was quite a labour intensive project for all those houses, but obviously achieveable over time. Nothing to say the same couldn't happen with this project.

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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Hand Back the Keys!!!

2010-07-14T15:43:00.016+01:00

A body in Ireland tasked with coming up with "creative" ideas to try and ease the pressure on struggling mortgage holders, reckon the best solution for these people is to hand back the keys to their homes, and to then go and join the social housing lists.

No consideration of the stress implications, the social impact of this, the fear and desperation of the people involved. They are treated like numbers, not people terrified out of their wits. Is there a better solution? One thing is for sure. People will need to help themselves, as inspiration ain't coming from the top down, as seen from above.

If we look at the figures, we are told 4% of mortgage holders are in dire difficulty. And anything up to another 10% are under uncomfortable strain meeting their repayments. Of course, the demographic involved is the 30-40 year old, with a couple of kids, i.e. the working (or not working, as the case may be) middle class poor. Also a major tax contributing demographic, if they are working. So they should just hand back their keys and give up. Yeah right!

It's time for unified thinking. Let's look at all of those who have no mortgages, e.g. the empty nesters, early 60's, who may be quite comfortable. Approximately 40% of people have no mortgage commitments and most of those are that type of profile described above. If we have a fit and healthy couple in their 30's who are unemployed, then they shouldn't languish under the stress and strain of potentially losing their homes through no fault of their own. If they can't (and many can't) gain employment, then perhaps we can marry these two demographic ranges together. For every unemployed person who can't get a job and who can't repay their mortgages, there is, in most likelihood, 10 mortgage free householders (or more) of more advanced years.

What if the young couple were to work in a socially agreed fashion for those 10 households? Any type of work; from manual labouring, painting, garden maintenance, to driving services etc.. Also more socially oriented work like house calls, counseling services, letting their young kids interact with what can often be a quite lonely demographic, i.e. the retired/elderly person. A fee could be pre-arranged, of say 10 euro per hour, for services rendered from the young couple to the older people. If each young couple performed just 10 hours work for another "older" household per month, then it would mean a remittance to them of 100Euro per month. Do that for 10 households and you have 1,000 Euro/month, for only 100 hours of your now "free time". That 1,000 would often meet, or go a significant way to meeting a monthly mortgage repayment.

Of course the "older" household has to have that 100 Euro spare every month. But a lot would have that. Secondly, they have to want to participate. But, if they are getting work done by a trusted, regular caller to their house, well they may well want to engage with such a scheme. Very often maintenance on something will prevent future catasptrophic failures, and so, a scheme like this could actually utimately save them money. Also, at a rate like above of 10 Euro they are getting a very fair price.

The upside is huge.

Unemployed struggling young people can "work" without being dependent on the wider paralyzed economy to employ them

Older people who physically may not be up to some tasks can get a lot of work done to their homes at a moderate rate

There is a sharing of problems

A feel good factor for the older generation, in being of such valuable social service

The obvious easing of stress on young couple which feeds into less stress/pressures passing on to their kids
The building of relationships that will trancend the generational gaps. When the younger people come out the other side of their difficulties down the line, valuable and deep relationships will have been forged. etc.etc.

A ratio of 1:10 is what's needed. Find ten comfortable households for each struggling household. Oh, and I believe that that 1000euro/month should be tax exempt. It is people helping themselves through a very difficult time; hence they are not now so dependent on the government. They will not end up on social housing lists, will need less state support and will get back on their feet a lot quicker. A government should be encouraging schemes like this, and the best way to do that is to grant them official tax free status. The economic and social payback from a scheme like this far outweighs whatever puny (in relative terms) taxes it would raise.

How to set up this scheme? Well it would be easy to operate, easy to follow rules. The hard part, as always, is to own up and to actually ask for the help, if one is struggling. We have forgotten we are a society, not a collection of economic producing housing units. The scheme should run from the ground up though, i.e. do not let incompetent institutions (including private banks) near the reins of power. A simple website to advertise the idea, publish profiles of those seeking aid, and of those willing to offer "work". A matching process could then begin, based on location.

People helping people. The only way out of this mess. And nobody is getting screwed.
It sure beats having thousands of house keys dangling from a banker’s office wall, with their corresponding houses lying empty.

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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Sustainability; The most abused term in the English language.

2010-06-21T16:22:00.008+01:00

In 2010 it seems everyone has a "sustainable" product and a lot of businesses use the term to describe their operations. Government and institutional officials throw the term around like confetti. Everyone seems to think that just using the term makes them fit in with the new zeitgeist and new world order. After all the people want everything to be sustainable, right?

Unfortunately nearly every single use of this term in our world means one of two things;
a.) either we have to consume more to enable this so called sustainability or,
b.) we will have to work more and more in our lives to pay for this term.

If we are constantly buying products, this doesn't make the operation sustainable, even if there is no damage to the environment. And this is really the only criteria we use to measure the term sustainability, i.e. the impact on our environment. But sustainability should be so much more than that.

It should include us as human beings in the equation. Is it sustainable for us to continue to work so hard, so we can just purchase more and more goods, even if those self same goods earn their stripes as "clean" products. I contend that this is not sustainable. Similiarily it is not sustainable for us to work longer and longer in our lives to pay for legislation and carbon taxes etc.. that are meant to bring us into line with environmental standards.

In all this we are missing a key component. It is only with increasing population levels that we can operate our current economic models, i.e. markets always getting bigger as population levels continue to rise. This has been the case for so long, but soon (within 6 decades) we will have a population peak. Thereafter what will we do? I mean how can we market, produce and sell "sustainable" products in an unsustainable market over the longer term. How can we tax and legisltate the average Joe and Jane to excess, when again we live in an unsustainable market economy.

This is why our abuse of the term "sustainability" has to stop. We need to re-define this term so it can only be used when we ALL achieve equal access to the resources of the world, to allow us to have security in our lives from cradle to grave. Only then are we free of an unsustainable market economy. Only then can we work to a more humane schedule, e.g. an average of 4 hours per day. Only then will we truly come into line and only consume that which we truly need. Only then will we be able to realise that we can achieve self sufficiency in our localities. Only then can we lay claim to using the term sustainability.

Why?, because we have regained our individual power, aligned into strong local communities and "own up to owning" our path in life. We trust our ability to meet our needs in our lives and now we are sustainable. We don't need carbon taxes or low energy consuming products to fool us into thinking we are sustainable. You are sustainable when you trust your needs in life will be met, both today and tomorrow and all the days after tomorrow. Of course minimum damage to our environment should be (and can be) a minimum requirement.

That leaves the lingering question. How do we ALL get equal access to the resources of the world. Simple, it is time we demanded it from those who fool us into thinking we cannot have it.

There is a better way to finance our futures.

2010-05-27T19:46:00.009+01:00

Current Madness re: financing of countries.

Bondholders = faceless "beings" who loan money to our governments to keep the show on the road; daily, weekly, monthly, annually. Our governments never realistically plan to pay off the principal borrowed, but only to service the loans yearly with interest repayments. The bond holders get fairly attractive returns on their investments plus huge individual re-numeration, and who can be a better debtor than a sovereign nation! Or so the theory goes.

One slight glance behind this little arrangement highlights how dysfunctional it truly is. I would like to point that out here and also to offer one viable alternative to this system.

Since no country at the moment seems to have money to loan, except perhaps China, then one has to ask who are the bondholders and where do they get their cash? After all to hear political, economic and journalistic commentators talk on the possibility of debt default to bond holders, would make one think they were human eating lizards who could zap us all into oblivion with their advanced cosmic ray guns! No, the boring truth is that these bond holders are simply human beings like the rest of us. No ET lizards anywhere. However in truth who they work for, and represent, is often the pension funds and insurance companies of the world. A few bondholders in percentage terms are individual wealth holders, but mainly they comprise funding from these two industries.

So, we have the crazy situation where money collected from the people of the world through investments in pension funds and the buying of insurance policies of all kinds is pooled together and then used as finance to lend to completely incompetent governments and administrators in countless countries. Remember the money collected from the people is supposed to guarantee them personal security in their future, i.e. either through a guaranteed pension fund, or through the guarantee of an insurance claim being covered.

Investors believe that at some point they will be able to cash in their pension fund or their insurance policy and the cash will be there to meet their demands. This has worked to date for a few reasons. Primarily the biggest reason was that that we had a rapidly expanding population, hence it was perfectly acceptable for governments to defer debt principal payments and to be able to meet annual bond interest payments - (as they believed this debt will always deflate into the future, i.e. ever increasing population levels will make this debt a smaller and smaller burden. This allowed a malaise/incompetence to set in with the efficiency of handling finance raised in the bond markets. Countless articles could be written about how inefficiently government money is handled). However we are facing a population peak within decades. This should be the most alarming fact facing humanity at the moment as our whole economic system is built on the premise of more consumption, more people to pay taxes, more building, more cheap labour, more markets to sell to etc... So governments cannot assume that our current debt will always deflate, i.e. we will soon reach a point where more and more people are not available to pay off and devalue the borrowings of today.

Secondly, people up to very recently did not have hugely long retirement periods as the average age of death for both men and women was only about 10 years past retirement. That too is changing rapidly. In recent years people are living 20/30 years past retirement age. This will mean more and more money needs to be yielded back from pension funds to finance longer retirements, rather than being tied up in government debt repayment structures, with no access to the principal.

We cannot keep financing our lives the way we do today. We need to realise the bond holder is not some untouchable, all powerful demi-God. They handle our/your money. We need to stop investing in the market economy as the only way to ensure our future security. These guys will not be able to hold governments to ransom, raise interest rates and basically rule the world if they don't have your money to empower them. They are using your belief in a secure future to allow them rule the world.

How do we stop them, gain personal future security and by extension force governments to become more efficient?

INVEST in your local community. If we used the money we would have spent on investing in pension funds (public or private) and if we didn't have to buy insurance on everything, it would give us a lot more financial resources to secure our future. We could use that cash today to build the infrastructure (social and physical ) in our local community to give us more security. We could finance shared buildings, finance local food production, permaculture solutions and help build a barter economy where we can trade goods and services into retirement. These empowering additions to our locality (as just a few of many) would build our future security.

As for insurance, we could move to local insurance models. As an example instead of buying home insurance from a faceless corporation we could insure our homes collectively. It would be pretty easy to list the percentage of claims on house insurance policies and the common claim types. Then pool your money together with perhaps 100 neighbouring families. Hire a handy man/several people and pay them through a combination of local barter economy/cash remittances to work on fixing/auditing houses to correct common defects that could turn into future possible insurance claims. Now, instead of investing thousands and thousands over the years into house insurance that you may never need, you are now hiring someone locally to maintain your home and also to work on your house if you have an "insurance" claim. Part of the money you pay into this local scheme annually meets the local workers' salaries and part is used to pay for any bigger insurance claims that are fixed by locals.

Now power is taken from insurance companies/pension funds/bond holders who trade and hold governments to ransom with your money. Also governments will now have to evolve, streamline and become super efficient with reduced pools of money available for future borrowing.

In time, we should get to a situation where government borrowings are drastically reduced naturally as local solutions kick in. The more we finance/fund/fix our own lives, the less we need governments to do so for us.

I am not advocating the abolishment of something like a bond market. I am though advocating more individual empowerment over where your money is going and also empowerment over your future security. Everyone wins!

Book to be Published by ATTM Press

2010-04-06T21:54:00.005+01:00

Exciting News: March 14th 2010.

My book also entitled "Building cities of Gold" will be published by ATTM press later in 2010. ATTM press are an exciting press that promote and publish work that has a positive message at its core.

My book will be for sale on both ATTM press website or on Amazon.com when it is published.

Copenhagen

2009-12-16T22:47:00.020Z

Copenhagen 2009:
2 weeks to save the world. That is what they are telling us, the leaders of this conference on climate change. According to them if we do not get agreements at the end of this conference then we will have wasted our last chance to save the world. The world, this amazing world that has supported life forms for 4 billion years. The mother earth who seems to have a benevolent predisposition to supporting life in so many infinite formats. 2 Weeks to sort our crap out or else she will expel us, or kill us all.

Will Our mother do either of these things; will she banish or discard us forever? Do we understand her enough to be able to decide at a 2 week conference how to find harmonious balance with her nature?

I fear our egos are exceeding their remit once more. We still see ourselves as masters of nature and our environment. We believe that a collection of our "suits" can solve all of the earth's problems and that we can reverse, arrest or dictate climate change by virtue of a series of conferences and man made laws.

I believe one of the main reasons why climate change has gripped so many of those in power into such a vice of fear is that it highlights to them how irrelevant and how lacking in control this particular phenomenon makes them. They believe they can control everything; however climate change is one thing that they realise they may not be able to control.

So what will happen in Copenhagen or at the next several conferences? As a guarantee taxation will increase and revenue generation mechanisms will be instigated. Big business will get bigger and the man or woman on the street will pay from their pockets. But will anything change? Will we get a handle on climate change and gain the power to stop, arrest or reverse its effects?

I don't know the answer to these questions but I fear that as long as we allow our leaders, our businesses and our governments to tackle this problem exclusively, then it will only be engaged with intellectually and from a purely financial basis ONLY. It is a problem that they think can be fixed by throwing money (our money!) at.

The child, woman, man, grandmother and grandfather in their individual lives will not be empowered to engage with their environments from their heart spaces. In this heart space they can come into harmony with their local environment and hence regain their place in the cycle of nature. In this space they will align with their local community and form powerful alliances who heal their locality. In short they will make the enlightened choices that eliminate harmful activities, consumption and pollution from their lives. To put it bluntly they are not now being directed or legislated into submission from above, but rather are leading and empowering themselves from the ground up.

Will this more desirable path lead to us arresting or reversing climate change? Again, I don't know the answer, but surely this is a much better route to go down. Why should we allow the few to create taxation (carbon taxing), new industries, new legislation etc. that are supposed to stop climate change, but offer absolutely no guarantees that they will succeed. We will spend billions and trillions and may well end up causing more pollution problems through incompetence (very likely), or corruption.

It will cost us nothing (or very little) individually to step up to the mark and make enlightened, empowered decisions in the moment. DO we really need those new products?, do we really need to pollute with certain activities?, do we really need to throw so much of our food away? etc...

The earth has an intelligence that we cannot comprehend. As mentioned she has supported life forms of such staggering variety and abundance over such a long timescale that our place in her history is truly minuscule. We are powerless to control her. If we accept this then we can relinquish so much fear and come to a place of acceptance and empowerment.

She (The Earth) may well be in a cycle of climate change that will permanently alter our environment. Change is guaranteed here on Mother Earth. She is constantly shifting and moving, recycling, evolving, dying and birthing. Are we adding to her woes at the moment by pumping excessive quantities of CO2 into her atmosphere? More than likely we are, but if we stop will she then co-operate as we wish her to and stop changing? What if she doesn't? Only she can answer these questions.

If we TRUST though that this benevolent mother who is so predisposed to harbouring life in all it's formats may be changing but will always have a space and home for us, her children, then we don't have to be so afraid and so powerless. If we ourselves evolve alongside her evolution, then we can make the enlightened choices as mentioned and come into balance with her.

She will look after us, provided we make the effort individually and honour her presence and gifts to us. Climate change or not we need to honour our home. We need to trust we have a role in the future of this world, even if our environment does alter greatly from the way it is now.

Carbon taxing alone will not bring us into balance with our mother!

Demographic Focus: Teenagers.

2009-11-17T15:46:00.001Z

Teenagers/Young Adults: So often they get forgotten and misunderstood. They are yesterday's children and tomorrow's adults, yet as a demographic they are often left to fend for themselves.

How does the isolation of this phase set in? After all they are only a few years removed from being cute little children who were adored by their parents and by people in society in general. In a few more short years they will end up being the next wave of young adults expected to forge careers, settle down and perpetuate the family cycle again. This phase of their lives, (the teenage years) is not unlike when the tree has just broken ground as a vulnerable sapling. The warmth and security of being a seed safely nurtured by the soil (childhood) is over and the great towering tree (adulthood) is off in the distance. For now the sapling is buffeted around and is forced to try and begin to find its own path and way in life.

Can these human saplings get assisted any better by society? I believe they can and also that they deserve more from us, the adults in their lives. The key is that not only should their parents be responsible for them, but that all of our adult society in the local community should act as mentors and guides for them.

If we relied more on our local communities and introduced a local social structure etc. it would engender a sense of shared co-operation and of looking out for one another. If we also look to history we can also learn a lot from our more ancient cultures (e.g. Native Americans). In those societies education of our teenagers was more holistic. They didn't cram heads full of technical information, test this and proceed to use the results as the only yardstick to measure success in life.

Education was so much more than this. It was concerned with raising successful and rounded human beings and thus it empowered teenagers to tease out their latent and unique skill sets over a few years. The adults (all of them) took an active interest in the evolution of these fledgling adults and noted their weaknesses, strengths and passions. Over time a collective community profile would get built up as to the direction a particular teenager should take in life. The key was that this mentoring role was not exclusive to the parents of the teenager. Quite the opposite; they had many adult mentors watching out for them. The beauty of this system was that the teenagers rarely got lost and isolated from society and tended to learn early the value and unique contribution they could make to their locality and to other people. This lead to great personal empowerment in such a vulnerable phase of their lives. In essence it birthed well adjusted young adults.

Somewhere along the line things went askew. We know that the 20th century saw the evolution of large cities and suburbs and this evolution lead to the era of isolation. We built our houses and apartments and forged ahead in life with just the help of those within our four walls. We forgot our local community. We felt we didn't need them. If we needed anything we could just buy it.

One only has to look around today to see evidence of this modern phenomenon. Let's examine young families. The children of these families are absolutely adored (rightly so). Very often though the only other adults who interact with them are two equally adoring sets of grandparents. The children's lives and milestones are celebrated and feted by just these few people. However there is a great isolation to it. It never includes the local community. Let's progress a few more years into those teenage years. Very often the picture is very different. That teenager is often now sullen, isolated, apathetic and lost. The question is where did it go wrong?

The thing most parents hope for at this stage is that time will heal this situation. They hope that at some point they will wake up and that miraculously from the chaotic teenager a well rounded and adjusted young adult has arisen. In most cases that is true. However for a few this does not happen. Some end up on darker roads, ones that can lead to drink and drug abuse and most upsetting of all, the road of non return that is suicide. Is this the parents fault? ABSOLUTELY NOT. It is no one's fault but I believe it would happen far less (if ever) if we all in adult society took care of and watched out for our community teenagers. Leaving the rearing of children to two adults (or single parents) exclusively is not fair or rounded enough. Of course the parent(s) should be responsible for most of the care of their offspring, but they should also be able to avail of outside assistance. Similarly they should look out for the children of other parents too.

As the picture perfect cute child grows it is inevitable that there has to be a natural separation away from the parent(s). This helps to form the character of the young person. However if there is a natural separation away form the parent(s) it can mean that now the teenager feels they have no adult to confide in or to share problems with. Obviously this phenomenon is skewed more towards boys than girls as anecdotally boys tend to isolate themselves much more. However this is where the rest of us (adults in community) need to step in. We should be approachable and non judgmental towards these people who may need our assistance and support.

We also need to get away from making our teenagers compete for everything. All of their young lives involve being pitted against each other for the best education, results, university places and future careers. We need to introduce more holistic education models. Some will thrive in a competitive environment but again the very few vulnerable ones will not. Again this can be a trigger to a very sad demise.

Just because one teenager is academically gifted does not mean they should pursue a professional qualification in the college route. They could be multi-skilled and are far better off in an artistic and creative environment. Similarly just because one teenager is not gifted academically does not mean they should be destined to a manual trade. Perhaps they are particularly sensitive and are best suited to a career in the caring sector. If we had community wide observation, coaching and mentoring of our collective children/teenagers we could see these facts. The more we can reduce the opportunities for apathy, isolation, unhappiness, desperation and fear to set in with our teenagers the more likely they will birth into wonderful happy and balanced young adults.

It is no secret that once peoples' basic needs are met then the older they get the happier they become. Therefore it is an entirely natural condition that our teenagers who are just starting out in life can often experience some of the more harmful thoughts, emotions, fears, phobias etc. If they can truly know in their hearts that we are ALL there for them to help them out, then it allows them to know any challenge or difficulty can be overcome. We shouldn't let their poor parents shoulder everything on their own.

Look around you to these teenagers; yesterday's children, tomorrow's adults. Reach out today, they need you.

We WILL NOT run out of resources!

2009-10-12T14:36:00.016+01:00

This should be a required mantra for people to say everyday. *We WILL NOT run out of resources. We have EVERYTHING we need here on Planet Earth*. Repeat three times. etc.. etc.

Of course in our world of today this statement is not true. We are consuming more than our fair share of resources and we also have a strict tiered hierarchy where the very few get most of the spoils, i.e. 1% of people own 20% of the World's wealth.

Many in the Green movement cry foul at the sheer quantity of people in our world and say that we are doomed to failure due to the size of our populations. I for one do not buy into this argument and scarcity thinking. I firmly believe we do have enough resources for the people of the world; the problem is that we have no idea how to distribute the bounty from the earth fairly.

If so few get so much it means that the average person never feels like the world is a fair place. They may have employment and an income but they are always fearful that some outside influence (a boss, a recession, outsourcing) can take that job and income away from them. So their physical representation of the Earth's bounty (i.e. monetary income) is not guaranteed in their minds. Therefore we do not have trust among the many that we will always be looked after. The upshot of this is that we will try to hoard resources and will do whatever it takes to get rich quick to beat this scarcity mentality. It explains why we have all accepted the notion of the free market economy for so long. We see that 1% with so many of the spoils of the Earth and believe that one day it could be us.

However what is a far better solution all around is if we have the absolute faith and know that we ALL can access the resources of the world (through physical manifestations like money) whenever or wherever we need them throughout our lifetimes. The best way to do this is to form local communities and to use those communities as springboards towards true sustainability. One proactive step to take is to set up bartering systems within those communities. Straight away we start to take some of the power away from the current economic system and start to get security in our lives. Therefore, even in recessionary times we have enabled ourselves to "earn resources" from the earth that no outside influence can take from us. After all bartering of goods and services keeps "resources" flowing freely through a community without monetary transactions.

I am NOT advocating a return to a socialist regime that was supposed to advance a fair society for all. In that system the few again exploited the resources of the Earth and further exploited the masses. It never met it's intended goal. However if we all take our individual power back and align into strong local communities then we can start to implement solutions in our lives that can force a natural re-distribution of the Earth's resources. Bartering in our local community is a strong step in this direction.

If we barter it means we are not forced to earn bigger and bigger sums of money in the wider economy to pay for the goods and services we normally outsource. Now instead we could possibly get those from our local economy. As an example we may need plumbing services that would have cost us 5K traditionally. Perhaps we can now request those services (if available) in our local economy. These services will be assigned a points ranking. We now owe the system this value of points. The corollary is that the plumber who did the work has built up this value in credits. The Key thereafter is that I do not owe him the points directly. I have my own skills, labour and talents that I can offer others (or the plumber). I will need to offset his work to me over time to the community. Since I am performing my own unique skills and services it means I can offer them to the community at a time of my choosing. The plumber can also "draw" from his credits too, either from me or from others in the community.

The upshot is that we create a circular movement of goods and services but are NOT paying excessive fees to the outside "market" economy. This has the desired effect of meaning we need to work less and have shorter working lives in the wider economy. Of course this frees up even more time to work in the local economy. Over time we can envisage a future where our current totally unsustainable economic model is de-leveraged by the growing influence of thriving local community economies.

We then start to experience true sustainability and also much fairer distribution of the earth's resources. This is because we can begin to TRUST that our goods and services will always be needed and that we can trade and work our way sustainably and securely into the future years. No longer can recessions/outsourcing/bosses etc. decide our faith on a whim.

Of course all of this coupled with advancing self integrity will mean that we can start to imagine a future where we do not abuse the natural resources of the earth. If we learn to trust as above it means we will inevitably end up with a far more mature relationship with the earth. Our integrity and trust combined means we will have a relationship with the world where we will only take what we need, when we need it. I believe that is when we will return to balance with the Earth.

Remember if we can change then we will NOT run out of resources, in whatever format we need them.

We don't need a greenfield site to build a sustainable community

2009-10-08T10:56:00.011+01:00

There are nearly seven billion of us on the planet. In percentage terms, nearly all of those people are housed. People often think that to have a sustainable community means going "off-grid", i.e. buying up land in splendid isolation and building houses of straw bales, cob and having compost toilets.

But we can't all leave our current housing solutions and head off to the mountains to do this. First off there wouldn't be enough land and secondly it is not practical. So if we are to have sustainable communities we have to RETROFIT our current localities. While it is a noble concept to build a sustainable community from scratch it really can only ever be a showcase for what the rest of us should be doing.

Millions of people live in horribly unsustainable places, e.g. large tracts of suburbia surrounding Western World cities. This is the last place that one would think of as being sustainable. But these are the very places that sustainability can and will work.

These housing solutions are sprawled out to give everyone they own "plot of the earth". The car is King, as generally basic services like shops are at least one mile away. So we end up with people living lives of isolation in their homes, followed by commutes into and out of their developments in their cars. Life becomes a prison of the box, i.e. the house, car, office, factory, recreation buildings etc..

There are so many tools at our disposal to counteract the mess the developers presented us with.

Form community - 150 people or less, research shows that above this number people lose intimate contact and responsibility for each other.
Set up a local economy - barter. Have an honest appraisal of everyone's skills and talents, whatever they may be, from hanging pictures, through counselling others ,childcare, growing food to accountancy services. Agree a ranking system for each task and begin trading with each other. Preferably via online accounts (note this will be covered in detail in subsequent blogs).
Utilise individual and common land - One person or people from community can barter time and services to growing fruit/vegetables for community. Perhaps more people can barter for the preparation of these products into tasty meals for the tables of the community.
Investigate possibility of building shared building - try to decouple from maintenance fees for the housing development and perform this task among community on barter economy. Possibility then of using the money saved to get a collective fund to purchase materials to build community building.
People could work from this building - telecommuting, selling produce from community, having small shops for craft sales etc...
Integrate elderly into community - promote elderly integration rather than allowing people go on to scrapheap at age 65. They could be active members of barter economy, especially for child welfare as they are retired.
Bring pre-school childcare back into the community - childcare groups residing in individual houses or indeed in community building. Childcare bartered by community members. Retired people ideal here.
Alternative education of children - possibility of running Steiner type education models.
Breaking free of 9-5 working model in wider economy - community members to try and break free form clock driven work week. Negotiate for services rendered rather than time on the job. Then with the extra time saved (as one becomes more efficient if getting re-numerated for tasks rather than time) then suddenly much more time is freed up for the community and for the barter economy.

All of the above (and MANY more solutions) will be covered in greater detail in subsequent blogs and downloads. These are some of the very easy to implement (community building obviously is a longer project) and fast ways to start being sustainable in our local community.

The one thing we can do today is to start. Obviously we won't get 150 people in one day. Start with one other person and build from there. It takes just one other person to BEGIN your community. Then over time you can turn your dysfunctional isolating housing solutions into a truly vibrant community of people.

I don't want to be in community with him/her/them !

2009-10-08T10:19:00.012+01:00

We all think this: How could we possibly imagine forming local community with those people from next door or even that crowd down the road. After all he/she/they have so many flaws, as does everyone really come to think of it!

Those days have to end. Our current society structures have engendered a sense of isolation. As a result we have become very discerning about whom we spend our time with. As we have grown individually we have watched many others who we feel do not meet our standards or indeed are not the kind of people we want to commune with.
But society is tearing itself apart as people are crying out for community. The "ice-olation" has become too much to bear. We are all beginning to feel strong stirrings and desires to form community. But how do we transcend our differences and make this leap? How do we find the strength, compassion, courage, patience, love, security and commitment to stand as strong individuals and yet be part of an even stronger, nurturing community?

TO me the ONLY answer is that we all have to finally face those demons, make an inventory of our shortcomings and overcome them in due course. We may feel superior and more enlightened than our neighbours, but chances are they have their own unflattering views of us. We all have our flaws. What is certain is that we cannot bring the more toxic of those into community. We need to be honest with ourselves, be ruthless and work through these issues. The past decade has exposed many skeletons in our world and has introduced a culture (thankfully) of people no longer being willing to live and wallow in their darker character traits. Society is advancing at an exponential pace. Our healing as individuals is happening, it is as if the older dysfunctional templates are not being supported anymore.

So the man who refuses to face his emotions and hides himself in his work, the woman who is exhausted to the point of desperation trying to be all things to all people, the elderly person draining their families for sympathy, the young adults refusing to grow up by hiding themselves in alcohol/drugs, and many more similar stories of peoples lives are all going to have to change. We cannot have strong community if we continue to lead unhealthy individual lives.

The brilliant news of course is that once we do form healthy local community we suddenly find that we will lose so much focus from the more narcissistic traits of our personality and our lives. This environment will promote a sense of collective responsibility, thereby acting as positive amplification of our better, truer, more loving selves.

Like the older ancient native cultures (e.g. Native Americans), we will find our joy in community. It is no coincidence that in those cultures depression was not something that was common at all. If people can believe in something bigger than themselves, namely the community, then it takes so much focus away from their individual problems. Those small nagging problems can never take root, fester and grow into bigger problems when they are getting shared and sorted collectively.

We shouldn't though beat ourselves up for the way society has evolved over the past 100 years. It is a fact that prior to that the community was central to peoples lives. During that time we had intimate understanding of our local environment but not of the wider world. In the 20th century a culture of exploration and seeing the world set in (e.g. massive immigration to the USA). Unfortunately this led to our isolation. While we saw the world, learned so much, especially about other cultures etc., it ultimately led to the point where people became very unhappy.

I now believe we have reached the turning point. We are meant to go back to our local communities, to find true purpose and joy in our lives. However the fantastic news is that we can do so with the vast knowledge we have gained from the wider world. We are coming full circle, back to where our ancestors were but with so much more knowledge and information. We can have all our needs met in the local community, but thanks to technology like the Internet, we can also have the world at our fingertips. No longer should we search wide and far for the holy grail, i.e. the one city, country, house, suburb etc.. that will be perfect. Where we are today is perfect. It can be our very own city of Gold.

And you know what, him/her/they down the street are probably lovely people......

Introduction

2009-10-07T10:05:00.004+01:00

No matter where we live I firmly believe we can create heaven on earth in our local community. Our immediate environment should be able to meet most (if not all) of our needs and should hold us in a promise of security, plenty and healing from cradle to grave.

All modern day housing solutions promote a sense of isolation and competition. We live in close proximity to each other but fail to share any of our joys,woes, fears or success with one another. We shut our doors and often try to face life with just the help of those within our own four walls.

The western world of present has taught us to believe we don't need our community and if we do need any outside assistance we tend to just purchase it from a third party.

Life has become a repetitive existence for many that is lived out in a series of boxes of isolation; from our houses to our cars, from our offices to our shopping malls.

However we can RETROFIT our lives and our housing developments. We can turn our houses of isolation into homes of warmth and sharing as part of vibrant, thriving, life affirming local communities. The chance for change is here. We can turn our lives around and create our very own cities of gold, or even our own little peace of heaven on earth.