[p2p-research] Wealth of Nations : Tracking the $19 Trillion Bailout Funds

[Paul D. Fernhout]

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/09/22/tracking-the-19-trillion-bailout-funds.aspx
"It took $19 trillion in public funds to save the financial system. That 
came out of your pocket. But here's who doled out the money, and exactly 
where it went. ..."

Linked from here:
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/09/30/michael-moore-whiffs?page=0,1

The headlines misleading in the sense that a bunch of that money is 
essentially loan guarantees, not actually money shelled out, plus what is 
actually shelled out may be repaid (sometimes even with interest). But, it 
still goes to show the USA can put lots of money on the line when it cares 
about something. That would be like spending about US$2.6 billion every day 
for twenty years, except that at 5% interest, by the time you got done 
spending the money the first year, you'd have that much again in interest, 
so you'd be forced to give that much away forever. :-) Or, by my previous 
calculations, that is about what it would cost with 5% interest on capital 
to have a real Santa Claus giving everyone in the world maybe (in this case) 
US$200 worth of presents every year. :-)

Or, alternatively, that is about US$2714 per person on the planet.

Or about US$63000 per US American.

Just out of the blue. Suddenly the government allocates US$63000 per 
citizen, and mostly gives it away directly or as loan guarantees with hardly 
any oversight. Otherwise the banking system would "collapse" and that would 
be a catastrophe -- like we would even need a commercial banking system if 
every US citizen has US$63K to put into their local credit unions and then 
direct to purchases or investments.

Meanwhile, universal health coverage and moving to renewables is "too 
expensive".
   http://www.hr676.org/
   http://www.solarplan.org/

Essentially, that bailout total is about 50 times what that solar plan 
linked above suggests it would take to move the USA to all renewables.

And of course, as reported before on this list, we all know p2p (like 
Wikipedia and email) should be *illegal* as a security risk. :-(
"Congress: P2P networks harm national security"
http://news.cnet.com/Congress-P2P-networks-harm-national-security/2100-1029_3-6198585.html

So, devoting nineteen trillion to some bankers and financiers -- that's 
*good* for the USA and democracy.

Giving everyone access to health care, renewable energy, and communications 
is *bad* for the USA and democracy.

And people with guns show up at rallies to prove that, as Michel just 
pointed out linking to this article:
   "Politics in the Past Tense: Can America be Salvaged?"
   http://www.counterpunch.com/green09182009.html
or as is pointed out here and elsewhere (previously mentioned):
   "You didn't get mad..."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6296630 


Money is not the problem. There's lots of money to do whatever Congress 
wants to do, apparently.

Oh, by the way, yes, I know, US$19 trillion is hard to believe. Apparently, 
it's obviously too *low*. :-)
   "U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky Says "
   http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM
"July 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as 
$23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said 
Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset 
Relief Program. "

What I think we are really seeing here is the failure of money as a control 
system. Apparently, the disconnect between the real physical economy and the 
play money investment economy has grow so large that the entire system can 
no longer function.

Which maybe helps explain some of the anger in posts like this: :-)
   "[ox-en] No more money trickery propaganda please (was: Re: Explanation 
of interest)"
   http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg05674.html

Not to take sides. :-) Some good points were made in rebuttal here:
   http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg05680.html

Personally, I'm getting more enamored of some sort of 
multi-material-and-service Kanban-token-like rationing system, myself. :-) 
Just not sure what it would look like, or if the end user would ever see it 
very much in practice. Maybe it would just show up as something you notice 
when a kid asked for 1000 full sized copies of the Eiffel tower to be 
delivered and set up and the productive system (via a web site?) said the 
child would exceed their ration of steel for the year, or would exceed their 
allotted land footprint for placing them, or would exceed a reasonable 
expectation of robot labor available for structural assembly in one monty, 
or something like that, and prompted the child to negotiate with other kids 
(or their family) to join their rations together if they really wanted to 
have 1000 such towers, or something like that. :-) And then most any healthy 
normal kid would scale the demand back to ten or so Eiffel towers. :-) And 
their parents would be annoyed, and spend some rations to have robots tear 
them all down and recycle them a week later, incidentally regaining some 
ration points for the child's steel quota. :-) But, otherwise, you might 
never see the rationing going on behind the scenes for day-to-day basic 
stuff like a normal amount of food, an electric car, a 3000 square foot 
home, just one yacht or RV, or something like that. :-) So, something like 
Marshall Brain's Manna system, but with a bit more complexity in what items 
cost, where in practice, for most things, you'd never think about the cost, 
and if you did, the cost limit would be tied to some specific ration of some 
type of metal, energy, labor, wear, land, or something else very specific, 
with maybe some way to pool or trade those specific things for special projects.

Anyway, in general, all these calculations (even a "gift economy") discount 
the notion of people doing stuff just for fun. :-)

So, getting back to the main point, the economic system based around money 
is being discredited, and new ideas that have long been simmering will 
someday perhaps emerge more into practice.

Maybe would be nice to have a virtual world to practice these alternatives in?

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/