The American culture is very comfortable using the words “consumers” and “consumerism.” If I called my friend a consumer and producer, he would not object. In his company, he is a producer. He would say that by producing, he is able to consume. The more successful he is in producing, the more he would be […]
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[ NOTE: This is a chapter excerpt from David Houle’s latest book, the first of an eBook trilogy entitled “Moving to a Finite Earth Economy – Crew Manual”. The subtitle of the first eBook is the name of this chapter, The Three Economies. All three books are to be priced at $2.99. Book 1 is […]
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Today, most nations judge their yearly progress by the measure called Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This measure captures the dollar value of all the goods produced by its businesses, and as we have written about previously at The Sarasota Institute, the concept of GDP needs to be scrapped or revised. The assumption is that […]
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The developed countries of the world are in transition from economies based upon ownership to ones increasingly based upon rental or access. As much as any other trend, this will transform economics, consumption and how we live. The concept of ownership is deeply embedded in economic thought, policy and practice and has been for centuries. […]
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Just after the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States I had many conversations with colleagues and friends. Regardless of people’s political persuasion, most expressed some confusion about the future direction of global politics given the unusual nature of Trump as a candidate. Was he, is he, crazy like a fox, […]
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This is a time when we need fresh thinking on how to organize our society to a better job of serving our people. There are too many citizens who have lost faith in our government, in big business, and our other institutions. They have seen President Trump call our media “dishonest,” our justice system […]
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(Part I of a series on the future of banking and finance) Finance’s 20th century business lines – their go-to money makers – are all in jeopardy of being destroyed. Primarily this is due to finance’s blatant disregard for its customers’ actual needs. This is the result of the industry’s traditional 40%+ profit margins that […]
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We have myopically come to believe that “survival of the fittest” is synonymous with competition and is the highest expression of our nature. Yet survival of the fittest also includes those creatures, including humans, who successfully and continuously cooperate to survive. Case in point: Lions adorn the flags of many nations as symbols of individual […]
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Look at the picture. What do you see? A manufacturing process, with no workers in sight. We humans have been replaced by robotic arms and artificial intelligence.
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In response to the Great Recession, central banks continue to engage in massive monetary stimulus to artificially depress the costs of capital. Many commentators have expressed concerns (and I concur) about the inflationary forces they believe must naturally be building up because of this stimulus. Yet, very few commentators have discussed the consequential little worm […]
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