Fwd: David Korten – “Agenda for a New Economy”

2010-05-09

Richard Moore

Begin forwarded message:


From: “Janet M Eaton” <•••@••.•••>
Date: 9 May 2010 04:24:14 IST
Subject: David Korten  “Agenda for a New Economy- Why Wall Street Can’t Be Fixed and How to Replace It.”

David Korten outlines an agenda to liberate the latent
entrepreneurial energies of Main Street from Wall Street´s deadly
grip and bring into being a new economy-locally based, community-
oriented, and devoted to creating a better life for all, not simply
increasing profits. It will require courageous and imaginative
changes to how we measure economic success, organize our financial
system, even the very way we create money. Korten outlines a
challenging, but practical agenda summarized at the end of the book
in his version of the economic address to the nation he wishes Barack
Obama were able to deliver.

fyi-janet

See also:
http://essentialsharingdocs.blogspot.com/2010/04/david-korten-agenda-for-new-economy.html
David Korten speaking in Portland Oregon from his most recent book,
“Agenda for a New Economy- Why Wall Street Can’t Be Fixed and How to
Replace It.”

and
YES! Magazine’s  excerpt from Korten’s book The Speech President
Obama Should Deliver.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/path-to-a-new-economy/the-speech-president-obama-should-deliver…-but-wont-2/


————————

http://www.davidkorten.org/NewEconomyBook

AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY: FROM PHANTOM WEALTH TO REAL WEALTH
A Declaration of Independence from Wall Street
To purchase the book

Get the book free with a subscription to YES!

Discussion Guide

Offers bold economic reforms that attack the underlying cause of the
current economic collapse, not just its symptoms
A radical but achievable program that restores and builds on the
fundamental strengths of the American economy

C-Span Book TV’s “Top Nonfiction Authors and Books.”
Agenda for a New Economy was launched on January 23, 2009, just after
the Obama inauguration, at a national theological conference
sponsored by the historic Trinity Church, located in the heart of
Wall Street. See my report and related interviews on PBS NOW with
David Broncaccio and Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and Juan
Gonzales. See also the presentation at Elliot Bay Books discussing
the background and message of Agenda featured on C-Span 2 Book TV
“Top Nonfiction Authors and Books.”

Today´s economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression.
However, as David Korten shows, the steps being taken to address it –
including pouring trillions of dollars into bailouts for the Wall
Street institutions that created the mess – do nothing to deal with
the reality of a failed economic system. It´s like treating cancer
with band aids. And the financial collapse now in the public
spotlight is only the tip of the iceberg.  The system´s social and
environmental failures may ultimately be even more destructive.

Korten identifies the deeper sources of the failure: Wall Street
institutions that have perfected the art of creating phantom “wealth”
without producing anything of real value.  Its major players engage
in speculative trading, buy into asset bubbles, create debt pyramids,
and engage in predatory lending practices. Their seeming success
created an economic mirage that led us to believe the economy was
expanding exponentially, even as our economic, social, and natural
capital eroded and most people struggled ever harder to make ends
meet.

Our hope lies not with Wall Street, Korten argues, but with Main
Street, which creates real wealth from real resources to meet real
needs. He outlines an agenda to liberate the latent entrepreneurial
energies of Main Street from Wall Street´s deadly grip and bring into
being a new economy-locally based, community-oriented, and devoted to
creating a better life for all, not simply increasing profits. It
will require courageous and imaginative changes to how we measure
economic success, organize our financial system, even the very way we
create money. Korten outlines a challenging, but practical agenda
summarized at the end of the book in his version of the economic
address to the nation he wishes Barack Obama were able to deliver.

Korten´s intention is not to offer final answers, but rather to
provoke discussion of options that powerful interests prefer not be
mentioned. These interests devised the system that has brought us to
the brink of ruin. It´s time to turn away from the Wall Street system
of phantom wealth and return to an economy firmly rooted in the long-
term health of people and the planet.

Contents
Preface

PART I: The Case for a New Economy
 1.  Looking Upstream
 2.  Modern Alchemists and the Sport of Moneymaking
 3.  A Real-Market Alternative
 4.  More Than Tinkering at the Margins

PART II: The Case for Eliminating Wall Street
 5.  What Wall Street Really Wants
 6.  Buccaneers and Privateers
 7.  The High Cost of Phantom Wealth
 8.  The End of Empire

PART III: Agenda for a Real-Wealth Economy
 9.  What People Really Want
10.  Essential Priorities
11.  Liberating Main Street
12.  Real-Wealth Financial Services
13.  Life in a Real-Wealth Economy

PART IV: Change the Story, Change the Future
14.  An Address I Hope President Obama Will One Day Deliver to the
Nation  [Read an exerpt from the Address]
15.  When the People Lead, the Leaders Will Follow

Notes
About the Author

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What Others Are Saying About Agenda for a New Economy
Endorsements from Notable Figures

A View from Kenya

Bold Proposal for a New Economy” a review by John Cavanangh

The book is compelling, urgent, and easy to read. It will be a great
tool to help harness the anxiety and anger gripping our nation. And
it will link together the disparate parts of our country to work for
progressive economic change, including grassroots groups like Jobs
with Justice, which is working with my own Institute for Policy
Studies to create a new comic book on the meltdown. It will also draw
in an organization Korten co-founded, the vibrant Business Alliance
for Local Living Economies, which is spreading innovation among local
business leaders..

Review by Steven Chapman

Review by Gene Marshall

The story behind the book

The story from the perspective of Berrett-Koehler Publishers