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We succeeded in taking that picture, and if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilisations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. - Carl Sagan, 11 May 1996

Is it time to change 20th century economic paradigms?
by Richard Heinberg 05/02/2009

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A hundred years ago, markets ruled: fortunes were made, workers abused, bubbles blown. The Austrian School of economists, led by Ludwig von Mises, said this was fine: despite temporary messiness, the market knows best. 

But the messiness of markets was unacceptable to socialists, some of whom led a revolution in Russia to establish the first state-controlled, planned economy.

Money: A New Beginning (Part 2)
by Charles Eisenstein

Prosperity is relating, not acquiring.
– Tom Brown, Jr.

Our present monetary system generates a necessity for endless growth, embodies linear thinking, defies the cyclical patterns of nature, and drives the relentless conversion of all forms of wealth into currency. Furthermore, the concept of “interest” is the wellspring of our economy's ever-intensifying competition, systemic scarcity, and concentration of wealth. Interest is tied into how we see ourselves as separate, competing subjects seeking to gather more and more of the world within the boundaries of "mine." Today, however, the human identity is undergoing a profound metamorphosis. Part of this shift in our conception of self and world will be a new system of money consonant with the new human being.

Finding Main Street Good in the Wall Street Crash
by Bob Waldrop  ( BobWaldrop.net )
October 1st, 2008

A friend of mine showed up, in a new pickup.  I asked him, “Where did you get the money for that?”  He said, “I borrowed it of course.”

But isn’t there something wrong with that picture?  We are being assured every minute of the day that the “credit markets” are drying up.  No credit is available. The government must immediately steal $700 billion from Main Street and give it to the nice, smart, rich folks on Wall Street. This will clear the clogged debt marketplaces and happy days will be here again.

So I asked my young friend, “Who gave you a loan?”