• The Challenge and the Goal
• A Question of Direction
• Why We Will Succeed
• Seeds For Change
• Audio Visual Resources

• Things You Can Do
  • At the Personal Level
  • At the Community Level
  • At the Government Level
• "Life, Money & Illusion
  • What the book is about
  • Book Reviews
  • What people are saying
  • Where to find the book
• Touring with the Message
  • Where we are going
  • Where we have been
  • What people are saying
  • Discussion Outline
  • Planning an Event
• Measuring Well-Being
  • History
  • Measuring Genuine Progress
  • Current Program
  • Well-Being Measurement Act
  • Measuring Well-Being document
• Mutual Provision - Economy
  • Economic Concern
  • 3/5ths of Ecology
  • The Invisible Hand
  • Supply and Demand
  • The Genuine Progress Index

• About the Book
• Order the book
• Other writings
• Audio-Visual Material
• Arrange a talk by Mike Nickerson

(For an excelent look at problems within the financial system, go to the Web Site for COMER the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform.)

---

The Economic Problem

Societies around the world are being disassembled to make countries 'competitive' in the eyes of international money lenders. Their approval is considered necessary to continue growing. We feel problems would be more efficiently solved if decisions were based on sustainability (see below) rather than the perpetual expansion of economic activity.

Ignoring social and environmental well-being is dangerous!

The depreciation of education, health care, environmental protection and other services diminish the well-being and resilience of human communities. Fear of job loss is destabilizing and unemployment leads to a wide range of social ills.

---

Spending cuts result from a mistaken focus on expanding GDP:

The GDP accounting system is biased and misguided and is the source of many problems.

Policies based on sustainability will provide for human need more effectively than those presently serving the expansion of GDP.

---

Two points support this view.

A) The present system of accounts is flawed in two serious ways:

1) What it counts.
2) What it does not count.

B) Following advice based on the flawed accounts results in smaller revenues than needed to maintain society.

1) Corporations pay less tax than they used to.
2) The 'new economy' of financial trading is largely un-taxed.
3) Governments pays interest to private banks when it could pay interest to itself through the national banks.

Details here.

Living within our means

While asserting that our mistaken accounting system is responsible for hard times in the midst of abundance, we have to acknowledge one premise of the cut-back mentality. We do have to live within our means. Our means, however, are the constraints of sustainability not the figures calculated using the heavily biased system of national accounts.

Reframing the notion of 'our means' in this way would be a public relations victory on the side of survival.

---

Examples of policy measures that can or are being taken to advance sustainability:

Waste taxes in Europe.

Making Markets Work for Sustainability: a review measures to make the best price reflect the most sustainable choice.

Deduct environmentally sustainable living expenses from taxable income.