MATTERS IN THE AIR
The Global Table meets Wednesdays 12noon-2pm at the School of Economic Science, 11-13 Mandeville Place, W1U 3AJ. From Bond Street tube, cross over Oxford Street, go west, at GAP turn right into James Street, and keep going – after a couple of blocks you will come to it on the left.
We are a network in search of ways to inclusive justice – see Global Table. ‘Great change comes from the worst moments’ – from the BBC’s ‘How the earth made us.’
Matters to air… Reminding us of opportunities before us:
1. Connect to this: http://www.the-free-lunch.blogspot.com/ for some links to the hottest banking news for today. Charles Bazlinton For information from the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development at Southampton University contact: Tarsha Jonas, e-mail: t.jonas@soton.ac.uk– Press release forwarded by Charles Bazlinton http://www.the-free-lunch.blogspot.com/
2. YOUTH TO THE FORE – reporting encouraging signs from Eirwen’s ‘Peace Child Alpha and Omega – a musical journey through faith’; and the build up of the team drive of Call4Reform
3. URGENT consideration: MR and LVT :”The key is to “divert the economic rent” currently flowing into bankers (which don’t provide public services) into governments (which do). Monetary reform without land reform just entrenches present landed interests. Land reform without money reform is slow, difficult or painful as the basis for money issue is removed. It’s easier to do both than to do either alone.”
4. Bahrain
5. Rewriting the wikipedia on Capitalism – Chris Keene
6. Global Financial Integrity Launches “G20 Transparency” Campaign Calling on World Leaders to Fight Poverty, Protect Human Rights, Global, grassroots petition drive seeks 100,000 signatures in six months- www.G20transparency.com
7. How does Obama’s Bank strategy affect our communication on Monetary Justice?
4. The Great Transition by NEF is a must read as we look for where momentum lies – www.neweconomics.org/publications/the-great-transition and plan a collaborative strategy. The Coalition for Economic Justice, in whose work the Global Table is a partner, is seeking dialogue with NEF.
5. A professional poll and the Dyson team campaign? – a Poll on publicly created money has been proposed. It would cost £300-500. I have received pledges for £295 from 11 people to date. Would any others of the 140 on this list care to pledge in support of this way of gauging public understanding and support? RSVP to peterchallen@gmail.com. The decision on whether to proceed has not yet been taken.
6. Report on the ‘Long Finance’ seminar http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=4&EventId=1019. We had a good day in the city at the Gresham College sponsored finance conference. We should back Robin’s approach to Brian Eno. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Now_Foundation. They are not orthodox and speak well to long sustainable planetary factors of production. What a relief! We were in the middle of the city in a huge banking institution.
CURRENT MATTERS OF RELEVANCE:
Times Jan 14 ‘Britain should not be a Casino’ – see http://times.cluster.newsint.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6982965.ece
Chris Cook Youtube on Oil Markets – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6oaLgcJfkw
The Race Between Tipping Points: Can We Save Our Civilization? A renowned environmentalist outlines 10 areas of grave concern, and 10 trends that give us reason for hope. By Lester R. Brown – http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/environmental-policy/tipping-points-environmental-trends-zmaz10fmzraw.aspx
Vulture Funds – Debt is still a major barrier to delivering a world free of poverty. Developing countries have been greatly assisted by international debt relief. However, these deals are undermined in UK courts by private firms, dubbed ‘Vulture Funds’, that purchase debt at low cost and sue the developing country for the full amount plus costs. We have the chance to stop this, if enough MPs turn out to support the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill on 26 February. Ask your MP to take action.
“THE BATTLE OF THE TITANS: JPMORGAN VS. GOLDMAN SACHS Or Why the Market Was Down for 7 Days in a Row” – http://www.truthout.org/the-battle-titans-jpmorgan-vs-goldman-sachs-or-why-market-was-down-7-days-a-row56526
This strenuous review of Greco is important. It needs to be read with close attention and right through to the final paragraph where he explains the damage to LETs of Greco’s approach. http://economics.arawakcity.org/node/344. If you don’t agree that this is a fundamental critique to be widely read, please explain why after comparing it with R Cook’s review – http://www.richardccook.com/2009/10/12/thomas-grecos-the-end-of-money-and-the-future-of-civilization-a-review-by-richard-c-cook/
GFI Launches “G20 Transparency” Campaign Calling on World Leaders to Fight Poverty, Protect Human Rights Global Financial Integrity, January 21, 2010 WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) launched its “G20 Transparency” campaign today, an international grassroots sign-on drive to collect 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for greater transparency in the global financial system. The petition will be delivered to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper prior to the G20 meeting in Toronto at the end of June. The campaign kicked off with the debut of www.G20transparency.com, a Web site devoted to the campaign where supporters may read and sign the petition, which will be available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. The Web site will also allow supporters to share the petition with others via peer-to-peer and social networking tools.
Note how to transform UK politics. Ekklesia is involved in POWER2010, an exciting new initiative set up by the Joseph Rowntree Trusts to push democratic reform up the political agenda in the run up to the general election. Last weekend, POWER2010 held a meeting with people from across the UK to sift through the 4,500 proposals they have received and come up with a long list of proposals to put to a public online vote. The final list of 29 proposals has now been published. You can vote for as many of them as you would like. The top 5 will be put to candidates at the general election.Find out more – www.power2010.org.uk.
Note also that church bodies have worked together to create an electronic booklet and website at www.churcheselection.org.uk, hosted by the official ecumenical body Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), which includes information on how to arrange a hustings meeting at local churches as well as a downloadable guide offering information on the important questions of this election campaign.
Spare half an hour to read the article referred to and become more informed on the world economic scene and its solution than readers of any mainstream media source on the planet! First go to: http://www.the-free-lunch.blogspot.com/ then click on ‘a very readable and hard hitting article’. Charles Bazlinton
Inequality – view Richard Wilkinson describing his findings in ‘The Spirit Level’.. seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq_sxLpq-tcReports of actvity this past week.
Dick Rodgers http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Money-creation/ now [115]
