"A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection not an invitation for hypnosis."
- Umberto Eco

Ellen Brown from the book Web of Debt

"Today the government is actually run by the money cartel. Big business holds all the cards, because its affiliated banks have appropriated the power to create money for themselves. These giant cartels can be brought to heel only by cutting off their source of power and returning it to its rightful sovereign owners, the people and their representative government. The problem with the current monetary scheme is not that the government is irresponsibly running the printing presses but that private bankers are covertly engaged in that practice. Bankers have monopolized the business of issuing and lending the national money supply, a function that the Constitution delegates solely to Congress. What hides behind the banner of "free enterprise" today is a system in which giant corporate monopolies have used their affiliated banking trusts to generate unlimited funds to buy up competitors, the media, and the government itself, forcing truly independent private enterprise out. Big private banks are allowed to create money out of nothing, lend it at interest, foreclose on the collateral, and determine who gets credit and who doesn't. They can advance massive loans to their affiliated cartels and hedge funds, which use the money to raid competitors and manipulate markets. If some players have the power to create money and others don't, the playing field is not 'level' but allows some favored players to dominate and coerce others. "

There is a disturbing amount of evidence that our problems don't just extend to the private corporate banks, but that in fact the entire World Banking System exists not to enrich humanity but to enslave humanity beneath its debt.

While I certainly cannot claim to know the motivations that guide those behind the institutions currently in power, I can however investigate their history and their actions.

http://secret-of-life.org/the-Federal-Reserve

La décroissance: Entropie - Écologie - Économie (1979)

La table des matières; Quatrième de couverture.

Introduction à la deuxième édition, 1995; Préface à la première édition (1979).

Table des figures

Fiches des auteurs cités par Georgescu-Roegen (Annexe II, pp. 203-231)

Le texte de La Décroissance au format Word 2001 à télécharger (Un fichier de 213 pages et de 1 Mo.)

Le texte de La Décroissance au format PDF (Acrobat Reader) à télécharger (Un fichier de 213 pages et de 956 K.)

Le texte de La Décroissance au format rtf (Rich text format) à télécharger (Un fichier de 213 pages et de 1,5 Mo.)

Une édition électronique réalisée à partir du livre de Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994). La décroissance. Entropie - Écologie - Économie (1979). Présentation et traduction de MM. Jacques Grinevald et Ivo Rens. Nouvelle édition, 1995. [Première édition, 1979]. Paris: Éditions Sang de la terre, 1995, 254 pp. [Autorisation accordée par les ayant-droit et les traducteurs, MM. Jacques Grinevald et Ivo Rens, Université de Genève, le 17 février 2004] Une éditions numérique réalisée par Gemma Paquet, bénévole, professeure retraitée du Cégep de Chicoutimi.
Courriel: Ivo.Rens@droit.unige.ch, professeur, Université de Genève.

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

http://judithrichharris.info/tna/tna2larg.htm

This groundbreaking book, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times notable pick, rattled the psychological establishment when it was first published in 1998 by claiming that parents have little impact on their children's development. In this tenth anniversary edition of The Nurture Assumption, Judith Harris has updated material throughout and provided a fresh introduction. Combining insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, primatology, and evolutionary biology, she explains how and why the tendency of children to take cues from their peers works to their evolutionary advantage. This electrifying book explodes many of our unquestioned beliefs about children and parents and gives us a radically new view of childhood.

Conséquences politiques d’une crise énergétique annoncée

Parmi les nombreuses manifestations de l’échec du système productiviste capitaliste – catastrophes « naturelles », épuisement des ressources, pandémies, famines, disparition d’espèces – la crise énergétique qui pointe et qui se confirme de jours en jours est riche d’enseignements. À travers cet événement majeur on tentera de dégager les caractéristiques du procès de production capitaliste, d’en montrer sa relation organique avec l’accumulation, d’en cerner les limites, d’évaluer les conséquences humaines de son effondrement et de dégager quelques orientations pour l’action.

« Nous allons désormais entamer une ère nouvelle, ère que je décrirais comme celle de la désintégration de l’économie-monde capitaliste. Tous les beaux discours au sujet de la création d’un « nouvel ordre mondial » n’ont été qu’autant de gesticulations, paroles proférées comme le vent, auxquelles plus personne ne croit, ou peu s’en faut, et dont la réalisation paraît chaque jour un peu plus improbable »
Immanuel Wallerstein [1]

ISELIN François

SOMMAIRE

•  1 CRISE DU MODÈLE PRODUCTIVIST
• 2 MODE DE PRÉDATION CAPITALIST
• 3 CAPITALISME ET DURABILITÉ
• 4 ESSENTIEL ET SUPERFLU
• 5 NÉCESSITÉ ET ABONDANCE
• 6 EMBALLEMENT DU PILLAGE
• 7 PENURIE ÉNERGÉTIQUE
• 8 PÉNURIE DE TEMPS
• 9 DOUBLE ACCUMULATION DU (...)
• 10 USAGE ET USURE
• 11 PRODUCTION ET REPRODUCTION
• 12 REPRODUCTION SPONTANNÉE
• 13 VILLE CAMPAGNE
• 14 COUPER LE CONTACT
• 15 REDÉMARRER

7 Ways to Transform Banking

Photo by Ryan MacFarland

Each of us can help build a resilient financial system that will serve real people in real communities.

Fran Korten wrote this article for YES! Magazine

Are you as outraged as I am by the Wall Street bankers with their fat bonuses, shoddy mortgages, and financial shenanigans? With the gridlock in Washington, I wanted to know what “we the people” can do to turn our fury into constructive action. So I turned to my friend Jared Gardner for advice. Jared comes from the financial industry and thinks hard and well about how to change the system.

Here are seven things I gleaned from my discussion with Jared about what we can each do to build a resilient financial system that will serve real people in real communities.

Move your money.

You may have heard about the Move Your Money campaign. The idea is to move your deposits from a Wall Street bank to a community bank or a local credit union. This is a terrific first step to keep the banksters from playing games with your money. Check out Green America's Community Investing website for ideas on what to do.

Move your debt.

Don’t stop with just moving your deposits. Move your debt. It’s in servicing debt that banks make the big money. So if you have a credit card, a car loan, or a mortgage, consider moving them. Find someone at your local bank or credit union who can help you review your debt and see what you could move to a local institution. Your interest payments can build your local economy instead of fattening those Wall Street bonuses.

Persuade your institutions.

Do you belong to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? How about the place where you work? Or a club or nonprofit where you are a member? All of these institutions likely have money and debt. Talk with the leadership about where they do their banking and encourage them to explore what they could move to a local bank. The First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon is considering moving its entire banking relationship from a Wall Street bank to a local bank. And the Responsible Endowments Coalition is urging colleges and universities to do the same. We need to follow these examples and make this a nation-wide movement.

Advocate a state-owned bank.

Sadly for the nation, North Dakota stands alone in having a state-owned bank. But that may change. Ellen Brown reports that five states now have pending legislation to create state-owned banks, and more are studying the possibility. The advantages are tremendous. The Bank of North Dakota has kept credit flowing throughout the financial crisis. More important, the state bank keeps community banks thriving. North Dakota has more community banks per capita than any other state in the union. Those community banks serve local businesses, which in turn generate local jobs—a winning strategy in a job-starved market. According to Brown, last year North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

Form or join a group.

Working with others keeps motivation high. One good option is a Common Security Club. Chapters are forming in communities across the country. Members find ways to help each other with financial difficulties, discuss the roots of the economic crisis, and advocate policies that will turn the system around.

Learn more.

The New Rules Project has a community banking initiative that’s a font of current information on breakthroughs for community banking. Ellen Brown provides regular insights into openings for transforming the banking system. Oregonians for a State Bank is developing allies across the political spectrum who want to strengthen their local economy. And the YES! Magazine website provides a steady stream of stories that spotlight the actions people are taking to build a new economy.

Share these ideas.

People of all political stripes are furious with the Wall Street banks. But they don’t know what to do. So tell everyone you know what you’re doing and why. And share this list. Together we can build a force strong enough to transform the banking system to one that will work for us all.

Conferência-Palestra sobre DECRESCIMENTO SUSTENTÁVEL

Fonte: http://pimentanegra.blogspot.com/

Sexta, 12/11/2010 - 11:00
Local: Auditório da Biblioteca FCT-UNL (Almada)

É possível criar uma sociedade onde se possa viver melhor com menos?

Palestra sobre decrescimento sustentável com a participação de Giorgos Kallis, professor ICREA do Instituto de Ciências e Tecnologias Ambientais da Universidade Autónoma de Barcelona (http://icta.uab.cat/icta )

Degrowth Conference Barcelona 2010 - http://www.degrowth.eu/v1/