River rafting in Greece

Last June (2019) I was privileged to experience this little adventure with friends in northern Greece.

My Travels: 2013-November/December

I’ve been abroad since Nov 13, starting in Istanbul where I gave a presentation at the Green Economy and Commons conference and spent a few days exploring the city. (Here is the link to the conference site : http://www.tr.boell.org/web/35-1830.html).

Istanbul was interesting and I think my presentation went over well. You can see the pictures from my Istanbul visit at, https://picasaweb.google.com/112258124863172998784/201311IstanbulTurkey?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJv3nPOd34igcQ&feat=directlink

From there I flew to Kuala Lumpur then a couple days later traveled by bus to Penang.

Penang

I stayed almost two weeks in Penang at a small Hotel where I’ve stayed before. I like Penang but this part of it (Georgetown) is very busy and the traffic gets worse each time I visit. Also, lodging costs keep going up as old guest houses get refurbished and new ones pop up.

Penang is a UN world heritage site, very diverse ethnically, racially, religiously, culturally, etc. and, in my opinion, has the best food in the world, much of it vegetarian. Food is still cheap there; how about $1 for breakfast, $2-$3 for dinner? Of course if you want western food you’ll pay more but still less than western prices. Penang was once a British colony, so that influence is evident, including English and Scottish street names and a British fort (Fort Cornwallis) built in the late 1700s . Penang’s population is majority Chinese with a healthy sprinkling of Tamil Indians and Malays. Islam is an ever increasing presence as more mosques and masjids are sited in Chinese neighborhoods.

Cambodia

Two weeks in Penang was enough. I chose to visit Cambodia instead of going to Thailand, taking a flight on December 5 from Penang to Phnom Penh.

My Cambodia visit got off to an inauspicious start. After checking into my hotel, I decided to take a stroll down by the river. I tried to cross the street and got sideswiped by a motorbike; no stitches but my left shin got skinned and bruised. I managed to get to the other side and sat down on a convenient bench; almost passed out but got some aid from a British friend I had been traveling with for some days, and a Polish couple who happened to be passing by. My wounds have fortunately turned out to be minor, no trouble walking, only a little discomfort, and healing is almost complete by now.

I spent only a couple days Phnom Penh then decided to take a minivan to Sihanoukville which is on the Gulf of Thailand. I stayed a week at Otres Beach about 5 km from Sihanoukville. Otres has a nice clean sandy beach, clean water, and a couple dozen guest houses and bungalow places ranging from backpacker dorms and huts to pretty decent rooms with A/C and hot showers. Almost all have free wi-fi and decent internet connections. After two nights in the rather primitive Done Right ($18), I moved a few meters away to the more comfortable and quiet Otres Guest House ($20). There are many places to eat right on the beach and you can hang out all day long on their lounge chairs if you buy a drink ($1-3) or a meal ($2.50-$6.00). Done Right has both “geodomes” and “cubes,” as well a dorm rooms, is run by young  people and meant to appeal to the twenty-something backpacker crowd. As you might expect, there are lots of dogs and cats around, (and consequently, lots of flies) an open-air pool table and ping pong table, so there’s lots of activity from morning to evening, but nights are fairly quiet except when the dogs get set off by something.

At my age, I require something more comfortable and conventional. Otres Guest House provides it. My room was large and I had a desk and chair that provided a decent work station. The beach across the way provides a good diversion when I tire of working.

I had some surprisingly good Greek food in Sihanoukville at a restaurant (the sign reads “Greek Cousine”) that is run by Greek restaurateurs who spend the off season here.

I’m now in Kampot, a charming little riverside town which is a couple hours’ drive toward the southeast, where the lodgings and food are both good and cheap.

I also have Siem Reap (Angkor Wat ) on my agenda and will visit there at some point. I hope to schedule another visit to Phnom Penh to see the “killing fields” and the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21). Here’s a bit of pertinent history:

“Prior to 1975, Toul Sleng was a high school. When the Khmer Rouge came to power it was converted into the S-21 prison and interrogation facility. Inmates were systematically tortured to extract confessions, after which they were executed at the killing fields of Choeung Ek. S-21 processed over 17,000 people, less than a dozen of whom survived. The building now serves as a museum, a memorial and a testament to the madness of the Khmer Rouge regime.”

Yes, Cambodia has that gruesome history, but so do many other countries, including the U.S., Argentina, etc. The situation now seems quite different. You do notice a dearth of old people, and Cambodian government is said to be corrupt, but that seems to have little impact on the tourist. The people are friendly and helpful and no one has tried to rip me off yet. Still, this is a third-world country and not up to the standards of Malaysia or even Thailand, which have had more time to learn the tourism business.

New Year’s Newsletter-2011

Much has transpired since I sent out my last newsletter early in December. I’ve spent time in Phuket and Krabi (Thailand), Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and Port Dickson (Malaysia), Sulawesi and Bali (both in Indonesia), then back to Bangkok and Chiang Mai (Thailand). I’ll not try to recount all of the significant events, experiences and achievements in these places, I’ll just say that I live a very blessed and interesting life. If you’d like to see pictures, you can visit my Photo Gallery at http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg.

In this edition, I’ll touch on the following topics:

Chiang Mai

Thai Entrepreneurs

Bali—The myth and the Reality

2011 Likely to Bring Serious Challenges to the Middle-class

Investing in the Common Good

Plans

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is still one of my favorite places. I’ve been here several times over the past three years, staying for varying lengths of time. This time I will be here for a month, after which I’ll return to North America for a planned stay of four months. The universe will decide what happens after that, but I have it in my mind to return to Thailand having already booked a return flight from Bangkok to LA and back

What’s the attraction here? There are several. First of all, I have friends here, both social and professional, so it is possible to strike a good balance between work and play. Secondly, I can better afford to live here than in the US. Very clean and comfortable lodgings can be had for $200-$300 per month, complete with private bath, good internet connection, convenient location, good public transportation that means I don’t need to have a car or even a motorbike to get around, and good food that is reasonably cheap. Thirdly, there are cultural attractions, many of which derive from the rich mix of Thais and foreigners. There’s a pretty good live music scene that includes jazz and Celtic music, plus frequent festival events. Fourthly, from Chiang Mai it is relatively easy and cheap to reach other interesting destinations throughout Southeast Asia. I could go on…

Thai Entrepreneurs

In Thailand, there is no such thing as unemployment insurance, and old age benefits provided by the government are so tiny as to be insignificant. That means that Thais need to be enterprising and supportive of one another to a greater extent than westerners. Besides that, Thais seem to have a greater connection to family and friends in the countryside who still have access to land, which makes me think that they will have an easier time adapting to the adverse economic conditions that appear to be on the horizon.

Pa is an entrepreneur. She has a juice stand which she sets up amongst a score of other food vendors every afternoon for the night market. Many of her customers are regulars. Split about half and half between Thai and farang (foreigner), they come back to her again and again, not  only because she makes the best smoothies and shakes, but because she is a bright spirit, happy and congenial. She truly enjoys her work, and that draws people like a magnet.

There is a kind of community amongst the vendors who operate there just outside the gate to the old city. It is a community that includes not only the vendors, but a goodly number of regular customers, as well. The vendors all know and help each other out in various ways, tending each other’s stands whenever it is necessary to run a short errand, or lending a hand when business is brisk.

Each vendor has a wheeled cart that is kept somewhere else in the off hours. They are brought to the market site in late afternoon, then wheeled off again around midnight by other entrepreneurs who make a business of providing the service of moving carts back and forth.

All of these people work very hard for little reward. Their prices seem absurdly low by western standards and in comparison to most of the local restaurants that cater to tourists—a fresh fruit shake for about half a U.S. dollar, a cup of fresh ginger tea for about 17 cents, a plate of pad thai noodles with chicken for less than a dollar. The low overhead expense of operating a street stall is a major factor that makes these businesses viable.

What makes their prices seem cheap to us of course hinges upon the exchange rates between the Thai baht and the currencies that tourists bring from home—dollars, euros, pounds, yen, etc. These foreign exchange rates are determined by mechanisms that seem to defy logic, and that few people understand. They are supposedly determined by what is touted as free trading (buying and selling) in the currency markets, but it is no secret that these markets are manipulated by central banks and big traders. In fact, the central banks of the various countries have a mandate to “manage” the value of their currencies. One has to wonder, what is the difference between “management” and “manipulation” and for whose benefit is it done?

Pa’s day begins early and ends late. I accompanied her a few times to see what her business entails. It starts in the late morning with a trip to the market to buy the fresh fruit ingredients needed for the evening’s business—papaya, pineapple, mango, watermelon, banana, apples, etc., and a separate trip to a roadside stand to collect a supply of the sweetest strawberries I’ve ever tasted. Then it’s off to the place where her cart is kept during the off hours where she washes the fruit and prepares for the evening’s business. The vendor carts get put in place around 4 in the afternoon and customers start coming around 5. It’s a pleasant experience to join the bustle of activity as the dinner hour wears on and waves of customers arrive, place their orders, and sit down at the portable tables to enjoy the food, the conversation and people watching. By 10 or 11, vendors begin cleaning up and shutting down and getting ready to repeat the process again the next day.

Bali—The myth and the Reality

The myth of Bali probably far exceeds the reality. That is not to say that it’s not worth the visit, it is, but if one is envisioning scenes from the movie South Pacific, they are likely to be disappointed. On my two visits, which were three years apart, I’ve spent most of my time in Ubud, so my observations are extremely limited. There are probably some more remote areas that can provide a different experience, but my impression of Bali is that it has become too dependent upon tourism and is rapidly losing its authenticity.

Ubud is purportedly the cultural center of the island, a claim that stands up pretty well. The whole place pretty much closes up around 10 or 11 at night. One notable thing about it is how quiet it is in the early morning hours. There are no late night discos blaring cacophonous sounds and heavy drum beats into the night, and traffic pretty much stops by midnight. The absence of mosques means that there are no artificially amplified “calls to prayers” rousing one from sleep at 4 a.m. as they do in Malaysia and other parts of Indonesia. The only sounds one hears are the insects buzzing in the trees, doves cooing, and the inevitable rooster crowing as dawn approaches. I take these sounds as God’s own call to prayer as s/he reminds us of the great mystery that is life, a mystery in which we all partake and are challenged to make good use of.

I spent the last night of my Balinese visit in Kuta—not really long enough to understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of the place. I knew in advance of Kuta’s reputation as being very “touristy” and wide open. It clearly is the former, crowded with foreigners, traffic congested, and filled with trendy shops, but I can’t confirm the latter. Although the two usually go together, Ubud seems to be the exception to that rule. I’ve spent enough time there to get a good sense of the place. There are plenty of tourists there and the town is dependent upon them, but any hanky-panky that goes on there must be deep underground.

I was surprised to see so many family groups in Kuta. I found the beach there to be not at all inviting. The beach itself is far from the broad expanse of golden sand that one imagines of a tropical paradise, and the water was roiled by a heavy offshore wind (and probably other things that go with heavy concentrations of humans).

I had some difficulty finding a place to stay in Kuta. The ones I tried were either too expensive or fully occupied. I did eventually find acceptable lodgings, and after a late check-in and much needed shower, I went in search of food and drink. The beachside restaurant I chose (Blue Ocean) saved the day. It turned out to have free Wi-Fi, pretty good food, and a fabulous band that played a lot of great tunes from the 70s and 80s. The mixed-age crowd included a “mature” couple whose jitterbug skills were a pleasure to watch. Here’s a clue to my persistent question of why people choose to vacation in places that are overrun with other tourists. What for me is a negative, is for them an attraction. Tourists want to be with other people who are like themselves in some place other than home, where they can let their hair down and party.

One last thing about Indonesia, They get you coming and going–US$25 for your visa-on-arrival, and 150,000 Rupiah departure tax (about $17)on your way out—not a lot of money but annoying nonetheless.

2011 Likely to Bring Serious Challenges to the Middle-class

I’ve presented strong evidence in some of my recent blog posts (Inflation Will Destroy the Dollar) that we are on the verge of large price increases resulting from the US government fiscal crisis and massive inflation of the dollar (euphemistically referred to as “quantitative easing”). The last two years have already brought significant increases in the cost of living, despite government pronouncements to the contrary (Chris Martenson: Inflation Is So Much Worse Than We’re Told). Ordinary working people and retirees are being hit with a “double whammy” of stagnant or falling incomes along with an increased cost of living. In their phony political charade, the Republicans are pushing to give us more of the former, while the Democrats want to give us more of the latter—either way, the people lose, and ultimately we will get an increasing measure of BOTH.

As the economic and financial picture worsens, people are getting more worried and looking for answers. I’m often asked for advice about how to invest and protect one’s savings. Financial advice is not my main interest but I can read the writing on the wall, and it seems certain that those who have any savings at all will see the purchasing power of their nest egg shrink badly over the next couple years. Investment advisors typically advise clients to choose amongst three basic investment objectives—income, growth, and capital preservation. In a depression, “cash is king,” but in an inflationary scenario, capital preservation becomes the be all and end all and holding dollar denominated securities, including bank balances and CDs, will not cut it.

Investing in the Common Good

As I wrote in my latest book, The End of Money…, I think civilization is going through a metamorphic change. Making the shift away from the debt-based financial system and the growth imperative and to a sustainable, more equitable society requires that we learn radical sharing, cooperation, and organization. I have for a long time  been arguing that we need to reorganize the exchange function to be decentralized and interest-free, and that we also need to reorganize the finance function. That means shifting our financial investments from Wall Street to Main Street and applying them to support community vitality, self-reliance, and the common good.

In that vein it is remarkable to observe the emergent phenomenon known as “crowd sourcing.” While that approach has been variously applied, in the realm of finance it means gathering small amounts of investment money from a large number of sources. Interestingly, those investments are often in the form of donations rather than loans or ownership shares. People are increasingly demonstrating their willingness to put up money for things that may not benefit them financially, but that are seen to be in the public interest. Kickstarter.com is a well-know web platform on which entrepreneurs can showcase their projects and solicit funding.

A more recent development that I am enthusiastic about goes even further in helping to organize support for emergent projects on an ongoing basis. It’s called CREW (Connect to Resources that Expand your World), and it’s avowed purpose is to “connect people to fund small business for the common good.” It’s not quite ready to “go public” yet, but as a member of the Founder’s Circle, I’ll soon be asking you to join CREW. Watch for it.

Plans

I’ll be returning to the US soon, landing in Los Angeles on February 17. My plan is to remain in North America until the middle of June before going abroad again to continue active collaborations and to participate in conferences in Asia and Europe. I’ll head for Tucson shortly upon my return to rest up, see friends, and take care of some business there, then finalize plans for my North American tour (I have a few invitations pending and can consider others).

Here’s wishing you all a happy and fulfilling year, and may 2011 bring greater peace, justice, and harmony to our world.

Tom Greco

Newsletter, December 2010

Newsletter                  December 2010

This edition will be less a travel report and more an expression of my thoughts about the deepening multi-dimensional crisis — what you might consider to be a cautionary tale or “Jeremiad.”

I’m in Phuket, Thailand right now. I came here because it was the cheapest way to get from Europe to Southeast Asia (via Air Berlin). I’m staying in Karon Beach at a very nice inn that is just a short walk to the beach. It’s very modern and clean with good Wi-Fi internet access and cable TV. It’s cheap by US standards but not sustainable for me long-term. At $27 per night (it went up to $33 on Dec 1), it’s more than twice what I’m accustomed to paying in this part of the world, but then this is a beach resort. I’m surprised to find the Russian nouveau riche swarming all over the place. Many of the Thai restaurants even have Russian language menus for them. I had a conversation the other evening with a couple middle-aged Russian women who told me that there’s a direct flight from Moscow to Phuket.

A Working Vacation

A working vacation, that’s the way I live my life. Some people may view this with envy, imagining me sipping pińa coladas while basking around the pool at the Best Western Hotel. That’s not the way it’s done when you need to live on a social security pension. Mostly I stay in guest houses or hostels that cost around $10 a night (mostly clean and decent places, but I’ve had a few interesting experiences). Sometimes I splurge for a few days when the situation requires it, like now in Phuket where I have need of more comfortable and convenient lodgings in order to complete some major writing projects. Then, I may need to spring for $30 a day or more (still way less than a Motel 6 in the US). Food is the other major expense. Even in expensive touristy Phuket, I typically spend no more than 4 or 5 dollars for dinner, and less for breakfast. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s how to live frugally. I do what I need to in order to keep my monthly expenditures, on average, at a level that is equal to my modest income.

Europe

The International Commons Conference which I attended in Berlin a few weeks ago was very interesting and productive. I had the opportunity to give a 6 minute presentation in plenary session, alerting people to the overlooked aspect of the commons, which is the “credit commons.” You can see it at the official conference website, http://www.boell.de/economysocial/economy/economy-commons-10451.html. Just scroll down a bit more than half way until you see my name, then click on it. As a result of that, I had the opportunity to give a longer presentation to a smaller group during a workshop on the second day. I expect my slide show will be posted soon along with reports on other workshops at http://p2pfoundation.net/Berlin_Commons_Conference/Workshops. That site is still developing since not all of the reports are in yet. You can find additional information at the conference wiki, http://p2pfoundation.net/Berlin_Commons_Conference).

As it turned out, I made a couple important contacts and new friends at the conference who invited me to go to Vienna. I ended up spending 10 days there meeting with various people and discussing mutual interests and projects. I also had the opportunity to explore the city and get a taste of Viennese living, which happens largely in the many cafes and restaurants, much of it outdoors, even in the chilly November air. From what I’ve seen, Austrians and Germans in general enjoy a high quality of life. My European tour was capped with a very pleasant week-long visit with long-time friends at their home in Bavaria. There’s been talk of possible collaboration on projects and conferences, so it seems like another visit to Europe may be shaping up for next year.

$7 Gasoline is here

Well, maybe not in the USA (yet), but certainly here in Europe (Germany and Austria). Whenever I travel, I make note of the price of motor fuel. The going rate in both Germany and Austria was about Euro 1.40 per liter. One gallon equals about 3.79 liters so the cost in Euros of a gallon of gas is 5.31 Euros. At the then prevailing exchange rate $1.38, that works out to $7.32 per gallon. What is the current price in the US? When I left Tucson it was about $2.55.

Preparing for the Long Emergency

Now for the bad/good news.

Americans get a very narrow and biased view of the world from their mainstream media. They would do well to consult some foreign sources to see what the rest of the world thinks, not only about us, but about the important issues of the day. I get to see some of those on TV when I travel—RT, CCTV, DW, etc., but mostly I get my news via the internet. There is plenty available if you look for it. The Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/) and Der Spiegel (http://www.spiegel.de/international/) are worth reading. The latter recently published a cover article titled, A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over? You can read it in English at http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,726447,00.html. With that said, here’s an exception to the rule. I’m no big fan of Thomas Friedman, but his New York Times article, From WikiChina, is worth reading. He describes the idiocy of American politics from an imagined Chinese perspective.

Heaven bless Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for letting the light shine into the dark corners of political intrigue. That’s what journalism is supposed to be about. All the fuss reminds me of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Woodward and Bernstein on Watergate, and Jack Anderson squealing on any number of political scoundrels.

The continuing economic depression and the futility of government policies to “get the economy growing again” should cause us all to think long and hard about our way of living. There will be no “getting back to normal.” We have reached the limits to growth and the end of an era. It’s time for a thorough reorganization of virtually all of our systems and institutions. (I’ve written about all this on my blogs (see links below)). How do we even begin to do that? I highly recommend that you read and digest Michael Brownlee’s article, The Evolution Of Transition In The U.S (http://www.countercurrents.org/brownlee301110.htm), keeping in mind that there is one crucial element missing. While Brownlee acknowledges the Economic Crisis as a dimension of the global mega-crisis, he neglects to mention “the elephant in the living room,” which is compound interest that drives the debt-money system, which drives economic expansion, which causes environmental, economic, social, and political dislocations. While the availability of cheap fossil fuels has enabled the growth of industrial civilization, it is usury that has driven it.

Every community should be preparing for emergency situations, hopefully with the involvement of local authorities, but not limited to their typically narrow vision of emergency preparedness. These efforts need to be citizen led. We need to cover short-term, transitory problems that may confront us, but most importantly, we must prepare for the drastically changing conditions in climate, economy, and every other aspect of life that are imminent. Communities need to become more self-reliant in food, energy, and other necessities of life. We should be investing our resources, not in Wall Street, but in Main Street, in local enterprises that will make our communities more secure and sustainable. This will require us to take sharing, cooperation, and organizing to new levels never before contemplated, and to tune-in to that “small, still voice” that, minute-to-minute, gives us our direction.

Quantitative Easing

Quantitative Easing, it sounds like something you might do over the toilet. Indeed, that’s an apt comparison, because that‘s exactly where the US dollar is headed. In this further example of newspeak the authorities are hoping we will not notice what’s really going on. The monetization of government debt by central banks is counterfeiting, pure and simple, though they do it under color of law. Inflating the money supply enables governments to run budget deficits continually. They take real value out of the economy and put empty dollars into it, thus debasing the currency, which leads to higher prices, so you and I end up paying for it. Inflation is among the most regressive of taxes and hits the savers of the middle class the hardest by reducing the purchasing power of their savings. The government is literally stealing your savings.

The Far East

One more thing; before you jump to conclusions about who’s to blame for the Korean dust-up, and get stampeded into supporting another war against a sovereign nation, you should read this background article in The Progressive by Matthew Rothschild: Keeping Perspective on North Korea, (http://www.progressive.org/wx112710.html).

That seems like quite enough to chew on for now, so I’ll leave it at that.

Best wishes to all for a Happy, Healthy, and Holy Holiday season,

Tom

NOTE: If you wish to be added to my list to receive these occasional mailings from me, just let me know.

Summer Newsletter (2010)

12 August 2010

Ubiquitous Northwest blackberries

O.L.D.

No, you haven’t missed anything; this IS the first newsletter I’ve sent out since April. Old Lazy Dog would happily spend all his time reading novels, watching movies, playing computer games, drinking beer with friends, wandering around, visiting family, and lazing around on beaches. I do a bit of that, but that’s not what life is all about or what the times require. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.

The Great Unraveling

No one likes to talk about, much less hear about, things that they consider “bad” or unpleasant. Gloom-and- doomer is a term that is often applied to someone who tries to give warning about some impending challenge. I say challenge instead of disaster because disaster is a judgmental term and the quality of our experience depends a lot on how we view it and our willingness to let go and accept what life brings us. Granted, some things are hard to bear and there are many things that I hope I never have to experience, but… Well, you get the picture.

What I’m leading up to with all that is the financial and economic “weather report.” I think I’ve gained some understanding of these things over the years, and I consider myself fairly well informed about the changing circumstances which leads me to conclude that we are now in the early stages of what I’m calling The Great Unraveling. When I wrote my first book, Money and Debt: a Solution to the Global Crisis, twenty years ago, I reported that our modern monetary system creates money on the basis of debt to which an interest/usury burden is attached, and that the compound growth of debt would eventually exceed the capacity of the real economy to bear it.

If you want to get a more detailed picture of this you can watch one of the many presentations I’ve given about it during the past few years. You’ll find several on my blog, Beyondmoney.net. The most recent presentations which I gave last month are not yet available, but there are several from last year. You might start with the one I did in Seattle last November (The direct link is http://vimeo.com/7490027).

I would also suggest that you pay attention to other sources whose knowledge and insights I respect. Among these are Ilargi and Stoneleigh of The Automatic Earth, http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/. Stoneleigh (a.k.a. Nicole M. Foss) gave a presentation in the UK in June which Aaron Wissner has made available at http://localfuture.org/stoneleigh.htm. I strongly recommend that everyone take the time to listen to it. I think the picture Stoneleigh paints is quite accurate and her short-range predictions are almost certainly correct. If there is one thing I might take issue with, it is what might be expected to happen over the longer term. There are numerous factors that are converging to reshape our world. What has so far been lacking is a process by which the various perspectives can be adequately combined to discover likely scenarios and formulate effective responses.

One thing seems certain to me; civilization is at a point of historical singularity. While there are similarities with past situations (like the Great Depression), it would be a mistake to think that things will play out as they did before. I’ve been talking lately about the emergence of The Butterfly Economy, and if the metaphor is anywhere near the mark, it seems worthwhile to study the way the metamorphic process works in nature. In my view, the old Caterpillar Economy is finished, done, kaput. It is disintegrating beneath our feet. The basic question now is “how do we channel the resources of the disintegrating caterpillar economy in ways that will support the emergence of the new Butterfly Economy.” I gave a talk on this subject just two weeks ago in Portland. No, I don’t have all the answers, and my talk just barely scratched the surface, but I am pretty confident about the direction we need to take.

The bottom line for me at this point is the urgent necessity for action to restore resilience to our communities by learning to share, cooperate, and organize as never before. We need to spend locally, save locally, and invest locally. We need to apply our dollar resources to projects that:

• Make the local community more self-reliant.
• Provide greater local security in food, energy, housing, water and other necessities of life.
• Improve the overall quality of life.
• Protect our savings against inflation of the dollar.

Along these lines, alternative financial consultant, Susan Boskey asked me a few weeks ago to write something about investing for her newsletter. The short article I wrote titled, Investing in Uncertain Times, expresses my ideas about our current situation, and my advice about how to better use our resources in this time of transition. I’ve posted it on my blog at http://beyondmoney.net/2010/08/03/investing-in-uncertain-times/.

And, of course, we need to reduce our dependence upon banks and conventional money by organizing private exchange systems that can be networked together to provide an interest-free and inflation-free means of payment, while making credit reliably available to local productive enterprises.

Northwest Tour, July 23 – August 4

The Portland presentation I alluded to above was part of a tour of the Northwest. When I was invited a few months ago to go to southern Oregon to meet with local exchange advocates, we agreed that late July would be a possible timeframe. I put the word out to my network and it developed into a two week tour with the following itinerary:

1. A public lecture in Medford on The End of Money and the Future of Civilization,

2. A workshop in Ashland to assist the southern Oregon group in advancing to the next stages of their project,

3. A public lecture in Eugene similar to the one I gave in Medford,

4. A public lecture in Portland titled, The Butterfly Economy: How communities are building a new world from the bottom up. In Portland I also consulted with the Xchange Stewards group, which I have been advising since last year. The Butterfly Economy lecture covered a broader scope than the others and included advice on how people might allocate their spare cash to promote local energy and food security in ways that can also provide a hedge against inflation.

5. A Cashless Exchange Colloquium in Seattle that brought together individuals and groups that are either operating or planning exchange systems in Oregon, Washington, or BC.

BALLE conference and Eastern Tour

Toward the end of May I travelled east for about three weeks to visit family and to participate in the annual BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) conference which was this year held in Charleston, SC. I was on a panel with Derek Huntington of Sonoma GoLocal and Jenny Kassan of the Katevich Law Group in Berkeley. Jenny has created a dialog group called Cutting Edge Capital Raising. It is billed as the place to talk about capital raising for small community businesses. It is open to all who wish to participate and you can sign up at http://cuttingedgecap.ning.com/.

Localized small-scale Production of Ethanol Fuel

An unexpected outcome of the BALLE experience was a meeting with Christapher Cogswell who is an associate of David Blume in a startup company, Blume Distillation, LLC, that will manufacture small-scale ethanol production units. I had, up until then, not regarded ethanol to be a viable alternative to gasoline as a motor fuel but after Christapher explained the many advantages of small-scale localized production, I came to realize that communities might gain a great deal from producing their own ethanol for fuel.

Subsequent correspondence led to David Blume’s visiting Tucson and his presentation at the downtown library on July 19. David is the author of the book, Alcohol Can Be a Gas!, a massive book that provides a wealth of information on all aspects of ethanol fuel production and use. The localized approach has the potential to solve virtually all the problems associated with our addiction to petroleum. That’s a bold statement, but David is able to back it up with hard facts and an amazing knowledge of permaculture, history and the politics of technology.

Dave’s talk was inspiring and informative. (Be sure to view his videos at http://www.permaculture.com/).

At that event a number of people expressed interest in pursuing the possibilities of ethanol fuel for enhancing local energy security, so now there is on ongoing discussion about it. I’m enthusiastic about a local ethanol production project because it fits in with my ideas about community economic development and resilience. We need to invest our local resources in local value creation, not in competing with other communities to attract outside interests that are more interested in exploiting rather than improving our community.

Viewed in a broader context, a local ethanol production facility might be created by a local investment cooperative or LLC that would aggregate small amounts of savings and investment capital to establish enterprises that produce food, electricity, affordable housing, and other necessities. Besides his encyclopedic knowledge of the technical aspects of alcohol fuel, Blume has lots of knowledge on how to properly organize an LLC to produce it.

What’s next?

I’m honored to have been invited to participate in the International Commons Conference, which is being jointly organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation (http://www.boell.de/foundation/about-us.html) and the Commons Strategies Group, to be held in Berlin on November 1 and 2. According to the Foundation website

The Heinrich Böll Foundation is part of the Green political movement that has developed worldwide as a response to the traditional politics of socialism, liberalism, and conservatism. Our main tenets are ecology and sustainability, democracy and human rights, self-determination and justice. We Are a Green Think Tank and an International Policy Network.

This will be my first visit to the Continent since 2005 and I am pleased to be returning in connection with such a worthy effort.

Let us be thankful to be living in these exciting times.

Thomas

Thomas H. Greco, Jr.
PO Box 42663, Tucson, AZ 85733, USA
Website: http://reinventingmoney.com
Blog-Beyond Money: http://beyondmoney.net
Blog-Tom’s News and Views: https://tomazgreco.wordpress.com
Photo Gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg
Skype/Twitter: tomazgreco

April Newsletter

Back in the U.S. of A

After spending 3 ½ months in Thailand and Malaysia, I landed back in San Francisco on the ninth of March. Much as I like the Asian tropics for their interesting diversity of cultures, great food, and low cost of living, I felt a combination of things that were at once pushing me out and pulling me back. On the push side, I can mention a few annoyances like the heat and humidity, and the noise. Much of the noise is generated by motorbikes, which are everywhere (I get the sense that if you left your front door open, they’d drive right through your living room). On the pull side, I must also admit that a certain amount of travel weariness had set in, and I was beginning to entertain thoughts of a more settled life in a sustainable community.

Precious

On the flight back from Asia, one of the entertainment selections was the film, Precious. Having watched the Academy Awards ceremonies on television a few nights before, I was curious to see what there was in this film that might have made it worthy of consideration, and of the performance that was deemed to be the winner for best supporting actress.

I found the film hard to watch at first, but as the story developed, I found myself totally enthralled by it. Precious is a heart-wrenching and stark portrayal of life in-the-raw, the kind of film one does not enjoy so much as marvel at, a glimpse into a world of exclusion, poverty, abuse, and dependence that exists right here is the midst of our own cities. It’s also a story of transcendence and heroic overcoming against incredible odds.

Just three weeks later, while hanging out at Harbin Hot Springs, I came across the book (originally called Push) which the movie was based on. It was just sitting there on a table in the library. How could I NOT pick it up? The book, even more gritty and wrenching than the film, is a novel based on the author’s experiences as a literacy teacher in New York City. You can read about it and a hear a 5 minute interview with the author by NPR’s Michelle Norris at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120176695.

The Most Dangerous Man in America

During my month-long stay in the Bay area, I had the privilege to meet Daniel Ellsberg and to be amongst the crowd of several dozen people who gathered at his home to watch the new film, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Winner of numerous festival awards, and nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Feature Documentary, the film distills into 90 minutes, the story of government deception and malfeasance and one man’s courageous decision to tell the people the truth.

I’m old enough to remember the events as they unfolded and were reported in the news media, but being highly controversial and scattered as they were over a long time period, their import and meaning did not then penetrate very deeply beyond the veil of my own indoctrination. Now, more than 40 years later, with the pertinent facts gathered together and the inclusion of newly-available audio records of then President Richard Nixon’s maniacal ravings about nuking the Vietnamese into oblivion, we have a compelling picture of the abuse of power and a failed policy that extended over five presidencies from Truman to Nixon.

Since 9/11, Americans have seen an ever greater concentration of power at the top levels of government, finance and industry, along with increasing government secrecy and violation of civil liberties. The USA Patriot Act effectively shreds the Bill of Rights.

This film is the kind of powerful medicine needed to rouse the body politic to face the political realities of our time and, hopefully, reinvigorate our struggle to “escape the “matrix.” It is a film that every American should see, especially those who are too young to remember America’s war against Viet Nam. You can see the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXlmQeSpqI4&hl=en_US&fs=1&.

California Teaming

A main reason for my lengthy stay in the Bay area was to participate in a series of events that occurred between April 9 and 13. The first of these was the California Coop Conference in Santa Rosa which was organized by the California Center for Cooperative Development. I gave a presentation as part of a panel that included Derek Huntington and Chris Lindstrom. That session was titled, Local Currencies: Reclaiming Our Economic Power.

The keynote speaker at that event was Jim Anderson of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center who gave a very inspiring presentation about a community development program in Cleveland, Ohio which has resulted in the formation of the Evergreen Cooperatives. Here’s the link to a short video about it: http://blip.tv/file/2749165. This could become a useful model for other communities to emulate. The following day, Derek and I were joined by Krista Vardabash and Chris Lindstrom on a panel session at the San Francisco Green Festival. The third event was the change Exchange conference in Calistoga that was organized by Chris Lindstrom and the RSF Foundation.

I’m encouraged to note increasing recognition of the empowerment potential inherent in the mutual credit clearing process. It is significant that two major organizations, Green America (formerly Co-op America) and BALLE (the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) have embraced mutual credit clearing and will soon be offering that service to their members.

Coming up, I will be traveling east in a couple weeks to participate in some further events, workshops, and consultations. I’ll be presenting as part of a panel at the BALLE Conference (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) in Charleston, South Carolina on May 22^nd (Saturday at 2:30 pm). Our session is titled, Foundations for Credit and Finance in a Local Living Economy. Panelists are Derek Huntington, Sonoma County GoLocal Cooperative; Tom Greco, author, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization; and Jenny Kassan, Katovich Law Group.

Springtime in the Desert

I arrived back in Tucson in mid-April, taking two days to drive from California.

Even California’s Mojave Desert offered a show of spring blooms, but it’s nothing compared to the beauty and variety to be found in the Sonora Desert of Arizona.

The variety of wildflowers, bushes, and trees, the fragrances, the mountains, and open vistas, are some of the things that make me love this place.

After an absence of several years, the gardening impulse has once again begun to stir. I could not resist adding a potted sweet basil plant to my shopping cart when I went for groceries last week. Root-bound in its tiny pot, it cried out to be transplanted into a larger one. Alas, four of the five stems have died …but one survives.

Let us hope that the human race will be as fortunate.

Happy springtime, wherever you may be,

Thomas

Newsletter-March 2010

March 2010 Newsletter

Obama and the Politics of Change

I hadn’t planned to spend my final week in Thailand in Hua Hin, but the fates conspired to take me back there for an encounter with Barack Obama, not in person, of course but in a literary sense. Having finished the Stephen Coontz novel (Final Flight) I had picked up in Penang, I went looking through the small collection of books at my Hua Hin guest house for something else to read. Along with a few books in German, which are of no use to me, I found a handful of books in English. The only one that caught my eye was Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father.

It’s not one that’s been on my list of books to read, I’m generally disinclined to read books written by politicians or other famous people, as they rarely qualify as good literature and most often are simply marketing tools or attempts to capitalize financially on their fame. But for several reasons, I decided to give this one a closer look. To begin with, the cover quotes were full of glowing praise, something which I discounted heavily. More convincing was the fact that this book had originally been published in 1995, long before Obama had become famous. Most importantly, the book purports to be a memoir, and as such I thought it might provide some useful insights into the character of the man who has somehow managed a spectacular ascent to the top of the power pyramid and is now the US president. What might it reveal about his sincerity, his political agenda, and his ability to deliver the kinds of positive change that he has promised?

The book is engaging and well written and reads more like a novel than a memoir. It tells the story of a young man of mixed race seeking his own identity, trying to come to terms with the demands of his fractured families and to understand his place in the world. I was astonished at the candor with which the story is told. Having spent the second half of 2008 abroad and therefore absent for most of the 2008 Presidential campaign season, I have no idea what role this book might have played in his bid for the presidency, or whether it might have been a help or a hindrance in that regard.

There is little in the book to suggest that this man might someday achieve the highest political office in the world. I can’t help but wonder what kind of Faustian bargain he must have made in order to gain sufficient support from the global oligarchy to become President of the United States. What does he hope to achieve from that lofty perch, what compromises has he had to make to get there, what are his personal motivations, is he sincere in his public pronouncements or is he consciously working to intensify the mass delusion?

Another Vantage Point

Another interesting feature of my Hua Hin guesthouse is the selections on TV. This one offers a mere 7 channels, only one of which provides English language programming. FilmMax appears to be a Pakistani channel, which shows mainly Hollywood B movies I’ve never heard of –whatever they can get cheap, I guess. On the plus side, they’ve also shown some vintage films that date from my childhood. A few days ago I caught the tail end of the Wizard of Oz, and yesterday I tuned in just in time to see Flying Tigers from start to finish.

I remember seeing the Wizard of Oz for the first with my mother and sister when I was about four years old. I remember being scared to death when the Tin Man appeared. What makes this film of interest to me now is the fact that Frank Baum wrote the story as an allegory depicting the fraud inherent in the money and banking system and the reality of the people’s power to transcend it. I posted something about that recently on my blog (http://beyondmoney.net/2010/01/19/the-real-meaning-of-the-wizard-of-oz/).

Growing up in the 1940s and 50s I was strongly influenced by World War II. Along with the cartoons and cowboy westerns, we were fed a steady diet of war movies, which I was eager to see. Flying Tigers was one of them. It is a fabled tale about an actual squadron of mercenary American fliers who prior to the U.S. entry into the war fought to help the Nationalist Chinese defend themselves against the Japanese invaders. It contains some classic lines, which now seem pretty lame. John Wayne, the head man, has just returned after leading his squadron in a battle against enemy bombers and fighters. When his Chinese ground crewman points out the line of bullet holes in the fuselage of his plane, he quips, “termites.”

Malaysia

When my Thai visa ran out early in February I flew to Malaysia where I planned to apply for a new visa while exploring parts of the country I had not visited before. Melaka or Malacca, as the British refer to it, like Georgetown in Penang, has been declared a UN Heritage site. I spent 5 days there exploring the old city and near surroundings before deciding I had seen enough and headed for Penang, which is still one of my favorite places in Asia. One of the greatest attractions about Georgetown is the food. I especially like the Indian fare that can be had in the neighborhood called Little India, which is the best I’ve had anywhere, including India–and it’s dirt cheap.

In contrast to Thailand, Malaysia seems a little more developed, and the wealth of the country, despite the inevitable political corruption, seems to be a little better distributed. Along the way I’ve been told that tourism is now the second largest component of the Malaysian economy after petroleum. I suppose agriculture must be third. Palm oil plantations dominate the landscape from top to bottom and Malaysia is the world’s largest producer.

While in Melaka I met Mr. and Mrs. Yee who have a tea shop near the center of town, and as part of the Couch Surfing network, often host travelers. Through them I learned about a Buddhist social action group called Tzu Chi.

With offices in 47 countries, the Tzu Chi Foundation is one of the largest charity organizations originating from Taiwan. For over forty years, the organization has provided services for those in need worldwide.  http://www.tzuchi.org/

The Foundation has impressive facilities in Melaka, which we visited, and from their website, I see that they have a major presence in the U.S., as well. See my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg/201002Melaka

Work Progress

To start with I want to mention that Richard Flyer has published a Conscious Community Training Guide. Richard’s work has demonstrated the kind of community organizing that needs to be done if the sustainability movement is to achieve significant results. You can download it at the website, http://www.itstimereno.org/calender.asp

The End of Money and the Future of Civilization has been nominated for the Triple Pundit Sustainable Business Must Read list. You can help by casting your vote at http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/02/nominations-are-in-vote-for-the-best-green-business-books-to-create-a-must-read-list-for-all-sustainability-folk/

And if you feel so inclined, you might nominate my work for support from one of these prizes (I surely qualify age-wise):

Purpose Prize for social innovators over 60

Know someone in his/her 60s, 70s, or beyond who is capitalizing on the expertise and experience of a lifetime to find solutions to local, national and global challenges?

The Purpose Prize, now in its fourth year, awards five $100,000 and five $50,000 prizes to social innovators over the age of 60. It is the country’s only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of life. Rather than a personal achievement award, the prizes are intended as investments in these social innovators’ future work.

In addition to the ten prizes awarded each year, the initiative also recognizes dozens of other outstanding individuals in “encore careers” – those who are redefining the so-called “retirement years”. If you know someone who fits this description, visit the Purpose Prize website for more information on how to nominate – www.encore.org/prize. (I heard about this through the ASPA-CIVED listserv.)

BTW, I’ve joined Twitter and will be using it to alert my followers to new posts on my blogs and websites. My twitter name is tomazgreco. To follow me, go to http://twitter.com/ and sign up.

I’ll be returning soon to the U.S. and look forward to spending time with friends and helping to implement various currency and exchange projects.

Newsletter–February 1, 2010

February 1, 2010

Thoughts about Thailand

There is no baseball in Thailand, and there is no social safety net either.

Well, that’s not entirely true, I did see the movie Bull Durham on TV the other day, and Pa tells me that when one reaches the age of 60, the government does provide a monthly allowance of 500 Baht.

500 Baht, that’s about US$15 at current exchange rates, enough to buy four roasted chickens in the marketplace or 6 modest restaurant meals. The most frugal Thai might be able to manage to stretch that out to provide a week’s worth of meals at home. But food here is among the cheapest of things one requires to live. Rent on a basic apartment will cost many thousands of baht, a used motorbike will cost upwards of 12,000, and a gallon of gasoline (petrol) costs about 120 baht.

Medical and dental care here are cheap by western standards but everyone must pay for it; there are no government supported programs like Medicare or Medicaid. Everyone here is, by necessity, an entrepreneur, even if that means selling a few trinkets on the street. Tourism and transfer payments from people in western countries support a very large portion of the economy, especially in the cities.

While most Thais struggle to make it, Westerners find living here to be very cheap because we continue to enjoy favorable currency exchange rates (the reasons for that make for a long story). A small pension that may be inadequate for living in the United States can and does provide a comfortable lifestyle in Thailand. Chiang Mai is a good location. It’s a fair sized city and has lots of good features–reasonably priced guest houses and apartments, good food, interesting attractions, lively markets, and a number of good used bookstores. I recently had some dental work–two fillings and my teeth cleaned (by the dentist himself, not an assistant) for the equivalent of $50 total. My very comfortable lodging, complete with A/C, cable TV and Wi-Fi internet costs less than $400 a month, and decent accommodations can be found here for much less than that depending on location and amenities. Longer term rentals are even cheaper. There is no need to have a car unless one wants to take excursions outside the city. Songtaos and tuk tuks provide frequent and cheap transport anywhere in or around the city.

Thailand is the land of mega-Wats. Wat means “temple” and there are plenty of them. I thought I had become jaded to them, but recently I’ve seen a few that inspire awe. One of these is the “white temple” up near Chiang Rai, and the other day Pa showed me two others very close to my place that are truly amazing. The ornate detail and extent of the hammered aluminum artwork in these latter two is suggestive of the level of ecclesiastical devotion that prevailed during the European gothic period.

Activities

When the living is easy, one can get pretty lazy and complacent. I still spend a lot of my time working but at a more leisurely pace than last year, which was pretty intense with the book launch and speaking tour. Trying to keep up with email correspondence and responding to requests for advice and information constitute a major chore, but I’m trying to guide a few important projects that are moving ahead in various places. I’ve also been making frequent posts to my blogs. Recent additions to Beyondmoney.net include, Identification and Tracking in the Brave New World–RFID Chips and You, and, The Real Meaning of the Wizard of Oz.

The presentations I made in North America during the last part of 2009 are now mostly posted. The one I gave at the Economics of Peace Conference in California is available in four parts at http://vimeo.com/channels/theeconomicsofpeace/page:4.

Fortunately, a volunteer has come forward with an offer to translate my presentations into Spanish. Translations of two presentations have already been completed and others are in process. These are being posted at http://beyondmoney.net/ under the sidebar heading, En español.

My other blog, Tom’s News and Views (https://tomazgreco.wordpress.com/) features a new item on the hazards of cell phone radiation and another by Col. Bob Bowman on free speech and popular government.

Since my work involves a lot of reading, I don’t normally read for recreation, but when I’m traveling I’m sometimes inclined to pick up a novel. Most guesthouses have a small library of books that have been left behind by guests. On this trip I’ve discovered a couple popular British fiction writers. While staying in Bangkok I picked up Black and Blue, one of the Inspector Rebus mysteries by Ian Rankin, which I enjoyed immensely. That induced me to read still another of that series, the name of which I’ve now forgotten. The other author is Bernard Cornwell, whose book, Sharpe’s Tiger provides some interesting historical perspective on late eighteenth century India.

In addition, Axel Aylwen’s, The Falcon of Siam, is a rather engaging story that provides a glimpse into what Thailand was like more than 300 years ago when the various European powers were competing for dominance and seeking to exploit the treasures of Asia.

More Blatant Bank Abuses

With the contraction of bank lending to the private sector and the consequent reduction in their interest earnings on mortgages and business loans, the members of the banking cartel have found other ways to exploit the public. Overdraft fees, late payment fees, penalties, and interest rate hikes on credit card debt are among the most celebrated abuses that have even stirred Congress to investigate (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/20/AR2009092002879.html).

I use a credit card as a matter of convenience but I typically pay in full the balance due each month to avoid paying interest and other bank charges, but last November, I made an exception and paid only a portion of the statement balance. I expected to pay interest the following month on the remaining amount, which I did. The next month I paid the full balance thinking that there would be no further interest charges, but when I got my January bill there was a charge for interest on new purchases made in the subsequent period. To make matter worse, there was also a charge for a “foreign transaction fee.” I disputed both charges, first by phone then by email, all to no avail. My telephone complaint was answered by a man with a heavy Indian accent. I could just image him sitting in some crowded call center in Bangalore or Mumbai, or more likely some low rent backwater in rural India. His English was reasonably comprehensible but I still could not understand the reasons for these charges. I thought perhaps it might be because of deficiencies in his vocabulary, but the written relies to my later emails did not make much sense to me either.

The foreign transaction fee I’m told was associated with the purchase of my airline ticket from San Francisco to Asia on EVA Air, a Taiwanese air carrier. This still puzzles me. I had booked the flight online while I was still in the US and I paid for the ticket (I thought) in US dollars. I’ve made similar purchases in the past on “foreign” airlines like British Airways, Air France, and Malaysia Airlines and never been charged such a fee. Does that mean that henceforth any purchase made from a foreign company will incur a “foreign transaction fee?” Apparently it does. Buyers beware!

The Thai banks are no better. When I was here last year, it cost, at most, 20 baht to use an ATM to draw cash from my account at home, and at a couple banks it was free. This year they all are charging the same outrageous 150 baht ($5) for each withdrawal. By way of adjustment I’ve had to start drawing larger amounts of cash each time to keep from being raped.

Another change I’ve noted since last year is a further increase in the already excessive number of massage studios. This includes a proliferation of fish spas. I had seen a couple of these in Malaysia but none in Chiang Mai. Now they seem to have cropped up all over town like mushrooms after the rain. A fish spa is a place where you can immerse your feet (or hands) in a tank of water and have a school of small fish nibble away the dead skin.

If you’re interested, you can see more of my pictures from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Jum, and other parts of Thailand at my online Photo Gallery, http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg.

#   #   #

BTW, I’ve joined Twitter and will be using it to alert my followers to new posts on my blogs and websites. My twitter name is tomazgreco. To follow me go to twitter and sign up.

Early December Newsletter

Here is my latest newsletter which went out to my list yesterday. It has elicited a number of good comments which I have asked people to post here, so watch for them to be added. – t.h.g.

What’s Happening

Yup, still on Koh Phangan, but not for long. Many of you are probably wondering about the political turmoil that has been in the news. The trouble seems to have been confined to Bangkok, a long way from here, where things go on as usual. Anyway, it seems all that was resolved yesterday (Wednesday) with the fall of the government and protestors leaving the airports and government buildings they had occupied for some time. Whether trouble might flare up again seems to depend on what kinds of political changes take place over the next couple weeks and who becomes the new prime minister. One must admire the Thais for their restraint in dealing with that crisis. If it had been the U.S. or Europe, or China, or ____, SWAT teams would have been sent in and lots of blood would have spilt in clearing the place out. After all, profits are more important than people. (Don’t call me cynical, you know it’s true).

We had quite a monsoon season. I was stuck inside my house for three nights and two days because of heavy rains and wind. When the rain stopped the roads were impassable in some spots because of flooding and mud slides. There was a two week stretch with no chance to get to the beach or catch some sun. Over the past week the weather has gradually been improving starting with several days of unsettled weather — lots of wind and clouds — to warmer and clearer weather. Today was the first mostly sunny day in a long time. Maybe that signals an end to this year’s monsoon.

All of that was just as well because I’ve had my nose to the keyboard slaving over the second round edits of my book. My editor at Chelsea Green, Jonathan Teller-Ellsberg, finished his developmental edit of my manuscript and returned it to me with some good suggestions for improvement. I’ve been hammering away at it almost continuously since and I’m feeling good about the results. There’s nothing like the assistance of a professional editor to improve one’s writing.

Recent Publication

Daniel Pinchbeck is the publisher of an online magazine, Reality Sandwich. At his request I provided an article titled, Toward a New Economic Order, which was published a few days ago. You might want to have a look. I’ve been asked to provide some additional articles with specific how-to-do-it advice, which I’ll be preparing over the coming weeks. Much of that material will be drawn from my new book. The title of the book? Oh, it’s to be called The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

With the book task competed I got inspired this afternoon to do some maintenance on my website, ReinventingMoney.com. I had to learn some new tricks to manage it but I’m proud to say the mission has been accomplished. I’ve put up a new “welcome” statement and fixed some links to the Worgl case documents that had been broken.

Information

I recently discovered that Hartley Withers’ classic book, The Meaning of Money, has been republished by Kessinger Publishing, LLC and is available through Amazon.com. They might also have cheaper copies available. My copy of the seventh edition, published in 1947, is a treasured part of my personal library. I strongly recommend that any serious student of money and banking should read this book.

On a more general topic, you might want to watch this 16-minute YouTube video by Stefan Molyneux that will coax you further to “take the red pill” and escape the “matrix.” One blogger calls it “the most dangerous video on the internet.” At the conclusion of this polemic against statism, ideology, and religious establishments, Molyneux tells us that it is reason and courage that will set us free. You can find it embedded in this blog below.

Feeling Deprived

While to cost of living here is pretty cheap, imports, as you might expect, are quite expensive, even more costly than the same items are back home. Olive oil, for example, a staple of my diet and necessary ingredient for both salad dressing and cooking, costs almost double what I pay at home; same for blue cheese. And I haven’t had a glass of wine since I left California, 5 months ago. The cheapest bottle of wine here runs about $10. Oh, how I miss Trader Joe’s. I’d gladly pay five dollars even for a bottle of “two buck chuck,” if I could find it.

Sex and Islamic Suicide Terrorism

One of my German correspondents sent me a link to a site called the SexParty. No, it’s not an erotic site filled with porn. It’s a political site. The tag line is “Politics for a sex-positive future.” It’s an analysis of the link between Sex and Islamic Suicide Terrorism, which, I think is absolutely correct. The repression of sexuality that was foisted upon me as I was growing up in Catholic schools provides the background from which my own present understanding stems. The article argues (I’m paraphrasing) that when testosterone-driven young males (who constitute the vast majority of suicide bombers) are prevented from expressing their natural sexual urges, they become enraged, unbalanced and inclined to fight. You can read the whole one-page article here. As the Hippies were wont to say, “Make love, not war.”

Along similar lines, but not specifically related, here’s a mini-lesson in “compassionate communication.”

The basic NVC approach to communicating has these basic components:

Observation

Feeling

Need

Request

This avoids making judgments or demands. The dialog process is:

Describe the situation,

Describe how it makes you feel,

Let the other person know what you need,

Make a request (but be ready to accept “no.”)

You can find good information on the websites I gave in my last newsletter or do a search on “Non-violent Communication.”

Enough for now.

Tom

Report from the field – Koh Phangan 2

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Island Living

I’m feeling good about being on Koh Phangan. Having the help of my friend Michele to get me oriented and introduce me to some people has been a great benefit. Now he has gone north for a few weeks to visit a lady friend in Chiang Mai so I am renting his motorbike while he’s away. I’ve also rented a house for a month, and moved in a few days ago – not Michele’s house, but a rental unit owned by one of his Italian friends who lives here and is married to a Thai woman.

My house seems ideal for my purposes. It’s quite new, sparkling clean, has hot water shower, kitchenette, refrigerator, single burner propane stove, and A/C. It also has full-time internet access, which is essential for my work (although it’s not a very fast connection), and cable TV, but I only get a few channels and none of them is in English. They do tease you with a headline in English, like “Weather,” but everything else is spoken and written in Thai, so I have no idea what place they’re talking about.

The only downside to this place is that it’s about 2 km away from the beach and 5 km from Thong Sala. But that has it’s advantages too, since it’s on a road less traveled and the area is pretty quiet. I have it for a month and can renew it, but probably at a somewhat higher rate. I’m paying 11,000 Baht for the month. That may seem like a lot but at current exchange rates, it comes to around US$325. A place most anywhere in the US would cost me at least twice as much and would not be as nice. It is possible to rent houses on the island for as little as 5 or 6 thousand Baht but without the amenities.

You can see my pictures of the house along with others from Koh Phangan at my photo gallery.

Monsoon Rains

According to a local guidebook, November is the wettest month for the island, averaging 52.6 cm (about 21 inches), twice as much as any other month. February, March, April and June are the driest. The first 4 or 5 days of November were dry, but now the rains have started again in earnest. It’s actually rather pleasant to hear the sound of gentle rain and jungle critters as I lie in bed or sit working at my keyboard. It’s also pleasantly cool. The frogs here, when that get going after dark, sound like bellowing cattle. Amazing. And the scents are exquisite – the earthy smell of jungle soil, the sweet fragrance of frangipani and other blossoms, occasionally blended with pungent curries from the neighbor’s kitchen.

Prolonged showers do present some difficulties, however. It’s been raining almost constantly for the past five days. Relying on a motorbike to get around leaves one exposed to the elements so I don’t venture out when the rain is heavy. Rain makes the roads somewhat slippery, flooded in spots, and strewn with piles of sand and tree branches, adding to the usual hazards of broken pavement and falling coconuts. I must admit that I’m not entirely comfortable with this me of transportation, but it’s the only practical option here. Returning home two nights ago, and again this evening I got soaked and felt a little chilled. I was very happy to have access to a hot shower. Contrary to what you might expect, the tropics are not always hot and steamy.

Health and Comfort

As in Malaysia, this place has an abundance of studios and health spas where one can get a traditional Thai massage, oil massage, foot reflexology, body scrub, and other therapies and creature comforts. I’ve gone for three massages already and plan to go two or three times a week. Besides being relaxing and pleasant, it has helped to resolve my lower back problem, which has been flaring up of late. A one hour massage costs only 200 to 300 baht (7 to 10 US dollars).

Now that I have a kitchen where I can cook, I’ve expanded my grocery shopping beyond mangos, papayas, and cans of juice. There are numerous little shops and produce stands scattered around, and Thong Sala has a wet market with many fish and produce vendors, as well as a Tesco supermarket. Tesco is a UK chain, but the local store doesn’t measure up to the Tesco stores I’ve seen in London, neither in scale nor variety of offerings, and of course what they sell is mainly Thai-made and geared to local tastes. That’s all well and good but I find that only a few products have labeling in English. They typically list the ingredients but most of the time not in English so I can’t be sure whether a product contains additives that I would prefer to avoid.

Oh, Obama

“Irrational exuberance” is a phrase that has become stuck in the public mind ever since Alan Greenspan used it to describe the stock market boom of a few years ago. The exuberance attendant to Barack Obama’s election to the presidency may not be irrational, but it is almost certainly based on false premises and unrealistic expectations. Like most of my friends, I was pleased with the outcome of the presidential election, not because I expect Obama to implement the kinds of deep changes that are needed, but because (1) it showed the willingness of Americans to put aside considerations of race and choose a black man to lead the country, and (2) because it may indicate that the majority of the American people are snapping out of the delusion that caused them to previously choose leaders who, putting on the mask of righteous religiosity and appealing to people’s fears, have taken the country to the brink of fascist dictatorship and financial ruin. As Sinclair Lewis was supposed to have said, “When fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible.”

Virtually all of the foreigners I encounter are also pleased with the election outcome, hoping that it will bring about a change from the way the United States has thrown it weight around in recent years to a more respectful and cooperative foreign policy. I’m hopeful of that too, but lets not be too sanguine about this recent turn. Sure, we might prefer the manner of the “good cop” (Obama) to that of the “bad cop” (Bush), but do not doubt for a minute that the overall agenda remains the same. Obama is not our savior. At best, he might throttle back some of the wholesale looting that has been going on for the past 8 years, and he might allow a few more crumbs to fall to the masses from the oligarchs’ table. But did he not vote in favor of bailing out the banks instead of helping the people whom they lured into the usury trap? And, like Nixon before him who promised to end the war in Vietnam, Obama’s rhetoric about ending the Iraq war will probably prove to be just as hollow.

One thing should be perfectly obvious by now, one does not get to be a viable candidate for the office of President without being approved, even “groomed” for it, by the elite group that runs the world. Just look at Obama’s list of advisors and his list of major funders. Long-time friend and associate, Jeff Smith, in his online newsletter, The Progress Report, has made us aware of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) whose role is to “follow the money” and track its influence on American government.

Just within the past few days Obama has announced the appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. CRP reports that:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman who was an aide in the Clinton White House, was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry–not the most popular of industries in the current economy. Since being elected to Congress in 2002, after working as an investment banker, Emanuel has received more money from individuals and PACs in the securities and investment business than any other industry.

It also points out that “Emanuel and Obama have more than just Chicago in common; investment bank UBS, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are among both men’s lists of top donors.” You can read the full story here.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, in a November 7 newsletter, said he was “shocked and deeply disappointed” at the news of Emanuel’s appointment, and that because of it, those who have a “commitment to single-payer universal health care, carbon taxes for environmental protection, a Homeland Security strategy based on generosity and implemented through a Global Marshall Plan, will be unlikely to get a serious hearing in the White House.” Rabbi Lerner, who is editor of Tikkun Magazine, and is chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, is a respected voice of reason and compassion and someone who is acutely aware of political realities.

Am I saying that we should stop working at the political level and not try to influence Obama and the new administration? Not at all, but we need to acknowledge the reality of the situation, which is that there is no easy way out. We cannot rely on any political leader, no matter how charismatic, to fix things for us. Virtually all top level politicians are beholden to the moneyed interests and there is no way ordinary people can outspend those who have control of the very source from which money is emitted. They are in power to maintain the debt-money power system, which, as I’ve said before, forces accelerating expansion of debt and unsustainable economic growth (the debt imperative and the growth imperative).

We need to look to ourselves and to each other. To repeat what I said in my last newsletter, we need to nurture our communities and form new ones. This requires more than neighborhood coffee klatches and barter exchanges. We need to lessen our dependence upon the failing structures and institutions and apply our talents and resources to creating new ones that can better satisfy the needs of all. We need to organize as whole communities, creating mutual support networks, including credit clearing associations and non-political currencies that are based on the productive capacity of local and regional businesses.

Non-violent Communications

On Sunday I participated in a four hour workshop to learn non-violent communication, or compassionate communication, to use the generic term. Originated by psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg, NVC provides effective tools to create more satisfying relationships and to resolve conflicts. I had had some previous exposure to NVC a few years back when I lived in Tucson but not in such a systematic and intensive format. Tiffany did a fine job of leading the workshop and guiding the 10 participants through some practice sessions. Coincidentally, she had her NVC training in Auroville, India from a friend of mine, Tewa Holloway. I met Tewa when I stayed at Auroville last year, not in connection with NVC but as teammates on the project to develop the ACCES regional moneyless exchange system. Tewa helped us out during the early stages as we discussed the dimensions of the project and forged some basic agreements. You can learn more about NVC from The Center for Nonviolent Communication and at http://nvctraining.com/media/new/index.html.

Solitaire

There’s something satisfying about trivial activities like playing solitaire. Sometimes I just cannot find the motivation to write or answer email or do anything else that one would consider productive. At those times, I often play Spider Solitaire or FreeCell on my computer (I think everybody with MS Windows has them already). It’s a totally useless waste of time, unless one considers it to be mind exercise, like working out at the gym is body exercise. My win rates have gotten pretty good – I win around 80% of FreeCell games on the first try, and I win about a third of the Spider Solitaire games at the middle level of difficulty. On the other hand, maybe I have an addiction, and this is just my peculiar way of distracting myself.

Social Welfare

This morning I woke to a bit of sunshine streaming in the windows. The sky was mostly cloudy but there were a few breaks and small patches of blue. My spirits buoyed by the prospect of mobility, I ventured out for a morning walk, my destination the little cluster of shops around the crossroads about 600 meters away. In Asia it’s common for home and storefront to be combined in one space, with varying degrees of separation between the two. Most small entrepreneurs eke out a living selling a few things or providing some service, and they know instinctively the importance of keeping overhead low.

In this climate there’s less need for doors and windows, except for security, so spaces are more open and entire walls are movable (garage door style). The shop I wandered into was open on two sides. There were 3 or 4 racks of shelves that displayed some groceries, items of personal hygiene and sundry others, and a cooler containing beer and soft drinks, including small cartons of soy drinks in various flavors. I scanned the available offerings and settled on a small bag a peanuts and a can of 7-Up. I rarely drink 7-up or any other sugary soft drinks, but I felt obliged to support the local economy and I had some thought as to how I might later indulge myself.

Toward the back, at one side sat a middle aged woman at a desk, ready to accept payment. As I handed her thirty Baht in change I happened to glance over toward the other side of the room. There was a ancient, frail-looking woman lying quietly on a single bed. I imagined that in America, she would have been in a nursing home, the family, or the insurance company or the state, paying each month the cost of a small house to keep her.

There was still some trickling runoff on the road and in many places piles of sand that had washed down onto the road during the heavy rains. As I made my way back home I stepped on a slippery spot where some slime had grown and went down on my left knee scraping a few layers of skin onto the pavement. Nothing serious but enough to make it bleed. When I got back to the house I washed the wound then dabbed it with a little whiskey which I keep on hand for such situations. Alcohol is a great disinfectant and whiskey has multiple uses. I also apply it to soothe bug bites and, yes, I even drink a bit of it from time to time. Hence the 7-Up.

Don’t worry; be happy,

Tom