Krugman & Verhagen on Economic Bubbles

The well-known Noble prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, seems to be gaining more and more attention as a New York Times columnist than he had as a regular economist. Maybe in these times of unbridled admiration for fame and celebrities, Krugman should consider joining a reality show, if he wants to influence the world outside the U.S. and possibly outside our universe. Anyway, his latest column, This Age of Bubbles, questions why we've experienced so many economic bubbles since the late 70s. After the housing bubble in the U.S. and Western-Europe from a few years ago, before that the dot-com bubble, then the Asian bubble of the 1990s, and the real estate bubble (in the U.S.) of the 1980s, it seems now the BRICs with Brazil, India, and other emerging markets are hitting the proverbial economic walls.
Krugman:

"What’s going on? It’s a variant on the same old story: investors loved these economies not wisely but too well, and have now turned on the objects of their former affection. A couple years back, Western investors — discouraged by low returns both in the United States and in the noncrisis nations of Europe — began pouring large sums into emerging markets. Now they’ve reversed course. As a result, India’s rupee and Brazil’s real are plunging, along with Indonesia’s rupiah, the South African rand, the Turkish lira, and more."

After referring to the Federal Reserves policy of lowering interest rates and financial deregulation in the U.S. and around the world, Krugman concludes:

Cosimo co-sponsors Sustainable Styles Launch Party at Tesla Showroom in NY

Sustainable Styles, a new magazine venture from sustainable activist Pamela Peeters, held a launch party co-sponsored by Cosimo last Wednesday evening. Among the guests was Frans Verhagen, whose recent book, The Tierra Solution, was being raffled along with Nikola Tesla's autobiography My Inventions. The launch party was held at Tesla's namesake, the Tesla Motors Showroom, where guests were treated to a close-up look at one of the innovative electrical cars, inspired by the works and inventions of Nikola Tesla. 

If you're interested in learning more about Sustainable Styles and Pamela Peeters work, please visit their Facebook page or consider a donation to the magazine.

"As the World Burns: Can an Integrated Monetary System Save Us?" - Review of The Tierra Solution

Ethan Goffman, associate editor of the open-access journal for sustainable solutions, Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy, has written a thought-provoking review of Frans Verhagen's The Tierra Solution. You can read the original review, along with some enlightening articles about sustainability, here, but see what he has to say below.

Climate change requires an integrated global approach. Solutions cannot be isolated by borders, nor from our economic and social systems. Big thinking is needed. One recent book that thinks big is The Tierra Solution by sustainability sociologist Frans Verhagen, President of the International Institute of Monetary Transformation. The book recommends a global currency called the Tierra based on carbon. Given the severe challenge of climate change, such sweeping proposals are needed to create a larger vision and stimulate discussion. And clearly, a major shift in our monetary system is needed for a stable, sustainable planet. Still, the book is simplistic in its claims for a singular solution and understates the huge political challenges.

The Tierra would abandon our current floating currency, in which dollars, euros, renminbi, pesos, and other currency fluctuate relative to one another, oftentimes wildly so. While such volatility is economically stressful, Verhagen points out that the gold standard, the classical stable unit of currency, suffers from the artificial nature of gold, which itself ebbs and flows in price. As an international currency based on carbon, the Tierra would be both comprehensive and stable. It would also be tied to the environment, encouraging responsible behavior globally. As Verhagen explains, “[T]he proximity of a nation’s decarbonization level to the [Tierra] standard would determine the...value of its currency.”

Alas, the book leaves a hole as to how a transition to such a standard would take place. It does, however, describe a more complete system of which the Tierra is only one part, albeit the central one. Controlled by a global monetary institution, the Tierra would be a credit-based currency integrated with an exchange of wealthy countries’ ecological debts and poorer countries’ financial debt, and working alongside a carbon tax.

Read the rest of the review on the Sustainability blog, here. And don't forget to leave a comment here or there with your own thoughts on the issue!

Bookbuzz Blog Radio with Frans Verhangen: Discussing His New Book on Climate Change and the Financial Crisis

Last week, Frans Verhagen, author of The Tierra Solution (Cosimo's June Book of the Month) had a conversation with Susanna Greenberg on BlogTalk Radio about the book and the state of the climate. Verhagen discussed the current climate crisis and what is currently being done to solve those problems, currency problems and moving toward a standard currency, what a carbon standard is and why it is more beneficial than any other standard, and the benefits of the Tierra Fee and Dividend System.


This book and talk comes on the heels of the Rio+20 conference in Brazil, where "world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, [came] together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want."

Amid Rio+20 UN Conference and Impending Climate Crisis, The Tierra Solution Delivers Answers

With the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development happening this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the upcoming presidential election--where there is sure to be at least some focus on climate issues and a lot of focus on financial issues--this month's Book of the Month is both timely and relevant. The Tierra Solution, by sustainability sociologist Dr. Frans Verhagen, offers a solution to climate change through monetary transformation, essentially killing two birds with one stone.

Dr. Verhagen proposes to resolve to the current financial, economic, and monetary problems around the world with a credit-based financial system, governed by a Global Central Bank, that uses a carbon standard for a newly developed international monetary system with the Tierra as the unit of account--hence, the Tierra Solution.

Basically, Verhagen suggests that by simply holding businesses and governments accountable for the carbon-based energy they use, and basing money exchange on that energy, we can create a cleaner environment and solve the global financial crisis. Separated into two distinct parts, The Tierra Solution first describes the current climate crisis and methods of carbon reduction that already exist (and why they are not ideal). He also lays out the history and present structure of the international monetary system. Then, Verhagen describes the Tierra Fee & Dividend System, why it is the best solution for our ravaged economies, how it will improve the climate and monetary systems, and how it should be implemented.

Hazel Henderson, evolutionary economist and president of Ethical Markets Media, commented that The Tierra Solution is, "a visionary and immensely practical approach to reforming today's bubble finance and taming its global casino. Verhagen... illuminates the win-win solutions possible when we combine monetary transformation with low-carbon, renewable resource strategies and equitable approaches to sustainable development."

In his Foreword, Felix Dodds, executive director of the Stakeholder Forum, said, "This book is an important contribution because it provides some serious ideas for how we can ensure that there is international monetary justice that takes account of social, environmental, and procedural justice and intergenerational principles in the international monetary system."

This is not a light-hearted read.

But it is essential for those in finance and governements (or who want to influence those areas) to understand how our current systems are failing and why we need something new. Verhagen describes it as needing to "repair the present global monetary, financial, and economic systems that enrich the few, impoverish the many, and imperil the planet."

If you're interested in the official press release, you can read it here. Dr. Frans Verhagen is a sustainability sociologist with a Ph.D. in the sociology of international development from Columbia University. he founded the Queens Green party, the Riverside Church Ecology Task Force, and the Ecolinguistics Commission. He has worked around the world and online teaching environmental policies and sustainability.He is online at www.timun.net.