Rethinking the Economy

Normally I don’t write about the presidential election – there are many, many, many places to get first-rate commentary about it. But recently I saw this YouTube video that perfectly captures both why Obama drives Progressives nuts and why he could be a great president for us in his second term – if we get [...]

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In this round, I’m not going to worry about my opening, just the core ideas/principles.

 
1) Power Is at the Center of the Economy
– Movement Perspective: How Economic Institutions/Actors Build/Undercut Power, Foster Engagement/Disengagement, Mobilize/Demobilize
– Checks & Balances
(and if you want people to make real trade-offs, they need to be sure they won’t get stepped on – [...]

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Microfinance, the practice of giving small loans to networks of poor women that was pioneered by Mohammed Yunus, has been lauded by foundations and many liberals as a great example of “social entrepreneurship” – using markets to do good by attending to a triple bottom line. The idea has had a lot of success. But [...]

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While my hands are a little better, I’m going to have to be very careful for the next month or so until I make real progress. So, instead of trying to write two posts per week, I’m only going to commit to one a week. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon.

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I keep circling back to a lot of the same pieces. Individually they feel right. But when I pull them together, they don’t. So, in the next few weeks I’m going to try shuffling reshuffling the pieces and see if I start to get a feel for what’s working vs. what’s not and why.

A) The [...]

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I just came across an interesting talk by the Sustainable Economies Law Center called The Legal Landscape of Social Enterprise and the Sharing Economy. It’s about the burgeoning movement known as the “Sharing Economy” and the legal issues around it. You might think it would be about as exciting as eating dust, but actually it [...]

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