Rethinking the Economy

Stumbling towards a new model for creating growth, opportunity, and justice

Rethinking the Economy header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'Model'

Creating a Values-Based Economy, v 0.16

August 9th, 2010 · No Comments

[Here's one last framework brain dump. I think I've gotten as far as I can for now, so I'm going to let this simmer on a back burner for a while.]
Right now, the economy isn’t working for most of us. It isn’t surprising, because right now our society is shaping our economy [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Model

Creating a Values-Based Economy, v 0.15

July 19th, 2010 · Comments Off

My latest idea for tinkering with the values-based framework — reorganize v 0.1 so instead of having a section on myths followed by a section on alternatives, break it into pairs of myths and alternatives.
NOTE: This post is mostly for me — to help me get this next step out of my [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Model

For Less Crazy CEO Pay, We’ve Gotta Choose Together

July 12th, 2010 · Comments Off

One other interesting point from Desai, Brief, and George’s paper, on the problems with relying on the actions of individual corporations to stop the crazy CEO compensation problem we’ve got:
J. P. Morgan declared that top executives’ compensation should be capped at twenty times the wage of an average worker. However, unless all organizations adopt this [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Choosing Together

Creating a Values-Based Economy, v 0.1

July 5th, 2010 · Comments Off

I’ve been wrestling with bits and pieces of a framework, but no matter how much I play with them, the end result is all over the place. So, time to get it out of my head. Here’s a quick dump of where I am:
Creating a Values-based Economy
A. The way we usually talk about the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Framework · Model

Power Isn’t a Stain on the Economy’s Fabric, It’s Part of the Economy’s Fabric

June 28th, 2010 · Comments Off

It’s time, says Robert Reich, to drop a Top Hat on the corruption spewed by the market:
In the words of lobbyist Lauren Maddox, “The policy process is an extension of the market battlefield.”
The answer is not necessarily found in broader or stricter “ethics rules” barring specific gifts to politicians. Such rules may have [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Checks and Balances · Government · Health care

Are New Yorkers More Patriotic Than South Carolinians?

June 21st, 2010 · Comments Off

Mark Mykleby, a friend of Thomas Friedman who works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Office of the Chairman, published a letter in “his hometown paper, the Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina,” about the BP oil disaster. Friedman liked the letter so much he republished it in his column.
This isn’t BP’s or Transocean’s [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Choosing Together · Green Economy · Transportation

How State Republican Parties Talk about Values & Choice

June 16th, 2010 · Comments Off

I’ve been doing a little thinking about how to talk about values and choice. For the hell of it, I decided to see how Republican Party websites do it. Most of them were cookie-cutter, negative, and pretty boring — cut taxes, cut government regulations, and cut wasteful spending. The Texas Republican Party put a little [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Language

Working Definition of a More Democratic Economy

June 14th, 2010 · Comments Off

Here’s my new working definition of a more democratic economy:
A more democratic economy is an economy where the major stupid decisions you have to live with are ones you helped to make.

[Read more →]

Tags: Model

Values-based vs. Market-based: Conclusion

May 26th, 2010 · Comments Off

[Part 7 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
The case I’ve laid out over the last six posts is not an argument against using markets as a tool. As I’ve said, for example, despite all the problems with cap and trade it’s certainly possible that this usage of markets could be [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Framework · Government · Green Economy · Model

Values-Based Principle #3: Everybody Gets a Real Say

May 24th, 2010 · Comments Off

[Part 6 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
One of the fundamental principles underlying a market-based framework is that through consumer choice, everyone gets a say. Some bureaucrat doesn’t decide what shoes you get to wear, you do. If you decide hot pink ballerina slippers or combat boots — or hot pink [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Framework · Government · Green Economy · Model