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  • From: Udan Farm <udanfarm@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] A Question about investments
  • Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 11:34:09 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Scott,
Thank you very much for the sound advice.
Yes, I am realizing, that really, I have been living in a little biosphere
all my own for the last 3 years, and am just now scratching the surface,
getting to the invisible structures-the ones we really need to look at, not
ignore. It seems to me the average american does a really good job at
ignoring the invisible and focusing on the visible "stuff".
I got some great book ideas from you, as well as just finding "The Ecology
of Commerce" by Paul Hawken.-It looks good.
I realize too that it is important for me to move to an area (Asheville,
NC) where there are a lot of like-minded people at least making attempts at
local economies, bartering, alternative currencies, etc. rather than staying
in GA, where the typical american values reign and I chafe every time I go to
town!
I love what you said about using "a forest system to illustrate sustainable
strategies. If we, indeed, use nature as our design guide then our resources
should be stored in our
own bioregion with ever increasing connections for sharing such."

Thank you for the insights,
Blessings, Isabel Crabtree



Scott Pittman <scott@permaculture.org> wrote:
I always love it when the conversation turns to invisible structures, like
finance.

While at the IPC8 in Brazil I met a young Argentinean lawyer/economist,
Carlos Louge(?) who used the model of the recent crash of the Argentine
economy in comparison to the current position of the U.S. dollar. In
Argentina it seems that barter and alternative currencies sprung up
spontaneously. Bernard Letier who was once the head of the central bank of
Belgium and the architect of the Euro, is also big on alternative
currencies. At the end of the day most of the economists that I respect are
looking at a very short time frame before the mirrors crack and the smoke
thins in the U.S. economy, 10 years seems to be the outside limit. So my
question is how do we prepare? Not just as individuals but as communities.
I am currently reading a great book titled "The New Golden Age: The coming
Revolution Against Corruption and Economic Chaos", by Ravi Batra, an
economist from Southern Methodist University, that puts a positive spin on
the post crash world; you've got to love an author who last book was
entitled "Greenspan's Fraud". Bill McKibben has just written "Deep Economy"
which I hear great things about.

Certainly institutions like the permaculture credit union should be
preparing to advise their members on when and how to withdraw their
"dollars" and put them into something a little more stable. Stability, in
my mind, wanders to horse drawn equipment, hand tools, fertile land, and on
and on. If indeed we are on the edge of another big crash then it makes
since to me that we should be investing in survival tools. I also know that
skills such as permaculture, and shoe making will become much more highly
marketable and prized, won't that be nice.

It also means being debt free, as Robert Waldrop remarks below, since
bankers and other lending institutions don't seem to be very emotional about
throwing you off of the land no matter what the situation. Remember,
fortunes were made off of the misfortunes of those caught with big debt
during the great depression.

I was recently in a film on money in which this very subject was discussed
by top economists and others from around the U.S. Check out
WWW.themoneyfix.org for the release date. In the film I am using the model
of a forest system to illustrate sustainable strategies. If we, indeed, use
nature as our design guide then our resources should be stored in our own
bioregion with ever increasing connections for sharing such.

Scott Pittman
Director
Permaculture Institute
www.permaculture.org



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