Have you thought about what would happen if the predictions of gloom eventuated for 2012?
The environmental events that have occurred worldwide have been really disturbing. How much have we contributed to those events?
- Devastating floods causing landslides and turning land masses into lakes
- Catastrophic weather events such as tornados and torrential rainfall leaving land super-saturated
- Monumental earth shifts such as earthquakes and volcanoes
It makes you wonder if we have tipped the balance and have engineered our own death of the dinosaurs. What can we possibly do if Mother Earth has decided to shake us off her back? Nothing really.
A different kind of threat
There is, however, one ‘event’ that we are equally vulnerable to, and very few ever mention – an economic meltdown. There are obvious indications of global wavering in the financial world. Greece is about to be bailed out of its debt to the tune of billions of dollars. Its public spending cuts will only save an infinitesimal amount annually compared to the interest accumulated on the new loan. And Greece’s predicament is only representative of many countries facing the pay up now demands from previous borrowings to keep the country afloat.
Increasing your savings
Back home, while politicians suggest the band aid of ‘living within our means’ and increasing our savings, it is merely tinkering with an economic system that has outlived its usefulness.
Our current economic system:
- Doesn’t meet the needs of third world countries
- Doesn’t encourage careful husbandry of earth’s resources
- Relies on gambles and betting on future harvests
- Relies on people coming up with new ways to artificially inflate the value of real commodities
- Rests on majority confidence in individual economies and continual growth or inflation
Sounds grim but the money system is ‘the money system’ handed down on tablets of stone, isn’t it?
NO!
Money has no real value
Don’t believe that? Well, consider this.
The money system is simply a system of accounting for the value of goods. It evolved from the original barter system. It uses ‘tokens’ to represent the real value of the things we grow and process.
Unfortunately the ‘tokens’ (money) has become a commodity in itself and is traded even before it comes into existence on the back of a new product. As we produce more or add extra value to commodities or use the product to make bigger things or improve life we add to the total value of what exists in the world. Money should expand to keep pace with that value. Unfortunately money itself has become a traded commodity.
Confidence is the key
Just like the property market crashed because it became over-inflated, and someone somewhere started to lose confidence and affected the confidence of the person next to them, so too can the money market.
The effect could be devastating:
- Banks could crash and close (no money/loans to keep businesses or farms afloat)
- Mortgages could be called up to pay creditors (people could lose their homes)
- People would lose their jobs as demand for products diminished or businesses closed
- Home owners would not have enough income to pay their mortgages and rents could become unsustainable
- Private companies controlling our major services, like gas and electricity, might find it impossible to trade
- People would not be able to get the health care and food they needed
It’s a grim picture but not much different from the consequences of tornadoes, earthquakes and floods.
Future proofing
How can we future-proof ourselves against catastrophes? Well individually we can’t do much to stop them – people in power hold the reigns there. We can, however, change our own lifestyles to become more inventive to meet our needs.
Christchurch people have learned a little of what it is like to be without what we have come to see as essential services. They’ve had to go back to old methods of handling sewerage, collecting water, supplying heat, lighting and cooking. Being prepared with plans on how we would manage in such circumstances makes sense. You never know when you’re going to need Boy Scout skills.
But there other things we can do. We can nurture our creativity and take up skills such as organic gardening; start learning to knit and sew; begin recycling old things into new items rather than throw them out; join community exchange systems where the true value of items are established between producers and buyers. These skills are the kind of knowledge we exchange in the eBrainz community.
There are some things, however, that would really grind an economy to a halt. What could we do if there was no electricity – no computers, no electronic banking or payments? Doesn’t bear thinking about.
- Heather
