Am I right in thinking that the debt problem is basically too many people needing to make a profit as costs rise--inflation?  Or that those with the most money demand over-the-possibilities payments for loaning out their money?

Jerome makes me think he'd say: "If banking is done correctly there cannot be an over-the-possibilities arrangement."

But...I think the key is right as Jerome says: Why should bankers try and be builders too?  Each to their own area of expertise.

To which I imagine a reply: "It depends if the builders are more interested in building or making a profit."

If the latter, then back to the issue about over-the-possibilities...okay, I'm not expressing myself well.

Sviatoslav Richter - Moments

(Invigorating!)

I'm thinking, okay, a company can't declare the future, there are unkowns, risks of all kinds, so we need a cushion--say 4-6%.  How big the cushion should be--I suggest those numbers from what I've read.

So a manufacturer quotes at 4-6% above costs (where costs include paying staff well, including all the way back to raw materials, so costs may be higher than average)--(but the profit is at 4-6% max as it's laid in stone more or less--it's the price of the risk--where risk has to avoid "rip off"--maybe impossible in some cases, but with wind farms there is already plenty of legislation for all parts of the process.)

So--I build wind turbines, or know people who do (I'm thinking of Crazy Horse); they are the people who like building wind turbines and 4-6% (or tell me a number--I'm interested!) is fine--it oils the wheels without covering everything in sticky gloop.

So as long as a financier can raise enough cash--lock in!  Guarantee business against production.  Note that buying longer brings stability (order ten years production of steel up front--I think this is part of Chris's idea--that everyone can buy in, lock in to an equitable (no one is taking more than 4-6% and that's understood to be fair liquidity)--and if costs drop, then 4-6% on top is still 4-6%.

A money hound--a person after profit--will shop elsewhere while there are businesses generating higher profits.

Okay.  Start with products that rely less on money hounds.  Energy!  Communities need it (I think the CO2 kicker--hey, I get my electricity from the wind, mate! will allow wind prices to stay above other forms--stability!)

(cough cough!  I mean, if I saw wind turbines on the hills surrounding our town, and I knew I was a partner in those wind turbines, and I knew everyone down the line was playing 4 to 6 and not "rip your pockets", then as long as it was affordable....)

So: if financiers and manufacturers (builders) could come together at four to six, would prices be higher or lower, assuming all other variables are the same whether they do or don't?  (Maybe a big if!)

Because if that works, I'll buy in.  I understand the energy credit as being ownership of production much as Jerome said with bread.  If I have rights to my potential X percent of grain, I have my access to my bread.  I can give those rights (in the form of money of some kind) to the baker, but the total of credits in the system add up to the production.  We all lose if no grain grows, so we're all that bit more involved in making sure grain grows = I (we!) can continue to eat bread.  

Moving out of the comfortable countries, there are going to be food riots across the globe soon (I'm happy if I'm wrong)--prices are rising and populations are high--a crash that would be completely avoided if (I suggest!) the farmers and communities were linked in as Chris (I'm suggesting!) suggests.  And the energy suppliers (food production needs energy--melo's electric tractors!), and the suppliers of chemicals (of the non-toxic to life kind)--that could be those who collect guano--it could be a link in with the refuse collectors--organic waste becomes fertiliser in realtime.

But why would a banker want to worry about all that?

Why would anybody?

Because separate-but-equal doesn't work?

I was thinking of Rupert Murdoch's brain today, wondering if he thinks just like the average thickhead.  How else would he know how to push all their buttons, and why else would he want to?  The average thickhead wants control, sex, money, more sex, wine, wo/men, just everything that Murdoch sells, with CONTROL number one and FEAR just above it (but given, not asked for--); and I think: "Why aren't there any newspapers I can read without tut-tutting my way quickly from front to back?"

Somehow that's connected.

I'm wondering "How far are we going to go with this intelligence we all have?  Where there are walls there is fear.  Where there aren't walls there are things to be afraid of, maybe.  But how do we know if we never go outside the walls and how do we get safe if we have no protection?  By getting symbiotic--by living as far as we can within a culture of win-win relationships--

Importantly: with nature.  Chris mentioned finite resources.  How does any banking that suggests we can live above 4-6% percent--how does that work?  Because the profits end up as consumption somehow (more use of finite resources) or else there's no need for them (above 4-6%)

Heh!  

Yours,

Ikernov Nussink.

Shostakovich plays Piano Concerto No 2 III. Allegro (1958)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.