I believe that I do actually understand -based upon practical market experience to the highest level - not only how risk and reward work but also the scale of the challenge we face in addressing the systemic hole in which we find ourselves, and from which we cannot IMHO dig ourselves out of while in it.

Investors are interested in a return on Capital for sure: but it's a "Real" return on Capital after inflation that they are after.

Whether bankers choose to recognise it or not, it is the deficit basis of Money as Debt which is one of the direct causes of inflation - whether it is created ex nihilo by governments or by the banking system itself.

Why do people buy gold? There is no "return" on that other than the fact that it may offer a "Real" return by holding its value.

The same applies to energy, commodities and all the rest: Exchange Traded Funds invested in energy and commodities are a rapidly growing asset class, as are Real Estate Investment Trusts.

What I am proposing is simply a new take on the vehicles which "frame" these asset classes, through the creation - inter alia - of "Energy Pools" and "Land Rental Pools" structured in a way which, I believe, may eliminate conventional conflicts and complexity.

Such a "Flight to Simplicity" in asset classes, would of course be resisted by those who profit from complexity and conflict, but they will not be able to stop a phenomenon which builds "from the ground up", and moreover one where those of their number who "break ranks" will profit at the expense of the later adopters.

I certainly do not push aside the risk of major projects: I believe as you do, I think, that the public - collectively (and that need not mean the Jacobin "State", but something more participative)- should be involved in sharing that risk through a rational Public/Private enterprise model.

I believe that the future of banking lies not in credit intermediation but in service provision. A completely new architecture is not just needed, but is evolving as we speak as an inevitable consequence of the "Telluric" shifts driven by "Peer to Peer" connectivity.

I'm not saying I have all the answers: but I do think that I have identified a possible new architecture which between us we may be able to use to build the necessary new system.

As NBBook's latest shows, the (deficit-based) system is fucked, and IMHO the answer is an (asset-based) alternative - "Debt/Equity swaps" on a massive -indeed national and global - scale.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson