Newsletter—Spring 2016
Upcoming Agenda
Europe. I’ve booked my flight to Europe. I’ll be
landing in Milan, Italy on 31 May, will remain there for 2 or 3 days,
then travel onward to Athens, Volos, and Pelion.
As I mentioned in my
January newsletter, I will be conducting a weeklong course in innovative finance, exchange, and economics from 24 June thru 1 July at the
Alexandros campus of the
Kaliklos Holistic Summer School. This collaborative and problem-centered course titled,
Exchange and Finance for the New Economy: Principles and Practice,
is intended to stimulate the development and deployment of community
currencies, moneyless exchange systems, and equitable finance, and is
designed especially for social entrepreneurs, enthusiastic agents of
change, government officials, and serious students who are ready to
co-create a new sustainable and convivial economy from the bottom up.
Besides learning and co-creation, courses at Kalikalos also provide
participants with opportunities for community building, personal growth,
and recreation.
I am excited to be returning again this year to Greece and to be working
with course participants to achieve some truly revolutionary outcomes.
We’d be pleased to have you join us.
Details about the course, fees, and booking are at
http://www.kalikalos.org/exchange-finance. One or two bursaries may be available to qualified low income participants.
Greek participants are being offered (1) a discount of
33% on the full course, or (2) for those who are able to participate
only on the weekend of 25/26 June, an invitation to do so on the basis
of a free will offering.
Malaysia. I’ve accepted an invitation to speak in
October at the
International Forum on Inclusive Wealth (
http://www.ifiw.my/)
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The subject of my presentation will be a
revolutionary plan for the creation of a global exchange network based
on locally controlled credit clearing exchanges. This will be an
elaboration of ideas I first laid out in
a chapter of my 2009 book,
The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.
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The Panama Papers: The secrets of dirty money
The rich and powerful have for a very long time used shell companies and
secret numbered bank accounts in tax haven countries to not only avoid
taxes, but to hide their gains from illegal and immoral activities. Now,
thanks to yet another courageous whistleblower, the general public is
getting a glimpse into this world of hidden wealth and malfeasance.
The so-called Panama Papers that have recently been disclosed by the
media were first delivered by an anonymous whistleblower about a year
ago. Since then additional documents have been provided and the trove of
data now consists of 11.5 million documents that total 2.6 terabytes of
digital files. This leak is said to be a bigger bombshell than even
Edward Snowden’s revelations of U.S. government’s spying on citizens and
allies.
It will take a long time to sift through all that material but a few
startling revelations have recently been made. I have to wonder though,
why it has taken so long for any of the contents to be reported in the
mainstream media, and why the initial focus has been on Russia, Iceland,
and FIFA? Why have we not heard about names of any Americans turning up
in these documents? Surely we have more than our share of crooks in the
USA, the greatest of all tax havens.
MSNBC
has something to say about that, which you might want to read. I
wonder, might something in these documents have implications for the
2016 Presidential election? Hey, you journalists, let’s get cracking on
that.
If you wish to dig deeper into this matter, a good place to start is on the website of
Süddeutsche Zeitung, http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/.
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Geopolitics—Why was Qaddafi murdered?
The US-NATO attacks on Libya and the overthrow of its government is by
now old news, but very few people are aware of the real reasons behind
the intervention. Ellen Brown, in a recent article,
Exposing the Libyan Agenda: A Closer Look at Hillary's Email, has
done a good job of exposing the real agenda in Libya, and to the rest
of the world for that matter. She concludes, "violent intervention was
not chiefly about the security of the people. It was about the security
of global banking, money and oil." The fact is that anyone who is
perceived to be a threat to the dominance of the global money and
banking regime will be ridiculed, discredited,
or eliminated.
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Living in Community
As I grow old(er) I’m feeling the need to be a bit more settled than
I’ve been in recent years. Although I’m in pretty good health and still
independent, my nomadic lifestyle is becoming more difficult. I’m
seeking to connect with others of like mind to invent new ways of aging
together and supporting each others’ independence and whatever good work
we still hope to accomplish. To that end I recently posted an ad on the
Fellowship for Intentional Communities website. Here’s what I said:
We are seeking to organize a group of independent seniors (and maybe
a younger or two) who are still actively engaged and working in various
ways to make a better world. We don’t like, or cannot afford retirement
homes. We think a better way is to cooperate and share in a cooperative
household where we can have the privacy we need while working together
and providing each other with companionship and support.
The community might be located anywhere but our focus right now is
on Tucson and southern Arizona which offers a delightful climate, a
relatively low cost of living, and all the amenities that one might
desire.Large houses in this area can be leased for quite reasonable
rents.
If you have any interest, please let me know at
thgreco@mindspring.com.
Spring flowers and fragrant blossoms refresh my spirit, I hope they do the same for you,
Thomas
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