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Glasnost in Economic Sciences? Elinor Ostrom Nobel Laureate for her studies on the Commons |
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All of us were quite surprised when Elinor Ostrom became Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences. Her key oeuvre Governing the Commons appeared in 1990, twenty years from now. Although the first research paper on today's Global Commons Index has been published in 2007 by Elinors university, the University of Indiana, of course we are quite content that the commons are getting to the front now! But it seems that the Swedish Riksbank wanted to show after the financial crisis that they are willing to allow some Glasnost in the hermetic home zone of economic research. Gerhard Schwarz, chief-economist of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung today commented the decision to be political. He pointed out that both scientists being awarded by the committee were no market sceptic On August 20th the European Commission released the report "GDP and beyond"
(COM 433 2009). In this report the commission defends the current GDP ("It's
still the best single measure of how the market economy is performing") and
suspends any changes to the year 2012. We publish this report, that was given
to the European Parliament and which is completely unknown to the public here .
Some weeks later, on September 14th, the 292 pages report of the Stiglitz-Fitoussi
group to the European Commission was released. As far as the EU Commission knew
the report before, their aim is to avoid any activity that may cause doubts in
the current GDP due to the fear of impacts influencing the rating of governmental debts. All members of the group producing this report therefore were from
governments and universities. No single NGO was involved. As a result, all
alternatives are blocked now while "proofing" the proposals made by the
Fitoussi group.
We featured this situation in our current report Wealth beyond GDP .
Be free to compare all the three papers to make your own picture! |
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Launch of our Index at the World Commons Forum in Salzburg on September 29-30 2009 |
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Financing the Commons - that will be the major issue of the presentation of the Global Commons Index and the Global Commons Fund at the World Commons Forum 2009 in Salzburg:
Financing the Commons
- How to use methods of Asset Management to develop the Commons
Are Commons assets? Looking back on centuries of exploiting limited natural resources the answer might be "No". Looking forward to widen the Commons by renewables, social and private Commons, the answer may be: "Yes!"
The Commons finance dilemma is obvious. Only by exploiting existing Commons the taxes and private contributions can be generated to finance the protection of Commons. One solution: Composing a Commons portfolio to intermediate between existing, developing and future Commons.Two instruments will be proposed:
1) The composition of a National Commons Product as a total of natural, social and private public goods. That will be a serious challenge for the volatile and monetary current GDP. A Global Commons Index will enter the international index benchmarks. The index is looking for national and regional partners to measure their local commons.
2) The launch of a Global Commons Funds consisting of different asset classes such as real estate, stocks, private equity, credit and microcredit, state securities, bonds and development aid. The first fund will raise Sfr 10 billion and finance the development of local commons in three continents.
The Commons Fund is looking for local projects to fund. |
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Cheatonomics: How Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs support a fake US GDP |
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Generations of economists rely on the GDP. Whatever they try to explain or to proof - they're relating it to the GDP. Depts. Welfare. Labour. Production. Pricing. Even Happiness. Now Nobel Price Laureate Paul Krugman surprised us with a comment that appeared in the New York Times on August 27th. Even a total of $ 18 Trillion US debts - that's what Krugman is telling us - will be no problem at all. Why that? Because the US has a GDP-dept ratio of only 70 per cent at the moment. That might be a dangerous bet on the truthiness (wonderful word from Stephen Colbert used in his legendary White House Speech in 2006) of the US GDP. Jeffrey Sachs even supposes the US GDP to be only 40,8 per cent of the GDP. Jeffrey Sachs may need good old GDP in order to save his Millennium Goals. And here is my answer in English and German. It seems as if we have to say a final farewell to the United States - that's what Dr. Konrad Hummler, the owner of the legendary Swiss Wegelin-Bank from St. Gallen is telling us today in English and German. After reading this we may come to the impression that not only economy in the US is a true and complete cheat, but that economists are cheaters as well. |
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Read papers of contemporary Economists: |
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