review by Michael Barratt Brown in Red Pepper, Feb/March 2010 published at
http://spokesmanbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/public-cost-of-private-benefi...
Readers, this book and review refers to the British context, but I believe that that it is not substantially different than any other national context which has been dominated by the phony econo-theology of Free Market "economics." Admin

For the last 5 decades, Robert De Fremery has been one of the most consistent forces for monetary reform in America. Though not generally known to the public, De Fremery's persistent correspondence with Federal Reserve authorities, and nationally known economists has had a lasting influence upon many of them. His ideas on one hundred percent reserve banking and increasing the money supply in proportion to population growth, have appeared over the years in prestigious financial journals, as well as in his previous book MONEY AND FREEDOM.

Looking back at the Cooperative Commonwealth movement of the 1930s

I am a veteran of the 1960’s New Left. I helped organize demonstrations in Minnesota against the Indochinese war and participated in small-scale efforts to build a new society from the ground up: communal living, free schools, community controlled neighborhood development.

http://www.truthout.org/1223094

Readers: Please note that as one result of the AIG bail-out that the US Government owns 80% of AIG's shares, but refuses to exercise control of its management. THIS is what Free Market and financialized economics looks like. Admin.

Thanks to AIG, some of the poorest residents of rural Kentucky learned you can always be made poorer by corporate villains.

published on Global Policy Innovations, which has this mission: To highlight the best new thinking on a fairer globalization. Launched in April 2004 with the support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Global Policy Innovations is based at the Carnegie Council in New York City. The Land Ethic at: http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/000150

Readers: This may seem like an odd inclusion, but we need to point out that the recent interest and support of the global warming proposition didn't get serious until the potential to make money off of carbon futures as a derivative was established. In effect the process was canted and scammed and now it has been outed. The financialization of global warming was qued to generate large fortunes, when combined with various proposed carbon taxation policies. Given the cooling effect of volcanic ash in the stratosphere the much predicted global warming panic has subsided.

By John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark

Reader: While this award as related to the issue of the Commons is applauded, as with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to PotUS B. H. Obama without demonstrating really any related accomplishments, I believe that this recognition will be turned on its head and into a justification for deregulation, by the ideology based economists, which still represents the majority. The shift to a commons based economics is going to require the establishment of a commons related set of values and culture, or the tragedy will be enlarged.

Reader: This is far less contemporary, 1649 CE to be more precise, and Gerrard Winstanley, as the rural representative of the English Levelers, was important for several reasons. His piece as in treating the commons as it was intended under the Covenant of the Forest (it is archived in the pamphlets and Papers section here) was possibly the earliest push back against the hedging or privatization of the commons by the Monarchy and the wealthy which generally acted in whose interests.