There was a time in the United States when most of our financial institutions were local. Which essentially meant that local communities were able to create their own credit, or their own money, in response to their own needs. We still depended on banks, but it was a much more democratic process.

Entranced by promises of a material paradise of limitless luxury, humanity has too long ignored the mismatch between the imperatives of our existence as living beings on a finite planet and the imperatives of the institutions of money that chart our path to the future. Created to build colonial empires in service to kings, global corporations are ill suited to the task of building just, sustainable, and compassionate civil societies that nurture sufficiency, partnership, and respect for the whole of life.

It is interesting to note that the 200 richest people have more assets than the 2 billion poorest.

There is no visible sign that the current politicians in the US are willing to see the need for change.

So, there is enormous instability in the global economy with a shift of winners and losers.

An economic system can remain viable only so long as society has mechanisms to counter abuses of either state or market power and the erosion of the natural, social, and moral capital that such abuses commonly exacerbate.

Money is not wealth. Money is a claim on wealth.