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American invention, American enterprise, soon led the world in the expansion of big business and the mechanization of life.  For a time it was not realized that this march of Triumphant Democracy was essentially the rape of virgin resources that could never be replaced.  Triumphant Democracy poured across the continent, destroying the forests and so changing the climate for the worse, ploughing up pasture that presently became sandy desert, exterminating animal species, using up coal, oil, mineral wealth as though there was no end to any of these things.

— H.G. Wells, The Fate of Man, 1939

from pdk’s blog

Today anyone can be a photographer — and most people are.  Sue Davies … tells us that in England camera clubs have grown … to nearly 10,000 today.  In New York … ‘every third person is now taking photography courses at the School of Visual Arts’.

To many of the young people today, the idea of going off to a portrait photographer is preposterous.  They are unwilling to submit to his strictures, or to be portrayed only as he wishes….

— Cecil Beaton, 1975

from pdk’s blog

An excellent presentation explaining and showing evidence of how the disparity of wealth and poverty is harmful.  Not in the global sense, but in the local sense.  In the U.S.A. we have a have a very high spread between the top 20% and the bottom 20% and this relates to many factors: life expectancy, mental health, crime.

Watch it.

http://u.pdk.to/vIm8gv

from pdk’s blog

I was reading “Debt: The First 5000 Years” and learning about how money did not arise from the need to provide a better system of barter, but arose out of the need to better account for debt that was already present.  I still haven’t completely wrapped my head around the notion, so I may have it wrong here, but this bit of an article about alternatives to the euro in Greece caught my eye:

Members start their accounts with zero, and they accrue credit by offering goods and services. They can borrow up to 300 TEMs, but they are expected to repay the loan within a fixed period of time.

Battered by Economic Crisis, Greeks Turn to Barter Networks

The new (virtual) currency is ostensibly tied to the euro (1:1) but does not require any actual euros to get in the game.  I would assume there is no way to cash out either. :)

But my point here is that the creation of “money” does not require anything at all except the accounting of who owes how much.  Money is debt.

from pdk’s blog