An Open Letter to Occupy Wall Street

The question has been raised, from both inside and outside the movement, on where Occupy Wall Street should go from here. The street actions are important as they are the most affective way of expressing the seriousness and scope of this movement; however these actions are only moderately sustainable. We now need to explore actions we can take individually, as well as collectively, as agents of change, to counter the Wall Street deception within a framework that is replicable and expandable on our Main Streets; in short, we need to foster an occupy Main Street movement.

In an effort to reinvent and reinvigorate Main Street, I want to offer a strategy for the occupy movement that involves harnessing the vast amount of human capital represented by the multitude of unemployed and underemployed professionals. I’m offering a website now under construction at www.vera-city.net, to serve as a base for an effort that calls out to like minded people to join together to achieve a grassroots revitalization of Main Street. Vera-City is only a seed of an idea, it presently contain links to numerous neighborhood development websites that offer working concepts on a wide range of community wealth building strategies, which include Coops, ESOPs and CSOPs, along with renewable energy stratagems and complementary currency models.

One benefit of participating in Vera City is a proprietary global digital complementary currency called the Vera, which will provide a barter device for the community. Though the Vera will have a global value, it can only be spent with local businesses owned by Vera City members. The Vera represents a private global complementary monetary system designed to assist communities to act locally-globally. The Vera is envisioned to be a hybrid currency that will provide for a share or stock component, which will supply a pool of risk capital for investing in energy conservation and renewable energy acquisition; affording a countervailing force to the economic power of the oil industry to control the energy market. The creation of the Vera will also produce a reserve of dollars that can be lent at a low cost to members for local business expansion.

Vera-City, along with the Vera, is an idea whose time has come and it’s time for this effort to be opened to others to move it forward quickly. The rapid expansion of the “Occupy” movement makes the need to move rapidly even more urgent, it also makes this strategy more viable. I’m seeking collaborators who have the skill sets to move this project into the mainstream, within a leaderless velvet revolution for liberating Main Street from the predation of Wall Street. We can no longer look to government or Wall Street to heed our demands; we need to move forward as a powerful multitude using collective or “neo corporate power” to change the trajectory of our social/economic condition.

We have a rare opportunity ahead of us to deconstruct the old institutions and create new robust institutions that respond more quickly to the changing times propelled by the new paradigms expressed through the exploding open source movement. What is needed right away are IT professionals, web designers and programmers, bankers, lawyers, angel investors, credit/debit card experts to build the business and legal superstructure, while at the same time a team of social network aficionados that will initiate a dialog with community organizers active on revitalizing their respective Main Streets around the globe, to lay the groundwork for implementation of the scheme. An immense amount of work needs to be done in a stealthy manner to build up a social network and fashion an alternative infrastructure, so when it is launched it can reach critical mass rapidly and be too big to stop. I know this is a bold proposal, but the grim times we live in demand we take great risk.

Copyright 2011

Alternative Energy and The Future of Oil Companies

The Future of “Oil” Companies

Our national goal of switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy has maintained a high level of support.  Achieving price parity between alternative energy and fossil fuels is vital to the objective of energy transformation.

We can wait for the price of alternative energy to reach parity with fossil fuel sometime in the future, as more technologies are proven viable, but it’s an unreliable time horizon.  Due to the pace of global warming, as well as the national security concerns of relying on fossil fuels, we may not have the time to bet on the market. 

There’s been a hodgepodge of speculation on what was behind the slow but persistent rise in gas prices, ebbing and flowing towards higher equilibriums; with prices rising beyond $5 a gallon (before ISIS started flooding the market).  The so called experts have offered numerous explanations for that trend, but none of their responses seem to have any consistency. 

Tracing this trend back, evidence appears that the fuel price inflation we witnessed was initiated with the blessing of the Bush Administration.  It was concurrent with the “secret” meeting Dick Cheney arranged with the oil companies at the White House; being secret one is compelled to look at what followed.   Subsequent to this secret meeting President Bush gave his “addicted to oil” speech and within weeks the oil industry began a PR campaign touting their newfound interest in renewable energy, rebranding themselves “Energy Companies.” The price of fuel started trending upward until recent world events. 

Before anyone gets their dander up over this assertion, let’s look at the benefits behind the alleged deed.  The most expedient method to achieve an energy security objective is to unilaterally raise the price of fuel at the pump.  In this way we quickly move fossil fuels towards parity with the emerging alternative energy technologies, while at the same time amassing the capital necessary to invest in the new technologies. 

Looking at the problem from a “free market” perspective this is the correct way of achieving the objective and it can be argued it is also good public policy.  Higher fuel prices will mitigate the demand for the polluting, non- renewable energy and speed up the transformation to solar, wind and other more benign sources. 

If it’s not through the unilateral action by the oil industry to achieve price parity with alternative energy, what is the mechanism?  One of the options offered by congress is adding a fuel tax to raise the price of fuel.  Raising taxes in an effort to achieve energy transformation is shaky as the government has proven to be a poor manager of our common wealth, often diverting revenue toward unintended uses.  On the other hand taxing may be the lesser of the two evils, as simply tolerating oil companies making windfall profits, regardless of the means by which it is achieved, would be inequitable and dangerous.  The vast amount of capital potentially generated by oil companies will consolidate their power as energy companies, allowing them to control the energy market, including alternative energy; even retarding progress toward renewable energy. 

So if taxing fuel or allowing the oil industry to amass windfall profits is not acceptable solutions, what is?   I suggest a third way, through collaboration.  I propose consumers partner with the “energy companies” in support of a national goal toward alternative energy transformation. 

How will this “partnering” work?  In exchange for granting the energy companies the right to raise fuel prices, the consumers will receive Loyalty Reward Points toward owning stock in the energy companies.  Every time a consumer buys product, energy points will accumulate on a rewards card, when sufficient points accumulate to purchase stock it will automatically be placed in the consumers account at the current stock price.  This non-bidding approach to stock distribution will provide the “Energy Companies” some certainty in the expansion of their stock. 

If this rational energy transition method is applied, it has the potential to bring all affected parties into a synergistic interrelationship and would expeditiously stimulate innovation toward alternative energy conversion.  There is a huge potential for creating jobs in renewable energy production and infrastructure.  To release this potential we need to incentivize the effort toward renewable transformation in a way that is equitable to all parties by sharing the benefits from a shared investment. 

Copyright © 2011 -2012