All Recent Updates – Page 28 – Stephen Hinton Consulting

The Barsac Declaration – how to save lives and the environment

Some time ago, a group of scientists, dieticians and other concerned individuals got together to ask themselves if there was a diet that was optimum for health and for the environment. Their concern was mostly around the state of the nitrogen cycle in Europe as well as health issues from over-consumption of animal products.

The idea of a declaration of what was needed for a healthy diet and environment was developed on 29 October 2009 at Barsac, France at a workshop of experts convened by the EU NinE and BEGIN programmes. The works has come to be known as the Barsac declaration. Continue reading “The Barsac Declaration – how to save lives and the environment”

Profit warning

Marxist economist Michael Roberts warns of falling corporate profits. I believe one contribution is the continuing complexity of the world that is taking up more and more time to administer. See what you think.

Michael Roberts Blog

The final estimate of US GDP in the fourth quarter of 2014 came out today. US real GDP growth was left unrevised at 2.2% year-on-year in the final three months of the year and the figure for the whole of 2014 was unrevised at 2.4%. Mainstream economists were keen to suggest that the current quarter in 2015 ending this week could show a pick-up.

But none mentioned the really important development – that corporate profits fell in the fourth quarter, increasing the risk of a new slump in investment in 2015-16. Profits fell $30.4 billion in the fourth quarter, in contrast to an increase of $64.5 billion in the third. This seems mainly due to a fall in profits from overseas as the dollar’s strength drove income gathered in other currencies down. This meant that corporate profits are lower by 0.2% from this time last year and are down 0.8%…

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Dividend-bearing pollutant fees in simulation at European Phosphorus Platform

BERLIN 5 MARCH 2015: As an extra attraction at the 2nd European Sustainable Phosphorus Conference (ESPC2), The Swedish Sustainable Economy Foundation (TSSEF.SE) presented a shortened version of its simulation of divided-bearing pollutant fee mechanism. The simulation, which is played as a business game scenario, pits a government charged with reducing emissions of phosphorus against food producers and property owners who are charged with following regulations and keeping profits up.

The aim of the simulation is to bring participants up close to the myriad of factors – from technical and legal to emotional – surrounding putting a price on pollution. The simulation is aimed at giving participants an idea of how Environmental Fiscal Reform (EFR) works. The simulation highlights the dividend-bearing pollutant mechanism created by TSSEF. Basically a surcharge is levied as high up in the supply chain as possible on potential pollutants. (Pollutants are also useful substances, just in the wrong form and the wrong place.) Essential to understanding the levy is that it is paid back to taxpayers – to ensure that consumers retain spending power. Download the poster here. Continue reading “Dividend-bearing pollutant fees in simulation at European Phosphorus Platform”

Banks can play an important role in driving prosperity. Making money on asset-flipping doesn’t do it.

Professor Werner calls on Universities to look more into the role of local banks and the role of banks in general in the economy.

In this speech from MOTALA in Sweden Professor Werner explains the problem of large banks only investing in buying and selling assets, instead of investing in the local community in productive projects that create jobs.

The oil glut and low prices reflect an affordability problem

Excellent piece explains why energy prices at a low do not necessarily mean the economy will pick up. Assumptions by economists about energy prices are not confirmed in our highly networked economy as Our Finite World explains.

Our Finite World

For a long time, there has been a belief that the decline in oil supply will come by way of high oil prices. Demand will exceed supply. It seems to me that this view is backward–the decline in supply will come through low oil prices.

The oil glut we are experiencing now reflects a worldwide affordability crisis. Because of a lack of affordability, demand is depressed. This lack of demand keeps prices low–below the cost of production for many producers. If the affordability issue cannot be fixed, it threatens to bring down the system by discouraging investment in oil production.

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Tell politicians national economies are not like handbags.

An article newly published in the New Statesman points out something that is clear to economists: a national economy is not the same as a household economy. Politicians of all persuasions seem to be getting that badly wrong.

Politicians can cause problems by inferring that the nation must pay its debts like any well-run household because it just doesn’t work like that. Nations, unlike households, have a money-printing machine in the basement.

The article cites and incident of British Prime Minister David Cameron trying to use the “handbag” routine:

In 2011, Cameron had to hastily rewrite a speech stating that “the only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households – all of us – paying off the credit card and store card bills” after economists pointed out that this would massively exacerbate a recession fuelled by lack of demand.

The idea that a nation’s books must balance is counter-intuitive. Yet when it comes to the environmental books, the need to have a healthy flow of nutrients in the economy without degrading land and depleting resources, this seems to be accepted as some kind of necessary evil.

It is as if the Prime Minister want the money system to have its books balanced whilst the environment (and poverty) is a tool to achieve that .

The opposite is the ideal: balancing the environmental and social books, and the money system is one tool to ensure that. If the money books don’t balance so what? They aren’t even meant to. You cannot say the same for nature.

(in Swedish) Man in Mission Workshop

Välkommen till en helg för Män, där vi lyssnar och inspirerar varandra utifrån frågeställningar som “Vad är min drivkraft och hur kan jag ge uttryck för den i större utsträckning? “Vilka är mina hinder och hur kan jag övervinna dem?” Helgen erbjuder inspiration och stöd att växa som man, medmänniska och ledare. Vi berör teman såsom känslor, självinsikt, integritet och riktning. Vi lyssnar till varandra samt av nedan inspiratörer. Helgen erbjuder även vila, eftertanke, musikinslag och bastu/relax för den som önskar.

Samtalsform
I våra möten utgår vi från samtalscirkeln som bygger på att alla får dela med sig av sina tankar medan övriga lyssnar. Denna är en ofta använd metod i Mundekulla både på våra konferenser, kurser, festivaler och retreater. Peter studerade Indianhistoria i USA på University of Wisconsin 1996, då han kom i kontakt med Samtalscirkeln (Talking circle) vilket han berättar mer om på plats. Sedan 10 år tillbaka arrangeras även ett årligt sommarläger baserat på denna samtalsteknik på Mundekulla “Circle Way Camp”

Till anmälan och mer info

Simulation of dividend-bearing pollutant fees launches in Berlin

In Berlin, the 5-6 March, The Swedish Sustainable Economy Foundation, represented by Stephen Hinton, will participate in the European Sustainable Phosphorus Conference with its simulation of how dividend-bearing pollutant fees can apply to phosphorus in the circular economy.

Continue reading “Simulation of dividend-bearing pollutant fees launches in Berlin”

Do mutual aid networks mean new life for local economies?

Henry George, perhaps the best-known economist from the end of the US Wild West era, pointed out that with progress comes poverty. This is ever more true today. Communities, once places that were home to people with the skills and tools to provide most of what you needed, from midwives to undertakers, from roofers to foundation layers, are now mere dormitory units serving in a global network of corporations. As the fortunes of corporations change, and their hunt for cheaper labour takes them offshore, it can happen that dormitory areas are thrown into poverty. Poverty, then, is the other side of the coin of progress. And most seem to accept it.

But attitudes are starting to change. People are starting to understand that living local economies can withstand the whims of corporate relocation. People are starting to see that helping each other is a better deal than finding ways of getting people to pay for literally everything in a monetarized world rapidly going nowhere.

Continue reading “Do mutual aid networks mean new life for local economies?”