ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

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""Fred Nickols"" <nickols@att
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by ""Fred Nickols"" <nickols@att »

Posted by ""Fred Nickols"" <nickols@att.net>

Bill Powers, creator of Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), a feedback or co=
ntrol
loop based view of human behavior, has grown concerned about some positiv=
e
feedback loops in the economic system and wrote a letter which I am passi=
ng
along. My guess is that the folks on the SD list have also spotted the s=
ame
loops. Anyway, I thought I=92d check reactions to Bill=92s letter on thi=
s list.

Regards,
Fred Nickols
Managing Partner
Distance Consulting, LLC

Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU] On Behalf Of Bill Powers
[From Bill Powers (2008.12.05.0444 MST)]

This is a letter that needs to be conveyed to as many people who make eco=
nomic
decisions as possible. OUR ECONOMIC SYSTEM CONTAINS DESTABILIZING FEEDBAC=
K LOOPS
THAT CAN DESTROY IT. WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO REMOVE THEM AS QUICKLY =
AS
POSSIBLE.

This is a true time bomb. It is perfectly obvious, and it is to my shame =
and
that
of everyone who understands the dynamics of control systems that it was n=
ot
noticed, publicized, and corrected long ago. It is very simple and we are
watching it operate every day that this recession deepens.

Its cause is some set of policies or principles that are thought to be ne=
cessary
to maintain the viability of a business, but which, when generally adopte=
d, have
the effect of exaggerating swings in the market and, if widespread enough=
, throw
the market into a state of dynamic instability that feeds on itself. Incr=
eases
in
market activity cause a piling-on effect which drive the increases even f=
urther
and induce more frenzied market activity. The same underlying relationshi=
ps work
the other way, too: when the market peaks and starts downward, this cause=
the
enthusiasm to wane and the market activity to slow down, and the slowdown=
causes
an even more dampening effect, which makes the slowdown accelerate. Which=
ever
way
the market tends to change, the change is exaggerated by this feedback ef=
fect.
The initial result when the amount of feedback is small is that the econo=
my
displays ""boom-and-bust"" cycles of relatively small amplitude, which die =
out
after a time. When the degree of this effect becomes large enough, the s=
wings
start to get larger and can enter a region in which a runaway effect occu=
rs.
Then
the only way to stop the growing oscillations is for something in the sys=
tem to
be damaged enough to reduce the feedback effect below the fatal threshold=
of
sensitivity.

One obvious destabilizing effect we are seeing right now is that companie=
s faced
with falling sales are laying off parts of their workforces to reduce cos=
ts and
preserve their net income. As the number of employed persons decreases, t=
he
total
income of the average consumer falls, so there is less money to spend on =
goods
and services -- the very spending that is the source of income for the co=
mpanies
who are laying off workers (and each others' customers). So we have the
situation
in which the attempt of companies to reduce expenses and restore their in=
come to
profitable levels has the effect of reducing, not increasing, the total n=
et
income of all companies. That leads to an increase in the attempts to red=
uce
expenses, and so on. If enough companies follow the same policy, there ca=
n be
only one outcome: total collapse.

This is probably not the only destabilizing feature in the basic relation=
ships
that make up our economic systems. It is only one obvious feedback loop w=
ith the
wrong sign. This is known technically as a positive feedback loop, one in=
which
small changes lead to larger changes, in contrast with the negative feedb=
ack
loop
in which small perturbations are negated by feedback effects and are imme=
diately
smoothed out. In popular usage ""positive feedback"" means encouragement an=
d
approval, but if encouragement occurs only when one is doing better and i=
s
withdrawn when one begins to do less well, the seeds of true positive fee=
dback
have been planted; at the first sign of doing less well, approval will de=
crease,
and the resulting lessening of encouragement will cause performance to de=
crease
even more, and so on to disaster. What works on the way up continues to w=
ork on
the way down. Changes in either direction are exaggerated by positive fee=
dback,
and the result is instability. If there is enough instability, the system=
will
destroy itself.

The cure for positive feedback and its destructive effects is to ferret o=
ut and
remove all the positive feedback loops. There should be little resistance=
to
doing this, because what will be revealed is the clear fact that actions
intended
to improve matters are actually making them worse. Any sane person will c=
ease
such actions even if their undesirability is not immediately explained or
understood. Once we step back and look at the overall relationships, the
instability that is caused by a wrong response to problems becomes obviou=
s. Then
the main issue is seen clearly: what do we need to change to prevent this=
sort
of
destabilizing feedback from occurring?

Stabilizing the economic system does not require telling people what to b=
uy or
what to sell, or for how much, or to whom. It requires intervention only =
when a
reaction to a change in economic activity, either upward or downward, res=
ults in
amplification of the change rather than smoothing it out. Just why this
amplification occurs has to be studied so the correct adjustment can be m=
ade. It
could be only that there is too much reaction to a change. It could be th=
at the
reaction is too much delayed, so what would have been a stablizing reacti=
on if
it
had occurred right away becomes destablizing when applied too late. Or it=
could
be that the intuitive reaction to a problem is exactly the reaction that =
will
make it worse, showing that there is a mistaken understanding of how one =
part of
the system affects other parts.

Reaching an understanding of instability in the economic system is no lon=
ger an
abstract goal of only academic interest. It is a necessity for our surviv=
al. It
requires a massive investigation and the efforts of many competent scient=
ists
who
know how to analyze and model large systems -- a Manhattan Project that w=
ill
finally unravel the mysteries of how the economic system works. We need t=
o
understand exactly what kind of technical public-sector interventions can=
be
brought to bear when the free market goes into free fall, without infring=
ing on
rights or imposing micromanagement on individual entrepreneurs and consum=
ers.
The
answer, at times, could be as simple as a slowing of changes similar to w=
hat the
stock market imposes when panic threatens an individual stock. Sometimes =
it
could
require rulings about policies which, if followed by enough transacting p=
arties,
threaten the entire system. Some existing regulations might prove to caus=
e more
of the problems they were intended to lessen.

The only way to find the answers we need is to construct a working model =
of the
economy, which requires studying it in sufficient detail to construct tha=
t
model,
and then, once consensus is reached, using the model first to reproduce t=
he
economic events that are so troublesome to everyone, and then looking for=
the
minimum changes required to prevent them from ever happening again.

Please forward this letter wherever you think it might do some good.

Bill Powers
Posted by ""Fred Nickols"" <nickols@att.net>
posting date Fri, 5 Dec 2008 07:30:54 -0700

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""John Voyer"" <voyer@usm.mai
Junior Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by ""John Voyer"" <voyer@usm.mai »

Posted by ""John Voyer"" <voyer@usm.maine.edu>

Bill Powers's noticing of positive feedbacks in the economy is not exactly news.

Similarly, his call for a working model of the economy is, what, 20-30 years
behind the times. The National Model at MIT has probably already done many of
the things he calls for.

The undertone of his letter--that ""somebody has to do something about this!""--is
something that I, personally, consider dangerous. Much of what we are
experiencing now is because policymakers tried to manipulate the free market
system, e.g., ""mark to market"" rules, real interest rates that went negative,
etc. There might be ways to reduce those oscillation-enhancing policies, but
I'd
prefer to see the free market send information in undistorted ways and
straighten
itself out.

So, long term, the best way to get rid of these ""bad"" positive feedbacks is to
let the system act to straighten itself out in an undistorted way.

John Voyer

----------------------------------------------------------

John J. Voyer, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Accreditation
and Professor of Business Administration
School of Business
University of Southern Maine
Posted by ""John Voyer"" <voyer@usm.maine.edu>
posting date Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:22:00 -0500
_______________________________________________
""Carl Edwards"" <cedwards@so
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by ""Carl Edwards"" <cedwards@so »

Posted by ""Carl Edwards"" <cedwards@socialaw.com>

Dear Colleagues;
Bill Powers has delineated a very real and serious problem. In
fact, it is one of several problems uncovered in the wake of the Great
Depression, studied at some length, and then seemingly forgotten over the
last decade or two. Jay Forrester has discussed this in other contexts, and
the Federal Reserve was in large part tasked with addressing the issue on an
ongoing basis to avoid repetition of actions that exacerbated the problems
of the 1930s.
Two points, both related to human behavior. First, Bill's
discussion points to a very simple problem of human behavior often discussed
under the topic of ""commons;"" the reality that people will act in their own
interest rather than the group interest unless payoffs are modified to
encourage collective good. An obvious example is that employers lay off
their own workers to preserve their net but the lowering of employment
generally decreases everyone's potential advancement.
Second, we are also now seeing in the U.S. economy government
actions which are seen, in large part correctly, as rewarding the least
productive payers in the marketplace. This, rather than raising
productivity and creating stability, has created confusion and instability.
If you examine the stock markets, markets generally react negatively to
these actions. Government, rather than changing its position, interprets
the market as telling them that even more disincentives are necessary.
Powers is correct that America is in crisis, but it is a crisis that
would have easily been recognized by any good economist or behavioral
scientists in the late 1940s and quickly corrected. For some reason, we
have forgotten our history, and show no inclination to listen to those best
prepared to make productive suggestions.
Regards,
Carl

Carl N. Edwards, J.D., Ph.D.
2 Spring Lane P.O. Box 279
Dover, MA 02030
Posted by ""Carl Edwards"" <cedwards@socialaw.com>
posting date Sat, 6 Dec 2008 08:47:21 -0500
_______________________________________________
Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasyst
Member
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasyst »

Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com>

John Voyer correctly notes that positive feedbacks in the economy are not news.
The multiplier-accelerator and other theories have been around for a long time.
Where Powers really goes astray is with the notion that we can build a model,
reach consensus, and solve the problem technocratically. The system is too
complex for that. If you read the blogs of academic economists, you'll find
dozens of theories about the financial crisis, and little formal basis to
distinguish among them. By ""formal"" I really mean ""model,"" and models have not
been visible in the discussion, at least to me.

The nugget of wisdom in Powers' message is that positive feedback can work both
ways, and that efforts to maximize a system's growth rate can have destabilizing
side effects. Like the electric power system, the economy works best when it's
on, and is difficult to restart if inadvertently switched off. Optimizing for
robustness might be a better option. Ironically, there's little evidence that
efforts to increase the growth rate actually do anything - per capita GDP growth
has been nearly constant in advanced economies since the industrial revolution.

To some extent, it might be possible to remove positive feedbacks, as Powers
proposes. One might, for example, reconsider the implications of money creation
through lending. I doubt that it's possible or desirable to eliminate all
positive loops though - after all, if you eliminate capital accumulation, growth
stops. The focus of most macroeconomic policy though is creation of
countercyclic
negative feedbacks. It's not clear that those policies are well understood (see
Forrester thesis below), or that they work in extreme conditions (as we're
seeing
now).

However, I think it's wrong to blame the rules and place faith in the invisible
hand. Mark-to-market, for example, might have contributed to the problem by
creating one of Powers' positive loops (falling prices force asset liquidation
to
meet capital requirements, driving prices further down). However, in a world
where undistorted signals were sufficient for stability, investors would have
seen that coming and priced assets accordingly, and the crisis would never have
occurred. The worst of the subprime lending was in the private sector; it wasn't
the GSEs who were driving ARMs, low-documentation loans, and other junk.

The real problem is not Fed policy or FNMA, it's that people got excited about
rising asset prices and forgot to think about fundamental value and risk. As a
result they took on too much leverage and too many non-transparent instruments.
There were bubbles long before there were regulators.

The real challenge here, I think, is that a lot of the perverse positive loops
are in people's heads. Education helps, but people forget, so it's an ongoing
process. Forgetting is amplified by evolutionary effects. It's hard to
distinguish between a robust strategy and risky speculation. Given the
difficulty
with attribution, it's quite likely that selection pressure will favor managers
who generate short term returns, and thus good times will gradually drive out
good sense. To some extent this is the problem of evil, and we will never fix
it,
but we do need to make some headway on such problems, otherwise the financial
crisis will be merely the first of a number of global catastrophes.

If you want a good example of SD work in this space, take a look at Nathan
Forrester's thesis.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/15739
At least take a look at the introduction (pgs 7-18) and conclusions (215-217).
You can download the model from my site here
http://metasd.com/models/index.html#Business

Tom
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com>
posting date Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:21:53 -0700
_______________________________________________
Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci
Senior Member
Posts: 51
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci »

Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>

""SDMAIL Tom Fiddaman"" <tom@ventanasystems.com> writes:

> Where Powers really goes astray is with the notion that we can build a model,
> reach consensus, and solve the problem technocratically. The system is too
> complex for that.

Tom,

Agreed. Bobby Milstein at the US CDC recently posted a paper about that
sort of idea applied to public health; there's a link to the article at
http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/20 ... force.html

I agree that it may not be desirable to eliminate all positive loops.

I've been curious about the growth topic and our work for some time. If
we who practice system dynamics accept the messages of LTG, accept we've
been in overshoot for almost three decades (e.g., see
http://www.facilitatedsystems.com/weblo ... ut-it.html),
and accept that tipping points can exist (while this hasn't been
discussed here, John Schellnhuber and his group have done a nice
exploration of what ecological tipping points we most likely face -- see
http://www.facilitatedsystems.com/weblo ... oints.html)
why is stopping growth a bad thing?

- - If that is all true, won't growth perforce drop anyway? Are we
limited to influencing when and how but not if?

- - Doesn't trying to sustain growth (general, aggregate growth, not
growth in specific areas) run the risk of a bigger collapse later?
Would that be seen as a Bad Thing (tm)?

- - Should those questions yield positive answers, what does that suggest
about the types of work to which we apply (and should apply) SD?

You touched on that in your recent ""Four Legs and a Tail"" on your blog.
I'm curious in your (and others') thoughts on this matter; I'm still
puzzling about it myself. While you can find some of that puzzling on
my blog by searching for the word ""growth,"" I haven't come close to
discovering all the answers -- even just all those that might satisfy
me -- so I welcome your thoughts.

> > If you want a good example of SD work in this space, take a look at Nathan
> > Forrester's thesis.

Thanks for the suggestion; it's been on my list to read for some time,
and perhaps this is the required incentive.

Bill
- --
Bill Harris
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:58:47 -0800
_______________________________________________
""Jay Forrest"" <systems@jayf
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by ""Jay Forrest"" <systems@jayf »

Posted by ""Jay Forrest"" <systems@jayforrest.com>

Hi Tom!

A couple of perverse thoughts. Your email - as always struck great chords.
You said.

""The real problem is not Fed policy or FNMA, it's that people got excited
about rising asset prices and forgot to think about fundamental value and
risk. As a result they took on too much leverage and too many
non-transparent instruments.
There were bubbles long before there were regulators.""

I think it is important that orgs (companies, governments, etc) also behave
as ""people"" and have the same foibles for their failures can amplify the
failings of individuals.

And this.

""The real challenge here, I think, is that a lot of the perverse positive
loops are in people's heads. Education helps, but people forget, so it's an
ongoing process. Forgetting is amplified by evolutionary effects. It's hard
to distinguish between a robust strategy and risky speculation. Given the
difficulty with attribution, it's quite likely that selection pressure will
favor managers who generate short term returns, and thus good times will
gradually drive out good sense. To some extent this is the problem of evil,
and we will never fix it, but we do need to make some headway on such
problems, otherwise the financial crisis will be merely the first of a
number of global catastrophes.""

Well said.

The recent books The Seven Sins of Memory by ???, Stumbling on Happiness by
Daniel Gilbert, and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely provide interesting
insights into the workings of the mind related to both past and future and
provide a pretty robust platform for contemplating the mental behavioral
tendencies of humans that may all but dictate the repetitiveness of ""crash
mentality"".

But, I think, it goes beyond that for the evolutionary ecologists have solid
models that reinforce that systems evolve to be increasingly efficient - but
more brittle and fragile at the same time. Turbulence is the breaker of
mature systems. (As an aside, GM is a perfect example of an overoptimized,
brittle, fragile mature, and arguably senescent, system that simply doesn't
know how to deal with its environment.)

Both humans and businesses demonstrate a tendency to take recent patterns
and project them. (Most people's vision of the future is today with the
problems taken away!). Emphasis on Taylor's Scientific Management in
business schools has created a corporate power structure that believes
problems can be addressed reductively and are routinely surprised by
unintended consequences.

I agree education would be helpful but I wonder if the human tendencies can
be overcome for they are, as you allude, a well-established evolutionary
characteristic. That tends to lead me to believe that some form of
government control is necessary if such events are to be avoided - not an
answer I like for I see little evidence that the government is particularly
insightful at avoiding unintended consequences but were they insightful -
better than trusting individuals.

There are numerous system characteristics I suspect most of us could agree
would be beneficial to avoiding future recurrences.

Thanks!
Jay Forrest
Posted by ""Jay Forrest"" <systems@jayforrest.com>
posting date Mon, 8 Dec 2008 08:50:19 -0600
_______________________________________________
<richard.dudley@attglobal.net
Member
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by <richard.dudley@attglobal.net »

Posted by <richard.dudley@attglobal.net>

Given the current conversation I thought it would be appropriate to repost
the link
to a paper that I found at this web site:

http://www.orie.cornell.edu/orie/people ... netid=pep4

Title: The Financial Meltdown, How did we get in this mess? by Philip
Protter. September 29, 2008

This 6 page article begins with the passing of the (USA) Glass-Steagall act
of 1933 and, over the years, the gradual implementation and subsequent
removal of protections that it and
other laws and regulations had created.

I believe that it discusses, without saying so, steps implemented and later
removed that would have dampened oscillations. Not sure about that...

- Richard
Posted by <richard.dudley@attglobal.net>
posting date Tue, 9 Dec 2008 09:33:08 -0500
_______________________________________________
Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci
Senior Member
Posts: 51
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci »

Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>

""SDMAIL Jay Forrest"" <systems@jayforrest.com> writes:

> Both humans and businesses demonstrate a tendency to take recent patterns
> and project them. (Most people's vision of the future is today with the
> problems taken away!).

.. or today with the good stuff removed, if you're on the other end of
the optimist - pessimist spectrum (remember Y2K and TEOTWAWKI?).

> problems taken away!). Emphasis on Taylor's Scientific Management in
> business schools has created a corporate power structure that believes
> problems can be addressed reductively and are routinely surprised by
> unintended consequences.

If they'd only listen to _us_! :-)

Which begs the question: are there ways we could talk in ways that are
more likely to be heard? Would such /talking/ involve a lot of
listening and asking in the right places to the right groups of people?

> That tends to lead me to believe that some form of
> government control is necessary if such events are to be avoided - not an
> answer I like for I see little evidence that the government is particularly
> insightful at avoiding unintended consequences but were they insightful -
> better than trusting individuals.

Al Gore made a similar point in a video I pointed to at
http://www.facilitatedsystems.com/weblo ... unity.html

Perhaps the essence of his message is that we don't just have a crisis
of the climate; we have a crisis of democracy, for government is just us
organized (at least in many parts of the world), right? I don't often
point to videos, because I realize it takes more time to view than to
read, but this is one of those that seems worthwhile. Near the end,
including in the Q&A, he reframes the challenge in a very upbeat,
optimistic, and concrete way.

Bill
-- Bill Harris
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:39:10 -0800
_______________________________________________
Jean-Jacques Laubl=E9 <jean-j
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by Jean-Jacques Laubl=E9 <jean-j »

Posted by Jean-Jacques Laubl=E9 <jean-jacques.lauble@estvideo.fr>

Hi everybody

I totally agree with John Voyer

<So, long term, the best way to get rid of these ""bad"" positive feedbacks
<is to let the system act to straighten itself out in an undistorted way.

And letting the system act to straighten itself consists of not helping a=
nybody
so as to respect the neutrality and equity of the Administration and fair
competition and letting the system punish severely the people or the
organisations that were concentrated on short term profit and not buildin=
g a new
bubble to come as is the Fed doing now by setting the interest rate at 1%=
once
again!

I think that the best way to make people act with common sense is showing=
how it
may be

harmful when one does not even if people=92s memory does not last very lo=
ng.

It may last some years or at the best a full generation.

And this even at the risk of generating a very strong depression.

I am not again any administration intervention but as long as it knows wh=
at to
do
and is not

restricted to short term, political or lobby=92s considerations.

We have seen in France something impossible to imagine last year: banks n=
o more
lending money to one another.

I fear that the next step might be, states not finding anybody to lend th=
em the
money needed

to fill up their deficits. And this might generate a depression much more
devastating than the 1929 crisis.

One other reason of acting like this is that there is a slight hope of be=
ing
able
to analyse how the system works, once that it is not biased by irrational=
,
powerful decisions from single actors whose hidden or not existing ration=
ality
is
impossible to predict (mainly politics).

Best regards and Merry Christmas nevertheless.

Jean-Jacques Laubl=E9 Eurli Allocar

Strasbourg France

Posted by Jean-Jacques Laubl=E9 <jean-jacques.lauble@estvideo.fr>
posting date Tue, 9 Dec 2008 17:52:59 +0100

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Jack Harich <register@thwink.
Member
Posts: 39
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

ANNOUNCE PCT and an economic emergency

Post by Jack Harich <register@thwink. »

Posted by Jack Harich <register@thwink.org>

SDMAIL Bill Harris wrote:

> Which begs the question: are there ways we could talk in ways that
> are more likely to be heard? Would such /talking/ involve a lot of
> listening and asking in the right places to the right groups of
> people?

There's a golden opportunity to be ""more likely to be heard"" at:
http://change.gov/open_government/yourseatatthetable

Only a little over 70 submissions have been made since November 5, when t=
his
window of opportunity started. Thus anything members of the SD community =
submit
is highly likely to be read closely, and perhaps passed up the food chain=
if it
holds merit, because that's what this new administration is looking for.

Can we ""talk in ways that are more likely to be heard?"" I submitted a doc=
ument
December 10 and played the strategy of showing how Obama himself is a nat=
ural
systems thinker. He senses much of what I've found in the structure of th=
e
Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace. The submission uses a number o=
f his
quotes to show this. I'm hoping that will draw whoever reads this into th=
e
realization that hey, the guy at the top is thinking this way. I'd better=
look
into this.

For example, the submission says: ""Obama correctly concludes that 'It's n=
ot
enough to just change the players. We have to change the game.' In other =
words,
it=92s not enough to treat the symptoms. We have to change the system.""

The Thwink.org submission has not yet appeared on the above link. You can=
get a
sneak preview at www.thwink.org.

> Al Gore made a similar point in a video I pointed to at

Exactly. ""We don't just have a crisis of the climate; we have a crisis of
democracy."" That is the bigger problem to solve, which is what the submis=
sion
says. We have a broken political system. That's why I wrote: ""Don=92t jus=
t fix the
defects. Fix their root cause, or you will forever be bailing out the boa=
t.
Corrupt politicians, inept political appointees, insufficient regulation,=
and
chronically unsolved public problems are political system defects.""

Jack
Posted by Jack Harich <register@thwink.org>
posting date Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:08:09 -0500

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