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...there is no chance of the current system being altered

The "current system" is not static: it has evolved over time and will continue to do so. In a sense it is altering itself and there are two "Telluric" (thanks Migeru) forces moving the earth under our feet:

Firstly: the pervasive spread of direct "Peer to Peer" connectivity of the Internet.

Credit intermediaries are no different from any other. They are obsolescent, and the only question is what services would the current intermediaries be providing once they cease to be "middlemen". I am sure that the music industry saw "no chance of the current system being altered" before Napster came and blew their certainties apart.

Secondly: there is the current confrontation of deficit finance driven economic growth with finite resources generally and oil in particular. Here again, altering the system is not in doubt, the only question is what will be the outcome of Bretton Woods Round 2?

I advocate two financing mechanisms with global application, which need neither changes in legislation nor global institutions.

They are simply consensual legal protocols defining the relationships between and amongst individuals and enterprises of all types (public, private; charitable, social or commercial in aims; of whatever legal form).

(a) Mutualised Credit - risk sharing - through a "Guarantee Society" protocol (a mutual guarantee of bilateral "trade" credit, backed by a "default fund or "pool");

(b) Mutualised investment - revenue/production sharing - through a "Capital Partnership" protocol.

Both - I believe - give rise to optimal outcomes, and those who do not use them will therefore be at a disadvantage to those that do. Which is why they are "emerging".

Embryonic Capital Partnerships are already in use (but only minimally "unitised") in the UK in transactions >£1bn. The entire Canadian capital market consists - through Income Trusts - of exactly the same unitised "pre-distribution" of revenues as I advocate using partnership instead of trust law. This is because Income Trusts  are hugely attractive to pension investors interested in getting their hands on a listed Corporation's revenues before the management does.

Moreover, the ability of a "Capital Partnership" to finance public investment without borrowing is both a "killer application" politically and a complete debunking of the convention that the Public Sector must borrow to invest.

Funding infrastructure with this model IMHO wipes the floor with any other form of finance.

The "Private" sector is defined as ownership by a "Corporation": I merely point out that there are more ways of investing than through Corporations.

I advocate not just the "Energising" of America but the "Equitising" of America not just through new public investment using such Capital Partnerships LLC's but also through the widespread adoption of "Energy Partnerships" and "Land Partnerships".

The former gives rise to streams of (potentially internationally) fungible energy "Value Units", and the latter to a stream of (nationally) fungible land  rental "Value Units".

The latter are to all intents and purposes a simpler form of "Real Estate Investment Trust" or REIT, and I believe actually offer the basis of a "Debt/Equity" swap which would both minimise the current losses of the financial system, and essentially replace a large part of the "National Debt" with a "National Equity".

There is no chance of such an initiative being implemented "top down". But having said that, I believe optimal solutions, once appreciated and understood, will spread virally.

I'm working in Scotland and Norway in respect to the "Hanseatic Microfinance Initiative", with Norwegian government support.

This comprises both of the partnership-based  mechanisms mentioned above, but of course the application of these is not limited to "micro" businesses: it's just that such businesses have effectively been abandoned by the financial system.

(Having said that, there is a big move into "helping" the global poor by putting them into high cost debt aka "Micro-credit".)

There is no reason why anyone in the US should not use LLC's to implement partnership-based financial solutions from the ground up.

That is the alternative I advocate, and it is based upon the ongoing reinvention and evolution of "enterprise models".

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Nov 21st, 2007 at 01:14:44 PM EST
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