In addition to these new complex financial instruments, "money" gets created when credit cards are used or lines of credit are granted, or even deferred payment incentives are offered on retail purchases - "pay no money until 2009!"

Indeed -- this is why Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen call the money system "debt-based."  Have you read their book?

The current crisis is because many of the new types of "money" that have been created over the past several decades have become decoupled from any pricing mechanism. The full faith and credit of Bear Stearns turned out not be worth much.

As long as nobody was demanding the repayment in US dollars of such debts as were generated by "the full faith and credit of Bear Stearns," it was worth quite a lot.  No?

"Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world" -- John Lennon

Using old models just doesn't work anymore and there aren't any new ones.

The idea of monetising credit other than Bank credit  is not new. The idea of creating a credit "Clearing Union" with an abstract Value Unit is not new either. That is essentially what Keynes proposed at Bretton Woods.

But the creation of fungible Value Units as "quasi Equity" eg redeemable energy units, and redeemable land rental units is,as far as I know, a new concept. It is the consequence of an entirely new, and I believe, optimal "Open" Corporate form which may yet render existing "Corporations" redundant.

Whether or not these Units will be superior to the alternatives remains to be seen.

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