A Story of Two Investments

[Linnea]

note* relaxing the rules for posting whole articles in this thread. ;->

by Paul Krafel

This last summer we installed a playground at Chrysalis for our
primary and elementary students. As I watch young children climb and
slide and imaginatively play on the structure, I reflect on what a
wonderful investment this playground is – from many angles.

First is the investment in the health of the next generation. Kids
are swinging across the monkey bars, climbing the ladders, growing
strong.

Second, from a financial point of view, for $18,000 we bought and
installed a playground that should cost $70,000 or so, installed.
This is because one of our parents noticed this playground sitting
unused at another school. That school had been an elementary school
but it was converted to a specialized high school. The playground,
designed for 5-12 year olds, had to now just sit there, creating a
maintenance and liability problem for that school district. So we
bought it from them in a win-win situation. We got a playground in
good shape for about a fourth the cost. They got rid of a liability
problem, regained use of 3000 sq. ft. of playground area, and
acquired funds that would help them retain a teaching position in
these challenging state budget times. Plus the Earth benefited
because we recycled a playground rather than impose the carbon
footprint of constructing and transporting a whole new playground.

Then there was a third benefit in that the county probation
department did the work of moving and installing the playground for
us. People on probation had the chance to participate in work that
created something special for children. So, the playground has been
an all-around wonderful investment.

Then I read that Wall Street was developing a new investment
opportunity based on securitizing people’s insurance policies. People
in hard times are cashing in their insurance policies for a fraction
of their overall worth. Profit can be generated from this misfortune;
the articles said interest in the new investment vehicle was running
high.

I find myself contemplating the difference between these two
investments. Many of the articles conveyed a sense of moral outrage
which I can agree with. But it’s the contrast between these two
investments that I kept turning over and over in my mind.

The Wall Street investment was building nothing of value. Nothing was
being made better for our future – like a playground. But more
importantly, it revealed such a pathetic lack of imagination. The
playground – now that was creative in so many ways. But having
billions of our culture’s dollars flowing into investments that
generate more profit if people live shorter, more desperate lives is
not creative.

What’s profoundly pathetic is that those involved in this
securitization see themselves as shrewd. They see themselves as smart
enough to profit while I see them wandering further and further away
from the heart of this incredible gift of being alive. My heart goes
out to them – not anger.

We were born into this world, gifted with the abilities to create
upward spirals, to nourish gardens of new possibilities, bring forth
surges of hope. And to end up near the end of your life having
learned not even enough to move beyond such dark, sideshow come-ons
is truly sad.

There is such a world of difference between extracting possibilities
from a system—calling it profit—and helping possibilities emerge
within a system.

Contemplating the difference between these two investments deepens my
certainty, born up in the rainy fields, that the power within money,
like rainwater, becomes destructive if it becomes too concentrated.
Currency loses its creative potential when it’s used to extract
profit rather than generate capacity and that tends to happen as
money concentrates.

Money managers of a billion dollars won’t see the opportunity to move
a playground, partly because it does not generate a
“profit” (actually, it generates a huge profit but it isn’t in the
form of money) and partly because it is too small for their radar.
Securitize the insurance policies of millions of desperate people and
a billion dollars can move in and out of that market easily. But it’s
hard to easily move a billion in and out of the things that really
matter.

So I’ve grown convinced that one of the most important gardening
roles of government is to make sure its policies and actions have the
effect of spreading out and slowing down the rate at which money
tends to converge. Help as much of the currency as possible to soak
in high in the watershed and nourish a thousand acres of growth
rather than helping it concentrate in a two acre-reservoir at the
bottom.

Some people will scream “redistributing the wealth” but the wealth is
always flowing, always redistributing itself. The way money
concentrates currently is also redistribution of the wealth. One of
the most important reasons for helping the flow of money spread out
is because the thousand acres will transpire most of the water back
into the air to fall as rain again, nourishing yet more possibilities...
###

MOVE YOUR MONEY movement
http://moveyourmoney.info which invites us, urges us and helps us to
move our money from national and multinational banks to local and
community banks and credit unions.

Interestingly, the proposal seems to be popular with both
progressives and conservatives, and has been picked up by a faith group
http://bit.ly/FaithMoneyMove and
New York City
http://bit.ly/NYCmoneyMove ,
among others.

Readers familiar with the film "It's a Wonderful Life" (which I just
saw this last Christmas) will especially enjoy the video created to
launch the movement
http://moveyourmoney.info/audiovideo
There is also a popular personal testimony video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRjt0j2p-Y
(among other videos on youtube searchable using "move your money"...)

Tom Atlee
The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org / http://www.democracyinnovations.org