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The Pluranomics Blog

Solar Currency

Posted by Doug Wolkon on June 23, 2009 at 4:17 am

“Businesses Barter For Renewable Energy”

Updated from Local Currency Meeting on 6/20/09. A Work in Progress…

The Solar Currency is a new currency system designed to benefit investors, producers, and consumers alike based on the growth of renewable energy and the strength of local sustainability.

The Solar Currency derives its energy from local renewable sources like the sun and wind, as opposed to our current system which derives its energy from non-renewable sources like oil and coal transported from distant places.

How Does the Solar Currency Work? The Investors fund the purchase of solar panels or windmills for the Stores (i.e. farms and coffee shops) to use, and in return receive Store credit in the amount of the Store’s electricity savings from the renewable energy. The Store credit is then converted to a currency (”Solar Currency”) and may be transferred to others (like a gift certificate). So in essence, the Store has bartered their goods and services in exchange for the use of the solar panels.

The Stores’ credit is pooled into a fund (The Fund) as the Stores use the electricity from the solar panels. The Fund then converts the diversified pool of Store credit into Solar Currency and issues it to the Community. 

How Does the Solar Currency Circulate? The Solar Currency is circulated to Investors through their return on investment, sold to Patrons in exchange for cash dollars, and Tradesman by trading for their services with Patrons and Investors. The Solar Currency may be redeemed at the Store during regular business hours.

 

* Click on image to enlarge

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What Causes Inflation?

Posted by Doug Wolkon on June 13, 2009 at 1:43 pm

What causes the prices to go up and real value to go down? To understand what causes inflation, visualize using only one economic variable - LAND; because ALL material things we buy or use originate from the land.

The land may change form, but the wooden floor you stand on (trees), the fork you hold (metals), the road you drive on (asphalt, derived from oil), the T-shirt you wear (cotton plant), the boat you sail (fiberglass, from sand or silica), and the food you eat are all originally derived from the land.

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What Happens When Housing Supply Meets Demand

Posted by Doug Wolkon on June 10, 2009 at 1:35 pm

So often I am asked if I think home prices are going up or down. I remember in 2004 sitting around a big conference table with my private equity partners answering this same question (we financed large condo projects and bought raw land parcels to resell to home builders). And even with the 30%+ drop in housing prices in America from their peak in 2006, my then most unpopular answer has not changed, its still “down”. Continued »

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Poetronomics

Posted by Genna Wolkon on April 22, 2009 at 2:10 pm

A falling knife cuts scrambling hands,
Crushing greed in its path, it makes it’s demands. 
A powerful force exposes weak links, 
Revealing the financial elitists’ calculating winks.
We believed the full story, the old American Dream,
Now fumble for truth beneath the whole scheme. 
What if we woke up to our foolish ways? 
Seeking a simpler life for tomorrow’s days. 
Stop saving money for a wishful life ahead, 
We’ll live for today and retire when dead. Continued »

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Erase Everything You Think You Know About Economics

Posted by Genna Wolkon on March 1, 2009 at 12:20 am

Huh? Can someone please explain to me what all this gibberish means?

How does this explain where my food and energy comes from?

Economics today is based on a language very foreign to the average person’s dialect, myself included. The top Economists in the U.S. aren’t even speaking English. They are so smart that they have discovered an intellectual logarithmic formula to ascertain how you and I will live in this monopoly game we call life, and yet none of us understand what the heck it all means. Continued »

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Economic Detox

Posted by Doug Wolkon on January 7, 2009 at 8:51 am

So what is an Economic Detox? Raw green vegetables consumed through a straw is the food equivalent. Think diarrhea. I know what you are thinking, “yuk”. But as Wall Street has learned the hard way, we have no choice in the matter. Our economy is detoxing whether we like it or not; dropping our excess weight in order to regain our balance; flushing our obese corporate and government costs down the toilet in support of the long-term prosperity of the quicker, lighter, faster and more profitable Mom and Pop entrepreneurs. Continued »

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Waking Up to The American Dream

Posted by Doug Wolkon on October 28, 2008 at 11:05 pm

The American Dream once strongly stood for ideal freedom. For as a child in America, we are so fortunately nagged about what we want to be when we grow up: a fireman? an astronaut? or how about an entrepreneur? The American Dream meant career choices for everyone in America!

But somehow our freedom of choice that once so clearly encompassed the American Dream changed. Not sure when or how, but it clearly changed. For as I grew older, the American Dream became all about owning a home. What house, in what neighborhood, with how many bedrooms was all that we seemed to dream about. But then suddenly, the dream became a nightmare. Continued »

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