Transparency

Obama has talked
(Constantly)
about Transparency.

But the Facebook grassroots campaign and the “openness” of the new administration seem to be a thing of the past. Immediately after being elected, Obama hedged on his promises to do a great number of things quickly within his first term. His “transparency” allowed only 4 reporters to the re-do of the oath Wednesday. Only one outlet was given an inauguration interview: one that donated to his campaign. Does this sound like Change and Transparency?

But this is not the first time a leader has come in with promises of Change, promises to fix a broken economy. To change the standing of a people’s in the international world. Think of 1933 Germany.

Transparency was the unique promise Obama gave to the American people: we could follow the change in our country like we were a part of it, somehow. It was part of the reason Obama became the media’s darling. Now that the campaign is over, so is that Transparency. But people are still following, some blindly, without thought to the Change within Obama himself and all his previous promises.

Right now, the only transparency for Obama are ice sculptures like the one Wash. U. commissioned for its campus.

Obama Ice Sculpture

Could Local Currencies Strengthen Local Loop Businesses?

Here is an article from the inimitable Distributist Review about the E. F. Schumacher Society, which tries to promote a localist vision of economics. (Schumacher is probably best known for his work Small is Beautiful, which was influential in the early environmentalist movement.) One of their more interesting projects has been BerkShares, a local currency in Berkshire, Massachusetts.  The basic model of local currencies is that the consumer purchases BerkShare-dollars for 90 cents per dollar, while participating local businesses accept those dollars for full value–translating into an instant 10% discount on all purchases from local businesses. As long as the BerkShares stay in the local economy, everybody wins, because businesses can in turn purchase needed products with BerkShares.

I think such a program would be easily applicable to St. Louis neighborhoods like the Loop. A system of “LoopBucks” offered for 90 cents to the dollar would help strengthen an (already palpable) sense of economic localism.