Introducing A Sound Economy.org

These pages were created to share insights into the structure and regulation of our monetary and financial systems with a wide audience. We hope to increase public understanding of how the nature of a monetary system affects the fairness and sustainability of an economy. We also want to encourage participation in the current political debates related to these issues. This stuff matters. They don’t call it the bottom line for nothing.

The 2008 financial crisis has been producing news stories for the last year that highlight some serious issues with our financial and monetary systems. The heightened public awareness of these aspects of our economy is potentially a very positive development in the long run. Some of the problems we have been experiencing can be traced to changes in financial regulations and some are related to political initiatives undertaken over the last several decades. Some of these problems are at least partially rooted in the very structure of our current financial and monetary systems. Lots of experts have lots of opinions on these subjects. It is hard to know what to believe. But we can be sure that whatever is eventually done will effect all of us directly. Losing your job and/or half your savings is a pretty direct effect, wouldn't you say? The changes or solutions ultimately put in place will be the result of a political process. Our interests will not be well served if we let this process get away from us.

This financial crisis has been a pretty confusing tangle of inter-related problems. To set things on the right track again we need to step back and take a wider view of the situation. We have to identify and ask the right questions. Then we can take steps to influence the political process based on our (hopefully) more informed understanding of finance/economics and on our sense of right and wrong and basic fairness. It is a central mission here at A Sound Economy.org to to help identify the right questions to ask. We hope you find this quest interesting and worthwhile, and check back here often. We are just getting started.