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In the Common Good Economy, decisions will be made independently in each Common Good Community, about how to accomplish their mission (make the community sustainable, get everyone’s basic needs met, and help people elsewhere). And they will be empowered — with money — to act on those decisions.
We want the organizational [...]
Author Archives: William Spademan
Organizational Structure – Proposal
February 15, 2011 – 11:49 am
Let’s Create Money As Debt!
October 15, 2010 – 12:22 am
The question came up, as we were designing the Common Good Bank™ economic system: “How should money be created and destroyed?” The answer we found is that money should be created (and destroyed) as needed, as debt. Here’s why.
Money Creation
We need to create money from time to time because things change and there is always [...]
Why Not Start State Banks, Like In North Dakota?
December 9, 2009 – 2:15 pm
Common Good Bank will be much better for us than state-owned banks.
Yes, The Bank of North Dakota is a vast improvement over our national banking system in the United States. There are two reasons why it is an improvement:
North Dakota’s bank is owned by the state, so all profits go to the public. The Federal [...]
Slow Money
December 5, 2009 – 11:43 am
Last night five of us from the Common Good Bank project joined about 40 others at the Gasoline Alley Foundation (GAF) in Springfield, Massachusetts, for three hours of schmoozing and an interview with Woody Tasch, author of Slow Money and founder of the Slow Money movement, which aims to create “a grassroots, non-profit seed fund [...]
Green America
December 4, 2009 – 7:48 am
John White and I met last night with Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director of Green America (formerly Co-op America). Green America will likely play an important role in the Common Good Bank system.
Common Good Bank will invest only in socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Green America has a well-established program for certifying “green” businesses and has [...]
CGBs in the News
November 30, 2009 – 11:01 am
Common Good Bank made the front page of the Clean Yield investor newsletter this month (see below). We have, at this moment, 42 interested qualified investors. We will see if together we can come up with $1.5 million by the end of the year, so that we can apply for a charter and move forward [...]
The Evil Interest Fallacy
October 13, 2009 – 8:48 am
“There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: And lending money at [...]
New Site
September 24, 2009 – 4:17 pm
Welcome to the new common good bank website!
As you can see, this is now a WordPress site, so you can comment on any page or participate in discussions in the Forum.
In the interests of transparency, we will be using this site as much as possible for all our advisory board and staff discussions.
Our lead translator [...]
Overwhelming Progress
May 29, 2009 – 11:15 pm
Hi folks,
Sorry to be silent so long. The Common Good Bank project has taken off in a big way. We now have 25 staff members working all over the country to create community divisions (up from just one staff member in Febrary). I have been scrambling to keep up, developing better promotional and training materials [...]
Money Is Just An Accounting System
March 10, 2009 – 3:23 pm
Money is just an accounting system, keeping track of who is entitled to how much goods and services. Edwin Clarence Riegel pointed this out as early as 1944. However, most people still think of money as something physical — something that has to “come from somewhere”.
Collectively, in your local community, you indirectly borrow millions of [...]