Here is my modest proposal. Think of the simple fossil fuel depletion message I have outlined above as a kind of "info-virus". If this "info-virus" can be successfully injected into the global business body (by some respectable group of scientists and/or petroleum engineers -- not by a bunch of environmental whackos), then the "due diligence antibody" [ see below ] will suddenly become activated throughout the global business body (the news would be around the world almost instantly). In essence, the "due diligence" antibody attacks business proposals throughout the global business body that act against the best interests of investors and stockholders. The system is already set up to do that. For example, any utility proposing to build a power plant that will be "out of gas" in ten years will be vetoed by the fiduciaries involved. What kind of fuel will be readily available in ten years? Wind! (or solar, or whatever...)

When the truth about fossil fuel depletion finally hits the street, it can't be "ignored". If the truth were known, Caterpillar couldn't sell bulldozers, Boeing couldn't sell commercial aircraft, GE couldn't sell combustion turbines, GM couldn't sell 18-wheelers, Canada would stop sending what's left of her remaining fossil fuel south, and the entire Third World (including Mexico) would quickly come to resemble to Sierra Leone. The longer our government keeps it a secret, the greater the damage when it finally becomes known.

That's it. That's the first and biggest step, just get this "info-virus" into THE ECONOMIST, and then the global economy will immediately begin to morph into something fundamentally different.

The second step is to discredit the high priests of the present "shop-till-you-drop" theory of salvation. You can do that by circulating the proposal below. But the first step is to inject the "info-virus" outlined above into the global business body and let the antibodies do their work. The plan is pretty simple. For example, it's orders-of-magnitude simpler than what climate activists have already accomplished.

Jay -- www.dieoff.org

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DUE DILIGENCE: A fiduciary of any sort (i.e.. a bank, an investment company, the executor of a testatory estate) must, under both statutory and common law, execute "due diligence" -- that is a "truly constant and earnest effort" to act in the best interests of those customers for whom it acts. Over time, this requirement has evolved into a loosely defined set of practices and procedures, some analytical in nature, for evaluating the worth of investments that a particular fiduciary may undertake for its principals.

This is the due "diligence process". Such studies are, when properly conducted, very detailed analyses of every economic, legal, and market aspect of the project (or other investment) which consider how, under what circumstances, with what likelihood, and at what cost or benefit the project may either succeed or fail.

If you either are, or know an economist or economic student, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something to change the world for the better! Please help these students stop the present economic insanity. Sign on to -- and circulate to your friends -- the following proposal from Cambridge University:

Released 14 June 2001

27 PhD-students at Cambridge University support the following
open letter:

Opening Up Economics:
A Proposal By Cambridge Students

As students at Cambridge University, we wish to encourage
a debate on contemporary economics. We set out below
what we take to be characteristic of today's economics,
what we feel needs to be debated and why:

As defined by its teaching and research practices, we
believe that economics is monopolised by a single
approach to the explanation and analysis of economic
phenomena. At the heart of this approach lies a
commitment to formal modes of reasoning that must be
employed for research to be considered valid. The evidence
for this is not hard to come by. The contents of the
discipline's major journals, of its faculties and its courses all
point in this direction.

In our opinion, the general applicability of this formal
approach to understanding economic phenomenon is
disputable. This is the debate that needs to take place.
When are these formal methods the best route to
generating good explanations? What makes these methods
useful and consequently, what are their limitations? What
other methods could be used in economics? This debate
needs to take place within economics and between
economists, rather than on the fringe of the subject or
outside of it all together.

In particular we propose the following:

1. That the foundations of the mainstream approach be
openly debated. This requires that the bad criticisms
be rejected just as firmly as the bad defences.
Students, teachers and researchers need to know
and acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of
the mainstream approach to economics.

2. That competing approaches to understanding
economic phenomena be subjected to the same
degree of critical debate. Where these approaches
provide significant insights into economic life, they
should be taught and their research encouraged
within economics. At the moment this is not
happening. Competing approaches have little role in
economics as it stands simply because they do not
conform to the mainstream's view of what
constitutes economics. It should be clear that such
a situation is self-enforcing.

This debate is important because in our view the status quo
is harmful in at least four respects. Firstly, it is harmful to
students who are taught the 'tools' of mainstream
economics without learning their domain of applicability. The
source and evolution of these ideas is ignored, as is the
existence and status of competing theories. Secondly, it
disadvantages a society that ought to be benefiting from
what economists can tell us about the world. Economics is
a social science with enormous potential for making a
difference through its impact on policy debates. In its
present form its effectiveness in this arena is limited by the
uncritical application of mainstream methods. Thirdly,
progress towards a deeper understanding of many
important aspects of economic life is being held back. By
restricting research done in economics to that based on
one approach only, the development of competing research
programs is seriously hampered or prevented altogether.
Fourth and finally, in the current situation an economist who
does not do economics in the prescribed way finds it very
difficult to get recognition for her research.

The dominance of the mainstream approach creates a
social convention in the profession that only economic
knowledge production that fits the mainstream approach
can be good research, and therefore other modes of
economic knowledge are all too easily dismissed as simply
being poor, or as not being economics. Many economists
therefore face a choice between using what they consider
inappropriate methods to answer economic questions, or to
adopt what they consider the best methods for the question
at hand knowing that their work is unlikely to receive a
hearing from economists.

Let us conclude by emphasizing what we are certainly not
proposing: we are not arguing against the mainstream
approach per se, but against the fact that its dominance is
taken for granted in the profession. We are not arguing
against mainstream methods, but believe in a pluralism of
methods and approaches justified by debate. Pluralism as a
default implies that alternative economic work is not simply
tolerated, but that the material and social conditions for its
flourishing are met, to the same extent as is currently the
case for mainstream economics. This is what we mean
when we refer to an 'opening up' of economics.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The students who have written this proposal are asking for
economic students and economists, wherever they are based, who
wish to formally and publicly back their proposal to email them at
cesp@econ.cam.ac.uk , with the following:

"I support the proposal of the Cambridge economics PhD
students...signed"

Please include university/position if you wish these to be noted. The
website will be regularly updated with the full list of supporters.
Other enquiries about the proposal are also welcome, to the same
address.<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O />:P>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:P>

The following 168 people have signed the above proposal
( 12 July 2001 )

Aaron Pacitti, American University, USA
Alfonso Salinas, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, UK
Dr. Andrew Trigg, The Open University, UK
Andy A. Jobst, Judge Institute, Cambridge University, PhD Student, UK
Asatar Bair, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of Massachusetts, USA
Bill Lucarelli, Univ. of Western Sydney, Australia, Lecturer in Economics
Carlos Lopes, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, UK
Carlos Raul Gonzalez
Carmen Diana Deere, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, Professor of Economics, USA
Charles K. Wilber, Univ. of Notre Dame, Emeritus professor of Economics, USA
Dr. Clive Lawson, University of Cambridge, UK
David F. Ruccio, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of Notre Dame, USA
David Fairris, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of California, Riverside, USA
Deirdre McCloskey, Uni. of Illinois at Chicago, Prof. of Economics, History and English, USA
Eugenia Perona, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, Economics, UK
Fadhel Kaboub, Univ. of Missouri Kansas City, Postgrad, USA
Prof. Frederic S. Lee, University of Missouri, USA
Prof. Geoff Hodgson,University of Hertfordshire, UK
Gigi Francisco, Miriam College, Philippines, PhD Student
Gilles Raveaud, IDHE - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques del'Economie, France
Prof. Grazia Ietto-Gillies, South Bank University, UK, Director Centre for International Business Studies, Professor of Applied Economics, UK
Greg Fuzesi, University College London, Postgrad, UK
Greg Zwirn, The Judge Institute, Cambridge University, PhD Student, UK
Prof. Guillermo E. Gigliani, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Professor of Money Credit and Banking, Argentina
Gunnar Tómasson
Ingrid Robeyns, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, Economics, UK
Prof. Jaime Ros, Univ. of Notre Dame, Professor of Economics, USA
Prof. Jesper Jespersen, Roskilde University, Professor of Economics
John Roche, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY, USA
Dr. Judith Mehta, The Open University / Univ. of East Anglia, UK, Lecturer Economics
Kaveri Gill,Cambridge University, PhD Student, Economics, UK
Kimberly Christensen, State Univ. of New York, Associate Professor Economics/Women's Studies, UK
Leonidas Montes, Univ. of Cambridge, PHD Student, Economics
Prof. Lourdes Beneria, University of Cornell, Economics, USA
Marcus Graetsch, Postgrad
María Teresa Ruiz-Tagle, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, UK
Marjolein van der Veen, Visiting Instructor at Uni. Of Mass, Boston, USA
Marta Bekerman, University of Bueno Aires, Professor of Economic Development, Argentina
Matthew Brannan, Leicester University, UK, Postgrad
Prof. Michael A. Meeropol, Western New England College, Professor of Economics, USA
Mike Biggs, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, Economics, UK
Dr. Neil Buchanan, Dept. of Economics, University of Michigan, USA
Dr. Neil Costello, The Open University, UK, Head of Economics
Neva Goodwin, Global Development And Environment Institute, Tufts University, USA
Prof. Paul Davidson, Univ. of Tennessee, USA
Dr. Paul Downward, Staffordshire University, UK, Reader in Economics
Dr. Paulette Olson, Wright State University Department of Economics, USA
Phil Faulkner, Univ. of Cambridge, PhD Student, Economics, UK
Dr. Pritam Singh, Oxford Brookes University, Senior Lecturer in Economics, UK
Rajani Kanth, National Univ. of Singapore, Senior Fellow in Economics
Rev. Robert Williams
James Cumes
Sigrid Stagl
Dr. Stephanie Bell, Univ. of Missouri Kansas City, USA
Prof. Stephen Cullenberg, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of California, USA
Dr. Steve Keen, Univ. of Western Sydney, Senior Lecturer Economics & Finance, Australia
Ted Winslow, York University, Canada
Dr. Tony Lawson, Univ. of Cambridge, UK
Brendan Sheehan, Leeds Metropolitan University, Economics Scheme Leader, UK
Prof. William Lazonick, Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell / INSEAD, USA
Tiina Vainio, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Sweden
Jessica Heynis, Uni. Of Cambridge, PhD Student, Economics, UK
Ermanno Tortia, Faculty of Economics of Ferrara University, Italy
Nuno Camacho, student, Universidade do Porto - Portugal
Deborah Goldsmith, Faculty of Economics, City College of San Francisco, USA
Dr. Sabri Oncu, SNT Consulting Group
Paul Ormerod, UK
Dr. Joseph Halevi, University of Sidney, Australia
Dr. Irene van Staveren, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands
Dr. Ailsa McKay, Division of Economics and Enterprise, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
Dr. Des Gasper, Associate Professor, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands
Prof. Chris Tilly, Dept. of Regional Economic and Social Development, Uni. of Mass., USA
Prof. Roy J. Rotheim, Chair of Economics, Skidmore College, USA
Tiago Mata, graduate student in economics, Portugal
Dr. Patrick Ainley, University of Greenwich, UK
Julie A. Nelson, Harvard, USA
Joonhee Chung, PhD student, University of Cambridge, UK
Carla Quelhas, economics student, University of Oporto, Portugal
Aine Ni Leime, PhD student, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Guillermo Paraje, economics student, University of Cambridge, UK
Arslan Razmi, American University, USA.
Victor D. Lippit, Professor of Economics, University of California, Riverside, USA
Dr. Mario da Graca Moura, Faculty of Economics, University of Oporto, Portugal
Dr Gary Slater, Dept. of Economics, University of Leeds, UK
Alberto Valiente, Economics Student, Universidad Centroamericana, San Salvador
Kanchana N. Ruwanpura, Ph.D student, University of Cambridge, UK
Pedro Lopes, student, Faculty of Economics, University of Oporto, Portugal
David Fasenfest, Director of Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State Uni., USA
Brian Eggleston, Chair of Dept. of Economics, Augustana College, USA
Reynold F. Nesiba, Assistant Professor of Economics, Augustana College, USA
Peter E. Earl (Ph.D. Cambridge) Dept. of Economics, Uni. of Queensland, Australia
Deirdre McCloskey, Uni. of Illinois at Chicago and Erasmusuniversiteit Rotterdam
Prof. Fiona Maclachlan, Dept of Economics, Manhattan College, USA
D.Narasimha Reddy, Professor of Economics, Uni. of Hyderabad, India
Benjamin Balak, Professor of Economics, Washington & Lee University, USA
Gennaro Zezza, Dipartimento di Teoria Economica ,Universita' di Napoli, Italy
Dr Gamal Ibrahim, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, UK
John B. Davis, Professor of Economics, Marquette University, USA
Dr. Luis Inostroza F., Profesor, UAM, Unidad Azcapotzalco, Mexico
Rodney Shakespeare, author of Binary Economics, London, UK
Matthew Brannan, Centre for Labour Market Studies, Uni. of Leicester, UK
Gerald K. Helleiner, Professor Emeritus, Economics, University of Toronto, Canada
William Waller, Professor of Economics, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA
Paolo Zanghieri, Economist, Abbey House, Oxford, UK
Jan Otto Andersson, Head of Dept. of Econ. and Statistics, Åbo Akademi Uni., Finland
Dr. Jose Castro Caldas, ISCTE, Portugal
Bert Mosselmans, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium
Steven G. Medema, Professor of Economics, University of Colorado at Denver, USA
Susan F. Feiner, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Southern Maine, USA
Dr. Joshua C. Farley, Director of Institute for Ecological Economics, Uni. of Maryland, USA
Michael Pierce McKeever, Sr., Econ. Instructor, Vista Community College, Berkeley, USA
William Krehm, Editor Economic Reform, Toronto, Canada
Laurence Shute, Prof. of Economics, California State Polytechnic University, USA
Richard Doringo, economics teacher
Gary Dymski, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, Uni. of California, Riverside, USA
Mayo C. Toruño, Professor of Economics , California State University, San Bernardino, USA
Professor Laurie Nisonoff, Social Science Hampshire College, USA
Marc R. Tool, Professor Emeritus of Economics, California State Uni. at Sacramento, USA
Adam Szlachetka, Economics Student, Michigan State University, USA
Elwil P. Beukes, Prof. of Economics, The King's University College, Edmonton, Canada
Mathew Forstater, Assistant Prof. of Economics, University of Missouri at Kansas City, USA
Spencer J. Pack, Professor of Economics, Connecticut College, USA
Richard W. England, Professor of Economics, University of New Hampshire, USA
Jacques Sapir, Professor of economics at EHESS, Paris, France
Greg Linden, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Jeff Gates, President Shared Capitalism Institute, USA
Drucilla K. Barker, Hollins Univeristy, USA
Philip A. Klein, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Penn State University, USA
John Lodewijks
Lee Corbett, Political Economy, honours candidate, University of Sydney, Australia
Dr. C. R. McCann, Jr., Research Associate, Dept. of Economics, Uni. of Pittsburgh, USA
Daniel M. Berman, California, USA
Dr. John Nightingale, Senior Lecturer in Economics,University of New England, Australia.
Mary Hedges, Lecturer in Economics, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Heinz D. Kurz, Austria
Stephen Cullenberg, Prof. and Chair, Dept. of Economics, Uni. of California, Riverside, USA
Milton D. Lower, Retired Senior Economist, US House of Representatives, USA
Laurence S. Moss, editor of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, USA
Jack Amariglio, Professor of Economics, Merrimack College, USA
Eric Glynn, Ph.D Candidate, Dept. of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
Morris Altman, Professor and Head, Dept. of Economics, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr. Wolfgang Blaas, Austria
Phil Street, Australia
José Luís Cardoso, Department of Economics, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
Vitor Neves, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Michael S. Lawlo, Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University, USA
Dr. Steve Fleetwood, Dept of Behaviour in Organisations, Lancaster University, UK
Bruce B. Roberts, Professor of Economics, University of Southern Maine, USA
Claudio H. Dos Santos, PhD Student - New School for Social Reseach, USA
Suzanne Bergeron, Assist. Prof., Dept. of Social Sciences, Uni. of Mich. at Dearborn, USA
Marc Lavoie, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada
Alain Isaac, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
Mario Gómez Olivares, ISEG/UTL, Portugal
John Pozzi, Manager Global Resource Bank
Firat Demir, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of Notre Dame, USA
Guido De Marco, PhD Candidate in Economics, New School University, New York, USA
Malcolm Rutherford, Department of Economics, University of Victoria, Canada
Claudio Puty, Ph.D Student, New School for Social Research, New York, USA
Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
Mario Cassetti, Dipartimento di Scienze economiche, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Itlay
Lucy Webster, New School University, Economics Graduate Student, New York, USA
Matías D. Scaglione, Historia del Pensamiento Econ. Uni. Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina
Wynne Godley, Emeritus Professor of Applied Economics, Cambridge, UK
Timothy J. Essenburg, Professor of Economics, Bethel College, USA
Rob Garnett, Department of Economics, Texas Christian University, USA
Roger Elletson, Grand Teton University, USA
Robert Prasch, Department of Economics, Middlebury College, USA
Prof. Warren Samuels, Michigan State University, USA

Jay Hanson

Whatta Hero!

Mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru.