Dr. Bracke and the credit crunch hoax

Another great article about the credit crunch, couldn't get the link to work so I have just cut pasted it:

Rehumanizing the global economy: is the credit crunch a hoax?

Tue Mar 3, 2009 09:17am GMT

BRUSSELS, Mar 3 (AP) Dr. Reinout Bracke, economic specialist and participant in Brussels based think-tank CER, is a passionate advocate of what he calls "Restorative economics", which stresses the need for qualitative, holistic methods, rather than quantitative ones, in evaluating human behaviour. According to Dr. Bracke, the emphasis within what he calls "retributive economics” on always seeking to quantify human activity in cold numerical terms is at the heart of many of society's most intractable problems.

Dr. Bracke argues that "retributivism" - with its endless fixation on numerical measures - is the economics of debt, depression and loss. In reality, of course, these "debts" are just numbers on a computer screen, abstract figures within a defunct theoretical model. If we choose to live within such a paradigm then we shouldn't really be surprised by the results it delivers.

Dr. Bracke maintains that if crude economic measures such as Gross Domestic Product and the "inflation fetish" were outlawed through a series of "forward-thinking international agreements", the mask would slip away, and most of our supposed economic problems would dissolve overnight. Dr. Bracke calls this "re-humanizing the global economy". He lays out this argument in detail in his ground-breaking monograph, "Retributive Economics - A Punishing Paradigm".

Bracke maintains that the "dollar is broken" and that the old-world currencies, such as the Yen and the Euro, are also beyond repair. He instead proposes the creation of a "global currency for a globalised world". This would combine the best elements of the old currencies, yet at the same time transcend them. The currency would be called the "Esperant", because it represents the new spirit of hope that the philosophy of Restorative Economics encapsulates.

At the heart of the Restorative Economic project is the search for alternative, holistic measures of economic activity. This is why Dr. Bracke often talks about Restorative Economics as "the science of the intangible". Dr. Bracke advocates the integration of artistic, humanizing methods, such as painting and the spoken word, in evaluating the strength and vibrancy of national and global economies. He himself is a pioneer of an economic method he calls "audio rendering".

Unfortunately, there are those for whom Restorative Economics represents a serious threat. According to Dr. Bracke, the Belgian government was seriously considering implementing a package of Restorative Economic reforms before its recent collapse - and there is some evidence that this sequence of events wasn't a coincidence. The huge amounts of money given in bail-outs to the US banking and car industries shows yet again how much an elite few have to gain from perpetuating the Retributive paradigm.

Nonetheless, it seems that Restorative Economics may just be an idea whose time has finally come. According to his press release, Dr. Bracke has recently been made an informal economic adviser to the Chilean and Venezuelan governments. Late last year, Ghent University's Centre for Restorative Economics was given consultative status with the United Nations, making it one of the few academic institutions anywhere in the world to be awarded such an honour. "