This document discusses alternative digital economies and ways to improve the current economic system. It notes that around 9.5% of the US population wants jobs but does not have them, while around 10% are underemployed. It explores reasons for this like too much or too little regulation. It then presents some potential solutions like Agile Banking, OpenTransact, and Ripple Monetary System for building alternative economies. However, it notes that none have fully made it to the real world yet due to high regulatory barriers and negative network effects. It asks how programmers and designers can help coordinate efforts to change the economic system.

1. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact

2. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact The US Population

3. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact 9.5% of them want jobs and don't have them.

4. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact Another ~10% are underemployed.

5. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact And a whole lot more people don't have very fulfilling or interesting jobs.

6. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact Despite all this, it's still a pretty decent system.

7. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact Why is it like this? How can we fix it? What can we build that will make it better?

9. Not Enough Regulation

10. Regulatory Capture

11. Capitalism

12. Socialism

13. American Debt Binge

14. Chinese Savings Glut

15. Inflationary Federal Reserve Policies

16. Deflationary Federal Reserve Policies

17. Traders and MBAs

18. Structured Finance Quants and Risk Managers

19. Mortgage Brokers

20. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact Lots of Overlapping Reasons... Little Clarity... Much Intentional Obfuscation...

21. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact Lots of Overlapping Reasons... Little Clarity... Much Intentional Obfuscation... Very little regulatory change is on the way. We're still near 10% unemployment.

23. OpenTransact

24. Ripple Monetary System

26. Join now – http://groups.google.com/group/agile-banking

27. Single purpose ventures and tools.

28. Cooperation can lower barriers to entry.

29. Rough consensus and running code.

31. Support one-time and recurring payments.

32. http://www.opentransact.org/

34. Support for various units of account – conventional money, credit, & commodities.

35. Users choose whose IOUs to accept.

36. Payments are sent along lowest-cost trusted paths.

37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_monetary_system

38. http://ripple.sourceforge.net/

39. http://groups.google.com/group/rippleusers

41. Severely negative network effects during launch.

42. Macroeconomic problems need microeconomic solutions.

44. WIR bank – started printing their own money in Switzerland during the Great Depression. Trading $1.5 billion/year now.

45. Local currencies – Ithaca hours, Berkshares, dibspace.com

46. Barter exchanges – $8 billion/year in corporate barter.

47. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact Most alternative economic systems have proven useful as either Person-to-Person or B2B. The first one to give both businesses and people great microeconomic incentives to participate could rule the world and help a lot of people.

48. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact What's our role as programmers and designers in fixing the economy? How can we better coordinate our efforts to change stuff? How good would a solution need to be before you would start using it? How can people make money and still provide a moral, widely accessible system?

49. @jplewicke Building Alternative Digital Economies with Real World Impact The Goal