Clearly we are transitioning..... What will "The Next Economy" look like ? I recently delivered this presentation to a a group of CEDA Trustees. I look at the factors driving the current change and where wae are heading next.

1. CEDA Trustee Presentation 27 October 2016
Andrew Leunig : Leunig Advisory
andrew@leunig.net.au 041 8833 751 1

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Setting the scene...

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I’m not Nostradamus and I can’t predict the future.
Rather, my aim is to share some patterns and themes that I’ve
observed and to outline the current trajectory that I believe our
economies are on.
This is a complicated topic, with many threads - so like a Billy
Connolly joke - I’m going to open up a lot of loops that I’ll then aim
to close.
I’m going to outline some case studies and scenarios.
Whilst these are all true - their main purpose is to serve as
illustrations - so you don’t need to take them literally - in isolation.
Everything is connected.
So if I say - “Blessed are the Cheesemakers” - I am of course
referring to all manufacturers of dairy products.

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How I think…...
Like many in the Western World I think that I over-complicated
everything.
Simplicity really is the ultimate sophistication…. Thanks Leonardo.
One of the most powerful lessons in my life has been to travel
internationally taking hand luggage only. It makes you realise how
little you need to live and excel…
I’m a strategy and business models guy.
I look across silos and I can recognise patterns…
Whilst I have a finance background, I’ve got an interest and
understanding of natural systems - which is now informing much of
my thinking.
There’s nothing like a few million years of evolution and natural
selection to optimise a design and reorientate to new conditions..
And our economy is nothing but a man-made ecosystem.

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You’ve got to love Mark Twain.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”.
If more people had a greater knowledge of our history - we might not
make the same mistakes over and over again…
One of my areas of interest is “ancient wisdom”. This is not some
nostalgic nod to the past but a hard-arsed thought process about human
knowledge and practices refined (tested) over tens of thousands of years
that we look down our noses at.
In many cases we’ve only recently tossed these ideas and practices out.
We have much to learn the from the past as a practical guide to the
future. Humans have always been clever at adapting to local materials
and foodstuffs to create a sustainable life.
Look at this proud Aboriginal man..
Observe his health, his posture - with all of our “sophistication” and
wealth - I fear we have regressed.
We’ll revisit some aspects of Aboriginal Economics later…...

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My proposition : We are in transition from a
“finance lead” economy to a “design lead” economy.
The seeds of the “finance lead economy” started in
about 1960 and rapidly gathered pace in the 1980’s.
Since then the global economy (aided by demographic
tailwinds) has been on “the juice”.
“The juice” of debt.
We have been “financialised” and global asset prices
have been pumped up as “the financial economy” has
disconnected from the “real economy”.
Asset prices have been pumped up and now there is a “flight from risk” and a “search for yield”.
The future is a design lead economy.
A simple yet sophisticated mix of high technology and ancient wisdom, substantially informed by nature.
Some of the most advanced thinkers are practicing “biomimicry” - learning from nature to create the most
sophisticated (using minimal materials and energy) regenerative products and processes.
This will be a “design lead” economy.

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Beyond sustainability……...
Much of global growth in the past 250 years or so has come from extraction - the degeneration of our
natural systems. This basically commenced with deforestation (at scale) and latterly fossil fuels.
A sustainable or closed loop economy means that you are no longer doing harm.
A regenerative economy means that you are in fact restoring the natural system to provide a resilient
abundance.

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A key element of “financialisation” has been the way we account for stuff.
“GDP growth” has been the target, the mantra.
But we all know this is a lumpy, clumsy measure.
Beyond a certain level - growth in personal wealth adds little to our
collective wellness or psychological well being..
But it’s even worse than that - we’ve got a severe accounting problem
regarding how we measure stuff..
Consider 3 nurses - all basically doing the same work.
Let’s presume they’re all female.
One nurse is employed by a church , fully funded by donations. Her work
doesn’t get factored into GDP.
Another nurse works in a Public Hospital. She is treated as a cost.
The third nurse is employed by a Private Hospital. She is the only one
whose work is considered as adding value to GDP.
I don’t think that this is as a result of some grand conspiracy by Wall Street
Bankers. Given a choice between a Conspiracy, Collusion or just a regular
F**K Up - always back the F**K Up - you’ll be right most of the time.

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The tailwinds of
demographics
(and an emerging
headwind)

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By 2024 the earth’s population will have increased by a factor of 4 in less
than 100 years.
That’s a boom by any measure - sustained by a massive increase in
extraction.
The interesting thing is that most continents or regions have stopped
growing.
The exceptions are :
Asia - maybe 10 % of growth left. India will keep growing and surpass
China. Amazingly China’s workforce is peaking about now and will soon
begin to decline.
The only continent still growing rapidly is Africa - because of the high
number of live births per female.
But this can change rapidly. Brazil has shifted from over 5 to less than
replacement in less than 20 years. Why ? Best guess is some popular TV
soap operas which featured female with few or no children !
The key to this seems to be the education of women. There’s no reason
to think that the same transition won’t happen in Africa and India.
And if Europe is feeling inwards migration pressure now - this is just a
warmup for what is yet to come from Africa - just a truck ride and a ferry
ride away.

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After the tailwind of massive population growth - here
comes the headwind - the ageing population.
Who is going to pay for the pensions ?
Who deserves a pension ?
Says who ?
Isn’t the age of entitlement over ?
Expect inter-generational warfare.
And no - you didn’t pay for your pension through your
taxes - it’s all been a pea and thimble trick.

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The (not so distant) past

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If you want to get a better sense of the changing social
and economic construct of the Western World I
recommend Coming Apart by Charles Murray.
Whilst it’s about the US - I think that the patterns for UK,
Canada and Australia are pretty similar.
He analyses public data by creating two artificial “towns”,
the elite Belmont and the working class Fishtown.

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This is likely intuitive but it rams home what we’ve
likely lost in the past 50 years.
Not so long ago we had more “Fishtown residents”
who were happy and engaged with their communities
than we have now AND fewer “Belmont residents”.
AND the few “Belmont residents” that existed were
more likely engaged with the “Fishtown residents”.
There was much less of a class divide.

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This is another book with a similar message about a class
divide. Cowen argues that the “middle class” is being
squeezed and “is over”.
“Cowen forecasts that modern economies are
delaminating into two groups: a small minority of highly
educated and capable of working collaboratively with
automated systems will become a wealthy aristocracy; the
vast majority will earn little or nothing, surviving on
low-priced goods created by the first group, living in
shantytowns working with highly automated production
systems. About 60% of the jobs lost during the 2008
recession were in mid-wage occupations. US Median male
real wages declined by about 28% between 1969 and
2009, with no obvious disaster to blame.”
Wikipedia

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Changing the world with a BBQ and a keg of
beer……...
Over a discussion at the annual Cadell Harvest Festival
my friend’s late father proudly proclaimed that he and a
few buddies had built the oval.
They had a working bee.
Local guys brought their hands, their hearts and their
heavy machinery together.
It’s amazing what a community used to do with a BBQ and
a keg of beer.
Now this might be a 2 year process involving Local , State
and Federal Government grants.
$400,000 and an environmental impact report later
something would get done. Maybe.
Have we lost that sense of an empowered community ?

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I’m an atheist but :
Every society has created religion.
Australia, UK, USA & Canada is built on the
presumption of a common philosophical and ethical
framework - Judeo-Christian values.
Membership of a religion provides a ready made
philosophical operating system. You just unpack the
box.
A decline in participation and a mix of different values
is something that the founders didn’t really
contemplate.
We are going to have to think this through…..

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What I mean by
“finance lead”.

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The world is on “the juice”....

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WTF ?
Click on this link to see Selena Gomez
explain CDO’s

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Spot the
disconnect…..

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In any discussion over the health of a Bank we need to make a
determination between solvency and liquidity.
● A liquidity issue (crisis) occurs when a bank has a temporary
cash flow problem. Its assets are greater than its debts, but
some assets are illiquid (e.g. it takes a long time to sell a house.
A bank can’t suddenly demand a mortgage loan back) Therefore
although in theory assets are greater than debts, it can’t meet
its current payment requirements.
● A Solvency crisis occurs when a bank has debts that it can’t meet
through its assets. i.e. even if it could sell all its assets, it would
still be unable to repay its debts.
Often it’s hard to tell what the real position is.
Is Deutsche Bank in deep trouble ? We’ll know soon enough.
What is an appropriate gearing level for an Australian Bank ?
Arguably less than it is now.

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Just last month two European companies issued bonds
with a negative yield.
They are being paid to borrow.
How can this be good news ?
None of the underlying issues with the GFC have been
fixed.
So - the GFC isn’t over …. It’s just resting……
Something - I’m not sure what - will be the start of the
next phase….
It could be the failure of a Bank, Debt problems in China,
an unexpected political outcome or military action…..
Something will start it - then we’ll see contagion….

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affluenza

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We are obsessed with residential real estate in
Australia…
Like very few other countries on the planet…
We’ve been building larger homes (2nd largest
after US) with fewer people living in each.
And - as a group we’ve collectively decided that
it’s now ok to pay twice as much for a house
(compared to our income) as we used to.
Real Estate promoters suggest that it’s because of
Australia’s unique set of circumstances.
NO - it’s because our banks have been prepared
to keep lending - in fact their business model and
growth ambitions demand it...

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Here’s another way to look at the Australian residential real
estate bubble.
The first graph shows how much more expensive our
houses are compared to the US (in relation to incomes).
The second chart shows the ongoing rise in debt by sector
in Australia.
Note the steady rise in Household Debt.
This is all related to home loans.
So when household incomes and inflation are flat (with no
reason to expect a rise in either) and with houses already
very high - we continue to borrow.
This can only end badly IMHO….

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This chart shows out of step Australia is in
regard to household debt.
Everyone else has gone down whilst we have
kept going up.
Our house prices are defying gravity… in my
opinion.
I’m not sure when - and I’ve been saying this
for several years - but there will be a day of
reckoning.

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This is just another example of the spending boom that we’ve been on in the past 20 years.
The quality of “Hard Rubbish” keeps getting better and it seems that regular home robberies have
declined.
There’s basically nothing in my home that you couldn’t buy on Gumtree for less than $100.

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Accounting
problems

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Seriously…. How stupid do you think we are ?
Selling the family jewels to fund operations…
Eventually all of the family jewels have been sold. Then what
?

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Britannia Roundabout in Adelaide’s inner East
had been a traffic nightmare for years.
Various solutions had been proposed. Tunnels.
Complicated traffic light arrangements. All were
costed at about $35 Million and a year or so of
disruptions.
The elegant “two roundabout” solution fixed the
problem in 6 weeks for about $3.2 million.
What a great example of “design thinking”.
Whoever designed this should be a state hero.
But this “gain” is not recorded or celebrated.

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Here are some other less impressive examples.
At about the same time in SA , we completed the :
● “two-way” capability of the Southern
Expressway (cost about $400 Million)
● Extension and electrification of the Seaford
line (cost about $420 Million)
So - at about the same time we have spent a
large amount of money on competing
infrastructure.
My understanding is that despite the
improvements to the Seaford Line - fewer people
are using it !
Better solutions ? Do the rail first !

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Here are some different ways of thinking about
how we account.
In 2014 I saw Dr Larry Frank present at Velocity
Global 2014 in Adelaide.
Here’s a link to a video of that presentation.
He has a method to predict the rate of diabetes
2 in a suburb by looking at a map and
determining its “walkability”. Even walking 400m
to and from a bus stop is enough to reduce the
incidence of diabetes. (the annual cost of
diabetes in Australia is about $2 Billion).
In Chicago they have produced maps showing
blocks where the Government has spent over a
$1 Million in the past 5 years keeping people in
prison.

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The NZ Actuarial approach...
NZ has come up with an actuarial
approach to better understand the
total lifetime cost of welfare
participants. This needs to look across
“the silos” of all of the various aspects
of government to understand the full
cost.
But what happens next is the interesting bit….
It triggers the right questions - what should we do earlier to help these people improve their
lives and improve their lifetime situation (and the cost on the public purse)?
This is now providing the financial insights to justify greater expenditure early..
Obvious really…..
Here’s a speech by the NZ Finance Minister discussing the topic.

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Governments of all types spend large amounts procuring products and services.
We could do this a whole lot better, a whole lot more strategic..
We could strategically use procurement for import replacement and to nurture
potential exporters...

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New models

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Spare
capacity

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Nest Thermostat is an example of the Internet of Things.
It’s USD $190 and can be easily retrofitted to most traditional
thermostats. You can daisy-chain them around the house.
It’s smart - you can control it remotely from your phone - and it
learns.
It learns about the behaviour of your family and controls the
temperature accordingly.
“On average the Nest Learning Thermostat saved US customers about
10-12% on their heating bills and about 15% on their cooling bills.”
It’s a great example of “bolting-on” a smart device to existing
infrastructure to make it work more efficiently and / or “soak
up” spare capacity.
In January 2014 Google acquired Nest Labs for USD $3.2
Billion.

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There’s an enormous amount of spare capacity around - but often
we can’t see it.
We see a road jam-packed with cars - but if we think about what we
are really trying to do, (move people) there’s an extraordinary
amount of spare capacity - if we could move those people by buses
or bikes.
But the spare capacity regarding cars is much worse than that.
The car is a big family expense - second only to the house.
The average car in the Western World is used for less than 2 hours
per day. So straight away we’re down to about 8%. If we then
consider that typically one seat out of five is used we get down to
1.6% capacity use. Pretty ordinary for such a major expense.
The average car “consumes” about 4 car parks. One at home, one
at work, one at the shops and one somewhere else. Re-purposing
this space is one of the big opportunities of “MAAS” - mobility as a
service.

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transport

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There’s a little company called Uber.
You probably haven’t heard about it…….
In my opinion, we haven’t seen the really interesting bits of Uber
in Australia yet.
UberPOOL which now accounts for more rides in San Francisco
than UberX - provides for ride-sharing and customers only pay
about 60% of the fare - compared to UberX. ( Applying that
formula in Adelaide - I could get home for about $6.60. This
compare to $5.30 for a casual bus ticket).
UberHOP has published “stops” and customers must get to the
stop. There’s only one pickup and drop-off with a maximum of 5
passengers.Fares are a flat fee of between $3.50 & $4.50.
That’s comparative to Public Transport.
For more on this see my post - Social Transport.

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UberCOMMUTE helps commuters arrange and administer
ride-sharing whilst Bla Bla Car is is the world's leading long distance
carpooling service, connecting drivers with empty seats to people
travelling the same way. Big in Europe.
Think of it as a hitch-hiking service that your mum would approve of.
Residents of Helsinki are about to get a brand new, integrated
transport planning & booking service.
“Once a route has been chosen it will make any bookings needed, as
well as ensuring that hire vehicles are available and public-transport
sections are running on time. Costs will be displayed for every option,
making clear the trade-offs between speed, comfort and price.
Customers will be able to buy one-off journeys or “bundles” modelled
on mobile-phone contracts, allowing a certain amount of travel each
month.”
This Economist article gives more detail.
Did I mention driverless trucks that can move freight at night ?
Given all of this - why are we still spending enormous amount of
money building additional road capacity ??

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Less use of the
physical

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We’re all aware of music streaming and kindle downloads
replacing cd’s and books.
But the “digitisation” of the physical is now moving in ways I
didn’t contemplate only a year or so ago.
Take farm chemicals as an example.
Meet the weed destroying robot. Like a land based Creepy
Crawly it wanders over a paddock identifying and killing
weeds. The weeds are killed - not by chemicals - they are
physically punched into the earth.
As another example - drones with temperature sensors flying
over a citrus orchard can identify minor changes in the
temperature of one tree - an early indicator of disease onset.
So - rather than eventually having to spray an entire orchard -
a single tree can be treated before the problem spreads.
What will be digitised next ?

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Old speak :
“Beam me up Scotty.”
New speak :
“Scan me and 3D print me somewhere else.”
Make no mistake - 3D printing will disrupt the physical in ways that we
are only just beginning to understand.
The ability to digitally scan that item and then print it elsewhere is
extraordinary.
Imagine a world where products can be printed “Just in time, just for
you”.
Or a world where spare parts can be printed in metal - at your local
mechanics - or at a remote mine site.
This means less inventory, fewer warehouses, less transport and
shipping - a big disruption in existing logistics.
Combined with cheaper, more sophisticated robotics - much
manufacturing will be done in smaller factories, closer to the customer.
On-shored - brought back from China or elsewhere.This is a big
opportunity - import replacement.

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New ways of thinking

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This is a typical example of a sustainable model for a product over
its lifecycle.
A closed loop if you like.
The biological components are composted and the non-biological
components are recycled - their “technical nutrients” are recovered
and reused.
The book : Cradle to Cradle : Remaking the way we make things
is a good start to understanding this.
It requires “design thinking”. Once you start thinking this way it
often is not much more difficult to achieve.
Expect 3D printing to enable many different manufacturing
techniques and robotics to enable dramatic improvement in
recycling of “technical nutrients”.
Sustainability means we stop doing harm… BUT

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regenerative

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Ultimately we need to move beyond sustainability to
regenerative - where we actually start repairing the damage.
It’s like sustainability - but with growth.
Joel Salatin of Poly Face Farms is often quoted as an
example. Watch the brief video here.
If you want to learn more - just google him - there’s a heap of
YouTube videos on him and his farming practices.
Salatin has taken a farm with run-down land and regenerated
it. He works with the natural cycles.
“Salatin’s philosophy of farming emphasizes healthy grass on which
animals can thrive in a symbiotic cycle of feeding. Cows are moved
frequently from one pasture to another rather than being centrally corn
fed. Then chickens in portable coops are moved in behind them, where
they dig through the cow dung to eat protein-rich fly larvae while further
fertilizing the field with their droppings.”

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Gunter Pauli is the author of The Blue Economy.
I saw him speak recently.
The principles of The Blue Economy can be found here.
The Blue Economy respond to basic needs of all with what
you have, introducing innovations inspired by nature,
generating multiple benefits, including jobs and social capital,
offering more with less.
He provided a number of examples - but one that particularly
interested me was using technology to scan fish to identify
females with eggs that are then returned to the sea
unharmed. Females with eggs represent about 15%.
But - what an important 15 %. If you never take a female with
eggs it becomes very hard to over fish.

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I suspect that many Australians have this image of pre-contact Aboriginals
scratching out a living in the desert. Simple, nomadic hunter and gatherers.
Three recent books have certainly informed my thinking :
1. Gunyah, Goondie + Wurley: The Aboriginal Architecture of Australia by
Paul Memmott
2. The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage
3. Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
You should read them all but Dark Emu is particularly interesting.
Pascoe convincingly makes the case (as I suspected) that the Aboriginals were in
fact farming but not in ways that were not always recognisable to the white man.
There is also ample evidence of substantial permanent settlements. He describes
irrigation channels, eel farming, large scale grain farming, processing & storage
and many, many sophisticated fish traps.
My favourite is at Brewarrina. This substantial stone structure is possibly the
oldest man made structure on earth !!!
It should be as well known and as celebrated as the pyramids.
A better understanding of Aboriginal farming will hold many clues to The Next
Economy.

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Clarity of objectives

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My proposition is that The Next Economy will be “design lead”.
I’ve also said that we have many problems with our current accounting
mechanisms - they only consider part of the equation - a simple
financial view. In addition we account in silos - we don’t take a system
wide view.
Let me give you a really simple example.
On the left is the current mission for the South Australian Public
Transport System. It’s viewed through the single lens of Public
Transport rather than as part of a transport ecosystem.
In my paper - Reimagining Adelaide’s Public Transport system - which
you can download here - I’ve suggested adding the sentence on the
right (amongst other things).
If we start thinking of Public Transport (and walking and cycling) as part
of a transport ecosystem we start asking different questions. Should we
spend the next dollar on roads, bikeways or Public Transport.
Should we spend $160 Million on an O'Bahn Tunnel or could we apply
Britannia Roundabout thinking ??
It’s all in the design.

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On the left is the route map of Adelaide’s high frequency buses.
Adelaide is globally famous as a grid city but our bus network is
the most radial (CBD) centric system on the planet. Public
Transit experts describe it in books as an example of what not to
do. We are a global joke.
It’s designed for people to get to and from work - presuming you
work office hours in the city.
If you want to travel anywhere but the city - you have to go
through the city. It is counter intuitive, it is inefficient - is it any
wonder people give up and travel by car ?
On the right is a sketch of what global experts suggest.
A grid - where people can get from anywhere to anywhere
providing that they change buses. Every major intersection
becomes an “Interchange”.
It’s like moving from an old fashioned phone system to the
internet. I suspect that we could dramatically improve the
service at no more cost.
It’s all about the design.

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My “back of envelope” calculation suggests that Adelaide residents spend
about $4 Billion per annum on their private cars.
Many (most) families have two cars.
In 1975 about 70% of kids found their own way to school. They caught
Public Transport, they rode their bike, they walked.
Now it’s about 25 %. The same change has happened in the US, Canada
and UK. Meanwhile in Western Europe the numbers haven’t changed much.
The majority of kids still make their own way to school. What is this costing
in money AND TIME ? AND CONGESTION ?
I’m suggesting that improved Public Transport, safer cycling options and
greater use of ride-sharing, such that there are fewer private car journeys
would save money that could then be spent elsewhere locally.
Where does most of this money go ? Fuel, Tyres, Cars, Parts (ie.the
majority) goes outside of the State.
We could also defer massive amounts of road capex if congestion was
reduced.
It’s all about the design.

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Next Economy

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Where are we right NOW in the Western World ?
With Mobility As A Service progressing rapidly we will see a substantial
decline in private car ownership within 10 years.
Banks will not get bigger - they’ll likely get sliced up into a million bits -
see my article on this topic.
The digitisation of the physical will continue in ways that we didn’t expect -
reducing overproduction.
Cheap, smart sensors (the internet of things) will inform better decision
making combined with new (and more) sharing (and trading) platforms will
help us “soak up” spare capacity.
If we can access things when we need them - we don’t need to own them.
The phone becomes evermore the remote control to the physical world.
Ongoing globalisation and the Uberfication of work means that we can
expect the prices of many goods and services to be flat or fall.

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We got the impression that the wealthy financial Masters of the Universe had
somehow created all of this money…. They were geniuses…
The reality was they were just making it up as they went along.
Is private wealth an illusion ?
Someone receiving a statement from Bernie Madoff with big numbers on it
probably felt wealthy until December 10, 2008. It was never there, it was an
illusion.
The French nobility felt wealthy until the Revolution…
Of course we live in a modern sophisticated country - this could never happen
here. Remember Hurricane Katrina ?
A modern city inn the wealthiest country on the planet descended into lawless
chaos within 48 hours….
A year or two ago I read a book by Jane Jacobs : The Dark Age Ahead.
Jacobs argued how the increasing instability of five social pillars—families and
communities; higher education; respect for science and scientific thinking;
governance and taxation; and trust in various institutions—might lead to the
eventual collapse of North American, if not Western, civilization.
She predicted possible Dictatorship for the USA. I thought this impossible.
Then we’ve got Donald Trump suggesting that he might not accept the result of
the US Election - straight out of the Dictator playbook.
Suddenly, terrifyingly, we have a glimpse of this possibility…..

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Pulling it all
together…...

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From 1950 to 1980 :
All of the Western World is moving up the stairs.
Slowly, but steadily….
As time goes on, some people are falling
back…..
Their pace has slowed, they’re finding it harder.
Some of the key social glue is starting to
unravel.

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From the 5th floor there are no more stairs - there’s an escalator.
The escalator is debt powered.
As you move up the floors - It keeps speeding up.
But some are blocked from going to the next floor.
In 2008 some escalators slow down, some keep going.
It’s getting confusing….
By 2015 the escalator is making weird noises…. Will it stop ?
It’s disconcerting - lot’s of people - the unprotected - are unhappy…
Politics and Government are broken.
“Real people” will need to take back the influence from Vocal
Minorities, Corporate Lobbyists and a “captive” Public Service..
1981 to 2020

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2021 to 2036
Soon we will begin the serious transition.
I’m not sure exactly how this might pan out. In some ways it’s like the 1930’s in Europe all over again. Sadly - there’s a (not
insignificant) chance that this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Or - it could end very badly indeed.
The old (extractive) economy has broken… the unprotected have hit breaking point.
There’s a chance that some long established democracies could revert to dictatorships. Even the US.
Criminal gangs (pirates) will be dominant in some parts of the world and a constant threat in cyber-space.
Many jobs will be lost - in particular (relatively) high paying white collar jobs. Many of these people will need to take a pay cut
to get another job. Unskilled men will not find it any easier.
The good news is that prices for many “staples” will fall. Households will save money, initially by ditching the second car and
then going car-free altogether.
“Welfare” will need to be re-invented - the solution will probably include some sort of GBI - Guaranteed Basic Income.
The world will need to unravel it’s high indebtedness. In a low (financial) growth world - there will be many debt defaults.
House prices could fall dramatically - denting confidence - but ultimately reducing the cost burden on families.
Governments will need to simplify. The slack may be taken up by sophisticated civic organisations using advanced
technologies to organise themselves. They provide superior outcomes to government through volunteer labour.
There will be war. Hopefully it will be localised and short lived.
Everywhere the people crave direction and political leadership.
The role of the super-philanthropists (like Bill Gates) will be critical. They will be more trusted and influential than most political
leaders. If the elite choose to hide away in gated communities, rather than mutually engage, things will end badly….
There will be failed models and increasingly, examples of a regenerative way forward...if only we choose to look..

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I’m hopeful (but not yet confident) that we’ll find a regenerative way or ways
forward.
The “economics” is not the challenge…
It’s the politics and the social system…..
There’s more than enough to go around.
Technology and shared knowledge will see to that……
The “New Economy” is like a fruit tree. Every year it grows and yields more fruit.
There’s enough for your family and the neighbours. Even the birds. An
abundance.
The “open” movements and the “sharing” economy are signs of the way
forward.
The “real people” won - because, after a period of disengagement - they
wrested back the conversation, wrested back the power from Vocal Minorities,
Corporate Lobbyists and a “captive” Public Service..
Everybody benefits from a shared, sustained abundance….

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Sometimes we need to look at things from a different perspective.
Even the way that we’ve thought about our solar system needs to be revisited.
Our solar system moves through space at 70,000 km per hour.
It’s actually a vortex - as this video shows.
It’s time to completely rethink our “economy”.
It’s time for the “Next Economy”.
We all need to engage each other and our politicians in this conversation.
We get to design the “Next Economy” and we can’t afford to leave it to Vocal
Minorities, Corporate Lobbyists and a “captive” Public Service.

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Please Connect…….
Andrew Leunig
www.leunig.net.au
041 8833 751
andrew@leunig.net.au
@aleunig
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