A Main Street Fix for Wall Street's Failure is a report of the New Economy Working Group produced in collaboration with the New Economy Network set to be released November 29, 2011. It is an outcome of a series of conversations focused on building a policy agenda to deepen the jobs debate in the U.S. John Cavanagh and David Korten are the lead authors; participating organizations include American Independent Business Alliance, Backbone Campaign, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Capital Institute, Center for Community Change, Democracy Collaborative of the University of Maryland, Green America, Green for All, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Living Economies Forum, New Economy Network, Rebuild the Dream, Transition Towns, and YES! Magazine.

The report calls for a serious jobs program that will necessarily include short-term stimulus measures, but with its primary focus on structural interventions to shift the balance of economic and political power from Wall Street to Main Street. The authors propose a seven-part program to advance this power shift:

1. Redefine our economic priorities by replacing financial indicators with real wealth indicators as the basis for evaluating economic performance.
2. Restructure the money system to root the power to create and allocate money in Main Street financial institutions that support Main Street job creation.
3. Restore the middle class by restoring progressive tax policies and a strong and secure social safety net.
4. Create a framework of economic incentives that favor human-scale enterprises that are locally-owned by people who have a natural interest in the health and well-being of their community and its natural environment,
5. Protect markets and democracy from corruption by concentrations of unaccountable corporate power.
6. Organize the global economy into substantially self-reliant regional economies that align and partner with the structure and dynamics of Earth’s biosphere.
7. Put in place global rules and institutions that secure the universal rights of people and support democratic self-governance and economic self-reliance at all system levels.

New Economy Working Group

New Economy Working Group

NEWGroup functions as an informal alliance of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) as an initial policy think tank partner, YES! magazine as an initial media partner, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) as an initial business network partner, and the PCDForum as an initial system design partner. The NEWGroup is co-chaired by John Cavanagh, IPS executive director, and David Korten, PCDForum president, YES! co-founder and board chair, BALLE board member, and IPS Associate Fellow. IPS serves as secretariat. Noel Ortega is the NEWGroup coordinator.

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