The value of public companies listed on stock markets has dropped by about a third in the past year. This means that shareholders believe that this group of companies, which are an important but not dominant factor in the global economy (the public sector, notably health and education, and privately-owned enterprises, are collectively much larger, both in what they contributed to productive output and in the number of people they employ) will generate 1/3 less future total profits than had previously been forecast.
The response of governments to this assessment has been immediate and unanimous -- such a reassessment is unacceptable, so unacceptable that trillions of dollars of taxpayer money (money that governments cannot afford to spend) need to be spent immediately to "increase liquidity". By increasing liquidity they mean creating enough new cash for investors to need to park somewhere (i.e. in the stock market, pushing prices back up again) and for consumers to buy the stuff these companies are producing.
In short, governments and corporations are working furiously together to ensure that all of us -- governments, corporations and consumers -- remain addicted to growth, which means addicted to ever-increasing consumption and ever-increasing debt. This is the fragile foundation on which this portion of our economy (the publicly-listed private sector) utterly depends.
By contrast, what if we took our time, attention, energy and money and invested it locally in firms run by ourselves and friends, producing needed goods and services sustainably? That, essentially, is what C.A. Fitts is promoting.
