Pondernomics

It’s usually carelessly assumed, for example, that markets and the private sector are the same thing.

Thus companies over the years have gained immense privileges in their relationship with markets: limited liability, legal personality and easy incorporation.

Unchallenged, companies have grown arrogant and self-serving, and the market has become an end rather than a means.

But they are what we have and, for all their flaws, they remain immensely powerful.

They got us into this mess; the ultimate management task is to create incentives for them to get us out again.

The newest political party to appear during the American 2008 election in the aftermath of turmoil on Wall Street, the Penny Party has scorned electoral policy arguments instead proposing that all government and corporate operations be placed under an across the board Social Capital Audit Method.

The first plank of the Penny Party, S.C.A.M. would require a cost-benefit analysis for each private or public entity operating across any local or regional boundary. Each population center would re-issue operating licenses under the Benefit License Incentive Program where any firm or organization found without benefit shall place its origination charter on the table, re-certified as a B.L.I.P., and placed under extended controls.