TALKS AND GUEST LECTURES
Essential Knowledge for Transition provides an understanding of the large systems that affect our lives and communities: the monetary and banking system, the economic system and the financial system.
Understanding these systems is a prerequisite to transforming them and creating the conditions for a socially just, environmentally sound and compassionate society to emerge.
EK4T’s three-part curriculum, as presented by Marco Vangelisti, provides the essential understanding of these systems, their impact on our communities, intervention points, and alternatives being pursued around the country and the world to shift them for the benefit of communities and ecosystems.
This talk will provide an understanding of the money and banking system, our misconceptions about it, its structural flaws, and the redesign that is necessary to accelerate the transition to regenerative finance.
Money is essential to every modern society and is required to facilitate economic transactions and investments. But how much do we know about money? As it turns out, misconceptions about money and banking abound. There is a profound lack of understanding in the general public about how the banking system works, how money is created, and its effect on the economic cycles and asset bubbles.
The talk will provide an understanding of the money and banking system, its structural flaws, and the redesign that is necessary to accelerate the transition to a regenerative economy.
Key concepts:
- Four patterns of thought preventing an understanding of money
- Money as a hierarchical and hybrid system
- Money as a private-public partnership – the risk-reward allocation
- The role of banks in money creation and in the business cycle
- The key social function of banks and its challenges
- The nature and role of the Federal Reserve
- The intent and effects of quantitative easing
- Key design flaws and proposed system design alternatives
Contact us to inquire about bringing this talk to your community, group or organization.
This talk will provide a historical perspective on the current economic crisis, analyzes key flaws in the design of our economic system, and presents system alternatives and examples of their implementation around the country and the world.
What is the economy for? Why are we working harder than ever and yet feeling less and less financially and economically secure? Why is the middle class disappearing? Why are the benefits of economic growth going only to a progressively smaller percentage of the population? How can we move beyond growth and meet everyone’s basic needs in society? How can the economy be transformed to allow for a more compassionate and just society?
The talk provides a historical perspective on the current economic crisis, analyzes the key design flaws of our current economic system and presents system design alternatives and actual examples of their implementation around the country and the world.
Key concepts:
- Long term trends in productivity and wages
- The dark side of productivity
- The labor conundrum
- From shared prosperity to class mining
- Neoclassical economics vs. environmental economics vs. ecological economics
- The role of markets and government in the new economy
Contact us to inquire about bringing this talk to your community, group or organization.
This talk will provide an insider’s look at the current financial system, reveal the disconnect of financial capital with a finite planet, and show the importance of local investing in building a better world.
Financial industry insider, Marco Vangelisti, tells the story of his personal journey from conventional finance to regenerative investing.
How can the stock market reach new record highs when the economy is still sputtering and the middle class is fading away? What role do our investments play in shaping our world? An insider’s look at the current financial system reveals the nature of financial capital, its disconnect with the geophysical limits of a finite planet, the importance of local investing and of enlisting our investment capital in the task of building a better world.
Key concepts:
- The origin of investment capital
- The relationship between natural capital and financial capital
- Liquidity and the uprooting of economic activity
- The illusory nature of capital market expectations
- The hidden risks of “business as usual” investing
- The emergence of four powerful trends that will transform the world of investing
- Integration of financial and non-financial considerations in investing
Contact us to inquire about bringing this talk to your community, group or organization.
As an Economics teacher (and student!), I use the textbook for terms, but EK4T infuses the curriculum. Marco's background, willingness to ask the right questions, and passion for educating the masses, means that my students and colleagues have free access to a breadth of thought-provoking and even entertaining resources. These resources have added meat (and spice!) to our social science discussions from eighth through twelfth grade. Thank you, Marco! I look forward to continuing to learn with you and, together, fostering a new Re-generation that is fluent in and empowered by Economics!