It's going to be a very long, hard struggle to dig ourselves out of the enormous hole that GW Bush and Gang have dug us into over the past eight years.

Let's NOT expect Obama to start creating miracles from Day 1!!!! The right things could perhaps happen if you and I and all of us get together effectively; examine our common situation carefully; objectively, dispassionately (in ALL its dimensions); and then learn how to act on it! One thing is for sure: 'Business as usual' will simply not work! If we want to really make the change that's needed, there are several things that must happen:

1. People who wish this to happen need to get together MUCH more effectively than they have ever done in the past.

2. People who wish this to happen will need to communicate on issues MUCH more effectively than they have done in the past. In this context, the renowned systems scientist, John N. Warfield, has developed powerful means of working in complex systems, which enables people to discuss complex issues in systems effectively without getting into futile argumentation. In brief, Warfield has developed practical means to:

a) articulate and clarify to ourselves and each other what we perceive to be the 'elements' within the complex systems we discuss; and

b) create easy to understand models showing our perceptions of how these elements are related to each other.

Information about Warfield's seminal contributions to systems science are available at http://www.jnwarfield.com and also from the "John N. Warfield Collection" of books, papers and presentations held at the library of George Mason University (check out:http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/published/gmu/vifgm00008.tp - write to: specialcoll@gmu.edu).

Based on Warfield's foundational work, I've developed a very practical system, the 'One Page Management System' (OPMS), which enables individuals and groups at any level to articulate a Mission and then to develop, from their own currently available good ideas, continuing 'Action Planning' to accomplish the Mission, whatever it may be. The Mission could be, for instance "To dig ourselves out of the hole that we have dug for ourselves through eight years of maladministration and filth by GW Bush and Gang". If that's agreed to be a worthwhile Mission, the first step is to ask ourselves the 'trigger question':

"What, in our opinion, are the THINGS TO DO To dig ourselves out of the hole that we have dug for ourselves through eight years of maladministration and filth by GW Bush and Gang?" (Responses to this would be the first 'elements' for the Mission).

Putting our ideas effectively together (without fruitless argumentation) would need some modeling showing how the various elements "contribute to" each other and to the Mission. Continuing development of this and other such models would lead to the needed consensus Action Plan to accomplish the Mission.

To do this in practice would require some means to display and discuss the models, which we cannot do using the pure prose currently employed at this forum. We would need to show and discuss our models to each other. This can be done, but it does require some facilities to display and discuss these models. I'd be very happy to provide full details of how this could be done to anyone who would write to me at gs (underscore) chandy (at) yahoo (dot) com. There is freely available a useful software package that enables recording of elements and development of models employed in the OPMS.

3. Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz has published an excellent article at Vanity Fair, "Reversal of Fortune", which should be carefully studied - here is a link to the article: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/11/stiglitz200811

Below my signature, I've listed some 'elements' extracted from the Stiglitz article, representing some of the crucial THINGS TO DO that would help us dig ourselves out of the hole we are in. The OPMS approach could help us put together these (and many other) elements into an effective Action Plan to accomplish the desired Mission. (I can demonstrate, if people are interested, how these elements could be integrated into the initiation of effective Action Planning).

GSC

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List of some important THINGS TO DO:

(Extracted from Stiglitz article: "Reversal of Fortune")

1. To enable people to understand that the tangled web of financial-economic problems will be difficult to unravel (using any conventional means)

2. To construct an effective 'problematique' showing contributory relationships between the various economic and societal issues faced (by US and by world at large) [ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, bad economics, and sheer incompetence - amonst others]

3. To minimize the loss of the homes by US citizens

4. To ensure that those who created the mess are not rewarded with million of dollars!!

5. To pull/push the financial markets out of the current 'failure mode'

6. To ensure that the government response to the current 'multiple interacting crises' is properly designed to accomplish desired aims

7. To shorten the length of the downturn and to reduce its magnitude

8. To address the underlying causes that have brought about the current disastrous situation

9. To scrap the current ethanol policy in toto - immediately

10. To convince the people at large that our suggestions make economic sense that will help pull us out of the hole

11. To skew the tax rates and the tax breaks to help the wage-earning US citizen (rather than the speculators and the big investors)

12. To develop a truly dynamic and stable financial-economic system for the US (and for the world)

13. To come out with practical measure that would enable people at large to keep their homes, re-structure their personal finances

14. To stifle the financial 'innovations' that have caused this mess!!!

15. To resolve the major puzzles: monetary policy (balancing the risks of inflation and the risk of a deeper downturn) and fiscal policy (balancing the risk of a deeper downturn and the risk of an exploding deficit)

16. etc, etc