Date: 2025-01-15 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00023037
US POLITICS
BERNIE SANDERS
Good messaging by Bernie Sanders ... simple and clear.
BERNIE SANDERS
Good messaging by Bernie Sanders ... simple and clear.
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Bernie Sanders is pretty clear about what is important and it always aligns well with the a 'progressive' agenda. It does in this case.
One of the things that is needed on the American political scene is a clear articulation of the policies that are best for the country rather than the partisan stuff that is used to inform the public not so much about what the publishing party will do, but about the awful things that the other party will do. This is not a 'zero sum' game ... it is worse.
I sometimes describe myself as a 'conservative' somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders. For me, most 'Progressives' are well to my 'right'. There is logic in my position ... the socio-enviro-economic system that 'makes the world go round' is not well served by any of the policies advocated by conventional conservatives and the political right. On the other hand there are policies that are available at this time in history that have the power to improve the quality of life of everyone on planet earth ... but this will never be achieved if the 'same old, same old' policies and practices remain the norm.
A starting point for truly progressive change is to improve the management metrics that are used for decision making both in government and politics, in business and finance, and in society at both the individual level and the community or place. The prevailing dominance of measures like GDP, corporate profits and stock market indeces whould be offset by equally powerful measurement of social progress and performance and environmental progress and performance.
Part of this has to be retiring money as the main measure. For far too long, money has been manipulated in ways that give the appearance of progress when it is more a mirage than anything else.
One possibility is to introduce a family of indices that measure progress ... that is change, positive or negative. In addition there needs to be a way to measure the relationship between the various indices and the ways these relationships are changing over time.
I have always been impressed by the simple and powerful framing of double entry accountancy. I see this as the reason why accounting has stood the test of time and financial reporting remains the cornerstone of corporate management metrics as well as business finance.
Specifically double entry accountancy records both 'state' and 'activity'. Activities produce a 'change in state'. A 'balance sheet' at a moment in time reports 'state' and the 'profit and loss account' for a period of time reports the impact of activities, positive and negative for this period of time. The change in the balance sheet at the beginning of a period of time to the balance sheet at the end of the period of time is always the same as the difference between the total of the positives and the total of the negatives in the profit and loss account for the period.
This framing has been used in financial accountancy for several hundred years. It has stood the test of time.
What is needed now is to expand this framing so that the balance sheet embraces social change and environmental change as well as economic or financial change, and the profit or loss account or impact accounts incorporate not only financial positives and negatives but also social positives and negatives and environmental postives and negatives.
There have been many attempts to use a money measure for social issues and environmental issues but they have not been widely used or accepted. This is probably the most difficult measurement issue to handle and is at the top of the TO DO list for TrueValueMetrics. Stay tuned !!!!
Peter Burgess