Slashing services, selling off public assets, and raising taxes won't cure these ills. To maintain a sustainable and productive economy requires a visionary leap into the new. A new economy needs new methods of public financing.

The economy should not be an end in itself, an irresistible force that we fail to serve at our peril -- yet that's the conventional attitude. The economic suicides of Europe are testimony to the prevalence of this belief.

Finding a way to restructure and write down debt held by financiers and banks is the fastest and most effective way to bolster healthy economic growth.

Over at Salon, Alex Pareene writes about the struggle that the media is having discerning the "demands" of the Occupy Wall Street movement even though it's easy to discern the larger concerns of the 99% if you just start paying attention.