“Our problem was not, and is not, a lack of growth. Our problem is 60 years of unproductive growth—growth that has buried us in financial liabilities. The American pattern of development does not create real wealth. It creates the illusion of wealth.” ~ Charles Marohn, Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume 1

By Catherine Austin Fitts

Chuck Marohn joined me on The Solari Report in 2017 to discuss why U.S. federal government investment in local infrastructure is not working—and what to do about it. Since then, he has traveled and worked throughout America helping local officials and communities appreciate what is wrong with their existing economic models and transition to models that work.

To help citizens and communities do the same, Chuck has written a new book that describes the challenges and opportunities in detail: Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity. Chuck has a vision of communities that work for real people. His website Strong Towns offers a wealth of ideas for anyone who wants to take action locally.

On the launch of his new book, I invited Chuck to return to The Solari Report for an in-depth conversation—one of several The Solari Report is having in the first quarter of 2020 addressing “The Real Deal on Going Local”—to refocus on what is happening in our local communities and what we can do to protect and build prosperity on Main Street.

In Let’s Go to the Movies, I will review Motherless Brooklyn, Ed Norton’s story of local politics in the neighborhoods of New York in the times of Bob Moses’ aggressive development of the city. For those who want to know more, Ric Burns also describes this period in his eight-part series, New York: A Documentary Film .

Subscribers can e-mail or post questions and story suggestions for Money & Markets for this week here.

Related Reading:

Strong Towns

Buy the Book

Book Review: Follow the Money: A Citizen’s Guide to Local Government

Related Solari Reports:

Strong Towns with Chuck Marohn

Unpacking Your Financial Ecosystem

Who’s Your Sheriff? with Sheriff Mack

1st Quarter Wrap Ups:

1st Quarter 2020 Wrap Up: News, Trends & Stories, Part II with Dr. Joseph P. Farrell
1st Quarter 2020 Wrap Up – News Trends & Stories, Part I with Dr. Joseph P. Farrell
1st Quarter 2020 Wrap Up – The Real Deal on Going Local – The Final Mile with Patrick M. Wood

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9 Comments

  1. Hi Catherine, this sounded a lot like agenda 21 or 2030 repackaged. so I went to their sponsors page. not good “sustainable development” and all the buss words of agenda 21 funded by tax exempt entities such as Orton family foundation and developers, complete with a expensive team of lawyers. I’m sure they’ll be looking for a return on their investment.

    lifted from Orton Family Foundations website:

    How Effective It Is

    In 2008 Orton awarded a $100,000 grant to Golden, Colorado, to create a long-term development plan: Golden Vision 2030, finalized in 2010. Through various CAT events, over 2,000 residents—more than 11% of Golden’s population—participated. Leaders from low-income and immigrant communities that were previously suspicious of the city developed relationships with the planning department through Heart & Soul events. As of 2019, more than 20 publicly funded capital and operational improvements informed by the Golden Vision 2030 have been completed or are under way, including a pedestrian bridge and expanded trails at the Clear Creek recreational area.

    1. Rick:

      I don’t agree. Anyone who gets deeply involved in local planning ends of dealing with all the same issues that all local plans deal with good and bad. So there are concepts and cross over among all of them.

      Any local planning effort will involve the “vision thing.”

      If you look at Orton and their background I think they come from hands on experience in a place and are likely sincere.

      That said, what I find missing from all these efforts is a willingness to face the black budget and organized crime issues.

      Which is why my personal preference is to face and deal with the “Beck Brothers.”
      For me doing the vision thing without dealing with the Beck Brothers is just making them stronger.

      I very much appreciate, however, Chuck nailing the negative return on investment model. That has been their hidden secret sauce for my lifetime. We are not going to change this without bringing transparency to it. Chuck has done an outstanding job of doing that – and has managed to do it in a remarkably gracious way.

      Agenda 21 is deeply embedded in more negative ROI.

      Even if we face the negative ROI issue there is much more to face and dealt with. What is the point of getting the infrastructure model right if we are all chipped by Mr. Gates, mind controlled by digital systems and satellites and vaccinated into a lifetime of chronic disease and early graves?

      Hope that helps.

      Catherine

  2. Great. 4 stars. I’m inspired.

    Now I have to figure out where to go because NYC is a mess!

  3. Sadly, citizen, we’ve led by the nose by promises of treats and comforts.

    It’s really brilliant, in a ruthless greedy way. Let’s mandate as many for profit vaccines as we possibly can, & engineer into those vaccines chronic diseases that create a lifetime dependency on the for profit healthcare system, disabling people, reducing life expectancy, & reproductive capacity.
    Make money & consolidate power reducing population, financed off the backs of the mark, the taxpayer consumer.
    Roll in 100% surveillance & mass data harvesting for near total control, manipulation & profitable exploitation.

    Those at the very top have got us all tricked into continuing to further enrich and empower them. It’s a clear fleecing plan:

    Healthcare enslavement & dependency, big pharma.
    Financial enslavement & dependency, debt.
    Data enslavement & dependency, google, facebook, amazon.
    Food enslavement & dependency, factory farms, GMO food.

    Fortunately, we humans have the ultimate power to stop supporting exploitative corporations.

    Stop investing in corporations perpetrating these crimes.
    Demand integrity & total transparency from all with whom you transact.
    Stop consuming their financial services, harvesting scams.
    Stop consuming their disposable products, waste & pollution.
    Stop consuming their vaccines, medicines and factory farmed GMO food, toxic poisons.

    Take personal responsibility for where we direct our energies, & to what we give our power to.

    We can choose to invest locally, in our own health & life affirming community economies, stimulate local independence, reestablishing our sovereignty.
    In other words, we withdraw our participation in the global harvesting and poisoning system.
    We do not condone you, we do not want or need you, we do not consent.

    This is how we reclaim our power.

    Local community independence.

    When enough of us remember our innate divinity and sovereignty, the exploitation will end.
    This whole rigged house of cards stands on human ignorance of our eternal divine essence.
    As we awaken, the illusions collapse & disappear.

  4. It says audio will post by April 9th. Anyone know where it is, or whether it’s been posted yet?

    1. Nathan:

      My apologies. It posts this coming Thursday at 6pm CT. That was supposed to be April 23, instead of April 9th,

      Catherine

  5. In the short presentation the background music is disquieting and detracting.
    Cordially
    Charles M. “Skip” Brennan

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