Karl Fitzgerald will be talking about the economic issues of gentrification at 7.30pm.

In recent years, the ‘hoods we grew up in have lost many of their major cultural meeting spots for those of us light on dosh: The Punters Club, Lentil as Anything, The Tote… and now they’re losing us, the artists, musos, creative types and other locals driven out by rising rents.

We don’t want to give up our homes without a fight and are banding together with Radical Craft group Craft Cartel to organise this mini-festival celebrating our communities and exploring ways of saving them.  As was shown in our latest I Wanna Live Here report, there are a large amount of vacant properties in our favourite ‘hoods, plenty of room for us all. If these were released onto the market the housing in these areas would also become more affordable.

Highlights of the festival include:

• Free sticky Tote carpet relics for all attendees
• A ball gown crafted from Tote carpet sourced from DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE DUNNIES by fashion designer Kathryn Jamieson (Berlin/Melb) and soundscaped by compser David Shea (NY/Melb)
• Economics for Activists presentation by Earthsharing’s Karl Fitzgerald
• Lagerphone making workshop
• Hirsute pole dancer Agent Cleave
• Fetid Fashion Jam
• Survival tips from Green Renters
• Musos Cuba is Japan, Grizzly Jim Lawrie, J Hawke, Alex Jarvis, DJ Chestwig, Zero Miles an Hour and more
• Doormats fashioned from the original Tote carpet and branded, ciggie style, with the Tote logo. Each mat comes with a certificate of authenticity detailing where in the pub it came from (stage, mosh pit, door bitch etc). Profits to Fitzroy’s homeless, specifically St. Mary’s House of Welcome craft room.

Lady crew rip up Tote carpet. (Image Louise Francis) Ann Maher, Aubrey Rhodes, Liana Lucca-Pope, Rahne Widarsito.

Festival details are:

Sunday June 13th – Birmy, cnr Smith & Johnston 3-8pm

WORKSHOP & Gentrification reversal plotting session(by donation)

BBQ, festiness, lagerphone making workshop, FREE sticky Tote carpet relics for all attendees, DJ Chestwig, Green Renters stand, I Wanna Live Here Film Comp winner screening, unveiling of a magnificent ball gown crafted from Tote carpet sourced from DIRECTLY INFRONT OF THE DUNNIES by fashionista Kathryn Jamieson & soundscaped by composer David Shea, Economics for Activists presentation from Earthsharing’s Karl Fitzgerald.

June 13th – 27th Workers Club windows, cnr Brunnas & Gertrude
EXHIBITION:
Kathryn Jamieson’s divine Tote gown & other arty Tote artifacts

Sunday June 27th Workers Club 3-9pm
DIE YUPPIE, DIE! concert & festy fashion jam ($4/$8)
Come along & create your own shabby chic clothes using bits of the original Tote carpet (gloves supplied!) while checking out hirsute pole dancer Agent Cleave & listening to some of the best bands in Melbs including Cuba Is Japan, Grizzly Jim Laurie, J. Hawke, Alex Jarvis and Zero Miles an Hour. Prizes for grossest garments crafted.

RSVP on our facebook invite or just rock up.

With land prices increasing $766 a DAY in the December quarter, Phil Anderson will analyse economic prescriptions and asset bubbles. Are bubbles essential for banking liquidity? Who is meant to borrow this credit and for what?

Phil Anderson, Director of Economic Indicator Services and author of The Secret Life of Real Estate, will discuss economic policies in light of his arresting array of charts.

We will be challenged with fresh findings from a range of markets (gold, copper, real estate, shares and a few surprising markets) as we sculpt a new perspective on future economic outcomes.

Phillip’s predictions from last year’s talk have been remarkably accurate. Forecasting is always fun with Phil.

$5 entry, 6.30 – 8 pm | JASPER HOTEL (former YMCA)
489 Elizabeth Street | Melbourne (right next to the Vic Market)
RSVP

photo credit: Paco Cartero

Wed Dec 2nd, 6.30 – 8.15pm
The Order of Melbourne , Level 2, 401 Swanston St

An exciting evening of short films is set to enlighten us all on why communities are undermined by economics.

Join us for a selection of rousing new films from Byron Bay to Brooklyn. Film makers had to look at the role artists play in gentrification cycles. Are artists pawns? What can be done about it? How are communities fighting back?

The first prize wins $3000! Your involvement is key in the People’s Choice Awards. Everybody screeeam!!

The night will also feature a Craft Cartel market, fresh with handmade goods to prompt your merry season shopping list.

Some comedic enlightenment by Aussie Jules will get the crowd going.

Proudly sponsored by Prosper Australia, Crumpler and Madman.

RSVP for this fun, free event

Seats to Professor Michael Hudson’s presentations (Oct 14 – 27) are filling fast, with major PR next week to fill the remaining spots. The renowned US economist is set to leave ears burning on why a decade of record economic growth has left so many behind.

He has 3 presentations in Melbourne next week, followed by Canberra, Sydney and now Adelaide (via our friends at E.R.A). Lifting the Lid on the GFC – Wed Oct 14th will be the highlight.

Check all the details & RSVP immediately via our sister website www.prosper.org.au

The interest building is commensurate with Hudson’s extensive public record. His 1972 book Super Imperialism covered topics such as financing America’s wars with other nation’s resources, American strategy within the World Bank and the imperialism of US foreign aid. His 1977 Global Fracture gave insights on the source of the Middle East’s oil price shock and discussed in detail the new international economic order. More recently he has delivered stinging blows via his many online articles re the GFC, Obama’s financial reforms and the bankers deception of Iceland and Latvia.

On Monday evening (Oct 12th) make sure you tune into Phillip Adams – Late Night Live on Radio National at 10pm.

Hudson will also be interviewed on SKY News TV (7pm Monday). Our own Renegade Economists radio show will have an in depth interview on the Wed Oct 14th show. A raft of other interviews are lined up.

There are only a handful of seats left at Hudson’s Sydney talk (less than 10). In Melbourne we are closing in on 200 attendees for the Lifting the Lid on the GFC event at the Melbourne Town Hall (Wed Oct 14) with our own Bryan Kavanagh and the highly respected Steve Keen.

Make sure you hear Prof Hudson, a dynamic speaker who can make sense of why the GFC occurred. Has Australia defied global economic gravity?

118th Henry George Commemoration Address
Tuesday Sept 1st
Speaker: Mr J Kennedy Bennett, Coordinator of Site Rating Defence

A rates analyst for 19 years with valuation work across 12 councils, his current project is uniting the Monash ratepayers behind a full economic disclosure model. We get to hear it first.

Enjoy the welcoming atmosphere of the Pumphouse, just across the road from the Exhibition Building where Henry George gave his 1890 speech to a packed audience.

Meals will be available via the popular “pay as you go” method, starting at around $15.00. We will begin to gather around 6pm. Meals to be ordered by 6.45.

Venue: The Conservatory room, the Pumphouse Hotel, 128 Nicholson St, Fitzroy
RSVP: Friday 28th August if you will be attending.

Download the flyer (right-click) to forward it on

Few predicted the GFC, but Bryan Kavanagh did way back in 2001. Greenshoots? How bad WILL the Global Financial Crisis be? Why did our economists fail us? What’s the future of real estate? Come and hear Bryan Kavanagh dissect “The Anatomy of the Global Financial Crisis” and explain where it all went wrong.

Kavanagh, a valuer who worked in the Australian Taxation Office and the Commonwealth Bank before co-founding his own valuation practice in 1997, has the runs on the board. He forecast the GFC in the British journal “Geophilos” in 2001, and published a study of Australia’s real estate cycles, “Unlocking the Riches of Oz”, in 2007.

Come and hear Kavanagh’s latest interpretations in the warm atmospheres of our Hardware Lane abode.

RSVP appreciated
Gold coin donation to cover drinks and nibbles

photo credit: andredeak

Rebooting Economics as if People and Planet mattered
This Saturday 3.45pm at the Melbourne Social Forum, CERES Park, Brunswick in the Training Room

Learn the language of the powerful so we can turn market forces around to our advantage. There is a way that greens can discuss economics in a manner that is attractive to genuine businessmen. Learn some of the problems to bailout economics and help build the knowledge-base for the Next Economy, an Earth Rights Democracy. Karl Fitzgerald from the Renegade Economists and Earthsharing Australia will host this lively workshop.

Activalia 303, 3.45pm Sunday April 17th, in the Global Village, Africa

A gathering of hardy activists share tactics on what works and what doesn’t in the information marketplace for social justice. Campaign planning, strategic thinking and looking to the future. Sina Brown-Davis, Karl Fitzgerald and hopefully YOU.

How independence was never intended to mean freedom

When: Thurs April 30th, 6.30 for 6.45pm start
Who: Karl Fitzgerald, Earthsharing Australia Project Coordinator and 3CR’s Renegade Economist.
Download Flyer

Vanuatu means ‘Eternal Land’.

However, our recent visit to these idyllic lands revealed a dark side to the beauty surrounding such a community. Economic policy is out of kilter with the Treasure Island type mentality that wealthy speculators abuse in quoting Vanuatu as the ‘World’s Happiest People’. The free lunch prerogative of the vested interests has the indigenous people of Vanuatu, the ni-Van’s, battling for food in a bounty-ful land .

We returned from Vanuatu in tears at the destruction economic policy was causing. Both working people and capitalists themselves are subservient to the forces that have brought the world economy to it’s knees. We were chased off world heritage land developments by shady property sharks but yet lauded by people in the street for bringing understanding to the economic imperative that land demands.

Australia’s reputation in the Pacific has scarcely been lower. We are facing the likelihood of more Fiji-like revolutions with the current tax policy recommendations of the World Bank, IMF and ANZUS dominating the Pacific.

Foreign aid will be forensically examined and the keynesian limitations discussed during the presentation. We must find a new model for community development. Earthsharing Australia will be discussing this new model within the confines of the projects undertaken with ‘ni-NGO’.

ni-NGO is a ni-Van run NGO that Earthsharing Australia has helped set up. If this model is successful, we will set up Earthsharing Pacific to give both DIY self-support at the micro level, and tax advice at the macro level throughout the Pacific.

Come and hear about the trials and tribulations of one of the world’s most beautiful locations, the progress we have made so far and our outline to assist ni-Van’s regain control over their most precious resource – the land on which they are meant to stand.

Where: Level 1/ 27 Hardware Lane, Melbourne
Entry: gold coin donation – all funding goes towards ni-NGO
Drinks and nibbles to follow
RSVP via Facebook or via email

photo credit: stevendamron

Thurs March 19th
2/1 Spring St, Melbourne
6.45 for 7pm

Phil Anderson delivers a hard hitting lecture on why we’re in the mess we’re in and what we can do about it. His information is unique because he is one of the few who studies the inter-relationship between commodity, stock and real estate markets.

Learn about how economic cycles revolve, the Keynes crash phase and the relevance of the 18 year land cycle.

Phil’s last talk was a sell out. At this crucial time it really is important information for all to understand before we too have $1 trillion dollar bailouts. Ever wondered what a trillion looks like?

$5 entry
View Map
RSVP essential

photo credit: Berd Whitlock

Saturday Feb 21st, Sustainable Living Festival
3pm – 3.50pm
Think Tent, Fed Square

Big Problems need Big Picture thinking. Reforming our economic system so that every decision we make reflects the environmental cost of making that good or undertaking that activity is vital for our survival. With Melbourne one of the world’s largest sprawl cities, how can the economic framework curb this trend? With the Emission Trading System set to become a speculative playground for investment bankers, what would a logical government propose? With the Global Financial Meltdown threatening our jobs, what can we do to make our economy more resilient in the face of the looming challenges we face?

Karl Fitzgerald (Earthsharing Australia) will discuss how a True Cost Economics system would solve many of our current problems. Ascelin Gordon (RMIT University) will bring you up to speed with some of the pros and cons of using Market Based Instruments in environmental management.