In economics, mathematics can at best be used to use the past to explain the present and provide ideas as to what the future might hold. People — led by economists — lost sight of the tentative nature of such economic ‘predictions’.

The economic system is a set of institutions. To understand what is happening with the economy as a system we must examine the structure and functioning of those institutions.

We can also think of the economy as an engine. As such, the single most important economic institution is its ‘fuel’. Over the last four decades we gradually changed the economy’s fuel from money to debt.

I propose that we change the economy’s fuel from debt to income: “Re-thinking the Economy’s ‘Fuel System’ to Avert the Collapse of Civilization.” If it matters, I do have an M.A. in economics.

The result would be a self-regulating economy (with built-in safeguards against inflation) with no unemployment or poverty (at no cost to anyone, without redistributing anything) and no taxes or public debt (at any level of government) and more sustainability (even without additional regulations or any changes in behavior). Otherwise, there is little to recommend it.