Understanding the "Popsicle Index" (aka "Solari Index")
To help people understand how the global financial system affects their neighborhood, I came up with a very simple quality of life index based on one question:
“What percentage of the people in your place believes that a child can go to the nearest place to buy a popsicle or other treat, and return home alone safely?”
Your answer gives you the Solari Index of your place. For example, if you think 50% of your neighbors believe a child in your neighborhood would be safe, then your Solari Index is 50%. The Solari Index is based on gut level feelings, rather than facts and figures.
The real purpose of the Solari Index is to start a conversation in every neighborhood and village on earth about what it means to feel safe and secure where you live and work.
Maybe passersby can be trusted to leave the child alone, but they drive like maniacs through your neighborhood. Maybe the child will be safe, but the parents are concerned about all the junk food marketed to young kids. Maybe the family is too poor to give the child money for a treat. Maybe the child will be perfectly safe going to the market alone, but die of a preventable disease before the age of 18 for lack of basic healthcare. Or maybe there is no market nearby, or any jobs either, so everyone commutes to someone else’s neighborhood to work and shop and bank.
This leads to discussion about the job market, job security, unemployment, and how quickly all the money is leaving your neighborhood, the drain of credit card debt as well as what the national debt and state budget cuts are costing, along with dwindling healthcare benefits and retirement security, the fate of local family farms and businesses, natural resources and the local water supply, and generally how hard everyone is working just to make ends meet.
As the conversation unfolds, it is clear that the drain we are experiencing is spiritual as much as financial -- how we experience a negative return on investment economy that is out of alignment with the well-being of our families, communities, and planet; an economy that is organized around the Dow Jones going up from our Solari Indexes going down.
As the conversation unfolds, friends and neighbors begin to understand what is important to each other and to sense opportunities to help each other feel safer.
Now I ask:
“If the Solari Index in your place is less than 100%, what will it take to raise it to 100%? And who is responsible to make that happen?”
This leads to a discussion of the Solari Opportunity, which is an invitation to create wealth from our Solari Index going up to 100%.
Catherine Austin Fitts
The Down Jones going up while the Popsicle Index goes down: This is very important to understand. For me, if ECONOMICS does not have a QUALITATIVE means by which to evaluate WEALTH, then what we have now is what we inevitably get. Although the material quality of life went UP during the Clinton administration, I would say that on the whole the QUALITY of life decreased for many people. I am being subjective here. For example, look at the number of schools which felt they needed to put fences up around their campuses or install metal detectors for students to pass through.
The QUALITY of life of the average citizen in a working class community is an economic matter, but it isn't merely about how much money one has. The VALUE of that money is important, no doubt. But there are other considerations. How much is a SAFE neighborhood worth? --And by "safe" I'm thinking of all the things Catherine mentions above. If a society does not have healthy citizens, does not have clean air and drinking water, does not have access to good health care, good food and so on, how can it be considered a WEALTHY society, regardless of how much money the citizen may have to spend on 27 different brands of deoderant?
Then comes the hard part: How does a society implement these concerns? Does a society pass laws which DICTATE the way people should live? Or does a society recognize THE RELATIONSHIP between economics and the QUALITY of life? This, I think, is what the Solari model is attempting to do.
For more on the Solari Index see the article:
"A Conversation About The Popsicle Index"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00117.htmand
Learning About Solari:
http://www.solari.com/learn/index.htm
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