The major and most realistic alternative, the foundation of GREY WOLF, is upon establishing reliable financial networks within a network of communities, ranging from a few individuals to hundreds or even thousands. This is some type of tribalism or communitarianism, this is "Economics 101" for the 21st Century, and it takes into account, uses, grows with, is supported by, but does not depend in any critical or dangerously dependent way, upon the institutional banking and investment system that exists today, the world of institutions such as Citicorp, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, and the Markets.

The GREY WOLF financial model is based upon production and assets that contribute to production. By production is not meant only or strictly the manufacturing or market-readiness of goods (agriculture, fuels, machines, consumer products) but the Ability to Produce and Use What You Need to Live and to Live Decently, Securely, and Sustainably for an Indefinite Future including post-generationally, beyond your lifetime.

Within GREY WOLF, you are investing some of your life-assets - cash, conventional and negotiable securities, real estate, personal capital assets including equipment, machinery, vehicles, tools, and also intangibles such as your labor and time, your brainpower, your physical power to do physical work. The list does not end here. But it is a list that you cannot take to the remains of Merrill Lynch or to Bank of America for converting into food, fuel, light, water, healthcare, drugs, transportation, care for your children or your elderly family members (including yourself at some time in the future).

Now while the paper below goes into depth on all this, there are some important points to be understood clearly from the very beginning. GREY WOLF is not about tying up your assets - your wide-area, broad-type assets as briefly mentioned in the last paragraph - into something that is not liquid, flexible, or accessible to You. It is not a "commune," not a barter system, not a private bank, not a stock or share-based fund. It is about investing VALUE in the form of mixed, convertible assets that include the USE of certain things - including land, buildings, tools, vehicles, and human labor both physical and mental - in exchange for the USE of certain other things, some of which are consumed, such as food, water, fuels, clothing, and depreciable entities (equipment, buildings).

The standard or traditional models of Accounting and Trade are used, much as they have been for centuries and longer. This is really "Economics 101" in a serious way - applying basic, fundamental valuation and trade to what we do as individuals, families and groups - but expanding the range and variety of what we invest, what we trade, so that we are not dealing only in the abstractions of modern financial securities - things that you most definitely cannot eat, drink, wear, ride, or live in - but also in the concrete realities and utilities of what everyone uses on a daily and intimate basis.

GREY WOLF is about you using the REAL VALUE you have TODAY in your:

• Home or Apartment - regardless of how much you owe on a mortgage or lease
• Car, Truck, RV, Tractor, or whatever - same principle
• Farm, Forest, Lake, or Backyard
• Skilled Trade or Profession
• Formal Education or Acquired Hands-on Experience
• Information assets or Intellectual Property
• Time that You can personally work on something with your hands, brain, or feet
• and More

Now you need to consider what you have just read above, even before you get to the more in-depth paper below, in terms of the Present Situation as it has been mentioned earlier. Consider what we are facing, and what we are already involved in at the present time, and how the GREY WOLF approach is inherently and substantively different and more secure than the alternatives offered by the purely institutional, conventional, and impersonal, non-community-oriented methods for "financial security." Reflect again upon this short list:

Global Recession, Long and Deep.
Infrastructure Decay.
Climate Change with adverse economic impacts.
Traditional Financial System doesn't work.
Global Conflicts over Resources.
Central Governments Unreliable.
Widening splits among Classes, Countries.

This next paper goes into depth and you need to read it.