1.3.8 Principle 9: Encourage positive action and restrict speculative and overly extroverted behavior

How can an economy distinguish between income earned through Wall Street speculation and income earned from creating goods or raising children? Because GDP growth only considers the volume of money exchanged (or the total system throughflow in ENA words), and because it counts harmful activities like theft, cancer, as well as oil spills as positive changes, it is unable to discern between a healthy economy and a bubble. The alarming outcome of today is that the real-economy networks’ deteriorating state is concealed by a fleeting fog of speculative activity. Regenerative economics, on the other hand, are very concerned with constructive activities because they help to develop economic capital and capabilities. Hence, actions that increase infrastructure, production, power, and learning are valued by regenerative economics. They aim to restrict two things: 1) excessive speculation, which produces bubbles of fictitious wealth fueled mostly by frenzy; and 2) excessive extraction, which results in economic necrosis.