Quantitative Easing – enough money to stretch from earth to the moon.

31 Friday Oct 2014

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Business and Economy, Distribution of wealth, Inequility, Poverty, Quantitative easing

Popular media’s definition of quantitative easing focuses on the concept of central banks increasing the size of their balance sheets to increase the amount of credit available to borrowers.

Theoretically, this leads to increased spending results in increased consumption, which increases the demand for goods and services, fosters job creation and, ultimately, creates economic vitality. (a simple explanation)

The idea is that by making it easier to obtain loans, interest rates will drop and consumers and businesses will borrow and spend.

So why are we most of us still struggling to make a living?

What in fact is happening is that a flood of cash has encouraged reckless financial behavior and directed a fire-hose of money to emerging economies that cannot manage the cash.

As I understand it the sole purpose of money is as a stable measure of value that facilitates the exchange of goods and investment. Quantitative easing, by its very name, involves the corruption of money’s sole purpose as a stable medium of exchange.

If only life were so simple.

By destabilizing the value of money, Quantitative easing works against the very investment that would drive economic growth. It’s supporting the very government spending and housing consumption that got us into trouble to begin with. It is the horribly obtuse notion that central banks can produce real economic growth through their monetary machinations.

It is financing the ongoing economic hardship through its expanded borrowing of bank reserves. invest in emerging markets, commodity-based economies, commodities themselves, and non-local opportunities rather than to lend to local businesses that are having difficulty getting loans.

Quantitative easing policies have benefited mainly the wealthy. For example 40% of those gains went to the richest 5% of British households.

Quantitative easing cash ends up overwhelmingly in profits, thereby exacerbating income inequality. The consequent social tensions that arise from it, is fundamentally a regressive redistribution program that has been boosting wealth for those already engaged in the financial sector or those who already own homes, but passing little along to the rest of the economy.

It is a primary driver of income inequality.

It might well have been better saved if insolvent firms, institutions like Banks had been allowed to restructure through bankruptcy, and our central banks had provided credit only to sound banks on a short-term basis.

What we have now is central banks selling the assets they have accumulated and it wont be long before interest rates start to climb, choking off what they call the recovery.

Technically, a central bank could become insolvent ( although its liabilities are essentially costless) in a manner similar to a commercial bank. In practice, the situation is very different because a central bank’s assets and liabilities are different from those of a commercial bank, and because the central bank can issue money to meet its obligations. In effect, they can bail themselves out by printing money.

I am no financial ingenious guru but the evidence of Quantitative easing seems to me to be a devaluation of buying power of your money. A good first step in avoiding such a lack of confidence would be to start unwinding the QE policies.

When we look back it might have been better to have put a million in the bank account of ever citizen, which they could have drawn down over twenty to twenty-five years provided they cleared their mortgage, took out health and old age insurance. This would have stimulate the economy for all.

As I said I’m no financial adviser and I’m certainly not “rich, my advice to anyone reading this post ”Rather than settling for a wage (and be “owned” by bosses), you should be come owners.

Have a look at the below. All comments welcome.

Because the Fed’s—it does not pay interest on Federal Reserve Notes and typically pays no interest on reserves—it almost always remits money to the Treasury.

Since 2008, however, the Fed has sold off virtually all of its short-term Treasury securities and acquired instead longer-term Treasuries and the debt and MBS issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These securities are riskier relative to those normally held by the Fed for two reasons.whether a central bank can become insolvent, therefore, centers on what it can do to cause the public to lose confidence in its currency. A good first step in avoiding such a lack of confidence would be to start unwinding the QE policies.

Even the invention of quantitative easing is shrouded in it did raise economic activity a bit. controversy. that central banks have the capacity to keep inflation in check if the money they have created begins circulating more rapidly.

When Money Talks.

26 Sunday Oct 2014

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Global Insight, Greed, Inequity, Sovereign Wealth Funds, The Lethargy of our Political leaders, When Money Talks

There can never be power, of a political or economic nature, without responsibility.

WHILE OUR WORLD LEADERS AND OUR WORLD ORGANISATIONS ARE PREOCCUPIED WITH GROWING THE ECONOMY TO THE DETRIMENT OF OUR PLANET AND EQUALITY THE POWER OF MONEY HAS ANOTHER ALLIE SOVEREIGNTY WEALTH FUNDS.

When Money Talks, undue financial power is affecting their policies.

We are all abhorred by the rise of ISIS, the pending disaster of Climate Change, the spread of Ebola and the current conflicts in the world but if we are not vigilant we are all going to end up living in a Privatized World – Called World Corporate Inc.

I think that where ever there is money there is power. A critical point that we are all ignoring at our peril. This is why it’s necessary to put the lime light once more on Sovereign Wealth Funds. ( See Previous Posts)

Now I don’t believe sovereign wealth funds will tilt the balance of power in the near future. However someone must put them in their proper context, because the forces that give rise to sovereign wealth funds are in fact already beginning to influence the balance of power in a global.

With all that is going on in the world you might think that this is a storm in a tea-cup, but Inequity and Greed are the two elements that contribute the most to the Worlds problems.

At the moment there is SWFS designed to affect trans-generational wealth transfers, and those designed to enable economic stability as a result of changes in global production forces, are resource-based funds designed to transform physical wealth into financial wealth.

Historically, political power was created by military power.

Now the question is, instead of armaments, if I’m bringing investable dollars, does that actually play the role that nuclear warheads used to play in an earlier geopolitical era?

Global economic forces are tilting or, as I like to say, reorienting – and the pun is absolutely intended – the balance of power.

What we are seeing is a conscious effort to leverage shifts in capital flows and momentum for economic development into a degree of political power globally, whether they are in the form of blocks or even as individual entities.

The immensity of these foreign exchange reserves exceeds the typical buffer that a country requires, thereby enabling these rich states to make strategic foreign investments buying critical foreign assets, resources, energy, land, air and water.

The top 400 of these “global public investors” hold about $29 trillion in assets—equal to about 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.

State sovereign wealth funds from China to Africa are reshaping the global economy and at their current growth rate will surpass current U.S. economic output by 2015.

By 2016, analyst group Global Insight said the funds, which grew 24 percent a year in the last three years, would outstrip the current output of the European Union.

The Lethargy of our Political leaders is allowing Sovereign wealth funds (being non-transparent) to invest globally for political or strategic purposes. They are supported them by pushing Privatizations of public assets.

Example: The New proposed Nuclear Plant in the UK to be built by the EDF is 40% financed by a Chines SWF against guaranteed. EDF will receive a guaranteed power price of 92.50 pounds per megawatt-hour for 35 years, more than twice the current market rate, once the plant begins operations in 2023. The Hinkley Point C project has been agreed between the UK Government and French company EDF Energy and its two Chinese partners – China National Nuclear Corporation and China General Nuclear Power Corporation. The decision could lead to China taking a future majority stake – and even be allowed to own up to 100 pc – in the development of the next generation of British nuclear power. And England wants out of the EEC. Immigration comes in many forms. If your English have a look at what else SWFs own in your back yard you will be surprised.

The lack any enforcement mechanism to monitor these funds is lunacy. In spite of the fact they have been around for years, so much remains to be understood about their processes and activities. Companies should consider contractual provisions requiring disclosure of the SWF’s policy purposes, governance framework, financial statements, general voting approaches for risk management and legal relationship with other state bodies.

We should be concern that as government-operated investment funds, politically captured, used to distribute patronage and undermined by corruption the ongoing transformation in the global balance of power over the past and the future decades is going to end up

Accepting money from an SWF comes with some risk—at least on the surface.

THE current shift of financial power from multi-national organisations such as the World Bank to be used to effect none-financial outcomes.

China: Never in world history has one government had so much control over so much wealth. China’s overall trade surplus has enabled it to run up the world’s largest current account surplus (US$213.8 billion) and amass foreign exchange reserves of US$3.3 trillion. China holds one-fifth of all foreign-owned US Treasury securities.

Norway : Commonly known as the oil fund, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund invests the revenues from the offshore petroleum sector in foreign shares, bonds and properties in order to spread the wealth across generations.

The fund’s value could hit almost 6 trillion Norwegian crowns ($973 billion) by the end of the year.

With economic power comes political power. The motives of SWFs will be guided by the interests of the state rather than those of international business community.

You might wonder why we never hear much discussion by our world economic gurus on SWFS. Acquiring that information is difficult, however, since hugely rich entities mostly accountable only to their national governments. You tell me.

SWFs are well known for their opaque, tightly-guarded investment decisions.

They all have one thing in common they will ensure that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.

AUSTRIA/

To most of us the World of Islam seems incomprehensible.

24 Friday Oct 2014

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Human rights, Koran, Muslin, The right to life, World of Islam

To most of us the World of Islam seems incomprehensible.

You could say it is bigoted and uncompromising with is actions harsh and arbitrary.

There are billions of words spoken and written on the subject most of which are never heard or read by any of us.

Now I could be wrong in some of the observations I make in the post, so I am open to correction.

What I want to do if possible is to try to look at Islam as it see itself and not through our Western eyes.

The current political mess in Middle East and the rise of ISIS must both have their origins within its interpretation, both by us and its faithful.

So are we all mistaking when view Islam as uncompromising and uncivilized, when in fact to most of us who are not Islamic, so we see it at worst as Mysterious and inexplicable at best and at the moment Barbaric with good reason.

Like all subjects it is impossible to understand the simple things about Islamic life without knowing something about its religion.

Islam like all religions is a way of life, based on the will of God, and like most religions the will of god is known through its holy book or books, in Islam case the Koran.

The Koran contains the sayings and actions of its prophet Mohammed.

My first observation is that Mohammed must have been influenced by the times he was born into. Since then the Koran like the Catholic Bible or any bible for that matter has been subject to interpretations put upon its teachings in different places and at different times till it arrived to the present day.

The real question is what is the difference between the Interpretation of Mohammed and to days interpretations.

Every aspect of Islamic life is seen as part of the indivisible whole, literally inseparable from all the other aspects. So a Muslim like us believes life was created by God. The task of Muslims is not to rearrange or order it, or even to understand it but to obey the laws laid down by him.

How does man know the laws? For a Muslim the answer is simple. They are in the Koran that has no beginning and no end. It can be read from the beginning to the end or from any point with no difference to the message contained within.

My second observation. If this is so and believed by Muslims there is underlining all Islamic culture an element that the Koran itself makes logic, and therefore undermines communication with any outsiders.

If you were to ask a conservative Muslim does the Koran control all aspects of his life you might get a confused answer due to tribal or social customs allowed by Islam but not actually required by its laws contained in the Koran leading to where theory and practice are confused. Although it is commonly agreed that the Koran is the supreme authority in directing the life of a believer there is another reference called the Sunna ( the sayings and actions of Mohammed). In the Sunna you find human interpretations in the numerous schools of law as they adopt their positions. As a result the clear-cut authority of the Koran is not uniformly accepted throughout Islam. (I am sure this will be disputed.)

Ok course none of this does anything for the image we have of Muslims.

Take for example the Koran is uncompromising in its declaration that the penalty for theft is amputation, and it also states a man has an absolute right to have four wives if he treats them equally.

Killing their sisters,wives, and daughters for their family honor, murdering non believers,stoning to death, mutilating genitals, all in the name of Allah because of Qur’an and Sharia Law tells to do so.

But where in the Koran does Allah, (Arabic for God. There is no God save Allah.) condone such actions.

Observation three. We are used to reviewing religion as a private matter of conscience unlike Islam in which religion dominates the life of a Muslim and in this comprehensive sense , is his life. Literally everything in life is the predetermined will of God from always to eternity. Not a leaf falls from a tree unless it is the will of God which beg the question how do you predetermine life.

Islam( which means submitter and the Koran means recitation) has what are called Five Pillars of Faith, which form the core of the faith to which all other aspects of life are ultimately related. Prophets means Messengers or Apostles and Mohammed is the messenger of God.

Pillar one: Shahada. Recitation of the Shahada or short creed ” There is no God but Allah”

Pillar two: Salat. Devotional worship, acknowledgement of God a physical act repeated at least twice with the worshipper touching the ground with his forehead. Worship takes place five time a day, preferably performed in congregation of at least forty in a mosque led by an imam( president)

Pillar three: Zakat. Obligatory tax to the needy. There is no formal arrangements for the collection of Zakat.

Pillar four: Sawn. Fast during the months of Ramadam.

Pillar five: Hajj: To set out for a definite purpose – Pilgrimage to Mecca. Mohammad forbade access to Mecca for unbelievers, and this applies to Medina also.

These are the basic foundations of Islam.

Now lets address a few questions.

Why do Muslims get their nickers in a twist when the Koran is burnt?

Here is something you might not know that the Koran which is in Arabic is considered by many Muslims as a miracle since Mohammad could not read or write. ( This could be debatable as he must have learned both to be a merchant in Mecca)

As the word of God it cannot and should not be translated into other languages.

Although some of its text was written down under Mohammad supervision it has no chronological order but on close examination it does have a structure in as much that aspects of life can not be seen separately but accepted as a whole based on the divine will of God. However the parts of same revelation it spread throughout it text. Reason plays an important part in the Koran. God is always arguing, discussing and appealing to reason, never giving up. Infidels were considered as people of no intelligence indeed Mohammad comes close to labeling them as infirmity of the human mind.

Observation four: If I was God I would have had the Koran or the Bible written in all languages. It might have avoided all the misinterpretations. Not just Arabic and Hebrew.

The Koran is about the size of the New Testament, 144 chapters set in verses. It is never put on the ground or allowed to contact with anything dirty. Like the Bible it has being subject to study and analysis till black and blue.

What is Jihad?

Jihad literally means an effort or striving. Mohammad himself fought nine battles. It is still the duty of imam to order war against infidels on every suitable occasion.

According to Mohammad there are seven deadly sins. Associating anything with god, magic, killing without reason, taking interest on money, taking property of an orphan,running away from a battle when Jihad has been declared, accusing an innocent woman of adultery.

What is Sunnis or Sunnites, or Shiites?

Muslin sects to-day out number those of Christians.

They majority are Sunnis, followers of the Sunna.

Shiite is derived from Shiat Ali (the party of Ali). They believe that on Mohammad’s death succession should remain with his closest relative his son-in-law Ali.

They also believe to be a true Muslim its teachings and practices must be taught by an Imam. To the Sunnis this confers a degree of divinity upon the Imam and this is blasphemous.

Observation Five. The notion of love one’s neighbor in a Christian sense is not enshrined in the Koran. There is a false concept of Muslim brotherhood. You either conform to the rules or suffer the consequences. A rigid simplicity is it underlining structure, whether its hidden or out in the open.

No matter what your beliefs the right to life states that you own your own body. It is your property to do with as you please. No one may force you to do anything, no one may injure you in any way, and above all, no one may take your life (without consent.)a right to life. This means that nobody – including the government – can try to end your life. It also means that you have the right to be protected if your life is at risk. It does not create an entitlement to choose death rather than life.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

Observation Six. Islam needs to teach every Muslim that life means that each individual should be treated with respect, dignity and equality.

Whatever Happened to Afghanistan?

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Afghanistan, Democracy, Government, Nato

10 Years Of War In Afghanistan

Remember Afghanistan? Anybody?

As America winds up its 13-year war in Afghanistan, where do things stand?

Is it going to end up like Vietnam, won the battles, but lost the war.

That’s the take-away of the last ten years for me.

The public now have a perception that the war is over, because of the lack of media coverage which fuels the public’s perception, it’s becoming a check-back-in-and-see story.

Not too long ago the word “Afghanistan” was mentioned in the media almost every day, coverage now is that it barely make a blip on the media’s radar unless something big happens, a horrific event. The weight of media coverage has been drawn elsewhere.

This war was and is an abomination.

In addition to the thousands of US and other NATO troops who have been killed or impaired for life, physically and/or mentally, the US-led invasion/occupation of Afghanistan has resulted in a huge number of Afghan casualties, with estimates running from several hundred thousand to several million.

Afghanistan is already a distant memory for the news. It is fast becoming the all-but-forgotten war an afterthought, like Somalia, Panama, Colombia, Rwanda, Iraq after the first gulf war–countries that quickly faded from the news or hardly made the headlines in the first place.

In late February that Afghan President Hamid Karzai (at least we all remember him) came to Washington to deliver the message “Don’t forget Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan now has democracy, and the results are not altogether encouraging; nor are they likely to lead to cohesion and peace and prosperity. Many Afghans see their current government, hastily formed under US influence, as a continuation of the power and impunity of warlords rather than a reflection of true democratic participation.

Deaths among Afghan National Security Forces almost doubled from 2012 to 2013, according to RT.com. The Defense Department announced in November that the death rate among Afghans rose to above 100 per week during the peak of the summer fighting season for the first time ever. Last week, al Qaeda claimed control of Fallujah, the town in western Anbar province where scores of Americans lost their lives in house-to-house fighting in 2004.

So why are we losing interest.

Is it because the war has never being legally justified, therefore, the war in Afghanistan has never been morally justified.

Or is that our perception of the Afghan government is still corrupt and unjust has impeded long-awaited peace and well-being in Afghanistan.

Or perhaps we are being keep in the dark on purpose so as not to hand a psychological victory for an Islamist movement who will claim they defeated the U.S. like the Soviet empire.

Or it is more likely that our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them.

The big questions remain over how much the U.S. will continue to be involved there to provide support to Afghan forces, and how stable Afghanistan is. Will it again become a threatening hive of terrorist activity? Will the years of fighting there be considered to have been worth the cost, in both human lives and the billions of dollars spent?

What is the use of waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan which may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling among themselves.

When the US leave, whenever that might be, what happens if the Taliban regains control? U.S. presence hasn’t intimidated the Taliban, and when American troops leave, whether it’s 2014 or 2024, Afghan forces will inherit a huge task in trying to stabilize the country and keep the Taliban from gaining ground. Continued U.S. military presence hasn’t worked so far, it might not work in the future. And since it’s highly unlikely that American troops will remain in Afghanistan forever.

Where do we stand?

People are still dying in Afghanistan. The fighting is not over and it won’t be over once U.S. troops leave. Afghan forces will still be up against the Taliban, but they would be in a much more advantageous position if the U.S. worked to set up institutions through which the country is able to sustain itself, not just in the immediate aftermath of troop withdrawal, but well into the future.

It’s obvious to anyone that the effects of war are devastating.

If I were a betting man there is a collision coming, one-third of those Afghan Security Forces trained at fabulous expense to protect them will fight for the government (whoever that may be), one-third will fight for the opposition, and one-third will simply desert and go home. That sounds almost like the plan.

But this time there will be little or no Media coverage as the war has already displaced Afghans from their homes and from their country for over three decades creating over 5.7 million refugees.

So don’t be amazed when the US lead war has no lasting influence other than long-term ramifications for possible terrorist attacks against the U.S/UK and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and rage, destabilizing the whole region of years to come – ISIS.

The West is a paper tiger like bin Laden said and it’s only a matter of time.

Afghanistan will not be unable to recover from 20-plus years of conflict. In order to do that they have to believe in something first and be willing to assert that.

Governments cannot really do this; only people can. This is what happens when cultures come together, like in Andalusia. It’s messy and chaotic and sometimes violent. … There is a ton of risk involved, but the payoff is huge. This is when cultures come together and new ones are created. This is the risk that Hellenization embraces—that people can engage on this level without reflexive recourse to violence. This is the how cultures engage. 10 Years Of War In Afghanistan

“Meanwhile, in other news,”

We have not apprehend the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Is our United Nations an organization chronically torn by divisions between North and South as well as between dictatorships and democracies

20 Monday Oct 2014

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THE UNITED NATIONS

I have no intention in this post of out line the in and out of the United Nations. (This can be found in the many articles written and available on the Internet)

Also I have to the best of my memory address the subject twice before (Another look at the united Nations post dated 10/05/2014) so in the hope of avoiding repetitiveness in this post I will endeavor to concentrate on obscure facts and reforms that could be implemented to-morrow.

However this is probable the most difficult World Organisation to exam never mind suggesting reforms. As we all know with such a large Organisation it is impossible to effect reform from the bottom up. Any reforms have to come from the top down.

Its Members include virtually all countries in the World and in the 7 continents with one non-member observer state, the Holy See in Vatican City. Its an organization of the largest in the world.

Before we go any further it received the Nobel Peace Prize on 5 separate occasions. The first in 1954 awarded to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva, for its assistance to refugees, and finally in 1988 to the United Nations Peace-keeping Forces, for its peace-keeping operations.

United Nations, started off as the League of Nations and is now called the United Nations. It was founded in 1919 shortly after the first world war in order to prevent any more wars. Almost all countries of the 51 countries that founded the United Nations are the winner of the Second World War.

We start with a few facts that you might not know.

The name “United Nations” was suggested by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The United Nations Headquarters is an international zone. This means that the land on which the UN sits does not belong to just the United States. It has its own flag and its own security officers who guard the area. The land of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City was purchased from real estate mogul William Zeckendorf with money donated by John D. Rockefeller. It doesn’t even meet all of New York City’s fire safety and building codes.

It also has its own post office and issues its own stamps.

The logo of the United Nations was designed by Donal McLaughlin, who worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA.

Agencies and organizations of the United Nations all have their own flags:

The UN Secretariat employed some 15,000 people worldwide (in comparison, the Pentagon employed 23,000 people in Washington D.C. alone!)

There are 6 official languages in the United Nations: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

The newest member of the United Nations is South Sudan, bringing the number of member countries to 193.

The current Secretary-General is Ban Ki-Moon from South Korea.

The UN must pay its staff equally for work of equal value, despite differences in levels of pay in various countries from where they are drawn. This translates to a base salary of $113,000 for the Under Secretary-General, to the bottom salary of $32,000.

The UN budget comes from the member states, determined by their ability to pay (for example, France and the UK were assessed 6% of the budget, where as Liberia was assessed 0.001%, the minimum rate). The United States shoulder the lion’s share: it pays 22% (and 27% of the peacekeeping budget, which is assessed separately). In 2006, this turns out to be $423 million or $1.42 per American citizen.

The approved budget for UN Peacekeeping operations for the fiscal year 1 July 2014-30 June 2015 is about $7.06 billion. By way of comparison, this is less than half of one per cent of world military expenditures (estimated at $1,747 billion in 2013).

The top 10 providers of assessed contributions to United Nations Peacekeeping operations in 2013-2015

United States (28.38%)
Japan (10.83%)
France (7.22%)
Germany (7.14%)
United Kingdom (6.68%)
China (6.64%)
Italy (4.45%)
Russian Federation (3.15%)
Canada (2.98%)
Spain (2.97%

Although the payment of peacekeeping assessments is mandatory, as of 31 August 2014, Member States owed approximately $4.29 billion in current and back peacekeeping dues. Congress approved payment of only $819 million of the over $1 billion the United States owes the organization in unpaid dues. Moreover, the legislation set forth some 38 conditions to be met before the United States will pay its arrears.

Despite being assessed the most, the United States is constantly late in payment. By 2005, the US owed more than $960 million in arrears. Thankfully, it’s not alone: only 40 out the 192 members paid on time – in fact, late payment is considered standard practice by many nations!

Being a diplomat to the United Nations, on the other hand, has its benefits: because of their diplomatic immunity, many of them refuse to pay parking tickets. Indeed, 6 countries have an average of over 100 parking tickets per diplomat!

The U.N. Charter makes clear that the General Assembly can only offer “recommendations” to the world community. The decisions of the General Assembly were not – and are not – binding on members as a matter of international law.

Moreover, while decisions of the Security Council, which has primary responsibility for the U.N.’s activities with respect to maintaining peace and security, were intended to be binding on all member states, they are not so in fact.

Decisions on major issues such as peace or security issues, new Member admissions or budget issues require a two-thirds majority. Other decisions require only a majority vote.

A new president, 21 vice-presidents, and the chairmen of the six Main Committees of the General Assembly are elected at the start of each regular session.

An emergency special session may be called within 24 hours if any of the nine members of the Security Council request it or if a majority of the Member States request it, or if one Member State requests it and the majority concur.

So the question of how it was to enforce its authority.

In truth, the United Nations was never intended to be representative of people’s but of sovereign states.

The governments of these states may or may not be the products of free elections. This does not mean the United Nations is antidemocratic, only that its non-binding resolutions represent the opinion of people as expressed through their governments.

Through debate in the Security Council and votes in the General Assembly, member states can express the moral outrage of their citizens over all sorts of earthly misbehavior. But, in the end, it is the five permanent members that decide issues of peace and war – and, I might add, determine who is secretary-general and what amendments are made to the U.N. Charter. None of the other 180 member nations – either individually or as members of the General Assembly – possess those prerogatives.

The veto is surely not democratic, it keeps the big players in the game, and there is no game without them. The reluctant acquiescence by the lesser powers to the veto at San Francisco was an acknowledgment of this reality.

The UN is biased, because Israel has violated 69 Rules of the UN, but the UN allowed Israel granted. But if an Islamic state violated one rule alone it will get heavy sanctions. The UN was not going to defend the Islamic State. It supports only the United States and its allies.

The UN does not deserve to be called as the Organization of Peace. Because it can not resolve the conflict and war, such as the Israeli raid into Gaza, Invasion USA to Iraq and Afghanistan, and other conflicts. It is stagnant when it comes to ISIS.

All permanent members of the State Security Council (Russia, China, USA, Britain, and France) have a nuclear bomb.

Every year, the Secretary General of the UN draws the lucky country who will sit in the front left seat for one year. Other countries will be seated alphabetically. This year, Jamaica has the front seat, followed by Jordan, Korea, etc and Italy is up in the back right-hand corner.

If resolutions are not followed, the first course of action is always a dialogue. Conversation and discussion is followed by fact-finding missions, eventually sanctions, and military action as a last resort. The practice of power politics still overwhelms the United Nations.

The UN has the image of a world organization based on universal principles of justice and equality. In reality, when the chips are down, it is nothing other than the executive committee of the Third World dictatorships.

There are currently 16 peacekeeping operations,

Uniformed personnel…96,535 *
(83,327 troops, 11,420 police and 1,788 military observers)
Approved budgets for the period About 7.06 billion
from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015
Outstanding contributions to peacekeeping (as of 31 July 2014)
About 4.78 billion.

The 192 Members of the United Nations pay for everything that the Organization does. It has no other source of income. Police and other civilian personnel are paid from the peacekeeping budgets established for each operation.

The UN also reimburses Member States for providing equipment, personnel and support services to military or police contingents.

Peacekeeping soldiers are paid by their own Governments according to their own national rank and salary scale. Countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the UN at a standard rate, approved by the General Assembly, of a little over US$1,028 per soldier per month.

A member of the public might desire to learn, for example, where the UN gets its money. How much is each member nation contributing to the UN’s regular budget? To the capital budget? To peacekeeping operations? For a brief period, the UN posted such details monthly. But then at the end of 2010, the UN stopped disclosing its personal financial records. All you can get now is a PowerPoint file. For a somewhat unfair comparison, imagine if President Obama submitted his budget to Congress via PowerPoint.

Another illusion on the part of many people is that the United Nations was organized on the basis of democratic principles. First of all the United nations has sought to bring Democracy to every corner of the world-to free the citizens of this planet from tyrannical governments and dictatorships.

As I have said it is an organization of sovereign nations not a world government. As such its peacekeeping forces are require to act passively and may not instigate an attack, unless in self-defense.

At this point it is not fully universal and still reflects some great power interests because of economic situations. This can be clearly seen in the environmental issues.

In this day and age, society operates in constant threat of terrorism, war, and nuclear fallout; the rapid growth of international militaristic power contributes to the ever-present fear in the back of all of our minds. None of us can go through the day without hearing a newscaster or radio personality talking about the growing threat that Iran or Afghanistan or North Korea, Isis poses to the global community.

The problem is that the UN does not have enough power internationally to fully contain any of these issue. The question is whether the United Nations is important to the world, or if it should be thrown out. There is no transparency, there is lack of accountability.

Current UN Peacekeeping Operations

Region/Country	Began
AFRICA
Western Sahara (MINURSO)	April 1991
Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO)	June 2010
Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI)	April 2004
Liberia (UNMIL)	Sept. 2003
Sudan (UNMIS)	March 2005
Darfur (UNAMID)	July 2007
AMERICA
Haiti (MINUSTAH)	June 2004
ASIA and the Pacific
India/Pakistan (UNMOGIP)	Jan. 1949

Timor-Leste (UNMIT)	Aug. 2006
Afghanistan (UNAMA)¹	2006
EUROPE
Cyprus (UNFICYP)	March 1964
Kosovo (UNMIK)	June 1999
MIDDLE EAST
Middle East (UNTSO))	May 1948
Syria (UNDOF)	June 1974
Lebanon (UNIFIL)	March 1978

Total: Troops 83.327, Military Observers 1788, Police 11420,

Total Personnel 115610, Budget $ 7.06 billion.

The world is changing, and with it the demands on the United Nations. The UN provides a unique platform for international action. It offers unparalleled legitimacy for global engagement, owing to its universal membership; its inclusive decision-making processes; its unequaled reach; and its ability to provide critical services that are essential to international peace, security, stability and prosperity.

It turns 69 this year and, like many individuals it is facing middle age. Reforms and changes in the United Nations have always been fraught with obstacles that must be overcome and they are many in the pipe line.

For Example:

40 percent of the world’s population still relies on solid fuels for household use.

There are currently 190 million people unemployed and more than 500 million will be looking for jobs over the next 10 years.

Today 1.7 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water since 1990, but 884 million people are still without clean drinking water.

All countries are vulnerable to natural hazards, but most of the 3.3 million deaths from disasters in the last 40 years have been in poorer nations.

Of the 33 cities that will have at least 8 million residents by 2015. Twenty one of these cities are in coastal areas. Coastal flooding is expected to increase rapidly due to sea level rise and weakening of coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs impacted by sea temperature rise.

Over 60 per cent of the world’s major marine ecosystems that underpin livelihoods have been degraded or are being used unsustainably.

It is estimated that by 2050, adverse effects associated with global climate change will result in the displacement of between 50 and 200 million people globally.

Aid agencies like the United Nations in the 21st century cannot continue to act like old-fashioned travel agents–repositories of expertise and information about options, to whom the money was given and decisions delegated. If aid agencies want to retain public trust, mandate and funding, they will have to become a platform on which citizens can see meaningful, comparable and reliable information and then exercise choices themselves.

Unless aid agencies respond to these changing expectations, support for their work is likely to continue to decline, perhaps disastrously.

By dispelling the persistent myths about the founding and history of the United Nations, we should gain a clearer vision of the world organization around which the demands for reform, are long over due.

What we can see is in the United Nations is an organization that was born of and remains subject to politics. It is, moreover, an organization chronically torn by divisions between North and South as well as between dictatorships and democracies, in which the United States and, by extension, its two preeminent political parties, remains the major player.

As a body its authority, is moral, political, and economic rather than coercive.

It should be a body that adjust to changing conditions and be capable of acting swiftly and decisively – albeit sometimes indirectly.

It shows surprising durability but if it is to remain relevant it must be funded and not be seen as it is to-day pathetically appealing for help after the event.

If it does not reform it will be of little assistance when it comes to future events that are going to threaten our very existence.

There are 19 Specialized agencies (autonomous organizations) working with the United Nations. NGOs and foundations have been partners of the United Nations since 1947. In accordance with Article 71 of the UN Charter, NGOs can have consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Is vast.

The trouble with today’s techniques of finance (Capitalism) is that they’re designed to make the rich richer. None are designed to make the poor richer.

This is why we must tap into Greed ( See previous Posts) It will finance the United Nations without the need to beg.

Are we now just beginning to reap the dark side of the Industrial Revolution

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Uncategorized

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Business and Economy, Climate change, Distribution of wealth, Environment, Globalization, Government, Greed, High - Frequency Trading, Industrial Revolution, Inequility, Sovereign wealth fund, Technology age

The Historiography of the first World War bear witness to destruction and death made possible by the Industrial revolution.

The present day turmoil that we see in the world has its roots created by man during this period.

So has the Industrial Revolution improved life or not? Is the world a better place? A safer place? Do most people have more material wealth than they did two centuries ago? Are we healthier? Are we happier? Is the world more socially and economically just? Is the world headed in the right direction?

It’s not possible to answer all these questions without an in-depth examination of the Industrial Revolution and its effects. There is no definitive answer, other than in short, we cannot hope to understand the modern world without understanding the Industrial Revolution as it resulted in the most profound, far-reaching changes in the history of humanity.

Perhaps it is adequate to say that its influence continues to sweep through our lives today. Just look at the last 250 years of industrialization.

It has altered our lives more than any event or development in the past 12,000 years: in where we live, how we work, what we wear, what we eat, what we do for fun, how we are educated, how long we live and how many children we have.

It greatest failure is that it has not spread wealth evenly across the globe, and the consequences have often been unjust.

For example, to-day in developing countries, where 85% of people in the world live, 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes—that’s one child every five seconds.

It did provided the countries that first adopted it with the technological and economic advantages necessary to eventually rule most of the world. In short, the Industrial Revolution is the “game changer” of modern world history. More than anything else, it’s what makes the modern world, well, “modern.”

But how has it come about that 10% of the world’s wealthiest people controlled 85% of the world’s wealth? Mostly because they were born into wealth that was made during the Industrial revolution.

So what exactly is the Industrial Revolution?

An Industrial Revolution at its core occurs when a society shifts from using tools to make products to using new sources of energy, such as coal, to power machines in factories, oil, electricity. nuclear power.

It began at the end of the 18th century, but it has yet to end.

It has transformed into much more complex global phenomena recently. Multi-national corporations design, build, and assemble products using resources and labor from around the world.

Proponents of the benefits of industrialization point to amazing inventions, technological advances, and increased global wealth. Global GDP per capita—the most common measurement of national wealth—has increased 800% over the past 200 years.

I would say to them that it also developed into a global economic system that seems exploitative and unsustainable, fueling unbridled capitalism that has led to exploitation of the weakest and most vulnerable on a global scale.

Giving Birth to multinational corporations that owe their loyalty not to any nation but to the profit motive.

So what happens in a country when free-market capitalism has no constraints.

The record of the last five thousand years of history clearly suggests that every single preceding civilization has perished, no matter where or how long it has been able to flourish, as a result of its sustained assault on the environment, usually ending in soil loss, flooding, and starvation, and a successive distension of all social strata, usually ending in rebellion, warfare, and dissolution.

They all seem unable to appreciate scale or limits, and in their growth and turgidity were unable maintain balance within or without.

Our Industrial civilization is no different only in that it is now much larger and more powerful than any known before, by geometric differences in all dimensions, and its collapse will be far more extensive and thorough going, far more calamitous.

We are now in the technology age and you might say that The Industrial age is water under the bridge.

No matter how you look at it we are staring down the barrel of a gun with many different bullets. Climate change, Killer virus, World conflicts due to unadulterated Greed/ Rampant Inequality, Technology deserts and disfunctional non resourced World Organisations.

While demand for depleting resources are skyrocketing ,water, clear air and energy. By any biological gauge we moving beyond sustainability.

So is it time to abandon the concept of sustainability? altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure it. If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?

The most important resources that drive current industrialization are finite. If billions of people replicate the same level of consumption, they will hasten? ecological and economical disaster.

So who or what will keep us from creating pollution or exploiting weak, desperate countries?

Who will stop global resource depletion?

Is there any point to the Technology Revolution, other than brain work instead of muscle work, if history is only going to repeating itself.

Now you don’t have to be a raw prawn to know that most of our all-powerful politicians and world organisations live in what I call a reactivate state.

By the time they have called a conference and blabbered on for days it’s too late. Now many times have you witnessed the pathetic sight of the UN and its world Organisations pleading for funds, equipment. Just look at the current Ebola outbreak. Growing the economy at all costs and keeping Wall Street happy seems to be their solution to all or woes.

Here are a few things that could be done.

Restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool.

Share knowledge, share capital, and investments around the world.

Remove the Veto in the United nations and give all nations an equal standing.

Remove Carbon Credits. Set trading admission penalties for pollution.

And Make Greed contribute by,

Place a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over £20,000, and Foreign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This would create a perpetual fund removing the need to beg for funds every time there is a disaster. The funds could replace the World bank, the IMF, Save the Children, fund Conservation, and make enormous inroads into Inequality the scourge of our Technology Age.

For me there has be a greater willingness by our politicians to question conventional measures of economic growth in favor of more sustainable models with a greater emphasis on well-being.

Before you bombard me with all the good things the have come out of the Industrial Revolution I refer you to the title of this post.

Yes we would not have the Internet, Landed on the moon, developed drugs, and invented this and that, but there is no point in relying on all the answers coming from Google than experiencing it in reality.

IF WE DON’T WANT THE LEGACY of the Industrial Revolution to be a divided world due to Inequality we must conquer Greed by harnessing it to contribute to all or there will be nothing left to be greedy about.

The World Bank: Another World Organisation fraught with problems.

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Uncategorized

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Asian Development Bank, debt relief, International Monetary Fund

As promised. Sorry its rather long winded.

The first thing I have to say is I had little or no knowledge as to what the World Bank did other than when ever it calls its Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors presided over by some bloke named Jim Yong Kim the 12th president of the Bank it is in the lime light for all the wrong reasons.

So what is it and what is it function?

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly known as the World Bank was Established in 1944, its headquartered are in Washington, with 10,000 employees in more than 120 offices worldwide.

It and its sisters organisations of global capitalism, the IMF and WTO have their origins in the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944.

Originally established to rebuild Europe after the war. Once the rubble was cleared up it branched out into the world expanding from a single institution to a closely associated group of five development institutions with close ties to the International Monetary Fund. (IMF)

The Bank to-day is like a cooperative in which 188 member countries are shareholders.

The term “World Bank” incorporates five closely associated entities that are to suppose to work collaboratively toward poverty reduction World Wide.

These are: The World Bank (IBRD and IDA), and three other agencies, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Its member countries, or shareholders, are represented by a Board of Governors, who are the ultimate policymakers at the World Bank. Generally, the governors are member countries’ ministers of finance or ministers of development.

All members must first join the International Monetary Fund.

Members are shareholders in the bank but they do not all pull equal weight within the organisation.

The leading contributors, and therefore those with the biggest say in World Bank policy, are: the United States, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Each of these five countries has a nominee on the bank’s board of executive directors. The remaining 178 countries are between them allowed to nominate a total of 19 other board members.

It is this select board that decides on the bank’s work.

So the rich and powerful decide where the money goes?

That should come as no surprise, even to the most die-hard anti-capitalist protester.

Some more moderate critics argue that while it is normal for the richest countries to choose who they are willing to help, the methods used are too narrowly focused.

The critics say that to invest in projects that seek to smash corruption, for example, will do little to alleviate long-term poverty unless and until the entire international economic system is reformed and made fairer. True but impossible to achieve.

And the critics go on to say that the bank attaches far too many strings to its loans. For example, in return for debt relief Benin, the poverty-stricken African country, was forced to liberalize its cotton sector and introduce a performance-based pay structure for civil servants. Zambia was forced to privatize its copper mines in return for relief. The move led to 60,000 job losses in the sector.

The poorest countries of the world owe more money to the World Bank and the IMF than they do any other private or government institutions because most of these loans were so poorly designed that the borrowing countries have not reaped enough income to pay them back.

Up to quite recently the World Bank and IMF refuse to cancel debts because these two institutions say that their bylaws prohibit them from doing this. Additionally, governments have special incentive to stay current with their multilateral debts, since the IMF determines the creditworthiness of countries: i.e., until the IMF gives its stamp of approval (which usually requires adherence to the economic policies it recommends), poor countries generally cannot get credit or capital from other sources.

IN 1996 the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was introduced by the world bank to address the above problem.

Since the HIPC Initiative was adopted in 1996, only five countries-Uganda, Bolivia, Guyana, Mozambique, and Mali-have received or are in a position to receive any relief this year (2000). And these countries have found HIPC relief to be worth relatively little. Uganda began to receive debt relief worth US$350 million in April 1998, but as a consequence lost access to other debt relief mechanisms. With a drop in the international price of coffee, its chief export, Uganda found itself by April 1999 once again saddled with an officially “unsustainable” debt burden. An internal World Bank/IMF report indicates that Mali and Burkina Faso (slated for HIPC relief in early 2000) will actually pay more on their debt after graduating from HIPC.

(This multilateral debt (money owed to international institutions like the World Bank and IMF as well as their sister institutions like the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank) has skyrocketed in the last few years for the poorest countries. For low-income countries (defined by the World Bank as those with per capita Gross National Product below US$785), multilateral debt increased by some 544% between 1980 and 1997, from US$24 billion to US$155 billion, and currently constitutes 33% of their total long-term debt burden (versus about 25% in 1980). For the most severely indebted of those low-income countries, multilateral debt increased by 459%, from US$10.6 billion to US$59 billion, with a corresponding percentage increase in their long-term debt from 22% to 30%.)

Of the 32 countries classified as severely indebted low-income countries, 25 are in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the country of Chad in West Africa saw its debt increase from US$330 million in 1987 to US$1 billion ten years later. Chad’s debt/GDP ratio rose from 28 percent in 1987 to 55 percent in 1997.

The World Bank Group has set two goals for the world to achieve by 2030:

End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to no more than 3%
Promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country

So why is there still so much poverty after 60 years of the Bank’s existence?

Its ethos is simple: Countries that are open to international trade, are diversified, attract foreign direct investment and adhere to free market economic policies are the most likely countries to sustain growth.

It is a case of capitalism will feed itself.

The theory goes that, by encouraging countries to pursue US-style economic management and by attracting private investment, economies will grow and poverty will die as a knock-on effect. Worthless as Inequalities of trade, health, education, and the like ensure that any knock-on effect is controlled.

Much of the World banks money, goes on efforts to strengthen the banks and capital markets.

How and where does it get its Funds?

It is primarily financed by selling IBRD bonds AAA-rated in the world’s financial markets.

The Banks Capital consists of reserves built up over the years and money paid in from the bank’s 188 member country shareholders. IBRD income also pays for World Bank operating expenses and has contributed to IDA and debt relief. It has US$178 billion in what is known as “callable capital,” which could be drawn from our shareholders as backing, should it ever be needed to meet IBRD obligations for borrowings (bonds) or guarantees.

Although the World Bank attempts to present the goal of the organisation as “reducing poverty”, this has never been their objective.

Their main objective is to fund large-scale power and infrastructure projects in the third world to prepare the way for the exploitation of these countries natural resources and cheap labour by northern corporations.

The poor have no say in “development” projects which often displace them, rob their countries of valuable natural resources, and contribute to the climate change which is hitting their countries the hardest.

The World Bank, in conjunction with the IMF also provides loans to countries in debt in return for “structural adjustment” reforms to their economy which usually involve the slashing of healthcare, education and social services budgets, to the detriment of the local population, as well as dropping tariffs and opening their markets to a flood of cheap western imports. These often destroy local industry, farming and quality jobs, increasing the availability of easily exploitable labour for multinational corporations to take advantage of.

Regardless of whatever alleviating measures are taken, because of the very nature of global capitalism, the World Bank cannot be transformed into a benevolent global institution, since its very premise is to protect and promote the interests of multinational corporations.

The World Bank has no democratic accountability to those whom its decisions affect, decisions which take place behind closed doors and with little transparency.

The World Bank recently admitted that the world added 200 million poor people to the rolls of poverty by 1998 over the 1.3 billion classified as living below the international poverty line in 1993 (people with an income of less than a dollar a day).

Tanzania, half of whose population is illiterate, spends a third of its budget on debt payments and spends four times more on debt than it does primary education.

Niger, where life expectancy is only 47 years, spends more on debt payments than it does on health and education combined.

Altogether sub-Saharan Africa spends four times as much on debt repayment as she does on healthcare.

And you wonder why we have Ebola.

What we need is an Organisation that provide interest-free credits, and grants to developing countries. That offers support to developing countries through policy advice, research and analysis, and technical assistance. That ensure that countries can access the best global expertise and help generate cutting-edge knowledge to reduces Inequality not poverty.

In my view it should be scraped and replaced by a WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( over £20,000) and on all Sovereignty Wealth Funds Acquisition.

This would produce a perpetual funded source of finance that could be run by a compact Organisation Independent of the United Nations. ( see previous Postings)

In the mean time it could and should at this every moment spend its so-called “callable capital,” to advert the Spread of Ebola. World Bank Mission

Are you going to be in the new underclass.The pace of technological change outstrips job creation,

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Uncategorized

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Automation, Capitalism, Labour, Minimum income, TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT, The corporate ladder.

Most computer scientists are busy making the technology happen rather than asking what the results will be,”

Tomorrow’s organizations may bear little resemblance to those we are familiar with.

A lot of things that were routine are becoming automated.

Technological advancement is rampant in every walk of life.

We’er seeing this with automated sales calls and administrative work that can all be done with software. For example Algorithms can easily identify safe borrowers — followed by receptionists, paralegals, retails salespeople and taxi drivers.

If that does not get the alarm bells ringing the first synthetic chromosome for a creature with complex cells has being designed on a computer and made from scratch in a laboratory. The day of designer plants an animal is not far off.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed robots to climb the corporate ladder.

So what do we have?

On one hand, you have the neoclassical economists saying some jobs will be destroyed, but others will be created, so there’s nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, you have what some people are calling the neo-luddites, who believe there’s something different about this technology.

How high can they go? Is there a corner office in R2-D2’s future?

Within 30 years, computers and machines will replace a fully half of the North American workforce and as demographic shifts, globalization and technology replace traditional work practices 47% of the World’s jobs will be automated in the next twenty odd years.

So what happens when labor is not human any longer but automated, as more and more jobs requiring medium levels of skill are automated away.

What going to happen is economic growth will accrue to an ever increasingly smaller group of highly payed people, with automation becoming self-perpetuating while skills are lost forever to invisible robots.

We probable see a new underclass with new means of social thought that might well see the demise of Capitalism itself.

This however is highly unlikely, because automation is rapidly becoming an integral part of the system. What we now call work has morphed to accommodate automation advancement.

Capitalism will be over the moon. As the future of labour in the Capitalist world has always being to create profit by extracting what’s call value from workers. Another words paying the worker less than what their time is worth and gaining the difference as profit. As John Tomlinson said in his book The Culture of Speed, The Coming of Immediacy, no idiom captures the spirit of Capitalism better than –

” Time is money”

So it stands to reason that if machines are producing stuff around the clock the underclasses will have to find new jobs that will offer no stability, less satisfaction, and no security of a standard of living.

At the very moment there are millions of part-time no hours contract workers called Parecariat ( These are workers who are no longer definable by fixed rules relative to the labor relation, to salary,to the length of the working day.

Capital no longer recruits people , but buys packets of time. This time is fractalized, that is reduced to minimal fragments that can be reassembled so to ensure minimum wages or salary.

The working day is now all day every day. Time is far more fluid concept than before.

All of this paint a pretty dismal picture and it will be unless we harness automation and divest its technological advancement from the motives of capitalism.

We must ensure that technology works for all of us and not just for the privileged few.

Technology at the moment is by its nature an ill-defined residue of hope and fear.

If we don’t want a world run by algorithms (that are raping us all every second of the day with high frequency trading,) and bill boards that respond to your anticipated needs from data supplied by your digital smart phone we must remain wary of interfacing too closely with machines.

We can stop the march of technological progress, but we can stop the downward pressure on wages stemming from automation, by guaranteed a minimum income that will mitigate the destructive impact of technology on labour.

The future has not been written, and issues will manifest themselves in different ways depending on the social, technological, economic and political changes in the world. These issues, however, will be important to any future in which organizations want to attract and retain the best talent.

The hire-to-retire cycle is being as you read this post retired.

What would my advise be?

Learn a Computer Language you are going to need to be able to talk to them.

Are our World Organisations out of date? “The Ebola crisis is a wake up call”

11 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Uncategorized

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Ebola, The World Health Organisation

Ebola Ebola Exercise

Lets start with The World Health Organisation (called WHO)

The current outbreak in West Africa of Ebola has brought it into public view.

Formed by the United Nations in 1948, (76 years ago) it is still trying to be an efficient and effective organisation.

In the 76 years of its existence the agency has promulgated only two major treaties: The International Health Regulations and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

It has declare two global health emergencies. The 2009 swine flu (H1N1) epidemic, and in reaction to a reversal of progress in eradicating polio in May 2014.

A deeply political organisation, it remains the undoubted leader in global health.

With its incomparable expertise, global influence, and normative powers it has no substitute. There is no other show in town. So it survives as a global health agency within the United Nations, the question is.

“If we try to improve it, will it fall to pieces?”“

At the moment it resembles nothing so much as a dinosaur on the edge of the Ice Age, only in this case it will be the Age of Global Warming and the age of the lifestyle-associated non-communicable pandemics that cannot be stopped by an immunizing needle, quarantine or medicine that is going to test it in the future.

What exactly is it?

It comprises of six regional offices that are uniquely independent within the UN system, with each regional office having full power over regional personnel, including appointment of country representatives, all administered by 147 country offices.

It is controlled by delegates from its 194 member states, each of which has an equal vote on the direction of agency policies.

So what we really have is six separate WHOs in six different regions – Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific governed by 194 governing member states. An Organisation that is plagued by ossified structures that prevent it from exercising the flexibility it needs.

It’s no wonder it has problems and in need of reform.

Few would dispute that a stronger, more effective World Health Organisation would benefit all.

THIS CANNOT BE ACHIEVED BY AN Agency whose work and policies ultimately reflective of its wealthiest donors, leaving it scant margin to set its own.

It simply is not sustainable to have wealthy states and foundations control some 80% of WHO’s budget.

Don’t be surprised that it is now pointing its finger at the lack of contribution it is getting to manage the current outbreak of Ebola.

However it can not be excused for using the voluntary funds it does receive primarily for infectious diseases (60%), with negligible allocations for non-communicable diseases (3.9%) and injuries (3.4%). Yet, non-communicable diseases account for 62% of all deaths worldwide, and injuries constitute 17% of the global burden of disease.

Just three years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) was in deep financial trouble, with a US$300-million deficit. More importantly, its extra-budgetary expenditure rose from 48.8% to 77.3% from 1998/99 to 2008/09.

The $3.98-billion budget approved by the assembly for 2014–15 shows zero growth on the WHO’s $3.96-billion budget for 2012–13,

Its income from member dues has stagnated since the 1990s. WHO is probably funded at about 10% of what it needs.

However it is not to be blamed for its inability to tackle infectious diseases such as Malaria because over 80% of its budget is voluntary. The agency has long been plagued by the fact that it has total control of only a small part of its budget:

77% — of the 2014–15 budget comes from voluntary contributions from member states and other donors.

Budget cuts at the WHO have severely hobbled the agency’s ability to respond to the Ebola epidemic.

So what are we going to do?”

We see over and over again with disasters. It’s the money that flows after something happens – after Hurricane Sandy, or Katrina or, in this case, Ebola.

The world of global health is rapidly changing if WHO is to offer leadership for urgent challenges facing the global health, such as emerging infectious diseases and noncommunicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer) it must have its Financing changed from voluntary to fully funded.

Mandatory contributions are more aligned with the actual global burden of disease than voluntary funding. The ideal solution for this is to set higher member state mandatory contributions. Member states must become genuine shareholders in the World Health Organisation’s future, act collectively, and refrain from exerting narrow political interests.

The World Health Organisation is presently financed through two main streams. First, member-states pledge a set amount based on each country’s wealth and population. The second stream is through voluntary contributions often earmarked for specific diseases. This has to change

Extra-budgetary funding would transform the WHO from a donor-driven organization, restricting its ability to direct and coordinate the global health agenda into some thing worth while.

Organizations like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC); Doctors Without Borders (MSF); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the Gavi Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are important actors, often with more money and visibility than the WHO. There’s an obvious need for a higher degree of inter agency coordination and collaboration embracing the WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Labour Organization,UNICEF and UNHCR.

Preparedness is a constant battle. It’s not like you can just make an investment and walk away. It’s something that needs to be kept up. And quickly, once the crisis passes and the headlines aren’t there anymore, that money dries up.

The organisation could take a more active role in regulating key global health issues, including counterfeit medicines, food safety, and nutrition. It could be more engaged and influential in international regimes with powerful health impacts, such as trade, intellectual property, arms control, and climate change.

The WHO must undergo fundamental reform if it’s to retain its rightful place as the leader in global health. While remaining true to its normative and bold vision of health-for-all, the organisation must adapt to a new political climate, demonstrate global leadership, and deliver results. The Gatekeeper of the planet’s health must publishing more about where its money goes and what it achieves.

Can any of this actual happen? Of course not.

The only way to funds these organisations it to cap Greed at it source. (See Previous Posts) Once the funding is there then we can HAVE MEANINGFUL WORLD ORGANISATIONS.

We all know that World Organisations end up as bickering, skint, power, shops.

Next Post we will look at the World Bank.

Name of the organisation Headquarter Head:

UN Security Council New York The presidentship is held for one month by member countries in alphabetical order.
UN General Assembly New York Huke Jeremic; 2013-John William Ashe
UN Secretariat New York Ban Ki Moon
International Court of justice The Hague, Netherlands Peter Tomka
International Criminal Court Lyons, France Song Sang-Hyun
Economic and Social Council New york Milos koterek
Food and Agriculture organisation Rome Jose Graziano da Silva
International civil Aviation organisation Montreal, Canada Raymond Benjamin
International Labour organisation Geneva Juan Somavia
International Monetary Fund Washington DC Christian Lagarde (former head Dominique Strauss Kahn was involved in a sex scandal)
International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna, Austria Yukiyo Amano
International Maritime Organisation London, U.K. Koji SekimizuUnited nations Educational Cultural and Social organisation Paris Irina Bokova (1st woman to have become director-general)
Internatioonal labour organization Geneva Juan Somavia
International fund for Agriculture Development Rome Kanayo F. Nwanze
World Bank New York Jim Yong kim
World health Organisation Geneva Dr. Margaret Chan
World intellectual property organisation Geneva Francis Gurry
World trade Organisation Geneva Pascal Lamy
United nations International Children and Women Fund New York Anthony Lake

Capitalism is growing increasingly unfit for purpose.

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Uncategorized

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Capitalism, Economic Growth, Global economy, VALUE FOR MONEY

The present global economy is caught in a catch-22 of its own making.

After the fall of communism, capitalism was left as the only show in town, and what a show it is turning out to be.

By the beginning of the 21st century the world’s environment was in critical decline.

Oceans are turning acidic from atmospheric CO2 threatening marine life, melting glaciers are flooding cities where soon little water will flow at all, species are disappearing from the Earth at a faster rate than during the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago.

Much is being said about the importance of democracy and how it brings growth and prosperity, but the truth is that to date it has indeed enriched a few at the cost of the rest of us.

Economic growth these days is usually associated with technological changes, it is not for the benefit of the average person as is commonly believed. It is solely to create enough currency to keep the faulty global economy treading water so it doesn’t collapse.

Politicians proudly report strong national economic growth statistics, perpetuating the illusion that this implies some kind of bonus for the average person, yet they systematically ignore ballooning national debt as though it is inconsequential.

The design of the global economy demands that by 2019 the economy will be twice the size it was in 2000.

At its present rate of growth, by 2059 the global economy will be ten times its 2000 size. But Earth cannot sustainable support a global economy the size it was in 2000. So in order to survive, the global economy is compelled to keep growing like a cancer, at an unsustainable rate that will kill its host.

This self-destructive design is a direct result of the flaw in the global money system which is guarded by Capitalistic profit to the dethronement of Values, causing vast inequalities which is the root cause of to days terrorism, and wars.

We we all know the scenario the more you grow the bigger the appetite till you either explode or there is nothing left to consume. Self destructive, not what they call sustainable growth.

The Capitalist economic plan we hear every day of growth, growth is running out fodder and nothing about the Internet, solar power, or 3D printing will change the fact that individuals have conflicting needs and desires and if it does not change courses soon, ( which it is incapable of doing so) it will leave all of us including the rich standing up to our necks in Shit. ( See previous post on capturing greed at the heart of Capitalism)

The best stuff bubbles up from below, when will markets and technology be allowed to amplify the ideas of people and give voice and choice.

Real change requires that we address both the bottom-up and the top-down, that we design our efforts with beneficiaries front and center, and that we use evidence of real impact in the lives of the poor as the indicator of whether we’re doing it right.

But what do we see these days only an erosion of the public safety net, the increasing prevalence of low-wage employment, and decreases in low-wage earnings have combined to place low-income families under constant pressure as they struggle to work, to care for their families, and to maintain their access to public benefits.

Let’s assume, like most corporations and politicians do, that the world’s resources are endless and that no environmental threats exist. Even if that were the case, the global economy is self-destructive for an entirely different reason.

During the 20^th century, subtle changes to global money systems turned currency from a sustainable means of exchange into one of the most destructive agents on Earth.

However, most of us were so busy struggling to get some money that this mutation of currency was mostly overlooked. The world is now obliged to pay back to banks more money than the banks ever create in the first place, an obviously impossible task.

Solutions exist, but the blindness that created the problem also stops the solutions from being seen.

Over the next 10 to 20 years, environmental destruction will escalate exponentially as we race towards the meltdown of civilization as we know it. Capital accumulation is driving ever-greater wealth inequality?

Ironically, the harder we try to alleviate this financial shortage, the faster we create it.

What is the solution?

Fundamental changes need to be made to align the global money system with reality. Money supply must be restructured into a sustainable means of exchange that serves countries rather than destroys civilizations.

The deadly aspect of our modern money system stems from the way money is now created.

Just look at the below example.

Modern money is created via credit by the creation of debt.

If you borrow £100 from a bank, the £100 is not transferred to your account from existing currency held at the bank.

The £100 is created into existence by the loan.

You get £100 to spend, but you still owe the bank a £100 debt.

The money created is balanced out by the debt created.

As the loan is paid back to the bank, the repayments do not go into bank coffers but cancel out the original debt owed to the bank.

The repaid loan money is literally cancelled out of existence again.

So where do the banks get their profit from lending?

From the interest that is paid to the bank during the repayment of the loan.

The interest paid on loans is the fatal flaw in our modern currency systems.

Say during the term of the above loan, there is £200 generated in interest. This means that while the original hundred is created and then cancelled out, there is an extra £200 that must be found somewhere.

The only possible place this interest money can now be found is from circulating money generated by a different loan.

This, of course, means that even the capital of the second loan cannot be paid back, as there is now a shortfall of money in circulation.

The second loan amount – plus its interest – can only be repaid via money generated from yet further loans, and so on. (Quantitative Easing)

97% of the Money in the world is Debt, run by neoclassical economics which is divorced from reality. Giving us Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for the poor.

Perhaps we could take a leaf from Muslim Banks.

Salam Islamic or sharia Banks offer interest free loan because the Bank gives loan through the method of buying and selling goods with an agreed margin which can be paid in installments

The question is where do we go next? ‘After Capitalism’

The key to understanding development is to remain open to the true complexity of the global processes of innovation and diffusion and the myriad pathways through which politics, geography, economics, and culture can shape the flows of technologies around the world.

An increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services, compared from one period of time to another perhaps is not the best model, as we have ending up being governed by corporations debasing the value of currency.

Automation is replacing (for lack of a better word) the working classes, The Internet and the resulting social media has caught all of our world organisations with their pant down. Antibiotics are being defeated, you have to live longer to qualify for a state pension, you are consistently pressurized to buy crap you don’t need, and our politicians don’t know where to turn next.

All of these developing problems will overthrow capitalism as the world’s dominant economic model.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: A modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

Our digital wallet will have to have a conscious if we are all not to end up hoodwinked into a lethargy of Sport, Celebrities cooks, and reality TV.

The age of Consequences has started.

What is left unsaid has, with the Internet no place to hide.

Our inability to grasp the new world is coming to an end. Its goodbye to collective disillusionment and I don’t give a dam.

Its time to put a stop to Greed and distribute wealth fairly by Putting a 0.05% commission on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions , on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Transaction and on all Currency transactions over $20,000. ( See previous Posts)

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~ Free Thinker.

Monthly Archives: October 2014

Quantitative Easing – enough money to stretch from earth to the moon.

When Money Talks.

To most of us the World of Islam seems incomprehensible.

Whatever Happened to Afghanistan?

Is our United Nations an organization chronically torn by divisions between North and South as well as between dictatorships and democracies

Are we now just beginning to reap the dark side of the Industrial Revolution

The World Bank: Another World Organisation fraught with problems.

Are you going to be in the new underclass.The pace of technological change outstrips job creation,

Tomorrow’s organizations may bear little resemblance to those we are familiar with.

A lot of things that were routine are becoming automated.

Technological advancement is rampant in every walk of life.

Are our World Organisations out of date? “The Ebola crisis is a wake up call”

Capitalism is growing increasingly unfit for purpose.

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Tomorrow’s organizations may bear little resemblance to those we are familiar with.

A lot of things that were routine are becoming automated.

Technological advancement is rampant in every walk of life.

Share this:

Like this:

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