Tags
Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism and Greed, Capitalism vs. the Climate., Distribution of wealth, Inequility, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.
(Twenty-minute read)
The answer lies basically in this question -why is it that governments can afford a fighter plane, but teachers need to hold a bake sale to buy school supplies.
Understanding how the balance of payments work is key to understanding the monetary leverage that one country holds over another. Based on the modern method of money creation, the functionality of the balance of payments is really a zero-sum game.
Wealth used to be defined as the accumulation of human time and labor.
This is why human time and labor are consolidated under ideologies (eg. Socialism, democracy, communism, etc.), which are framed with borders around cultures, religions, and historical significance. Time and labor are consolidated as a measure of GDP.
World GDP can now be considered the measurement by which human time and labor are used to manage the debt which is a product of the money creation process.
As Yanis Varoufakis says ” It is pointless to continue to do macroeconomics analysts focusing on a single country” “It is not any more trading volumes or fiscal data it is the ebb and flow of financial capital”
There was or there is no need for the Coronavirus to expose still more flaws in economic structures. Inequality is to be seen in foodbanks, people sleeping on the street, the color of your skin, not least the increasing precarity of work, owing to the rise of the gig economy and a decades-long deterioration of workers’ bargaining power.
A Clap will not save nine, but thanks to Covid-19 the bastions of global Capitalism are on hold.
There has never being a more important time to effect change to Capitalism.
So will or can we use the current state of emergency to start building a more inclusive and sustainable economy.
If we don’t, we will stand no chance against the major crisis – an increasingly uninhabitable planet – and all the smaller crises that will come with it in the years and decades ahead.
Capitalism is facing at least three major crises.
A pandemic-induced health crisis that is rapidly igniting an economic crisis with yet unknown consequences for financial stability and all of this is playing out against the backdrop of a climate crisis that cannot be addressed by “business as usual.”
The COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating all these problems with governments playing a leading role, in delivering immediate solutions in the short term. However, the solutions are still not designed in such a way as to serve the public interest over the long term, and therefore they will not lay the foundation for a robust and inclusive recovery.
With reports on the seriousness of the coronavirus evolving each day if not each hour, the eyes of commerce are on epidemiology.
The effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine could become yet another one-way relationship in which corporations reap massive profits by selling back to the public a product that was born of taxpayer-funded research.
The ongoing coronavirus crises are forcing governments to cash out in order to keep businesses, workers, and their economies afloat, but extending loans to businesses at a time when private debt is already historically high. Flooded the world with liquidity without directing it toward good long term investment opportunities like renewable green energy will result in the money ended up back in a financial sector that was (and remains) unfit for purpose.
The ability of companies to service any of this debt is debatable never mind the economies of countries.
This time, rescue measures absolutely must come with conditions attached, bailouts should be designed to steer larger companies but to reward value creation instead of value extraction, preventing share buybacks, and encouraging investment in sustainable growth and a reduced carbon footprint.
It was the high private debt that caused the global financial crisis in 2008. The result of this has been to erode the very public-sector institutions that we need to overcome crises like the coronavirus pandemic.
On top of these self-inflicted wounds, an overly “financialized” business sector has been siphoning value out of the economy by rewarding shareholders through stock-buyback schemes.
If one really looks at Capitalism at its basic modeling – its beating heart is profit for profit sake.
To day’s Capitalist Economics is set up with this mantra, not to serve people’s needs, or to protect the environment, or to spread the rewards, rather to enslave people to the world of consumption- produce something at the lowest cost to produce the highest profit.
Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy trillions in 2020, the UN’s trade and development agency, UNCTAD, said on Monday.
What is clear is that if politics and trade wars emerged as uncertainties in recent years, now a third leg in the stool holding up global confidence has suddenly gone wobbly.
It is also clear this is going to be a slow-rolling, highly consequential event, that has all the ingredients required for internal strife in many countries.
It is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the years ahead.
It is clear that we need to invest in ending the over-exploitation of wildlife and other natural resources, farming sustainably, reversing land degradation, and protecting ecosystem health.
It is clear that the virus is already robbing the world of carbon reduction and it’s only a matter of time before climate change dwarfs the impact of COVID-19.
It is clear that all country’s fates are intertwined.
It is clear that if there is some message here, it’s that this is totally predictable other than without proper oversight, that AI may replicate or even exacerbate human bias and discrimination, cause potential job displacement, and lead to other unintended and harmful consequences.
It is clear given the growing importance of this powerful technology, AI regulation should not be designed in a haphazard manner. As governments struggle to keep up with the unprecedented speed and scale of technological change, companies are facing a crisis of trust amid the growing “techlash” and are increasingly being called on to self‑regulate the technology they are developing and deploying.
It is clear despite vast efforts worldwide to address the symptoms of the coronavirus pandemic, the root causes have been largely ignored, to rebalance the needs of people, the planet, and animals.
It is clear that there’s a lot still to learn about the virus – and therefore how extensive its impact on the global economy could become. Some of the most basic aspects of the virus remain unknown. It all depends on the eventual scale of the epidemic, and at any given point, no one has been able to say whether it has peaked. We don’t know whether it will burn out, like SARS, or come back seasonally like the flu.
It is clear that the impact on markets not to mention human behavior is far from normal never mind the new normal. We are operating in the uncharted territory and the stark reality is that we as a species are unable to act as one.
It is clear that the last thing we need to hear from brands is that we all in this together. They are simply trying to remain relevant and in demand. They need to rethink engagement data-driven empathy no longer cuts the ice.
It is clear that Humanity must become the killer app.
It is clear that we’re living in a world of transparency and in such a world inequality cannot be tolerated.
It is clear that nowadays, it is no longer enough for a business to figure out how it was going to turn a profit. The social goals of the business – are not mere “add-ons or marketing ploys” they must be “part of the DNA of the business.”
It is clear that an unregulated algorithm-driven world will put its riches into the hands of the few.
The problem that we have is not globalization it is a lack of global governance, a lack of means to address global issues.
To solve social problems such as pollution, poor nutrition, and poverty, climate change, you name it there is only one solution.
At the end of Yanis Varoufakis, The Combination That Changed Capitalism Forever, he promotes the establishment of what he calls a political movement that he calls a progressive international movement that is globally and act like activists locally by using purchasing power, he also puts forward a vision of Capitalism where there is no stock exchange, replaced by private ownership and Greene every bonds backed by treasuries.
The green energy bonds are a must So the young generation is able to buy into the process that creates their destiny.
Purchasing power as an economic power to effect change, unfortunately, is visible and like all things that are visible will not work due to greed, cultural differences, etc.
THE SOLUTION MUST BE INVISIBLE AND APPLICABLE WORLDWIDE.
To create a perpetual ongoing fund that spread the cost fairly to tackle climate change and inequalities worldwide.
Make a profit for profit sake pay by placing a 0.005% commission on all, Hight frequency trading, on all foreign exchange transactions over £50 thousand, on all sovereign fund acquisitions, on all gambling and world lottos, on all consumption advertising, on all dividend payments.
Profit for a Purpose- with-Purpose.
Nearly a third of the world’s oceans and land areas could be placed under environmental protections without harming the global economy.
You cannot put a price tag on nature, but a recent independent report, commissioned by the Campaign for Nature charity, found about $140bn (£110bn) a year would be required by 2030 to place 30% of land and sea under protection.
Achieving the target of 30% protection would lead to increased economic output of between $64bn and $454bn a year.
The benefits to humanity are incalculable and the cost of inaction is unthinkable.
To younger generations, the state of the planet is even more alarming but if they
don’t get their proveable faces out of their smartphones and their fingers out of where the light shines we all going to witness horrors unimaginable.
It is clear that a coalition of old folks in the establishment won’t cut it.
All our efforts have to be inclusive, integrating all stakeholders, the earth and all that live, grow, and die on it.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
So comment. 
If we are going to keep NATO that has reinvented itself and built a new headquarter at a cost of €1billion let it be the global coordinator to fight future Pandemics.
What better enemy could it have. Pandemics are an existential threat on par with climate change and nuclear conflict.
We are at a critical crossroads, where we must either take the steps needed to prepare for this threat or become even more vulnerable. It is only a matter of time before we are hit by a deadlier, more contagious pandemic. Will we be ready?
WHO, which is taking a battering from prevailing political headwinds in the United States, should continue to anchor global action.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin
