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~ Free Thinker.

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Tag Archives: Capitalism and Greed

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN THE WORLD: PART ONE – The world’s urban population.

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Sustaniability, The Future, The new year 2016., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN THE WORLD: PART ONE – The world’s urban population.

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Capitalism and Greed, Change., Distribution of wealth, Inequility, The Future of Mankind, THE UNITED NATIONS, Visions of the future.

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This is your world.

We have to see the world through issues and action.

It does not belong to me or you or any Generation, to any Religion, any Terrorist, any Government, any algorithms, any Holograms, any World Monopoly whether its called Google, Face Book or Twitter, or any Sovereign Wealth Fund ( see previous Posts)

It belongs to Wall Street.

Who was running Wall Street? Humans or machines?

If you thought “humans”, you were woefully out of date.“

Humans just found a new way of being greedy.”

But that not the subject of this post.

There’s a strange relationship between the city and the city dweller. We love it and still recognize that it’s a monster. All that emotion, all the combined suffering and indifference, glory and greatness, bypass the brain and go straight into the heart.

The city cuts straight to the core. Look into some people’s eyes, and their sadness, their pain, is almost palpable.

The city inspires us to see glory beneath the grime and wonder within the wasteland.

But the truth is, the world cannot be organized. To let the world in, you have to let in a world where nobody has the answers.

I think there’s a fundamentalism about technology. Technology itself isn’t going to save us. Technology is wonderful, but it’s a tool.

The world is complex and we all know what is wrong.

What is wrong comes in many forms, shapes, sizes, and it is effecting all of us.

There are a million things going on that are all signs that the people who are the most educated and capable of enlightened action are stunningly unengaged.

Its called Inequality.  Created by us which is destroying the world we live in.

It is the root of most of the problems facing the world. 

You might have read recently that Finland’s government is drawing up plans to give every one of its citizens a basic income of 800 euros (£576) a month and scrap benefits altogether, which according to Bloomberg, would cost the government 52.2 billion euros a year.

During the Banking Crisis I advocated that it would have been cheaper for Ireland to have given every voting citizen a Million. It could have been placed in a Government controlled account. Made available to the citizen over a period of 30 years to avoid inflation.  Irish Citizens would have been required to cleared all his or hers debts, look after their own health, education, while scrapping all benefits.

It would have stimulated the economy in a controlled manner rather than bailing out worthless banks.

The National Audit Office in the UK said that the Uk spent £850 billion on the bank crises in 2009. That would equate to a £26,562 and fifty pence spend by every taxpayer in the UK.

THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK will begin its €1.1 trillion quantitative easing programme today, the last big weapon in its armoury to get the euro zone going and fend off deflation. None of the newly invented cash will actually be headed to the pockets of EU citizens.

The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks:

Quantitative Easing for the People’ is one of the cornerstones of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership platform in the UK.

The basic idea is simple: A hypothetical Corbyn government would instruct the Bank of England to create new electronic money (the modern equivalent of printing it) to fund public investment projects. The vehicle for doing this would be the ‘National Investment Bank’, which would be charged with funding public investment. The NIB would issue bonds that the BoE would be commanded to buy.

Compared this to the living wage an informal benchmark, set at £9.15 an hour in London and £7.85 an hour in the rest of the UK. It is not a legally enforceable minimum level of pay, like the national minimum wage. ( 48 hours a week on average = 439 euros.)

An ‘inner voice’ tells me  that this idea is a step in the right direction to spread the wealth of a nation. Perhaps he should call it regional quantitative easing, but it wont address the bigger world problems.

Realistically we must think of some imaginative ways to create liquidity in the world economy other than secret Trade Deals.

Sometimes it takes just one human being to tip the scales and change the course of history.

In this series of posts we will look into its heart beat of Inequality.

My aim is to stimulate serious academic interest and to inform the developing world. My ambition is to stimulate serious academic interest and to inform public debate on the essential issues. We can’t just wait for the tipping point to be reached so we see clarity as we stare into the abyss.

In no particular order let,s start our Journey to a better world.

The year 2016 I hope will mark a turning point in human history: Helped by climate change because Capitalism will start to be forces to pay for raping the world.

 So let’s start Not with Climate Change but WHERE WE LIVE.

IT MATTERS:

The scale of environmental impact of meta cities and mega cities on their hinterlands is significant and is likely to be a cause for concern in coming decades.


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The emerging human settlements of the 21st century are Slums also known as shantytowns, squatter cities, and informal settlements.

These places can teach us about where, for better or worse, urban life appears to be headed. “Squatters are the world’s dominant builders,”

They are the Emblems of profound inequality.

When one appreciates this fact one is forced to ponder whether these slums were designed to supplant, integrate or ignore human rights concerns of the world’s poor.

Are they maintained solely as a source of cheap labor or just transitory phenomenon characteristic of fast growing economies — it is impossible to mitigate the expansion of slums in the developing world.

Even if urban poverty is preferable to rural poverty life in the slum constitute a form of poverty trap for a majority of their residents.

In 2005, there were 998 million slum dwellers in the world.  If current trends continue, the slum population will reach 1.4 billion by 2020.

It will for the first time equal the world’s rural population.

Although it is difficult to predict on which day or month this radical transformation will occur, what is certain is that this milestone will herald the advent of a new urban millennium: a time when one out of every two people on the planet will be a “city-zen”

At the moment more than 53 per cent of the world’s urban population lives in cities of fewer than 500,000 inhabitants. One out every three city dwellers – nearly one billion people – lives in a slum. Slums are emerging as a dominant and distinct type of settlement in cities of the developing world.

By 2020, all but 4 of the world’s largest cities will be in developing regions, 12 of them in Asia alone. While still few in number, these metacities point to new forms of urban planning and management, leading to the growth of city regions and “metropolitanization”.

Inequality has a direct bearing on patterns of urbanization.

The rich in most countries live a world apart from the poor, with homes in protected urban enclaves and access to the latest technology, the best services and the most comfort. The rest, especially slum dwellers, live in the most deprived neighborhoods, struggling to gain access to adequate shelter and basic services, such as water and sanitation. Many slum dwellers also live under the constant threat of eviction.

Such stark differences and divisions can be found among regions and countries, but also within countries and cities. Especially in the developing world, urban zones of poverty and despair commonly skirt modern cosmopolitan zones of plenty.

If current trends are not reversed, cities will become more and more spatially divided, with high and middle-income residents living in the better-serviced parts of the city

Cities are, and will continue to be, sites of extreme inequality.

China’s recent gains in economic growth and industrialization have in many cases exacerbated environmental problems in its cities. Economic growth has increased consumer purchasing power, with the result that Chinese cities, such as Beijing – once the bicycle capital of the world – are now teeming with motor vehicles, a leading cause of air pollution. There are 1.3 million private cars in Beijing alone, an increase of 140 per cent since 1997.

Since the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, cities of the developed world have become increasingly concerned about their vulnerability to acts of terrorism but this is not the reasons that cities are going to have to change.

Various dimensions of urban poverty is the main treat.

Inadequate and often unstable income, which impacts people’s ability to pay for non-food items, such as transport, housing and school fees. Poor quality, hazardous, overcrowded, and often insecure housing Inadequate provision of basic services (piped water, sanitation, drainage, roads, footpaths, etc.) which increases the health burden and often the work burden.

Inadequate, unstable or risky asset base (non-material and material) including lack of assets that can help low-income groups cope with fluctuating prices or incomes, such as lack of access to land or credit facilities. Inadequate public infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals.

Limited or no safety nets to ensure basic consumption can be maintained when incomes fall and which can be easily accessed when basic necessities are no longer affordable, such as public housing and free medical services.

Inadequate protection of rights through the operation of the law, including regulations and procedures regarding civil and political rights, occupational health and safety, pollution control, environmental health, protection from violence and forced evictions and, protection from discrimination and exploitation.

Voicelessness and powerlessness within non-responsive political systems and bureaucratic structures, leading to little or no possibility of receiving entitlements to goods and services; of organizing, making demands and getting a fair response; and of receiving support for developing initiatives. Also, no means of ensuring accountability from aid agencies, NGOs, public agencies and private utilities, and of being able to participate in the definition and implementation of urban poverty programmes.

In light of recent evidence, even if governments collectively manage to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 – as per the Millennium Development Goals and targets – this achievement will be insignificant in relation to creating “cities without slums”, a stated objective of the Millennium Declaration.

Assuming that the leaders who developed the slum target were aiming to address a major development issue, policymakers should adjust the benchmark to reflect the reality of slums of today and tomorrow.

Viewed  through a human rights prism,  All fair-minded people, of course, would hope for  improving the lives of slum dwellers. Unfortunately, looking closely as far as housing rights are concerned, any improvements far out-number their benefits.

These are a few things we can no longer afford to ignore.

Which practices and policies will steer us in the right direction?

How do we effect change within and beyond the halls of government?

Both formal and informal systems of property rights may be necessary to curb the rapid growth and informal systems of property rights may be necessary to curb the rapid growth of slum areas worldwide.

Slum dwellers should be given title deeds for their plots, in order to liberate the “dead capital” they are sitting on – to enable them to get loans from banks.

Overall, there has been very little theoretical and empirical economic research about how the public policy challenges posed by slums in low-income economies should be addressed.

It appears the United Nations Goals’ are flaws.

The question is how to address them.

Three shortcomings stand out as particularly.

The organisation is out of date, skint, and totally infiltrated by Capitalist values.

The United Nations have strong incentives to maintain the status quo. Unless radically brought up to date and reformed it has no alternative but to maintain the status quo.

Without changes to the United Nations or any other World Institutions the reversal of the lack of governance to represent the people of the world, it is unlikely that any attempts at any form of big push or coordinated investment will have the desired effects.

This is a hidden threats to sustainability.

All changes need financing. 

Whether it be Climate Change or giving dignity of a respectful if not equitably life to all, there is little hope of addressing the world problems when so many look at so few. Inequality is incurable.

The only way to lessen its effects is to tap into Greed itself. (See previous Posts)

I believe in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.

You can’t settle for drops in the bucket. It won’t do to wrap up your garbage, it won’t do to send the contribution. Those are all fine, but it’s not going to make a huge change. It’s just not. It’s going to take all you’ve got too really understand that the stakes are very high.

If you don’t believe me the Sunday Time this week in letters and e mails reported that an organised party of about 60 from the Uk visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg. At the end of the tour each visitor was handed an envelope containing 200 Euros. Apparently each EU MEP is allowed 110 visitors a year, which equates to 22,000 Euros per MEP. With 73 UK MEP,s that in turn adds up to 1.6 million euros.

More than 11m homes lie empty across Europe – enough to house all of the continent’s homeless twice over – hundreds of thousands of half-built homes have been bulldozed in an attempt to shore up the prices of existing properties. There are 4.1 million homeless across Europe, according to the European Union.

Its no wonder that millions turn to daft fantasy – turning the Star Wars films into digitally enchanted Manichaean belief systems. There is a sleazy materialistic, shallowness about it all.  We hear much more from them all in 2016.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first.Broken Bank

Profit for the sake of profit has to pay whether its climate change, inequality of opportunity or terrorism.

Education plays a uniquely critical role in addressing the challenges we face.

What we’ve really lost sight of is an education system that teaches how to ethically, effectively and intelligently engage with the world which we will address in the next post.

Each of us, it seems, believe that we are above average. People want to believe the present is different than the past. But while we humans passionately believe that our own current circumstances are somehow unique, not much has really changed since the inarguably brilliant Isaac Newton lost a fortune in the South Sea Trading Company bubble of 1720.

“What ails the truth is that it is mainly uncomfortable, and often dull. The human mind seeks something more amusing, and more caressing.” ~H. L. Mencken

Because history suggests that we are going down for the count.Sunset

http://go.ted.com/Ce3D

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN THE WORLD: PART TWO: EDUCATION.

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Education, Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Social Media., Technology, The Future, The Internet., Unanswered Questions., Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Distribution of wealth, Education in the Future., Inequility, Internet, Modern day education, The Future of Mankind

Education can contribute significantly to the promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance.

Today’s revolution in social communications involves a fundamental reshaping of the elements by which people comprehend the world about them, and verify and express what they comprehend. The internet has significant effects on communicating, teaching and learning.

What today is called the digital divide, will be the Educational Disaster of the Future.

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It takes a wide range of different communication styles to get across to all the different learning styles that exist, but as our modern world evolves and becomes more sophisticated, so must our learning institutions.

Technology enthusiasts have long heralded the power of technology—from the printing press, to blackboards, to the laptop—to transform education.

The potential of technology to help improve education has significance beyond teaching children reading and math.

Quality education plays an important role in promoting economic development, improving health and nutrition and reducing maternal and infant mortality rates. Economic growth, for example, can be directly impacted by the quality of the education systems in developing countries.

Our first problem is that the internet is not always accessible by all learners and teachers. The second problem is though English all over the world is taught widely as a second language its is the primary language of the internet.

As a result in most of the non-English speaking parts of the world the internet it is only a tool for educational activities.

In my previous post in this series we looked at Communication.

I ended that post by stating that Education is Communication.

With most of the world deprived of any Internet connection we are WiFi our way to a digital divide that will have more than serious consequences for those countries but for all of us. 

Of course, education has used technology for centuries, from blackboards to textbooks, yet in recent history very little has changed in how education is delivered.Afficher l'image d'origine

Modern information and communications technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach communities. But it is highly unlikely that this will happen.

Many emerging and developing nations will be left out of the internet revolution entirely.

Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe.

Here are a few examples.

About half of online Chinese (52%) have used the internet to buy products in the past 12 months.

Majorities of internet users in Bangladesh (62%) and India (55%) say they have looked for a job online in the past year.

54% of internet users across emerging and developing countries use the internet to get political news and information.

In Venezuela, three-quarters of cell phone owners (who constitute 88% of the adult population) use their device to take pictures or video.

More than six-in-ten internet users in Poland (64%) say they have gotten health information online in the past 12 months.

Over half of the reduction in child mortality worldwide since 1970 is linked to “increased educational attainment in women of reproductive age.”Internet Has Most Positive Influence on Education, Least Positive on Morality

Back to Education.

Four years ago the iPad didn’t even exist.

We don’t know what will be the current technology in another four. Perhaps it will be wearable devices such as Google Glass.

You don’t have to be a genius or a clairvoyant to see that Education as we know it is rapidly becoming obsolete.

So what is the future?

On the possibilities of recent forms of technology, often known as Information Communication Technology (ICT). ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is generally used to describe most technology uses and can cover anything from radios, to mobile phones, to laptops.

The future is about access, anywhere learning and collaboration, both locally and globally.

But the questions are:

What will education be? Who or what will be doing the Education? For what purpose?  Is it desirable that we all end up being educated by the cloud if the future of education technology is all about the cloud and anywhere access. 

Thanks to the cloud and mobile devices, technology will be integrated into every part of school. In fact, it won’t just be the classrooms that will change. Games fields, gyms and school trips will all change. Whether offsite or on site the school, teachers, students and support staff will all be connected.

In my ideal world, all classrooms will be paperless.

Unfortunately educators working in and with developing countries rarely have an expertise or even a basic grounding in the wide range of technological innovations and their potential uses for education.

Even the most seasoned education expert is likely to stare blankly if terms such as ‘cloud computing’, ‘m-learning’, or ‘total cost of ownership’ are introduced into the conversation.

Students will take ownership of their own learning. Rather than being ‘taught.’

Students can learn independently and in their own way. They could be in the same room or in different countries.

Will this form of education be mass brainwashing?

The cloud will set, collect and grade work online. Students will have instant access to grades, comments and work via a computer, smart phone or tablet.

The great disadvantage will be the lack of oral communication.

The iPads and other mobile technology are the ‘now’.

Reflecting western style democracy.

Schools of the future could have a traditional cohort of students, as well as online only students who live across the country or even the world. Things are already starting to move this way with the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Infrastructure is paramount to the future of technology in education.

This should be happening now.

Teaching and learning is going to be social but people are even more leery of the internet’s effect on morality. It is should be driven by the question: How is this changing your capacity to engage the world effectively?

Universities should teach students how to deal with a world in constant motion, a world that doesn’t come labeled and arranged for you, a world in which you have to work with a lot of other people both because you need their help and because they need to understand why you think what you’re doing makes sense.

This is what is going to be importance to our world which is reminding us so every day of the week that Inequality is at the source of all our troubles.

We’ve lost sight of this, but we can reclaim it through education. 

It is possible to say that technology is not a purpose but only a tool for all humanistic necessities. This at the moment is totally untrue.

If you don’t believe me, look a Wall Street.

 The winner in this process will be humanity as a whole” and not just “a wealthy elite that controls science, technology and the planet’s resources”;

The Internet transmit and help instill a set of cultural values—ways of thinking about social relationships, family, religion, the human condition—whose novelty and glamour can challenge and overwhelm traditional cultures.

The Internet far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectancy of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here in Education that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come”

The Internet can make an enormously valuable contribution to human life. It can foster prosperity and peace, intellectual and aesthetic growth, mutual understanding among people’s and nations on a global scale. If it is married into Education for all.

 

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Wall Street : Every trillionth of a second shares, stock, currency, futures, are bought and sold for profit by Computer programs.

It’s no wonder that a median of only 29% say the internet is a good influence on morality, while 42% say it is a bad influence.

There’s still a way to go to ensure all schools are ready for the future of technology.

So go now, and look with your newly educated eyes at this world.

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If students aren’t proficient in their studies to begin with and technology is used incorrectly, a whole mess of problems will arise.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN. Have we lost the true Christmas spirit?

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Happy Christmas., Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN. Have we lost the true Christmas spirit?

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Capitalism vs. the Climate., Globalization, The Future of Mankind

Has commercialism hijacked the spiritual meaning of Christmas?

No Christian would justify much that goes on in the name of Christmas.

No one disputes that the holiday is grossly prostituted to unchristian purposes.Afficher l'image d'origine

Are we more interested in receiving than giving? 

I wonder how long it will be before Christmas as a holiday is cancelled.

Before it is Happy Xmas to my readers.

For the greater part of humanity, Christmas has no legitimate meaning at all.

Over the Christmas period there is more family conflict and more people attempt suicide than at any other time of the year.Afficher l'image d'origine

Perhaps to avoid offending other religions the midwinter break should take place over the New Year, 31 December and 1 and 2 January. This way no religious group is favoured, not even those who still follow the pagan traditions.

The meaning is still there for those who seek it.

For me it’s about CONSCIOUSNESS.

The word Christmas comes from the Old English term Cristes maesse, meaning “Christ’s mass.”  This is the name for the festival service of worship held on December 25th to commemorate the birth of Jesus. Christians have been celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25 since at least the early fourth century.

Christmas is obnoxious to some because it represents the combination of two words, “Christ” and “mass.” The word means “the mass of Christ.”

But what does “mass” really mean in the compound word Christmas? Any authoritative dictionary will reveal that the English term mass evolved from the Anglo-Saxon word maesse, which derived in turn from the Latin missa, which is a form of the verb mittere, which means “to send.”

The use of the abbreviation Xmas takes Christ out of Christmas!” opponents allege. “Xmas is an irreverent modern substitute for Christmas. The abbreviation represents the substitution of X (which means the unknown quantity) for Christ.”

There is neither certain information on the date of his birth, nor even on the year.

One reason for this uncertainty is that the stories of his birth, recorded in the New Testament books of Matthew and Luke, were written several decades after the event. Those who wrote it gave no specific dates for the events they mentioned.

For several centuries the Christian Church itself paid little attention to the celebration of Jesus’ birth.

It ranked after Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany in liturgical importance.

The major Christian festival was Easter; the day of Jesus’ purported resurrection. Only gradually, as the church developed a calendar to commemorate the major events of the life of Jesus did the celebration of his birth become significant.

Christmas is not a Muslim holiday, therefore, Muslim countries do not celebrate it.

Although the history of relations between Muslims and Christians has not always been good, it is important to remember that Muslims always stood for a society where the rights of all individuals are not only tolerated, but respected and protected.

In the Christian religion, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ by the virgin Mary, which is observed on December 25 by Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Many in the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity observe the Christmas holiday, Epiphany.

So when was Jesus actually born?

Modern scholarship estimates the year of his birth from 7 to 4 BC.

Although the Gospel narratives offer no indication as to the date, they do seem to indicate it was not in the winter. Luke describes the shepherds “keeping watch over their flocks by night” and this was not done in the coldest winter months.

But as early as 273 AD, Western Christians had decided on December 25 to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

The December date for the holiday probably arose from a desire to provide an alternative to the Roman “birthday of the unconquered sun” and the Persian birthday of Mithras, both of which were celebrated on or around the winter solstice. A Christian writer explained in 320 AD:

The Eastern church celebrated Christ’s birth and baptism on January 6 until the middle of the 5th century, when the December date for Christmas was adopted there as well and Jesus’ baptism was celebrated on January 6.

An exception to the December date is the Armenian Church, which continues to commemorate both the birth and baptism of Christ on January 6.

In addition to the date, other aspects of Christmas owe their origins to pagan celebrations, such as the Yule log, the Christmas tree, gift-giving, and lights.

The modern Christmas tree tradition probably began in Germany in the 18th century, though some argue that Martin Luther began the tradition in the 16th century.

The popular image of Santa Claus was created by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who drew a new image of the character annually, beginning in 1863.  By the 1880s, Nast’s Santa had evolved into the form we now recognize. The image was standardized by advertisers in the 1920s.

Father Christmas, who predates Santa Claus, was first recorded in the 15th century and then associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness.

In Victorian Britain, his image was remade to match that of Santa. The French Père Noël evolved along similar lines, eventually adopting the Santa image.

In Italy, Babbo Natale acts as Santa Claus, while La Befana is the bringer of gifts and arrives on the eve of the Epiphany. It is said that La Befana set out to bring the baby Jesus gifts, but got lost along the way. Now, she brings gifts to all children. In some cultures, such as Germany, Santa Claus is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, or Black Peter.

Its difficult in such a troubled world to justify purposely over indulge without a tinge of shame.

So Christmas for me is sharing no matter how small some of my good fortune with those of us less fortunate. Christmas is becoming Consciousness of the world around you.

Our minds cannot begin to understand what was involved in God’s becoming man. For nearly 2,000 years, debate has been raging about who Jesus really is. Cults and skeptics have offered various explanations.

They’ll say He is one of many gods, a created being, a high angel, a good teacher, a prophet, and so on.

The common thread of all such theories is that they make Jesus less than God.

No matter what, CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE NEED TO BE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR EXISTENCE AND WHAT IS ABOUT. SHOULD BE PARAMOUNT.  Afficher l'image d'origine

WHERE DID WE COME FROM. HOW DID THE UNIVERSE COME INTO EXISTENCE.  WHO MADE ALL OF IT?

Some scientists say there was this big explosion that eventually formed a primordial swamp, and … Science cannot explain it.

WHEN YOU REALIZE THE SIZE OF EARTH IN THE VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE IT IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

Paul was writing to the Christians at Colossae.

The city was under the influence of what came to be known as gnosticism. Its adherents fancied themselves the only ones who had access to the truth, which they believed was so complex that common people couldn’t know it. Among other things, they taught philosophical dualism–the idea that matter is evil and spirit is good. They believed that because God is spirit, He is good, but He could never touch matter, which is evil.

Therefore they also concluded that God couldn’t be the creator of the physical universe, because if God made matter, He would be responsible for evil. And they taught that God could never become a man, because as a man He would have to dwell in a body made of evil matter.

Those pre-gnostics explained away the incarnation by saying that Jesus was a good angel whose body was only an illusion.

That teaching and others like it pervaded the early church; many of the New Testament epistles specifically refute pre-gnostic ideas.

No matter how flagrantly men may abuse this holiday, they cannot rob devout believers of its wonder and glory as expressed by the angel of old, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10, 11).

How little people seemed to value their lives as they were living them—how busy, terribly busy, everyone seemed to be, mortal in their fears, immortal in their desires and wasteful of their time.

So this Christmas be Consciousness:

Remember every time you hit the like button everything you do not like is being filtered.

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THE BEADY EYE : HERE BELOW IS A CRY FOR HUMANITY THAT CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED.

29 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Freedom, Humanity., Paris Climate Change Delegates., The world to day., Uncategorized, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Inequility, The Future of Mankind

IT SAYS IT ALL.

 

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THE BEADY EYE ( PART FOUR) ASK’S WHY IS THE WORLD LIKE THIS.

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Climate Change., Corruption., Humanity., Life., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Paris terrorist attack., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Distribution of wealth, Extinction, Global warming, Globalization, Inequility, The Future of Mankind, World aid commission

Our painting now has a wash of money, a random application of religion and the Gun with a transparent over wash of humanity.Afficher l'image d'origine

I think it would be a grave injustice to speak of the human species ( Other than ISIS and their like) as in some sense evil, even though we are destroying the environment so efficiently at the present time.

The nature of humankind is to expand its population, to gain security, to control, to alter. For millions of years that paid off without undue damage.

But then what happened was, as we developed a modern industrial capacity, and then the techno scientific capacity to eliminate entire habitats quickly and efficiently, we succeeded too well and at long last we broke nature. And now, almost too late, we are waking up to the fact that we have overdone it and that we are destroying the very foundation of the environment on which humanity was built.

Its time to add a healthy dollop of Earth to our canvas.

One frequently quoted piece of evidence against a Christian green ethic is the command to our first parents to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28).

How should we interpret this?

Does this mean we should be thrilled at increasing populations?

Well, to start with, ‘filling’ is not the same as over-filling. We should also remember that it is only in the last 100 years, that over-populating the world has become a real prospect.

In giving us “dominion”, God appointed us as His stewards or care-takers, and will hold us accountable for the way we discharge our responsibility, just like the husband-men and talent-holders in Jesus’ parables (Mat. 25:14-30, Luke. 20:9-16).

It does not matter whether you are a believer or not the ‘State of the Planet’ makes clear that we are unique in terms of our destructive potential, and we alone must change our behavior in response to moral beliefs and challenges.

People with or without religious belief can (and do) recognise and accept that we have a role as Stewards. It is agreed by ALL RELIGIONS that humans are not simply answerable to future generations for their management of nature, but that they are answerable to the one God who created them in his image so that they would manage the earth on his behalf.

The key or ethical argument – an argument of stewardship, an argument of handing on a world as rich as the one we inherited does not need any religious belief.

The rate at which species are becoming extinct as a consequence of human activity is staggering.

The problem is all around us and we are all part of the problem.

The problem now is recognising this fact. It can be the first step in becoming an active part in the solution

Human beings have created derelict industrial sites, open-cast mines, scrap yards and polluted rivers and beaches. Our current actions are producing greater and more rapid changes than ever before.

There is some pallet of colors to pick from. Soil erosion and loss of fertility. Deforestation Water-quality pollution Waste. Generation and global toxification. Human and cultural degradation.  Alterations of earth’s energy exchange with the sun – green house gasses keep in too much heat resulting in global warming.

Our life-styles tend to keep us isolated from the awesome power and beauty of creation. Consequently we loose sight of its wonder, and as a result, we have a poorer understanding of the mess we ARE ALL IN.

Most of us are disconnected from our actions and their environmental effects.

We seldom if ever see our food growing, because it comes from shops. Few people who buy petrol from garages have ever seen an oil production platform or refinery. We may claim to deplore environmental damage, but by acquiescing in the system makes us accomplices in the crime.

We can just continue with the inevitable consequences of ignorance and greed, thoughtlessly bending the world to creating more bits of garbage to amuse ourselves…

No matter which course we take knowledge does not lead automatically to action.

The time has come… to destroy those who destroy the earth.

Why is it that the activities of our one species, aiming at no more than living in reasonable comfort and avoiding hunger, should cause such devastation on the rest of the natural world?

The answer is in our back ground wash, and how it has being applied with greed and corruption of power by all societies.

By now we  should understand which of humanity’s activities inflict the greatest damage on the diversity of animal and plants of this planet.

But the problem is we are self centered and look like remaining so.

Afficher l'image d'origine

Afficher l'image d'origine

The average American consumes 40 times as much energy as the typical third-world inhabitant and the average European some 20 times as much.

One European uses as much energy as 20 Bangladeshis.

In short, a change to our societies, our economics, and our politics and our world organisations is needed.

Here is a snap shot of what the Paris Climate Change Conference 2015 is up against.

Qatar :

Qatar’s carbon emissions per capita are the highest in the world and three times as high as the United States’. Qatar, gas prices in Kuwait are among the lowest in the world, while GDP is among the highest. This, coupled with a lack of public transit infrastructure, makes road travel the sole means of mobility for both citizens and businesses moving goods. According to the Global Footprint Network, the average Kuwaiti uses 22 times more resources than the country provides per person.

Ireland:

A fuel farm on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, grows rapeseed (canola) plants to ultimately make biofuel.

In 2008, however, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions per capita were the second highest in the European Union.

Agriculture is the largest source of emissions, but emissions from vehicles have more than doubled since 1998.

However, there have been improvements in recent years: 2009 was the second year in a row in which transport emissions declined, and an increase in renewable sources of energy in the early 2000s reduced emissions from the energy sector by 10 percent in 2009.

The United Arab Emirates:

Despite being the world’s fourth largest oil exporter (behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran), the United Arab Emirates has publicly pushed for a renewal of the Kyoto protocol (the agreement among industrialized nations to cap emissions), announced a plan to increase renewable energy production, and even launched a 1-gigawatt concentrated solar generation project.

Yet Dubai, a city of 1.5 million people (many of whom are immigrants seeking their fortunes, like the workers pictured above), the world’s largest shopping mall, and an indoor ski resort, currently gets all its energy needs from the burning of natural gas, which is why it ranks third on Global Footprint’s list.

Denmark :

A Danish farmer surveys his Christmas trees shortly before they are sold in December 2008.

Denmark’s carbon emissions are half that of the United States’, but its cropland (the amount of viable land that can be used to produce crops)  requirements are much higher. Because so much meat is eaten per capita in Denmark, the country must import a large amount of grain—so much that it would take up 215,000 square feet (2 hectares) of land per person, or 2.5 times more land than the country has.

United States :

New York City twinkles at night, with Fifth Avenue and Broadway clogged with cars.

If everyone lived like the average American, the Earth’s annual production of resources would be depleted by the end of March, the Global Footprint Network’s report said.

Americans’ love of road trips, suspicion of public transit, and growing energy demands fuel the country’s high per-capita carbon emissions.

Belgium :

A Belgian farmer drives his tractor in this undated photo.

Belgium’s biocapacity of cropland is extremely low, so much of its food must be imported. This begins to explain Belgium’s high ranking on Global Footprint’s list.

Australia :

A lumberman cuts down a karri tree, a type of eucalyptus, in Western Australia.

Australians emit 28.1 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person, one of the highest per-capita rates in the world. In addition, the country’s demand for wood, food, and pasture uses the equivalent of 753,000 square feet (7 hectares) of land per person, nearly four times greater than what is available on average around the world.

Canada :

Canada’s biocapacity is 14.92 hectares per capita, 5.5 times average global consumption. So if the world’s resources were as abundant everywhere as in Canada, we’d have more than enough to go around.

Even so, Canada’s cities are energy hogs. The country has the seventh highest rate of carbon dioxide emissions per capita. Total greenhouse gas emissions in Canada rose 24 percent between 1990 and 2008.

The Netherlands :

Sheep near a village in the Netherlands will go toward feeding Dutch citizens, yes, but for the most part, the Dutch consume more than they produce.

The small country, with its high population density and relatively little land area for crops and pasture, consumes six times more resources (energy, food, and more) than it is able to produce, and about three times more than the Earth overall is able to sustain.

God only know what China, India, and Russia and the rest of the world would add.

What ever it is we must spread the riches of World more evenly.

This can only be achieved by making Profit for profit sake create a World Aid Fund ( see previous posts) to tackle the Inequalities, Correct the damage to the climate, and protect what is left.Afficher l'image d'origineAfficher l'image d'origine

We all know that there is little point to any thing if we are not alive.

Its time to change from selfie square heads, and like button pressers to searchers.

Where there is poverty we must find it. Where there is pain we must find it. Where there is abuse we must find it. Where there is modern day slavery we must find it. Where there is inequality we must find it. Where there is pollution we must find it.

In fact its time to find what is of value to us all.     

Don’t be a square head contribute. All comments are valued.

http://go.ted.com/CjNh

http://go.ted.com/CjNk

http://go.ted.com/CjNs

http://go.ted.com/CjN3

You might think our canvas is now completed but you be wrong. There is one more color to add and that is Woman.

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THE BEADY EYE ( PART THREE) ASK’S WHY IS THE WORLD LIKE THIS.

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Humanity., Sustaniability, The Internet., The world to day., Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations., WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ( PART THREE) ASK’S WHY IS THE WORLD LIKE THIS.

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Distribution of wealth, Globalization, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.

Our painting of the world now has three elements Money, Religion and the Gun, but how do we knit them together into our modern-day canvas.

We need a large brush of Humanity. Afficher l'image d'origineWe should endeavor to apply humanity as another wash, somewhat like the magnetic field that surrounds the earth in order to give color to the voices, of Humans.

We are all attracted and attached to one another.  Money, Religion and the Gun all melt into the background when we apply Humanity.

The continuing changes in the spread, reception, interaction, sharing, and understanding of global information have altered the process of human and technological communication.

The last few decades have seen a growth in the role of the English language around the world as the lingua franca for economic, scientific, and political exchange.

Since its conception, the Internet has, so it seems,revolutionize the ways of human communication. It is the rise of computer-mediated, communication and the Internet, more than anything else, which has and is reshaping the WORLD.

It enables rich (or technology able) countries to take monopoly over the content generated on the Internet and it is becoming a form of cultural and linguistic imperialism in which western values dominate.

Which is one of the reasons why the world is like this – a Mess.

Our application of Human Language will have to be in a medium that is not permanent as you can only recognize and describe language change once it has occurred. So it will be like the Aurora communicating, untouchable, here to-day gone to-morrow.  

The Language of Globalization is a relatively recent term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that result from dramatically increased international trade and cultural exchange.

However, this term as a concept is being use now in a wider way to describe all aspects of global human existence – social, cultural, educational and political.

The Web/Internet is a process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world.

It has come to define a level of economic, social and cultural activities that have outgrown national borders and markets through either industrial combinations and commercial groupings that cross national frontiers, international agreements that reduce the cost of doing business in foreign countries, or cultural influences of certain societies on others.

Globalization offers huge potential profits to companies and nations but has been complicated by widely differing expectations, standards of living, cultures and values, and legal systems as well as unexpected global cause-and-effect linkages. 

In it Capitalist form it has led to the formation of terrorists groups, wars, unsuitability and poverty along with inequality, climate change, driven by outrageous individual and corporate Greed.

To put it simply, information technology has been termed as the medium of a new, and fourth revolution in human communication and cognition, matched in significance only by the prior three revolutions of language, writing, and print (Harnad, 1991).

Information technology impact on how people interact, access information, and share information akin to the Bi Sheng revolution about 900 years ago in ancient China (Song Dynasty). This impact is occur much more quickly than anticipated, leaving all of our World Organisations in need of radical overhaul. 

Globalization is believed by some to lead to an end of a cultural diversity as it imposes sameness in the countries of the world; where everyone in the world is the same when we are far from it. 

Globalization has been viewed primarily as an economic phenomenon, involving the increasing interaction, or integration of national economic systems through the growth in international trade, investment, and capital flow. However, this definition has expanded to include also cross-border social, cultural, political, and technological exchanges between nations and in particular.

It was hoped that electronic used for communication between groups who have no other language in common, would erode Inequality and take millions out of poverty. To most extent it has done this, removing the middle man, opening transparency to remove corruption.

Unfortunately it is driven by global corporations that are being dragged through Social Media to table of responsibility. While the rest of us are being turned into modern-day slaves bound together by Debt Bondage.

Despite all its apparent benefits, globalisation has some downsides which could possibly derail the world. Afficher l'image d'origine

Of course years ago none of this mattered as the great unwashed were unaware that they were being ripped off.

Giddens (2000) defined globalization as a separation of space and time, emphasizing that with instantaneous communications, knowledge, and culture could be shared around the world simultaneously.Afficher l'image d'origineAs Paolillo (1999: 1) puts it, in his introduction to a paper on the virtual speech community: ‘If we are to understand truly how the Internet might shape our language, then it is essential that we seek to understand how different varieties of language are used on the Internet.

About 85% of the world’s important film productions and markets use English and 90% of the published academic articles in several academic fields, such as linguistics, are written in English.

The Internet is bad for the future of many languages but it might be the saving grace of many others. It can also argued that the Internet must evolve its own principles and standards in order to grow and maintain as a newly emerging linguistic medium (Crystal, 2001)

It must not be transformed from a tool for information processing and display for the few to make money but become a free tool for all. Afficher l'image d'origine

It’s important to recognize, though, that it’s our nonverbal communication—our facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, posture, and tone of voice—that speak the loudest.

When your nonverbal signals match up with the words you’re saying, they increase trust, clarity, and rapport. When they don’t, they generate tension, mistrust, and confusion.

Perhaps this is the problem with modern-day communication. The way you look at someone can communicate many things, including interest, affection, hostility, or attraction. Eye contact is also important in maintaining the flow of conversation and for gauging the other person’s response.

You need physical space to communicate many different nonverbal messages, including signals of intimacy and affection, aggression or dominance.

Emotional awareness enables you to:

  • Accurately read other people, including the emotions they’re feeling and the unspoken messages they’re sending.
  • Create trust in relationships by sending nonverbal signals that match up with your words.
  • Respond in ways that show others that you understand, notice, and care.
  • Know if the relationship is meeting your emotional needs, giving you the option to either repair the relationship or move on.
  • Our body language, expressions, and words can sometimes fire different signals all at the same time.

Our task is not to make societies safe for globalization, but to make the global system safe for decent societies.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S RECENT EVENTS IN PARIS SHOWS ITS TIME TO FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE.

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Climate Change., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Paris terrorist attack., Politics., The world to day., War, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S RECENT EVENTS IN PARIS SHOWS ITS TIME TO FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE.

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Capitalism and Greed, Climate change, Globalization, Inequility, Terrorism., The Future of Mankind

We must focused on the “big picture” exploring all avenues for influencing humans everywhere.

How societies have developed through all of human history – from Neanderthals to i Phones.

At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings.

The question is why a pretty small group of nations around the shores of the North Atlantic had come to dominate the planet in the last 200 years in a way that the world’s never really seen before is now rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Since no CLARITY is being provided by any of our World Organisations or Political leaders regarding a solution I will offer in this post the reasons why this is true and a solution that is achievable in our life time.

We have four primary issues that must be addressed for us to live in harmony with nature: Overpopulation, Over consumption, dependence on fossil fuels and our harmful and wasteful typical western consumerism.

We have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.”

They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.

The urgency now is driven by the fact that we simply don’t have the necessary time to address the first three. They will take many decades (if not centuries) to resolve and we may be down to just a few years as the experts agree that we’re rapidly approaching or passing certain tipping points, beyond which there is no possibility of avoiding the worst effects of crossing all these planetary boundaries.

In the end of all of this mess amounts to simple massive transfers of wealth from the middle classes and the poor to the rich.

Because whatever you’re fighting for: Racism, Poverty, Feminism, Gay Rights, or any type of Equality. It won’t matter in the least, because if we don’t all work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.

It has brought us to a situation of the greatest schism between rich and poor in history. The utter breakdown of democratic government in favour of the new technological driven Feudalism.

As our social development continues to accelerate, we continue to change the meaning of the word poor.

We are not apart from nature, we are a part of nature.

I’m sorry that we paid so much attention to ISIS, and very little how fast the ice is melting in the arctic.

It is imperative now than ever that France in honor its recent unnecessary lost of innocent lives insures that the Climate Change Conference is not effected.

Unfortunately we must tried to see beyond the horrific events in Paris – into the misery beyond.

If we cannot see something, it is difficult to know how we can possibly begin to devise ways to avoid it.

It is time to attend to this generation’s apocalypse, and to do so we must recover both the fear and the hope of early ’80s politics.

There has to be another way, and this time it must include all of humanity, and all of our planet.

So far, few works have managed to put the unthinkable in front of our eyes –

The Internet, is the public face of globalization.  Corruption is not only thriving online, but winning. The digital revolution has degenerated into an underworld of organized crime, dirty tactics, black ops and terrorism.

There is no such thing as “national cyberspace.” International cooperation will be needed, but be warned that the Internet will not go away in any place it touches.

“Lets just say that today’s Internet is a dirty mess waiting to be cleaned up.”

I am sure that there is no need to give a history lesson but here is one that tells the truth and which I admire.

Written by Roberto Savio.

It out lines why we are in the current mess and if you want to understand why it is so it is compulsory reading.

Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and publisher of Other News, offers ten explanations of how the current mess in which the world finds itself came about.

1)  ” The world, as it now exists, was largely shaped by the colonial powers, which divided the world among themselves, carving out states without any consideration for existing ethnic, religious or cultural realities. This was especially true of Africa and the Arab world, where the concept of state was imposed on systems of tribes and clans.

2)  After the end of the colonial era, it was inevitable that to keep these artificial countries alive, and avoid their disintegration, strong men would be needed to cover the void left by the colonial powers. The rules of democracy were used only to reach power, with very few exceptions. The Arab Spring did indeed get rid of dictators and autocrats, just to replace them with chaos and warring factions (as in Libya) or with a new autocrat, as in Egypt.

The case of Yugoslavia is instructive. After the Second World War, Marshal Tito dismantled the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and created the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But we all know that Yugoslavia did not survive the death of its strongman.

The lesson is that without creating a really participatory and unifying process of citizens, with a strong civil society, local identities will always play the most decisive role. So it will take some before many of the new countries will be considered real countries devoid of internal conflicts.

3)  Since the Second World War, the meddling of the colonial and super powers in the process of consolidation of new countries has been a very good example of man-made disaster.

Take the case of Iraq. When the United States took over administration of the country in 2003 after its invasion, General Jay Garner was appointed and lasted just a month, because he was considered too open to local views.

Garner was replaced by a diplomat, Jan Bremmer, who took up his post after a two-hour briefing by the then Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice. Bremmer immediately proceeded to dissolve the army (creating 250,000 unemployed) and firing anyone in the administration who was a member of the Ba’ath party, the party of Saddam Hussein. This destabilised the country, and today’s mess is a direct result of this decision.

The current Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, whom Washington is trying to remove as the cause of polarisation between Shiites and Sunnis, was the preferred American candidate. So was the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who is now virulently anti-American. This is a tradition that goes back to the first U.S. intervention in Vietnam, where Washington put in place Ngo Dihn Dien, who turned against its views, until he was assassinated.

There is no space here to give example of similar mistakes (albeit less important) by other Western powers. The point is that all leaders installed from outside do not last long and bring instability.

4)  We are all witnessing religious fighting and Islam extremism as a growing and disturbing threat. Few make any effort to understand why thousands of young people are willing to blow themselves up. There is a striking correlation between lack of development/employment and religious unrest. In the Muslim countries of Asia (Arab Muslims account for less than 20 percent of the world’s Muslim populations), extremism hardly exists.

And few realise that the fight between Shiites and Sunnis is funded by countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran.

Those religions have been living side by side for centuries, and now they are fighting a proxy war, for example in Syria. Saudi Arabia has been funding Salafists (the puritan form of Islam) everywhere, and it has provided nearly two billion dollars to the new Egyptian autocrat, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, because he is fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, which predicates the end of kings and sheiks and power for the people. Iraq is also becoming a proxy war between Saudi Arabia, defender of the Sunnis, and Iran, defender of the Shiites.

So, when looking at these wars of religion, always look at who is behind them. Religions usually become belligerent only if they are used. Just look at European history, where wars of religion were invented by kings and fought by people. Of course, once the genie is out of the bottle, it will take a long time to put it back. So this issue will be with us for quite some time.

5)  The end of the Cold War unfroze the world, which had been kept in stability by the balance between the two superpowers.

Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests. The best example is Europe. While everybody was talking about Crimea, Ukraine and Vladimir Putin (who had been made paranoiac about Western encirclement, from the George Bush Jr. administration onwards) and how to bring him to listen to the United States and Europe, European companies continued trade in spite of a much talked about embargo. And now, Austria has quietly signed an agreement with Russia to join the South Stream, a pipeline that will bring Russian gas to Europe – so much for the unity of a Europe which has been clamouring about the need to reduce its energy dependence on Russia.

A multipolar world is in the making, but it has to be seen how stable it will be.

In Asia, China and Japan are increasing their military investments, as are surrounding countries. And while local conflicts, like Syria, Iraq and Sudan, are not going to escalate into a larger conflict, this would certainly be the case in Asia.

6)  In a world more and more divided by a resurgence of national interests, the very idea of shared governance is losing its strength, and not only in Europe.

The United Nations has lost its significance as the arena in which to reach consensus and legitimacy. The two engines of globalisation – trade and finance – are not part of the United Nations, which is stuck with the themes of development, peace, human rights, environment, education and so on. While these issues are crucial for a viable world, they are not seen as such by those in power. Conclusion: the United Nations is sliding into irrelevance.

7)  At the same time, values and ideas which were considered universal, such as cooperation, mutual aid, international social justice and peace as an encompassing paradigm are also becoming irrelevant.

French President Francois Hollande meets U.S. President Barack Obama, not to discuss how to stop the genocide in Sudan, or the kidnapping of children in Nigeria, but to ask him to intervene with his Minister of Justice to reduce a giant fine on a French bank, the BNP-Parisbas, for fraudulent activities. The outstanding problem of climate control was largely absent in the last  G7 meeting, not to talk of nuclear disarmament … and yet these are the two main threats to the planet!

8)  After colonialism and totalitarian regimes, the key phrase after the Second World War was “implementation of democracy”. But after the end of the Cold War, democracy was taken for granted. In fact, in the last twenty years, the formula of representative democracy has been losing its glamour. Pragmatism has led to the loss of long-term vision, and politics have become more and more mere administration.

Citizens feel less and less related to parties, which have basically become self-centred and self-reliant.  International affairs are not considered tools of power by parties, and decisions are taken without participation. This leads to choices which often do not represent the feelings and priorities of citizens.

The way in which the bailout of Cyprus from its financial crisis a few years ago was treated in the European Commission was widely recognised as a blatant example of lack of transparency. Few people certainly make more mistakes than many …

9)  A very important element of the mess has been the growth of what its proponents, especially in the financial world, call the “new economy” – an economy that contemplates permanent unemployment, lack of social investments, reduced taxation for large capital, the marginalisation of trade unions, and a reduction of the role of the State as the regulator and guarantor of social justice.

Inequalities are reaching unprecedented levels. The world’s 85 richest individuals possess the same wealth as 2.5 billion people.

10)  All this brings its corollary. It is not by chance that all mainstream media worldwide have the same reading of the world.

Information today has basically eliminated analysis and process, to concentrate on events. Their ability to follow the world mess is minimal, and they just repeat what those in power say. It is very instructive to see media which are very analytical about national affairs and very superficial about international issues. The media depend largely on three international news agencies, which represent the Western world and its interests. Have you read anywhere about the gas agreement between Austria and Russia?

So, a final point: never be satisfied with what you read in the newspapers, always try to get additional and opposite viewpoints through the net. This will help you to look at the world with your eyes, and not with the eyes of somebody else who is probably part of the system which has created this mess. Do not go with the tide … search for the other face of the moon. And if they tell you that they know, well, just look at the results. So, be yourself and, if you make a mistake, at least it will be your mistake. “

I thank him and I could not agree more with his advise in his summing up. He states what I have being advocating in post after post.

Many factors influenced the civil war in Syria, including long-standing political, religious, and ideological disputes; economic dislocations from both global and regional factors; and the consequences of water shortages influenced by drought, ineffective watershed management, and the growing influence of climate variability and change.

Here is my solution. 

Greed is the real terrorist operating under the banner of Profit for Profit sake.

Make Profit for Profit Sake Pay;

By placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all new drilling and mining Licences.

A commission rate ranging from 0.005 to 0.25 percent would generate between $15 and $300 billion per year, of which a substantial amount could be allocated to promote international peace and development and resolving Climate Change.

This would create a perpetual Funded Fund to contributed to rectifying the very thing that caused the problems in the first place.   Greed. 

And as we look forward into a world increasingly dominated by technology, what will geography mean in the 21st century?
Dead Iraq children

A new report claiming the numbers killed by ‘the war on terror’ globally may be as high as 2 million has been met with almost total silence.

What will all the deaths achieve? Every death is a tragedy.

This is a good starting point for a wider debate about the justifications and rationalisations for the great swathe of global violence unleashed in response to the 9/11 attacks.

The under reporting by the media of this human toll attributable to ongoing Western interventions, whether deliberate, or through self-censorship, has been key to removing the “fingerprints” of responsibility.’

The new age of humanitarian war which suggests that war is not as bad as it used to be, or at least that it’s not so bad that the costs outweigh the gains. Is totally naive.

High-tech precision weapons, precision targeting enabled by lawyers, new ethical norms, population-centric counterinsurgency – all this has made it possible to vaporise the bad guys is not true as we all saw up close yesterday in Paris.

Mr Hollands declaration of war is understandable, as was Americas after 9/11. But it should not be the first choice rather than a last resort.

The first choice should be to convince their populations that war will not only be cost-free for them, but that its effects on the countries on the receiving end of it will also be minimal and ultimately beneficial.

This is what we have been told ever since the US invasion of Panama and the first Gulf War and throughout the last fourteen years of the ‘war on terror,’ whenever the US and its allies are considering who next to bomb or hit with a drone.

War used to be a way to learn Geography – Fool me once.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT ON LINE GAMBLING.

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Uncategorized

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Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Community cohesion, Current world problems, Gambling

It’s no secret the Internet has changed the way we do many things and that I have no problem with a flutter.

As with most of my posts I am not going to exam the pros and cons of the Gambling Industry but ask some questions that need to be addressed due to its growing presents on our Television screens on our Smart Phones and the like.

To express that portable gaming will never affect the internet’s gambling industry within the next six years is a massive understatement.

This market centers not upon the makers of these games, but upon the players themselves and attaches real, monetary values to their virtual accomplishments.

The main reason I am writing this post however is not to be labeled a spoil sport but to highlight that Online Gambling is now being promoted on our television screens ( As you will have observed during the recent Rugby World Cup)  – Bet now in play – responsible Gambling.

In my view this is non responsible gambling advertising which does not advertise gambling in a socially responsible manner and provide key information to consumers. 

Its bad enough to have the Lotto Draw taking up prime Television viewing with late night roulette channels ruling the roost till early morning.

One line betting is a major issue to be dealt with, which is spreading with little Many of these advertisements claim that they have free gambling or give away free money. Do you think they would really give you that money if they weren’t confident that you would get hooked and spend it all on there site or if they thought that they wouldn’t get it all back?

Welcome Bonus up to £88 free!

Internet gambling represents one of the fastest growing segments of online activity with more than seven hundred web sites now providing users the opportunity to wager everything from casino games to sporting events.

According to internet research firms, the industry will pull in $1.5 billion in world-wide revenues this year.  That figure is expected to hit $86.b by 2016.

All good source of revenue for Government if like France, where there is no gambling except state gambling.

Online gambling is particularly popular with around 6.8 million consumers in the EU and a wide variety of operators offering services.

The EU gambling market is estimated at around EUR 84.9 billion and grows at a yearly rate of around 3%. On a global basis, online gaming or i Gaming as it has been called has grown into a multi-billion dollar business, particularly in Europe.

With Some gambling sites report increasing shares of their total revenues stemming from mobile and gambling search words, which are increasingly originating from phones and tablets.

In the past online gaming used to mainly attract younger men, but that demographic group has expanded to include both women and older age groups. Smartphones and tablets, with help from social media apps and irresponsible TV advertising, are changing the demographics of gamers.

Four years ago, there was one online gambling site; today it’s estimated there are between 300 and 400.

To some, gambling on the net may just be an entertaining past time, but for many others it soon becomes a serious addiction.

In 2015, online poker alone yielded 329 million British pounds, up from roughly 290 million British pounds in 2O13.  You may rest assured that Mr Cameron is not wanting any changes to gambling laws in his renegotiation of EU membership.

So where is the problem?

Because consumers in Europe search beyond national borders for more competitive online gambling services, they can be exposed to risks such as fraud.

Some people believe that online casinos are good for the local economy because they provide jobs and tax revenue for a community. This may be true but the community isn’t local. Most online casinos are located overseas to avoid taxes.

Different kinds of gambling services often operate across borders and can also operate outside the control of individual EU countries’ national authorities.

The credit card is the oxygen of Internet gambling.

Games are at the forefront of creating a rich virtual world, but one could imagine other possibilities, such as virtual museums with electronic art or digital archives.

Not to be confused with e-commerce, virtual commerce, the buying and selling of virtual items on or off-line, is developing into something that cannot be ignored.

How will online communities value virtual goods? What will be the ethical nature of virtual commerce?

One has to ask, do all sports disciplines benefit from on-line gambling exploitation rights in a similar manner to horse-racing and, if so, are those rights exploited?

Despite the rapid growth of online gaming, land-based gambling still dwarfs the internet activity.

In 2014, the gambling industry made a total contribution of approximately 240 billion U.S. dollars to the U.S. economy, directly employing 734 thousand people. In a spring 2014 survey by Nielsen Scarborough, almost 80 million Americans admitted to having visited a casino in the past 12 months.

Across the UK, France and Spain, betting, in particular sports betting, was the largest segment of the online gambling market.

Online gaming includes such activities as poker, casinos (where people can play traditional casino games, like roulette or blackjack, but online), sports betting, bingo and lotteries. Of these, casino games and sports betting make up the largest share of the market.

What does gaming stand to lose or gain from its development as a financial enterprise, facilitated by its new-found popularity?

PayPal has started appearing on a few U.S. gambling sites including Caesars Interactive’s WSOP.com website.

Faced with information overload, consumers rely on labels such as Betway, Bet 365, Titan Bet, 1888 Casino, Europa Casino.

Should government somehow control how much one bets by setting limits on people?

Should advertising be allowed to suggest gambling is a rite of passage?Exploit the susceptibilities, aspirations, credulity, inexperience or lack of knowledge of under-18s or other vulnerable persons.

Is solitary gambling more preferable to social gambling?

There is  little doubt in regards to the future from mobile gaming.

While currently approximately 5% with the best positioned online are actually done on cellular devices, this number is likely to rocket to a lot more like 50% throughout the next 3 to 5 years.

If the government is serious about … [avoiding] the kids of today becoming the gambling addicts of tomorrow some sort of regulation is long over due.

These principles should include effective and efficient registration of players, age verification and identification controls – in particular in the context of money transactions, reality checks (account activity, warning signs, sign posting to help lines), no credit policy, protection of player funds, self-restriction possibilities (time/financial limits, exclusion) as well as customer support and efficient handling of complaints.

Online gambling promotes addiction and presents great potential for criminal abuse such as identity theft and other forms of cyber crime.

Credit card fraud and theft of banking credentials are reported to be the most common crime in relation to on-line gambling.

It wont be long before the Selling of lottery tickets will be persecuting us day in day out.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT FOOD WASTE IN THE WORLD.

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Humanity., Life., Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Uncategorized, WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Extreme poverty, Food waste in the World, Globalization, Inequility, The Future of Mankind

Our routine practices, unfortunately, make it difficult for us to conceptualize the magnitude of global food waste.

Everyday we hear appeals and yet there are one billion starving people in the world.

40% of all the food produced in the United States is never eaten.

In Europe, we throw away 100 million tonnes of food every year.

These are shamefully shocking facts  in their own right. In a world full of hunger, volatile food prices , and social unrest, these statistics are more than just shocking when half the world’s population goes to sleep each night malnourished they are obscene.

They are environmentally, morally and economically outrageous.

Add to this that fact that obesity is rapidly growing in the western world, particularly among children, while 6 million children in the developing world die annually from undernourishment and it is a damning indictment of capitalism – the dominant ideology and economic system that has governed much of the world for the last two centuries.

The rampage of globalisation has given monopoly buying power to a few massive western multinational enterprises, who trample all over the globe sourcing farm supplies from the lowest bidders of impoverished nations.

Prices of farm produce are squeezed to such an extent that it’s more profitable to leave ‘inadequate’ quality crops in the ground to rot or to throw away than to pay the price for its air transport, storage and quality packaging to bring to western supermarkets with discerning consumers.

Today, we produce about four billion metric tonnes of food per annum. Yet due to poor practices in harvesting, storage and transportation, as well as market and consumer wastage, it is estimated that 30–50% (or 1.2–2 billion tonnes) of all food produced never reaches a human stomach.

Furthermore, this figure does not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands.

But the  problem is bigger than we think.Afficher l'image d'origine

Here are some hard facts to swallow.

Wasting food means losing not only life-supporting nutrition but also precious resources, including land, water and energy. As a global society therefore, tackling food waste will help contribute towards addressing a number of key resource issues:

About one-third of all food produced worldwide, worth around US$1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems.

Every year, consumers in industrialized countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (222 million vs. 230 million tons)

1.4 billion hectares of land – 28 percent of the world’s agricultural area – is used annually to produce food that is lost or wasted.

The direct economic consequences of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually.

The amount of food lost and wasted every year is equal to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crops (2.3 billion tons in 2009/10)

In the USA, organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of methane emissions.

In the USA, 30-40% of the food supply is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds of food per person per month.

The Food wastage’s carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent of GHG released into the atmosphere per year.

Much of it ends up in landfills, and represents a large part of municipal solid waste.

The water used to irrigate wasted crops would be enough for the daily needs of nine million people.

Wasted production contributes 10% to the greenhouse gas emissions of developed countries.

One hectare of land can, for example, produce rice or potatoes for 19–22 people per annum. The same area will produce enough lamb or beef for only one or two people.

The total volume of water used each year to produce food that is lost or wasted (250km3) is equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva.

Over the past century, fresh water abstraction for human use has increased at more than double the rate of population growth. Currently about 3.8 trillion m3 of water is used by humans per annum. About 70% of this is consumed by the global agriculture sector,

Indeed, depending on how food is produced and the validity of forecasts for demographic trends, the demand for water in food production could reach 10–13 trillion m3 annually by mid-century. This is 2.5 to 3.5 times greater than the total human use of fresh water today.

Considerable tensions are likely to emerge, as the need for food competes with demands for ecosystem preservation and biomass production as a renewable energy source.

Agriculture is responsible for a majority of threats to at-risk plant and animal species.

A low percentage of all food wastage is composted:

What can be done about it?

Part of the problem is poor shopping habits, but the confusion many consumers have with “use by” and “best before” food labels is also a factor. “Use by” refers to food that becomes unsafe to eat after the date, while “best before” is less stringent and refers more to deteriorating quality.

Consumer households need to be informed and change the behavior which causes the current high levels of food waste. Instead of buying packets of vegetables buy loose veg.

Boycott Supermarkets that don’t accept imperfections and nicks. There’s nothing wrong with a deformed Veg. It’s fine to eat.

Support redistribution urban food programmes.

UK supermarket chain Waitrose is attacking food waste in all parts of its business. The upmarket grocery chain cuts prices in order to sell goods that are close to their “sell by” date, donates leftovers to charity and sends other food waste to bio-plants for electricity generation.

The idea is for Waitrose to earn “zero landfill” status.

Home composting can potentially divert up to 150 kg of food waste per household per year from local collection authorities.

Buy local produced food items not those produced, transformed and consumed in very different parts of the world.

Considering that food security is a major concern in large parts of the developing world. Conflicts around the world mean there is “donor fatigue.

Food crises don’t just affect the countries where people go hungry. It’s a global challenge. Recent data shows the number of hungry in the world has fallen but still stands at 842 million people.

World Food Programme WFP operations in and around Syria are costing around $31 million a week.

Hidden Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction.

Hidden hunger weakens the immune system, stunts physical and intellectual growth, and can lead to death. It wreaks economic havoc as well, locking countries into cycles of poor nutrition, lost productivity, poverty, and reduced economic growth.

Investing in nutrition is one of the smartest development investments we can make.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE VALUE OF GOLD.

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in The world to day., Wealth.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE VALUE OF GOLD.

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Business and Economy, Capitalism and Greed, Central Banks, Distribution of wealth, Gold., The Future of Mankind

Just what is the value of Gold.?

Humans have been decorating themselves with gold since at least 4000 B.C.

According to a 2011 paper in the Journal Nature: meteor bombardment nearly 4 billion years ago brought 20 billion tons of a gold-and-precious-metal-rich space rock to Earth.

Tracing gold’s origin back even further takes us into deep space.

A 2013 study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters found that all of the gold in the universe was likely birthed during the collisions of dead stars known as neutron stars.

Where ever it came from here are some hard facts.

Gold, the 79th element on the Periodic Table of the Elements, one of the more recognizable of the bunch.

Two-thirds of the world’s gold use to be mined in South Africa. It is now ranked sixth amongst gold producing countries.

Seventy-eight percent of the world’s yearly supply of gold is used in jewelry. The rest goes to electronics and dental and medical uses.

  • The atomic symbol of gold, Au, comes from the Latin word for gold, aurum.
  • Astronaut helmets come equipped with a visor coated with a thin layer of gold. The gold blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun.
  • The world’s largest gold crystal is the size of a golf ball and comes from Venezuela. The 7.7-ounce (217.78 grams) crystal is worth about $1.5 million.
  • In Tutankhamen’s tomb alone they found that his coffin was made from 1.5 tonnes of gold.
  • Earthquakes can create gold.
  • The first purely gold coins were manufactured in the Asia Minor kingdom of Lydia in 560 B.C.
  • You can eat gold.
  • Gold is an excellent conductor of electricity and is very non-reactive with air, water and most other substances, meaning it won’t corrode or tarnish.
  • Gold nano particles are the only way some drug can work.
  • Gold is in our every day language.
  • If we emptied our bank vaults and jewelry boxes, we’d find no less than 2.5 million tonnes of gold in the world.
  • The US Geological Surveyestimates there are 52,000 tonnes of minable gold still in the ground and more is likely to be discovered.

She’s been as good as gold. He or she is a gold mine of information.

All that glistens is not gold.Bullion dropped last month by the most since September as investors expected the Federal Reserve would soon move to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006. Photographer: Lisi Niesner/Bloomberg

He or she has a heart of gold. Sitting on a goldmine. You’re worth your weight in gold. He or she scored some Columbian Gold. He or She is a “gold digger.” He or he has a heart of gold. Go for the gold. Tickets are like gold dust. Strike gold. 

User-friendly software is worth its weight in gold.

From 3600 BC to the present day, from deep underground to outer space, gold has been a major factor in the world’s development and economy.

When thinking about the historical progress of technology, we consider the development of iron and copper-working as the greatest contributions to our species’ economic and cultural progress – but gold came first.

Its association with the gods, with immortality, and with wealth itself are common to many cultures throughout the world.

But how did gold come to be a commodity, a measurable unit of value?

Gold, measured out, became money. Gold gave rise to the concept of money itself: portable, private, and permanent.

Gold (and silver) in standardized coins came to replace barter arrangements. The concept of money, (i.e., gold and silver in standard weight and fineness coins) allowed the World’s economies to expand and prosper.

A lot of people think about gold as a percentage of a country’s total reserves.

Between January 2000 and March 2009, central banks reduced their reserve holdings of gold by more than 114 million troy ounces.

You might be surprised to learn that the United States has 70 percent of its reserves in gold. Today, the US has about 8,000 tons.

The Bank of England  held 5,485 tonnes of customer gold at the end of February 2014, and 6,240 tonnes of customer gold at the end of February 2013. This meant that between the two-year end dates, end of February 2013 to end of February 2014, the amount of gold in custody at the Bank of England fell by 755 tonnes.

Now only 500,000 bars in the entire London vaults system,500,000 bars = 6,250 tonnes. Gordon Brown sold more than half of Britain’s precious gold bullion at the bottom of the market just before the price of gold started a decade of almost uninterrupted growth.

It was invested in foreign currency interest-bearing assets, 40% in dollars, 40% in euros and 20% in yen.

Meanwhile, China only has about 1 percent of its reserves in gold.

The reason is that a country’s reserves are a mixture of gold and hard currencies, and the currencies can be in bonds or other assets.

The United States doesn’t need other currencies. They print dollars, so why would we hold euros and yen? The U.S. doesn’t need them, so it makes sense that the country would have a very large percentage of its reserves in gold.

China, on the other hand, has greater need for other currencies.

In a money economy, however, you can say that the country’s gold holdings are the real money.

The IMF officially demonetized gold in 1975. The U.S. ended the convertibility of gold in 1971. Gold disappeared “officially” in stages in the mid-1970s. But the physical gold never went away.

Russia has one-eighth the gold of the United States.

Once China gets the right amount of gold, then the cap on gold’s price can come off. At that point, it doesn’t matter where gold goes because all the major countries will be in the same boat. As of right now, however, they’re not, so China has though to catch-up.

So one of my questions for central bankers is, if gold is such a ridiculous thing to have, why are we hanging onto it?

Gold serves as political chips on the world’s financial stage. It doesn’t mean that you automatically have a gold standard, but that the gold you have will give you a voice among major national players sitting at the table.

China feels extremely vulnerable to the dollar.  If we devalue the dollar, that’s an enormous loss to them.

China is saying, in effect,  “We’re not comfortable holding all these dollars unless we can have gold. it’s going to be a mad scramble to get gold.

China, along with India, leads the world in gold demand.

1999 – First Central Bank Gold Agreement.

The First Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) is agreed. 15 European central banks declare that gold will remain an important element of their reserves and collectively cap gold sales at 400 tonnes per year over next five years.

2004 – Launch of SPDR Gold Shares

The market is transformed by an innovative, secure and easy way to access the gold market. Seven years later SPDR exceeds $55bn in assets under management.

New York Gold Spot Price (24hrs)Oct 26, 2015 at 12:35 EST

Gold Price Per Ounce $ 1,168.54 ∧   2.09
Gold Price Per Gram $ 37.57  ∧    0.07
Gold Price Per Kilo $ 37,569.43   ∧ 67.2

The annual worldwide production of gold is something like 50 million troy ounces per year. In other words, all of the gold produced worldwide in one year could just about fit in the average person’s living room!

That means that if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold that man has ever mined into one place, you could only build about one-third of the Washington Monument.

When deciding on a gold jewelry item there are always many different terms that come up.  The most popular are Solid Gold, Gold Filled, and Gold Plated. Solid gold is of course an exquisite piece of jewelry.  Gold filled is the next level and is an amazing, quality alternative to solid gold.  Gold plating is the lower level and these items tend to tarnish and can often times turn the skin green.

Pure gold is so soft, however, that it is rarely ever used to make jewelry. Most jewelry is made from a “gold alloy”.

24K gold is gold in its purest form without any other metal added (though even most 24K gold usually has minute traces of other metals in it. That’s why even fine gold bullion is labeled 99.999% Gold instead of 100% Gold).

Gold can be tested in several different ways. Acid Testing and X-Ray Fluorescence. They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Gold is an elemental metal. This means that pure gold is made up of nothing but gold atoms.

There’s just one problem with humanity’s continued love affair with gold: Getting it out of the ground. About 83 percent of the 2,700 tons of gold mined each year is extracted using a process called gold cyanidation, said Zhichang Liu, a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry at Northwestern University in Illinois. This process uses cyanide to leach gold out of the rock that holds it. Unfortunately, cyanide is toxic, and the process is anything but environmentally friendly.

In 2013 a bloke named Liu and his colleagues reported in the journal Nature Communications that they’d stumbled upon a way to extract gold from ore with benign starch rather than toxic cyanide.

There is about $130 billion in gold in Fort Knox.

The entire stockpile now weighs 147.3 million troy ounces, which is worth about $130 billion at today’s prices.

The bad news is that the way we use gold is starting to change.

Up to now it has never gone away. It has always been recycled.

“All the gold that has been mined throughout history is still in existence in the above-ground stock. That means that if you have a gold watch, some of the gold in that watch could have been mined by the Romans 2,000 years ago.” The way gold is being used in the technology industry, however, is different. About 12% of current world gold production finds its way to this sector, where it is often used in such small quantities, in each individual product, that it may no longer be economical to recycle it.

In short, gold may be being “consumed” for the first time.

Platinum is even more scarce than gold. Only 3.6 million troy ounces are produced per year.

WE LEFT WITH THE QUESTION WHY DO CENTRAL BANKS HAVE GOLD BARS IN THE VAULT?

It did sweet fanny Adam to stop the financial crash.

It’s a holdover from the old Gold Standards. Gold standard regulation required all banks, including the central bank to hold gold as a regulatory asset.

In the last gold standard, the Bretton Woods regime, the US in particular had to hold gold to back the dollar. The requirement went away with the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973, but the gold didn’t.

These days there isn’t any requirement to hold gold. Gold on the Federal Reserve’s book isn’t even held at market prices, it’s marked to a notional statutory value of ~$42.

By the same token, there isn’t any requirement not to hold it.

“So why does anyone hold gold?”

It is expected to retain its value through cataclysmic events. The value of any currency, on the other hand, is dependent of the faith of the government or authority that backs it. The argument is that for some reason foreign markets become suddenly very adverse to take your currency, you should have some other medium of exchange that allow you to finance imports or serve short-term external debt.

All fiat currency is constantly competing with gold for value.

If everyone stopped creating money, and started hoarding gold, the central banks would, by definition be useless and powerless.

The trade-off between holding and selling the gold is different for “anyone” and countries.

Here a few Videos that are Gold.

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