Tag Archives: Economic Growth

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE TYRANNY OF GROWTH.

02 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by in Algorithms., G7., GDP., Happiness., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The cloud., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations.

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( A Twenty minute read)

They say we have free will, but there are many types of tyrannies in our world.

You could describe our hand-held devices which are keeping us connected to anything, anytime, anywhere as one. 

We now use our hand-held devices for almost everything. More importantly, they use us for everything.

The extreme availability of information has not led to a more enlightened population, but to more confusion.

Connectivity is both a blessing and a curse.

It has become the pathway for almost all we do as we have become helpless without technology and the need for immediate data at our fingertips. But this is taking its toll.

The number of times we look at our phones daily would shock you: some studies say 50 times, others as many as 75 to 150 times. Most of our e mails are reactionary.Tyranny of the Should

Information technology is all-pervasive in production and consumption.

Each time we look at the phone, we look away from what we should be or were focused on. Our collective ability to stay focused on anything is destroyed.

How does this connect to Growth.

It is too simplistic to attribute all of our economic problems to government: indeed, that sort of reasoning is counterproductive: it absolves everyone else responsibility.

Although part of the responsibility lies with forces that are outside a government, a significant share rests with the attitudes, preoccupations, we have to Artificial Intelligence that is now analyzing our every movement to the extent that advertising is becoming personalized.

I’m not saying that growth is bad but growth that destroys value just for profit is cancer that is driving inequality with a tendency to cluster around the short-term, issues while ignoring reality is going to bite us all.

I want to begin by touching on a crucial economy-wide factor
in the erosion of our economic strength which fosters short-term
thinking.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of social media advertising"

Advertising:

 It is a major driver of unnecessary consumption.

This hasn’t always been the problem. Advertising use to inform you of the useful qualities of an object. Now it manipulates your emotions like anxiety and promises to improve social acceptance or class distinction.

It is now with a frenzy of social media advertising attaching its self to saving the world  that is driving consumption to new dizzying heights.

Growth for growth’s sake, is an ugly word with even uglier connotations when it is using social media in the form of algorithms FOR PROFIT, regardless of the cost.

So what is driving it:

In the information age, time is compressed and events are squeezed into ever-decreasing periods.

We have governments encouraging a restless, fleeting mode of being, and a superficial, hurried culture, which is inimical to fundamental values.

They encourage growth programs, the benefits of which are available   immediately, but the costs of which appear only at a later stage. They are less interested in public investments that have to be financed now but do not payoff adequately before the next election.

It’s as if human progress depends on economic progress.

At minimum, the kind of short-term oriented cycle in which we find ourselves behaves as though tomorrow is forever. And, in fact, a series of tomorrows will create a forever — a very predictable one — and not a very desirable or promising one.

Rewards which are heavily focused on short-term results, even if they make some financial sense, often do not deliver the economic promise or the synergy which is anticipated.

Perhaps it is true that the landmarks in human progress — in the arts, science, government, or elsewhere — have rarely been reached in societies in which the economy was unable to free most of its members from a daily obsession with subsistence needs.

On the contrary, wherever the economy is feeble or stagnant for
a prolonged period, where most people see their basic material
needs as unfulfilled and the prospects for improvement as
unlikely, the result is almost invariably either a dull fatalism
or political upheaval, neither of which is likely to be favorable
to liberty and freedom.

However we are now looking at a unremitting focus on economic growth. The drive to achieve growth at practically any cost and to the exclusion of all other measures of prosperity.

This focus on GDP growth as the prime measure of economic success is out of date. It’s not how big it is that counts, it’s what you do with it.

The distance to the future – is no longer the next election, it will be how much you are willing to pay the Cloud for information. The cumulative effects of almost five decades of constantly accelerating reliance on government regulation to address social inequities and problems is coming to an end.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of social media advertising"

The linkage between ownership and participation is changing.

Social Media is not just eroding the meaning of democracy but effecting our critical thinking skills. Polluted with consumption advertising it is adding to global inequality.

While there are hundreds of different marketing strategies, only one can bring in consistent sales from day one. Social media advertising. This is why global social ad spending doubled from $16 billion in 2014 to $31 billion in 2016 and is projected to increase another 26% in 2017.

One of the fascinating things about social advertising is that there is virtually no limit to your ability to scale.You don’t have to wait for someone to search for your targeted keywords. You don’t have to wait for someone to run your promotion or read your blog.

( For Instance:

With more than 2 billion monthly users, Facebook hosts over a quarter of the world’s population, providing advertisers with an unparalleled opportunity to reach virtually anyone and everyone. It provides free lead magnet like:

  • Whitepapers
  • Ebooks
  • Product coupons
  • Sitewide discounts
  • Limited-time offers
  • Giveaways
  • Free shipping

These leads can then be nurtured with a targeted autoresponder. Offering free products, download-ables and predictable discounts and coupons for her audience. Doing so has earned Facebook more than $1,000,000 in annual sales in just 2 years. Facebook allows more advanced targeting than any other advertising platform on earth. Advertisers can target by location (within a 5-mile radius), job description, interests, past activity, and many other incredibly valuable criteria.

Instagram now boasts more than 500 million monthly active users and commands one of the highest audience engagement rates in social media, 58% higher than Facebook and 2000% higher than Twitter.

Twitter with 328 million monthly active users, it remains one of the most popular social media platforms. Brands don’t need to pay in order to reach their followers, which enhances the platform’s value even when running paid ads.

Pinterest: With 175 million monthly users is highly targeted toward women with an 81% female user base.

LinkedIn : Where you tend to find the highest average disposable income, has an estimated 227 million monthly active users.

Snapchat Advertising:    310 million users.   

All Social advertising is incredibly measurable.)

(You can, in fact, control when you choose to look at your hand-held device.)

In light of this one easy solution to over-consumption would be to ban advertising- at least in pubic places and on Social Media where Profit seeking Algorithms are used.

Much of’ the crippling of our economic systems can find its roots in Algorithms for profit. (see previous posts)

The consequences of elected government’s short-range perspective are not difficult to understand. They are seen as having succeeded in undermining the economy through overbearing regulation, tolerance of inflation, indifference to the cost of environmental and social programs, and a pervasive anti-business attitude.

Government thus diminishes the private sector’s sense of responsibility —
both in economic and ethical terms — for its own conduct and for its own performance.

While I appreciate that degrowth will not happen as quickly as we need it to do and it will take generations to move our collective consciousness on most issue, we don’t have that kind of time any longer.

Technology that ostensibly should help people save time, has instead led to a situation where time is scarcer than ever.

When an exponential growth curve becomes vertical, time has ceased to exist as duration.”life stands still at a tremendous speed”, with serious consequences for culture, intellectual life and the very fabric of society.

What we do not know today is what it will take to send us to
the pumps.

The struggle now concerns the right to be unavailable, the right to live and think more slowly.

Choosing to live according to one’s own self-made conception of reality, human nature, and happiness is a recipe for tyranny.

It is about time that we ask what wireless communications and the Internet are preconditions for. They are problems need to be understood well, in order to be dealt with the political upheaval that is around the corner.

Relying on averages generate by computers is worsening inequality

within countries, and the world as a whole.

So is there anything that can be done legitimately that will have a positive effect.

Becoming more grounded in ones own true feelings and perceptions is a primary indication that one has begun to free himself from the “tyranny of the should.”

Assuring that investment in future profitability is not sacrificed on
the altar of quarterly earnings growth. Refocusing our approach to economic decision-making, to benefit all not the few.

Willingness to pay the price today for the health and vitality of the country tomorrow is the ultimate test of stewardship. To live with a view to the regime should not be supposed to be slavery, but preservation.

Finally, it is as we all know easy to point the finger, however we are the will in any form or symbol and we are identifiable as water.  

However if we are to address any of our world problems and stop the self-perpetuating downward cycle, with all the suction of a whirlpool, from which there will be no escape we cannot and should not rely on technology to bail us out.

There is only one solution. Make Greed pay a World Aid commission of 0.05% ( See previous post)

Technology, if it has not yet become the de fac~o

decision- — . . . maker in the production process, has

certainly become a participant who cannot be

ignored.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
 

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Is Black Friday our worst example of unchecked consumerism.

30 Sunday Nov 2014

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This year, the shopping orgy called Black Friday became untethered from Thanksgiving and floated across to the U.K., where it most assuredly did not increase happiness and gratitude. It did however exposed a society that is encouraged by its Government since Maggie Thatcher day to treat   shopping as a sport.

We were all treated to woman fighting over leggings, people stampeding to get the latest TV/Smart phone/i Pad till the police had to be summoned to stop them from biting or killing each other. An extremely shameful, embarrassing thing to watch.

Many of the more extreme political movements in the world today claim that they are a response to the power and force of the modern global economy and its accompanying set of values. We should not be surprised when Social Media carries such pictures.

Today, young people are building a shared understanding of how the world works through social and other web-based media..

In 2008, a Walmart employee was killed when a mob of deal-desperate Black Friday shoppers tore the store’s doors from their hinges and stormed inside, trampling him to death. The chain was eventually fined $7000 for their role in the employee’s death — but six years and $2 million later, the world’s largest retailer has yet to pay up. I am sure the poor brighter did not collect his Loyalty points either.

The shape of the global economy, media, and world-wide society now being born is difficult to predict. On the one hand, the logic of economic growth can lead to the pursuit of short-term economic gain to the exclusion of other values.

On the other hand, a sustainable growth strategy could help ensure that the pursuit of economic growth factors in long-term considerations such as environmental impacts and human well-being.

Consumerism has is part to play in this well-being but because humans are like wildebeests the advertising industry spends $12 billion per year on ads targeted to children, bombarding young audiences with persuasive messages through media such as television and the Internet.

The average child is exposed to more than 40,000 TV commercials a year and ads are reaching children through new media technologies.

Some researchers say that consumerism is baked into our DNA, nestled in our neurons. They say our consumptive tendencies will forever evolve in response to marketing, culture, policy and changing needs on our one and only, tiny blue planet.

In light of Black Friday let’s rediscover the full meaning of the word consume.

Is it a modern American tradition gone wrong or just one more bizarre piece in the backbone of our wobbly world economy?

Now days to consume has become a negative word, but there are other meanings.

The verb to consume can also mean to enjoy avidly and to engage fully.

More and more people are coming to the realization they much prefer to consume experiences than stuff — they prefer doing over owning.

Nature has massive value that we may never be able to put a value on. This is truth, not a fad or a trend. For example if you love the ocean, share it, and don’t be afraid to consume it in the very best sense of the word. But also, fight for it. Protect it.

Black Friday has its roots in shopping frenzies. Online retailers such as Apple and Amazon have facilitated the spread of Black Friday far beyond its american frameworks, to any would-be consumer with an internet connection.

While it is easy to brush of all this behavior off as dystopian present-day phenomena, consumerism and taste-makers set the course of this nations culture, with purchasing power playing a huge role in the nationalistic negativism of or nations.

The technologies of information, stimulation, and comfort are seductive and addictive. People and their needs remain constant. Little else seems to be very stable. We are literally drowning in information. Still, the great difficulty with the empirical base of the information age is that much of the data we rely on to understand the world we live in is unverified.

So much so that the reality behind all that glam and glitter is that joy of engaging in the natural world might be forgotten.

As Pope Francis succinctly wrote: “Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric.”

So what can we do to slow or even work against the hordes of mindless buyers?

We could and should promote a Buy Nothing Day (BND)

A global day of exercised purchasing power, where social activists or other concerned people work to counteract the rampant avarice and shopping orgy of Black Friday with a day dedicated to purchasing… nothing.

Let’s call it neoconsumerism.

Our economies are being artificially kept afloat, and despite all the signs (shuttered businesses, monetary easing, disastrous world politics and energy issues looming), businesses are now pulling out what appears to be the “final act” for the phrase BLACK FRIDAY.

Thank god there are some gnus that are still evolving.

Black Friday Shoppers

These are rich experiences worthy of consumption. Think of the parts of your life that give you immeasurable joy, yet cost nothing taking time to eat good local food and to consume nature, together, is perceived as valuable, because it is valuable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of us worry about the addiction to the information streaming out of smart phones as people walk the street, oblivious to vehicular and even pedestrian traffic.

 

 

 

 

 

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The market revolution was a boom-period in american culture derivative of advancements in technology, infrastructure, and communications, as well as the shift in public attitudes after the Great Awakenings.

The mirrors, furs, furniture, hats, and fine clothes allowed for consumers to express their individuality, not only as sovereign beings with varied tastes, but as citizens who were beginning to desire a sovereign nation.

 

 

 

 

Capitalism is growing increasingly unfit for purpose.

09 Thursday Oct 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the solution?

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

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

Just look at the below example.

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

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

The £100 is created into existence by the loan.

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

The money created is balanced out by the debt created.

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

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

So where do the banks get their profit from lending?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps we could take a leaf from Muslim Banks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The age of Consequences has started.

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

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

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

            

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WHAT IS GLOBALIZATION?

31 Saturday May 2014

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social network structure Stock Photo - 15456081

IF YOU CONSIDER THE QUESTION WHAT DO YOU COME UP WITH.

Globalization is everywhere on TV, on websites, learning journals, labour meeting rooms and in organization’s boardrooms. Remarkably, for so widely a used term, there does not appear to have a precisely agreed definition.

There can be no doubt that it is causing a shift away from democracy (rule by the people) and toward plutocracy (rule by the rich).

One of the frequently used definitions is that globalisation refers to the growing integration of societies across the world, it has taken many forms and it is difficult to discuss it in a general way.

HERE A FEW ATTEMPTS TO DEFINE IT.

Globalization can be defined as a procedure in which geographic distance is a diminishing factor in the formation and sustentation of international economic, political and cultural relations….

Globalization is “the integration of states through increasing contact, communication and trade to create a holistic, single global system in which the process of change increasingly binds people together in a common fate”

Globalization can be defined as the ability to produce goods or services anywhere in the world using capital, technology and components from anywhere and to sell the output anywhere and place the profits anywhere”

Globalization is a confusing concept. For some it conjures up images of electronic communications: an email, global media, and popularization of mobile phones. For others it is about trade: the ability to buy coca-cola in rural villages in Africa. For yet others it is about misappropriation and greed: the suicide of Indian peasant farmers ruined by agribusiness and genetically modified seeds.

Globalization is the massive control of the world’s economy by big business, this control transcends the boundaries of state and country. This transcendence across countries makes the subunits of the economy decompose and depend on the larger companies with a controlling interest in most of the capital within a given economy.

Globalization with its policies of free trade, financial liberalization, deregulation, reduced government spending, and privatization concentrate wealth at the top to the people who already have it.  These policies affect local governments and communities because they don’t have the tools to “ensure equity and to protect workers, social services, the environment, and sustainable livelihoods.  Also, the institution that were created by globalization, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, increases inequality between nations and increase poverty.

When a policy decision might only advance the extreme nationalist’s nation only slightly, even though it may cause extreme suffering in another part of the world, the extreme nationalist supports it as national interests come first. The extreme cosmopolitan feels that when there is a conflict between national and human needs the needs of humanity come first. This person feels that “patriotism is not a virtue and loyalty to one’s country is valuable only insofar as it promotes the interests of humanity”

Capitalism is not one economic system but many. “There are different ways to organise capitalism. Free-market capitalism is only one of them – and not a very good one at that. There is no one ideal model.” This is clearly right, but the types of capitalism that exist today are not just different. They are also competitors, with conflicting needs and goals. Chinese capitalism, Russian capitalism, Indian capitalism and American capitalism are geopolitical rivals as much as they are different ways of organising the marketplace, and they threaten one another in a number of contexts – not least when they are struggling to secure control of scarce natural resources. Many of the world’s conflicts are driven by these geopolitical rivalries.  The new soldiers in this war are Sovereign Wealth FUNDS.

“The meaning of life: something that no one really knows. Besides, there’s not much point in being the richest man in the cemetery” (Peter Ustinov)

There is only one solution to making the distribution of wealth in this Globalized World so that it is shared by all.  No wealth tax will work because it cannot be applied on a fair and even bases.   So we are left with a global aid commission of 0.05% ON ALL FOREIGN CURRENCY TRANSACTIONS WORLD WIDE  this would be a simple and fair implementation of global opinion.