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Capitalism, Capitalism and Greed, Capitalist World., Distribution of wealth, FOUNDATIONS /FORUM THINK TANKS, Globalization, Greed, Inequility
We do however live in a Capitalist World.
Capitalism is woven into nearly every aspect of our lives, yet it’s rarely subject to substantive conversation.
If we’re to move forward as a society, capitalism needs to be up for serious discussion, honest evaluation and, ultimately, systemic change. Capitalism is often discussed—even dismantled—in academia, but not in terms that make sense to non-specialists.
If there is a problem with capitalism, it is with the greedy few who occasionally foul up the system for the rest of us. The 85 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as today’s “other half”—3.5 billion of the world’s 7 billion humans. Who thinks that’s a fair system? How can it be acceptable that anyone, let alone 2.4 billion people, lives on less than $2 a day?
With more free time, we could build a more robust democracy by engaging with the political issues that affect our lives and organizing more participatory structures to make decisions in our communities. If there’s anything threatening to capitalism, it’s that!
It’s convenient for capitalists to have everyone else thinking they don’t work hard enough and that any ill fortune is their own fault.
How well can capitalism be working when so many say it doesn’t? Capitalism can’t work for everyone. If it did, it wouldn’t be capitalism.”why do we settle for a system that fails so many?
So here is a hypothetical question.
If you were asked to explain Capitalism to an individual who had never experienced or heard of Capitalism what would you say it is.
Here are a few Quotes to get you started then have a look below at what I think.
“As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will there be for virtue? When Nature has been so subjugated that she has lost all her original forms, where will that leave the plastic arts? And so on. In the mean time, things are going to get very murky.” ― Gustave Flaubert
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of thebamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. Thebamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
“Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they’ll have jobs and get enough money to buy things.” ― Philip Slater
“Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself.” ― Chris Hedges, The Death of the Liberal Class
My Thoughts:
In fact, the term capitalist, is a remnant of sloppy, hysterical, anti-commerce, 19th Century thinking that survives to this day.
I guess it all depends on what kind of capitalism we are talking about and the problem with capitalism is that it is rarely practiced in its entirely.
You might say it is a rat race for the worker who must live a life in which there is a real possibility that changes in consumer demand or in technology will eliminate his/her livelihood and in which his/her ability to find a new job is conditioned by his/her “ability to compete”.
There is not a single day that passes that I don’t hear some complaint about the state of capitalism. “What is wrong with capitalism today?” is dependent on who you ask.
Modern market capitalism has shifted recently with the emerging supremacy of money markets and the financial system over the actual trade of goods. The new capitalism” is based on mathematics rather than trade and its currently practiced is simply not sustainable.
We do not have global organizations capable of managing these tension points nor are societies willing to curb growth and consumerism.
Under capitalism insensitivity to human needs has developed. One of the fundamental faults of capitalism is the basic axiom that if everybody tries to accumulate as much property/money as possible the general interest of the people will be served.
For years now I have watched the gradual drift in the minds of the average person from an understanding of our political economic reality and the need for corrective actions.
The reality is fear and greed are part of the human condition and Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
The mass media is becoming more and more an opiate, an aid for living the unexamined life.
The current world tensions are a result of a struggle for spheres of influence and trade—the socialist markets are essential not open to trade from capitalist countries.
So if I were to explain to days Capitalism I would tempted to say that the essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many.
But no economic order to date has so obviously displayed such an enormous productive capacity as has capitalism. However whether it aids the poor in escaping their poverty or abets the forces that perpetrate that poverty is still to be seen as Capitalism is inherently exploitative in that it forces people to be “competitive” rather than “cooperative”.
As long as Capitalism exists, there will always be people who will be rich and those that are too poor. One longs for a kind of economic “peaceable kingdom”; such cannot exist under an economic system in which competition plays such a large role as it does in capitalism. For the most part, capitalism can be viewed as complex system based on inequality and monopoly.
In a true Capitalist market economy, we would not price fix, bail out banks, give subsidies, etc.
Peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.
In what they call the third world we have glittering mansion overlooking a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force. Let nothing interfere with economic growth, even though that growth is castrating truth, poisoning beauty, turning a continent into a shit-heap and riving an entire civilization insane.
The hand that gives is among the hand that takes.
Money has no fatherland, financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain.
Our political problems have deepened with the demise of unions as an effective political force, the continued growth in the belief in the desirability of pyramid economics and class structure (which has been sold by a media controlled by those at the top of the pyramid), and the dependence of our two-party system upon those at the top of the pyramid for funds to cover their election expenses.
Here’s no such thing as a ‘free’ market.
Globalisation isn’t making the world richer.
Poor countries are more entrepreneurial than rich ones.
Higher paid managers don’t produce better results.
We are quickly reaching the tipping point where growth in GDP in any particular country comes at the expense of growth in GDP of another.
What would replace it (capitalism)?
It’s too late to replaced it by any other system and extremely difficult to prompt any-other system but not too late to rectify its glaring weaknesses.
It’s not to late to suggest/generate ideas to create a better society where everybody is properly fed, clothed, and housed; where everyone worked and received a fair return for their work with none receiving too much; where intellectual development for all is encouraged; where businesses are the servant to man; where the production of war materials end; where the ending of all exploitation, including one region by another or one class by another; where and the ending of a press which is controlled by those who make up the ruling class.
To find the world that could exist after capitalism, we must look to the worlds already being created in the countless cracks of capitalist domination.
Switzerland is to debate the introduction of a living income for all its citizen’s rather than a living wage and social welfare. Perhaps the first step in the right direction. In the meantime Capitalism is still alive and well.
All we can do is to keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us.
Today’s economy profitability is important, but there are also a plethora of external and internal factors involved which determine the type of model that exists today.
(See Previous Posts. Create a World Aid Fund by capping Greed/profit with a Commission of 0.05%)
Are we now just beginning to reap the dark side of the Industrial Revolution
17 Friday Oct 2014
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Business and Economy, Climate change, Distribution of wealth, Environment, Globalization, Government, Greed, High - Frequency Trading, Industrial Revolution, Inequility, Sovereign wealth fund, Technology age
The Historiography of the first World War bear witness to destruction and death made possible by the Industrial revolution.
The present day turmoil that we see in the world has its roots created by man during this period.
So has the Industrial Revolution improved life or not? Is the world a better place? A safer place? Do most people have more material wealth than they did two centuries ago? Are we healthier? Are we happier? Is the world more socially and economically just? Is the world headed in the right direction?
It’s not possible to answer all these questions without an in-depth examination of the Industrial Revolution and its effects. There is no definitive answer, other than in short, we cannot hope to understand the modern world without understanding the Industrial Revolution as it resulted in the most profound, far-reaching changes in the history of humanity.
Perhaps it is adequate to say that its influence continues to sweep through our lives today. Just look at the last 250 years of industrialization.
It has altered our lives more than any event or development in the past 12,000 years: in where we live, how we work, what we wear, what we eat, what we do for fun, how we are educated, how long we live and how many children we have.
It greatest failure is that it has not spread wealth evenly across the globe, and the consequences have often been unjust.
For example, to-day in developing countries, where 85% of people in the world live, 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes—that’s one child every five seconds.
It did provided the countries that first adopted it with the technological and economic advantages necessary to eventually rule most of the world. In short, the Industrial Revolution is the “game changer” of modern world history. More than anything else, it’s what makes the modern world, well, “modern.”
But how has it come about that 10% of the world’s wealthiest people controlled 85% of the world’s wealth? Mostly because they were born into wealth that was made during the Industrial revolution.
So what exactly is the Industrial Revolution?
An Industrial Revolution at its core occurs when a society shifts from using tools to make products to using new sources of energy, such as coal, to power machines in factories, oil, electricity. nuclear power.
It began at the end of the 18th century, but it has yet to end.
It has transformed into much more complex global phenomena recently. Multi-national corporations design, build, and assemble products using resources and labor from around the world.
Proponents of the benefits of industrialization point to amazing inventions, technological advances, and increased global wealth. Global GDP per capita—the most common measurement of national wealth—has increased 800% over the past 200 years.
I would say to them that it also developed into a global economic system that seems exploitative and unsustainable, fueling unbridled capitalism that has led to exploitation of the weakest and most vulnerable on a global scale.
Giving Birth to multinational corporations that owe their loyalty not to any nation but to the profit motive.
So what happens in a country when free-market capitalism has no constraints.
The record of the last five thousand years of history clearly suggests that every single preceding civilization has perished, no matter where or how long it has been able to flourish, as a result of its sustained assault on the environment, usually ending in soil loss, flooding, and starvation, and a successive distension of all social strata, usually ending in rebellion, warfare, and dissolution.
They all seem unable to appreciate scale or limits, and in their growth and turgidity were unable maintain balance within or without.
Our Industrial civilization is no different only in that it is now much larger and more powerful than any known before, by geometric differences in all dimensions, and its collapse will be far more extensive and thorough going, far more calamitous.
We are now in the technology age and you might say that The Industrial age is water under the bridge.
No matter how you look at it we are staring down the barrel of a gun with many different bullets. Climate change, Killer virus, World conflicts due to unadulterated Greed/ Rampant Inequality, Technology deserts and disfunctional non resourced World Organisations.
While demand for depleting resources are skyrocketing ,water, clear air and energy. By any biological gauge we moving beyond sustainability.
So is it time to abandon the concept of sustainability? altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure it. If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?
The most important resources that drive current industrialization are finite. If billions of people replicate the same level of consumption, they will hasten? ecological and economical disaster.
So who or what will keep us from creating pollution or exploiting weak, desperate countries?
Who will stop global resource depletion?
Is there any point to the Technology Revolution, other than brain work instead of muscle work, if history is only going to repeating itself.
Now you don’t have to be a raw prawn to know that most of our all-powerful politicians and world organisations live in what I call a reactivate state.
By the time they have called a conference and blabbered on for days it’s too late. Now many times have you witnessed the pathetic sight of the UN and its world Organisations pleading for funds, equipment. Just look at the current Ebola outbreak. Growing the economy at all costs and keeping Wall Street happy seems to be their solution to all or woes.
Here are a few things that could be done.
Restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool.
Share knowledge, share capital, and investments around the world.
Remove the Veto in the United nations and give all nations an equal standing.
Remove Carbon Credits. Set trading admission penalties for pollution.
And Make Greed contribute by,
Place a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over £20,000, and Foreign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This would create a perpetual fund removing the need to beg for funds every time there is a disaster. The funds could replace the World bank, the IMF, Save the Children, fund Conservation, and make enormous inroads into Inequality the scourge of our Technology Age.
For me there has be a greater willingness by our politicians to question conventional measures of economic growth in favor of more sustainable models with a greater emphasis on well-being.
Before you bombard me with all the good things the have come out of the Industrial Revolution I refer you to the title of this post.
Yes we would not have the Internet, Landed on the moon, developed drugs, and invented this and that, but there is no point in relying on all the answers coming from Google than experiencing it in reality.
IF WE DON’T WANT THE LEGACY of the Industrial Revolution to be a divided world due to Inequality we must conquer Greed by harnessing it to contribute to all or there will be nothing left to be greedy about.
.
‘Who Do We Think We Are?’ Nationhood is a Changing.
13 Saturday Sep 2014
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Capitalism, Cultures, Globalization, ISIS, Multiculturalism, Nationalism, Nationality, Nationhood, Scotland
Here we are once again writing about a subject that in this part of the world will be put to the test next week – When Scotland goes to the poll – In or out.
What exactly are the Scots being asked to determining.? Are they being asked as who its citizens are whether modern or traditional, European or non-European.
Or are they having an independent Scotland’s moment, giving concrete form to the tricky question of ‘who are the Scots’?
Or ! If creativity is not grounded in the soul, then reality is reduced only to the quantifiable parameters of markets and money; and with that, politics gets reduced only to the question of whether Scotland will be better or worse off with or without England until the oil runs out.
Now let me say that no writer writes in a vacuum but in this case that is exactly what I am doing because I believe that a nation is a soul of forgotten voices, a spiritual principle.
But in reality nationhood is often defined in terms of commonness of culture, language, history, ethnicity, religion and spirit.
The terms nation, nationhood, nationality seem to have become distant at a time when globalization, multiculturalism, intercultural or cross-cultural communication define the way we live with respect to ourselves, the others and the environment on the whole. This becomes usually more emphatic in times of hardships for a country, especially during foreign invasion.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori once summoned together people of different age and background to defend one’s country and culture.
So lets ask the question.
In the world as we know it to-day what do you think constitutes a nation or nationhood.? ( If your brave enough lets hear your views)
The world today is demarcated by borders according to the positioning of sovereign states of nations. Despite this, this sense of commonness as defined above is hard to maintain in present day society, when social, economic, demographic, technological and other developments take place in an eye shut.
Thus, in the present society a new feeling of commonness appears to define nation, nationality and nationhood. It is the attempt to balance “civic citizenship” against “cultural citizenship”
Nations are not naturally occurring phenomenon and nationalism pursues a behavioral entity of the nation.
Nations are basically fabrications and constructions perceived in the minds of ‘man’. the nation is an ‘imagined political community.
Another words the nation is now an exchange of cultures, and the erasure of borders and boundaries have given way to a globalized world in which all cultures negotiate.
Cohesive elements are provided by language, religion, shared historical experiences, physical congruity and others.
Nations can exist with or without a distinct political identity, that a ‘nation’ is the product and is born out of the birth of ‘Capitalism’,especially ‘print capitalism’ that enables the dissemination, development and spread of the imagination and subjective awareness in raising the feelings of ‘togetherness’,‘belongingness’ and the inclusive ‘we’, in the bond of world consumerism.
This type of cultures have slowly eroded our Western and Eastern culture in an attempt to fused our culture, to give birth to hybrids and mutants.
We need to start by asking the much deeper question of what we think that life is all about. What is a human being? Are we just egos walking about on legs of meat, here today, gone tomorrow?
While many of the broader discussions of globalization and regionalisation convey an air of inevitability, most neither advocate nor address the vexed issues raised by the free flow of people.
What, then, does the Nation or Nationhood mean to ordinary people?
Nationalism’ is a sentiment of loyalty towards the nation, which is shared by people, inherited blinkers of race and religion, what we call ‘loyalty to truth and beauty, justice and freedom or is the project to make the political unit, the state (or polity) congruent with the cultural unit, the nation.
A good example is the Current state of affairs in Syria, Iraq with a violent secessionist movements in the form of ISIS trying to create a Muslim State.
Instead of living in harmony as most imagined nations around the world, this Lot of barbaric wankers want to create a nation with its roots in fear, suspicion and hatred of the other.
While in Europe, North America, Soviet Union and the UK there is a growing backlash against immigration and multiculturalism. Nationalism and its xenophobic correlates continue to flourish to no avail because flows of transnational migration will unseated the nation-state as the dominant form of political organization in the world today due to Inequality and Poverty, and Greed.
To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more – these are the essential conditions for being a people, a Nation. Long live free Scotland.
What Sovereign Wealth Funds Think Now: Its Land.
03 Wednesday Sep 2014
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Capitalism, Climate change, Distribution of wealth, Earth, Environment, Future wars, Globalization, Land and Water, Sovereign Wealth Funds
From the beginning of capitalism the drive for profits has been the major force in dispossession peasant and small-scale farmers from the land and water.
While we are all consumed by our daily lives the armies of our greatest enemy Greed in the form of money never sleeps.
Now there are many ways to acquire land as Mr Putin see it and you might think that he is the greatest current threat with nuclear power.
You would be wrong in my opinion.
In more stressful times, expect these land deals to lead to unrest and lay the groundwork for wars and national boundary or ownership changes. Any nation faced with civil disobedience or unrest, for whatever reason, might be subject to regime changes which might quickly change foreign land ownership policy. Moreover, political instability elsewhere in the region is pushing oil prices up, thereby increasing and guaranteeing the main source of income of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states.
The greatest threat is the Privatization of our world resources for the sake of profit which is in the not so distant future is going to come back to haunt us all.
It is an existential struggle for the future of humanity.
Unless the resources of the earth can be utilized in an equitable and sustainable way, then civilization itself is under threat.
The main threat are called Sovereign Wealth Funds that are currently plundering the world. There are about 52 sovereign investors who collectively manage $5.7 trillion in assets
( I have addressed the problem in past posted if your are interested.)
Here I want to highlight two aspects of their current activities that we should all be made aware of.
The first is Land and water.
Land grabbing is directly intertwined with the growing scarcity of fresh water resources around the world.
More than 463 projects covering 116 million acres, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa were acquired in eight months during 2008-9.
Perhaps the most famous example of such privatization of water was the infamous purchase of Bolivia’s water supply by Bechtel and the Abengoa Corporation of Spain in the late 1990s
If one needed more evidence that financial and political elites were consolidating their ownership of global water resources, one needs look no further than the Guarani Aquifer in Paraguay.
One of the world’s largest fresh water aquifers, Guarani is estimated as being larger than the US states of Texas and California combined. Researchers have calculated that Guarani could provide fresh water for the world’s population for at least 200 years. It is precisely atop this aquifer that George Bush and the Bush family have purchased more than 100,000 acres, though many believe the purchase to in fact be much larger.
If ownership of water and the farmland of a nation doesn’t define a nation tell me what does.
It is difficult to obtain accurate figures for the amount of land in the global South that is under the control of foreign and local private capital as well as foreign sovereign wealth funds.
Sovereign wealth funds–charged with preserving the accumulated fortunes of their home nations–are well known for their opaque, tightly guarded investment decisions.
Sovereign wealth funds hold about $5 trillion in assets globally, and many, are food challenged, such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, South Korea, and China.
With Climate change the rush for agricultural and water gold is in fully flight. Water “the petroleum for the next century” Future agricultural production will be stressed by climate change and competition for remaining oil and water supplies while population numbers grow will become more intensive.
A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace. Not only are the mega-banks investing heavily in water, the multimillionaire tycoons are also buying water.
Unfortunately, the global water and infrastructure-privatization fever is unstoppable:
Here are a few facts that might make you think twice.
There is currently a consolidation of land and resources in ever fewer hands, while the mass of workers and peasants are made dependent on corporations and governments.
Hedge funds, big banks, sovereign wealth funds, are gobbling up the most fertile land around the world, leading many to wonder what the future of food production and land distribution will look like.
By 2020 more that 50 million people will be pushed into poverty because of high food prices, and this speculation will be if not already one of the main causes.
”Today’s emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialized farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds,big banks and Sovereignty Wealth Funds.”
In Australia more than 800,000ha of prime and fertile land, from Moree in the north to Deniliquin in the south, is foreign owned, with Korea’s Ho Myoung Farm company the largest stakeholder with 500,000ha. Hassad Australian, a company wholly owned by the Arab state of Qatar, has acquired 730,000ha of farm land in Australia, including 25,245ha in NSW.
There has been more than $1.5 billion in direct investment in Australian agricultural land over the last three years by GLOBAL fund managers and some of the world’s largest pension funds and of course Sovereign Wealth Funds.
The sovereign state of Qatari are on track to acquire a larger area more than the entire Arab state with plans to spend over $350 million on acquisitions. The Qatari government has leased large amounts of land in Kenya. They also have or are working on deals in Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Sudan, and the Ukraine.
They include: Two Swedish pension funds, Första AP-fonden and the Second Swedish National Pension Fund/AP2; the Dutch pension fund Algemene Pensioen Groep; Danish pension fund Danske; Swiss fund Adveq Real Assets Harvested Resources; Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund; and several from Canada including the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, BNY Mellon, the Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement System, and Quebec’s CDPQ fund, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
As of May 2012, it was estimated that between 32 and 82 million hectares (between approximately 80 and 200 million acres) of global farmland had been brought under foreign control, with the amount constantly increasing.
Top Ten Land Grab Targets and Investor Countries
|
Target Countries |
Investor Countries |
||
|
South Sudan |
4.1 |
United States |
8.0 |
|
Papua New Guinea |
3.9 |
Malaysia |
3.5 |
|
Indonesia |
3.5 |
Arab Emirates |
2.8 |
|
DRC |
2.7 |
UK |
2.1 |
|
Mozambique |
2.2 |
Singapore |
1.9 |
|
Sudan |
2.0 |
China |
1.6 |
|
Liberia |
1.4 |
Saudi Arabia |
1.5 |
|
Argentina |
1.3 |
South Sudan |
1.4 |
|
Sierra Leone |
1.2 |
China, Hong Kong |
1.3 |
|
Madagascar |
1.1 |
India |
1.3 |
It is estimated that the amount of global farmland that has been acquired by foreign entities equals about 198 million acres.
In July 2013 the Colombian ambassador to the United States resigned over his participation in a legally questionable effort to help the U.S. corporation Cargill use shell companies to amass 130,000 acres of land.
Sovereign funds loaded with new capital will continue to pour into real estate and are actively seeking out foreign farmland to purchase.
In this age of global uncertainty in the area of food-producing and wealth preservation, productive farmland around the world has been placed into the spotlight by “guru investors,” wealth management funds, growing mega agri-industries, wealthy sovereign wealth funds.
The Saudi Kingdom is behind a seven-year project of acquiring 1.7 million irrigated rice acres in Senegal and Mali, enough to produce 7 million tonnes of rice. Proposals would allow Saudi business groups to take control of 70% of the rice-growing area of Senegal.
Saudi Arabia has farming interests in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Syria, Turkey and the Ukraine.
South Koreans want to produce rice, corn, sugar, fish, and livestock in the Philippines.
Japan is believed to hold three times the amount of its own farmable land outside of its borders.
Argentina and Brazil have acquired land in Uruguay.
South Korea and Russia agreed to create a $500 million joint fund with their sovereign wealth funds, aimed at increasing cross-border investments in various companies and projects.
Egypt leases land in Uganda to produce rice, wheat and beef.
Nigeria is appealing to the Gulf nations to utilize its land. It has 175 million acres and is only farming half of that. It desires investment in that land, it desires employment opportunities, and it claims that it could provide 100% of the Gulf’s food needs.
Chinese investment in Kazakhstan reached $5 billion by the end of last year, slightly less than 4 percent of the country’s total foreign direct investment. They are buying land in Brazil for soybean cultivation, as part of a $3.4 billion plan to build oilseed and rice production bases overseas including bases for rapeseed in Canada and Australia, palm oil in Malaysia and rice in Cambodia. China is by far the largest investor, buying or leasing twice as much as anyone else.
In January 2012, China Investment Corporation has bought 8.68% stakes in Thames Water, the largest water utility in England, which serves parts of the Greater London area, Thames Valley, and Surrey, among other areas.
Foreign firms have invested in dairies, meat processing, crops and others areas in Serbia and other non-European Union members of the Balkans.
67% of Mideast SWFs plan to allocate more funds to Latin America, while half will do the same to Africa and 60% to India.
In November 2012, One of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), also purchased 9.9% stake in Thames Water.
Food insecure nations such as the Gulf States, China, Japan, South Korea and Western Europe are all interested in increasing their farmland holdings.
Countries need to take control of their agriculture away from international and market forces and support the development of national food sovereignty based on family size farms.
And if all of that is not enough sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East expect to receive more funding this year, providing them with extra financial firepower to raise their investments into emerging markets and asset classes such as private equity and real estate. Slightly Ironically, with instability in the region, the oil prices go up and that gives the governments sometimes a little bit more room to maneuver,” 54% of Middle East SWFs expect an increase in new funding in 2014, higher than the 46% average for all funds.
As much as US$70 billion is up for grabs for global hedge funds looking to raise money in Asia over the next few years.
So the next time you walk into any Sainsbury’s across the UK, remember that Qatar is a major investor.
It owns 20 per cent of the London Stock Exchange and, at the other end of the scale, it owns 20 per cent of Camden market, the biggest grunge emporium in the country. Qatari LNG accounted for 85 per cent of Britain’s liquefied natural gas imports, providing power to homes across the land.
QATAR’S STAKE IN BRITAIN
The tiny Gulf state has snapped up a range of famous British assets, which include:
1. Harrods, the upmarket department store former owned by Mohamed al-Fayed.
2. The Shard, soon-to-be Europe’s tallest building.
3. No 1 Hyde Park, the world’s most expensive block of flats.
4. The London Stock Exchange, which they own a 20 per cent stake.
5. Camden Market, which they own a 20 per cent stake.
6. The Olympic Village, once the games are over.
7. Sainsbury’s and Barclays banks – major investors.
8. Liquefield Natural Gas, Britain’s biggest supplier.
It’s no wonder Scotland wants Independence before the Dragon comes.
The greater their investment, the greater our dependency. The greater the dependency, the greater the risks.
THERE IS GOING TO BE A NEW WORLD ORDER.
31 Sunday Aug 2014
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Distribution of wealth, Earth, Extinction, FOUNDATIONS /FORUM THINK TANKS, Globalization, Inequility, New World Order, Sovereign wealth fund, United Nations, World aid commission, World Bank
WHY?
Not because there are numerous nuttier’s or religions organizations that say so.
But because of power, which is a zero-sum game that takes no account of past or future history.
While the world is choking in the dust of Iraq International agreements are being robbed of their meaning by Russia takeover of Crimea while sitting on the Security Council of the United Nations vetoing all resolutions.
Throughout the twentieth century, the list of the world’s great powers was predictably short: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and northwestern Europe.
Decades of unchallenged supremacy for the United States is now coming to an end. America now has no stomach to get involved in world policing.
China holds over a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves, India’s high-tech sector is growing by leaps and bounds, and both countries, already recognized nuclear powers, are developing blue-water navies.
While the European Union discusses new sanctions on Russia France is selling it Navy War ships, England is welcoming Russian oligarchs money which is permeating the upper reaches of society buying up London Property and football clubs, all before Russia turns off the gas to the European Economy.
You don’t have to look far to see other signs of change.
The Oceans of the world are in a critical state of health.
The death of the Aral Sea has become a never-ending nightmare.
The Arctic — a once pristine wilderness is under siege.
Google had 2,161,530,000 searches.
More than 3 trillion has being wiped off global share prices since the start of January.
Climate change is the biggest single threat.
More than two decades after the Cold War ended, the world’s combined inventory of nuclear warheads remains at a very high level: more than 16,000.
More than a billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. 2.6 billion people, almost half the world’s population doesn’t have access to adequate sanitation services.
More than 130 million children who are under the age of five will still remain malnourished by 2020.
More than 130 million children who are under the age of five will still remain malnourished by 2020.
If current trends continue, by 2050 something on the order of a third or 40% of all species will either have become extinct or will be on the threshold of going extinct.
The Earth has been sending us distress signals and the distress signals have to do with the pressures of human population and the pressures of the human economy on the ecosystems.
Incredibly, the world’s population grew more in the past fifty years than in the preceding 4 million years .Today our numbers have surged to nearly six and half billion and our population is increasing by nearly 80 million people each year – 220,000 each day.
In the face of poverty people will tend to utilize whatever they can to survive.
The State of the World Finances is in disarray.
In the mean time Sovereignty Wealth Funds blunder the earth for profit.
Disregarding the current conflicts there are I am sure hundreds of additional indicators that a New World Order is needed.
We can only hope that Social media is not turning us all into morons blindly asking Google for answers.
We need a new world order that has at its heart the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given;
That understands the requirement for there to be a re orientation of technology the key link between humans and nature.
That understands in broadest sense, the strategy for sustainable development.
That aims to promote harmony among human beings and between humanity and nature.
- a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-making. Democracy as it stands is now a rhetorical device.
- an economic system that is able to generate surpluses and technical knowledge on a self-reliant and sustained basis.
- a social system that provides for solutions for the tensions arising from disharmonious development.
- a production system that respects the obligation to preserve the ecological base for development.
- a technological system that can search continuously for new solutions.
- an international system that fosters sustainable patterns of trade and finance.
- an administrative system that is flexible and has the capacity for self-correction.
- a new United Nations with all participants on equal terms.
- a Cap on Capitalist Greed.
- a watertight ban on trading of arms.
- a transitioning to clean energy.
- a move away from the Production and consumer society which cannot be sustained by the planet.
GOD HELP THE ARCTIC.
27 Wednesday Aug 2014
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Arctic, Climate change, Distribution of wealth, Earth, Future wars, Global warming, Globalization, Inequility, Natural Resources
You would be ever so wrong to think that with all the present problems we have in the world that there could not be another in the melting pot.
The worlds present problems seem all but unsolvable until we learn to share wealth and remove inequalities that plague the earth. ( see previous posts)
For more than 800,000 years, ice reigns over the Arctic Ocean. Forming a layer of reflective protection, sea ice is one of the main earths regulators of our climate and our livelihoods.
Now the melting ice of the Arctic which has the potential to transform global climate and ecosystems as well as global shipping, energy markets, and other commercial interests is at this very moment shaping up to be the next hot spot for conflict.
Arctic permafrost is also melting, changing tundra to wetlands and shrub lands. All of these changes have profound effects on wildlife, and the human communities.
The benefits and pitfalls of the Arctic will have a global impact.
High Arctic sea belongs to no one and should remain the common property of mankind.
Fat chance of this happening.
With oil and gas companies consistently pressure politicians to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling. She is in the cross-hairs of the industrialists who covet her basement rich in oil, one of the dirtiest fuels.
Retreating sea ice is not only restructuring Arctic ecosystems, it is also permitting new industrial access for commercial fishing, offshore energy and commercial shipping on a scale never seen before.
Five countries are already seeking to annex territory that until now were under the authority of any state.
If tomorrow they come to an end, there would be only 9% of open water across the Arctic!
In addition, riparian countries are mobilizing their military capabilities on site, which could threaten peace in the region.
In preserving the Arctic, it is ourselves that we preserve.
In September 2012, the Arctic Ocean ice pack shrank to its lowest extent on record—49 percent below the average over the past 35 years.
The problems to come can only be addressed through a deep horizontal and vertical effort, in order to preserve the sustainability of the Arctic.
We should all be seeking an Arctic region that is stable and free of conflict.
Where all nations act responsibly in a spirit of trust and cooperation, and where economic and energy resources which are going to be developed are done so in a sustainable manner that also respects the fragile environment and the interests and cultures of indigenous people.
It’s rather remorse that Bill Gates is investing millions in the doomsday seed vault in Svalbard. A barren piece of rock claimed by Norway and ceded in 1925 by international treaty which is 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole in the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean.
Since early in 2007 Monsanto holds world patent rights together with the United States Government for plant so-called ‘Terminator’ or Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT).
Terminator is an ominous technology by which a patented commercial seed commits ‘suicide’ after one harvest. Control by private seed companies is total.
Such control and power over the food chain has never existed before in the history of mankind existed.
I diverse, back to the subject.
The EU’s primary interest in the region is economic, as 90% of its trade happens via maritime routes.
Green Peace is currently looking for 6 million signatures to lobby the United Nations to pass a resolution to Declare Arctic international waters “preserved natural area. ( See Their Web Site)
As they say ” the common and immutable commitment to preserving the planet we leave to our children. This desire transcends all boundaries and makes us stronger than all the armies or petrodollars.” “We will send a clear message to world peace and respect for the planet depend on the preservation of the Arctic.”
“We will resound loudly our appeal to political leaders around the world and when we are millions to stand together, we will ask the UN to adopt a global treaty to protect the Arctic Nations”
“We want to create a” natural preservation zone “around the North Pole, and banning destructive industries in the Arctic.
THE PETITION now has more than 5 million signatures!
BEFORE IT TOO LATE SIGN UP . I SUPPORT IT.
FOR IT TO WORK IT MUST BE ADOPTED ALONGSIDE A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05%. ON ALL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS OVER $20,000, ON ALL HIGH FREQUENCY STOCK EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS AND ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACQUISITIONS. ( see previous posts)
NO FUNDS NO FREE ARCTIC.
HERE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST QUESTIONS OF OUR TIME.
23 Saturday Aug 2014
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Big Data, Business and Economy, Community cohesion, Distribution of wealth, FOUNDATIONS /FORUM THINK TANKS, Globalization, Government
Some time ago I posted:
Big Data is leading us to Cultural De-Acceleration.
We are becoming increasingly “digitized.”
When you ask somebody from the industry, “What is Big Data?” they will usually reply that this describes the challenge that companies that collect and analyse the high volumes of Internet data face. This “big data” technically refers to the specialized tools required to store and analyse.
However, this response says very little about the significance of today’s digital revolution.
When the Sloan Digital Sky Survey started in 2000, its telescope collected more data in its first week than has been amasses in the entire history of astronomy.
Wall-Mart in the USA handles more than 1 million customers transactions every hour, feeding its databases with 2.5 petabytes- the equivalent of 167 times the books in the America’s Library of Congress.
Facebook has over 40 million photos and God only knows what Google is up to.
The point is that the world now contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is growing bigger and more rapidly.
In recent years Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and there like have spent $15 billion buying up software companies specializing in data management and analytics.
Data has become the new raw material of big business.
The trail of clicks is valuable and can be sold and you would indeed be an idiot to think that it is having no effect on your life.
The way that information is managed touches all areas of life.
What is true now is that more of our lives and activities are being stored digitally.
Like any technology, knowledge can be used for social good or to make things worse for people. Digital monopolies will wield considerable power.
There is likely to be a power imbalance if this kind of new capability of “knowing” is not well-handled by society.
There is no reason to think that the changes we are witnessing today will be any less disruptive than the Industrial Revolution.
We’re going to end up reinventing what it means to have a human society.
Who you actually are is now determined by where you spend time and which things you buy.
Big data is increasingly about real behavior and by analyzing this sort of data, scientists can tell an enormous amount about you. They can tell whether you are the sort of person who will pay back loans. They can tell you if you’re likely to get diabetes.
I am not a Edward Snowden.
If we handled Big data correctly it will bring massive benefits to us all – to our cities, to our environment, to our health, to almost everything.
Yet we also need a system that is flexible and adaptable enough to allow for bright ideas and social, business, and research entrepreneurship to build a better future, i.e. without getting tangled up in unthinkingly risk-averse bureaucracy and red tape. Without the rich getting richer and the poor living in a desert of ignorance.
We want to ensure that there is a high trust system for data sharing, not one that mitigates many of the risks.
We need to think of solutions that are sound and strong, but not brittle.
What kinds of principles and solutions are they?
There are many problems to be resolved.
Who owns, controls, or has decision rights about data? Is it the collector of the data? Certainly they may have a financial interest.
The person who the data is about?
They certainly have an interest.
In order to reap the benefits of the data revolution, it is clear that existing databases will be re-used and new databases will be created.
But then, who owns the resulting data? The re-user?
Will they be owned by the entity disclosing or collecting the data, or will they be open by default?
What about collective ownership of data, such as IWI data?
How are intellectual property rights arrived at from the data managed?
Who has decision rights over data? The collector? Provider (if different)? The person or entity that the data is about? If there is a data commons, who makes decisions.
Who is the data custodian and what are their obligations?
Who will look after the (newly created) databases?
For instance, who is responsible for the processing and storage of the data?
Where and how will data be stored, and for how long?
Who will provide safeguards for data quality and data accuracy?
Who is accountable when data gets stolen?
Who will have the authority to decide on those data access rights?
What happens to data if the custodian gets liquidated or sold off (to another
business overseas)?
Can the liquidator on-sell the data to pay off creditors?
How do we protect the digital rights?.
We are living in a pluralistic society with differences in cultural backgrounds and value perspectives,which are spread all over the world and exposed to different cultures. These cultural differences influence our privacy perceptions and the types of data we are willing to share.
How could we maintain our cultural diversity and be an inclusive society in which the digital rights of ever one are protected?
What will be the social contract for a data-driven future?
The value of data no longer resides solely in its primary purpose. Value also resides in the re-use of data.
What do you give consent to when we cannot even imagine what possible future value that data may have?
Most data re-uses haven’t been imagined when the data is first shared, which raises the question of how individuals can give informed consent to an unknown.
Do individuals need to opt-in to an open-ended, multi-purpose arrangement?
Or are there perhaps other possible arrangements for informed consent we might be able to create?
Do children have digital rights to consent before a certain age?
What about you, and your family’s, rights when you die? Do we need digital wills?
Do we need the ability as individuals to opt out in the digital age, similar to how we can decide to opt out of target marketing campaigns of telemarketers?
Do we have a right to revoke our consent with the use of our personal data? How could this be arranged?
Will the digital footprints and breadcrumbs you have left earlier in your digital life, such as the public posting of sensitive pictures, haunt you for the rest of your life or even beyond?
How do we ensure the best outcome in a global environment where digital data crosses borders?
The Internet has, with a few notable exceptions, no borders and the digital world is truly global.
There are major questions, even on a domestic scale about the provenance and ownership of data, but these are amplified when global sharing is considered.
There are times when governments do not want your consent.
This is obvious in cases like policing and protecting children from child abuse.
There is no need to protect the privacy of some individuals.
But there are more challenging cases.
What if we could use personal health data to do research, to save lives?
What about when governments and insurance companies want to use shared data to manage their own interests?
Perhaps there is a life-threatening medical condition that a small number of people have. We want to profile them and compare them to others without the condition. But nobody wanted to opt in to share their data, though the risk to their privacy is small.
When do your interests in privacy outweigh other people’s interests or the collective interest? To track pandemic outbreaks. Who would give emergency consent to open all personal data to help stop the spread of this deadly disease?
Big data is big business for the criminal fraternity too who are adapting well to our digital future. Identity theft is increasingly common.
Like most things in this world the management of Big Data it is beyond control.
Along with Science and technology Big Data is out running our Morality.
There are a host of challenges and tensions for any society that wants
to play in this space; the sorts of challenges that we need to consider when people come asking to have and link up your data.
Challenges to safety from theft, bullying, or persecution; challenges to your autonomy and choice; challenges to freedom from interference from well-meaning (or otherwise) businesses and governments.
What can we do about it? You tell Me.
SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS -Not a matter of minor concern.
20 Wednesday Aug 2014
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Its back to Sovereign Wealth Funds and what they have being up to recently.
Shining a light behind their closed doors isn’t easy. Seldom mentioned in any Political or economical discourse these Funds will be the Jihad of our times.
Although sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been around for decades, it was not until the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 that they truly garnered recognition as major players in the investment market.
With vastly different political, economic, and investment philosophies States/Countries are starting using their populations’ collective wealth to do more than simply investing with hopes of compelling returns.
When they invest in the infrastructure or some other critical industry of another country, for example, people are left to wonder what the real motivation might be.
Guided by the interests of the state rather than those of international business community they are gobbling up what is left of the worlds assets/resources.
With a mind-boggling $6 trillion of assets, (Sovereign wealth funds–charged with preserving the accumulated fortunes of their home nations–are well known for their opaque, tightly guarded investment decisions) an amount on par with the collective economic output of Germany and the U.K. combined.
The 10 largest funds account for 80 percent of that wealth.
The value of global direct deals by sovereign-wealth funds hit $50.02 billion in the first half of 2014.
This was a 23.1% increase on comparable transactions in the first half of last year, and up from roughly $35 billion put to work in the first half of 2012.
The largest deal struck by a sovereign-wealth fund in the first half of 2014 was Singapore’s Temasek Holdings ‘ $5.7 billion purchase of a 25% stake in A.S. Watson Holdings, a health and beauty retailer.
The financial sector was the most attractive for sovereign-wealth funds. A total of $12.9 billion was put to work in direct deals in the sector.
The rise in direct deals by sovereign-wealth funds comes as large, sophisticated investors seek to bypass fees charged by fund managers.
In December, the former co-head of private equity at European firm Doughty Hanson joined the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In February, Pascal Heberling, a 12-year veteran of European private equity firm Cinven, joined the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to find direct investment opportunities.
Russia, for example, where tensions with the U.S. and European Union have continued to escalate. Political instability, exactly what sovereign investors like and don’t like, is affording more and more investment opportunities.
These funds’ potential influence is unquestionable.
Though countries all over the globe have sovereign investment funds, East Asian and the Middle Eastern funds make up 72 percent of total sovereign assets under active management.
As of 2012, Norway’s fund owned more than $4 billion worth of stock each in Apple, HSBC, Nestle, Royal Dutch Shell. That same year, China Investment Corp., – the world’s fourth largest fund – bought a 10 percent stake in Heathrow Airport Holdings. The $773 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Fund (world rank: #2), invested $7.5 billion in Citigroup in 2007, which helped the bank to recover from mortgage losses. Temasek Holdings’ assets are worth the equivalent of 10 percent of the Singaporean economy and include majority stakes in both the national telecommunications provider and Singapore Airlines. The Qatari Investment Authority is reportedly considering using some of its $170 billion to build infrastructure in India. International reserves have grown 1,300 percent in non-Japan Asia since 2000 and by 900 percent in the Middle East and Africa.
For a majority of those countries surpluses are due to commodity exports, such as oil in the Gulf states or copper in Chile. In other countries, such as China, high domestic savings rates and low levels of consumption created the surplus.
On the other hand countries like the United States have accumulated large fiscal deficits.
Is there any particular type of investment that these funds favor?
It’s true that most countries’ funds focus on foreign investments, but an increasing number do deploy their wealth primarily at home.
Among the large funds, domestic deals are especially pronounced in three countries: the UAE, Singapore, and Malaysia, where they make up well over 50 percent of total investments. In each case, the host country has established an investment vehicle whose principal purpose is to effectively oversee the management of state assets, including privatization, and to invest in strategic sectors of the domestic economy.
Roughly 40 new sovereign wealth funds that have emerged since 2000, almost 80 percent in emerging-market countries.
A growing proportion of investments are likely to be in real estate, infrastructure and private equity.
They tend to operate like holding companies and have greater access to international capital than the state-owned companies would on their own.
Many Westerners worry that SWF investments would permit foreign executives to sit on corporate boards — and advance their state objectives that as government-operated investment funds.
Much remains to be understood about their processes and activities.
One famous example is Dubai Ports World, which in 2006 wanted to invest in ports in the United States. There was tremendous concern that they could use their investments to influence shipping routes. Dubai Ports World eventually sold the American assets it had acquired to AIG.
As to the question of how will the funds be used in the future?
They are increasingly being tapped to provide financing for domestic investments, including to help close infrastructure gaps.
A large influx of money can strain domestic resources and create opportunities for official corruption.
This opens up some potential opportunities but also a number of serious risks, including undermining hard-earned efforts to sustain macroeconomic stability and becoming a vehicle for politically driven “investments” that fail to add to national wealth.
However, the global payment imbalances that have been a driving force for sovereign wealth funds are decreasing. In China, for example, the government is encouraging a shift from an export-driven economy to a consumer-driven one, which would tend to drive down the balance-of-payments surplus. At the same time, fiscal and external deficits are declining in the U.S.
So sovereign wealth funds will continue to grow, but at a slower pace than we have seen in the past decade, however these funds will continue to grow, and so will their influence. Sovereign wealth funds are in a position to invest in large infrastructure projects that are in great demand and face sizable financing needs.
While their investment goals and strategies vary widely, countries will have to be careful to account for this increased investment within their own budgetary framework to counter these pressures. Keep in mind, too, Many of these countries do have great need for more domestic infrastructure investment. But there are limitations, such as domestic absorptive constraints. And frankly, there are sometimes governance issues that could result in the misuse of vast resources.
However, many of these countries are still developing their intellectual and legal infrastructure. When a fund chooses an overseas private equity fund to invest with, for example, they’ll obviously look at performance and risk metrics, but they’ll also look at how willing that private equity fund is to transfer its knowledge.
Before it’s too late and we all end up Privatized these funds must be regulated so they cannot own more than 20% of any Investment.
If not, in the not so distant future we will find that everything our Taxes have paid to provide will end up in the hands of Profiteers.
TO UNDERSTAND SOMETHING IS TO BE LIBERATED FROM IT.
16 Saturday Aug 2014
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Business and Economy, Capitalism, Distribution of wealth, Foreign Exchange Transactions, Globalization, Government, High - Frequency Trading, Inequility, Liberation, New Thinking, Our world problems, Sovereign wealth fund
We have moved from basically a relative empty world to a relative world full of our stuff, full of man-made capital.
Our inability to grasp the new world is creating a vast vapidity and we are going to pay the price sooner than later.
With millions of people going to bed without food the age of decadence is coming to an end to be replaced hopefully by an age where money and wealth has to be shared.
The trickle down system does not work. Why! because by the time the money reaches the poor it is worth nothing.
Our so-called Capitalism of to-day that operates under a neoclassical school of economics rains supreme at the moment. Why! because it is backed by a legal system that legalizes it. However it will eventually fail because Greed is systemic within its core.
This is blatantly evident when we look at our Governments who are beholding onto corporate interests that will never serve the people. It is also evident went we look at our Banking systems, which create money from nothing and then lends it at interest. ( 97% of money is debt.) Debt is a form of slavery.
There can be also little argument that our Governments with the help of Milton Freeman, Ronald Regan, and hand bagging bashing Maggie Thatcher are now just clearing houses for the rich lobbyists that are concerns with the rich.
All three of them helped to created an Economic system that is based on what is not reality.
A dog eat dog society. Where Socially failure consumerism is now only to look good in other people eyes.
Where contrived wars on terror are promoting democracy at the point of a gun to be fought out in foreign countries and then presented to us by corporate owned media so that don’t have to experience the resulting destruction and death on our own door steps.
We have to change such veracious structure that has produced Institutions such as Goldman Sachs ( The biggest Bank robbers that pulled off the biggest hoist in the modern world: The big short with total impunity)
The more we grow the more poverty we create.
Our out dated competitive mentality will have devastating consequences. We must move from globalization back to localization. It is our relations with other people is what make us really happy re humanism our lives. As Tyler Durden said ” The thinks that you own end up owing you.”
Making your own life does not work you must have attachment out side yourself.
Internet enlightenment will play a big role in the future. The large cesspool of porn which debases us all on the internet will have to be removed. It is no wonder that Muslim fraternity consider the west full of unclean gentiles.
Passing the buck has to stop.
To improve things what we are being taught in university we will have to learn how to oppose in a constructive way, not on twitter or face book, or social media but by a collective world voice, that will have to be listen too.
Before the exhaustion of the world resources we would do well to return to Adam Smith economics to avoid morality socialism for the rich which is reflected by Scramble now the blood policy of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
The tax system is duking the world. We need a new form of capitalism where employer owned companies.
We must rise up and change the market.
What is created by human can be changed. Human beings go mad in crows and come to their senses as individuals.
Every drone kill produces five hundred so-called terrorists.
The monetary system to the world will have to be reformed.
Aid never goes to the people it goes to constructions companies and consultants on infrastructure, not the people.
So lets start by introducing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( Over $20,000) on all High frequency stock exchange transactions and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. Such a Commission would produce a perpetual fund of trillions to redistribute wealth around the world where needed. ( See previous postings)
LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE ASKING ?
14 Thursday Aug 2014
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Distribution of wealth, Earth, Environment, Extreme poverty, Freedom, G8, Globalization, Government, Greed, Inequility, Sovereign wealth fund, United Nations, World Bank
Where do the problems of modern existence lie?
WHEN YOU LOOK AROUND THE WORLD CAN ANY OF US HONESTLY SAY WE HAVE WON THE BATTLE FOR LIBERTY ?
It seemed to me that these days the enemies of our collective flourishing are more likely to lie in the troubles of unrestrained corporate and individual appetites and the unlimited pressure to generate immediate profit without regard for human and earthly costs.
Another words the fundamental problem facing us all is Inequality of Education, Health, Wealth, combined with unequal control over assets. These include natural resources such as land, water, minerals and other fruits of nature, as well as produced productive and financial assets.
Things have reached such a pass that incremental measures are not likely to be enough: “trans-formative changes” are required, with the ultimate aim of zero discrimination.
So measures to reduce inequality have to be part of a wider economic and social policy framework to control financial activity and direct it towards socially desired goals. ( These include natural resources such as land, water, minerals and other fruits of nature, as well as produced productive and financial assets.)
Even business leaders in Davos recently identified Inequality as one of the biggest threats to the world.
But what have we got? Sovereignty Wealth Funds buying up the lot.
For hundreds of years now, humans have tended to believe that the best sort of government is one which leaves its citizens maximally ‘free’.
We’ve all come to associate good government directly and complicatedly with the promotion of ‘freedom’: freedom to worship as one pleases, to publish what one wants, to dress as one likes, to love whomever one desires.
In the meantime, those who have opposed ‘freedom’ have been presented in horrifying terms: They have been the wicked priests, the murderous Communists, demented Nazis, and Terrorists.
The painful fact is that the pursuit of what matters to us in the long-term and collectively may at times be in sharp conflict with our short-term and individual pleasures.
Promoting freedom above all other values may now be turning out to be deeply unhelpful to the long-term and collective interests of a nation and the earth as a whole.
It has grown too easy for corrupt and venal organisations to operate under the banner of ‘freedom’ in order to get away with activities that covertly run sharply counter to the public good.
Freedom is evidently not a virtue when it involves the freedom of bankers to offload ruinous financial instruments on an uneducated public, just as censorship – that bogeyman of contemporary politics – is evidently far from a vice when it prevents corporations from pushing alcohol on children or denying affordable housing to the poor.
Freedom is not a baseless word, but it is in general simply too vague, ambiguous and emotive a term to guide policy or to be an ideal around which a nation or people can reasonably cohere.
Instead of being in favor of ever falling prices for consumer goods, government should promote the notion of a just price, a floor for prices reflecting the cost of humane and decent employment and production. To get all of us into the habit of paying the just price: a price that would allow high quality goods attuned to genuine needs to be put together by workers employed at an adequate wage.
Government is the institutionalization of our long-term and collective interests. It is not ultimately responsible just for freedom, but its highest calling is to act as the guardian of long-term collective prosperity of all its citizens.
The governments of the future will have to accept that two idiots cannot remove one genius. They will have to measured and in skillful ways constantly step in to say ‘no’ to certain vested interests, without this in any way meaning that it is systematically anti-capitalist.
So what am I saying here?
Although we bridle at folk memories of police states Governments of the future with greater intelligence and democratic accountability will have to often be interested in restricting freedom.
Freedom = good/restriction = bad, has blinded us to a vital nuance with a grave potential to derail and corrupt public life:
An others words there will have to be a more important and ambitious view of what government is for than merely freedom. We are all threatened by aggressive and uncontrolled commercial interests determined to quash our peace of mind and confuse us about our real needs and we’ve overlooked that there are better and worse kinds of freedom.
The first step in the right direction is to cap Greed. ( See Previous Postings)
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