Most of us sit in front of our TV sets and watch the devastation of Fire’s, Hurricanes, Floods, Droughts, Heatwaves, Bleaching coral reefs, Ice Melting, Nature destruction, and forget about it in the morning.
THE SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IS IN FACT JUST A CLICK OF A BUTTON AWAY.
You would think that by now we should all be waking up to climate change and instead of blaming everything, realise that the hard fact is that the chemistry of climate change cannot be changed no matter what action we or the world does.
What we have done and now do in life echos in climate changer. On a human scale, inequality and climate change are going to mess together so the blame games will achieve nothing.
Climate activists will achieve nothing except resentment.
The Paris Climate promises are achieving little or nothing.
As they turn climate change into profit, technological fixes or geoengineering will not stop it.
Unfortunately: IT TAKES YEARS FOR TREES TO GROW AND OVERALL HUMAN HISTORY WE ARE INCAPABLE OF ACTING AS ONE.
It’s becoming plain that not only are we affecting the other living things with which we share the planet, we’re also altering the physical systems of the planet itself.
In every respect, the world we inhabit will henceforth be the world we have made.
We can’t keep using the atmosphere as a free waste dump for carbon and expect to have a safe climate no matter what. Many aspects of climate change and associated impacts will continue for centuries, even if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are stopped.
When we insert ourselves so deeply into the workings of a planet, we are unlikely to be able to predict all of the consequences of our actions.
If you take seriously the amount of harm that unchecked global warming will cause, if you recognize that these harms will fall disproportionately on the global poor, if you acknowledge that these populations are not only the least equipped economically to cope with climate change but are also the least implicated in the rise of greenhouse gases in the first place, and if you concede the undeniable reality that conventional strategies for reducing the harms of climate change are not being implemented quickly enough, then there seems to be a strong moral case for doing something dramatic.
THE INEVITABLE REALITY IS AS NO ONE IS WILLING TO PAY AND THERE CAN BE NO SOLUTION WITHOUT TRILLIONS.
However, rest assured;
BY THE TIME WE HAVE MILLIONS OF CLIMATE REFUGEES LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WILL BE DISRUPTED BEYOND REPAIR.
It is already shaking up social, health and geopolitical balances in many parts of the world. The scarcity of resources like food and energy gives rise to new conflicts.
CLIMATE CHANGE CANNOT BE HALTED BY PUTTING SOLAR PANELS ON ONE HOUSE AT A TIME OR PLANTING A TREE, OR DRIVING ELECTRICAL CARS, OR EATING LESS MEAT, OR REDUCING OUR OVERCONSUMPTION/POPULATION OR BY US AS INDIVIDUALS- ONLY SLOWED.
SO HERE IS A SOLUTION TO CONSIDER. BEFORE WE ARE GENETICALLY ENGINEER INTO PRODUCTS.
WHY NOT MAKE PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE GENERATE A SELF PERPETUATING FUND OF TRILLIONS TO REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS WORLDWIDE.
THIS CAN BE ACHIEVED WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON BY APPLYING A 0.005% WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL HIGHT FREQUENCY TRADING, ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACCUSATIONS, ON ALL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS OVER $50,000, ON ALL WORLD LOTTOS AND GAMBLING WINS, ON ALL PROFITSEEKING ALGORITHMS, ON ALL PRODUCTS CONTAINING PALM OIL.
WITH THIS FINANCIAL CLOUT WE COULD TRANSFER WORLD ENERGY TO GREEN ENEGERY, CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS WORLDWIDE REDUCING INEQUALITY, BOOST OUR ECONOMIES AND REVERS THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE DAMAGE.
I believe that humans have the ability as a species to change this planet for the better I just hope we can achieve that before it is too late.
All human comments and suggestions appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
I AM SURE LIKE ME YOU CAN RATTLE OFF HUNDREDS OF REASONS.
But the world is that what humans have made out of it.
Five centuries of European colonialism and global culture-trashing, and the remaking of the world in the economic interests of competing empires, cannot be undone by a single institution and a cluster of lofty ideals.
The world, as it now exists, was largely shaped by the colonial powers, which divided the world among themselves, carving out states without any consideration for existing ethnic, religious or cultural realities.
And after the colonial era collapsed, these carved-out political entities, defining swatches of territory without any history of national identity, suddenly became the Third World and floundered in disarray.
It was inevitable that to keep these artificial countries alive, and avoid their disintegration, strongmen would be needed to cover the void left by the colonial powers. The rules of democracy were used only to reach power, with very few exceptions.
Values and ideas which were considered universal, such as cooperation, mutual aid, international social justice and peace as an encompassing paradigm are also becoming irrelevant.
Whatever noble attempts at eliminating war the powers that be made in the wake of World War II — Europe’s near self-annihilation — didn’t cut nearly deep enough.
These attempts didn’t set about undoing five centuries of colonial conquest and genocide. They didn’t cut deeper than national interest. If something grows too big, then it destroys itself from the inside.
The existing problem with the EU as shown by the recent English Referendum. Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests.
But why is it like this? Why are humans using their capacity of higher intelligence so negatively?
Perhaps it is because the human race in its state of development and as a whole, is still nearer to the animal behavior than to advanced capabilities.
Just look at the choice of the next President of the USA governed by Money.
The problem with the United Nations is that it’s a unity of entities defined by their hatred of one another and committed to the perpetuation of “the scourge of war.
Is it because Capitalism has not taken care of our fellow human beings?
We have become consumer and have lost the instinct to take care of our fellow human beings?
There is one part of the population who have overweight and are sick because of too much food and an other part who are starving to death, often living one beside the other.
Just look at the current refugee crises.
Instead of setting up properly manned entry points we allow people smugglers to pray on the vulnerable, close borders, and watch people drowning. A sure recipe for terrorism.
How can we find a way out of the mess?
Obviously religious and spiritual rules made up by humans doesn’t protect humanity from being distinguished.
Our ” way of life” our behavior, our goals and values are making is blind, are confusing us and driving us more and more into disease and depression.
There are people calling for a solution.
They are expecting help from their authorities, they expect to be healed by doctors or they ask for help and solutions from their government. What an illusion!
As long as they are dependent and not capable to look through the game of this world, they will not be able to make decisions for themselves. They will stay in dependency, manipulated from the more clever…
There’s always money to wage war and build weapons.
The recent Vote by 300 odd English MP to renew Trident.
The contractors are adept at playing the game. Jobs link arms with fear and patriotism and the next war is always inevitable. And it’s always necessary, because we’ve created a world of perpetual — and well-armed — instability.
While on the other hand we have out of date world organisations that beg for funds.
We won’t begin creating global peace until we learn how to bypass nationalism and the single, unacknowledged agreement binding nation-states to each other: the inevitability of war.
We are left with the two greatest international enemies – the environment and the global economy – unfortunately we are so selfish – so naive – we do not want to face the reality of what we have done to the planet and each other in the name of progress. We are in denial. We are addicted to antisocial behavior – propelled by fear.
All our problems are as a result of our moral and ethical collapse and only finding and using a simple international moral and social code of love and cooperation will enable us to survive and save us from ourselves. We are not talking about religion here. Morality and ethics existed before religion and it is that version of them that we want and need.
We can accept that one can be proud of one’s country and support its activities and ideals without feeling the need to bomb or subvert the country next door. The only people who would seriously disagree are psychotics and psychopaths or their minions. For example, governments.
To allude to globalisation is idiotic without capping Greed and reversing Inequality.
We now live in a world of technologically based society. Information is power and money. This is why we are all being Googlefied, Twittered to feed the Internet of Everything.
We only can expect that help will show up, when we start to help ourselves!
As the human race keeps on making steps in technology & science, the Smart Phone is the Pandora box of the future. Re shaping the World.
Science has made huge steps, society has not.
Society is crucial to the well-being of all of us.We need to open the doors to new exciting boundaries.
To achieve any of the above needs funding by placing a world aid commission of 0.05% on all activities that are for profit sake only.
On all High frequency trading, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over 20,000 dollars, on all Sovereign wealth funds acquisitions. on all Lotto wins over a 1 million.
This would create a perpetual fund from Capitalism greed to address the world’s inequality.
It is easy to be cynical about United Nations or for that matter about any World Organisation.
But the Secretary-General announced the first World Humanitarian Summit will be held in early 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey takes the biscuit.
The world is facing an unprecedented displacement crisis. Today, more than 60 million people are forcibly displaced as a result of violent conflicts and natural disasters.
Turkey has as we know just done a deal with the European Union for Visa to hold fleeing Refugees from War zones so they can’t get into Europe.
As a leading humanitarian donor and key policy-setter, the European Union will play a major role at the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.
The purpose of the summit is to set a forward-looking agenda for humanitarian action to collectively address future humanitarian challenges. The aim is to build a more inclusive and diverse humanitarian system committed to humanitarian principles.
It’s been almost 25 years since the last time the world came together to discuss humanitarian aid.
The European Commission provides humanitarian funding worldwide to over 200 partner organisations which implement relief actions on the ground. These include non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations and United Nations agencies.
Reshaping aid at the World Humanitarian Summit to my mind seems sum what a joke and more of a NGOs nice gathering as those attending are only required to give commitments.
Nobody respects the rules of war, or is willing to sacrifice their young to prevent and end conflict.
Leaving no one behind, and working differently to end need, do indeed require investment in Humanity. As always there is no aspiration as to how to raise the billions required to battle these inequalities.
Like the Paris Summit on Climate Change this meeting is all about hot air, with promises that will be broken as soon as they are made.
This is not the United Nations fault but if anything worthwhile comes out of the first World Humanitarian Summit it should be the reform of itself under the last two heading on the Agenda.
Its time to understand that the interconnected world we all live in is primarily driven by self-interest and corrupt gains.
For example:
Mr Cameron is presently holding a conference on corruption. He has totally forgotten that England’s wealth was obtained by an Empire that dealt in Slavery. Plundered the world and recently had some of its elected MP fiddling expenses. Not to mention bailing out its banks with billions of taxpayers funds and is currently trying to sell bank shares back to the taxpayer how already owns them. And is now in the process of destabilizing the EU for the sake of Profit not Sovereignty.
The only way we can solve more complex innovation challenges is by tapping the global community.
The belief that anything in life is just a problem waiting to be solved, usually with the right technology fix seems to be all the rage other than watching Money electing the next USA president we are develop inequalities to represent real world situations and use them to solve problems.
There is only one commitment needed to place a World Aid Commission on all Activities that exist to generate Profit for profit sake. ( See previous posts) The cost of the refugees world crises in 2016 is 25 billion.
Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart.
It’s only right that I follow the last series of posts on what is Wrong with a post that asks the above question.
BECAUSE ITS MONEY THAT IS AT THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM.
I guess the answer to the question “What is wrong with capitalism today?” is dependent on who you ask.
Capitalism works for capitalists.
The Problem is 90 percent of us are not capitalists, we are employees.
Without us noticing, we are entering the post capitalist era.
We need to reexamine the models that have gotten us to this point.
Complete change will not happen overnight. Nor will it be built on the back of one investor or one innovative entrepreneur.
It will be something that business owners, investors, political leaders, consumers and entrepreneurs must all work together toward.
Currently, our planet is on track to fly past the 2 degrees Celsius warming that scientist have repeatedly warned marks the safe range for humans on this planet, but at the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy.
The old ways will take a long while to disappear but millions of people are beginning to realise they have been sold a dream at odds with what reality can deliver.
The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phoney and fragile as East Germany did 30 years ago.
Why should we not form a picture of the ideal life, built out of abundant information, non-hierarchical work and the dissociation of work from wages?
So are we witnessing the first stage of an economy beyond capitalism?
Is technology creating a new route out or is it consolidating power into the hands of a few like Google, Microsoft and Apple?
Will its future be shaped by the emergence of a new kind of human being, reshaping the economy around new values and behaviours?
Will Capitalism as we know it be abolished by creating something more dynamic that exists, at first, almost unseen within the old system, but which will break through because of what Information technology has brought about in the past 25 years.
It is blurring the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wages?
Or is the current wave of automation, currently stalled because our social infrastructure cannot bear the consequences, will hugely diminish the amount of work needed – not just to subsist but to provide a decent life for all.
These are all questions to be answered before we see what I call post capitalism.
The Questions are numerous, and there have been hundreds of books, papers, and talks on the subject few however with any positive suggestions.
Before I put the only suggestion that is viable lets start with what is wrong with the present state of Capitalism.
Here is way I see what is wrong;
Today capitalism isn’t about real markets and commodities with the price mechanism being fixed by competing supply and demand, now today it is about casino economics. You throw the dice and when you loose … all that global connectivity means you lose globally. We are all in this together – that is why we call it a global economy – oh apart from the 0.1% – they are the ones throwing the dice. We are just the ones picking up the tab when the bets don’t come off.
Although economics likes to think of itself as a science in reality it ignores the fundamental laws that govern science – the first two laws of thermodynamics. This isn’t a smart thing to do. There actually are limits to growth.
They told us wealth creation was a trickle down theory but in reality it is a trickle up theory. The rich really do get richer and richer and it is not down to merit. The question is what is going to stop them: war or politics?
The big problem is humans are human, both doing bad things and good things. Capitalism only works if enough of us do the right thing.
The price mechanism is faulty unless it includes the environmental cost now and in the future of our consumption. This it doesn’t done at present and we are free-loading off nature.
Often we think it is the only way to do things. It is not the only way to even do capitalism! Alternatives exist, other brands are available. There are even other ways of thinking about economics that we don’t even call capitalism; they may be a bit racy for us right now so lets start with re-imagining what a good effective form of capitalism could be like if humanity fully realized its role and impact upon the planet that sustains it.
Modern capitalism is so big and complex that who can say that really understand it.
I don’t.
But I do understand by building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, Google and such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.
Never has humanity been better fed, lived longer, used more energy and had more stuff than today so what is wrong.
One of the fundamental faults of capitalism is the basic axiom that if everybody tries to accumulate as much property as possible the general interest of the people will be served.
All this seems to do is create exploitation.
The problem with capitalism is that it isn’t very good as what it says it is good at, spreading wealth, enabling good technological progress and helping us become more human, more free.
Adam Smith – you know him graces the back of the £20 note – founding father of modern capitalism back in the 18th century – hero of Margaret Thatcher. When he famously asserted:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
What Smith was talking about was the idea that self-interest – the rational underpinning of economic man – was not only good for you but for everybody else – society.
Unfortunately the line between self-interest and greed is always fine – and we are human man not economic man and we find it very easy to cross that line – or certainly some of us do – lets call them the 0.1% – the 700,000 of us who have a lot – somewhere north of $5 million each.
The consequence of this trend as it unwinds over time is that wealth progressively becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
The rich get richer – that’s that 0.1% again. Or to put it another way wealth stays with those that are born to it and the idea that merit – how good you are at something – determining your economical price in the market place, or wages as most of would say, becomes far less important than we thought.
In fact there are plenty of things wrong with capitalism.
Those that shout this apparent self-evident reality the loudest own the media, the means of communication, they own your stability through the derivative bets they hold and they are telling you don’t blink – this is the natural way of things , capitalism the way we see it, the way the 0.1% see it.
So the more we have of everything, food, power, stuff, the more energy we must use (even if we get more energy-efficient in doing things).
The nitty-gritty of it is we have fucked up the world with Capitalism idealism.
I don’t approve of Communism or Socialism either, the truth is that every system is flawed.
I think a system which is based on an assumption that man is basically piggish and therefore only fit to look after his own needs; such system impedes rather than promotes the good within each person.
Geographers have away of describing this situation it is called the IPAT equation.
Impact = population x affluence x technology. You note there is no Money in the equation.
The impact.
Physicists would call it entropy, biologists pollution and economists externalities – is of an order defined by how many of us are using how much however efficiently.
If you want impact in a nutshell it is climate change, it is salinization of soil, it is depleting geological resources , it is reducing biodiversity.
There really are limits to growth.
Capitalism is a perpetual motion machine, striving for more and more growth makes us in the long run weaker not stronger. Well, if only we were all-knowing, rational and optimal in our behavior maybe it would be so. But we are not.
In the past the trend towards greater and growing inequality has been neutered by war – nothing equalizes society more effectively than war – we do tend to be all in it together at such moments.
Today in our global economy is held together with a digital architecture that enables the reduction of wealth to so much digital code life has become one big transaction.
The most spectacular aspect of this transactional world is the derivatives markets.
(A derivative is a bet on a price changing within a market – say interest rates, or currency exchange values or a commodity price such as that for coffee. The value of all derivatives worldwide in 2013 is thought to be about $1.2 quadrillion although nobody knows exactly as, a like a lot ordinary betting the betters don’t want necessarily want to admit to it.)
So that is $1,200,000 billion laid out in bets about what may or may not happen.
Billions of transactions.
Let’s quickly remind ourselves. The global economy – the real economy – is worth about $85 trillion – that is about 7% of the notional sum bet on what that economy will do.
Now, take a deep breath and think about it.
If you don’t now believe that we could have another global economic crash in the style of 2008 – a massive bursting asset bubble – you need to think again and cast your eyes to Asia – you might be wondering where much of that quantitative easing – free money that the US and the UK created ended up. Try property speculation in Asia.
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.
We do not have global organizations capable of managing these tension points nor are societies willing to curb growth and consumerism.
Capitalism as currently practiced is simply not sustainable.
Modern market capitalism has shifted recently with the emerging supremacy of money markets and the financial system over the actual trade of goods. Under this, you’ll make more money trading in derivatives than actually physically trading in commodities.
Capitalism, or the recent move into financial market dominated capitalism.
The “new capitalism” is based on mathematics rather than trade; credit default swaps over goods and services; when odds are stacked in the favor of big banks because of hedging, derivatives and CDS’s; when there is little to no penalty for market manipulation by investment banks, power brokers, Ponzi schemers … these inefficiencies in the market cause redistribution of wealth to the people in power who design the system.
The mass media is becoming more and more an opiate, an aid for living the unexamined life. replace it (capitalism)?”
Through the millions spent in lobbing reasonable controls upon business have been removed. The desire for economic success and the influence of the powerful elite have ruined the mass media.
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.
Around the world the gains of increased productivity are wasted by this pyramid structure.
For over 40 years 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.
Those who dominate the means for the production of ideas have served their class well.
This endless cycle of production and consumption for profit is suicide and profit is pretty pointless when we run out of things to burn and things to eat.
I would suggest a world government dedicated to seeing that: (a) everybody was properly fed, clothed, and housed; (b) everyone worked and received a fair return for their work with none receiving too much; (c) intellectual development for all to be encouraged; (d) businesses are the servant to man; (e) the production of war materials end; (f) the ending of all exploitation, including one region by another or one class by another; (g) and the ending of a press which is controlled by those who make up the ruling class.
We is needed is a project based on reason, evidence and testable designs, that cuts with the grain of history and is sustainable by the planet.
Capitalism is not and has never been designed to work in an environment dominated by market controls, regulations, artificial barriers to entry, monetary manipulation and a myriad of other government interventions.
It is Profit at any cost and having taxpayers bail it out when it goes wrong simply means the risk has shifted from corporation to state, or you and me.
Many would say that means a broken model.
Has a new model started. It all depends on what kind of capitalism we are talking about and what force will be applied either at the ballot box or on the barricades or by the Smart Phone or the Gun.
Another question raised about the proposed strategy is whether it actually adds up to the defeat of capitalism.
Do the numerous tactics described above, most of which focus on what not to do, really do the job? How will capitalism actually be defeated? It’s true that many of these recommendations are about what not to do.
this strategy calls for pulling time, energy, and resources out of capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new civilization. The image, then, is one of emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth, power, and meaning from them until there is nothing left but shells.
To think that we could create a whole new world of decent social arrangements overnight, in the midst of a crisis, during a so-called revolution or the collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy.
Our new social world must grow within the old, and in opposition to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish capitalist relations.
Such a revolution will never happen automatically, blindly, determinable, because of the inexorable materialist laws of history.
It will happen, and only happen, because we want it to, and because we know what we’re doing and how we want to live, what obstacles have to be overcome before we can live that way, and how to distinguish between our social patterns and theirs.
To achieve change we need unlimited finance. Where can we find this? We don’t have to look far.
If a new socialist democratic system is to emerge:
We must place an World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $ 20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This will created a perpetual funded Fund to address the damage Greed and Profit for profit sake has done. ( See Previous Posts)
Who do we achieve this.
Our lives have been shaped by developments which most of us couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.
In effect, they are nine distinct psychological orientations toward the world that structure our perceptions, expectations, and demands whenever and wherever other human beings may be involved. These instincts represent our most basic assumptions about how the social world works, and that includes how the political world works.
With the power of our Smart phones the new political weapon of the future.
In the next decade upwards of 100 billion objects from smartphones to street lamps and our cars will be connected together via a vast ‘internet of everything’. This will impact every aspect of our lives.
The interfaces to all our devices from phones to computers, cars and home appliances will be highly intelligent and adaptive – learning from our behaviours and choices and anticipating our needs.
The most accurate simulation of the human brain ever has been carried out, but a single second’s worth of activity took one of the world’s largest supercomputers 40 minutes to calculate.
SO LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED SINCE WE CAME DOWN OUT OF THE TREES AND STOOD UPRIGHT.
( I am sure there will be many gaps in what I write here so you will have plenty of ammunition to comment. Those of you who are shadow people lead by the like button feel free to press it. )
Right: On your marks we off.
At first we were of no significance till we discovered that we could walk up right, discovered fire, tools, and language. We became foragers/ hunters with no hierarchy spreading all over the world providing there was a land bridge developing new weapons and new clothing due to climate change and perhaps unfriendly rivals.
All that changed when we began to devote our efforts to manipulating the lives of animals and plants. The Farmer had arrived. More babies to be fed, so we burnt down forests and planted wheat thus becoming wheat slaves living in settled artificial enclaves dedicated to growing wheat.
Because of this we discovered writing and numbers, money and religion.
This lead to placing a material value not just on possession but on ourselves resulting in a conscious effort to create laws, customs, procedures, to run societies.
By this time with the human brain going into hibernation due to all the information that needed to be stored we are well on the way to creating religious gods, empires, armies, taxes, etc Thus the arrival of bureaucracy, rulers, social division, ruling classes, slaver, gun power, the wheel and sea worthy ships.
Of course building, pollution, masculine dominance and exploration were now in full swing and it’s not long before the world is dividing into Empires of different cultures, different languages, different belief, most still using their legs and horses with the odd set of wheels to get around.
The Roman empire broke up, the Mongol empire went to pieces, the Chines empire built a wall, America and Europe did not know each other existed. Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world.
90% of humans lived in a single mega world ; the world of Afro- Asia the rest lived in America, central America, the Andean world, the Australian world, islands of the Pacific.
They were all swallowed up by the Afro-Asian world.
Resources were plentiful. Till along came How Much is it. Money the foundation of Greed and cooperation between strangers drastically reducing diversity. The first step to we becoming US against the Rest.
The European Industrial Imperial steamroller gradually obliterated our uniqueness.
The Spanish quashed the Inca, Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigate the globe, Marco Polo gave the Vatican a Chines map of America, they sending Columbus off to discover it, while Queen Vic with the help of Darwin, Livingstone, Nelson, expanded the British Empire with ball and chain, cannon.
At this stage there is no evidence that history is working for the benefit of humans. Science, engineering, flight, medical advances, power, religious rightness, profit, wealth, corruption, greed and reckless plundering of the earths resources, ignorance, and credit now come into play.
Empirical observations are being put together with the help of mathematical tools.
All of this cost money and it did much more than just charting the universe, mapping the planet and cataloging the animals than did Galileo, Columbus and Darwin. If there had being no funds or these geniuses and they had not being born we would be still waiting on some others to do so.
Of course none of the above is in strict chronological order and I have left out, Michelangelo Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, William Shakespeare, Bach, Confucius, Aristotle, Newton, to mention a few but I hope you get the gist.
I grow sick and tired of all the same old lies
I might be a little young, so what’s wrong?
You don’t have to be old to be wise
— Judas Priest
Anyway it is suffice to say that European imperialism was entirely unlike all other imperial projects.
So here we are. WE CREATED THE WORLD THAT YOU SEE AROUND YOU.
After numerous wars and two million years of being marginal creatures, thirteen odd billion years after the big bang we have arrived at the Capitalist creed OF THE FREE MARKET and a belief that Science which is about 500 years old can solve all our problems.
The question is how many people want to live in a world that you see around you.
We need to ignite a second cognitive revolution. It is unclear whether bio engineering could really resurrect Neanderthals. Tinkering with our genes won’t necessarily kill us. But we might fiddle to such an extent that we would no longer be Homo sapiens.
In a previous post I asked what do we want to become. A human who stood on the moon and saw a dying world that could be so beautiful if we learned to share.
Paradise Lost or Found.
Unlike other animals, we humans need to create the means for our physical survival as well as our spiritual well-being. We need to figure out how to acquire food, build shelters, cure illnesses, build cities, travel to the Moon, and create everything that deserves the label “civilization.”
Take a moment to look around you. Reflect on your own achievements and take pride in them. Reflect on the virtues that have allowed you to achieve the things you value.
The potential for human achievement is endless, but only if we truly value achievement and appreciate that the achievements we create in our modern world are manifestations of the moral virtues we each create in our character. Not Twitter, not Face book, not the internet, or the web of everything, not Google, not Apple.
If there’s one thing that many science and reality-minded people tend to do quite a bit, it’s over analyze every little detail.
The answer is right in front of your eyes . Open them.
We must tap Greed by creating a World Aid Fund by placing 0.05% commission on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Transactions, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20.000. on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all new Drilling wells. ( See previous Posts)
HFT a growing cancer is now a major force in markets across the world:
Financial parasites that are only focused on making money, skimming off incalculable billions from pension and investment funds, damaging national economies in the process.
But does anyone in the world really care that the finance industry has found a new way to fleece the public.
HFT are plundering the world and robbing us all while literally having no value to society.
As the world lurch towards a new technology-driven feudalism, defined by disparities in Wealth and Opportunity they are out of sight out of mind.
The question is how is it possible to inform the big audience that 70% of markets activities are controlled by machines that we will never comprehend?
The free market is based upon the notion that there is equity in price discovery. Once you have lost that, it is not a free market, it is a controlled market. Here is a market beyond human control, dominated by super-fast machines running complex computer algorithms that jostled and fight each other at the level of milliseconds, microseconds – and with no meaningful oversight.
Is it facetious to suggest that morality should have a significant impact on the world of trading?
First there’s no turning back on HFT because there are too many implicated interests and morality, it’s something we cannot make a machine understand, or at least not yet.
Computers are essentially calculators, so they don’t do what we want
them to do, in fact, they do what we ordered them to do. In the end, behind a massive smokescreen stocks acquisition there’s always a group of competitors who rule the machine in the best way to get the best incomes.
Nor is there anything ETHICAL? about HFT
They don’t understand if their actions will have influence on the environment which are far away of the price-screens of the parquet.
Some of the most formidable minds in the world were now employed in a technological arms race, a hidden war stalked by million-dollar predator algorithms that could swarm those of the larger, slower players – typically, pension and mutual funds – in the same way a shoal of piranhas might eat an ox, cutting them to shreds and pocketing the profits.
The algorithms at the heart of this world were run not by finance or programming people, but by “quants”: quantum physicists, climate scientists, theoretical mathematicians.
High-frequency traders are even battling for an edge on the trading communication links between London and New York. Remarkably, HFT firms are moving their server farms near to exchange computer to further increase trading speeds.
So What is High Frequency Trading?
High Frequency Trading (HFT) involves the execution of complicated, algorithmic-based trades by powerful computers.
They are capable of wiping trillions in value from Markets as in the “Flash Crash” of May 2010, in which $1 trillion was wiped off the value of markets in the space of 10 minutes.
The objective of HFT is to take advantage of minute discrepancies in prices and trade on them quickly and in huge quantities. The trades are done at close to the speed of light. The trades are executed without any human action except for initial programming. In most cases, the trades are executed before individual investors know the quotes of prices, or that the trades happened at all. This tiny difference in speed enabled the owners of high-speed cables to charge banks and investment companies millions of dollars to gain an edge over their rivals without producing any social benefits whatsoever.
High-frequency traders are preying on investors, and exchanges and brokers were being paid to help them to do it.
For instance, a computer recognizes when one exchange quotes an ask price of one cent more than the quote on another exchange. This computer then trades in extraordinarily large volumes on this information, taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity in a split second. They have nothing to do with value assessment or creation: the machines’ sole aim was to use speed to game the market.
HFT computers can influence the market for the trader’s own advantage.
Before individual and other investors who do not possess the same sophisticated technology realize, the one-cent spread between the two exchanges is erased and the stock price trades at the same level.
There are now entire hedge funds devoted to this strategy.
HFT accounted for 84% of market activity in the US and almost 60% in Europe.
They are non regulatory as the algos simply mutated.
SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVES THE REST OF US.
One of the main areas of contention is who the victims of HFT are.
HERE IS AN EDUCATED GUESS. THE POOR.
The reality is that HFT is unlikely to go away – as there’s not much incentive to do so.
WE MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO STOP HFT
BUT WE SURE CAN LOBBY OUR OUT OF DATE UNITED NATIONS WITH OUR SOCIAL MEDIA, SMARTPHONES, E MAILS, TWITTERS, AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH – TO PASS A PEOPLES RESOLUTION’S TO PLACE A 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSIONS ON ALL HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING. That’s a worthy goal, but it’s not an easy trick, and likely even harder to pull off.
The impact on the inequalities IN THE WORLD could be huge. (SEE PREVIOUS POSTINGS)
The next time you bid on E BAY remember that Bid sniper’ software, is placing bids milliseconds before auctions ended.
Some HFT industry participants are now starting to look at using software and language design originally used in the graphics and gaming industry, so cross-overs between technology and finance that may have seemed far-fetched in the past may now actually begin emerging commercially. Robot Trading is around the corner.
High Frequency Trading (HFT) algorithm run every day in Google stock.
I have just realized that I have been rattling on about High Frequency Trading ( HFT) without justifying why they should be subject to a World Aid Commission of 0.05%.
I have and still do advocate that the vast accumulation of wealth and political power” that is currently undermining democracy in the west must be caped in order to contribute to the world as a whole and not just the rich.(See previous Postings on Sovereignty Wealth Funds, Foreign Exchange Transactions and High Frequency Trading.)
The stock market has become a virtual space – an interactive, computer-driven system of staggering complexity. An Illusory Market. In many ways we’ve all become vassals again.
Why do I call it an Illusory market. Because the market that the investor sees when he looks at his monitor, is anywhere from 1,500 to 900 milliseconds old. That doesn’t sound like much, because the blink of an eye is 300ms. But that’s a long, long time in the world of HFT.
HFT have been around as long as computer systems have been in our lives.
As computers get more technically advanced, trading practices have increased in size and algorithms have become more sophisticated. The trades are done at close to the speed of light. Remarkably, HFT firms have moved their server farms near an exchange computer to further increase trading speeds.
High Frequency Trading (HFT) involves the execution of complicated, algorithmic-based trades by powerful computers.
The objective of HFT is to take advantage of minute discrepancies in prices and trade on them quickly and in huge quantities. Algorithms trade on price movements past a certain threshold, corporate actions, price ceilings, price floors, and discrepancies in bid/ask spreads. The trades are executed without any human action except for initial programming.
In most cases, the trades are executed before individual investors know the quotes of prices, or that the trades happened at all. For instance, a computer recognizes when one exchange quotes an ask price of one cent more than the quote on another exchange. This computer then trades in extraordinarily large volumes on this information, taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity in a split second. Before individual and other investors who do not possess the same sophisticated technology realize, the one-cent spread between the two exchanges is erased and the stock price trades at the same level. There are entire hedge funds devoted to this strategy.
Managers pool capital based on a proven computer technology and allow the program work for them. In addition, large trading shops incorporate these HFT strategies as part of their overall practice. Such large volumes of HFT trades are being executed that most of the liquidity in daily trading is a result of these trades. By some estimates, HFT makes up 60 to 70% of all trades done in the US on a daily basis and 40 percent in European markets.. Other estimates project that if these strategies keep proliferating at their current rate, 80% of trades will be HFT trades by 2015.
It would be naive of me to think that we could stop using HFT purely for morality’s sake. When large amounts of money stand to be made any Morality goes out the door.
When an algorithm is processing information, this last one doesn’t consider if its actions will have consequences for third parties; the only target is to make money, it is totally irrelevant as what is happening around. Whether it is fleecing the public – the ordinary savers and workers with pensions is the least of its worries.
It is Greed personified.
High Frequency Trading Profitability Potential
Trading Frequency
Average Maximum Gain per period
Range Standard Deviation per Period
Number of Observations in the Sample Period
Maximum Annualized Sharpe Ratio*
10 Seconds
0.04%
0.01%
2,592,000
5,879.80
1 Minute
0.06%
0.02%
43,200
1,860.10
10 Minutes
0.12%
0.09%
4,320
246.40
1 Hour
0.30%
0.19%
720
122.13
1 Day
1.79%
0.76%
30
37.30
*The Sharpe ratio is also called the Reward-to-Variability Ratio. It measures the excess return per unit of risk.
The above chart shows the potential for higher returns exists based on the strategy alone. In fact, the Sharpe ratio is over 200% higher for the 10 second trading frequency than for the 1 minute frequency.
Perhaps it is naive to believe that morality should even come into it.
O! by the way when you are bidding on those Internet Auctions site you are up against bid sniper software, which is placing bids on items milliseconds before auctions ended.
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 tomultinational 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.
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)
Each person’s definition of values differs so maybe I am biting of rather a big subject to address in one go, but here goes.
Look around, do you feel safe, happy and encouraged by what you see?
What would be said if someone randomly came up to you and asked your opinion of the modern-day society.
Have human values become meaningless? Or is it that rich, having purchased the human mind with their money.
Our world inexorably and inevitably changes, from decade to decade, from generation to generation; no doubt about it, our values are disappearing down Smart phones, I Pads. How many friends on Face book with photos of friends that mean nothing to you, do you have? Valueless.
Gone are the old days;
We all know that Big business is to be blamed for “FUELING inequality and CONSUMERISM > the values of 21st Century.
“Values were invaluable and principles were once priceless”
Modern day Communication has made people more aware and more keen of their rights, and of the rights of others but it is also eroding our values and somehow or other making all of us increasingly detached from nature.
In other words, our cultures are literally being turned upside down, and the “values” that our national leaders speak of today are far different from the “values” that our grandparents grew up with.
Sanctions are the value of the Hippocratic’s United Nations Security Council especiallywent you look at countries on the Council that are selling arms sanctions or not.
We used to have ‘life’. Today we have only ‘existence’.
Today, nobody knows the value of anything but everybody knows the price of everything.
When you have a sense of the past it is a light that illuminates the present and directs attention toward the possibilities of the future.
Many of the things that used to be considered “evil” are now considered to be “good”, and many of the things that used to be considered “good” are now considered to be “evil”.
No matter which side of the “culture war” that you are on, you have to admit that our culture is being fundamentally transformed.
In fact, if you look at the world there has been a colossal shift in moral values just since 2001. Over the past 13 years, we have become a dramatically different world.
Take Porn for instance. It is without doubt the most powerful form of sex education today, with studies showing that the average age of first viewing porn is between 11 and 14. Porn sites get more visitors per month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, a third of all downloads contain porn and the Internet now hosts 4.2 million porn websites.
There are 20 million new cases of sexually transmitted disease in the United States every single year, and Americans in the 15 to 24-year-old age range account for about 50 percent of those new cases. America has just about reached a new milestone – it currently have close to three-quarters of a million registered sex offenders.
The World is becoming a place where “anything goes”, and most of us are okay with that it seems.
So is this loss of values a good thing or a bad thing?
Now I realize that Life has no rewind button or fast forward button.
But ” what is in it for me now” is no replacement for the vanishing word Values.
So do we need to thank technology for all the wonders it has done to our health, transportation, communication and energy needs? Yes.
Or should we realize that in doing so we are also selling all of our values to big data
We have less time for each other and we seem to doubt the knowledge of our ancestors all the time.
All of us are equally responsible for what society is today, we cannot disown our consumerism that is causing the erosion of the very things that make life livable as human being, as we are called.
The future is surely for better but at the same time we can never bury the past and forget the bygones.
There is commerce in every thing we do today. Forget the past, someone said. Why should one?
There is an attitude of ‘I don’t care, as it does not affect me now’ which is tragically leading us towards animal behavior and slowly we will reach it if are not careful. Today, everything is about instant gratification and pleasure.
May be it can all be put down to that the present is unbearable. Drugs and alcohol, immigration and responses to it, crime and violence, poverty and inequality as the things people are most worried about.
That the mind should not be tortured with the glory of the past? Now we no time for family members to greet each other; all in own routine with cell phone, tablet and PC glued for all time.
Maybe we should make time to teach values. Wouldn’t society be better if our youth did not have conflicting values?
There is a decreasing sense of wonder among the kids and no one seems to talk about the future. Children are not taught moral values which is most important in life.
“Morality is the base, spiritual effort is the means, and life divine is the goal.”
It is customary to give preference to social value over human value.
Humanity is superior to the state.
At present life is valued on the basis of money.
If a nation does not feel respect for other nations, then one cannot mention freedom of thought, criticism and exchange of ideas, and expect good things done for the sake of humanity. If you want an example turn your biased Telly on – Israel or Palestine, not to mention Syria,
Today we need a new approach, which uncompromisingly affirms neo-Humanism. This emphasizes individual freedom, human rights, a new morality, the empathetic imperative, and the realization of human dignity, lives of joyful creativity and exuberance for all persons on the planet.
Laws which do not apply to everyone eventually apply to no one.
But I am not that pessimist to believe we have nothing to be happy about.
Not for nothing “present is called present”.
“Those were the days,when the
moon was a flawless beauty
now are the days when moon is a flawed beauty.
Those were the days, when the sun was a warmth
now are the days, when the sun is a scorching hearth.
Lust has replaced love, rust has replaced trust
grins have taken for smile, comments for compliment”.
THESE ARE THE DAYS WHEN WE MUST CAP GREED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WORLD.
YESTERDAY WHILE ONE CHILD DIES EVERY FIVE SECONDS THE FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKET WORTH THREE TRILLION A DAY WAS CAUGHT MANIPULATION THE EXCHANGE RATES.
The suggestion is that dealers at several banks colluded over a number of years by using instant messaging systems and online chat rooms to discuss where it would be most favorable to set the day’s benchmarks.
( SEE MY POSTS ON PLACING A 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL FX DEALINGS OVER $ 20,000 AND ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACQUISITIONS AND HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING.)
THERE IS NO ARGUMENT THAT IT WOULD DO A LOT FOR OUR VALUES:
bobdillon33blog 