Tag Archives: The European Union

THE BEADY EYES OPEN LETTER: CALLING ON THE YOUTH OF ENGLAND AND THE EU.

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Brexit., England., European Union., Modern Day Democracy., Politics., Populism., Social Media., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What needs to change in European Union.

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( A five minute read)

Where are your voices?

The decision to leave the EU affects your future more than anyone, so tell me why you are now so silent.

Luckily the responsibility for the outcome of the next two years negotiations still rests on the shoulders of the British people—and specifically, on the young English people.

Do young Englanders really want to isolate their Island even more from the rest of Europe?

It is now imperative you make your young voices heard on the final deal, if any.

If you do not there is little point sitting on you behinds, chastising older Brits, when less of you voted in the referendum than those who did not.

The 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent was so close – if the rest of you had voted, the outcome could have been very different, and if 16-and 17-year-olds were given the chance to have their say in this momentous decision England would not now be clinging on to its colonial history.

(It seems ludicrous that 16 and 17-year-olds weren’t allowed to vote in the referendum that was going to define much of their future. Truly idiotic.)

There is no such thing as a perfect future or for that matter a correct past but the coming decisions will pitted rich against poor like no other.

So here is my plea to the Youth of England and the Youth of the EU.

If you look at the sign at the entrance of your town and you’ll spot a phrase that goes something like this: “Twinned with.

(Town twinning, as an official relationship-builder, started in Europe after the second world war. The idea was simple: repair damaged relationships between France, Germany and the UK.)

You and your twin share something. A history, some DNA.

You’re twinned for a reason and that reason will be positive if you now twin your efforts to have a final say and vote on the final result.

We have seen in Greece the rise of a far-left government. In Spain, there is a similar upsurge. In France, Marine Le Pen and the Front National are closer to power than at any time previously. In Britain, the anger of the ‘have-nots’ has so far been contained — probably because unemployment has been kept down. But it would only take mismanagement of welfare benefits and an excessively high national living wage to change that.

Clearly not everyone who voted Leave is a racist thicko, just like not every immigrant is a jihadi. There are legitimate concerns on both sides of the debate, but I do not see how it is helpful to characterise millions of people in this way.

It can seem like a language that the privileged use to sneer at the poor: a kind of moral snobbery. A striking social division has been exposed in this vote.

I dont know about you but I’m ashamed that the world of ever-closer union among countries which for centuries would kill each other by the million—came to a shattering end on Thursday.

I am also embarrassed and disappointed that your country has been manipulated by the xenophobic, racist and above all incorrect facts that have been spread by a vocal minority of U.K. citizens.

Business and government officials have long grumbled about EU rules and regulations but the 2008 financial crisis, subsequent economic turmoil, rise of immigration and terrorism and general European malaise accelerated concerns about the relative merits of EU membership, particularly on the political right

British advocates of Brexit argue that issues of sovereignty and self-government should override economic ones but as a generation that is digitally connected to other young people across the world, you should be the generation which understands what the European Union is about more than any other, because you have grown up as European citizens.

So clearly, this all comes down to whether life is better or worse separate from the EU.

It is difficult to foresee any tangible benefits in leaving – economic, political or security –  that would outweigh remaining and helping to reform the EU, unless the EU disintegrates. 

Whatever the outcome of the British and EU negotiations, afterwards Europe will not be able to shy away from a few much-needed debates and significant reforms.

WE ALL KNOW:  WHETHER YOUR ENGLISH, SPANISH, FRENCH OR FROM ONE OF THE OTHER COUNTRIES CURRENTLY IN THE EU, BLACK OR WHITE- MUSLIM OR WHAT EVER RELIGION, THAT THE WORLD WE ALL LIVING IN IS IN A MESS IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

Theresa May explains how her government will balance seeking control of immigration and access to the single market

The picture above is not the world. The picture below is the world.Frontiers of Intercultural Clash and Dialogue - Armenia - abroadship.org

We are better together and celebrating our multi-cultural, immigration-shaped society.

This isn’t about saying whether young people in England were right and wrong, but it’s clear that they see themselves as citizens of Europe, and quite possibly the world, rather than the UK.

Is there a future for the European Union?

If so, what is it necessary to do, to give a future to this European Union?

More specifically, what is the role of new generations in the rescue operations and in ensuring continuity to the European project?

In the world we live in, acting alone is neither possible nor desirable.

Total independence from others is not possible, even outside the context of the European project, because in a global world we are all deeply connected. Thus, when dealing with issues that go beyond any single state’s borders, it is in every country’s interests to be able to participate in the international regulation and decision-making process.

Europe is obviously much more than a market, after all; it is a cultural space, simultaneously bemusing and splendidly diverse, complementary and enriching.

Europe is more than “Brussels”.

And Europe is not a bureaucratic monster, not a tribe of petty-minded technocrats making the lives of decent citizens a misery with their rules and regulations, but it will never be possible to preserve all the things we value about Europe without a European political framework.

Capitalism, we should not forget, is still capitalism.

Anyone who believes that the blessings of the market can spare us the hard work of solving political, social and ecological problems, who thinks that a single nation alone can triumph in the arena of global financial capitalism, is making a terrible mistake.

Such a fragile cultural entity as Europe can only survive in today’s world of conflict if it is politically strong and – whatever the differences – fundamentally united.

Is it too much to hope that a continent that has succeeded since 1945 – after two horrific wars – in turning enemies into neighbours and mistrustful neighbours into cooperative partners and sometimes even friends might turn out to be a reliable force for peace in the turmoil of the twenty-first century, a bastion of freedom and democracy, a promoter of fruitful communication with other influential regions?

The political Europe was never the great leveler, and never will be. Its raison d’être is its diversity, its vital energy, its obstinacy.

Europe is not the navel of the world, not the yardstick by which all other regions of the world are to be judged.

Europe is a historic continent, perhaps the historic continent par excellence. What singles Europe out most of all is that all the greatest crimes and mistakes have already been made here, and we Europeans have felt the punishment.

None of our problems can be solved by isolating ourselves or expanding into supposedly empty lands. We cannot just “go west!” Unlike the Americans, we know – even if we sometimes appear to forget it – that we can only live in peace if we also pay heed to the other side’s interests.

Don’t let anyone persuade you that we – the rest of Europe – want to take away your different-ness, your obstinacy, your trouble-making.

We need you in Europe precisely because you are so different from us. And you?

Would it be impertinent to suggest that you need us too, if you are to fulfil your potential? And if that is true – or at least not completely false – would it not be a rather poor idea to abandon Project Europe? I think so.

Of course, if the United Kingdom were to leave the EU, it would still be a member of NATO – and it is noteworthy that precisely its most significant partner in the alliance has stated its preference for a strong and united European Union that can act decisively in matters of security and defence.

Now is not the time to turn inwards.

It is obvious, therefore, that the Eurozone project is not solely a matter of a technical-parametric economic optimum calculation, but primarily a political issue.

So what is ultimately at stake in the Brexit debate?

It is only partially about Britain. A British exit would return the UK to its pre-modern constitution. For the EU, Brexit could favour a rebalancing of EU law in favour of social and environmental rights. But it is more likely that the neoliberal turn in EU law would continue as there are many factors now driving it, separately from British influence.

The EU, as much as the UK, is in need of a constitutional settlement which addresses the risks posed by market fundamentalism.

The notion of regaining sovereignty as a solution to the problems we face as Europeans, and Britons, is an oversimplification on the part of those who believe that it is possible to live in a world that no longer exists.

I am certain that the British do not really want to turn their backs on us continental Europeans after all we have been through together.

Europe is above all an ever-changing cultural cosmos that can only flourish if all its parts are permitted to be themselves. Anything else is codswallop.

If you get any group in society that doesn’t have a voice, they’re always going to feel nervous and out of control for the future.

Its time for the Youth of England with the support of Young Europeans to combine in a movement to be heard.

If not should I comfort myself with the thought that national egotisms and separatists are proliferating in many other European countries too.

Never. I deeply love the world, but it would be nothing without its people. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of beautiful eyes with tears"

All the selfies, or social media won’t make you a better person, or help you with a fantastic opportunity to engage with politics and have your opinions heard.

Let’s call it Smart by not leaving it to Money, Profit, Arms Sales and I am all right Jacks to shape our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY ASKS: WHY IS OUR WORLD SO COCKED UP.

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Modern day life., Our Common Values., Populism., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations.

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( A five-minute follow on read:  Broadening the Subject of Brexit to a Global view)

Because we never see or experience time and space; they are like glasses through which we view the world. Each day, we hear about countless instances of greed, hatred, violence, and destruction, and all of the pain, suffering, and sorrow that ensues.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of a global eye"

About 100 years ago, the world sleepwalked into World War 1, which lead to world War 11.

Today the world sleepwalking  into the next global disaster.

WE ARE INCAPABLE OF ACTING TOGETHER FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

BRIXIT BEING THE MOST RECENT EXAMPLE.

Take your choice CLIMATE CHANGE or UN-REGULATED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Technology increasingly prevents us from seeing ourselves in others – we increasingly see others as data, which tell us all about their employment outcomes or what degrees they have, but which keeps their dignity out of plain sight.

How is it that technology has and still is superseding human intelligence, when it’s the humans that are discovering new technologies?

The question is how to change human being, since we are the root cause of everything.

The earth is on the brink of environmental disaster because human beings (at least those in power during the modern age) have drawn sharp distinctions between the human and non-human world.

The world is and has always been divided into two opposing camps: female/male; non-white/white; haves/have-nots; young/old; conflict theorists/functionalists; developed nations/less developed nations; oppressed/oppressors; industrialized/non-industrialized; Western/non-Western, etc.

They all stem from a mindset that envisions a world of you versus me, us versus them, self versus other.

We can look at almost any social problem—racism, sexism, poverty, homophobia, ableism, bullying, terrorism, domestic violence, human trafficking, slavery, religious fundamentalism, immigration —and at the core, is a dualistic orientation.

A dualistic orientation is one that focuses on our differences instead of our similarities, promotes arbitrary divisions at the expense of social cohesion, neglects our interdependence by nurturing our sense of independence, and fashions a deeply polarized world where if you are not with us (or like us) then you are against us (and therefore, we are against you).

The world is certainly a mess of socially created divisions. And while these differences seem real, and have very real effects, we must not forget that they are indeed social creations.

When we speak about problems between women and men, people of color and whites, Christians and Muslims, or any of the other numerous dualisms that we regularly invoke, we are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) suggesting that these two groups are essentially and inherently distinct, that at the core of these two groups is some fundamental difference.

Although the ubiquity of these problems makes them seem so normal and ordinary that we may not even question.

We need to question and challenge the way we unreflectively describe and divide the world into dichotomous and opposing camps.

In both our words and our actions we need to construct real alternatives to these arbitrary constructions, emphasize our similarities instead of our differences, build bridges instead of borders, and recognize that interdependence sustains us while independence tears us apart.

It may seem fruitless to try to identify a single contributing factor to all of society’s collective dilemmas. Ultimately, the challenge is to see others as us.

We first need to recognize ourselves in others before we can treat them like we would want to be treated.

Treating everyone equal, but in a real scenario, this is not possible.

Leave apart treating humans equal, we do not even spare the nature that lets us live or wildlife that maintains the ecological balance.

We destroy them all if it is serving our purpose.

We need to end the era of easy money. We need to stop subsidizing financial markets. We need to let our economy reorient itself from its short-term and transactional focus back to one based on long-term investment and long-term relationships.

We must encourage not discourage immigration. Immigration is morally correct, is good foreign policy and is economically beneficial. Immigrants must be viewed as assets, which they are, not liabilities.

Populists continue to come to power but it has no long term objectives.

The rich stay rich, the powerful stay powerful and the poor stay poor. Trade suffers, immigrants are shunned. Economic growth is weak. Capitalism continues to be viewed as the problem, big government as the solution. Maybe another financial crises that we can inflate our way out of. Maybe another financial crises that we can’t.

Sooner or later the music stops. It’s time for us to be better.

We are nowhere near as free as everyone thinks, and that makes my skin crawl.

All in all, of course there is a lot of good in this world, but even with all that good, the bad shines, so bright and with that brightness it sometimes gets hard to see the good.

Why settle other planets when ours is in danger of an impending doom?

It’s easy to assume that we’ll charge into our new home disregarding the existing ecosystem or any potential inhabitants. We’ll change shit around so it works for us and in doing so we’ll make the same mistakes we’ve made for centuries on Earth.

What the hell is going on in the world?

IT’S TIME WE PUT ON Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of a global eye"

IT’S TIME TO REVANT THE UNITED NATIONS. TO ESTABLISH A NEW WORLD ORGANISATION TO VET ALL TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL NOR NOT TO ENSURE IT COMPLIES WITH CORE HUMAN VALUES AND NOT PROFIT.

IT’S TIME TO GET OFF YOUR SMART PHONES AND PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR REAL WORLD.

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

THE BEADY EYE ASKS; WHAT EFFECT WILL THE ENGLISH REFERENDUM HAVE ON THE EURO.

19 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by in England EU Referendum IN or Out., European Union., Unanswered Questions.

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A quick read.

While there is plenty of discussion and fear mongering on the pros and cons there is little mention of the main driving force behind the European Union.Afficher l'image d'origine

The Euro.

The euro has proved to be exactly the job-destroying, recession-creating, undemocratic monster the doubters always warned it would be.

Unless the EU can construct a political governance system similar to that of a federal state it will be very difficult for the euro to survive never mind to overtake the dollar as the world’s dominant currency or, eventually, to maintain its status as the leading candidate to replace the dollar, although it could still be the dominant regional European currency.

Were the EU to approve a European Federal constitution, the euro would have a chance of replacing the dollar as the global currency in this century.

Meanwhile, the euro will continue to increase its global share of foreign currency reserves, financial and trade transactions and even exchange rate pegs and baskets in the coming years, but only as the second-best global currency.

Without the Euro there would be no European Union Market.

With the Euro the club members are locked to the strong economies whether they like it or not thus unable to reflect the state of their own economies making it unworkable in the long run.

In a few days the British will have their Referendum Stay or Leave.Afficher l'image d'origine

If they leave will they destroyed the euro on departure.

Indeed, there are possible upsides to the euro’s fall. When a currency declines, imports typically become more expensive and exports become cheaper, lowering the trade deficit and creating jobs. It should make European offerings — be they German automobiles, Italian leather, French wine or even Greek vacations — more affordable, eventually helping the recovery.

If they stay should they not be subject to the same rules that govern the current members.

Another words should the EU demand that Sterling make the transition from the pound to the euro.

I am no financial wizard.

The likelihood of this ever happening is highly unlikely. Especially now that the euro is donning the cloak of supercharged monetarism, which is almost total in the face of grinding austerity, a double-dip recession that has already lasted 18 months and a jobless rate of 12.2% and rising in the Euro Zone.

This is not the received wisdom on the left.

When the crash came in 2007 it was a spectacular one.

The financial markets imploded, the banks stopped lending and cheap credit dried up. The housing market collapsed, unemployment rose, tax receipts shrivelled and the government’s budget deficit went through the roof. Speculation that the UK might leave the euro, as it had left the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992, meant investors demanded a high premium for holding UK government debt.

So is it time to create Spanish Euros, Irish Euros, Germany Euros, and in the long term English Euros all with their own exchange rate set against the GDP of the combined Members and forget about Federalism returning all member states to as they were before the introduction of the Euro.

There is no deep attachment in Britain to Europe as a political identity. Far from it.

However the market turbulence that will be caused by Britain’s exit may prove terminal for the euro and the break up of the Union.

Recently the UK even after Quantitative Easing (Printing Cash) on a massive scale had to accept an IMF loan the biggest the IMF had ever organised. It came with severe conditions,  including deep cuts in welfare and pensions and wage reductions across the public sector.

Deprived of the safety valve of currency depreciation, Britain had no choice but to do what Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal were doing and drive down domestic costs to make the economy more competitive. Speculation that the UK might leave the euro, as it had left the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992, meant investors demanded a high premium for holding UK government debt. Benchmark bond yields rose, first to 5%, then to 6%. When they hit 7%, Blair had no choice but to ask for help from the troika – the International Monetary Fund, the ECB and the EU.

Unlike in Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal, however, the buildup to the general election of 2010 promised the forthcoming Referendum.

Without this promise I believe Britain would have and would now be leaving the EU altogether.

So far only three currencies – have been able to become leading or dominant international currencies in the world’s history. Those that have done so tend to become monopolistic due to the centripetal forces derived from the existence of economies of scale, economies of scope and network externalities in their use.

The euro’s share in the world’s financial markets would receive a major boost if the UK were to adopt it, given London’s position as one of the world’s two leading financial markets, both in euros and in US dollars.

Furthermore, the UK has the EU’s second-largest GDP after Germany. In any case, the Euro Area (EA) is slowly expanding with the possibility of new EU members and other potential candidates joining in the future. At present, this is not the case with the US dollar.

The EU and the EA are only unions of independent nations and not a federal state, it will be extremely difficult to overtake the US dollar and maintain a dominant international role while the governance of the EU and EA remains unchanged.

Although in every country the currency is used by its citizens because it has the full guarantee of the State that issues it, in the international markets this guarantee is not a sufficient condition to make it of preferred use.

So the question is should the Uk be required to join the Euro irrelevant  of its own conditions to do so if it vote to remain.

Stage one would be the transition from the pound to the euro.

The most important part of this process, to fix the right level for the pound to join at, joining the euro at the wrong rate would penalise British manufacturers, while those already in the single currency were concerned that too cheap a rate for sterling entry would hand an added competitive advantage to the UK’s strong financial services sector.

The key to the Euro success will be to develop a wider export base, which means going beyond the euro zone itself.Afficher l'image d'origine

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: IS THE EUROPEAN UNION ALL ITS MADE OUT TO BE.

19 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in European Union.

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( Five to Six minute read)

The European Union seems incapable of undertaking economic reforms and defining its place in the world.Afficher l'image d'origine

Citizens feel isolated from the institutions in Brussels and see no way to influence European level decisions.

The EU is one of the motors of capitalist globalisation, the rule that all decisions should be made on the basis of profitability alone.

Over the course of the coming year it looks like it is in for a large dose of turmoil.

The lack of fluency in financialese shouldn’t preclude anyone from understanding what is going on in Europe or what may yet happen.

So let’s have a closer look at what is means to-day to be an European Citizen with a EU passport.

Years ago I had a lovely greed passport. Now I have a wine coloured EU Irish passport.

What is the difference? Globalisation has already deeply undermined national citizenship as a bond between individuals and states.

You could say that EU citizenship provides the most vivid reminder of the radical shift in the meaning of citizenship that made it a more ethically acceptable institution. Non-discrimination on the basis of nationality – the very core of EU law – provides the litmus test for what national citizenship is really about in the EU today.

The primary value of citizenship lies in the mobility rights attached to passports.

Does this appease my lost of my Irish Passport.?  Does it make me feel European?

So in some ways the answer to the above questions is Yes.

On the other hand I come from a small Island with a long history and a culture far removed from Europe.  So I remain Irish first and European for the sake of Commerce and Peace among nations.

The problem is that the EU passport is rapidly reflecting the instrumental value of free movement rights attached to EU citizenship for the wealthy and mobile global elites.

They are willing to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars to gain a freshly minted passport in their new “home country.”

That this demand exists is not fully surprising given that this is a world of regulated mobility and unequal opportunity, and a world where not all passports are treated equally at border crossings.

Rapid processes of market expansionism have now reached what for many is the most sacrosanct non-market good: membership in a political community.

More puzzling is the willingness of governments – our public trustees and legal guardians of citizenship – to engage in processes that come very close to, and in some cases cannot be described as anything but, the sale and barter of membership goods in exchange for a hefty bank wire transfer or large stack of cash.

Everybody knows that immigration is among the most contentious policy issues of our times, and recent years have witnessed a “restrictive turn” with respect to ordinary immigration and naturalisation applicants, such as those who enter on the basis of a family reunification claim or for humanitarian reasons.

At stake is the regulation of the most important and sensitive decision that any political community faces: how to define who belongs, or ought to belong, within its circle of members.

Not everyone knows, however, that governments are now proactively facilitating faster and smoother access to citizenship for those who can pay.

Many EU countries offer privileged access to EU citizenship to large populations outside the EU territory on grounds of distant ancestry or co-ethnic identity, obliging thereby all other Member States to admit immigrants from third countries to their territories and labour markets as EU citizens.

Consider the following examples.

Affluent foreign investors were offered citizenship in Cyprus as “compensation” for their Cypriot bank account deposit losses.

In 2012, Portugal introduced a “golden residence permit” to attract real estate and other investments by well-to-do individuals seeking a foothold in the EU.

Spain recently adopted a similar plan.

On 12 November 2013, Malta approved amendments to its Citizenship Act that put in place a new individual investor legal category that will allow high-net-worth applicants to gain a “golden passport” in return for € 650,000.

Under these cash for-passport programmes, many of the requirements that ordinarily apply to those seeking naturalisation, such as language competency, extended residency periods or renunciation of another citizenship, are waived as part of an active competition, if not an outright bidding war, to attract the ultra-rich.

Portugal, for example, offers a fast track for qualified applicants that entitles them to a 5 year permanent residence permit, visa-free travel in Schengen countries, the right to bring in their immediate family members, and ultimately the right to acquire Portuguese citizenship and with it the benefits of EU citizenship. This package comes with a hefty price tag: a capital transfer investment of € 1 million, a real estate property purchase at a value of € 500,000, or the creation of local jobs. The investment needs to remain active in Portugal for the programme’s duration.

Alas, the individual who gains the golden permit bears no similar obligation.

Simply spending 7 days in Portugal during the first year and fourteen days in the subsequent years is enough to fulfil the programme’s requirements.

This is not the only example or anything new: It is more or less wholesale around the world.

Such programmes are found in, among other places, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. Both kinds of programme raise serious ethical quandaries, but the unfettered cash-for-passport programmes are far more extreme and blatant than the traditional investment programmes.

They contribute to some of the most disturbing developments in 21st century citizenship, including the emergence of new forms of inequality and stratification.

So much for the conclusion that “real and effective ties” between the individual and the state are expected to underbid the grant of citizenship.

Since EU citizenship is derived from Member State nationality and determining the latter remains an exclusive competence of Member States, EU law does not provide much leverage against either the sale of EU passports or other policies of creating new EU citizens without genuine links to any EU country.

Citizenship should be considered as the kind of good that money should not be able to buy but earned. 

Instead of offering their citizenship for money, democratic states could bestow it on persons who are threatened by persecution or who fight for democratic values as a means of protection or exit option with the provision of earning the right to residence-based naturalisation.

A global market for citizenship status is corrupting democracy by breaking down the wall the separates the spheres of money and power.

However, that monetary investment can be a way of contributing to the common good of a political community and should therefore not be summarily dismissed as a legitimate reason for acquiring citizenship.

That states have legitimate interests in “inviting the rich, the beautiful and the smart” and that investor citizenship is not essentially different from the widespread practice of offering citizenship to prominent sportsmen and –women.

Some states offer citizenship to foreigners who have served in their army or have otherwise provided exceptional service to the country.

There is a broader trend towards relinking citizenship acquisition to social class, which manifests itself, on the one hand, in offering citizenship to the rich and, on the other hand, in income and knowledge tests for ordinary naturalisations of foreign residents.

Why are states putting citizenship up for sale? And what precisely is wrong with easy-pass naturalisation along the lines of the cash-for-passport programmes? Is it the queue jumping? The attaching of a price tag to citizenship? The erosion of something foundational about political membership itself? Or, perhaps, all of the above?

Such programmes are found in, among other places, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. Both kinds of programme raise serious ethical quandaries, but the unfettered cash-for-passport programmes are far more extreme and blatant than the traditional investment programmes. They contribute to some of the most disturbing developments in 21st century citizenship, including the emergence of new forms of inequality and stratification.

Indeed, if a Romanian is good enough to be embraced by British society as equal, subjecting a Moldovan to any kind of tests is utterly illogical: the arguments of the protection of culture, language, etc. are simply devoid of relevance when more than half a billion EU citizens a exempted from them.

The European bosses want to use North Africa and the other countries on the fringes of Europe as a highly exploitative, low wage sweatshop where workers have no union rights and environmental legislation is minimal.

There are two parts to this policy.

The nastiest side of the EU is on the question of migration. Here EU policy has resulted in thousands of deaths in the last decade.

Thousands have died trying to cross the borders that surround Europe.

They have drowned in the Mediterranean and suffocated in the backs of containers. Dozens have died in suspicious circumstances at the hands of immigration police. Tens of thousands more sit in prison camps across Europe, waiting to be deported. At the same time large sectors of the European economy, particularly in agriculture, cleaning and fast food are dependent on the low wage workforce the migrants who manage to cross the border provide.

So Ask me again. Is the EU passport all its made out to be.

Full belonging to a society is thus not subjected any more to an arbitrary approval, putting all the bizarre language, culture and other tests that states subject newcomers to in a very interesting perspective: the very existence of the EU disproves their validity and relevance.

They consist in nothing else but purification through humiliation: the “others’” language and culture is presumed as not good enough and social learning is dismissed, forcing people to waste their time by subjecting them to profoundly disturbing rituals.

The very success of obtaining EU citizenship by a period of probation is the strongest argument against these practices.

It’s not just an understanding of a language that makes you integrate, it’s the core belief is your country, not a Trading Block.

We all know that the EU originally was the Common Market.

Since then it has continuously evolved.

This means is that the EU wants to turn water supply, education, health and refuse collection from being social services provided to all to profit-making enterprises provided to those who can pay.

Surely, zealous free-marketeers will enthusiastically defend such programmes as freeing us from the shackles of culture, nation and tradition and moving citizenship forward to a new and more competitive global age of transactional contracting in which, as Nobel Prize laureate Gary Becker once put it, a price mechanism substitutes for the complicated criteria that now determine legal entry.

So why is it important to understand how citizenship-by-investment has come about?

Because of its large impact on an essential political institution and its success in carving out global mobility corridors through entangled states.

The UK, one of the first states to introduce Investor Visa (with a price tag of £ 1 million or a bank loan from an UK financial institution and personal assets worth 2 million) recently revised this policy as it came to its attention that investors used the capital for investment as security to back up loans and that investments were placed in offshore custody.

May be in 2016 the Flag will change to look like this.

Afficher l'image d'origine

or     Afficher l'image d'origine   orAfficher l'image d'origine

 

Afficher l'image d'origine

or   Afficher l'image d'origine   or    Afficher l'image d'origine

There is one thing for sure, fences or not it will have more than a few new Citizens.

All comments appreciated.

The Trans Pacific Partnership is a trade agreement so significant and important, its details can’t be disclosed.

28 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

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As Promised in my last post. Sorry this is another long winded post.

My blog has numerous posts on Inequality. The principal reason that we have such a messed up world.

In my view Inequality is the fundamental driving force behind, Conflicts, Poverty of all Correlations, Climate Change, Slave Labor, Immigration, Corruption and the pending collapse of Capitalism as we know it.

I have pointed my figure at Sovereign Wealth Funds, Electronic Trading, Foreign Exchange Manipulation.  Each one of them is at this every moment plundering the world willy nilly in adoration of the God Greed/Profit.

I have said that it is naive to think that we can change or remove any of the them from our Technological Capitalist driven world.  On the other hand with our collective power through Social Media we can demand that a COMMISSION of 0.05% is placed on their activities. Creating a perpetual fund to tackle Inequality and return the world to a more even keel. ( See previous posts)

The possibility of this happening within our out of date World Organisation is Zero. It can only happen if we all exert pressure as global citizen on the United Nations to pass a people’s resolution to apply such a commission.

So we are left with business as usual.

And that is exactly what is taking place with The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty. Which appears from what I can gather is a primary goal of the Obama administration in the United States of America.

So here we go again.

Profit before everything else with a vast potential to exacerbate economic inequality. A recipe for less protection for citizens and more rights for Big Business.  To increase trade for trade’s sake.

This agreement is basically a permanent power grab by corporations and financial companies that will make it impossible for the citizens of countries joining the TPP to choose what laws and rules they want to live under.

Now you might say with all the problems we have in the world so what.  It is just another Trade Agreement, it will have little or no effect on me.

You could be right.  It’ll be hard to notice at first, and it will depend on who you are and where you are.

Anyway if you’re just now hearing about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, don’t worry: Like me you’d also be forgiven for not hearing about it:

But in the off-chance that you might be interested here is what I have learned to date.

Its has now been under negotiation for nearly a decade.

It began in 2005 as an agreement between Singapore, Chile, New Zealand and Brunei, before the U.S. under George W. Bush took the lead in 2009. The last round of meeting was in Ottawa from 3–12 July 2014. The negotiations now include 600 corporate advisers.

The countries currently party to the agreement — currently include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, most critically Japan and potentially Korea — are some of the U.S.’ biggest and fastest-growing commercial partners, accounting for $1.5 trillion worth of trade in goods in 2012 and $242 billion worth of services in 2011.

So what  big country is not in the TPP …That’s right: China. I wonder why not.

Probable like you I thought we already had a World Trade Organization. So why do we need a separate Asia trade deal? and without China.?

Is this trade agreement another neoliberal project. To maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity.

Is it the currency manipulation, which wouldn’t directly affect China as a non-member the real target.

So just what are we talking about here.

Fortunately for those of us who live like mushrooms it has not gone totally unnoticed.

In March 2013, four thousand Japanese farmers held a protest in Tokyo over the potential for cheap imports to severely damage the local agricultural industry.

Malaysian protesters dressed as zombies outside a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur on 21 February 2014 to protest the impact of the TPP on the price of medicines, including treatment drugs for HIV.

On 29 March 2014, 15 anti-TPP protests occurred across New Zealand, including a demonstration in Auckland attended by several thousand people

On 27 January 2015, protesters hijacked an US Senate hearing to speak out against the TPP and were promptly removed by capital police officers.

It is serving only the interests of the wealthiest.

Is it a secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement?

It is a 21st-century trade agreement involving 11 Asian countries along the Pacific Rim, and said to cover 40% of the world’s economy. Representing 792 million people and accounting for 40 percent of the world economy.

Yet it’s been devised in secret. Written behind closed doors by the corporate world.

Trans-Pacific Partnership-2

Trade negotiations are usually conducted in private, on the theory that parties won’t be able to have a meaningful dialogue if their positions are disclosed to the public. Accordingly, TPP parties have signed a confidentiality agreement requiring them to share proposals only with “government officials and individuals who are part of the government’s domestic trade advisory process.

” So but wait, how will this actually affect my life?”

Global health advocates, environmentalists, Internet activists and trade unions are deeply concerns about what the deal might contain.

It’s expected to eliminate tariffs on goods and services, tear down a host of non-tariff barriers and harmonize all sorts of regulations when it’s finished early next year..

It raises significant concerns about citizens’ freedom of expression, due process, innovation, the future of the Internet’s global infrastructure, and the right of sovereign nations to develop policies and laws that best meet their domestic priorities.

What few seem to realize is that this agreement, if approved as is, could make it virtually impossible for the United States to meet its current and future climate pledges. 

In sum, the TPP puts at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens.

Former national security adviser Tom Donilon called it  the “centerpiece of our economic re balancing” and a “platform for regional economic integration” — after too many years of American foreign policy being bogged down in the Middle East.

How is it different from other trade deals done? 

The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy.

Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder people’s’ abilities to innovate.

The TPP — encompass a broad range of regulatory and legal issues, making them a much more central part of foreign policy and even domestic lawmaking.

Everything from financial services to telecommunications to sanitary standards for food.

Some parts of it have significant ramifications for countries’ own legal regimes, such as the part about regulatory coherence,” which encourages countries to set up a mechanism like the U.S.’ own Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to conduct cost-benefit analyses on new rules.

One of the contentious issue of the TPP negotiations has been currency manipulation, where in a country devalues its currency to boost exports and gain a trade advantage. Organisations such as the WTO or IMF cannot control such currency manipulation, so some are calling upon the US to “use the free-trade talks to force an end to such actions.

The US has been seeking trade rules that secure and extend their patents, trademarks, and copyrights abroad, and protect their global franchise agreements, securities, and loans. But they want less protection of consumers, workers, small investors, and the environment, because these interfere with their profits.

What is wrong with trade rules that allow them to override these protections.

For example, that the pharmaceutical industry gets stronger patent protections, delaying cheaper generic versions of drugs. That will be a good deal for Big Pharma but not necessarily for the inhabitants of developing nations who won’t get certain life-saving drugs at a cost they can afford.

In other words, the TPP is a Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom, giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate any and all laws and regulations that get in the way of their profits.

Why You Should Care about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

It’s worth considering the ramifications of  such an agreement which has unbelievable potential to exacerbate economic inequality.

Here are a few good reasons for consideration.

At a time when corporate profits are at record highs and the real median wage is lower than it’s been in four decades, most of us need protection — not from international trade but from the political power of large corporations and Electronic Stock Exchange Trading.

There are provisions in the TPP that will prevent whistle blowers and journalists from accessing or ‘disclosing’ trade secrets through a computer system.

The TPP also gives global corporations an international tribunal of private attorneys, outside any nation’s legal system, who can order compensation for any “unjust expropriation” of foreign assets.

The foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based corporations could just as easily challenge any U.S. government regulation they claim unfairly diminishes their profits — say, a regulation protecting American consumers from unsafe products or unhealthy foods, investors from fraudulent securities or predatory lending, workers from unsafe working conditions, taxpayers from another bailout of Wall Street, or the environment from toxic emissions.

Even better for global companies, the tribunal can order compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nation’s regulations.

Philip Morris is using a similar provision against Uruguay (the provision appears in a bilateral trade treaty between Uruguay and Switzerland), claiming that Uruguay’s strong anti-smoking regulations unfairly diminish the company’s profits.

It is protecting the interests of the largest multinational corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations democracy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.

The TPP would force the adoption of the US DMCA ( see below appendix) Internet intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety. For example, this would require Chile to rewrite its forward-looking 2010 copyright law that currently establishes a judicial notice-and-take down regime, which provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the DMCA.

It will compel signatory nations to enact laws banning circumvention of digital locks( technological protection measures on TPMs) that mirror the DMCA and treat violation of the TPM provisions as a separate offense even when no copyright infringement is involved.

This would require countries like New Zealand to completely rewrite its innovative 2008 copyright law, as well as override Australia’s carefully-crafted 2007 TPM regime exclusions for region-coding on movies on DVDs, video games, and players, and for embedded software in devices that restrict access to goods and services for the device—a thoughtful effort by Australian policy makers to avoid the pitfalls experienced with the US digital locks provisions.

In the US, business competitors have used the DMCA to try to block printer cartridge refill services, competing garage door openers, and to lock mobile phones to particular network providers.

Dangerously vague text on the misuse of trade secrets, which could be used to enact harsh criminal punishments against anyone who reveals or even accesses information through a “computer system” that is allegedly confidential.

Create copyright terms well beyond the internationally agreed period in the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The TPP could extend copyright term protections from life of the author + 50 years, to Life + 70 years for works created by individuals, and either 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation for corporate owned works (such as Mickey Mouse).

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is putting fair use at risk with restrictive language in the TPP’s IP chapter. (see below Appendix)

US and Australia have proposed very restrictive text, while other countries such as Chile, New Zealand, and Malaysia, have proposed more flexible, user-friendly terms.

Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without a commercial motivation. Users could be jailed or hit with debilitating fines over file sharing, and may have their property or domains seized even without a formal complaint from the copyright holder.

In short, countries would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of the US and its experience with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) over the last 12 years, and adopt many of the most controversial aspects of US copyright law in their entirety.

At the same time, the US IP chapter (see below Appendix) does not export the limitations and exceptions in the US copyright regime like fair use, which have enabled freedom of expression and technological innovation to flourish in the US. It includes only a placeholder for exceptions and limitations.

This raises serious concerns about other countries’ sovereignty and the ability of national governments to set laws and policies to meet their domestic priorities.

Don’t worry: Negotiations over the huge trade agreement — which, when finished, will govern 40 percent of U.S.’ imports and exports.

In sum, the TPP puts at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens.

And I thought that Trade agreements used to deal mostly just with goods:

The TPP will affect countries beyond the 11 that are currently involved in negotiations. 

Like ACTA,( Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is an agreement secretly negotiated from 2007 to 2010 by a small “club” of countries (39 countries, including 27 of the European Union, the United States, Japan, etc) the TPP Agreement is a plurilateral agreement that will be used to create new heightened global IP enforcement norms.

Countries that are not parties to the negotiation will likely be asked to accede to the TPP as a condition of bilateral trade agreements with the US and other TPP members, or evaluated against the TPP’s copyright enforcement standards in the annual special 301 process administered by the US Trade Rep. (See below Appendix)

Six of the countries presently negotiating the TPP, and who have reportedly caved in and agreed on copyright term extension, would have been about to contribute cultural icons of their own to the public domain, enriching their own countries and the world with home-grown art, music, and film that is otherwise at risk of being forgotten. These countries are Brunei, Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia, Japan, and Vietnam.

We are left with the obvious question. Why is it that none of countries can see the damage this Agreement is going to inflict.

Many of the TPP’s current provisions are designed to exclude China, like those requiring yarn in clothing to come from countries party to the agreement, and could possibly invite retaliation.

As far as I can see the TPP is“disastrous”and its purpose should be denounced. It will extend problematic US laws into international law. One example: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prosecutors used to hound open-web advocate Aaron Swartz.

Any of the six countries above can stop this deal!

If even one of the countries—Brunei, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand or Vietnam— is brave enough to stand up to the United States and block the extension of the copyright term, then that ill-advised deal could still fall through.

If you are from one of those countries, you can call your Member of Parliament, or your trade ministry, and demand that they save the public domain, by retaining the life plus 50 year copyright term that is your right under the Berne Convention.

If you are in the US, your best avenue to stop term extension, and the TPP’s other anti-user threats, is to support the Fast Track action group. For instance, there is a scuffle around the TPP’s rumored treatment of Digital Rights Management tools, which corporations use to limit access to digital devices – often to prevent piracy. TPP has provisions that make it a crime to break these locks, and to do things that aren’t even copyright infringement.

It includes provisions on intellectual property and copyright that are usually outside the boundaries of trade, critics say.

If it comes to fruition it will only encourage another regional pact that will just add complexity and undermine existing institutions.

The WTO ( World Trade Organisation) is too cumbersome.

Brussels, Jan. 7, 2015 — The European Commission published a raft of texts setting out EU proposals for legal text in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) it is negotiating with the US.

Not much different than the TTP other than it is more transparent. 

So let me ask you. You still think that it will have no effect on your life. Think again.

If you have concerns about the TPP,or the TTIP now is the time to speak up.

These trade negotiations are an assault on democracy. I would vote against them except… hang on a minute, I can’t Like you, I have no say whatsoever in whether TPP or TTIP goes through or not.

All I can do is tell as many people about it as possible, as I hope, will you.

We may be forced to accept an attack on democracy but we can at least fight against the conspiracy of silence.

Appendix:

⌈Digital Millennium Copyright Act⌋

⌈The IP Chapter covers topics from pharmaceuticals, patent registrations and copyright issues to digital rights. Experts say it will affect freedom of information, civil liberties and access to medicines globally.⌋

⌈Special 301 is an annual review process led by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). U.S. trade law (“Special 301”) requires an annual review of intellectual property protection and market access practices in foreign countries. Effective action under Special 301 by USTR has been essential in stemming the tidal wave of losses in U.S. jobs and competitiveness that have threatened one of our country’s most productive and fastest growing economic sectors. Special 301 and its leverage are a full-time process for the copyright industries which work with local private sector representatives, U.S. government officials, and U.S. Embassy officials to address and resolve copyright problems in scores of countries.⌋

 

Abracadabra – Can 1.3 trillion of Imaginary Money save the Euro.

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

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European institutions appear weak and incapable of defending European principles and the proper functioning of the euro.Euro coins on fire

Greece is on the verge of balking on billions of Euro it has borrowed.

If they do it will trigger a free for all and the end of the Euro.

The euro is seen as the ultimate underpinning for the edifice of European integration. The financial crisis and its aftermath have shown that the euro instead has the potential to destroy the whole project.

Political reform is needed to sustain the euro but this is unlikely to pass the political feasibility test with the current governments of Europe. At present the European Union is a club with virtually no economic union: no fiscal union, no banking union, no shared economic governance institutions, and no meaningful coordination of structural economic policies.

The Greek crisis will pitted debtors against creditors.

Not with standing the deep interdependence between them Debtor countries want salvation through solidarity and are thus committed to policy solutions that distribute the costs beyond their borders. Creditor countries, on the other hand, want to insulate their tax payers from exposure to the debtor states and are reluctant to discuss large-scale burden-sharing.

We all know that Greece cooked the books to join the euro in the first place. However, France and Germany also broke the very rules that they had insisted on for everyone else. In 2004, Greece announced it had lied to get around the Maastricht Criteria. Surprisingly, the EU imposed no sanctions! Why not?

Because the EU wanted to strengthen, not weaken, the power of the euro in international currency markets. A strong euro would convince other EU countries, like the UK, Denmark, and Sweden, to adopt the euro.

Greece has been a chief benefactor of the EU budget; Since 2009, Greece has been kept on life support by two bailouts from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund worth a total of €240 billion ($320 billion).

In 2009, EU transactions summed up to 2.35% of GDP. From 1994-99, about $20 billion in EU structural funds and Greece federal financing were exhausted on projects to urbanize and build up Greece’s transportation system in time for the Olympics in 2004.

GERMANY-ECB-EU-FOREX-RATE-EUROZONE-BANK-MONEY

Would a Greek default  plunge the world into a  financial crisis? No. It prove systemic for the EU as a whole.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal, are already in their fourth year of austerity, face many difficult years ahead, as do states with high levels of debt. 

If the single currency survives, it will survive on the basis of more integration within the euro area as the ‘hardest of hard cores’ and hence deep divisions between the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’.

There is also the deeper question of the consent of the people. If the euro area reaches a federal moment and a federal question, then the consent of Europe’s peoples must be sought at least within the euro area.

Without it the currency the European Union as we know it would not be sustainable in the longer term.

Whether an exit for Greece can be achieved without triggering a massive financial crisis is doubtful. The result will be a disorderly collapse of the euro and probably of the single market as well.

The result of a Greek walk away would be substantial losses for established governing parties and more electoral success for extreme populist parties and National elections remain the most legitimate channel for selecting political office holders in Europe. European parliament elections are second order political events.

Next in  line would be Italy: It is too big to fail and too big to bail.

Greece’s creditors must accept the necessity of a write-off of at least a portion of Greek debt. The current practice of extending the terms of Greek loans and pretending that Greek will – some day – make good on its commitments cannot be sustained.

A Greek default would have a more immediate effect. First, Greek banks — already on the brink — would go bankrupt. Next, losses would threaten the solvency of other European banks, particularly in Germany and France. Even worse, the EU’s central bank (ECB) holds a lot of Greek and other sovereign debt. If Greece defaults, it could put the future of the ECB at risk. Other indebted countries might decide, or be forced, to default. Without a central bank to bail them out, the EU itself may not survive.

The crisis requires collective action from the ECB and the 17 member states in an environment of deep divergence of preferences and interests.

Make no mistake: this is going to end badly. By this time next year, either Greece will be out of the euro – or Syriza will be out of power.

Luckily I have thought of a solution.

Why not give the Greeks a huge pile of imaginary Quantitative Easing Money. Then they can give this imaginary money back to pay off their debts.

Abracadabra the Euro is saved.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

12 Thursday Feb 2015

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Our physical world is polluted with dangerous chemicals, but our language, too, suffers its own kind of pollution.

Everyone is society is affected by language and communication in some way or other, no more so than Europeans.

So lets ask a few questions;

The Treaty of Rome in 1957 founded what is now the European Union, and was supposed to be the beginning of the end of nationalism in Europe. But over a half-century later, nationalism never went away. Officially, deputies and delegates will only speak in their national languages, as a matter of principle.

You might wonder then, when most, if not all, EU bureaucrats master English, what’s the point in maintaining 23 official languages, especially at such expense? Why not just use a single language and, what’s more, why not use the language all EU bureaucrats master — English?

Within the EU institutions, ideology trumps pragmatism, and the founding ideology of the Union is “Unity in Diversity.”

Back in 1957, when there were only six member states and four languages, it was an easy credo to follow. But fast-forward to today and things are not so easy: 27 member states and 23 official languages. It’s costing the EU a lot of money, it’s having a negative impact on its global competitiveness and it will only get more complex as the union continues to enlarge. Croatia will make 24th official language.

Just imagine a General with an army of 24 different nations all awaiting the order to advance in their own language. The war would be over before it started. God knows we have moved on from Nelson days where every order had to giving in triplicate, but the idea for establishing English as the language of the EU, remains politically toxic. Long live Nelson.

English is the language of the most eurosceptic country — the United Kingdom. What’s more, France and Germany are very touchy when it comes to having their languages eclipsed by English. Any single language wouldn’t be democratic, or in the shared spirit of the union.

So we are left with. Once a delegate or bureaucrat delivers a speech in his or her native language, it’s taken up by dozens of interpreters, who simultaneously translate into their respective languages, or tune into the English interpretation and translate from that. Meanwhile, an official release of the speech is produced and sent to the translation unit and a separate group of text-based translators gets to work.

The process is costly, unproductive, and most of all, unnecessary.

So how are national and European identities tied to language and communication? And what role does power have – power in discourse, over discourse and of discourse?

In our daily lives, we often encounter combinations of words and images of all kinds. We take them as given, we use them to communicate and interpret information.

Just imagine you were born stone deaf. Your language would be based on sight–lip reading which translates to sign language which appears to be on the increase in modern forms of communication.

But we are no longer communicate only in ‘traditional’ written or spoken genres, but also using new ones, such as text messages, e-mail, tweets and Facebook posts. These force us to get accustomed to the reduction of geographical distance and of time-spans due to the GLOBALIZATION OF COMMUNICATION. These day you can get fired by a text while on holidays.

However, in all available genres, the use of language and communication as a ‘social practice’enables dialogue, negotiation, argument and discussion, learning and remembering, and other functions.

Languages and using language manifest ‘who we are’, and we define reality partly through our language and linguistic behavior.

But who determines who can speak with whom, and how? Who decides on the norms of language use; who sets these norms and enforces them; who determines whether languages, linguistic behaviors and identities are accepted?

Who, for example, decides, in the end, which language and which form of language is ‘good’ enough to pass a language test to attain citizenship or resident status? Or look at the other side of the pond. Spanish is like a creeping tide in the USA.

With the recent appearance of new states in Europe and the flow of populations across state boundaries, a new criterion centered on proficiency in the official language(s) of a state has emerged.

The acquisition of language proficiency is apparently frequently perceived as being solely in the interests of migrants and not also in the interests of the host country, as well as being the host country’s responsibility.

Moreover,many politicians still have to be convinced that second language acquisition depends on the availability of professional teachers, good teaching materials and sufficient competence in one’s native language.

Unfortunately, the worlds of language experts and politicians (and their bureaucrats) remain far apart, and much dialogue would be required to bring them together. Parameters for determining exactly who is (or can become) a ‘resident’ and/or a ‘citizen’ are at present unresolved, with little consensus across the states.

In creating language tests of various kinds, language competence has acquired the status of a key gatekeeper – providing access for some and rejecting it for others.

There are certainly no easy recipes for dealing with second language acquisition and migration. However, it is clear that we must acknowledge the close, emotional relationship between language and identity, and take account of it in the many political and educational policy decisions made every day.

All human identities are social in nature, because identity is about meaning, and meaning is not an essential property of words and things:

Two established criteria for determining citizenship, common in policy discourse,are birthplace and bloodline both are indelible printed and cannot be replaced by citizenship.

Language, power and identity’ closely these three are connected. How the discursive construction of  identities is influenced by vested interests, and how identities are thus continually re- and co-constructed and negotiated.

However, these co-constructions operate within clear borders created in politics, in the economy and in legal frameworks. The contrast between policy regulations and the ‘voices of migrants’ allows the exposition of the many inherent contradictions in the search for European identities and related values, as stated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights

Meaning develops in context-dependent use.

Meanings are always the ‘outcome of agreement or disagreement, always a matter of contention, to some extent shared and always negotiable’ (Jenkins 1996: 4–5).

The cost of Translation in the EU is (estimated) — to be €330m a year or some €0.60 for every EU citizen.

According to certain very rough estimates, the cost of all language services in all EU institutions amounts to less than 1% of the annual general budget of the EU. Divided by the population of the EU, this comes to around €2 per person per year.

In 2014 output was 2.30 million pages. Of this, 71% was done in-house and the rest by contractors. A page is 1 500 typed characters not including spaces.

                  The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

                         Learning second language ‘slows brain ageing.

Speaking a second language is better than just knowing how to speak it.

When the world changes, sometimes a new language is needed to handle that change. For instance, telegraphs spawned Morse code, airplanes spawned air traffic control signals, and computers spawned machine language, C++, Java, and many others. You may decide that no existing language can satisfy the needs of your world, and so you may choose to become a language maker, which presents its own challenges.

That leaves us with : Do words make a language or is it the other way around.  Words can be x-rays, if you use them properly- they’ll go through anything, you read them and you’re pierced. Prized possessions  are words are words that are never spoken, sometimes the thought in my head get so bored they go out for a stroll through my mouth.

 

Sovereign Wealth Funds. Alarm.

30 Sunday Nov 2014

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<img alt=”” src=”http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/79/29/e0/1728.jpg”/>
This photo of 1728 is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Its back to my hobby-horse the ongoing Privatization of the World.

It is of course is happening in a clever way, with very careful paperwork, so we have the option of pretending that it’s not actually happening, right up until the bitter end.

I often wonder is it just me. You barley hear a mummer about it from any other quarter. Other than Ireland where the population has woken up to the Privatization of water.

Perhaps it’s that no one gives a tosser.

That our Governments are systematically divesting themselves of bits and pieces of their own sovereignty, by transfer of assets and service functions from public to private hands.

It’s taking place all over the world without really anyone noticing it happening — often not even the people are asked to vote formerly on the issue.

It is my contention that it is the quality of the state rather than the fact that assets are owned by the state that matters more. In developing countries with extensive market and information failures the state should play an important role in promoting equitable development over the long run not sell of their assets to the highest buyers.

At the political level privatization has been challenged by workers affected by attendant retrenchments and the restructuring of internal and external labor markets consequent upon privatization that has resulted in increased worker vulnerability, and by consumers who have often been negatively affected by increased prices based on cost recovery pricing regimes instituted as a consequence of privatization, or by reduction in service provision arising from “efficiency enhancing” measures as a consequence of privatization.

No one knows precisely how much money is held by SWFs but it is estimated that they currently own $3.5 trillion in assets, and within one decade they could balloon to $10–15 trillion. (equivalent to America’s gross domestic product, an amount larger than the current global stock of foreign reserves of the USA which is about $5 trillion.)

Imagine the biggest and most aggressive hedge fund on Wall Street, then imagine that same fund is fifty or sixty times bigger and outside the reach of any other major regulatory authority, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what an SWF is.

The rise of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) as new power brokers in the world economy can no longer be looked at as a singular phenomenon but rather as part of what can be defined a new economic world order.

This new order has been enabled by several mega trends which operate in a self-reinforcing manner, among them the meteoric rise of developing Asia, accelerated globalization, the rapid flow of information and the sharp increase in the price of oil by a delta of over $100 per barrel in just six years which is enabling Russia and OPEC members to accumulate unprecedented wealth and elevate themselves to the position of supreme economic powers.

It will not be long before transactions involving investment by sovereign wealth funds, as with other types of foreign investment, may raise legitimate national security concerns.

Concerns are growing that the purpose of the investments might be to secure control of strategically important industries for political rather than financial gain.

They on the other hand see themselves as passive, long-term investors, driven solely by the need to make a good return on their country’s surplus cash.

There is a degree of looking through the wrong end of the telescope to all this.

Sovereign wealth funds have with total assets estimated at $5.4tn as of October 2013. The funds have gained more than $750bn in additional assets since 2012 of which only $60 billion has gone to recent bank bailouts.

They are rapidly becoming owners of big chunks of American,the UK and Europe infrastructures.

Unlike the central banks of most Western countries, whose main function is to accumulate reserves in an attempt to stabilize the domestic currency, most SWFs have a mission to invest aggressively and generate huge long-term returns.

The origin of these SWFs is not even relevant, necessarily.

What is relevant is that these funds are foreign.

They are state-owned investment pools that thanks to a remarkable series of events in the middle part of the last decade they are buying up your governments services such as water treatment, parking meters, toll highways, rail links, ports, public infrastructure projects, commercial real estate all delivering a lot of cash into the coffers of sovereign wealth funds like the Qatar Investment Authority, the Libyan Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s SAMA Foreign Holdings, and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Some recent activity:

(The first was the announcement that the Qatari royal family is planning a large investment in the controversial £50billion HS2 rail link, focused on a major new station and housing scheme in central Birmingham.

Qatar Investment Authority, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, is soon to table a new bid to take over Songbird Estates which owns the iconic Canary Wharf tower in east London, one of the best-known modern symbols of British capitalism.  

Libya’s sovereign wealth fund is suing French bank Societe Generale in a British court for $1.5 billion for allegedly channeling bribes to allies of the son of slain dictator Muammar Qaddafi.  

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the country’s sovereign wealth fund could reach $55 billion by March next year if oil prices kept high.

Iran earned $100 billion in oil revenue in 2011. Iran is both the world leader in Shariah Compliant Finance and the world’s most active state sponsor of Jihadist terrorism.

Deutsche Bahn Seeks Sovereign Funds for the state-owned railway, is seeking to sell shares to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia during the initial public offering. )

What is more to the point, is we’re being colonized/Privatized.

Industry today may not be regarded as such an industry tomorrow, and vice versa.  Just look at the explosion of energy prices — thanks to a bubble that Western banks and perhaps some foreign SWFs had a big hand in creating.

Out side any regulation these funds are free to plunder the earth in the form of Hedge Funds( (which they have a bunch) with out anyone knowing who the funds investors are.

The point here is if these funds.

Are not regulated by the relevant international bodies determining which kinds of information about their balance sheets, management structures, investment objectives, portfolio breakdowns, and so forth should be supplied by sovereign wealth funds. The European Union could then put curbs on funds failing to comply with the standards for the publication of such information.

One way or the other they should be Capped ( See previous posts)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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