Tag Archives: United Nations

THE BEADY EYE DRAWS ITS CONCLUSION ON WORLD ORGANISATIONS.

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Humanity., Sustaniability, The world to day., World Organisations.

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Over many centuries, human societies across the globe have established progressively closer contacts.

Recently, the pace of global integration has dramatically increased.

Unprecedented changes in communications, transportation, and computer technology have given the process new impetus and made the world more interdependent than ever.

All giving rise to the question:

Why is our world in such a mess and our World Organisations so helpless to do anything about it.

The Answer is simple and can be summed up in one Paragraph.

Self Interest, no long-term planning, greed, unsustainable consumption, religion beliefs, drugs, guns, inequality and our out of date reactionary World Organisations which are not funded and have zero power to do anything about it.

At the turn of the Millennium, the atmosphere of optimism at the end of the Cold War and the confidence that globalization would “lift all boats” led to the belief that extreme deprivation could be overcome without any major change in global economic governance.

Now, after two decades of increasing inequalities and having reached or surpassed many of the planetary boundaries identified by science, it is extremely difficult to argue that the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) can be achieved without affecting some privileges of the rich and powerful.

This won’t happen without social and political struggle.

The good news is that the emerging global consensus is not any more on the side of plutocracies.

The Globalization of Politics, of Culture and of Law sweeps away regulation and undermines local and national politics, just as the consolidation of the nation-state swept away local economies, dialects, cultures and political forms.

Globalization may well create new markets and wealth, but it is a source of repression and a catalyst for global movements of social justice and emancipation.

Even as it causes widespread suffering, disorder, and unrest and now threatens the very atmosphere that we all rely on we carry on regardless of its consequences.

It is beyond comprehension, that we all sit in front of our TV, walk about with our Smart phones and worry about personnel satisfaction when the very world we live in is going to rack and ruin.

In the global partnership for development the focus has shifted towards private sector involvement while minimizing the goals for fair trade, debt relief and neglecting the regulation and control of capital movement.

Multinational corporations manufacture products in many countries and sell to consumers around the world. Money, technology and raw materials move ever more swiftly across national borders. Along with products and finances, ideas and cultures circulate more freely.

As a result, laws, economies, and social movements are forming at the international level are woven together in a complex manner, making it difficult to summarize positive or negative effects.

For example, giving the business sector the key role, being a contributor to job-generating growth. This comes before the adoption of “business-binding human rights standards.

However, it also reflects a new concept for “international partnership for development,” which has been based on the following:

(1) promoting fair trade to help developing nations improve their economic performance and revenues; (2) reconsidering foreign debts, which are consuming large public budget revenues; (3) increasing development aid in quantity and quality (the aid effectiveness track was launched in 2003); (4) speeding up technology transfer to help developing nations overcome the challenges of improving development tools; and (5) addressing the issue of medicines for dangerous illnesses, which is part of commitments by rich nations towards developing ones.

However there is little point to the above if there is no funds to effect the reforms. Why adopt goals at all?

Any systematic effort to answer this seemingly elementary conceptual question has been disturbingly absent in all our World Organisations.flag_2_access

UN reform is endlessly discussed, but there is sharp disagreement on what kind of reform is needed and for what purpose.

UN ‘fit for purpose’, but it is important to ask, ‘whose purpose will it be fit for’?

Funding of all UN system-wide activities is around US$40 billion per year.

While this may seem to be a substantial sum, in reality it is smaller than the budget of New York City, less than a quarter of the budget of the European Union, and only 2.3 per cent of the world’s military expenditures.

We needs to move from ‘Billions’ to ‘Trillions.

Member States have failed to provide reliable funding to the UN system at a level sufficient to enable it to fulfill the mandates they have given it.

With the ongoing financial constraints, it has opened the space for corporate sector engagement.

Increasingly the UN is promoting market-based approaches and multi-stakeholder partnerships as the business model for solving global problems.

Driven by a belief that engaging the more economically powerful is essential to maintaining the relevance of the UN.  This practice has harmful consequences for democratic governance and general public support, as it aligns more with power centers and away from the less powerful.

Donors’ priorities are limited to humanitarian intervention to help refugees and victims of wars and conflicts and to dealing with security concerns in countries torn by wars and conflicts.

The UN working methods reflect a bygone era.

The question of how a fair sharing of costs, responsibilities and opportunities among and within countries can be achieved in formulating and implementing a Post-2015 Sustainability Agenda is overlooked.

The goal to reduce inequality within and among countries, the goal to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, and the goal to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for development are all unattainable without funding.

The Post-2015 Agenda will only succeed if these goals include specific and time-bound targets and commitments for the rich that trigger the necessary regulatory and fiscal policy changes.

This will never happen.

The five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) enjoy the privilege of veto power. This power has been intensely controversial since the drafting of the UN Charter in 1945.

Without the veto privilege. Fifty years later, the debate on the existence and use of the veto continues, reinvigorated by many cases of veto-threat as well as actual veto use.

The UN cannot perform effectively as long as its budget remains tightly constrained.

For all the talk about auditors and oversight bodies, the UN mainly needs cash. Financial reforms must consider new ways to raise funds, including “alternative financing” such as a global system of revenue-raising must be put in place to fund genuinely international initiatives.

There is only one way to achieve this. 

By placing a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds acquisitions and on all New Drilling licences Gas/Oil.

The foreign exchange market is the largest market in the world, with an estimated $4 trillion of foreign exchange traded per day (2011).

This means that in less than one year, currency worth 25 times the global GDP is traded.

Of this massive amount, international trade in goods and services, which requires foreign exchange, accounts for only a small percentage ($9 trillion per year) of the total trading.

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

Add High Frequency Trading and SWFs not forgetting Oil and Gas Drilling and you have a perpetual funded UN.

Apart from the potential to tackle inequalities and injustices worldwide, it would trigger decisive action to protect the integrity of our planet, to combat climate change, and put an end to the overuse of resources and ecosystems by acknowledging planetary boundaries and promoting the respect for nature.

This is the only real solution.

Meanwhile exchange rate speculation accounts for at least 80 percent of the global currency market. These speculative movements, which can take place rapidly and unpredictably, threaten to empty central banks’ currency reserves and trigger financial crises such as those in Mexico (1994), East Asia (1997-98), Russia (1998), Brazil (1999), Turkey (2000) and Argentina (2001).

These crises have had far-reaching socio-economic consequences, throwing millions of people into poverty and unemployment.

Unfortunately, social achievements in reality are often fragile particularly for the socially excluded and can easily be rolled back as a result of conflict (as in the case of Ukraine/Syria/ Middle East), of capitalism in crisis (in many countries after 2008) or as a result of wrong-headed, economically foolish and socially destructive policies, as in the case of austerity policies in many regions, from Latin America to Asia to Southern Europe.

In the name of debt reduction and improved competitiveness, these policies brought about large-scale unemployment and widespread impoverishment, often coupled with the loss of basic income support or access to basic primary health care.

More often than not, this perversely increased sovereign debt instead of decreasing it.

In the United States poverty increased steadily in the last two decades and currently affects some 50 million people, measured by the official threshold of US$23,850 a year for a family of four. In Germany, 20.3 percent of the population – a total of 16.2 million people – were affected by poverty or social exclusion in 2013. In the European Union as a whole, the proportion of poor or socially excluded people was 24.5 percent.

Last, but not least, rich countries tend to be more powerful in terms of their influence on international and global policy making and standard setting. Actions by international institutions like the IMF or World Bank are shaped by their governing bodies, whose composition is directly linked to the affluence of member countries.

Similar patterns exist in donor-recipient relationships or in the dynamics of international and/or inter-state negotiations.

The results can be very tangible, as in the case of the creditor-debtor-relationship between Greece and EU and IMF, or rather subtle as sometimes in the voting behavior of smaller actors in the UN Security Council.

If we are to have a global transformation, it would require not only the mobilization of the international community but also a fair sharing of costs, responsibilities and opportunities among and within the countries of the World. Include fair trade and investment regimes and migration policies, and international financial system reforms; more specifically they include the revision of bilateral and international investment agreements, the creation of a global regulatory framework for transnational corporations, greater flexibility in intellectual property rights protection for developing countries, genuine efforts to combat tax evasion and profit shifting, the creation of a debt workout mechanism for highly indebted countries as well as the reform of existing global economic governance institutions.

Not secret Trade Agreements like the TTP and the TTIP

All countries have responsibilities in this regard, but the rich have a greater responsibility given their capacity, resources and influence in international institutions and economic governance.

A UN study has estimated that about $150 billion per year is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals, including halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, ensuring primary schooling for all children, and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases.

 

The richest 85 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of the entire global population.

Yes, that equation works out to: 85 > 3,000,000,000.

By the end of 2016 the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world’s wealth

People everywhere want to be free to determine their own future so we must take the profit out of war and profit for profit sake.

The Conclusion can only be:  

That unless we the citizens of the Planet demand change nothing or any reform will be possible. We must make profit for profit sake provide the Funds. Take the current Climate Change Conference in Paris. With no funds any agreements to tackle the problem will be worthless.   

If you agree: Join me. Get off your rear end and get involved. ( see previous posts.)

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE HIPPOCRATIC NATIONS SELLING ARMS.

02 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Arms Trade.

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There is no doubt that the gun has had more influence in changing the course of history than any other competitor – money/Capitalism, Credit, or the Internet and the good news is that the international arms trade is still booming to this day. story-thumb-nail-image

In September this year the Docklands in East London will play host to DSEI 2015, a biennial government-sponsored arms fair that is among the biggest in the world.

DSEI, which will be unimpeded by the Arms Trade Treaty, will bring hundreds of major arms companies and arms dealers together with some of the worst dictators and warmongering regimes.

At the same time 300,000 are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, while ISIS flattens world heritage, destabilizes, beheads with American arms all that come in its path, while Israel grabs Palestinian land and Americans have the right to arms to kill each other,

This deadly carnival of the grotesque could not take place without the practical and political support of government ministers and their departments.

The promotions don’t stop at hosting arms fairs and trade missions.

Britain even has a government department dedicated to the promotion of arms sales: the UK Trade & Investment Defence & Security Organization (UKTI DSO). Despite its obscure name and low profile, UKTI DSO is right at the heart of the government’s support for the arms trade, employing 128 civil servants for the sole purpose of boosting international arms sales.

Arms sales, which fuel insecurity and abuse around the world, only account for 1.4 per cent of British exports and just 0.2 per cent of the jobs.

On top of that, the industry receives an annual public subsidy, which one study estimates to be around $1 billion. The mindset that puts helping companies secure lucrative (for them, not the taxpayer) deals before all else.

The simple fact is that Britain, and other countries, could stop arming tyrants right now.

Britain has consistently pulled out all stops to try to maximize them.

Every year the government publishes its Human Rights and Democracy Report; the most recent report listed 28 ‘countries of concern’ and yet in the last 12 months it has licensed weapons to at least 18 of them.

That doesn’t need an Arms Trade Treaty. It needs the political will.

Soldiers patrolling Monrovia, Liberia, 2003

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.”

The boundaries between the formal arms trade and “the shadow world” are extremely fuzzy.

The arms industry is unlike any other. The industry is hardwired for corruption. It is responsible for 40% of all corruption in world trade. It operates without regulation. It makes its profits on the back of machines designed to kill and maim human beings.

Armed conflict was responsible for 231m deaths last century.

Respect for human rights is often overlooked as arms are sold to known human rights violators.

These weapons land up in places you don’t want or expect them to.

You might say that the arms trade may not always be a root cause, because there are often various geopolitical interests etc. However, the sale of arms can be a significant contributor to problems because of the enormous impact of the weapons involved. Furthermore, some oppressive regimes are only too willing purchase more arms under the pretext of their own war against terrorism.

This rush to globalize arms production and sales ignores the grave humanitarian and strategic consequences of global weapons proliferation.

Industrialized countries negotiate free trade and investment agreements with other countries, but exempt military spending from the liberalizing demands of the agreement. Since only the wealthy countries can afford to devote billions on military spending, they will always be able to give their corporations hidden subsidies through defence contracts, and maintain a technologically advanced industrial capacity.

And so, in every international trade and investment agreement one will find a clause which exempts government programs and policies deemed vital for national security. Here is the loophole that allows the maintenance of corporate subsidies through virtually unlimited military spending.

So who profits most from this murderous trade?

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China. Together, together with Germany and Italy  are responsible for eighty-eight per cent of the arms sold between 2004 and 2011.

Each year, around $45-60 billion worth of arms sales are agreed.  That is $235 for every person on the planet.

Most of these sales (something like 75%) are to developing countries.

World military spending has now reached one trillion dollars, close to Cold War levels. Recent data shows global spending at over $1.7 trillion. 2012 saw the first dip in spending — only slightly —since 1998, in an otherwise rising trend.

The highest military spender is the US accounting for almost two-fifths of the world’s spending, more than the rest of the G7 (most economically advanced countries) combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined.

While international attention is focused on the need to control weapons of mass destruction, the trade in conventional weapons continues to operate in a legal and moral vacuum.

  • More and more countries are starting to produce small arms, many with little ability or will to regulate their use.
  • Permanent UN Security Council members—the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China—dominate the world trade in arms.
  • Most national arms controls are riddled with loopholes or barely enforced.
  • Key weaknesses are lax controls on the brokering, licensed production, and ‘end use’ of arms.
  • Arms get into the wrong hands through weak controls on firearm ownership, weapons management, and misuse by authorised users of weapons.

Arms sales (agreements) by the Leading Recipient Developing Nations, 2004-2011 (in billions of current U.S. dollars)

Ranked Country               Amount spent               Percent of total

1 Saudi Arabia                       75.7                            21%
2 India                                  46.6                             13%
3 UAE                                    20.3                               6%
4 Egypt                                 14.3                               4%
5 Pakistan                             13.2                               4%
6 Venezuela                          13.1                               4%
7 Brazil                                  10.9                                3%
8 Algeria                                10.3                               3%
9 Israel                                  9.5                                 3%
10 South Korea                      9.2                                 2%
11 All other developing countries 145.168                  39%

Arms sales (agreements), by Supplier, 2004-2011 (in billions of constant 2011 U.S. dollars)

Supplier                     Total Sales in US Dollars(billions)                    Percent                                                                                                            of Total                                                                                                              Sales

United States Sales to Developing countries: $151.644bn (69%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $68.964bn (31%)220.608 44%
Russia Sales to Developing countries: $79.078bn (95%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $4.245bn (5%)83.323 17%
France Sales to Developing countries: $27.491bn (66%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $14.469bn (34%)41.96 8%
United Kingdom Sales to Developing countries: $25.869bn (96%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $1.168bn (4%)27.037 5%
China Sales to Developing countries: $17.601bn (99%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $0.207bn (1%)17.808 4%
Germany Sales to Developing countries: $11.046bn (51%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $11.022bn (49%)22.068 4%
Italy Sales to Developing countries: $8.652bn (61%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $5.626bn (39%)14.278 3%
Other European Sales to Developing countries: $26.999bn (56%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $21.26bn (44%)48.259 10%
Others Sales to Developing countries: $19.887bn (74%)Sales to Industrialized countries: $7.222bn (26%)27.109 5%

Perhaps at the forthcoming Climate Change Summit in Paris we should arm all the delegates. As we all seem bent on self-destruction why wait for climate change to start off the wars that are inevitably on the horizon.

To stop Wars,  ” We must take the profit out of war by taking the profit out of arms deals.”

If you are interested here is what is happening to your Planet.

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THE BEADY EYE WRITES AN OTHER OPEN LETTER TO THE PARIS SUMMIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

31 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, European Union., Humanity., Natural World Disasters, Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

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31st August 2015.

Dear Delegate,

When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time.

There is no point in spending a lovely week in Paris talking about what should be done about Climate change and coming up with an agreement to cut emissions by placing A Price Tag on carbon.

The true financial costs of climate change is away beyond any price tag or unenforceable agreement.

What value do we place on the ocean’s coral reefs and the myriad animals they support, and how do we weigh their loss against other values? What price tag do you put on a species of bird or fish or mammal which, once gone, will never return?

How does humanity weigh moral accountability if our own carbon emissions contributed to that destruction?

Isn’t it about a sustainable planet? A sustainable and biologically diverse planet?

Most likely our descendants will be left to adapt to a warmer world where greater climatic uncertainties, depleted resources and human migrations, amongst other, will be the norm.

If climate change affects not only a country’s economic output but also its growth, then that has a permanent effect that accumulates over time, leading to a much higher social cost of carbon than any price tag agreed.

The economic damage caused by a ton of carbon dioxide emissions – often referred to as the “social cost” of carbon – will actually be far higher than any of us can imagine.

There is no solution to an event that is all ready taking place.

There can only be a change to the event or a confinement to the end result.

If there is no solution to how the world is going to finance this change your and you fellow delegates might as well go home and bask in the sunshine of an agreement that is as porous as the paper it is written on.

In his fascinating book “Catastrophe: Risk and Response”, published in 2004, Richard Posner argues that we do not do enough to hedge against catastrophic risks such as climate change, asteroid impacts or bioterrorism.

In light of the “competition” of existential risks, how much should humanity invest in the mitigation of climate change?

The answer is:  Human extinction is a risk we all share—and it would be an unprecedented event that can happen only once.

Growth at all costs is the mantra of the technological world we live. Climate policies that require public sacrifice and limiting economic growth are doomed to failure.

Believe in the current pledge-and-review mechanism is a farce.

From current projections we know that climate change will pose a serious challenge by 2040 for many organisations. Putting a true economic cost on these risks can act as a catalyst to taking action today in order to help organisations better prepare for the future.

There is only one way to achieve this and that is the creation of a World Aid Commission or tax on profit   for profit sake.

Would you rather have a one percent tax increase on everyone in the country or kill one percent of the population?  This will not work as the cost of collection and administration, or culling, would out weigh any benefits.

The solution is a Universal 0.05% commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions and on all Drilling Wells.  

This will create a perpetual Fund to tackle the world problems.  

 

The expected loss to society because of catastrophic climate change is so large that it cannot be reliably estimated.

Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort. People are willing to bear costs to reduce emissions, but they are only willing to go so far.

The Dangerous Underestimation of Climate

Change’s Cost and the

financing of any agreement is self-evident.

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The clock is ticking for: A new world DISASTER AID REACTION Organisation.

03 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Natural World Disasters, WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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On January 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, affecting more than 3 million people — one of every three. The quake killed 222,570 people and injured more than 300,000. More than 1 million people were left homeless and vulnerable.

On August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico and various Southern regions of the United States. A 100,000 people were displaced. 10,000 originally feared dead — revised down by government.

On March 11, 2011, a tsunami some 40 meters (133 feet) high hit northeast coast of Japan.15,000 people were killed, 300,000 were evacuated, and 3,100 people are still unaccounted for. A nuclear emergency was triggered in the Fukushima area.

On April 25,2015 a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the south-central Asian country of Nepal. 8 million people have been affected by the quake. To date the death toll is above 6,000.

Extreme disasters catch the public eye, often resulting in massive infusions of aid that affect not just individual well-being but the fabric of societies.

What I want to address here is  (with the predicted effects of Climate Change we are going to witness a massive increase in natural disaster world-wide) how if any of our various UN organizations are in a position to meet the challenges that lie ahead: (World Food Program, World Health Organisation, Relief Web, UNICEF, Oxfam International, International Federation of Red Cross, Red Crescent Societies, International Rescue Committee, Medicins Sans Frontiers, Doctors Without Boards) to mention just a few.

And the question I want an answered to is:  How do we evaluate their efficacy.

Understanding and analyzing the organization of aid delivery is essential to evaluating aid efficacy. Disaster relief projects involve multiple parties in different organizational configurations delivering in-kind aid, where each party has distinct objectives.

The behavior of an aid agency that operates on the ground is a composite outcome of the organizational structure of the donating and implementing arms.

Depending on how that organization is set up, the quality of hard aid and the delivery of social agendas may vary considerably within the same disaster area. Donors face potential trade-offs between higher quality aid, pursuit of certain social agendas, and paying the cost to do their own implementation.

In a nutshell, industry and private donations are feel-good, short-term interventions and no substitute for the vastly larger, and essentially political, task of bringing aid to poor people in need.

It is the long-term Recovery phase of disaster which places the most severe financial strain on local or state.

The needs of the poor don’t get met because the poor have little money or political power with which to make their needs known and they cannot hold anyone accountable to meet those needs. They are stuck with Planners. The … tragedy [of failed foreign aid] continues.

A big part of the problem originates with the rich-country governments who set the mandates of the aid agencies. ( See previous post: Roughly half of global aid – is phantom aid or The Clock is ticking for a New World Aid Organisation)

I hardly think your/our measly donations to charity are worth talking about;

Media coverage of natural disasters seems to vary a lot depending on the disaster. Is it selective?

An Example is the Present Nepal Disaster lasted three days on the top of the BBC news.

It was replaced by a Royal princess presented to world. One new life against thousands lost.

If you compare what the new born Royal can expect from life to the 360,000 other children all born on the same day elsewhere in the world.

〈 While the Duke of Cambridge does not receive money directly from the Sovereign Grant ( that’s £35.7m the taxpayer gives to the Royal Family each year), he does receive from the Queens Grant-in-Aid fund and the Duchy of Cornwall (the tax-exempt estate valued at £763m in 2013 with an annual income of £19m, bestowed on the family in 1337) , the surplus of which traditionally goes to the eldest son ( i.e. Prince William). If you break that £19m down into a a weekly rate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge can expect a share of £365,384.61, compared to the £34.40 ( combined Child Benefit for two babies) for the average family in the UK. 〉 

There is certainly no need for any Aid.

It does not take long in this days media world for Disasters to become Forgotten

 “Forgotten” disasters are often chronic and diffuse, changing little day by day. Unlikely to qualify as news, such crises may feature as current affairs stories – especially on the websites of news organizations.

It is more than obvious that if we are to manage the pending Disasters ( And there will be many).

We need one Organisation under one roof to handle all aspects.

Examine the whole process/system/operation of providing relief supplies in a disaster scenario. Think of total packaging re-use of all materials and containers from the shipping/air container onwards.

This can be achieved by all the world aid organisations assembling at a World Response Aid conference to form a One World Response/Reaction Team.

This conference should present the UNITED NATIONS WITH A RESOLUTION TO PLACE: a 0.05% AID COMMISSION ON ALL HIGH FREQUENCY STOCK EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS ON ALL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS (OVER $20,000) AND ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACQUISITIONS)

This resolution could be adopted by a its veto members without lost of power.

Instead of holding aid agencies individually responsible for what they own program achieve, we would have Instead of letting different agencies specialize in different areas we would have Capitalism for once WOULD contributing to the world by creating a perpetual fund, giving the reaction team total independence.

IT WOULD ONLY TAKE A COMPUTER PROGRAM TO COLLECT THE FUNDS.

We would have global goals. Instead of letting different agencies specialize in different areas we would have coordination.

Instead of wasting aid and relief to victims of natural disasters there would be a professional action PLAN IN PLACE THAT COULD BE ACTIVATED NOT TO SET UP BY A BEGGING BOWL.

  ‘How did the rich countries really become rich?’

The short answer to this question is that the developed countries did not get to where they are now through the policies and the institutions that they recommend to developing countries today.

  • In 1970, rich countries of the OECD agreed at the United Nations (Resolution 2626) to give 0.7% of their GNP (now GNI) as aid to the developing countries.
  • Known as ODA, this aid would be for long-term development.
  • Over 40 years on, most of the 20 or so rich OECD countries have never reached that figure, or come close.

Annually, the global foreign aid shortfall is high.

Although rich countries have given an enormous $3.62 trillion dollars in aid since 1970, the accumulated total shortfall in their aid since 1970 (when the target of 0.7% was set) amounts to $4.98 trillion (at 2012 prices).

Don’t tell me that it is not time for change INORDER to save lives when the next natural disaster strikes.

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What is prevents us from collaborating in a global effort to solve the climate crisis?

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

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The expression, not a hope in hell comes to mind when you consider the likelihood of human beings working together. Human beings are deeply divided by nationality, and sectarian belief and the environmental crises.

Most Societies that have perished have done so through neglect and self delusion; they have failed to rise to the challenges they faced.

It is much more difficult to understand human history than to understand problems in the field of science. But do we see the historical of human societies shaping the modern world?

No.

Instead the great majority of us are passive robots helplessly programmed by  the Media, must have advertising, short-term memory, and the capitalist mantra I am all right Jack.

Why?

If we were serious about caring for the world, about people living in the misery of poverty, now and about future generations we should be mobilizing resources to develop sustainable technologies with the single mind determination seen when countries prepare for war.

So riddle me this; While it is with you, it is with me. It flies without wings.

While it flies, our out of date World Organisations struggling to function in a quagmire of power struggles all disguised by the cloaked language of Foreign Policies.

While our Capitalistic Societies is encouraged to consume 24/7 in order to drive our economies of the sake of vast profit made by computer algorithms.

While our real values are being privatized by Sovereignty Wealth Funds.

While mass immigration will be the result of ignoring Climate change.

While population growth is unstoppable.

While inequality is leading to conflicts.

While the effects of antibiotics are becoming diluted.

While Social media is distorting the truth.

While extinction of animal life accelerates.

While we spend trillions on space exploration.

While we watch our finite resources diminish.

While we all see are the pictures of the world below,

.     JAN GOLDSTEIN    

Is it not time to do something before Inequity and Greed the two elements that contribute the most to the Worlds problems, destroy us all long before Climate Change.  We can talk till the cows come home, but all our Political ideologies will fail till the distribution of wealth gains traction, which can only be achieved by Capping Greed.

Conventional wisdom’s seldom collapse on their own. They collapse only when challenged, only when advocates for change trust forward initiatives that expose the bankruptcy of the conventionally wise.

(See previous posts. What 0.05% Aid Commission could achieve)

Feel free to add to the while lists, perhaps someone in a while might read it before time runs out.

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This is your every day world.

29 Monday Sep 2014

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When you take time out from the bubble of your life you would have to be blind, deaf and a Pillock not to notice that the world you live in both Physically and Financially in an almighty mess, if not out of control.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html#

The Number of Countries involved in wars 64. The Number Militias-guerrillas and separatist groups involved 571.

The ongoing growth in population of roughly 10,026 people per hour or 240,624 people per day is unsustainable according to many sources. The internet states that our world population is growing at about 9,000 people per hour or 220,000 people per day, but if you go by the World Population’s Clock, World population right now is by the time you have read this.

http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/shocking

When I look around me here in France I see field upon field doing sweet fanny Adam ( due to Set aside a European Agricultural Policy called The Common Agricultural Policy CAP for Short which insures the highest prices for farmers), when it could be growing cheap food at a fair price, instead of expensive tomatoes to bombard Brussels with each year.

Every day I hear and see death and destruction in some part of the world.

Every day I hear appeals from the United Nations to do something about poverty, climate change, forests, fresh water, pollution, ocean warming, while 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

Every day according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.

Every day around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Every day the world’s countries spent $1.7tn on their militaries.

Every day more than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening at an alarming rate.

Every day the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

Every day based on enrollment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school. And these are regarded as optimistic numbers.

Every day nearly a billion people unable to read a book or sign their names.

Every day there are 1.29 billion people were living in absolute poverty. Of these, about 400 million people in absolute poverty lived in India and 173 million people in China., 45.3 million in USA which is suppose to be the riches and most powerful.

World Government spending on space programs is in the region of 72,1 billion

India spent £45 million to orbit Mars, and China spent 7.33 trillion going nowhere, USA off the map- Man on the moon and Curiosity to find water.

Every day we destroy ecosystems of other species to find dwindling resources.

Every day people who practice asceticism intentionally live in economic poverty so as to attain spiritual wealth.

Every day world hunger is the result of greedy and inept leadership in individual country.

Every day the supply of basic needs can be restricted by constraints on government services such as corruption, debt and loan conditionality and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals.

Every day  there is more demand for space to live and more resources being used which in turn generates more waste to be dealt with.

Every day we need more space to live on there is also the need for more space to grow the food, be it crops and/or livestock to meet the ever-increasing demand. The only way we can meet these needs is to encroach on our ecosystem and reduce it each time we do so. Every time we take natural land for building.

Every day we hear strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable and to eradicate Inequities.

Every day I hear Exploitation in the form of child labor, modern day slavery, rampant corruption, drug wars, murders by the dozens, child molestation, ethnic and racial cleansing.

Every day  the Economy. While Sovereignty Funds privatize the world, and computer soft ware rip us all off every second.

Every day we witness poverty on your own doorstep. The “silent” day-to-day hunger that occurs all over the world. Poverty can be understood simply as a lack of money, or more broadly in terms of barriers to everyday life. Not famine hunger when typically we feel compelled to send money or even volunteer. The worst type of hunger because it is the result of some form of natural disaster.

The list goes on and on. So you don’t need to be a rocket scientists to figure out why it is that we are in such a mess.

If you have nothing you have nothing to lose. Why not fly a plane into the World Trade Center, why not don a new uniform and get a free gun with some status whether it be good or evil. Who cares life not worth living anyway.

What can be done about it?  Not much till every nation has an equal footing in the United Nations, till there is no need for NATO, till we get rid of the IMF and the World Bank, till Climate Changes make us all change. ( see previous Postings )

Feel free to suggest what you see every day. Every day we have choices.

We live today in an age sustainababble* ( correct me if it not a word) a cacophonous profusion of uses of the word sustainable to mean anything from environmentally better, to cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A

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THERE IS GOING TO BE A NEW WORLD ORDER.

31 Sunday Aug 2014

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WHY?

Not because there are numerous nuttier’s or religions organizations that say so.

But because of power, which is a zero-sum game that takes no account of past or future history.

While the world is choking in the dust of Iraq International agreements are being robbed of their meaning by Russia takeover of Crimea while sitting on the Security Council of the United Nations vetoing all resolutions.

Throughout the twentieth century, the list of the world’s great powers was predictably short: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and northwestern Europe.

Decades of unchallenged supremacy for the United States is now coming to an end. America now has no stomach to get involved in world policing.

China holds over a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves, India’s high-tech sector is growing by leaps and bounds, and both countries, already recognized nuclear powers, are developing blue-water navies.

While the European Union discusses new sanctions on Russia France is selling it Navy War ships, England is welcoming Russian oligarchs money which is permeating the upper reaches of society buying up London Property and football clubs, all before Russia turns off the gas to the European Economy.

You don’t have to look far to see other signs of change.

The Oceans of the world are in a critical state of health.

The death of the Aral Sea has become a never-ending nightmare.

The Arctic — a once pristine wilderness is under siege.

Google had 2,161,530,000 searches.

More than 3 trillion has being wiped off global share prices since the start of January.

Climate change is the biggest single threat.

More than two decades after the Cold War ended, the world’s combined inventory of nuclear warheads remains at a very high level: more than 16,000.

More than a billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. 2.6 billion people, almost half the world’s population doesn’t have access to adequate sanitation services.

More than 130 million children who are under the age of five will still remain malnourished by 2020.

More than 130 million children who are under the age of five will still remain malnourished by 2020.

If current trends continue, by 2050 something on the order of a third or 40% of all species will either have become extinct or will be on the threshold of going extinct.

The Earth has been sending us distress signals and the distress signals have to do with the pressures of human population and the pressures of the human economy on the ecosystems.

Incredibly, the world’s population grew more in the past fifty years than in the preceding 4 million years .Today our numbers have surged to nearly six and half billion and our population is increasing by nearly 80 million people each year – 220,000 each day.

In the face of poverty people will tend to utilize whatever they can to survive.

The State of the World Finances is in disarray.

world debt infographic

In the mean time Sovereignty Wealth Funds blunder the earth for profit.

Disregarding the current conflicts there are I am sure hundreds of additional indicators that a New World Order is needed.

We can only hope that Social media is not turning us all into morons blindly asking Google for answers.

We need a new world order that has at its heart the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given;

That understands the requirement for there to be a re orientation of technology the key link between humans and nature.

That understands in broadest sense, the strategy for sustainable development.

That aims to promote harmony among human beings and between humanity and nature.

  • a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-making. Democracy as it stands is now a rhetorical device.
  • an economic system that is able to generate surpluses and technical knowledge on a self-reliant and sustained basis.
  • a social system that provides for solutions for the tensions arising from disharmonious development.
  • a production system that respects the obligation to preserve the ecological base for development.
  • a technological system that can search continuously for new solutions.
  • an international system that fosters sustainable patterns of trade and finance.
  • an administrative system that is flexible and has the capacity for self-correction.
  • a new United Nations with all participants on equal terms.
  • a Cap on Capitalist Greed.
  • a watertight ban on trading of arms.
  • a transitioning to clean energy.
  • a move away from the Production and consumer society which cannot be sustained by the planet.

LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE ASKING ?

14 Thursday Aug 2014

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Where do the problems of modern existence lie?

WHEN YOU LOOK AROUND THE WORLD CAN ANY OF US HONESTLY SAY WE HAVE WON THE BATTLE FOR LIBERTY ?

It seemed to me that these days the enemies of our collective flourishing are more likely to lie in the troubles of unrestrained corporate and individual appetites and the unlimited pressure to generate immediate profit without regard for human and earthly costs.

Another words the fundamental problem facing us all is Inequality of Education, Health, Wealth, combined with unequal control over assets. These include natural resources such as land, water, minerals and other fruits of nature, as well as produced productive and financial assets.

Things have reached such a pass that incremental measures are not likely to be enough: “trans-formative changes” are required, with the ultimate aim of zero discrimination.

So measures to reduce inequality have to be part of a wider economic and social policy framework to control financial activity and direct it towards socially desired goals. ( These include natural resources such as land, water, minerals and other fruits of nature, as well as produced productive and financial assets.)

Even business leaders in Davos recently identified Inequality as one of the biggest threats to the world.

But what have we got?  Sovereignty Wealth Funds buying up the lot.

For hundreds of years now, humans have tended to believe that the best sort of government is one which leaves its citizens maximally ‘free’.

We’ve all come to associate good government directly and complicatedly with the promotion of ‘freedom’: freedom to worship as one pleases, to publish what one wants, to dress as one likes, to love whomever one desires.

In the meantime, those who have opposed ‘freedom’ have been presented in horrifying terms: They have been the wicked priests, the murderous Communists, demented Nazis, and Terrorists.

The painful fact is that the pursuit of what matters to us in the long-term and collectively may at times be in sharp conflict with our short-term and individual pleasures.

Promoting freedom above all other values may now be turning out to be deeply unhelpful to the long-term and collective interests of a nation and the earth as a whole.

It has grown too easy for corrupt and venal organisations to operate under the banner of ‘freedom’ in order to get away with activities that covertly run sharply counter to the public good.

Freedom is evidently not a virtue when it involves the freedom of bankers to offload ruinous financial instruments on an uneducated public, just as censorship – that bogeyman of contemporary politics – is evidently far from a vice when it prevents corporations from pushing alcohol on children or denying affordable housing to the poor.

Freedom is not a baseless word, but it is in general simply too vague, ambiguous and emotive a term to guide policy or to be an ideal around which a nation or people can reasonably cohere.

Instead of being in favor of ever falling prices for consumer goods, government should promote the notion of a just price, a floor for prices reflecting the cost of humane and decent employment and production. To get all of us into the habit of paying the just price: a price that would allow high quality goods attuned to genuine needs to be put together by workers employed at an adequate wage.

Government is the institutionalization of our long-term and collective interests. It is not ultimately responsible just for freedom, but its highest calling is to act as the guardian of long-term collective prosperity of all its citizens.

The governments of the future will have to accept that two idiots cannot remove one genius. They will have to measured and in skillful ways constantly step in to say ‘no’ to certain vested interests, without this in any way meaning that it is systematically anti-capitalist.

So what am I saying here?

Although we bridle at folk memories of police states Governments of the future with greater intelligence and democratic accountability will have to often be interested in restricting freedom.

Freedom = good/restriction = bad, has blinded us to a vital nuance with a grave potential to derail and corrupt public life:

An others words there will have to be a more important and ambitious view of what government is for than merely freedom. We are all threatened by aggressive and uncontrolled commercial interests determined to quash our peace of mind and confuse us about our real needs and we’ve overlooked that there are better and worse kinds of freedom.

The first step in the right direction is to cap Greed. ( See Previous Postings)

 

 

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Absolutism is innovation’s mortal enemy.

27 Sunday Jul 2014

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I recently posted a few posts under the banners,

” For Crying out loud are we all sleeping walking,”

“Where does hate come from.”?

“What are our Values.”?

I am no politician, and I am sure if I were either Israeli or Palestinian at the moment I would want to Kill Kill. First three Jewish young people kidnapped and slain, then an Arab youth burned alive in revenge.

The present outbreak of conflict like all the others is heading to a dead-end.

It is obvious that the peace process to resolve the Israel and Palestine conflicts is dead and will remain so while death and suffering prevails.

It’s time to start thinking outside the Zionist box, and the Muslim halo and look for solutions that secure the human rights and equality of all involved, and not simply the political demands of the stronger party.

The first step is recognizing that we have a “one-state problem” is the key to peace.

The two state solution is a fantasy because the two-state solution is dead.

The solution is not to establish another ethnic state but to disestablish the ones that exist now.

Israel, as well as states that are just for Muslims or any other ethnic group, must cease to exist as states based on apartheid and ethnic domination.

It is time to stop grieving and find an alternative that allows all to live in freedom and dignity in the land of their forefathers.

Israel and Palestine must be replaced by a secular democracy with equal rights for all, regardless of their ethnic background, and with equal tolerance for all religions, with a written charter of human rights.

There’s no reason why Israel and Palestine shouldn’t be able to offer citizenship to their respective diasporas.

Every year, resolutions addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict are tabled in the United Nations, such as at the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.  The meanings attributed by Israel to ‘‘self-defense’’ or ‘‘proportionate’’ are increasingly exposed as questionable or false while the international community is divided between those who are in denial and those who are torturing the corpse.

The one-state solution is an old idea that was often found morally attractive but remains to date politically unfeasible.

Perhaps I am dreaming  to envisage the above becoming feasible, but what a role model it would be for the rest of the Arab World.

If Israel learned anything from the Holocaust surely it is that survival comes at a cost.

From what I understand Judaism focuses on relationships:

However it is creating a relationship that is isolating it as a people hiding behind walls that will crumble in time.

Although Jews have certainly considered the nature of God, man, the universe, life and the afterlife at great length there is no mandated, official, definitive belief on these subjects, outside of the very general concepts.

The relationship between God and mankind, between God and the Jewish people, between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and between human beings: some say they are absolute, unchanging laws from God (Orthodox);

Some say they are laws from God that change and evolve over time (Conservative);

Some say that they are guidelines that you can choose whether or not to follow (Reform, Reform, Reconstructionist )

I say a religion that is not all-encompassing, that does values every life is a religion not worth living.

Because Judaism is more concerned about actions than beliefs here is substantial room for personal opinion on all of these matters, but the future holds no opinions. It is only tarnished by the opinions of the dead.  May they rest in Peace.

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FOR CRYING OUT LOUD ARE WE ALL SLEEPING WALKING

25 Friday Jul 2014

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We have been around for 106 billion years and by 2050 there will be 9.2 billion of us.

Over the last Century, our world has experienced at times a ” wonderful age” with promises of peace and prosperity, but then some imposing forces changed the entire Landscape.

The current world disorder results in part from ignorance about civilizations – awareness or selective memory of the past, and lack of perspective for the future, and also from the economic misery, combined with political injustices ( domestic and /or International) experienced by the have-nots.

Globalization cannot be a practical concept if there are clashes of civilization.

What have we achieved.? What went Wrong then?

I won’t be the first to ask these questions and you can rest assured nor will i be the last. The future Generations will be asking the very same questions.

However let’s try to answer:  Why we are getting it so wrong?

The most important distinctions among people are not, Ideological, Political, or Economic, they are Cultural.

People still define themselves in terms of Ancestry, Religion, Language, History, Values, Customs and Institutions, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

We don’t have to look far to see the reasons why –

Great Powers were hunger to conquer lands and resources, to get control over raw materials, markets, and strategic positioning in the world, these were the driving forces that divided the world into eight major civilizations;

Western, Orthodox, Chines, Japanese, Muslim, Hindu, Latin American, and Africa.

Any Joe Soaps who was out side of these groups could only acquire a Western level of advancement by learning to think like Westerners and not forgetting the missionaries who defined civilization as a combination of Western Religion and Science.

Then came the Power gained by Industrialized nations gave them a thirst for the right to rule, and in some cases to oppress those who did not have power.

What happened next is that this lot formed Alliances while Europe was experiencing Nationalism causing the First World War, the rest is History.

So we arrive to to-day.

If you look around, the analogy above may be telling of the dynamics of our present World.

So what cased the present day disorder?

My answer is all of the above and September 11th 2001.

WHY September the 11th?

Because throughout the history of the USA, (a melting pot of cultures) the ruling force over world markets, the world military status, created the Axis of Evil without looking at the real sources that kindled terrorism –

THE HAVE – THE HAVE NOTS.

Another words: TO RECOGNIZE THAT POVERTY AND HOPELESSNESS ARE THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF TERRORISM AND THE DISRUPTION OF WORLD ORDER THAT WE SEE TODAY

You cannot have over 3 billion people living on $2 dollars a day with another 1.3 billion living on less than a dollar with no access to clean water. This difference by a factor of over 100 or so between the have and have-nots ultimately creates for the lack of a better word Dissatisfaction, which lead to violence , racial and ethic conflict the Arab spring the current Israel /Palestinian conflict.

So you might think that Globalization in principle is a hopeful ideal, but in its present form it is tailored to the strong serving a fraction of the World’s population. To get through the gates of Globalization one has to acquire computer and internet literacy, accessibility to sources of knowledge and information etc ect.

It is clear that the world order requires a new and comprehensive partnership between the developed world and the developing world.

Our environment is not ourselves. We must invest more in education, in science and technology but at the same time we must lower the bureaucratic political barriers.

If we are to stop wars we must redistribute wealth more evenly.

We live in a world where spending never stops. Trading on fear is the biggest seller of all and it is at the very heart of why we buy. Fear the primal Instinct.

There will be on Economy without the Environment, No anything.

We cannot continue moving forward in a form of  Human Lemming.

We the people of the Earth must demand that our out of date World Organisation The United Nations for once in its existence  passes a People’s Resolution to benefit all of us how live on this Planet now and in the future.

It will go a long way to resolving the Inequalities before its to late.  ( See previous Posts)

The people of the planet earth wish to table the following people s resolution to be adopted.  

” The Introduction of a World Aid Commission of 0.05% to be placed on all World stock Exchanges covering all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $ 20,0000, all High Frequency Trading and all Acquisitions by Sovereign Wealth Funds. 

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