compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
IF capitalism IS
to survive as ...
THE BASIS of a “NEW Humpty Dumpty” model of global significance, the peoples of the world have to awaken to the FACTS; and collectively address the underlying problems of the CRISES of politics, religion and science.
FACT 1 – Monetary Wealth can ONLY be generated as a result of the labours of the people; unless of course, money itself becomes a commodity as it has done since Reagan & Thatcher’s DE-regulation, and having done so, has led to the most severe economic crisis that the totality of our species has thus far experienced.
FACT 2 – Bankers have forever tapped into that wealth at the expense of those labours of the people and always utilised it to their own selfish ends, counting on the fact that the capitalist model accepted the fact that banking was too large/important to fail.
FACT 3 – “Capitalism is about the link between effort and reward. It is about the creation of wealth according to the quality of one's enterprise. Without wealth creation there is no scope for the taxation that enables the functions society deems moral: a welfare state, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of law and order.”
FACT 4 – 40% of global GDP has been wiped out as a result of the actions of bankers, quants, politicians and their regulatory framework colleagues, following the “massive expansion of the money supply in western economies and in the developing ones too, whether China, India or Brazil. This expansion, which was the fault of governments because it is they who control the money supply, put trillions of dollars of cheap money at the disposal of bankers and other institutions who make a living by buying cheap – in this case buying money cheap – and selling dear.”
AND NOW the peoples of the globe
During the early phases of this development the strongest took control and the spiritual was delegated to a.n.other as a partner in the process of control of the feminine and devine feminine perspectives of LIFE. The dual, parallel forces of politics and religion were established side by side, sometimes in conflict, sometimes in unison, until such time as the advent of the concepts of church and state as one and church as state were embodied.
As our species spread over the earth an adherence to this tribal pattern led to animalistic territorial confrontation, conflicts and wars, often at the behest of “religious advice”, and the consequent pillaging of goods and subsequent trade of those goods, for the ever increasing collective good. A collective good, however, which became to be controlled by a corrupt partnership of state and religion, supported by the new politics of Machiavelli.
Bankers and banking appeared on the scene, primarily to fund these conflicts and wars as the catalyst to the process of an ever increasing accumulation of material wealth and power over the people, amply supported by the observations of scientific experiment and the development of ever more appropriate technological solutions; and along came protestant reformation, the commonwealth, the industrial revolution, the “seeds” of democracy through revolution and capitalism.
Capitalism can best be described as a system in which private capital or wealth is used in the production or distribution of goods, for the mutual benefit of ALL stakeholders, in support of the very best values of democratic society. Capitalism has provided the mechanism by which the potential benefits of global free trade could be made available to ALL 7 billion souls on our planet.
IT IS the breakdown of the, inherently required, responsibility to adhere to the ethical standards first incorporated into the capitalist model, by the likes of Josiah Wedgewood and Henry Ford, in combination with the predominately patriarchal mind-set of our new masters of the globe, which has now resulted in the latest global recession/depression and has brought US ALL to the “abyss” which we - the peoples of this planet - are NOW staring into.
The OLD MODEL of an economic system which generates and gives power to the self-sophisticated, arrogant and greedy nature of capitalists, bankers, and politicians – which has led to the dominance of the private owners of capital and of production of profit for the few rather than the mutual benefit of the many and the subsequent destruction of 40% of global gross domestic product - HAS been found wanting and collapsed into a multitude of diverse pieces, as a result of their collective inability to manage, let alone administer the system for the benefit of the people and now they come to us “cap in hand to ask for more.”
The particular OLD WORLD interpretation of the European version of that OLD ORDER MODEL of an economic system has EVEN developed hand-in-hand with the creation of a European Government led by a small unelected exclusive group of MEN who have the supreme power of the EU in their hands.
An anti-democratic oligarchy IN FACT.
An oligarchy which at present, as the spokesman of the 25 nations of the EU, is preaching to the foremost democracy on earth about its proposed BUY AMERICAN policy - whilst being locked into a system of monetary union which was never designed to cope with the inevitable global boom and bust which we are now experiencing - as one of its NON-EMU member states is “Lording” its special relationship with that self same democracy.
IS IT NOT somewhat ironical that the buy American commitment IS of the people, by the people, for the people in the face of the predominately elitist “DO what I say NOT what I DO control” of the peoples of Europe and the rest of the so called civilised world by that small, unelected, exclusive group of MEN. The leaders of the EU, UK, Russia and China “spring to mind”.
IF every individual one of the peoples of the globe,
now decided to lodge their earnings and/or savings into a mutual building society, savings and loan, credit union or for that matter under the mattress, the banking industry would be starved of funds and as Nobel Prize winning economist and former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Professor Stiglitz has recently suggested, “perhaps it would be best to allow ALL the banks to default on their own debts as a result of being made bankrupt” – but ONLY, I would suggest, on the basis that the banks should become an extinct species, such that capitalism as well as democracy should become a function of the people, for the people, by the people.
A commitment to establishing a social networking site of global significance, based on the concept of conscious capitalism was, I truly believe, the driving force behind Brian’s “zaadz” initiative and its incorporation into the community of GAIA.
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Comment by Michael Grove on November 28, 2011 at 18:33
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" Rome didn't fall apart because the Huns came out of the Ardennes Forest or the Scots came over Hadrian's Wall.
Rome fell apart in Rome. It became complacent, lazy, and indolent.
Its citizens stopped caring for each other. It became a society for the selfish. Its people concentrated on their rights, not their responsibilities. As it unknowingly approached its own demise, it lacked leadership and blamed everyone but itself."
Lord Digby Jones
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5.0 out of 5 stars Money and Politics just don't mix!,By Eric Kennett - Published on Amazon U.S.This review is from: Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry (Hardcover)
If you've been following Dylan Ratigan's journalism recently you know he is on a crusade to separate money and politics.
This book is the most cogent argument he has come up with yet, detailing how special interests own every aspect of our government. His analysis is so spot on that I can't even think of how someone against getting money out of politics would argue against it.
Not only does Dylan explain what the problems facing American society are, he comes offers explanations of how these problems can be fixed along with explanations of how his plans would work. Of course, as long as our politicians are bought by "corporate vampires," as he calls them, things will never change.
The right has done a great job convincing people that government is evil and government is the problem not the solution, but Dylan fights back hard proving that simply turning over complex societal problems to businesspeople who are out only to make money for themselves and their investors is a truly bad idea.
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Uploaded by TheAlyonaShow on Feb 1, 2012
An entire banking system fueled by corruption and greed went unchecked by the government, and pulled a massive heist on the American people.
The problem is we see the same tactics used by corporations and systems across the spectrum, in the words of our guest tonight, sucking America dry like vampires.
Dylan Ratigan, host of MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show joins the show to talk about his "hot of the press" new book "Greedy Bastards".
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As Professor David Korten articulates in “ Life After Capitalism” -
“to create a world in which life can flourish and prosper we must replace the values and institutions of capitalism with values and institutions that honor life, serve life’s needs, and restore money to its proper role as servant. I believe we are in fact being called to take a step to a new level of species consciousness and function”.
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Gordon Brown - the man who claimed "to have ended the cycle of boom and bust for the UK" - Didn't he also save the world as well from ALL of its financial woes? - is here again at the penultimate moment of the Euro Crisis expounding the fact that IF the G20 doesn't get its act together to help keep the Euro alive we shall all be faced with potential bailouts for France and Italy as well.
Surely its the founding members of the Euro project - Germany, France and Italy - who should now be realising that the wheels are falling off the charabanc because they chose not to fit tyres to the wheels in the first place.
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As the second day of the 19th EU/Euro summit in 24 months, dawns - Philip Aldrick writes in todays Telegraph about the revelations and consequences of the UK banking industry being at the heart of Libor manipulation -
“Quite clearly, there was a culture here that tolerated – if it didn’t encourage – this sort of behaviour,” Mr Alistair Darling said “The FSA needs to carry out a further investigation to find out who was responsible for this, who knew what was going on, as well as to track those people who manipulated or attempted to manipulate the figures."
“Because until that’s done confidence won’t be restored.”
- elsewhere in the Daily Telegraph -Damian Reece makes his "What IS - IS - & sure ain't NO ISER" comment ...
Tobacco companies have had new behaviour forced upon them – a ban on advertising and smoking in public places for instance. Banks risk this in the form of yet more red tape, which would be counterproductive to the economy as a whole.
But they are now isolated and have few if any advocates – beyond this newspaper.
The reason this column still defends banks, yes even now, is because banking, unlike smoking, fulfils a social use and is central to wider wealth creation. But banks have forgotten their very real responsibilities to society (customers) in favour of owing responsibilities first to themselves and second to shareholders.
Banks' response to this latest scandal should be to find a clear and lasting solution to how they inculcate their organisations with the right priorities. That would be of more use than swapping one banker for another in the boardroom – and certainly of greater urgency for the good of banking and the wider economy.
Banks must use this scandal to refocus on their responsibility to society
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IF you think that we the people have a problem with the consequences of the Libor fix scandal -
Forget the Libor fix - the biggest rate fix of them all is the UK gilt market which has been systematically rigged for several years and it's costing ordinary folk billions in lost income.
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Banks need to be allowed to go bust, like every other private company.
It was a disgrace that taxpayers were called upon to bail out some of the City’s grandest names. This must never happen again. The reason capitalism works so well, whenever it is tried properly, is that the principle at its heart – profit and loss – is the toughest of disciplines and the best of motivators. It is more ruthless than anything regulators, however clever, could ever dream up. It allows two conflicting emotions, greed and fear, to balance one another out. Shareholders, creditors and bosses want to make money – but they know that a step too far might entail ruin.
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Michael said
In the context of the FACT 3 reference to the maintenance of law and order, Barack Obama has included, in his thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream, the following statement …
“FOR in the end laws are just words on a page - words that are sometimes malleable, opaque, as dependent on context and trust as they are in a story or poem or promise to someone, words whose meanings are subject to erosion, sometimes collapsing in the blink of an eye.”
… as I would further suggest, our new masters of the globe continue to poke their fingers in the “Honey Pot” with nary a thought for the worker bees who have facilitated its content; such that Barack Obama was further motivated to conclude …
“INSTEAD, they involved the question of whether those in power were bound by ANY rules of LAW at all.”
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Michael said
Since 1979 the incumbent political party of the government of the UK and its opposition, have ONLY ACTED as if they were collectively above the LAW, that they expected the electorate to abide by. Self-interested politicians, in politics ONLY for what they could squeeze out of the system for themselves and their family and ”friends” and at the same time prioritize government spending policies to KEEP them in politics.
My long-standing experience of the EEC, EU and EMU mirrors this situation.
As Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University,
wrote in the Financial Times …
”The reality being repressed is that the western world is suffering a
crisis of indebtedness.”
… and as Jeff Randall has said in today’s Daily Telegraph - ” In which case, pumping out yet more debt will not be the answer. It is simply a short-term fix that in the long-run creates an even bigger disaster, like giving a shivering alcoholic a case of Special Brew. Yesterday’s half-point rate cut was a panic measure from a central bank whose excessively loose monetary policy in the first half of this decade encouraged a catastrophic borrowing binge. Now, desperate to mitigate the consequences of its own failure, it is trying to inflate another bubble. In so doing, as Dr Ros Altmann, a former adviser to Number 11, points out:
“They punish those who actually did the right thing [savers], while benefiting the very groups
(the banks in particular) whose actions caused this mess.”
ps. for more on Niall Ferguson’s History of the Ascent of Money do follow the link copied from the main text of this zBlog@zaadz …
The OLD MODEL of an economic system - IT IS well worth watching to truly understand the really BIG GLOBAL PICTURE.
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Michael said
The New Capitalism ” There’s next year, and then there’s the next decade. Economic conditions in 2009 will be treacherous. There’ll be a formal recession in most developed economies, and the economic contraction is highly likely to be more severe in the UK than almost anywhere else. Companies and consumers will continue to tighten their belts. There’ll be a sharp rise in unemployment. The extraordinary volatility we’ve experienced in the price of sterling, commodities, energy, shares and capital - which makes it so hard for businesses and investors to plan - is unlikely to dissipate. ”
Robert Peston
IN the context that INFORMATION IS POWER and that POWER to the PEOPLE IS ITSELF dependent on INFORMATION and IT IS ”THE MEDIA” which invariably provides access to that INFORMATION the BBC iplayer video of the treasury sub-committee hearing IS a MUST for ALL the peoples of this planet …
IF they wish to truly UNDERSTAND the FACTS of the GLOBAL ECONOMIC PICTURE
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Michael said
” But the biggest lesson of all is that we are a million miles from having created the political and regulatory institutions to help us contain the risks of globalisation. We and most of the world may
well have been beneficiaries of the open global economy. But as millions lose their jobs in Europe and the US in the coming year, the benefits will be forgotten. If the unfettered movement of capital, goods and services is going to survive, if there’s not going to be a retreat into national fortresses that could
impoverish all of us over the longer term, we’ll have to find a far better way of monitoring global risks and of bringing governments together to deal with these risks. Some may see this as a threat to national sovereignty, as the thin end of an antidemocratic wedge that’ll see the world ruled by unaccountable bureaucrats. Reconciling our political traditions with the imperative of making safe the globalised world will be a challenge, to put it mildly. But it’s not a challenge we can shirk.“
Robert Peston, 8 December 2008
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Michael said
“SO does it all come down to how we interpret human nature?” and IF SO when are we going to come to terms with the priority NEED for ”the children within as well as the children without” to BE free to think their own thoughts?
“It will take a renewed understanding of children's needs – above all, an understanding of their need for the stability of parental commitment and parental responsibility.”
Kathy Gyngell
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Artemisilke said
YOU'VE SAID IT!!!
Right on!!!
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Michael said
Beyond Bailouts | How a Circulation Charge
Can Help Save and Transform Global Finance
Jordan Bruce MacLeod
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Michael said
In the first account of its kind on television, award-winning journalist Andrew Rawnsley last night presented the inside political story of the credit crunch.
As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has presided over the biggest recession in 75 years. Rawnsley examined the key moments, showing how Brown as Prime Minister inherited the economic problems of his own 10 years as chancellor. The programme charted the roller coaster journey of Brown's fortunes from the moment the credit crunch began.
The Channel 4 Dispatches programme featured exclusive interviews with senior figures close to the economic crisis, including cabinet ministers, senior politicians and former treasury insiders.
I can only concur with BARBARA COSTELLO's most succinct comment in response to the first showing of this particular Dispatches episode, namely that …
I have to say what a fabulous job Andrew Rawnsley did in presenting to us a serious, unbiased view regarding the state of our country both politically and economically. A true eye opener.
THE ONLY conclusion one can make from this televisual account and the plethora of books and
journalistic reports written about the capitalistic model, which brought the PEOPLES of our species to the brink of the abyss, IS that the present model IS BROKEN and that any new model must based on a more caring attitude towards economics, politics and the planet.
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Michael said
Greed isn't good - it's dangerous
” What is needed now is NOT a rejection of capitalism but rather a radical reform of some of its institutions and practices. In a way, this is nothing new. What we now think of as capitalism did not emerge fully formed in an act of creation, but rather evolved.
So why should it have stopped its process of evolution now?
We have been trying to live comfortably in a completely new era with a system of controls fashioned for an age long past. This is not the end of capitalism but the beginning of a new phase of it, a phase in which it is not controlled or suppressed, but channelled and marshalled, rather like a great river whose course is managed.
Such a thought will offend those who tend the flame of the free market ideal. But an effective market system is like democracy: how it operates in practice can be very different from how it works in theory. Effective market systems and effective democracies are fuzzy. In both cases there is a theoretically pure version that appears to embody the essence of the thing, whereas in practice the presence of this thing alone often sees the essence escape.
The essence of democracy, you might think, is free elections. Yet it is comparatively easy to establish elections that are free in a system that is democratic in only the most tenuous sense. For markets, it is a similar story. Paradoxically, markets need the state to keep them on the straight and narrow. They even need the state to keep them competitive.
Capitalism always throws up problems and failings. This is neither surprising nor a fatal criticism. Society has to find a way of either living with them or correcting them. However, as capitalism evolves, so the nature of its failings and problems changes. So too must be the way in which society copes with them.
Moreover, financial markets do not offer a blueprint for the whole of society. Society cannot live by greed alone. Even if it can cope perfectly well if some of its members are motivated in this way, it needs millions of people to be motivated by duty, responsibility, and a sense of public purpose.
These are feelings that the triumph of unbridled greed in the financial markets threatens to overwhelm. The market was made for man, not man for the market. “
Roger Bootle - The Trouble with Markets
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Michael said
WHY we can't GO BACK to the old economy !
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Michael said
SocGen braces clients for “global collapse”
with 178 comments thus far, the following brought a smile to my face …
It is a slow day in a small Florida town and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit. A rich tourist drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.
As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, .the Farmer's Co-op
The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today
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Michael said
” SO from where we stand, the way ahead forks. One path leads to further economic and fiscal disaster and a re-run of the 1930s. Another leads to future prosperity, stability, and a new era of close international cooperation.
I cannot pretend that I am confident we will take the decisions that will lead us down the right path, although I am certain that we could do so. Those who argue that we are helpless before the steamroller of disastrous events are as wrong as those who argue that although we could do something, we will be better off by doing nothing. Theirs is a counsel of despair, leading to disaster.
IT IS as weak a theory as IT IS poorly grounded in history. It betrays an ignorance of human nature as much as an insouciance toward human suffering.
GIVEN both the will and the understanding, WE CAN DO so much better.
Facing similar threats, our parents and grandparents tried and failed.
WE OWE it to them both to try and to succeed.
WE OWE this even more to our children.”
Roger Bootle - The Trouble with Markets