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bankers
October 2009 
IF capitalism IS
Posted on Feb 5th, 2009
by 
Michael
Michael
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 have been left to “pick up the pieces”
of the OLD Humpty Dumpty system of economics.
Ego
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 6.5 billion souls on our planet.
Democracy as a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people collectively, and is administered by them or by officers appointed by them, IS best manifested as a state of society characterised by recognition of equality of rights and priviledges.
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 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.
IT IS THE collective mind-set of responsible and appropriate ACTION of the zaadsters_et_al@gaia, which MUST NOW PREVAIL, IF we are indeed to
address the underlying problems of the CRISES of politics, religion and science.
.
Access: PublicTagged with: change, capitalism, conscious capitalism, democracy, humpty dumpty, life, bankers, quants, politicians, zaadz
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.”
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.
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
” 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
“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
YOU'VE SAID IT!!!
Right on!!!
Beyond Bailouts | How a Circulation Charge
Can Help Save and Transform Global Finance
Jordan Bruce MacLeod
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.
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