+1 Mountain man. Summed it up to perfection.Nothing more to add.

This is the wisest thing said in this whole thread.

(1) Democracy is doomed, because voters are selfish, ignorant and irresponsible. Democracy assumes voters (in a national election) vote for what they think is best for the country. In reality, voters vote for whats best for themselves. Its a total corruption of the concept. Voters are selfish, narrow minded fools, who think only of themselves and only for the short term. All politicians do is humor the voters. They just give the voters what they want. No politician competes on the basis of principle - they compete on the basis of populism -cause thats what the voters want. Democracy is not about good policy, its about buying votes.

(2) The flipside of demanding the right to vote (power to the people), is voters MUST take total responsibility for the outcomes. i.e. The western world has the policies it voted for. Stop blaming everyone else (politicians, bankers, bilderbergers, ufos, muslims, christians, buddhists, chinese, jewish conspiracies or whoever) , and accept that the general publics votes, the general publics economic naivity is responsible. If you live in a democracy, then stand up and accept its your responsibility and your fault.

Either that, or stand down from voting.

Democracy is an absurd system, where the completely naive and ignorant have a say in what economic policies or foreign policies a country has, while having no clue about the consequences. Why are we always told its a sacred cow? Why is it taboo to question the wisdom (or stupidity) of democracy itself.

And why do the public, who demand the right to vote and the right to criticise, take absolutely ZERO responsibility for the consequences of their votes?

One of my favourite quotes in history is from the great Charles de Gaulle - [in a democracy] a leader must either betray his country or betray the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

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That is blame fairly apportioned, IMHO. Fcuking parasites.

Otherwise I largely agree with Tom and your posts.

Getting back to the OP ... the western world is in and out of recession. Growth is flat or slightly negative.

But global growth is still well positive. China, India, Russia, Brazil etc are all still growing rapidly. In China, a slowdown means growth slows from 10-15% a year to 7-8%. But its still dramatically up. And Global growth is still up, every year, around 2.5 - 3%. So if you are rolex, and selling ever increasing percentages of your products in places like China and Russia, you can easily be getting record sales while western markets are gloomy and negative.

Have a look at Jaguar and Range Rover sales in Russia and China since 2008 ... and how they have grown. Here's a recent one year snapshot ... up 40 % in Russia and 75% in China .... in 1 year.

http://www.themanufacturer.com/artic...rd-sales-year/

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I agree that democracy may not be the most efficient system, but personally I cannot think of anything as fair and just for our cultural environment (and to me this is more important than efficiency). If there is a feasible alternative I'd like to share thoughts about it and the criteria for its practical application.

IMO my vote is not any more worthy than the one of the shepherd in the mountains who never went to school and cannot read nor write. Certainly, I had better chances to attend school and university than he had, but that does not guarantee that I have any more common sense than him. Just because he couldn't that shouldn't exclude him. I could also be excluded because I do not hold a PhD in Physics from Harvard.

Sometimes it's depressing how people keep on voting the same, no matter what happened. I fear those a lot. I had that in my region: after huge corruption scandals, they voted them anyway. I felt ashamed, frustrated. Vote whatever, but not the same. Well, I have to accept it, as in a excursion: if you are in the group, sometimes the decision may not be the best and you may know it, but you accept it.

And if the alternative means a few "technocrats" ruling us, I worry more than this ELITE will be more selfish than the whole population in a democracy. It is too tempting to think "I'll get more because I deserve more than the others, because I'm better and smarter and they still should be thankful because I rule them".

I agree, democracy is a very imperfect system, but other systems (I insist, in our current cultural context) seem worse to my eyes. The point is that democracy is pretty corrupted too, so that would be my focus, to clean it somehow, to improve the system. A hard if not impossible task.

In times of crisis during the Roman Republic, the Senate could name a "dictator" for 6 months if order to set things right, when there were big big trouble. That could be an option, when all is a mess, I could agree with that temporary solution. But (nowadays) I don't know how to guarantee that the dictator would hand the power back once he finishes the period or has set things write. Anyone who know more about Roman politics/history? Any (other) thoughts/alternatives?

Yes, there is growth elsewhere, fortunately. And these countries finally get the chance they deserved. We (Westerners) are decandent. And we cannot exclude them any more from sharing the cake. So there is growth, but certainly not that much here in the West.

My point is not whether the world grows or not, but whether behind the economic crisis there is actually a hidden transfer of wealth from low and middle classes to really high-end upper class. It may not matter if real state/shares/whatever goods are worth more or less, but that now some may have more of them.

I try to show the idea with an example: lambs were worth 2€/each and the (wealthy) guy had 100 lambs (total 200€). Now he has 180 lambs which are worth 1€/each, so he is poorer and complains (total wealth: 180€). No, man, you are richer, because money is a fiction, a convention, and now you have 180 lambs and that's what counts, not the €. The only thing is that for you to have 80 more lambs, 80 people lost their only lamb and went straight into total misery for the sake of you to become wealthier.

Reading some of these post have give me a strange feeling..not really
pleasant.

My father told me that i always have to create my own truth and reality.
And that is what i still do and always want to do.
And we never wait for politics to change things ,becouse its a waist of time.
I have no negetive feeling against them no ,they do what they do,and i do my own thing.
I think i might be ignorant and different than most people.
That's why i found it hard to work for a boss,and started my own little business.


Crisis or not i still have the most beautiful days, biking ,fishing ,hiking,and
still have food on the table.
But we are so obsessed by material things that ,if we cannot buy the latest or newest we feel like things are going bad!,
I think it is possible to have less money but feel better than ever.
just get on with it and keep those Rose coloured glasses on.
And if there 10 for a dollar i buy 20!

Everybody has there own truth.

Saludos

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There are some simple connections to be made here. It all comes down to the fact that resources are limited. It doesnt matter what resources we are talking about, we live in a finite world, and as yet science has failed to come up with any form of energy that does not cost more (in pollution and effort) than it produces. In fact to date all technology simply degrades the world we live in more.

Now i can hear you saying what has this got to do with economic crisis. It is directly relevent because if we accept that resources are limited and that our current social and economic structures rely on growth then we are inevitably going to run into trouble. economic trouble, social trouble and enviromental trouble. Its simply a matter of which happens first, if indeed it doesnt all happen at once. we have a simple choice either live within our resources (which means being pretty damned minimal), or accept that carrying on as we are is effectively going to cause alot of trouble for us and the planet, albeit probably for the next generation or 2 to come.

what we are seeing now is a collaberation of human induced problems. Over population, over consumption and pollution. One of the side effects of this is economic problems, which are only likely to get worse. Put it this way if we were to go back to hunter gathering at our current population level we would run out of food within weeks. Nature (i.e the planet) cannot provide enough for us to live on (at a basic level) without farming. Farming at the intensive level we need to maintain in order to feed the 7 odd billion people on the planet is massively degrading the environment. So we cant carry on farming intensively without ruining the very resources we need in order to farm (i.e 250kg of top soil lost for every 20kg of wheat in america) and our population is set to rise. Thus natural resources are our achilles heal and social systems that treat finite resources as if they are endless (and without any regard for the future) will enevitably fail.

I would therefore argue that whether or not the current crisis was planned in advance is kinda irrelevent, Under our current mode of resource use it is just the logical outcome. the question is what do we do about it? we (and by we i mean the global population) need to drag our heads out of the denile bucket and face up to the situation. Global governments need to be honest with their populations about the real effect of consumerism, its a dead end.

Now dont get me wrong, I'm no hermit living the good life. I do infact have no problem with things going the way they are. I quite honestly dont think it really matters and truly believe that in some respects you may as well enjoy it while it lasts. What really gets my goat however is people profiting from the misery of others and i would suggest that its this behaviour that got us into this situation in the first place.

Profit, is the problem.

check out this link for an explanation of where rampant consumerism goes. its n ot a political statment just a simple explanation of exponential growth.

The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 1 of 8) - YouTube

(Watch all 8 episodes if you really want to get to the heart of the problem)

Also is you want to see how predictable the current economic problem is check out 'small is beautiful' by Edwarde Schumacher. He pretty much predicted the current circumstances back in the 70's.

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

I read that article... Nature always finds a way.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

It's alright saying that. But nature don't pick and choose what species is going to stay, and what is going to go. If any thing, it's going to be by size, what it eats, and where it lives. Humans are the wrong size and can't feed them self's unless Tesco is open seven day's a week. Nothing lives for ever.
Hell I'm not all gloom and doom. It's not as if the world is going to end a week next Tuesday.
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.