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

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.

Potlatch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Potlatch (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Potluck.


A potlatch[1][2] is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system[3] practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian,[4] Nuu-chah-nulth,[5] Kwakwaka'wakw,[3] and Coast Salish[6] cultures. The word comes from the Chinook Jargon, meaning "to give away" or "a gift"; originally from the Nuu-chah-nulth word p̓ačiƛ, to make a ceremonial gift in a potlatch.[1] It went through a history of rigorous ban by both the Canadian and United States' federal governments, and has been the study of many anthropologists.

Please see Edward Curtis photos of a Kwakwaka'wakw potlatch with dancers and singers.

At potlatch gatherings, a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family's house and holds a feast for their guests. The main purpose of the potlatch is the re-distribution and reciprocity of wealth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, there is a general economic crisis. The Potlach is still practiced in the United States and by the European Union with both democrats and republicans and the leaders of European countries gifting the banks, insurance companies and big investors - most notably Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, AIG etc with very little gifting by actual percentage going to working class citizens who support the potlatch through their hard work.

The U S Treasury , the Federal Reserve a private off shore corporation created by the most wealthy families, bankers and european royalty in 1913,
have managed to keep the interest rates near zero - and giving this money in exchange for worthless investments like sub prime mortgages - they the democrats , republicans, US Treasury , Federal Reserve, bankers, central bankers of Europe and investment houses have themselves created... not to mention the derivative markets and that tricky business of using the same collateral for loans again and again and again with no limit and without any controlling regulations especially if you are in the London market.

xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

Well I can not talk about the cultural environment, but from a health, wealth and education perspective, the advantages of democracy are not what we are led to believe.

But its the bankruptcy of the concept that concerns me most - from the bottom to the top.

I mentioned earlier that at at one end of the democracy illusion you have the voters ... almost no voters vote for the interests of the country ... pretty much all vote for selfish reasons ... they vote for who will put the most in their pocket. Thats an obviously failure and corruption of the democratic theory.

Second, 85-95% of voters dont change their vote. They vote for the same party regardless of the candidate standing. They voters do not assess the policies. They just vote on tribalism principles. "I vote labour cause I always voted labour and I hate the conservatives." If you are one of those people, or one the other way round, (85-95% of people) then you have FAILED in your responsibility to democracy. You are supposed to assess the candidates and the policies and choose what you think is best for the country. If you simply vote the same way regardless of candidates or policy, then you are failing to assess policy. You are failing to assess the integrity of the candidates. The whole point of having an election is so that the people can decide what ideas have failed, what people have failed, and can change them. If you are not a swing voter, then you are not encouraging the system to change. You are not keeping anyone honest. And you are not involved in improving policy. You give no incentive to candidates to improve. You give no incentive for policy to improve. You are merely being tribal. Non-swing voters have failed in their duty to democracy. The party system is in itself another total corruption of democracy.

At the top end of the tree are the politicians themselves. Do they represent democracy? Who voted for Gordon Brown to be UK prime minister in 2007??? Not one single person. No member of the public voted for him to become PM. In fact not even one member of his own political party voted for him to become PM. Tony Blair just stepped down.

Was Tony Blair ever elected PM? Can anyone ever recall seeing a box on a UK ballot form asking who you want to be the leader of the country? No. It doesnt exist. Tony Blair was voted for by about 40,000 people in Sedgefield. Thats all. Out of 60 million brits, Tony Blair received the backing of 40,000 of them yet becomes the national leader. Those 40,000 gave him what democratic mandate? They mandated him to be their local representative in the national parliament. Thats the only democratic mandate Tony Blair ever received.

What about his ministers? After the PM, the most powerful people in the country. Who voted for Jack Straw to be Home Secretary? No-one. Who voted for Geoff Hoon to be Defence Secretary? No-one. Does the public have any power at all to dismiss these people from their roles? No. Does the House of Commons (our supposedly democratic representatives) have any power to appoint them? No. Does the house have any ability to dismiss them if they are incompetent? No. Neither us, nor our voted representatives have any power to dismiss Ministers. With the sole exception of a no confidence vote which effectively dismisses the entire government.

In the US ... the Senate is all powerful. Second only to the administration in the white house in terms of power. Yet the Senate was designed as a house of review. The second chamber. Its sole responsibility was to review legislation to ensure big states dont bully small states. The senate is completely undemocratic, where the vote of 200,000 Wyoming folk carries the same weight as 20,000,000 Californians. Thats a 100 to 1 gerrymander. And its legal under our "democracy"! The House of Representatives is the democratic house. And yet the House has minimal power. Another example of democracy corrupted.

Secretaries of State in the US are unelected. Just appointed by the whitehouse. The President himself is not elected by popular vote.

So from the top to the bottom .. at every level, from voters to politicians, what we call democracy is completely corrupted from the principle. Voters dont do as they are supposed to. And the roles and power structure at the top are also non-democratic - meaning those at the top of the tree also dont do as they are supposed to.

- - -

I dont know what a better system is. I am merely trying to raise the point that democracy in reality is not a sacred cow. Its flawed at every level. Its twisted and distorted significantly. And its not particularly democratic at all.

I would also mention that the most impressive rises in living standards in world history typically occurred under non-democratic systems.

Hong Kong was a British colony for 150 years. Never had an election until 2 years before they handed it back to the Chinese (then the Brits had the gall to insist to the Chinese to maintain the 2 year old democracy there). Yet for 148 years before that, no-one complained that the colony was run by an unelected governor appointed by London. Under that undemocratic system it became one of the richest regions in the world.

Singapore was a swamp with no money and resources when it held its first elections in 1958. Since them opposition has been effectively banned. Its a one party state. There is no democracy. Yet in that time it has gone from a filthy poor asian fishing village into the top 3 countries in the world by living standards. In a country with ZERO natural resources. One household in six has over a million dollars in disposable wealth (excluding cars, house, luxury items etc). It still is a one party state.

But its not just small Asian states. Large ones too ... Japan is nothing like democratic. Its glory years, the 50s 60s 70s and 80s ... Japan was very much a one party state. They held elections to appease the US overlords, but who ran the country was actually determined by backroom elites within the LDP, not by any voting public.

Same non democratic deal in Taiwan ... except substitute the KMT for LDP.

Australia, Canada, the American states etc all initially became wealthy and with some of the highest living standards in the world under non democratic governorship from London in the 1700s and 1800s. They didnt beceom wealthy and with high living standards due to being run democratically. Democracy came to them long after they were already wealthy.

In todays world ... Compare undemocratic China with democratic India since the late 40s. Similar countries. Similar problems to overcome. Similar starting levels. Despite India having a headstart in terms of infrastructure left by the British, and despite having democracy while the Chinese had to overcome Mao's lunatic dictatorship and zero infrastructure, its the Chinese one party state which has given its people 97% literacy and a GDP per capita of $5500 ... while what has democracy in India delivered its people? 74% literacy and GDP of $1500 per capita. If we compare health and life expectancy, its the same deal. Undemocratic China trumps democratic India - significantly. Whats worth noting, like the Japanese example above, the leader is determined by the back room power brokers within the party ... leaders rule for a set amount of time and are then replaced, peacefully. Similar story with Singapore. Despite being a one party state and there being no democracy, leaders change over completely normally and peacefully. The modern one party state doesnt mean you have a life long dictator.

Again I am not saying one system is superior to another or proscribing alternatives. Just trying to debunk the myths that democracy results in higher health, education, income levels. And that non-democracy equals dictators.

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Very interesting points and very valid, I think.

I have often said that what a country needs is a benign dictatorship and that is not so far from where you post leads, I think.

Ride on.

Colebatch's narrative is cogent and contains many valid points, without question, at least IMHO. And MountainMan certainly kicked off the salient issues, if not the causes.

But . . . democracy works just fine if it takes place within a civil society. Sprinkling the right to vote on the uninterested or worse, those that have lived in a "me" (or "we" when that's just tribalism) society doesn't work, clearly. The examples are too numerous. As for the superiority of democracy - Churchill's quote seems to hold.

China's amazing climb . . . it and India's GDP were equal in '92 when China drew EVEN. China has raced ahead. India's done alright but in comparison has languished. Denizens of the Philippines and South Korea like to compare 50 years ago when they were equal. Singapore's climb is also impressive.

But the climbers invariably used the current trading system to game the system. Korea has certainly been innovative in a few areas, far better than China or Singapore (whose main innovation has been importation of large numbers of skilled gast-arbeiter). There are whole book reviews that collect various books authored by former govt officials all over Asia that plainly state how they gamed the system. (Germany has also been not a little guilty of this with a export driven economy that's very modern and a domestic one that looks rather 19th century.)

So while I agree that there are far too many sacred cows . . . most of the contributors on this thread hail from areas of the world that have been remarkably good at killing those sacred cows over the past several hundred years. The "west" has been nearly antithetical to the "this is the way it was, this is the way it is, this is the way it shall be" that still grasps much of the rest of the world.

And really, if I were a visitor to almost ANYWHERE in the Arab or Asian world 600 years ago and suggested that Europe and it's progeny would go on to dominate the world soon and for at least 500 years - I'd have been laughed or thrown out of any place I'd spoken. After all the Mongols' Venetian spies counseled them to ignore Europe due to it's lack of knowledge, technology and riches. Don't be so sure the game is up. China's gaming via intensive investment looks potentially very rickety and therefore de-stabilizing, at least internally. Singapore struggles with a huge affordability issue for it's own citizens, especially retirees.

Certainly there is a "great convergence" underway globally with western entities and their economies suffering and that's unlikely to be slowed, nevermind reversed, where a western minority had high wages and high productivity relative to the rest for centuries. Martin Wolf has written on this for some time.

The reaction of the 1% may well be sensible self-preservation. A new feudalism does not seem ridiculous given the global trends underway.

Capitalism has built-in instabilities. And it's always relied on a new space to expand into. Now, with the coming online of formerly great powers returning to an importance economically and politically they've not experienced in centuries . . . the new space is . . . severely constrained. We're all just sharing a CLEARLY limited space - Earth, and it's limited resources of clean air, water, and other commodities with a population soaring to 11 billion by centuries' end.

Given the convergence (of wages and productivity) that sacred cow, a man-made system, capitalism, seems very much overdue for a review at least.

Or as Edward Abbey, the father of the American environmental movement and an admittedly blighted soul stated - "capitalism preaches growth for the sake of growth and that is the mantra of the cancer cell."

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Orange, it's the new black.

not to be dull but its all a bit academic when put in the context of a finite world. which social systems work or dont work are fairly irrelevent if they are still based on growth and the overwhelming abuse of finite resources.

the economic crisis is a symptom of lots of things BUT underlying it all is the simple problem of too many people using too many resources which will, and are running, out. it might take 100's of years but we are inevitably on the bumpy road back to ruralised economies, probably via the odd scrap for oil.

And before anyone screams 'technology will save us' please try to come up with a technology that is 1 sustainable in terms of the energy it takes to create it and 2 has actually put us in a better situation (as regards resource use).

As a little light relief from the eternal "which bike" discussions: 2+ years later and I wonder how the world is viewed in the here and now.

Greece – The Delphi Declaration | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2015/06...ting-drachmas/

Whatever develops, Greece will be an interesting place to visit.

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Dave

The financial crisis looked rather planned than anything else to me; unprecedented wealth transfer between tax payer to individuals, even more consolidation of power between the big banks and the super rich raking in even more wealth and power meanwhile the bottom half gets austerity.

Regarding the banks, well, if more people understood how they worked and who they worked I'm sure people would start asking serious questions. Most people don't even know what money is. In our "democracies" the real issues like why monetary supply and creation is not under democratic control is not even on the agenda and never will be.