In short, planned - no, predictable - yes.

The starting point is the following quote:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing. "

We, the people, vote in the governments that allow this all to happen.

Bad governments make bad policies reacting to short term incentives.

The people (who are consumers) live beyond their means and push the government and their policies to their limit to allow them to do so.

Too much debt in government, too much debt in business, too much debt for individuals.

Normal economic shocks happen and an overly burdened government, business, or person will collapse under the weight.

Sorry guys have to disagree with all the doom and gloom. I work in manufacturing just over 100 miles from where the industrial revolution started. We've seen it all before. The US civil war cut off our raw material, we switched to army blankets made from rags (recyling before the word was invented) even though people starved during the switchover. The money markets wents bad in the 1930's and we suffered. Same again in the 80's but the recovery was in China and India.

Manufacturing here is now lean and only has the high value jobs. No recession here, we can't make the stuff fast enough. The wealth stays here too.

This recession is just the movement of low value, low skill jobs in other sectors and the same in manufacturing that was falsely protected in the '80's. Sure, the bankers will scream as their 2 hour a week paper shuffling jobs are moved to India and the media will sulk as paper goes the way of the dinosaurs but people adapt. India call centres are now for the Indian market who has money and love their accents. The printers will have to move into IT or plumbing or something someone else can't do remotely for less.

It's just a recession caused by a reshuffle of wealth made worse by panic spread by better communication. It will end when people decide to end it. Resources are not short, peak oil, when we'll have the most ever is 20 years away. The next recession in the 2030's could be about resources when all those Indian insurance companies have power cuts and realise they've sold pyramid schemes.

Andy

There are just too many people in this world.... It's not sustainable.

Everything has to be fought for. Jobs, resources, land, fishing rights etc etc.

It's not going to get better until something DRASTIC is done about world population. If we don't sort that ourselves, then it will be left to war, famine or an epidemic to correct.

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

Ted you are so right. The money market work's on the principal that. As the population grows more debit can be made. The greater debit than before will support the debit that is in place now.


Now lets move on. I see on a BBC news item that there is a bug that is restance to antibiotics. In the way that they have to use two very strong antibiotic to kill it off, and then it's not all ways successful. We are on our way to some kind of super bug. Hell I wish I could find the report on the BBC. Sounds to me as if it has come out of the Horizon team. What this is all about. Is if people are dying off with out clearing their debit. And there are less people to take on loans. The banking system, or the money system is going to collapse. Well that's not quite true. There will always be money. When you have the, have's and the have not's.


But as you say. It's people, there are too many of them. That and corruption.


John933

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It is interesting that the quote you use is from this thread 4 years ago.
Has nothing changed for you over the past 4 years?

Regarding the point about population control, the UN has the policy "Agenda 21" dating from 1992 so there is no need for concern.
There was some recent reference to the matter in the other pub thread on "global warming"; the item about Malthus' theories.

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Dave

I was just reading through the post and that one caught my eye. About my self. I'm retired and have been for some time. Every thing is paid for. Own my own house, Have no bills out standing. So all I need to do is pay for service's I use, plus food and drink. And that don't come to much. So money is not a problem to me.


What douse concern me is the generation that is coming up be hind me, and the new one being born now. How they are going to manage I have no idea. Being lucky enough to be a child of the 60's. I could just pull up the ladder as in I'm all right Jack. Or try and help. But after saying that, there are some people who you just can't help. After being the bank of Dad. The children I have helped, are really no better off with the extra I gave. They complain about the bill's they have to pay. Then tell me about a phone or i pad or some game consul brought on plastic. Trying to tell them to get only the thing's you need. Not the thing's you want. Is like banging your head against a brick wall. Trying to tell them that the less deit you have, mean's that more of the money that comes through the door is yours.


It's a strange old world.
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.

I'm in much the same boat.

Over at the global warming part of the HUBB pub there has been some recent conversation on the same general lines.

All one can do with the kids, as a blood relative, is give them as good an education as possible, ensure they learn to smile and send them on their way at the age of majority.

And I do mean an education rather than the indoctrination practiced in UK establishments these days.

"How are they going to manage?" - one of my very first employers said that to me, and he was referring to me at the time.
But, expectations are extremely high nowadays, for no good reason.

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Dave

+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.

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.

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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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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.