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.

Regarding the nature of money:

"The Euro is founded on lies. It claims to promote European unity, but it is set up to create and maintain fragmentation and distrust. It claims to preserve sovereignty, but to ensure its own survival it requires its member states to relinquish control of their economies and, increasingly, their politics. It claims to bring prosperity, but its legacy is depression"

That is a telling extract from:
Coppola Comment: Mario Draghi and the Holy Grail
which gives an indication of the nature of a national currency.

At present, Greece is pushing the boundaries of proving the inate truth of the article.

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Dave

This is a subject that will not be understood by a few word's on a motor bike posting board.


How I see it is. A single currency with in a set amount of country's is a good idea. What went wrong was, it grew too big to fast. There are a lot of people better than you or me, who are trying to get it to work. There should have been limit's laid down at the begin. Say how much each country can borrow. Let's put that at say 50% of GDP. I'm not going to go on about how I think it should be run, as every one has there own idea about that.


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.

So, a week further down the road and the political nature of the Euro is increasingly evident in its' starkness, for anyone with even a single eye wide open.
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2015/07...doing-nothing/


Incidentally, one of the very few nations that has never defaulted on debt is the one that uses the Bank of England.
Germany last defaulted, big time, in 1953. Pot calling the kettle black?
http://web.archive.org/web/201507060...d-7b5e7add6fff

Some more, rather random, ideas/facts:-

The norm throughout recorded history has been for nations to default when it all becomes "too much"; thereafter, the process starts again - much like the passing of the seasons or the inevitability of night following day.
The same applies to individual/corporate debtors, no matter where they lie within the hierarchical system of money.
Let's watch what happens in the case of Greece.

To quote some recent reading of mine, elsewhere:-
The economic history of the 20th century has been one of dealing with two hot world wars, one cold war and a major worldwide depression in between. Where we are going in the 21st century is less clear.

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Dave

But where will those 11 billion reside?
See Hans Rosling for an answer.


Irrespective of the great god of "sustainability" the likely, natural solution has been expounded by Hans Rosling, for whom the glass is half full rather than half empty.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?clie...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Please "mind the gap" and "don't panic" http://www.gapminder.org/videos/hans...shing-machine/


Somewhat off topic from the title of this thread but posted here to put your minds at rest.

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Dave