No way out?
The question of regressing consciously to a simpler way of life that is less resource based is not a simple one, but the resource limits of inhabiting a planet that is a closed system, except for sunlight and cosmic debris, and the constraints that those limits impose must be part of our present agenda.
The abrupt climate change we are presently experiencing a small taste of is indicative of resource use that is out of balance with the planetary processes that normally provide an invisible free lunch.
Pollution is feed back: it says you are generating ‘waste’ at a rate that the planet can’t handle within time frames that will sustain your ‘standard’ of living.
The ‘west’ – mainly the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan – have fostered a capitalism that is not sustainable. To allow this model to be transmitted to China, India, Brazil and others is the madness of our times.
The present economic correction is a small indication of how crazy it has all become.
The market as GOD is a fundamentalism that must be countered. Genuine human satisfaction must be an inherent part of any new structure that rises from the present ashes. Profit must take second place to satisfying real needs.
The market must be constrained and the propaganda of the free market must be exposed for the lie that it is. The life created for most by the constant consumption of useless objects is pitiful.
Europe, due to its sensible safety net can better weather the storm that is still in its early stages. The USA is naked and bankrupt – impaled upon a greed that seems infinite as one reads Lewis’s “The End” and other reports from the frontlines.
Reflect on Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton and then think about Paris Hilton or Britney Spears and you will sense how degraded we have become.
Turn off your TV, let your cell phone relax and above all be radical in this time of change: STOP CONSUMING.
Take this recent joke:
Doctor, I have a problem.
Where does it hurt?
Just give me some medicine.
But, I must examine you.
Do you want me to die?
Here’s a blank prescription form.
How many $billions should I make it out for?
All the effort to rebalance the economy has so far been absurd, as we don’t know how large the problem is, as we have been taking the word of the greedy liars who created the problem.
To get the real data, we must nationalize the banks. If not now, when?
“Say it ain’t so Joe, Alex, Mark, Barry, etc.”
9/11 was minor compared to the harm that the bankers have done to both American reality and American power. Yet those even thought, wrongly, to be associated with 9/11 have been the victims of rendition (sent to another country to be tortured) tortured at Gitmo, held without charge for years and then when determined, grudgingly, to be innocent, deprived of the right to compensation by the use of a court precedent that has been shown to be based on a flagrant lie.
Bankers are crying about bonuses when they ought to be stripped naked and beaten through the streets of New York City. They have totally failed to carry out their basic fiduciary responsibilities and they and those who allowed torture to sully the name of America must be publicly exposed and punished.
We can only move on when the past is exposed and sunlight is applied to those who treated the constitution as a document of convenience instead of being the bedrock upon which the nation rests.
The crimes that have shamed the USA must be exposed. Bi-partisanship must not be extended to criminals.
It is [hypocrisy]2 to arrest and convict a thief when those who stole our economy and good name go free. W, Cheney and company ran the country like a kleptocracy. They must be held accountable for their deeds.
I was a consultant, official and unofficial, for a decade at the highest levels of corporate America. I would only agree to consult and give my opinion when I had looked at all the facts.
You can’t turn around a bad situation, if you do not know what the facts are. That is particularly true in our economic crisis. Money given to a bank that is technically bankrupt is lost money.
The entire top tier of the economy, fuelled by greed and abetted by a sleeping president and financial rating agencies that ought to be dissolved, has created the worst financial crisis in capitalist history.
It is unique, so the Barnackes, the Geithners, the Sommers, who are very intelligent men, are using tools that may not apply to 2009: they are generals fighting the last war. See the incredible debacle of WWI, if you need an example.
All that said as preamble, the facts are not known, so most of the money so far allocated may be money thrown down a rathole.
We must know the exact financial situation of all of our large banks and financial institutions. Until we do, any money given to them would better be distributed by wind from the top of the Empire State Building.
We may have to nationalize the banking system to do this. Consider AIG, given ca. $170 billion, now selling $.43 share and bankrupt again.
To give money to G.M. is madness. It is still managed by those who created the crisis. Let it die. Creative destruction, perhaps the end of capitalism, but the image of Mrs. Clinton holding out the begging bowl to the Chinese tells the real story.
We are beholden to the Chinese and USA Hyperpower has become USA Beggar. Brought to our knees by men who must be exposed and punished for their lack of fiduciary responsibility.
