UK Election 2017 - Why we need Corbyn's Labour (but won't get it)

Blog Post Contexts Index: ➤ Setting the Scene ...WHY CORBYN'S LABOUR NEEDS TO WIN: ➤ Inequality ➤ Xenophobia ➤ Economic stimulus ➤ Housing ➤ Shift focus towards environmental issues ➤ Stabilising financial markets ➤ Towards a Universal Basic Income (UBI) ➤ Positive Money (creation) ➤ Brexit ➤ Voting Conservative doesn't even benefit *anyone's* financial self interest ➤ Ill gotten gains ➤ Ironic hypocrisy ➤ The UK's Sanders ➤ Gentler kinder politics ➤ Think of the children ➤ Life or death (or exacerbated disability) ➤ Terrorist Attacks ➤ "1984" isn't an instruction manual! WHY CORBYN WON'T WIN: ➤ Not enough time! ➤ Biased press (the right wing legacy filter bubble) ➤ Memetics ➤ Thought free ➤ Personal appearances ➤ Lies and dirty tricks ➤ Censorship ➤ Gagging ➤ Gerrymandering ➤ Voter suppression ➤ Non-voters (in general) ➤ Party funding ➤ Dark money ➤ Dark ads and big data (I.e. the Facebook factor) ➤ Polls ➤ Committed to the big lie ➤ Terrorism ➤ Rained off ➤ Not mentioned, but not overlooked WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (SPECULATION): ➤ Tory majority ➤ Hung parliament

➤ Setting the Scene:

I've never voted Labour. Historically I have decried the traditional right vs left (Conservative vs Socialist) tug of war, in UK politics. It has ignored the liberal axis of debate - the need to protect the individual, our liberties (which have been ignored or actively trampled) and democracy itself. Hence railing for the Liberal Democrats in many previous elections (including back in 2010). But our politics has drifted so dangerously far to the right, now, that I feel a sizeable socialist swing is currently what's most desperately needed.

Also, the national Lib Dem party currently still resembles a smoking crater in the ground, having (unfairly) received all the blame and none of the credit for 5 years of relatively stable, but austere, government in coalition with  the dominant Tories. While the Greens (for whom I voted in 2015), are in no position to swing things (due to our hopeless electoral system), resorting to valiant tactical efforts, stepping aside to support other progressive parties, regardless.

The manifestos: Conservatives | Liberal Democrats |Green party | Labour Condensed summary of the Labour manifesto (by @LabourEoin, also here).

Under Ed Miliband's lukewarm leadership in the 2015 election, the Labour manifesto promised an uninspiring flavour of austerity-lite, having been painted into a corner by our right-wing press and their pet government's dominant (though bogus) 'paying off the national credit card' narrative.

Thankfully, this time, there's a very stark difference between team red and blue. Labour finally crawling out from the shadow of Thatcherism, after the pleasantly surprising result of their internal leadership election of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. It was pretty miraculous, given the many interventions from high profile 'Blairite' party members (and the media), branding him as unelectable. Who were bizarrely proposing that the party failed to prevent David Cameron's Tories gaining a full majority due to Labour not being 'centrist' enough.

The 2 years since has seen almost non-stop infighting, with the legacy 'New Labour' guard, refusing to back their new leader, attempting a coop and forcing a second leadership election that Corbyn subsequently won, again, with a large majority of votes. This, despite internal manoeuvres aiming to shut out his ground swell of supports from voting (by banning new members from recent months and, perversely, levying a new fee).

This mirrored the frustratingly outrageous shenanigans in the run up to the 2016 US presidential election, within the democratic party, when Bernie Sanders was stupidly shut out of the running by the party establishment in favour Hillary Clinton. Despite him polling far better against Trump. Of course this lead to the death of real hope (for me anyway) and, of course, the disastrous result.

So anyway, we're very lucky to have a candidate, here, who seems prepared to genuinely push back against some of the worst excesses of the neo-liberal consensus. Although, years of devastating press bias against him, fuelled by suicidal party infighting, means he has started from a massive disadvantage. But with Labour having shrunk the Tory's 25 percentage point head-start, in the polls, down to (perhaps) as little as 3%, there is now arguably hope for change. And this is...

...WHY CORBYN'S LABOUR NEEDS TO WIN:

➤ Inequality:

Despite the global 'occupy' protests of 2011 being a distant memory, wealth inequality has only worsened here since. Ongoing cuts and pay freezes have held the majority back, while quantitative easing (QE) has pumped huge amounts of money upwards, inflating the assets of the already wealthy. (In addition to the usual factors still ticking along.)

In 2015 Greece's radical left alliance, the 'Syriza' government, bravely attempted to battle the brutally crushing austerity handed down to them by the EU (ultimately capitulating), as their central banks effectively laundered the Eurozone debts through the country. I blogged at length about this, siting the writings of Yanis Varoufakis, and tying in many other aspects of global macro-economics, finance, debt, etc.

Must of the Western world seems to have, in fact, exacerbated inequality, rather than redressing it. Obama's initially hopeful stimulus went some distance, but he was thoroughly shut down by endless dirty tricks by the Republican dominated congress for the rest of his 6 years.

➤ Xenophobia:

I think the rise of right-wing, anti-immigration sentiment (that fuelled Brexit, for example) is a direct result of this economic squeeze on the population's living standards. At risk of being overly reductive, I imagine this link stemming from an evolutionary instinct for tribes of hunter-gathers to disperse into smaller groups when the pickings are lean (ensuring that at least some survive).

Audacity of Yanis Varoufakis - Understanding Global Macroeconomic Stability and the Greek Financial Crisis

Rough Contents Overview:

• Varoufakis, a quick profile.
• Global Minotaur book/concept.
• Exchange rates, trade surplus issues and history.
• China, 'Chimerica' & Niall Ferguson, currency wars.
• Greece - historical context, specific precipitating factors.
• IMF's ills.
• Bitcoin and Max Keiser.
• Piketty, inequality and Gates.
• Referendum result and Resignation.

[2015-06-18] The ongoing Greek financial crisis dedlock has been continually misreported as if it is a simple, political tug of war: little Greece trying to barter an arbitrarily better deal from big EU lending countries. But this narrative excludes essential dimensions which have massive implications for the entire world! The bulk of this can, I think, be covered by talking about this chap's writings and hopeful approach...

He's the finance minister for Greece's latest Government, Syriza - a rainbow coalition of small, 'radical left' leaning parties. I almost wish this political agglomeration would inspire something similar in the UK, to tackle the insurmountable FPTP electoral system. Syriza united behind a popular mandate to begin rolling back half a decade of failed austerity measures, privatisations and restructuring forced upon Greece by the 'Troika'. This triumvirate comprising the IMF, EU and ECB, imposed these conditions in exchange for further, massive, unpayable debts.

Varoufakis is no career politician. Brought in by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, he's not even a party member, persay, more like a passionate consultant. A globetrotting, professional economist, no less, who has continued his blogging despite his new post. We should be so lucky! After graduate and masters studies in the UK, he fled Thatcher's 3rd term for 12 years tenure in an Australian university and a year in Texas. He recently advised Valve on growing their Steam platform globally before being drawn back to Athens and his home land. [Wikipedia-1]

With looks that wouldn't be out of place in a Bond villain, and a mellifluous cadence, he meticulously and gracefully answers any and all questions with carefully selected metaphors and examples. He is a formidable speaker in English, and someone to whom Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel economist and ex World Bank chief) pretty much defers to [New Economic Thinking Video]. In fact, Varoufakis' government position has been described as analogous to Obama appointing the well known Keynesian, Paul Krugman, or the aforementioned, world famous inequality expert, Stigltz [NYtimes via twitter].

With a father who fought on the communist side of Greece's civil war (1946–49) and having set up local (PASOK) youth movement, Yanis describes himself as an 'erratic Marxist' and preaches 'pragmatic egalitarianism'. A term I much like. With contributions to the field of game theory research, and the build of a rugby player, he must truly be an intimidating prospect for the European bureaucrats with whom he has been tasked to negotiate. So its of little surprise that he's had to, cooly and calmly as always, belay the repeated claims from 'leaks' and attacks on him via the (dodgy Greek) press, and distorting, confrontational lens of the international coverage.

Rumours of my impending resignation are (for the umpteenth time) grossly premature...

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) [Twitter May 31, 2015]

The audacious part is that he appears to be out to apply his key macro-economic insights directly to where they could have the biggest, widest reaching beneficial effects on the composition of the entire Eurozone (and beyond)! A step up from the radical academics in fiction: Indiana jones or Tom Mason. I'd go as far as to hold him up besides world super-hero Elon Musk, if he succeeds at all.

Physicists - Yanis' initial interest in this degree subject, before switching to an economics degree (the lingua franca of political discourse) [1], leads me to feel an affinity with him and his approach. It was my first degree, which I chose because it seemed seem to contain the most fundamental factors for understanding everything (and for engineering the biggest changes to the universe). Elon Musk was also a physicists, dropping out days into a PhD to make his millions on the dot com boom. He's famously talked about the subject's necessary thinking style of "first principles reasoning", "a framework of thinking that would allow understanding counterintuitive elements of reality" [BuinessInsider], that seems obvious to us scientist/engineer types, but seems regarded as a magical secret sauce by standard business types. I've already sung Musk's praises in my hyperloop post.

I hope(d against hope) that the Eurocrats can bring themselves to pay him serious attention, because he's not out to win as much ground for team-Greece as possible. The repayment postponements have been aimed at creating time for constructive dialogue. He's consistently projected far more hopefulness than the prevailing media narrative of political conflict we've heard, which has a perversely myopic focus, seemingly intent on self-fulfilling a doomsday scenario.

He's been penning, and repeatedly revising since 2010, a pragmatic "modest proposal" (with expert co-authors) that would quickly resolve the situation. It uses only existing institutions, without call for fanciful systemic overhaul. Yanis understands the hope and expectations riding on Syriza (and himself), and talk about the opportunity for Europe to "reboot". But has also stated that "we are not interested in imposing our views monolithically on the rest of Europe [Greece] is too tiny and too bankrupt to do that" [at 12:18 in this radio interview].

His ambition is to lay matters bare. Obviously he's been seen by some as rude and too strident, and I'm not sure his core ideas have even been listened to, let alone seriously considered. It feels like it may be a case like a expert employee trying to get their boss, with only qualifications in business management, to understand a fundamental technical limitation or requirement in their business, but the one in charge is blind to any reality beyond their costings spreadsheet. Does not compute and they probably even resent the impudence of their lesser rank knowing more than them. And that's before considering any influence of powerful figures who stand to profit from disaster and failures, via whatever arcane financial mechanisms they've cooked up.

Since starting this piece (several weeks back) a deal has been seeming decreasingly likely [BBC]. It was always going be a last minute compromise, at best, but it does feel increasingly like that may have been unrealistic. Despite haing to work up the details of the exit plan, Yanis is still pushing hard to be heard and save the day (as of 2015-06-19). But with talk of an all out run on their banks this weekend it sounds pretty much like game over [ZeroHedge].

Edited book cover image (from Yanis' blog).

Anyway. Varoufakis' big insight is "The Global Minotaur" - a beastly financial aspect of the United States that has stabilized the world economically (and therefore politically) via its huge, brutal consumption. More specifically, the state of affairs that existed since 1971, when America's world dominating, post world war trade surplus inverted. Instead of re-balancing, Nixon's Government decided to actively feed the country's trade and budget deficits to the max, shooting the moon. They relied instead upon attracted their exported dollars for re-investment in the American pie, vacuuming them back up via the wonders of international investments in Wall Street!

This one-sided flow of capital (goods and investment) was so powerful a sink of capitals as to neutralise the effects of national trade surpluses all around the entire world. It maintained a somewhat grim, global stability. This is comparable to the ancient regional stability fostered by the tyranny of feeding King Minos's labyrinthine bound, hybrid monster of Greek legend; a probable mirror of a real historical situation of lavish (human and economic) tributes proffered to Crete, in subordination to its dominance.

Why Wealth Inequality is *Actually* Bad

After putting all moralistic ideals to one side for a moment, income/wealth inequality is still fundamentally bad for a society. (I'll come back to ethics later, along with the Occupy movement and much more besides.)

The monetary system is immensely complex these days, so as a thought experiment I like to imagine money away: ignore it altogether as it has no intrinsic utility itself. It merely directs the allocation of man power and resources, as a dictator might. But hopefully our system has more effective priorities: promoting the spread of useful innovations and keeping society healthy.

Moai - 'Easter Island Heads' are misnamed,
 they've been buried to their shoulders by time. 

A conservative/neo-liberal might argue that rich people are no problem because they spend more, putting money back into the economy via the people they pay for products and services. However, I think the real problem is with the specific things they spend their enhanced incomes on.

Someone with 100 times more money than the average Joe doesn't buy 100 reasonably priced cars. Maybe they buy twice as many cars, but each one costs 50 times as much. It's actually quite difficult to spend that much money, so they will tend to purchase luxury items across the board, either impractically expensive versions of everyday goods or totally exclusive items like super-yachts.

Gucci handbags, jewel encrusted gold watches, $200M private yachts, giant mansions, hand made super-cars and fancy soirées are all about as useful at stimulating an increase in societal productivity as were the standing stones of Easter Island. For those unfamiliar: Moai (right) were erected all over the small Island as an expression of ancestor worship by clans. Making the statues took a heavy toll; there was total deforestation and ecosystem collapse. The isolated population of islanders had plunged from 15000 to 3000 by the time Europeans arrived in 1722. A 500% decrease, in under a century, with cannibalism. Shortly thereafter the 900 statues were toppled.

The monolith erecting game is taxing indeed for the people of Nias Island, Indonesia, 1915.

Back to the present day, the other thing wealthy people tend to use much of their money for is gaining *more* wealth. So, in a laissez-faire economy, an ever greater percentage of societal effort tends to be directed towards useless extravagances for an elite. Whether or not the top percent or two *deserve* extravagant pay for their services/resources is irrelevant, left unchecked this wealth concentration will destroy society. And in retrospect we will look every bit as dumb as those who built 10 meter tall maoi when all that was left to eat was each other.

Utility of the Green Energy Bubble

Continued climate skepticism, international treaty failures and government spending malaise are still the state of play as far as renewable energy generation is concerned, right? The planet is already doomed to a 2-4deg.C rise, while home-owners bicker over new wind turbine locations... But forget all that!:

"China steams ahead on clean energy"

From the perspective of this BBC article, a clean energy boom is already well under way. Even the UK, with our apparently doddering government, was 3rd in the world for renewable investment (in 2009), not far behind the US in gross expenditure. Way out in the lead, in terms of investment, and soon installed capacity, is China. Yes, the nation getting the most international evils for it's ballooning coal addiction, will soon pass it's 2020 target of 30GW of renewables (when counting just its wind power), and it is the world leader in photovoltaic cell production.

While US investment fell 40% during the sub-prime mortgage crash, overall global investment has been buoyant. South Korea's capacity grew 250% in the last 5 years!

Greenpeace may be moaning about data center power use, but Google are already heavily reducing their carbon footprint, spurring the rest of the industry, and society as a whole to follow suit. Their roves are carpeted with solar PV and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI circa 2007) they co-founded has pretty ambitious targets.

Admittedly, the internet uses (very) roughly 5% of global power (and rising). I consider this should be

China's Geely buys Volvo for $1.8bn

So why does an automotive acquisition pique my interest? (on BBC or Telegraph)

Well, anyone who follows this blog shouldn't have failed to notice me preaching about how revolutionary PML's Quad Electric Mini is/was. PML (a small Hampshire based company) got caught in the recession, November 2008, and was split asunder. Now one company ("Printed Motor Works") continues their old line of "Printed Armature/Pancake" electric motors and another: "Protean Electric" (that employs 60, mainly engineering, staff). Protean Electric continue to develop the "Hi-Pa Drive" system, of in-wheel car motors and all electric drive train, working closely with Volvo. There's the link.

Volvo's been developing this technology in it's C30 ReCharge plug in hybrid (video below), though it has been dubious that it would actually feature in their forthcoming 2012 models. Development and testing costs are likely the issue here, as it represents a paradigm shift in car propulsion, and Volvo (car division) has been consistently loss making since it was bought by Ford in 1999 for almost 4 times the current valuation.

There's no question in my mind that regenerative hub motors will be the automotive norm by 2030, it's just a matter of how long is spent 'umming and ahhing' over them before they're accepted. The longer it takes for proper electrics/hybrids to take off, the longer it is before we start reducing environmental damage and the deeper we'll get into ugly realms of oil scarcity. Of course, it would also be nice to see the British company, that first developed this ingenious system, profit from it before everyone else rips it off.

Consumer nervousness over using regenerative breaking as the main/sole way of stopping a car will be a major challenge (perhaps the biggest), a conundrum perfectly suited to Volvo, with it's reputation for unimpeachable safety standards.

Hopefully Geely's cash injection will secure the research partnership with Protean. But I suspect Geely will end up being more closely involved in crafting an affordable product. Geely started in refrigeration in 1986 and has worked it's (his) way through motorcycles to being the premier Chinese owned car manufacturer, the only one that has managed to successfully produce it's own fully automatic transmission system.

I imagine that gaining ownership of all Volvo's intellectual property was more than just a bonus for Geely; hopefully they've recognised the particular potential there. They have already signed an R&D agreement with Tanfield Group (presumably to utilise the experience of Smith Electric Vehicles) to work on converting London's black cabs, thanks to co-owning Manganese Bronze. At the very least Geely comes replete with a cheap manufacturing base: China. (Though, oddly Geely's workforce is currently half that of Volvo's)

There is of course a 4th piece of the (successful, next generation, plug-in/series-hybrid car) puzzle still to fall into place: the battery technology. Lighting GT has a Hi-Pa Drive based product available for order right now, considered the Aston martin of electric cars (I'm still dying to see it on the Top Gear track). But the Altairnano lithium-ion battery it packs costs $70k alone. Fine for a ground breaking, limited production, high end, luxury sports car, but not for a family hatchback. However, there is already a huge amount of competition in the lithium battery research field; all car manufacturers are having to push this tech along as fast as possible. So Geely may not even need to bag an exclusive, battery producing, partner. Also, the HI-Pa drive system has an advantage here because of it's inherent efficiency: no transmission loss to lay down power, no transmission loss regenerating (10%-20% each way, repeatedly). If anything the system needs batteries with faster discharge times, rather than greater capacity.

ZEITGEIST 2 ADDENDUM - by Peter Joseph

Official video torrent - http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Zeitgeist: German ~ "the spirit of the age and its society"

Below are my notes of significant or interesting points made in this elucidating (and highly recommended) 2 hour documentary from 2008. (Famous) quotes I particularly liked are in “blue italic”, verbatim, and my own thoughts annotate in [bold red].

Part 1 – Money as debt and control system.
Part 2 – Confessions of an 'Economic Hit Man', Globalisation, Terrorism?
Part 3 – Failings of the current system and an alternative.
Part 4 – How the universe really works, summary, action.

---

The monetary system is the biggest, and most unquestioned forms of faith. A misunderstood institution.

*** 0h6:50 - Part 1
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who believe they are free." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - d.1832)

According to "Modern Money Mechanics" (by Federal Reserve):
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Modern_Money_Mechanics.pdf]

National Debt:
US government buy (paper) money from the Fed in exchange for (paper) bonds (AKA securities). (only 3% of money in circulation is physical currency)

Money then deposited in a commercial bank. Which has an 9:1 fractional reserve obligation; $10M deposit allows $9M of extra loans to be made by that bank. (while 10% must be kept in reserve)

But that $9M is new money that can be deposited, enabling further money creation. So $10M deposit => $90M new (thin air) money, increasing the money supply by $100M overall.

Greater money supply reduces overall value of currency: Inflation.
Overall 96% devaluation in 94years (since setup of current Federal Reserve).

*Money IS Debt*

In 1835 the national debt was cleared by shutting down the old Fed, because it was controlling the government.

Debt always has to be repaid with *Interest*, so banks will always demand back (and receive) more money than they create; more than exists!: Thus more money/debt *must* continually be created to stop the system breaking. Thus, inflation is inherent.

Foreclosures and repossessions are inherent too.
[ Sub-prime mortgages aside, statistically, I suppose, there will always be some unlucky people, in that sense the banks always win. Because of this reductions in employment due to automation and recessions are big wins for banks]

Q. Who are you working for? A. the banks.
Economic slavery requires people to feed and house themselves. (Regular slaves need more looking after, more expensive)

The World Bank & IMF extend this control system to entire countries...



*** 0h21 - Part 2
Confessions of an economic hit-man (John Perkins)

"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.
One is by the sword. The other is by debt."
(John Adams 1735-1826 - 2nd president of US)

Big loans to a small country (with natural resources) inevitably go to big (American) industry to build expensive infrastructure.

This benefits only a few of the richer citizens, leaving the country unable to pay back the loan (with interest). Instead bigger loans are taken, or internal control/ownership of resources is sold out to big foreign industries. (or relinquished for political support on the world stage).

Specific examples of economic attacks:

(x) Dr Mohammed Mossadegh - Elected Iranian president 1951-53
Nationalised Iranian oil, so citizens benefit fully from it's exploitation.
1 CIA agent (Kermit Roosevelt, Jr) managed to corrupt country and overthrow him in a coup d'etat and reinstalled the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as dictator, co-operative with foreign business.
[Operation Ajax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax]

(x) Jacobo Arbenz Guzman - President Guatamala 1951-54
Implemented land rights policies to benefit the people.
Seen as communist threat in US.
Toppled by US government (CIA).
[Operation PBSUCCESS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBSUCCESS]

(x) Jaime Roldos Aguilera - Popular Pressident Ecuador 1979-81
Oil money for the people.
(John Perkins attempted to corrupt him)
Died in plane crash. (assassination)
2 key witnesses to investigation died in car accidents.

(x) Omar Torrijos - President of Panama - 1968 1981
(John Perkins attempted to corrupt him)
Negotiated back control of panama canal.
Wanted reparations for military damage by US.
Died in plane crash (after being handed a bomb)

(x) Chavez - Venezwala 2002
Coop attempt: apparent insurrection in the streets (staged by CIA). Was withstood by president through popular support.

(x) Iraq demonstrates the escalation through levels of action taken to control a country:
1. Corruption (economic hit men)
2. Assassination (Jackals)
3. Invasion (Full Military)

Saddam Hussein (had been employed in an attempt to assassinate a previous leader). He was so paranoid, he could not be assassinated, so invaded in 90s.
Left in power after invasion, thinking he would be brought back in line (without his military), already being the type of dictator usually installed.

Reconstruction work (from invasion) given to big US companies (another aspect of the profitability of war).

[Of course there was then the highly dubious 'evidence' for the 2003 invasion. Perhaps one should watch "W" (2008) for what was going on there. Was almost certainly about securing oil supplies when it should have been about human rights. But I think US/UK citizens would actually support that anyway, perhaps many even realise this already and deliberately turn a blind eye, as they stand to benefit greater economic stability.]


Citizens of countries that historically built empires at least knew they were doing so. Those in the [west] are unaware of this clandestine empire, where there is more slavery in the world than ever before (economic slavery).

"Corporatocracy" are the contemporary Emperor (unelected, unanswerable, etc).

Heads of business tend to move back and forth into government (democrats and republicans):
e.g. Dick Cheney retired from Halliburton (big oil) during the 2000 presidential election, receiving $36M retirement, then $400k 'compensation' while in office. e.g. Bush family oil business.
[Tony Blair now works for JP Morgan Chase (which controls assets of $2.3 trillion)]

Business often forges policy and hands it to government to implement.
[Evidence all the (bad) copyright laws and such coming into force, across the world, as desired by recording industry. This industry is orders of magnitude smaller than oil, finance and retail, and it has had so much influence over policy. UMG's (25% of market) revenue was €4.65Bn (2008); $390Bn for ExxonMobil (with only 3% of world oil production)]

There is no explicit conspiracy (no meeting up to plot). They are all just trying to maximise profit (regardless of social and environmental cost).

+ 0h41 - This is "Globalisation"

Put a country in debt, then impose 'Conditionalities' or 'Structural Adjustment policies':

(+) Devalue currency => indigenous resources become much cheaper for foreign industry.
(+) Expense cuts (social programs: health , education)
(+) Privatisation - sell national services to foreign businesses.
(e.g. Bolivian government sold water company to Bechtel; price hikes caused civil unrest and nullification)
[Presumably the inspiration for "Quantum of Solace" 2008]
(+) Trade liberalization - local economy undercut by [subsidised] imports. (e.g. Jamaican farming)
(+) Allow sweatshop factories &/or environmental destruction.

It is admitted that only 40% of IMF & World Bank projects succeed (so they increase poverty overall). But industrial profits have always soared.

e.g. In 2000, 50% of Ecuador's budget was debt servicing.

World Bank is American: USA has veto power over World Bank (because it owns most of it's money).

The "Free Market" itself is a global empire.

51 of the worlds top 100 economies (by GDP) are private corporations.
[Data used in video is outdated (2000); Exxon (now biggest) stated $164Bn vs 2008 revenue of $390Bn (though oil prices have rocketed recently): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
Puts it above Greece (at 26). Now 50 of the top ~110 economies are corporations]

47 of the 51 companies are US based.
[I make it 14 of the top 51 companies head-quartered in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
but the film probably means, operating in the US, therefore having legitimate influence over US policies]

Then there's the World Trade Organisation to consider too.


+ 0h49 - 'Terrorists':

"Al Qaeda" was originally the name of a US database for the Mujahideen; supported by the US in the 80s against the USSR expansion into Afghanistan. (The name is only used for US propaganda)

68 American killed by terrorist acts (2004) => $162Bn global war on terror. [one part of total defence budget]
2 times more Americans die of peanut allergies.
450'000 Americans died from coronary heart disease => $3bn on research

Now 1M people on terrorism watch list.

This is all to support the establishment against growing domestic/international anti-American sentiment.

The true terrorists work in the highest positions of government, finance and business.

Before 1980 Afghanistan produced 0% world opium. 40% by 1986 (after US backed war). 80% by 1999.
[unknown accuracy, Wikipedia states that poppies were traditionally grown]

Taliban destroyed most opium fields in 2000. Since US invasion (planned before 9/11) production has broken records; 90% of world's heroin now comes from here.
[2006 figure - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Opium]



*** Part 3 - 0h54:40
"The best that money can't buy"

(based around) Jacque Fresco - [self appointed] Industrial Designer and social Engineer.

"Greed and Competition are not the result of immutable human temperament... greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being created and amplified... the direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive" (Bernard Lietaer - Founder of the EU currency system)


Corruption (moral perversion) is a direct result of a monetary system. Human welfare is 2nd to Profit.
(-) Serve: Dumping of toxic waste.
(-) Grey Area: Large retailers displacing small local business.
(-) Subtler: Automation replacing human workers.

So it's hard to trust people under a monetary system; they may be acting against your good for their profit. Industry does not care about people, it can not afford to, by design.

All governments: communism, fascism, democracies are just as corrupt; their societies are still run by business.

"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both" (Louis Brandeis - Supreme Court Justice 1916-39)

McCain and Obama had largely the same major campaign contributors: big business. (they have effectively been vetted as acceptable)

Politicians can solve nothing, because they are not trained or empowered to do so. Technology is always the solution. (They are elected to maintain the system, not bring in changes).

+ 1h07 - Technology is the *only* thing that has brought improvements to everyone's lives (not politics, religion or money; false institutions)!
[I would say that money systems are a technology and have brought improvement by encouraging cooperative behaviour. Politics seems largely arbitrary, hindering as much as helping. IMHO it should only exist (in a free market) to mitigate/legislate against immoralities that are otherwise economically favourable. e.g. uphold human (worker's) rights, prevent pollution, etc.]

Efficiency, Sustainability and Abundance are anathema of Profit. Scarcity is it's main tool. (diamonds are burned at the Kimberly diamond mine to maintain the price)

[I've noticed that mobile phones, TVs, etc never get super-cheap, they just get better for the same price; to maintain business models and profit margins, obviously.]

Ergo, it is impossible to have a sustainable world of abundance, with technology developed to maximum efficiency (under the current system).

[I would argue that it's not necessarily advantageous, in the long run, to perfect technologies. Taking too long getting the most out of one paradigm could just be wasted effort, or at worst slow development to the next paradigm. After all, evolution doesn't breed perfection, it selects for any solution that works, however bizarre or marginal.]

Human nature? Or human behaviour??:

Greed is no more natural than wearing clothing!

It's going to take the redesign of our culture and values (to get rid of greed, crime, elitism, hatred, etc), and will have to be related to the 'carrying capacity' of the Earth, not some political/religious notion [ideology] of the way the world ought to be.

[Talking about 'Carrying capacity' is pretty telling to me; it implies a limited imagination of technological advance: At the moment it is widely accepted that for the entire human population of the world to live to the standard of westerners would require about 3 Earth's worth of space and resources... But that's if using only contemporary technological solutions. Everyone could eat as excessive a diet as Americans if agricultural productivity continues to rapidly increase (beyond apparently limits imposed by the total amount of arable land): e.g. GM crops, vertical (multi story) farming, lab grown meat, etc.]

+ 1h15 Venus Project - a “Resource Based Economy”:

Directly interested in personal well-being. Whereas at the moment, if there is a problem in society, it won't be fixed unless money can be earned form it.

Difficult to talk about this because the public is not sufficiently well informed of the current state of technology.

"We currently have the technology and resources sufficient that everyting we have now could be available in abundance without a price tag or submission through employment" [...hmmm???]

"At present we have no need to burn fossil fuels or damage the environment. The alternatives already exist."
(Current paradigm is there to sustain current market structures)

Solar, Wind, Tidal, Wave & *Geothermal*!
We already have abundance. No need for conservation or pricing. (These solutions are being held back because it doesn't fit existing business models of energy companies.)
[It's certainly true that the fluctuating price of oil has stifled investment in renewable (even bankrupting schemes) because the goal-posts for market parity (energy production cost) keeps changing so drastically.]

The battery technology to power an electric car over 200 miles at up to 100mph already exists and has done so for some time.
[Until very recently, electric cars (and batteries) hadn't fundamentally improved since they were superseded by internal combustion engines 100 year ago (so the story goes). I think petroleum powered cars have genuinely been the best available technology. Only recent advances in nanotechnology are making electricity storage quick, efficient and cheap enough (to manufacture) for widespread use in automobiles. Having said that, there's been a profound lack of innovation in electric vehicle technology by the major car manufacturers. All the new motor designs and battery tech I've heard of has come from small, unrelated companies and Universities.]

We should have 'mag-lev' trains instead of aeroplanes:
Fast, clean, fraction of the energy use, New York to Beijing in 2 hours.
(only held back by profit structure and energy patents)

[Pollution from the exploding aviation industry does worry me, seeing as battery power jets are not an option. And I do love the idea of hyper-sonic mag-lev trains in vacuum tubes... but the infrastructure investment (in terms of labour, time and natural resources) would be utterly vast. And it would be entirely inflexible (unlike airline routes) to demand. It's the kind of mega-engineering project that only a communist dictatorship could go through with at the moment. I think a limited number of services like this might come to be, when automated engineering-construction technologies make it sufficiently trivial. But the main reason super quick global transport won't prove popular IMHO is that it will be largely irrelevant: telecommuting, virtual presence and virtual reality close the distances involved near instantaneously, and use practically no energy (as only information is moved over the internet).

All of the other physical engineering visualised is passé-futuristic too; vast monolithic structures, epitomising blade runner esq. dystopian cities before all the grass died and the metal work got dirty. I'm not saying there'll be no place for grand architectural statements, and 'archologies' will probably even be necessary in major cities (as they continue to grow, for new reasons). But the defining engineering paradigm of the future is going to be customisation/variety/novel solutions. Saying that we are going to (or indeed *should*) get all our energy from geothermal, is committing the same fundamental mistake as predicting in the 1950s that we'd "all be living on the moon" by now; the actual reality is always more subtle and diverse than one can imagine, so all sources of power will be tapped to some extent, probably largely decentralised generation (e.g. domestic solar PV, etc), linked together by an internet-like 'smart grid'. Approached by western and developing regions from opposite directions.]


+ 1h23
US industry has a fundamental leaning to fascist dictatorship: when you 'punch-in' in the morning, you enter this world (corporate structure). And you *have to* have a job to live.

The monetary system is in direct conflict with technology:
It requires that people have jobs to earn money, thus preventing technology from freeing people from labouring, despite automation continually reducing the need for humans in the work force. This clash proves the falseness of the monetary based labour system. (companies downsize instead of reducing the working week, so we are justified fearing machines in the current system)

The monetary system will continue to paralyse improvements from technology, and must be overturned.

Virtually all forms of crime are a result of having a money system.

+ 1:27 - US has largest prison population, consisting mostly of monetarily deprived individuals.

"If people have access to the necessities of life without debt/barter/trade, they behave very differently."

[I've been thinking that welfare payments should begin to rise (rapidly). In line with increasing automation raising the level of skill for the simplest of jobs available; there will soon be no unskilled jobs available. In the limit, the only real jobs would be the ones that people want to do out of enjoyment: artists (musicians, entertainers, etc) and a perhaps a small number in R&D.

From Marshall Brain's Singularity Summit 2008 Talk: Rate of job creation appears to resume at a decreased rate after each recession [graph]. Also, employment lags financial market recovery. Productivity is shooting up 2.5% per year (in US), but compensation (pay) only rising by 0.7%, meaning that wealth is being increasingly concentrated. As soon as Bipedal robots reach near human intelligence 1/2 the current jobs will disappear. I reckon on most retail (and warehousing) jobs disappearing sooner, with RFID tags on all merchandise negating check-out clerks (and simple robot automated warehouses already taking off).]

Removing monetarism will not remove all incentives; people will still make art for enjoyment, [science out of curiosity], strive to reach for the stars.

A resource based global economy would not be perfect, just a whole lot better than the current one.



*** Part 4 - 1h32
"My Country is the world... and my religion is to do good."
(Thomas Paine 1737-1809)
[A philosophy I share]

The social values of our society is fundamentally the result of the collective ignorance of: Emergent and Symbiotic aspects of natural law.


+ Emergence - When uninhibited, all systems naturally change fluidly. There are no static, imperial truths. Therefore everyone, however intelligent they may be, will find all of their understandings swept away eventually.

Being proven wrong should be celebrated (not considered the worst kind of failure).
[This is perhaps the main reason children's rampant learning is stifled by adulthood; once society fully instils in them the fear of being wrong, trying new things becomes dangerous territory.]

People maintain the current (flawed socio-economic) system by ostracising individuals whom behave differently.

It's time to change! (monetary system)

(Theistic) religions pose barriers to personal and social growth. (preaching adherence to absolute beliefs, as opposed to logic and new information)

Lacking understanding, (early) people made God in their image [to fill the gaps]. The foundational myths of contemporary religions are themselves emergent culminations [of astrology and ancient mythology. See part one of the original Zeitgeist movie.]

Religious belief has caused more conflict and division than any other ideology.

+ Symbiotic (relationship of life)

All systems are arbitrarily invented divisions of reality. This systematised, divided thinking, is where the illusion of 'free will' comes from. Everything is actually connected!

Success relates to how well we connect to the environment around us.

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality" (Dr. M.L. King Jr)

Seeing everything as you (yourself) is to have Unconditional love (for we are all everything simultaneously).

+ 1h45 - "We are one species. We are star stuff harvesting star light" (Carl Sagan)


+ Summarising:
(.) Our true problems in life are technical, not political.
(.) "Weapons of Mass Creation" (i.e. not mass destruction, e.g. a globally constructive Manhattan project)
(.) 1h48 - Fractional Reserve policy is slavery through debt, because it is impossible for society to be free from it.
(.) Free trade uses debt to manipulate entire countries into slavery.
(.) Competition (the primal basis of capitalism) by it's nature rules out large scale collaboration (for the common good).

+ Action: We have to stop supporting this system.
It has to fail. People have to loose confidence in their leaders.

(0) Reject divisionary propaganda (we are born into).
(1) Expose the Fed Cartel [US only] – Boycott: Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America.
(2) Turn off television (corporate news) - use new internet news services, and protect the internet. [Net neutrality, etc]
(3) Do not join the military. Soldiers fight for corporations, not freedom.
(4) Get off-grid.
(5) Reject the political system (2 parties supported by the same ppl).
(6) Join the movement:
Declare all natural resources as common, inform people of the true state of technology, and work together rather than fight. [i.e. the Venus project]


[(0) goes nearly without saying: religions are obsolete, nationalism is largely abhorrent. That's why I quite like the UK, as it is generally complacent and practically atheistic.

(2) “Boing Boing” et al FTW! Though I do watch a bit of channel 4 news when eating dinner.

(3) Not going to happen anyway!

(4) I desperately want to do this anyway. With solar PV following an exponential price/watt improvement trend, it'll only be a couple of years until a roof full of panels is an indisputably good investment. Electric power (ground source) heat pumps and series hybrid (range extended) electric cars too; gimme, gimme! The distributed energy revolution is coming, and none too soon.

(5) Personally I've always voted Lib Dem (Labour's been more Tory than the Tories for the last decade, who have been left without any sensible unique policies). The UK political system is not too bad; Wasteful, but not massively corrupt.

(6) I'm not at all convinced of the feasibility of this 'project' any time soon. Don't get me wrong, I think we should be consciously aiming towards something like this; a peaceful society where nearly everything is free (much like Ian M. Banks' "The Culture": http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm). ]

Who owns our national debt? (I recently found out)

With the Northern Rock nationalisation and various other bank bail-outs/prop-ups, the government has conjured up a whole load of cash from somewhere. But where exactly does a country's government borrow money from?; all the UK's other country buddies seem to be in the same situation, so surely they can't be helping out. Does it borrow from the Bank of England? If so, do they just print more money? (but that would cause inflation) I've heard that the “Federal Reserve” (in the USA) is neither Federal, nor has any reserves, is it possible the Bank of England is privately owned too?!.....:

Bank of England was originally a private entity given a monopoly over issuing money by royal charter, in return for a huge government loan. It was nationalised in 1949 [by a Labour government].The idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century, also managed by the bank. Responsibility for government debt management was transferred to the new UK Debt Management Office in 1998.

[Wikipedia]

That all seems above board; so the Bank of England is a branch of government, that doesn't really seem to do very much at all any more. An offshoot of it sells government bonds and “gilts” to the private sector. Meaning that anyone in the world with numbers in their bank account can give them to the government. Generally these generous souls consist of:

- Pension funds
- Investment trusts
- Private individuals

Of course, government doesn't rely on charity; these loans will be paid back, through future taxation (rises if necessary), and with interest. UK National debt at the start of 2008 was £512Bn with total national debt interest payments of 31Bn for 2007: that's roughly 6% per annum. 2.5% of GDP (all the money UK citizens earned that year). At the end of December 2008 after the troubles last year, debt was £697.5Bn, which makes debt repayments the 4th bigest governmnet expense, behind social security, health and education, and just ahead of the defence department! And because selling of government bonds is open market, to sell more, higher interest rate repayments have to be offered, to encourage buyers.

Sounds bad, right? But looking at the table of national debts of all countries [1], the UK is right down the bottom with it's measly 47.5% of GDP. The US has 71% and Japan 194%! Apparently it makes a major difference as to the nationality of the financial entities who own the debt: with a country of prudent savers, the Japanese own 90% of their own debt (and interest rates set by Japan's central bank are low, making debt repayments low too). Whereas, 25% of the US's is foreign controlled, meaning that it is haemorrhaging money to other economies through repayments. Biggest US debt owners:
Japan - $592bn 
China - $502bn (China has a total of $1trillion dollar based assets)
UK - $252bn

[above: US national debt, % of GDP]

To keep current events in context, look back at the figures for national debt for the last century; the recent, huge spike from pouring liquidity into Banks is barely a blip compared to the enormous burden left by the great depression and the second world war (see graph). 

Also, pretty much all governments borrow money and as a rule, (developed) countries never go bankrupt. It is a useful tool: buffering income from taxes, and allowing the purchase of infrastructure and other public investments now, that can be more easily paid for in the future, when the country's productivity has increased. As any budding Singularitarian will know, this is a continuing, exponential increase too, thanks to technology and 'increasing returns'! So why not rack up the debt a bit?!

It does bring problems that should not be taken lightly:
+ Extensive borrowing will mean higher taxes in the future.
+ It can have a negative effect on your country's exchange rates.
+ 'Crowding out' of private sector investment; no finance left for private enterprise (baulking the economy).
+ The Centre for Policy Studies argues that the real current UK national debt is actually £1,340 billion (103.5% GDP) including all public sector liabilities: pensions, Private Finance Initiative contracts (e.g. Northern Rock).
+ The 'demographic time bomb' means pension liabilities and healthcare demands are going to continue increasing massively. 

[above: optimistic forcast of UK debt]

But I haven't entirely answered my original question!: Who, exactly, owns our national debt? Which specific individuals we are subservient debtors to I did not manage to find out. I'd quite like to know (if anyone does know). I presume (given that pensions have fallen in value by a huge amount in the last few years) that it will be a load of rich, trust fund kiddies and banker types. Which would fit in with various corporate banking conspiracies. Bankers bleeding the world dry both ways: cocking up the banking industry by being dishonestly greedy, then making a killing lending money to governments, who have to save corporations that are 'too big to fail'. There seems no incentives to stop them doing this deliberately. Even if the financial clusterfuck was pure stupidity, it still makes the rich a whole lot richer.

If only the corporate media pointed concerted focus at significant issues like this, instead of going bananas over which MP used public money to unfairly buy a second toilet brush! (As Stephen Fry says too) 

I've been playing quite a bit of Simcity 4 recently (a recurring addiction), and unlike the real world, your spending is immediately stopped the second government finances hit red, and borrowing comes at a hefty 12% per annum, flat rate, which is sure to finish you off if taking out a loan because of budget deficits. Pretty unrealistic, but it's more informative (with regards to government finance and money in general) than anything I was taught at school. The origin of money and some basic political economics really should get incorporated into standard, non-optional curriculum. 

Most of the hard information above was from here: http://www.economicshelp.org/

What is money itself ???; I highly recommend watching Money as Debt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8&feature=related