The Subprime Crisis in a Nutshell

A spot of topical humour.

The story of the phony Economics Nobel prize

An article appeared on the excellent openDemocracy website regarding the phony "Nobel prize for Economics". It tells the story of how the award was set up by the Bank of Sweden to effectively give Economics the appearance of being a science. It is indeed awkward, to say the least, for me to see Economics juxtaposed with Physics, Chemistry and Medicine on the Nobel prize home page.

Nobel by association: beautiful mind, non-existent prize | openDemocracy

... The confusion can be traced back to 1968 when the governor of the Central Bank of Sweden decided to mark the tercentenary of that institution by creating a new award. It could have been named after a well-known ancestral economist, such as Adam Smith, or more simply, though unimaginatively, ‘The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics’. After all, every discipline has its own ‘prestigious’ prize. Their number grows every year. However, the problem is that all these prizes, though well known within the microcosms of their discipline, have little public appeal. Only the Nobel prizes have a real public impact. But they are limited to five fields: physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature and, finally, peace.

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Whereas the ‘spontaneous’ philosophy or sociology of scientists can be considered relatively harmless, the situation is quite different in economics. By its annual offer of a public image of ‘hard science’ through its association with the Nobel prizes, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences gives the discipline and its laureates the ‘scientific’ aura it lacked to put forward authoritative but often simplistic theories about the economy (or, worse, the whole society) conceived as a big ‘market’ where everything can be submitted to the so-called ‘law of demand’ – be it a house, a wedding, or even an idea. ...

I do not mean to discount the awards for Literature and Peace, by the way, but the Economics prize certainly ought to be scrapped!

People-Centred Global Governance, The New Simpol Book Out Now

A new Simpol book has been released and is available for free download or purchase a hard copy from simpol.org.

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People-Centred Global Governance - Making it Happen!
by John M. Bunzl

As global problems such as global warming, global poverty, pollution, terrorism and runaway corporate power increasingly outstrip the capacity of national and international governance institutions to solve them, the issue of global governance is rapidly moving up the international political agenda. In this book, Bunzl draws on the work of a number of leading evolutionary thinkers to show that both the process of globalisation itself, and the evolution of a binding system of global governance, are natural parts of human evolution.

Endorsements:

"A systemic and ingenious strategy for applying people power in all countries to encourage their politicians toward ‘win-win global solutions’."

Hazel Henderson, Author, Building a Win-Win World and Planetary Citizenship


"Simultaneous Policy (SP) is an evolutionary imperative in a competitive world that now demands new forms of co-operation in order to address global issues that cannot be resolved by one nation alone. In this new book John Bunzl analyses some key aspects of governance and sets SP in the context of transformative evolutionary change in our economic and political systems. The book is a timely contribution to continuing debates about structures and processes of global governance, showing exactly why our current international institutions are not fit for purpose."

David Lorimer, Editor, Network, the magazine of the Scientific & Medical Network


"In an age when our problems are global and national governance structures are weakened and inadequate, it is absolutely necessary to think about the shape of effective global governance. This cannot be simply national government "writ large" for that would also enlarge the problems and inefficiencies of national governance. It must be a holistic and evolutionary governance system, and to the articulation of the essential features of such a system John Bunzl's book makes a major contribution. Highly recommended reading for everyone concerned with our collective future on this small and largely mismanaged planet."

Dr. Ervin Laszlo, Futurist, author and systems theorist. President of Club of Budapest.


"John Bunzl convincingly demonstrates that if you want to contribute consciously to the successful advancement of the evolutionary process on this planet, you should support the Simultaneous Policy. The SP is a powerful and practical means of actualizing the next great step in evolution on earth - the formation of a cooperative and sustainable planetary civilization."

John Stewart, Author, Evolution’s Arrow – the direction of evolution and the future of humanity


"This publication presents a unique long term approach to governance and environmental issues. It offers solutions based on the concept of unity in diversity. As such it is bound to produce controversy and debate!"

Diana Schumacher, Former President, The Schumacher Society

An Interview with Rob Hopkins

Founder of the Transition Towns movement and all-round nice guy Rob Hopkins talks about peak oil and the evolution of transition towns. Notable sub-topics include the formation of the local currency in Totnes and Peak Oil as a motivator for change.



Rob's website is Transition Culture.

Here you can find out more about Transition Towns.

Gwynne Dyer: Biofuel mania ends days of cheap food

The era of cheap food is over. The price of maize has doubled in a year, and wheat futures are at their highest in a decade. The food price index in India has risen 11 per cent in one year, and in Mexico in January there were riots after the price of corn flour - used in making the staple food of the poor, tortillas - went up fourfold.

Even in the developed countries food prices are going up, and they are not going to come down again. Cheap food lasted for only 50 years.

More...

A Sudden Change of State

A good source tells me that the British government is well aware that its target for cutting carbon emissions – 60% by 2050 – is too little, too late, but that it will go no further for one reason: it fears losing the support of the Confederation of British Industry. Why this body is allowed to keep holding a gun to our heads has never been explained, but Gordon Brown has just appointed Digby Jones, its former director-general, as a minister in the department responsible for energy policy. I don’t remember voting for him. There could be no clearer signal that the public interest is being drowned by corporate power.

Full Text by George Monbiot

Try this recipe for equality

Try this recipe for equality:

There has been a gap between rich and poor since the emergence of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Until recently, however, it was not that great. Before technology transformed society, the means by which the elite today set themselves so absurdly apart from the rest of us simply did not exist.
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Much of the wealth generated in an industrial economy ends up in increasing land values. ... If, as is generally the case, a minority owns most of the land, then the gap between rich and poor inevitably grows. Far from a trickle-down effect, if landowners are allowed to retain the increases in land values that arise from collective economic endeavour, there is, instead, a trickle-up effect. And the rate at which wealth trickles up grows as more is created.
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There are various solutions: We could constrain the private sector by legislating to bring more of the economy under state control, and we could levy higher taxes on incomes and profits. The problem with each of these is that they act as a disincentive to effort and entrepreneurship.

Alternatively, we could tax the unearned income of those - corporations and individuals alike - who enjoy massive windfalls as a result of their landholdings. It is no coincidence that the idea of taxing land values, which gained widespread support in the late 19th century when it became clear that industrialisation was doing little for the poor majority, is now forcing its way back on to the political agenda.
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If we are serious about tackling growing inequality, some combination of these options must be considered. Of course, were any government to attempt such a programme unilaterally, it would immediately be held to ransom by the financial markets. A coordinated, international effort is required, and if politicians will not take the lead then electorates must find ways to force the issue on to the global agenda.
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In a democracy, we should all have a say in how the economy is configured. We can choose to arrange things so the historical gap between rich and poor gets rapidly wider, as at present, or we can support measures to reduce those differences. We could even be really ambitious and address the structural causes of inequality so that everyone gets a fair chance in life.

Over 20 MPs and Lords form Peak Oil group in Parliament

PowerSwitch - Over 20 MPs and Lords form Peak Oil group in Parliament

On Tuesday 26th June 2007, Tony Blair’s last full day as Prime Minister, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO) held its inaugural Annual General Meeting, ensuring that the issue of declining global oil supplies will feature much more prominently in Parliament in the Gordon Brown era.

APPGs are composed of politicians from all political parties and have members from the House of Commons and the House of Lords. APPGOPO will enable interested MPs and Lords to discuss Peak Oil and all its surrounding issues. The interest by MPs and Lords in Peak Oil, and indeed the All Party Parliamentary Group, was much higher than the average Peak Oil commentator would expect. Often it is charged that politicians are not willing to talk about such a difficult subject, but the APPGOPO has the support of over twenty MPs and Lords. This actually makes it the largest political grouping looking at Peak Oil in the world.

Agflation

The fight for the world's food - Independent Online Edition > New Articles

Most people in Britain won't have noticed. On the supermarket shelves the signs are still subtle. But the onset of a major change will be sitting in front of many people this morning in their breakfast bowl. The price of cereals in this country has jumped by 12 per cent in the past year. And the cost of milk on the global market has leapt by nearly 60 per cent. In short we may be reaching the end of cheap food.

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Like any other self-respecting trend this one now has its own name: agflation. Beneath this harmless-sounding piece of jargon - the conflation of agriculture and inflation - lie two main drivers that suggest that cheap food is about to become a thing of the past. Agflation, to those that believe that it is really happening, is an increase in the price of food that occurs as a result of increased demand from human consumption and the diversion of crops into usage as an alternative energy resource.

Red + Blue = Green? (Ecological philosophy)

Richard Lawson discusses competing political ideologies and how ecological philosophy could resolve the seemingly unresolvable.

Mabinogogiblog: Red + Blue = Green?

The political dialectic over the past 150 years lay between the ideological clash between individualism (in the blue corner, championed by Capitalism) and socialism, in the red corner, championed by the multifarious sects of socialism – each of whom claim to be the only true adherents of the Prophet Marx.

The antithesis between these two political philosophies was absolute. No middle ground existed. Those who tried to straddle the divide end up by doing the splits.

Right and Left, Individualism and Socialism have an absolute and categorical incompatibility. This is unchangeable, since they are built on exclusively separate philosophical foundations. In Hegelian terms, they are in an antithesis with each other.

One of the many attractions of the ecological philosophy is that it allows us to resolve this antithesis. Since both individuals and societies have to live in the real world, they become simple aspects of the human organism, not fundamentally opposed ideas. We can view people as individuals or as societies, according to which is the more useful view in particular circumstances, just as we can view light as waves or particles, depending on the context.