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Governments parasite on their own population

It is common knowledge that anyone who is dealing with money of someone else tends to be less careful then when it would be his own. That is in extreem the case of politicians and civil servants. Their funding seems to be unlimited. If they are short of cash they simply raise taxes by law and use their legal instruments to oblige the population to comply. The current complexity of taxation is so little transparent and so obscure that an average citizen has become reluctant to understand allowing him or herself to be plundered by the system. The public institutions have grown so distant from the real world that they have forgotten what their real purpose is and lack a sense of true responsibility around the resources they use.

Most countries have shown steady economic growth for decades mainly due to speculation on housing and public consumption, not on productivity. The same countries have shown at the same time double increase of government expenses. The latter shows a blind trust of government in continuous growth as well as a tremendous need for money caused by mismanagement and bureaucracy. In fact, government efficiency has decreased spectacularly over decades showing important deficiencies in all government dominanted organizations.

Since government works with money of others the solutions they seek for their lack of efficiency is by simply adding other layers of control but never by asking themselves about their purpose or need. In fact government becomes a heavy structure that learns to reinvent and support itself continuously without asking how this can be sustained. As one of our international partners correctly noted during a discussion on the social costs caused by increased health hazards through air pollution: “the first thing a new minister does when installed is to remodelate his or her office. They don’t care where the money comes from. It is not their money and taxation for them is an endless source of funding”.

In fact government has grown from a facilitating institution for the benefit of society to a parasite on its own supposed beneficiaries. Countries like Egypt, Lybia and other North African and Middle East countries have the possibility to stand up against dictators with a name and a face. They know who they need to fight to regain autodetermination.

Western society is equally being dictated, not just by individuals but by the system that keeps itself up with as much self-protecting efforts as those that we despise when they have a face. Dictators dominate their population through fear, some with bullets and legal others through the blackmail of unjust securities that can be lost (pension, social security, health insurance) and their own interpretation of justice.

When taxes cannot be raised the hunger of the parasite is stilled by placing its tentacles into those securities that were saved by law by the hard working population and placed in trust in the hands of public institutions, just like we had done with our savings in the bank. Also these securities are emptied by the thirst of the system that grew far away from its original purpose and now systematically kills that what created it.

When taxes cannot be raised anymore the problem is too late. The host is in crisis and the parasite desperately seeks for other sources to survive. The problem is that a government is supposed to be part of society not dominant over it. So when taxes cannot be raised anymore both the parasite’s host (the population) as well as the parasite itself get weaker. Time has come to redefine public servantship, government. You don’t ask a parasite to redefine parasiting. You ask yourself where and how you can continue without a parasite and become strong again.

The threat of weakening securities is a powerful argument to keep the voter close to the old ruling parties and accept twisted information and even lies as hot cookies. We tend to keep our own parasite in place.

When the taxes cannot be raised anymore bureaucracy needs to cut its costs. The parasite needs to eliminate parts of itself. This it never does. Living parasites tend to jump to other resources when the old one is too weak to be of further use. In government we have seen the same. When taxes could not be raised other resources were created to maintain sufficient flow of income to maintain and increase bureaucracy. Speculation of banks, housing and automotive was allowed and enhanced, saving funds were used and new funding created through creation of money out of nothing.

Only when all that has reached its already unacceptable limits one does not address bureaucracy itself but cuts first into the true public services that are provided by government. Costs are cut in the military, police, education, health care and social support and other operational facilities, weakening even further the population that already suffers all kinds of other weaknesses such as aggression, psycological and behavioral disorders, lack of backbone to stand up, fear of consequences, etc.

The legal parasite gives back the weakend host to itself with the challenge to cure  itself.  Now we see governments that have enriched themselves for decades over the backs of their people give back responsibilities to the same people. They demand people to take responsibilities but do so without truly stepping back themselves. Bureaucracy and the parasite are still there waiting to take over again at the smallest sign of recovery.

The real solution lies in the population itself that, despite overall weakening, gets itself together to use this little space of autodetermination, not to simply become greedy and individualized but to get organized to eliminate bureacracy and the parasite all together. In fact, this can be done when truly convincing oneself that the beast of dictatorship in this case has been created  and sustained by ourselves. Even though it seems to live a life of its own it can be addressed and eliminated by addressing it through ourselves first and then joining forces among eachother to create a new society with vision and courage.

When government becomes a parasite of its own population it is high time to redefine again government. If political leadership is servant to bureaucracy and self supporting parasiting it cannot be trusted anymore as servant to society. Then we first have to learn to trust our own self-leadership in order to stand up and challenge the system transformative renewal. This we see occuring now with growing groups of people willing to be publically critical and united in their criticism. Just a little time is needed for new leadership to be born and accepted among them that stands up to take responsibility for genuin change.

Europe falls apart

On May 9th many cellebrated mother’s day but it was also proclaimed “Day of Europe”. In some of the media the editorials were dedicated to the future of Europe, the need of its unity and the fragmentation that is seen everywhere. Again, I use the column of values to see what can be expected.

The true union of communities needs to be based on a higher purpose that unites the first basics of values namely strong individual identity, safety, equality and trust before one can get to the higher levels of collaboration. Whenever issues arise s.a. a credit crisis, African refugees, a terrorist attack, water shortages, social unrest, etc. it is the strength of the basics of column of values that keeps the union together. The stronger this basis is the better the venture can cope with the challenges.

The countries that form the European Community have indeed their individual identities, one stronger than the other. But the higher purpose to create the community was not ideological or humanitarian but purely economical. The bases of the shaping the community were:

  • a large home market
  • cost savings through reduced bureacracy
  • easy human traffic to financial growth areas
  • financial unification through a single currency
Since mainly economic parameters prevailed no attention was payed to value issues like safety, equality or trust. The union became a top level boardroom issue not a humanitarium one on the streets. The cultural difficulties that arise due to migrations in the open border structures show for that lack of sensitivety. In the political boardroom people were only seens as work force, not as human beings with a backpack full of cultural baggage.
Country identities are not just economies but also cultures, especially in Europe. Economic partner discussions can be contained within the confinement of the own country’s bouderies but the culture spreads throughout the unified territory. Country identities clashed within each other’s bouderies, one more than the other. We see this for instance with the Eastern European cultures invading Western Europe now. A Rumanian or Polish person is still a Rumanian or Polish person, also when visiting Holland or Paris or Italy in search for personal financial wealth.
The effects of such cultural migrations were not accounted for nor organized. They were simplified by telling people that to work in Holland you behave like the Dutch, to work in Paris you behave like the Parisiens. But it does not work like that at all. On street level the cultures clash and may even create totally new cultures.
Since there is no higher common purpose other than money, the new cultures that arise show important signs of aggression, greed, individualization, cultural subgrouping, criminality, etc. and very little true cooperation. One sees foreign communities protect their interest within the confinement of the receiving culture. The orginal local population experiences a deterioration of their living environment and perceived quality of life and starts to blame the newcomers in the street.
The European Union was established for economic reasons and when these are in crisis the union simply falls apart because its reasons for unity are not valid anymore. Economic security and growth was enough for politicians to accept social unrest in their territories but when this security disappeares the tolerance does too. Right now we see European countries already setting up the original bounderies again to control the flux of undesired people across the borders.
A lot of European people were against the rapid expansion of the Union through the incorporation of Eastern European countries. The Western population of Europe feared a strong immigration of poor people with a strong cultural difference. The policy makers simply were seeking growth no morality. They were blinded by the potential of the growth of China and thought that a sufficiently large counterblock would be needed tp remain present in the global human power picture. The same motivation had created the orginal E.U. to counter the strength of the USA.
But money does not provide any security at all. This we have seen now around the world. What does produce securities is the willingness of the population to shape a high level cooperative community based on a higher sustainable purpose through hard labor, emancipation and trust. When the union was formed these key elements were undermined creating a cultural basis for structural decline that grew day by day.
We now do not just face an economic crisis in Europe due to Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Spain or Italy. We suffer a crisis of true values.
After identity in the column comes safety. One of the issues of Europe was to create a common border for community wide safety purposes. The Shengen treaty then opened up the borders within the union for free traffic of people and goods. The true motive for open borders was primarily the facilitation of movement of community members and goods within the economic context. From a recreational perspective the open borders were perceived as a great added value, even though the exitement of collecting stamps of the diversity of countries disappeared. The fact that one could travel from north to south an v.v. without being hindered by border officials and related traffic jams was perceived as a novel common good that did produce some united feeling of being European.
In the field of dynamic labor related migrations the enthousiasm was much less as it addressed directly the conservative, protective nature of individual cultural identities. Certain immigrating cultures were more likely to be accepted than others. The extremely fast opening of the community to Eastern European countries had the effect that western people rapidly started to feel less safe than before the opening. Agressive incidents and the massive influx of cheap labor from these countries provided a sense of insecurity for the locals.
The people of Eastern European countries prove hard workers agains very low wages but also people that have a different perception on rules, s.a. in traffic for instance.
An even larger sense of insecurity was caused by the massive immigration of people from outside the European Union, s.a. the Middle East and Northern Africa. Those immigrants were welcome to participate again in the cheap labor processes but brought with them their religion and local cultures and an overall lesser level of education than the locals. Subcultures appeared that became cultural and religious islands inside the main cultures. No integration, no higher common purpose, just little countries within countries with hardly any social interaction.
When you go visit a country on business or holiday you feel enthousiastic and curious about that foreign culture and the differences with your self. But when that same culture settles massively in your home street that feeling of exotic curiousity changes to a strange sense of insecurity.
Without security one needs not even mention the next levels of the column of values: equality or trust. These will never exist. On the contrary. One gets a sense of distrust, an “I” and “them” attitude that develops not only through individual behavior, communication and mentality but it eventually also conditions the evolution of the community itself, its regulation and culture. Even in the old boardroom that were happily interaction when dealing with money and growth the interaction on true moral issues claims the differences that cannot be overcome.
Now that the economic crisis affects Europe the sense of cohesion disappears. The column of values was never installed nor did anyone pay any attention to it, so all countries and cultures fall back now onto their own securities. Europe is breaking up, falling apart.
This is a pitty as so much more would have been achievable if the higher purpose to establish the union had originally not been of financial nature but built up along the lines of sustainable progress in which content was more important than growth. Maybe we find that common sense still in the chaos of the break up.

China will bring us back to basics

This weekend James Vena posted a discussion on his LinkedIn group International Trade and Internet. He was refering to an article in Wall Street Journal on May 16th and announced the possibility of an important financial dip in Q3 of this year, a dip deeper that before.

The post did not come as a surprise to me nor the fact that shortages of raw materials would eventually bring the global speculative economies to a hold. In fact it was very simple to reach that conclusion. You simply have to apply the arithmatic that Dr Bartlett shows in his famous lecture posted on YouTube. If China has a steady anual economic growth of 9% and this extrapolates to a simmilar growth of consumption of raw materials, and doubling time of the exponential consumption is about 7 years of all these figures line up.

China’s growth started when western worlds had already dramatically and irresponsibly consumed their way through the Earth’s resources. Back in the early 70’s the Club of Rome already raised a flag to warn us that we could not continue our consumption rate as the Earth’s resources were limited.

Our global economies based on structural debt demanded growth and more growth to counter the evaporation of capital through interest. The consumer society was expanded world wide until the limits of today. We have reached the end of the line of the unsustainable global approach.

I myself announced that the big crash would occur somewhere before 2015. I still took one doubling time as a margin to fool myself in the hope to have time to contribute still with an alternative, Global Shift, that would be strong enough to become a global promise at the time the obsolete system collapsed. But the doubling time is indeed too far fetched and optimistic.

I never took the trouble to actually calculated the remaining Earth resources and plot them along the line of growing usage. Common sense learns us that the end of that line is nearby. How near has various variables, s.a. the growing pricing, the innovative push to reduce dependency, the reuse of materials that are already in circulation, the consumer reduction effect of crises, etc. But these would only delay the crash with months not with years or longer.

All the huge capital injections of governments were oriented to maintain the old system of consumption and allow for growth to continue without any consideration of its consequences on material consumption and its finite nature. Money is now made on speculation on shortages, keeping survival away and accessible only to the highest bidder. The power game of politicians may have postponed potential war situations but they were acting over the back of the global population without using their power to introduce a parallel system of sustainable progress. They are especially to be blamed for that. They have played the global game for the wealth of just a few and blocked out of individual greed and self interests the evolution of a new human organization based on true values but not money.

Money prevailed, not as a means for the large masses but as a goal for the greedy, supported by policy makers, politicians and executives of multinationals. Soon all the money they accumulated will be worth absolutely nothing, not even to buy a bread. Because to buy a bread someone will have to harvest the wheat, grind it, mix and bake the flour. Soon bread will be more valuable than all euros and dollars together. The true rich people are those who have grown used to be humbly self sufficient in food production, housing and clean drinking water. Back to universal basics will surely become the global issue in the next few months and years. China teaches us but are we willing to learn?