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February 2005

THIS MONTH's THEME:

Economy

When money speaks
the truth is silent

Russian proverb


Why Economy?

Today I am just going to introduce the new theme a little, leaving the deeper considerations for the next days, as I am working a lot and a little busy.

So, why Economy?
Because I realize the more and more how much this dimension determines how we are and how our life looks like.
Not a news, but what I mean is that the economical system is not a randomness or an accident or a pity or a secondary aspect.
It really determines us, and what happens is not by chance, but a necessary consequence of the way all our economy is constructed.

I have never been a determinist or a reductionist or a Marxist, though my critics of this system will be really ferocious, as it is not only wrong, but stupid and criminal.
The fact that capitalism, or whatever you like to call it, has become the universal taboo of our era doesn't scare me at all.
You know I always criticize what is wrong, no matter how unpopular I could become.

Capitalism is our times Nazism.
Can't express it shorter and clearer.
A Nazism in jackets and ties, in slogans and advertisements.
In obese people and smiling workers.
Still a Nazism.

Our economy is based on competition, exploitation, humiliation, hypocrisy, falsity, slavery, corruption and all possible negative values we could possibly think of.
The universal marketing experiment followed in the last centuries has brainwashed us so much, that we have come to think that this horrendous system is the only one possible, the best possible and that even doubting about that is the supreme sin.

Shame on me, but I don't think all that is true. I don't think it is even true for you, no matter what you say or don't say about it, it is a matter of fact many of you are slaves of work, habits and need for safety.
I do know how it feels, I can walk in your shoes, have been there too.

We can change all that, in fact we ought to change it.


Homo homini lupus?

Reading the news today I made an experiment. I decided to check how many of them where related to my theme of economy.
Well, I won't state it was a scientific one, but I found practically 100% of them to be.

For example, on this always precious online newspaper l'Unità:
Le Nouvel Observateur has published a petition, Libérez la musique! about the repression going on against the people downloading copyrighted music on the net.
Khaled, Manu Chao, Yann Tiersen and many other artists, politicians and intellectuals have signed the "Nous sommes tous des pirates (We are all pirates)" proclaim, attempting to start a public discussion about how to come out of this situation, where common people is risking up to 3 years in jail for their 'crimes' (passion for music mostly).

This is about property, one of the fundamental economical concepts I will analyse in the next days.

The other example:
a clochard (poor homeless) has beaten another clochard to death, today, smashing his head.
It seems they were both trying to find some food left in the rubbish of the trains parked in Rome's central station, Termini.
The man who was killed was well-known in that area and described as a very gentle and generous man, always distributing the poor rubbish-food he found to the other poor people.

Homo homini lupus ("Man is a wolf to man", Thomas Hobbes)?
This is about richness and poverty, about sharing of resources and solidarity. Other fundamental concepts of economy.
The science of quantifying resources in relation to human life.


Property

From time to time a revolution or a simple progress does happen, but it can take hundreds of years even before it.
What we do in every day's life is to build our future following some rules that we did not create ourselves.
They just exist, we don't discuss or criticize or change much.
Strange, isn't it? What if they were wrong?

Property, for ex., is it normal to have properties, to own something?
It is inevitable here to think about Pierre Joseph Proudhon, who called property for a "theft" in his fundamental:
"What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government".
Clicking on the link you can read it, at one of those wonderful sites that are making literature available for everyone. If you go to my Links page {update: not existing any more} , I have listed some there.
It is always a fantastic exercise to read some 'old' texts from the great philosophers of the past. One realizes each time, how arrogant is our pretending we are so smart in these times.

Property is theft!
A fantastic intuition from this great thinker.
Really worth to read, to discover how deep and foreseeing his thoughts were.

Property, more than an indicator of richness, is a symptom of our lack of spiritual confidence.
The more you have, the less you are.


Individualism, the Freedom of the Haunted

One of the strongest successes of the liberalistic ideology has been this obsession with not only properties but also with 'belly-watching', that is convincing people that they are in competition with the rest of humanity, and they have to think about themselves only.
It goes really together with this creating enemies all the time. Risks, menaces, attacks, extremists, terrorists. All others than yourself are potential terrorists, in these times. Or at least they will buy the last food left in the supermarkets before you, and that's even more serious.

I insist on the fact that liberalism is not just normal, but an ideology, a ferocious ideology indeed, conditioning all our life.
In this 'ideal' world everything has a price, and then has to be protected from thieves, everything is new and desirable, and then you have to work a whole life to get it.
All means and conditions become acceptable, if you only can get what is needed.
Human beings are greedy and selfish in that world.
Homo homini lupus, remember.
You need laws, authorities, prisons, barriers, borders, religions, politicians, administrators, all that to protect your properties and wealth.
Forget about the fact that, in the end, it looks more like a global prison.
You are free to leave if you don't like this world, or are you?


Success?

Anyone remembers the writer Peter Høegh? The author of Smilla, that sold 20 millions books all over the world?

I met him once for more than 10 years ago. It was here in København (Copenhagen) during some kind of meeting at Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, an organisation for help to 'developing' countries.
I was impressed by his sort of happening, where he made a speech, alternating it with some formidable latin dance steps.
He was a seldom combination of shy depth and expressive energy and humour.

After writing the book "Kvinden og aben", in 1996, he disappeared completely from the light of celebrity, in order to live a protected life, somewhere in Copenhagen.
His motivation for doing that?
One at least can be found in an article published today in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende: "Høeg og hakkelse".
He said once:

“Jeg tror, at hvis man skal blive meget lykkelig, så skal man i vidtgående grad gøre sig fri af det materielle - af sin karriere, af hvor mange penge man tjener og den slags. Det er en uhyre vigtig tanke for mig, at det er muligt i det enkelte menneskes liv ”
That is:
“I believe that if one has to become very happy, then he has to in an extensive degree make himself free off the material - off his career, of how much money one earns, and that kind of things. It is an enormously important thought for me, that it is possible in each human being's life.”


It's the religion, stupid!

Just a joke today:
Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iraq.

No, it wasn't a joke. So, what will Bush do now?
Suddenly tell us those elections were not democratic anyway?
Send his brother Jeb to fix this little problem, and let Allawi win?
Will he move to Iraq, together with Howard, Aznar, Blair, Berlusconi & Rasmussen, now that the country is finally safe, ruled by the very efficient Sharia law?

I have no more rhetoric questions for today, just a very realistic one: how long time will it go before we'll see people in Iraq begging for having Saddam back?

Have a nice Sunday, if it is not blasphemous in your country.


Economy, another word for ecology

The first day of this blog, I wrote that I have never been a Marxist.
That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the work of Marx and Engels and all the other following thinkers.
There have been some fundamental intuitions in history, regarding the nature of mankind and its society. Marx had one, undoubtedly, or a few ones.

I started reading his books when I was about seventeen years old (way too many years ago, as I am an old man :)
I was going to school, and I really had some other things to think about than the paternalistic, or maternalistic, Italian school.
I had actually a few very good teachers, that I appreciated more than others. For example, there was one who was a bit conservative, but she cycled from Rome to this "Leonardo Da Vinci" school, actually located very far away. I admired her for this peculiarity and she liked me too, always trying to pull me to the right track, which was an impossible task. I was too free, already at that time.
The other students got used after some months with the same scenes happening every day.
She came to teach, and she asked about something, and she always said:


«Who has studied that chapter I required yesterday? LUCAAAA?»
And I answered every time:
«I haven't.»
«Why have you not?»
«Because I spent all night reading Marx's Manifesto.»
She got really mad at me, and each time menaced me very seriously with giving me so bad a mark I would never get my diploma.
«Luca ti boccio - she always shouted - ti BOCCIOOO!»
(«Luca, I'll flunk you - I'll FLUUUNKKK YOU!!!»)

Italian marks ranged from 0 to 10, six being the minimum good, and I alternately got 4 and 9, because after getting her mad at me, I then always wrote a gorgeous style and her eyes were full of satisfaction again.

Anyway, all this to explain that Marx was surely one of the people opening my eyes. I still consider most of his theories right. Just could perceive, already at that time, that they were really a fruit of the industrial revolution, and that even if needed to change the devastating consequences of that era, it was necessary to go further and propose a sustainable alternative to that, that is an economic theory that was going hand in hand with ecology.
That's the fundamental limitation of the Marxism, together with the evident one relating it to many dictatorships and bloody regimes of the 'real' communism.
It is still evident that the traditional leftism hasn't got the lesson of history fully.
As recently as in the last days, the Italian ex-communist party, that has always been the largest in the western world, had a very successful congress, but the excellent proposals by Fulvia Bandoli

FULVIA BANDOLI source?

about the union of socialism and ecology got not all the weight it deserved. She is great, it is a pity that politics is still the dominion of some gray men, even if this party has a very committed base of people, and a good leader.
They still haven't got the fundamental truth that ecology is economy. They are actually exactly the same thing.

More about Marx tomorrow.


All the same and still different

So, the day for elections in Denmark has come, and it is last chance for 'making a difference'.
If you are Danish and haven't read my Valgkampen yet, then please do it now, I promise it will change your life (to the better ;) The last polls tell us that the gap between the parties supporting the present government and the opposition has been reducing the more and more. No surprise, as the newspapers finally decided to start writing about facts only a few days ago. And to tell about all the lies that the Danish prime minister has been telling all the time, without any sense of morality or shame. The polls are not so comforting any case, and that corresponds to what happened in the USA. A lot of hope, and no results. But one fifth of the voters is still uncertain, and only 100,000 votes are necessary after all to change the outcome.
So, the government is panicking now, and the very relaxed and nearly 'philosophical' prime minister of the first days of the campaign has changed mask again now, and got back to the revolting populist he has always been. It suits him better, more authentic (even if everything he does is the fruit of spinning, they call him the 'soap prime minister').
This is what democracy looks like, these days.

Going back to a more historical view, I wrote yesterday about this distinction between the economical theories of Marxism and the historic consequences leading to the genocides in the communist regimes.
That's always a touchy topic, as is it only a degeneration of the communistic thoughts that led to those disasters, or was this tendency to authoritarian and murderous regimes already built-in in the theory?
I have always thought, and written, that both are probably the case.
On one side it is unfair to connect Marx's need for understanding and idealistic helping the masses with the brutality of the regimes following his theories.
On the other side I insist that Marxism was a very weak theory under many respects, mainly human rights and ecology, and that should have been acknowledged very early, instead of taking it as a Bible and starting many decades of obstinate dogmatic worship.

Right in these days, there is a discussion going on here in Europe about banning the Nazi symbols, following the miserable and pathetic Nazi party of the British prince Harry.
Some people from the eastern countries, repressed by the former Soviet Union, suggested then that also the communistic symbols should consequently be abolished forever.
I can understand their feelings, those of millions of people subdued and murdered by the brutality of the Soviets, but they risk to be misused again by the shameful reactionary lobbies in Europe that are stronger and stronger. Under the distracted or supporting shade of the conservative governments, and running very coordinated campaigns everywhere to revamp the image of Nazism and Fascism.
The consequences of despotic and bloody dictatorships are the same, when they lead to death and destruction.
Still, we can't say that the nazi and communist ideologies were the same, it would be really too far out populist.


The farce has come to the final act

I am bit late today. After coming back from work yesterday I followed the news about the Danish elections, and it got late.
As you might know, it went as expected and even worse.
The centre-right coalition (actually there is no centre in it) got 95 seats in the Parliament, and the opposition only 80, 90 being the majority.
Even worse of the worse is that this unbelievable Danish press continued its delirium even after the elections were finished.
Just an example, among uncountable many others: the Prime Minister's party got a clear slam in the face from its voters loosing 4 seats. Now, considering that Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister, had all the press with him, that they spent much, much more money in the campaign than anyone else, and he unashamedly misused his position to campaign for his party, he should have won big, but he didn't and that can only be interpreted as loosing.
Since the results were known, two major leaders of the opposition resigned, and the newspapers didn't stop one second telling how bad and pathetic they were during the campaign.
No one, and I mean no one, wrote a single line or mentioned or underlined in any way that Rasmussen should consequently resign, after his big setback. His coalition won, but not he or his party. No one. In all nation, a nation of 5 and a half million people you don't find one miserable journalist that can do his job. All what I have heard or read has been completely idiotic nonsense.
This country really needs a roasting, soon or later.


The speculative economy and the real economy

Economy is a very important measure of how we use resources and how those resources are distributed in a given society or in the world.
But those measures are made completely obscure by he fact that economy has been kidnapped by speculators.
It is not any more a way of monitoring the state of the planet, but an instrument to manipulate the truth and lead to certain privileges and profits, helped by specialist language, muddy concepts, dirty tricks and, yes: speculations.
A typical example is the currency market. A currency is a nonsense, but it is presented as normal, so that some people can speculate on it.
It is clear that national currencies should not exist at all, if you only think about that.
Any human activity that is based on concurrence is wrong and deeply immoral and leads to all sorts of criminal facts.
Having concurring economic systems and not collaborating ones is the crime of this world.
Because we know in advance that it will lead to discrimination, to poverty, to troubles and wars, it is not possible not to, it is simply a logic consequence of that system.
In the case of Europe, it has been an historic achievement to create the common currency, the Euro.
Just look at the nations outside it: Great Britain, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, that is the traditional nationalists, the protectors of speculators, and the usual impossible Scandinavians.
What a nice gang.


From exchange to money

What am I doing writing here, I should have been out and dance tonight!
Well, I had problems with my knee. No, not the bad one, the good one!
Gosh, how am I supposed to go now, haven't any good left.

Anyway, I would like to write just a few thoughts about the nature of money.
Before money existed, only exchange was possible.
I gave you one kilo oranges you gave me one kilo apples, or anything else having about the same value.

Then money was invented, as a way of getting the more and more free from the material world. Funny enough, a process going on in any other aspect of human society, as it responds to deep anthropological needs.
Money was not a thing, but the virtual representation of it.
Being 'neutral' in itself, it had the characteristic of being usable anywhere, to be carried anywhere.
But also that of making accumulation possible.
And here it is where all problems arouse.
Money was simply prone to the tendency of generating speculation and capitalism.
That is: demanding more than what was due (the surplus value in Marx's terms) and capitalizing this surplus to accumulate richness and utilizing it to get even more and more, especially being able to exploit others, thank to a dominating position (all this leading to capitalism, oligarchies, imperialism).

Obviously this was an extreme simplification, but that's the way economy works in practice, when we are willing to look at the essence of it and at the logical consequences of the different models.
If you would like to get more thorough explanations you can consult the always precious Wikipedia about Karl Marx's theories , as a starting point.

In the next days I would like to present some alternatives to money, some moneyless societies.


No money? What a joy!

As I underlined many times, I am not mentioning so much Marxism to promote it. I am independent from any system or ideology.
But it is really a murderous pleasure for me to be so old-fashioned right now when the barbarian liberalistic and militaristic world are celebrating their bloody and careless triumphs.
It so shameless to liquidate such important and deeply idealistic theories many people truly believe in, with the superficial and ignorant snobism of the dominating "couldn't care less" world.

Right today I stumbled across this very good synthesis of all what a society based on care and not on profit is all about.
I have no idea of who Jan Pole is, but I found his post on a site and I would like you to read it too: "Socialism: a moneyless society"

“Socialism means a world society based on production solely for use, not profit.
It will be a classless society, in which everyone will be able to participate democratically in decisions about the use of the world's resources, each producing according to their ability and each taking from the common store according to their needs.

In such a society there can be no money—or, more precisely, no need for money. Money is only needed when people possess, and most do not.

Imagine that all the things you need are owned and held in common.
There is no need to buy food from anyone—it is common property.
There are no rent or mortgages to pay because land and buildings belong to all of us.
There is no need to buy anything from any other person because society has done away with the absurd division between the owning minority (the capitalists) and the non-owning majority (the workers).

In a socialist world monetary calculation won't be necessary. The alternative to monetary calculation based on exchange-value is calculation based on use values. Decisions apart from purely personal ones of preference or interest will be made after weighing the real advantages and disadvantages and real costs of alternatives in particular circumstances.

The ending of the money system will mean at the same time the ending of war, economic crises, unemployment, poverty and persecution—all of which are consequences of that system.

The revolutionary change that is needed is not possible unless a majority of people understand and want it. We do not imagine all humankind's problems can be solved at a stroke.

Reforms of the present system fail because the problems multiply and recur. It will take time to eliminate hunger, malnutrition, disease and ignorance from the world.

But the enormous liberation of mental and physical energies from the shackles of the money system will ensure that real human progress is made.”

Jan www.worldsocialism.org

This is what utopian socialism proposed. History has shown us that this form for socialism has had a very hard time in surviving or even being started.

Other ideologies have taken its place, reformism, social-democracy, or, on the other side, liberalism and capitalism, or spurious and pragmatist combinations of the two.

Still, it is important never to loose the compass that visions about an ideal society can provide us.
The economy of fairness and social justice, not that of greedy speculation.


Death of A Writer

Today I would like to commemorate one of the writers from the USA that I used to appreciate, Arthur Miller, who died last Friday.

Many, many years ago, the only time I tried to act in a theatre play was in "Death of a Salesman".
I was supposed to be Happy Loman, the younger son of the tragic salesman. Don't know how good I was at that, and we didn't even achieve to keep this amateur company alive for enough time.
But theatre has always had a deep impact on me, and that play for sure too.
If you don't know that play or can't remember much of it, that's better for me, it would be embarrassing to be asked if I chose the pitiful Happy because I had something in common with him...
Well, enough with myself, you are invited to read or reread the play, or to read about it at Wikipedia,
Death of a Salesman


Valentine

What happened to Luca today?
Are you asking? Did you forget it is Valentine's day today?
Luca is busy, of course, please come again tomorrow.

Well, actually I have been busy with music. The wait is nearly over my friends, soon you will hear it, really, this time, promised.

Happy Valentine to all of you, even if you can't be my dear lovers all of you, for practical reasons only :)
I will come back with more examples of moneyless societies in the next days.


Moneyless, happymore

There are actually many different ways of conceiving a better society and economies that are not based on money.

  1. The ideal is eliminating it completely, like it would be in a family.
    You don't talk about salary or meetings or strikes when you need to have the dishes washed in your home, do you?
    Why should it be different in society, what is the difference between your relatives and anyone else?
    When something is needed to do in the family, you simply talk with each other and make it done. And you find an agreement about who is going to do what and when, and a fair and effective sharing of the tasks.
  2. Some people have suggested universal currencies, meant to substitute the many different national currencies.
  3. Other societies have preferred the local approach, where money is only used internally, as a way of exchanging work between the members of a community.
  4. A variant of the last are the "Time Banks", where it is not money that you get for your work, but time, to be spent by someone else offering some services for you.
    For ex., you could work one hour to repair someone's sink, and you get one hour for that. Then you can ask a third person to give you a one hour massage, and so on.
 


The more you work, the more you destroy

I managed to write daily this month, but not in the last days, too much to do really. I wanted to give some examples of the moneyless attempts, but I had no time to collect them properly.

Then I would like to come back to why I wrote, in the first days, such hard critic words about our dominating economic system.
There are lots of things to criticize, I will try to mention some here:

  • Growth is nonsense.
    The concept of entropy is inevitable here. I don't agree with all what Jeremy Rifkin writes, but reading his books
    has been a fundamental source of awakening and inspiration.
    One book in particular: "Entropy: A New World View".
    Now, what is determinant here is if our universe is a finite or infinite entity. If it is finite, then there is no escape from the law of entropy. Very roughly: all activities on earth accelerate this run toward disorder, meaning the end of our life. Then, the more you work, the more you contribute to this. And in the same way, the more resources, materials and energy you consume.
    Then any economy based on growth is nonsense.
  • Unsustainability.
    We come to the same conclusion if we consider that pollution is a consequence of all economical activities, even more so when they are not sustainable.
    The Club Of Rome, already in 1972, made us aware of the fact that there are limits to growth, in their report called, in fact, "Limits to Growth".
    Now, what do you read every single day in the newspapers? Declarations from politicians and economists telling us we have to grow more and expand even more. Will they ever learn it?
    There is a possibility of welfare without pollution, but that requires a sustainable society, and we are very far away from that.
    What about China and India? They are billions of people, and their economies are growing in exactly the same way as the western countries did for centuries, devastating the half of the globe.
    Please read this review of the old Group of Rome's work:
    "Beyond The Limits To Growth" , from the quarterly In Context.
    I'll give an anticipation here:

“ 'Grow or die', goes the old economic maxim. But in 1972 a team of systems scientists and computer modelers challenged conventional wisdom with a ground-breaking study that warned that there were limits - especially environmental limits - to how 'big' human civilization and its appetite for resources could get. Beyond a certain point, they said in effect, the maxim could very well be 'grow and die'. ”

  • Hypocrisy
    Why do we keep on telling this is the best of all possible worlds, when 1 billion people have nothing to eat every single day? The amount of them is not falling, and the goal of halving their number in some years is looking the more and more as a guilty illusion.
    Why, when all serious scientists now agree the ecological collapse due to greenhouse effect and other unbalances is very close and menacing?
  • Moral corruption
    It is the natural consequence of the criminal nature of our economy.
    It is evident from the fact that many criminal activities that are forbidden by the law, are in reality the very basis of economy.
    Is it more acceptable when it is Governments, or Nations, or rich people, or industries to commit such acts?
    Charging for more than is due is the basis of all capitalism. That is stealing.
    Advertising is a way of raping minds. You make people buy more than they need, or what they don't need at all, or even what is dangerous to themselves, and that will destroy their life. That is cruelty and murder.
    Pyramid Schemes are forbidden. Just think back to what happened in Albania, in 1996, bringing the whole country to collapse.
    But the ridiculous is: all our economy is based on the same principle, the world's economy is a giant Pyramid Scheme.
    You just need to put Bill Gates and a worker in Africa living with less than one dollar a day beside each other, to get what I mean.

 


The final proof Ecology is Economy
and Economy is Ecology

It should come from American scientists, of course. Namely: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Tim Barnett from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, and others.

Their report is the ultimate statement that:
Greenhouse effect is a reality, it can be measured now, taking the temperature of oceans.
Greenhouse effect is man-made, not a natural phenomenon.
The question is not any more if it exists, but what should be done about that.

What is necessary now is going further than Kyoto, and starting to act for a complete change in the way we look at economy, growth, work, resources, energy and, inevitably, lifestyles.

Please read:
The final proof global warming is a man-made disaster.


Democracy is also Economy

It is nearly unbelievable to think back to 1974 and realize it is so short time ago we still had dictatorships in Europe.

I am thinking about Portugal, when in 1974 the so called Carnation Revolution ended the dark period with Salazar.
It was called like that because people was putting red carnation flowers in the guns of the soldiers liberating them.
Certainly the 25th of April was a good day for Portugal, but a disaster for its former colonies, first of all East Timor, where Indonesia exterminated a large part of its own population in 1975.
Today, a kind of new revolution has happened, as the Portuguese Socialist Party, lead by Jose Socrates, won the absolute majority of seats in the parliament, despite the fact that the President of the European Commission, Barroso, comes from the opposite conservative party. Not really an endorsing of his politics.
A paradox is that Socrates has the Scandinavian countries as inspiration, while Denmark in particular is throwing his fantastic welfare away.

If people really understood how important a revolution it has been to create the European Union, and how much it will help our economy in the long run, despite all the many aspects of it that must be criticized, with very good reasons.

But it seems that many are understanding that now. In Spain, the new European Charter has been approved today by a majority of about 77% of voters, while only 15% has voted no. Not many showed up though, it seems only about 42%.
Now, forget about the fact that practically only few know what is written in the European Charter, the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe.


Cradle to Grave

In my opinion, Economics needs a complete revision, as it is like if most economist haven't realized yet that so much has happened in the world since its basic principles have been formulated in the last centuries (Adam Smith, Marx, Keynes and so on).
The specialization that has characterized sciences, separating different fields in stead of integrating them, has contributed to that.
Economical analysis should include all kinds of evaluations also from all other sciences, to get a complete picture of a problem, from cradle to grave.
As an example of that, stating that energy produced by atomic energy is cheaper than that produced by wind energy is clearly false, but if you only take the 'raw' numbers, without including all costs connected to the two different sources of energy, then you will get a wrong picture, and that's the trick that is used to continue with wrong energy politics.
What is the cost of dealing with the radioactive fuels, or with the storage of them, or with pollution in the areas close to the reactors, or with the loss of enormous areas that should be used to grow food, or with a militarized society, needed to protect the nuclear plants against terrorism, or with dismissing the reactors after they have finished their vital cycle, or with the fear and insecurity in the population?
If you included the costs of all previous problems in the price of nuclear energy it would be enormous, and not even comparable to other renewable energies.

It is not by chance I chose nuclear energy as an example. There is a shameless lobby of 'nuclearists' that is trying to reintroduce it in Europe and other places. It is very clear there is a coordinate effort going on. Even in Italy, where there are no nuclear reactors, as Italians voted no to nuclear energy with a referendum in 1987, with very clear results. 65.1% of the population voted and 80.6% said no! I remember it very well, as I spent many days collecting signatures for making the referendum possible.
Now, the national agencies for energy are financing nuclear reactors in other countries, even if that was also clearly forbidden by the same referendum. And Berlusconi has spoken for the reconsidering of nuclear energy in Italy. Just because he is not doing anything at all about what is demanded by the Kyoto protocol, that is a reduction of the emissions of CO2.

So, Economics can both be an instrument for deception and speculation, or the most complete tool for sustainable politics.


Money = Corruption. Two sides of the same coin

There is an interesting story in the newspapers today and it fits very well with what I was going to write about. I'll come back to it later.

There have been some new ways of attempting making money, and all economy based on it, 'acceptable' or even 'desirable', as a way of justifying the disastrous consequences of its use.
For ex., in the new age environments, there is this credo that "money is energy", that is: money is not bad, it is the way you use it; if you think positive, money comes to you when you need it, and so on.
Apart from a few positive statements that new age has brought to us, the rest is usually a bunch of dreadful banalities and plain cheap 'pick-up lines' for simple people, who does not want, or emotionally cannot afford, to take the time and effort starting a long and dangerous search for the truth.
I am not saying that it is not important for this people to get a hope for a better life, it is indeed, and that some simple readings can start that process. More that the intent of people writing for them is to make money out of it, using the naiveties and needs to believe in something, exploiting the same hope they paradoxically somehow happen to support.
In other words: some charge them a lot of money, and get rich out of it, for very empty contents in return, and they even justify that at the same time with the very same theories on positive thinking.
"If you can't pay me 100$ for my miracle mantra, then you are a looser, because you don't think positive". Kind of.

Well, money obviously is not neutral. It is not just a tool, a matter of using it right.
Money is bad in itself, like anything that is bad to start with.
If you accept prostitution, because that is what money is, than you also start and support a prostitution society, where there are not any values any more, but only the power of buying.
Need food? You buy it.
Need trust? You buy it.
Need love? You buy it. And so on.
The consequences of letting money be the ruler of our lives are devastating.
Like anything else bad in this world, it has become a powerful taboo, no one wants to discuss any more.
Because if you need love, and you do, and you know that the only way to get it is paying, then you will pay the bloody money and you will consume that waresex, while burying all your feelings, or even falling in love with the prostitute, and starting calling her darling.

The most amazing aspect of our world is not only that it is a merciless desert, a horrible planet of carelessness and destruction of anything that has just a tiny bit of value, but that the people living in it have been so well programmed, that they believe it is the best possible world of all universe. They even endorse it and spread the world, they even repeat automatically and with convincing joy, the marketing mantras of the smart advertisement and insurance and media and corporations guys.

What was the story I mentioned at the beginning, by the way?
Some inquires have found out that a lot of money was paid by an American medical company to Italian doctors for favouring buying of technical equipments.
In one word: corruption, or bribery, then.
One doctor in particular: the Health Minister in the Italian Berlusconi's government, Girolamo Sirchia, who was the director of a Milano hospital at the time the facts presumably happened.
There is a huge multinational involved in that, Johnson & Johnson, and another called Immucor.
Today there was an interview with Immucor's founder and president, Edward Gallup, on laRepubblica, and somehow it is very funny, as he basically says, it is all true, he did pay money to Sirchia and some dozens of other people, but it is too bad newspapers are talking so much and bad about his company, can't they see they are ruining it?
So, the problem is not corruption, but the fact some journalists are reporting about it, that's the real scandal.

“....ogni volta che voi giornalisti scrivete che Immucor pagava tangenti di qua e di là, in borsa il titolo subisce dei contraccolpi violenti...."
["....each time you write that Immucor paid bribes here and there, its stock value leads violent repercussions...."] “

That's in a nutshell the economical system we live in.


Working through to our graves

This month is soon going to end, and it is time to both write some final words and to announce the subject of the next one. I will do that tomorrow.

Today I would like to report a couple of sentences from an article,
"This boot camp can make kids cash wise"
that was actually about some courses for children, in the UK, trying to educate them as early as possible to be economically wise and learn about money and savings.
The first is:

“Financial education is a hot topic in the UK at the moment. With Britain well behind the US and many of its European peers in terms of financial literacy, we now have one of the worst savings gaps in the developed world. If this decline is not stemmed, a generation of people will be faced with the prospect of having to work through to their grave, or accepting a much poorer standard of living in their retirement.”

Work through to their grave. This sentence expresses very well how our welfare system will look like in the future, due to the populist and irresponsible politics run by many governments. These politics are delaying the bills coming from our welfare and borrowing now the money that should be invested for the future.

A confirmation is given in another sentence from the same article:

“More immediately, there is also the issue of the unsustainable rise in UK consumer debt levels, fuelled by low interest rates and increasingly competitive credit card and personal loan markets. These problems have stemmed, at least in part, from the fact that while the joys of consumerism are piped through TV screens, billboards and newspapers every day, messages about financial prudence and responsibility simply get no airtime.”

Do you get, once again, what are the fundamental problems in the way our economy is built up?
When people become only consumers to milk as much as possible, then they will be convinced that they have to spend as much as possible, and that the stealing of their life resources will be the fulfillment of their needs, that tax cuts and apparently favourable credits will be their happiness, and not the start for that working through their grave mentioned above.


The last dime

So, it is the last day of February today, and I hope you got some inspiration to rethink your daily relationship to money and other economical stuff, during this month.
As usual: this is a blog and not a treaty, so I could only superficially give some ideas of what I think about the whole matter.
It is very important indeed that we don't just live automatically and taking the existing as given. Reflecting about all aspects of our life gives us a chance to change what is wrong. And just because nearly everyone and everywhere do the same things it doesn't necessarily make things right.

A sum up of what I have written this month follows.

There is much more in life than money
Economy can't be isolated from all other aspects of life. This fixation and obsession about money in life is not healthy, and even less in politics and in other global issues. It is a typical consequence of the poverty of our society, hiding its deep meaningless unfairness with deceiving material goods.
It is only smoke into your face, no material things will ever make you deeply happy.
It is so dramatically short-sighted to give cheap solutions to real problems. What do you think you will obtain with that, other than having to use even more money at a later point?

Distribution, not centralization
The key to a fair society is sharing not accumulation. Money is bad in itself, because it is based on speculation, prostitution and abstraction from reality. Money is a virtual symbol, making you dependent, distanced, unable to remember that anything has its human price, beside the abstract numbers on banknotes, and that you are only borrowing from what is available in the world, you will never own anything. Unless you steal it. Unless the society you live in tells you that is your right and it is even desirable. Unless you appreciate slavery and colonialist power, submission and misery, a world divided in revolting rich people and desperate poor people.

When will they wake up?
Economics as we know it today is a creation of the past. The world has changed since, and radically, but it seems they never realize it.
Of course it is because the world is in the hands of people that has lost any contact with it. They have been so busy with making money and showing off, and making all their dirty affairs, that they have not had time to read a good book from time to time. Or just think, or just take a walk in a random street and see how real people lives.
How awfully frustrating to see every day and practically everywhere the same old concepts that lost their meaning already for decades ago. Like 'competition' for example. What a complete looser word! If I compete with someone it means that I would only 'win' if the other lost. And the other way round. It feels like being in a kindergarten really, think that Nobel prizes still can use those kind of infantile terms.

And many other things but, as usual, I invite you to reread the whole month's blog.. It will be available here following the links at the bottom of this page. As the attentive reader has surely noticed, while the blogs are going on they are arranged with the newest day first, but when archived they will show all days in an ascending order making it easier to read them.
The same readers will have noticed that not so much has happened in the rest of the home site, but that can simply be explained by lack of time. I will try to see what I can do in the next months.

And... tadaaa... the next month's blog will be mainly about: