dinsdag 10 juli 2012

The real start of the Crisis. and solutions..

Here is the shortest version of the road to the Crisis. One you won't see in the papers. Yet.

The blame on the crisis is not only with the bankers. It all started with greed. There are many beginnings with that factor, this is one of the major ones.

In the 80's shareholdership started to put profit over community. Offshoring began. Profits increased while jobs were lost. The governments supported this sale out. To compete the big corporation said they needed cheaper labour, and no Unions. That last bit they didn't say aloud of course.

The Chinese and Indians now started to produce most consumer goods. Although their people work(ed) for indecent little in the sweatshops, still people, materials, land, production and transport in these countries had to be paid for. These dealings may have made the outsourcing companies a profit, but it made the West as a whole a big loss. The West now needed to import more than it exported and slowly dived into debt. A few years ago, the USA exported for 50 billion each year to China and imported for over 250 billion a year. So the only ones getting richer were the CEO and shareholders of the big companies. Everyone else lost.
The rising countries, like China, even were so nice to support the growing debts of the USA for a while. But since they USA became ever poorer and their consumer market couldn't keep on paying for all the goods, the USA began to overdo on the whole Buy on Credit thing. While the USA went ever deeper into debt, China started to look for people who could actually really afford their goods: their own people. Both India and China may have well the biggest rise in middle class in the world. Huge growth markets indeed. Thus the Chinese and Indians have started to focus on their own interests. With their wealth they then started to also buy up all resources in the developing countries, especially Africa. And with so much money tied to China, the West can't offer real competition. And by the way, weren't we also just robbing those resources most of the time, by bribing local lords and presidents and forgetting about the population? So, no need to cry there.
Now the USA and Europe have no (real big) production, no resources (outside its own borders) and are not longer of interest for the new Kings of the planet. We do have lots of people without jobs, huge debts, corrupted regimes that keep playing democracy and very greedy managers at the top of almost every company or civil service. The big companies that became very very rich with exporting our work, now have their overpaid CEO's complain they need help to compete with the Chinese and Indian economy. They want support to keep on building unsustainable cars that have been outdated by decades. They want support to build TV's that burn energy like it comes as cheap as unemployment. They want government support from politicians that have started to invent money to pay for everything. Hahaha.

Was it all them, the greedy shareholders? No, we participated, or at the least didn't protest the work it gave those that helped them. And loads and loads of managers, leaders helped with this process. They outsourced, fired people and changed the books to need. The bankers were just the ones to give us the final blow. They were exposed because the foundation for stabile growth in our society had evaporated, and just as us, they didn't want to see. We hadn't learned ourselves to think ahead or beyond their personal task horizon.
You cannot learn ethics from talking nice about being good, because you don't know where you stand until someone puts a gun, black money or a monstrous target in your hands and talks nice about it. In business often you won't even recognize the gun, until there's a body and smoke. And then with modern banking, you don't even get to see the countless bodies and the smoke. You didn't even know it was a gun, because you never questioned the context or learned to be really curious about what system you contribute to. You can claim you did your best for a good boss, who paid a decent bonus and made the targets. wow. That's second world war German Wehrmacht officers speaking: "Wir haben er nicht gewusst." (We didn't know we were murdering all those Jews, etc.) Any management education that doesn't counter that kind of talk in advance is but a blind follower training.

So our business culture is rotten, our governments incompetent by lack of treasure and spirit and our vision and laws outdated. What to do?

The cure is also not in the papers (because this will undermine the same powers that sold your job to foreign powers and used this money to buy all the media, just so they could even make money on telling us that it was not them, but just a few greedy rogue bankers who got us in trouble)

A: Forego on all debts. It's totally outrageous to consider that there is enough work, that there are enough empty buildings to give everyone a roof over their heads and is enough food to feed everyone. There is also enough to do, but because it's not owned by the right people, we have millions of poor without work, home and or enough food. The law and the government should serve the whole and not a happy few. At the least when people or countries are in trouble because of debt, lower the rent, instead of increasing it. Give them space, instead of stress.

B: Demand and perform with integrity and awareness of bigger patterns. Ethics, or values are not only there to save us from crime. They are there, to create trust and faith in our shared purpose and beliefs. They are there to act within self accepted frames that give hope to people, protect nature and support the progress of individuals, groups, countries and our whole civilisation. All high ranking people must not only take care, they must be examples. Why is it that we all know Nelson Mandela was such a man and so few modern industrilists and politicians give us that same feeling?

C: Totally transform to green and sustainable. A huge overhaul will mean huge amounts of work for everyone. Just like the years right after WWII, it's getting everyone to participate in the (re)building of our society. Protecting the interests of those who'd pressure everyone to protect their interests, would be the most stupid thing to do. The will use pressure and lies to stop any such move. tss, they also can play along and help us all cleaning up the planet, rebuilding society and creating value for everyone.

D: Switch to micro economy. Take the power from the big corporations into your own hands. We have the knowledge and techniques to make every house and city self supporting in energy, materials and food. Transition towns are a great example of this. Small crafts people can start anywhere with little means. Through exchange of means, stuff, info and help we may become less dependent on money and those who have the biggest bundles of it. Check out,as a participants in that change revolution with millions of players around the globe, not because they are THE answer: Better,Transition Town movement or  P2P foundation.

E: Switch to an Experience Culture. What gives you most pleasure? Being with friends and family or a night before the TV? The having loads of goods, or having friends and sharing with them? Really consider what makes you truly happy and you'll see a culture needs way less to flourish. The best Example is Costa Rica, A very small ecological footprint and as happy as most Americans.

Good luck taking your dreams in your own hands.