Times of Change ... from Energetical, Financial, Political to Personal Change

The Gold Rush is On

2012-01-13T17:23:00.000+01:00

Disaster for some (the less privileged) always turns into a gold mine for others (a few privileged or connected). No matter what the disaster is, natural, economic or ecologic, there are always vulture companies turning it into a giant profit at the cost of the just affected. In many cases it is big governments that take advantage of the disaster to funnel public money to private corporations. Here is a good example from recent history. Less than a month after the quake in Haiti US Ambassador Kenneth Merten sent a cable to the his corporate and NGO contacts with the message "The gold rush is on". Two years later Haiti looks like the earth quake has been merely 2 months ago. Where did all the relief fund money go? Where did it not go? Find out here in this 10-min video report entitled "The Haitian Earthquake Gold Rush".

Global Restoration

2012-01-12T18:05:00.000+01:00

This young man has voiced his vision for the Occupy Wall Street movement in his 10-min video "Global Restoration: Vision For Occupy & Earth". It has some Zeitgeist aspects to it and some "back to the land" ideas with the principal goal of global ecological restoration. He sees the industrial civilization as the root of all evil. I like his optimism and activism, but his vision is incomplete.

Can or should his vision be the direction of OWS? I think it can be part of OWS, it is certainly positive and worth while, but I think it is insufficient. If this is all of OWS than the men in power will remain and control and oppression will continue in one form or another. We need more than just passive rejection of the current system, moving out and away is not enough. An active stance against the controlling powers is essential.

Similarly with the back-to-the-land idea. I like it. It can bring create small tightly weaved societies, benefit us and the environment, increase our happiness as individuals, and some more. But we still need industry, under different control, but a society without industry seems unimaginable to me.

It can be a big piece in the puzzle of a solution to our problems, but as a all-encompassing vision I see it incomplete. A mathematician might say it is required but not sufficient.

Bill Still running for President

2012-01-05T20:31:00.000+01:00

Bill Still announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Party nomination for President of the United States. Have a look at his campain website: still2012.com. He promises 3 actions if voted president:

He will put an end to government borrowing. No More National Debt! The United States will replace Federal Reserve Notes by re-issuing debt-free U.S. Notes, and gradually pay off the National Debt with them.
He will put an end to the ability of commercial banks to control the Quantity of money in our system through what is essentially counterfeiting. This has been a massive fraud on the people of the United States. We, the people, will take back the money power from the big banks and return the American economy to monetary stability and prosperity.
He will abolish the Internal Revenue System and the income tax – both personal and corporate — and implement a fair, simple and equitable consumption tax in accordance with the U.S. Constitution. This is how we funded the US government for the first 100 years, and we can do it again.

MF Global

2011-12-11T21:41:00.001+01:00

Here is a 23-min summary of the MF Global case: Capital Account of 12/08/11 from RT (first 23 minutes). What is your bank or broker doing?

Whose gold bar is it?

2011-12-10T20:51:00.001+01:00

The referenced article is a must read for all GLD holders and even for physical gold holders. Too many financial institutions perform unethical and illegal operations. MF Global brings to daylight some of the problems arising through rehypothecation in the paper and physical gold market. The article "The Gold "Rehypothecation" Unwind Begins: HSBC Sues MF Global Over Disputed Ownership Of Physical Gold" comes to the conclusion that even allocated physical gold held in customers' names by mayor financial institutions is at risk. Is it time to take the metal home?

Re-hypothecation

2011-12-07T20:26:00.000+01:00

A new word we need to learn: re-hypothecation. Hypothecation is when a borrower pledges collateral to secure a debt. Rehypothecation, in short, means lending of property lent to one, but of whom one is not the owner. The biggest misuse of re-hypothecation might be the current MF Global scandal. Read this article to see how large and established financial institutions break the law or use loopholes to enrich themselves and have the unaware customers pick up the losses when the bets fail: MF Global and the great Wall St re-hypothecation scandal.

‘D-Day’ Near For GLD

2011-11-11T10:02:00.001+01:00

If you own GLD or think about investing in GLD it is a smart idea to read these two articles first:

According to the author Jeff Nielson of the article, "D" can stand for "Default"-Day or "Destruction"-Day. He is wrong about the date when D-Day will occur (he suggested 11/11/11), but his warnings are food for thought nevertheless.

Our Daily Poison

2011-11-07T13:34:00.002+01:00

The autor Marie Monique Robin of the highly acclaimed full-length documental "The World according to Monsanto" has released a new work, again a full-length documental entitled "Notre Poison quotidien" ("Our Daily Poison"). The English trailer is available here. The full version is available in French (Notre Poison quotidien), in German (Unser täglich Gift - Wenn Essen krank macht) and with Spanish subtitles (Nuestro Veneno Cotidiano). Since "The World according to Monsanto" was such an excellent piece of work and investigation, I am very much looking forward to this new documentary released in January 2011. It will be another must-see documental!

Debt Simplified

2011-11-02T14:16:00.003+01:00

These are some numbers from the US, but one can easily replace it with numbers from Greece, Italy, Spain, Zimbabwe, ... It is pretty clear that we are not addressing the problem, we are not even grasping it. (The $38.5 trillion number budget cut figure seems to refer to the budget cut deal that averted a US government shutdown in April 2011.) (Source)

Some stats about the US government:

U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Now, remove 8 zeroes and pretend it’s a household budget:

Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts: $385

Any questions?

1000 Uses for old Pallets

2011-10-29T11:32:00.001+02:00

This is fantastic video of only 2 minutes. It gives so many ideas of how to use and reuse old pallets. Just outstanding!

Energy Conservation

2011-10-27T16:39:00.000+02:00

I just stumbled across this link on energy conservation. It is a very long list on energy conservation ideas, simple actions and DIY projects for your home. It has a lot of information on a single page. There is something here for everyone.

Going in Circles

2011-10-25T19:01:00.003+02:00

When do you think the following text was written?

Rule a nation with justice.
Wage war with surprise moves.
The more laws and restrictions there are,
The poorer people become.
The sharper men's weapons,
The more trouble in the land.
The more ingenious and clever men are,
The more strange things happen.
The more rules and regulations,
The more thieves and robbers.

Why are the people starving?
Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.
Therefore the people are starving.
Why are the people rebellious?
Because the rulers interfere too much.
Therefore they are rebellious.

It was written some 2400 years ago by Lao Tse in his book Tao Te Ching. The two segments of text were taken from chapter 57 and 75. As we see history constantly repeats itself.

Earthships

2011-10-22T10:53:00.000+02:00

Earthships are a form of sustainable housing construction pioneered by Michael Reynolds, primarily using earth-filled used tires, old glass and water bottles as construction material. This 90-min documentary entitled Garbage Warrior outlines his personal story and shows some marvellous examples of earthships in New Mexico. It is amazing to see his vision in the houses he built more than 30 years ago.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-17T13:49:00.000+02:00

We are celebrating the 1st month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I am impressed. I think it is great that they don't have a list of demands, no list of claims or a single slogan yet. It needs talking, discussing and listening to derive a movement direction in a true participative democratic way. It is great to see them open, inclusive rather than exclusive, restrained rather than impulsive, local yet distributed. In Taoist style their non-action is the best action, the most convincing and moving action.

In "This Rebellion will not Stop" they write: "We have not come to work within the system. We are not pleading with the Congress for electoral reform. We know electoral politics is a farce. We have found another way to be heard and exercise power. We have no faith in the political system or the two major political parties. And we know the corporate press will not amplify our voices which is why we have a press of our own. We know the economy serves the oligarchs. We know that to survive this protest we will have to build non-hierarchical communal systems that care for everyone." So true, Occupy Wall Street must seek sustainable and auto-sufficient paths in order to survive. I certainly feel they understand the problem and the depth thereof. The problems are so profound that there is no single slogan that can express it, no single action that can fix it, no single body that can address it.

Plenty of reasons to get informed about, follow and support the Occupy Wall Street movement around the globe. Here are some starting points:

Occupy Wall Street Journal, Issue 1
Occupy Wall Street Journal, Issue 2
Occupy Wall Street Journal, Issue 3
Occupy Wall Street Journal, Issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... (online articles and PDF copies)

Follow the Occupation:

OWS
nycga.net
occupywallst.org
occupiedmedia.org
takethesquare.net
occupytogether.org
wearethe99percent.tumblr.com
www.facebook.com/theowsj
www.youtube.com/occupytv
www.youtube.com/user/OccupyTVNY
www.youtube.com/user/LibertyPlazaRev
Follow on Twitter: @occupywallstnyc, @nycsep17, @occupywallst

But the Occupation must be careful. Some of its methods have been criticized, especially the people's microphone. The biggest thread is being high-jacked. It has happened since the start and the high-jacking attempts will only intensify as the visibility of the Occupation increases. Politicians, CIA, CEOs, etc. all are waiting in line to influence and use the Occupation for its own purposes. Read OWS: Are Mindless Americans Falling Prey to the Collectivist Trap? to get an alternative viewpoint. "To avoid the collectivist trap, participants in OWS events must first learn to read between the lines, or they may unwittingly become party to something completely different to what they thought they had signed up for in the first place." Be watchful, be critical!

Gold has Changed

2011-10-11T21:42:00.000+02:00

The article "Gold bugs beware - The Gold bubble is finally bursting" in the Financial Times argues that the gold bubble is about to burst. I would agree that gold is in a bubble phase, but I see it as a lesser evil than other forms of investment and wealth protection. What the article does bring to ones attention is that gold today is not what gold was a decade ago. Gold has changed a lot due to the creation of popular ETFs such as GLD. Now gold has become an electronic digit on the computer, it can be bought, sold, repackaged, options taken with the click of the mouse or the stroke of a key. It has turned gold into a speculation. Even those of us who dislike the idea of speculation have to live with this new fact. The burdensome and limiting process of a physical object has become a 0 or 1 sent through the Internet at the speed of electrons. Now its here, now its not. It is bought and sold like any other share thousands of times a day when its value moves a cent up or a cent down. With this in mind we can forget anything we know about gold and forget all the lessons learned from gold in the past. Gold isn't gold anymore. Gold is riskier than ever before and it might bring to light many unexpected surprises. Still what is one going to chose for one's personal pension or long-term nest-egg: dollars, Euros, government bonds, oil, real estate, silver or gold? One option looks worse than the other. The least frightening option might still be precious metals.

Economics of Happiness

2011-10-10T11:35:00.001+02:00

Helena Norberg-Hodge produced another documentary. This full-length documentary is entitled "The Economics of Happiness". Another maybe even more appropriate title for this film might have been "How to achieve sustainability through localization". The film talks a lot about globalization, what it has brought us and where it failed. It recommends localization to achieve sustainability and more personal happiness. In the USA happiness peaked in 1956, every years since then the percentage of Americans that considers themselves as happy declined. We are clearly not on the right track. Helena Norberg-Hodge also brings some of her experience from Ladakh and from her previous documentary Ancient Futures into this film. Anyone who wants to be happy should watch the film.

Crisis and Crisis

2011-09-29T13:37:00.001+02:00

We are all informed about the financial crisis that we are in. The news outlets are full of this topic. We easily forget that this is not the only crisis we are in. We have to put this financial crisis into perspective. It will make us poorer, but we will not die due to it.

The planet is also in a hunger crisis. Right now 925 million people suffer hunger. See the hunger statistics here, most data is from the United Nations. More than 5 million people die each year of hunger. According to UNICEF, nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people.

We should be aware of this and not forget one crisis due to the other. And then there are peak oil, the environmental crisis, social crisis, ... Despite all of this we have plenty of reasons to be happy and appreciative of what we have.

US worse than Greece

2011-09-20T08:39:00.000+02:00

That the US is more in debt than Greece is nothing new, but it rarely makes it into CNN. Also, because of its size and power the destiny of the US and Greece will not be the same. Greece will be torn into shreds while the US has several options not available to Greece due to its dominance of the Dollar currency, the military strength, and political/military control over the oil supply.

The article suggest a new tax plan for the US eliminating the personal and corporate income tax and basing everything on a 17.5% sales tax. The Purple Plans are 5 plans out of which one is the The Purple Tax Plan. The name purple is used as a middle ground for red (Republicans) and blue (Democrats).

Gold Mining nationalized in Venezuela

2011-09-19T17:09:00.000+02:00

Hugo Chavez nationalized the mining of gold in Venezuela. Private mining becomes illegal. Why? Apparently many poor mine in the rainforest causing income/tax loss to the government while destroying the environment. Read here. At the same time he announced that Venezuela will bring home $11 billion in gold bullion currently held in vaults in various oversea banks such as JP Morgan. Now that is an interesting move. Is the gold market becoming illiquid? Will this cause a run on physical gold? It is easier to control at home in the National Bank of Venezuela than abroad. It could be a safeguard to avoid having it confiscated by other nations or being blackmailed through political sanctions. Either way it seems a smart move. Or it could be a requirement by China, Russia or Brazil to have the gold bullion at home as a security or guarantee for the loans of $30+ billions received from these 3 countries over the last couple of years. Here are some more thoughts on the Why.

Political Philosophy

2011-09-16T11:57:00.000+02:00

I started reading the Tao Te Ching, the booklet attributed to Laozi. While reading through this scripture, the foundation of Taoism, I realized the link to today's libertarian political movement. The Tao Te Ching holds clues to how a country should be governed. Vincent Shen writes in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy on pp. 359 (Section Laotzi):

Laozi’s political philosophy concerns mostly the art ofgoverning, which, for him, should refer to the dao,follow the dao, and unfold the de of all people and allthings. An ideal state is, negatively, a state with nopolitical domination and, positively, a place wherepeople and things can spontaneously unfold their ownvirtue. The unfolding of the creative abilities or sponta-neous virtues of the people is therefore the greatestwealth of a state. In order to attain this, the ruler shouldadopt a politics of nonaction (wuwei). This does notmean ruling without any action; rather, it means rulingaccording to the dao—that is, no particular action orno action of particular interest but universal action,acting for all things; no artificial action but spontaneous action. The politics of nonaction is a politicsof nonintervention.

Isn't there a clear correlation? As we know all things are connected. All ideas are recycled and built upon. Often without knowing it we base our thoughts on century old ideas.

Gold vs. Oil

2011-09-04T11:47:00.000+02:00

Both resources oil and gold are interesting from an investment perspective. Both are natural resources and interesting options in times of change. Oil took quite a nose dive over the last weeks and gold is up by 30% YTD. Why is that? The answer nobody can know for sure but there are certainly many factors ranging from economic growth, economic forecasts, resource discoveries, exploration costs, speculation, global stability, wars to political signals. Here is an interesting up-to-date chart comparing oil to gold. On the chart one can quickly see that the oil to gold ratio has doubled ion just one year (2008 to 2009) and is overall quite volatile.

GMO losing Effect

2011-09-03T11:04:00.000+02:00

Monsanto's genetically modified corn no longer protects against pests. The corn bug has become resistant against the GMO plant. This is one of the first proven cases that biotech GMOs lead to superbugs and superweeds.

Instead of rethinking the issue Monsanto and other companies only take it a step further. Monsanto and Syngenta are now researching how to use a medical breakthrough called RNA interference to, among other things, make crops deadly for insects to eat. If this works, a bug munching on such a plant could ingest genetic code that turns off one of its essential genes. I guess they are creating super GMO leading to a super-super bug in the following phase.

Read the Wall Street Journal article here or here.

Gold as Safe Haven?

2011-09-02T11:35:00.002+02:00

While the article "'Safe Haven' Assets Start to Look Risky" does not have a lot of facts and hard data it gives some common sense perspectives on safe haven investments in current times. It does a light comparison of gold, Swiss Francs and government treasury notes.

Back to Eden

2011-08-30T11:50:00.000+02:00

The documentary film entitled "Back to Eden" about permaculture in Washington was just released and is available at the Back-to-Eden website. Over decades Paul Gautschi has used and evolved an approach focusing on mulching with newspaper and wood chips. He has great success with this. Visit his site or read this summarizing article.

Doomsday Preppers

2011-08-03T15:21:00.000+02:00

Preparing for the uncertain future might become popular. There is already a small percentage of people doing it today to one degree or another. My personal guess would be that some 5% of the population have consciously done some thinking and performed some actions in order to prepare for a period without electricity, scarce water sources, food shortages, civil unrest, and so forth.

Today I stumbled across a National Geographic TV show that might make "prepping" into a fashionable, socially accepted and respected activity. This is an exaggeration, but it will remove some ill stigma from preppers. The TV series is an easy-viewing show called "Doomsday Preppers". Some episodes or snippets from Doomsday Preppers can be found here. They give some ideas and examples of what can be achieved such as a wood-powered car or an old swimming pool converted into a sustainable ecosystem with a thousand fish.

Urgent Warning

2011-07-31T10:15:00.000+02:00

This 5-min video appropriately summarizes the state we are in and the direction we should be roughly heading for. Have a look at Ron Paul's urgent warning.

Visualization of US Debt

2011-07-30T17:01:00.002+02:00

This is the best graphical and visual representation of 1 million dollar, one billion dollars, 1 trillion dollars and the US debt. Have a look at these images to get an idea of the size of the US debt. No doubt, one picture says more than a thousand words.

Stop Spending for a Year

2011-07-22T11:40:00.000+02:00

Here is a family that decide not to buy anything (except food) for a year. What a project! A whole family unit working together to execute this plan. It made them happier, more free and social. Imagine it for yourself. More freedom through less buying. Have a look at this video.

ECB and Trust

2011-07-04T11:45:00.000+02:00

The European Wall Street Journal published this on July 4, 2011:

Some of the European Central Bank's (ECB) notable policy shifts.

Jan 2010: ECB President Jean Claude Trichet said that the ECB wouldn't change its collateral rules for the sake of any particular country. In May 2010 it suspends these rules for Greek government bonds.
Mar 2010: Mr. Trichet said it wouldn't be appropriate for the IMF to supply assistance for Greece. The IMF later became a a major part of the Greek rescue operation.
May 2010: Mr. Trichet said the ECB in its monthly meeting did not discuss whether to buy Greek bonds. Four days later the ECB anounced it would purchase Greek bonds.

It is always the same story. The politicians and political institutions that should stabilize a country change their opinion on a whim and worse, they deny and hide truths up to the moment when it explodes. The WSJ picked the ECB in this example. But I also vividly remember when on a given Friday all Irish politicians denied any rumors of any bankruptcy or collapse, claiming everything is fine, just to announce the following day or the Sunday that the banking system has failed and that they already brokered a deal with the ECB and IMF for a bail out package! How can one play the game if the rules keep changing all the time?

Food Safety

2011-07-03T12:13:00.007+02:00

A friend emailed me this link to an article on Mises.org entitled "Restoring the Honor of the Spanish Cucumber". It is a fascinating article how things tend to spiral out of control. It is the story of how a single farmer influenced the food supply of several hundred millions of people, how the situation created by the farmer was misused by the politicians to create new policies in a matter of days, how it allowed politicians to break the rules with nobody complaining, how one country created a special food police in a matter of days, how thousands of people lost their job due to the hype, and how in the end -- as always -- the action of the politicians created a burden of several hundred millions of Euros to the (mostly) European taxpayers. This story shows how everything is intertwined, food, politics, and finance. It is a story of how fast things can collapse in a crisis and how out of proportion "news" can be reported in our times. Nationalistic behavior and propaganda was shown clearly in this incident. Sadly there are real losers in this story as well: the people who died eating contaminated food, their relatives and friends who lost a loved one, the farmers and pickers in many European countries who lost their job, and all the tax payers who have to pay the price to clean up the mess. This case shows the dark side of globalization and centralization.

It seems to be a lot safer and better to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and buy a weekly food basket from the local farmer that you know and trust.

Greece

2011-06-28T12:11:00.073+02:00

Today is a special day. The Greek government is deciding on whether to accept the austerity conditions demanded by the ECB (European Central Bank) and IMF for receiving the next slice of the bailout credit. I am fortunate to be in Greece and see and "feel" the situation in person. General strikes have been called for yesterday and today. In one city and one town I have seen permanent tent cities in public squares to protest. These tent cities are similar to the ones found in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. There, in Spanish, the protesters are called "Los Indignados", the indignants, the angry ones. These groups across various European countries have united under the motto "Direct Democracy Now" or "Real Democracy Now". The site of the Greek branch of this European wide movement is www.real-democracy.gr/en.

Graffiti is on the walls in many places and flyers posted on many shop windows. They are expressing the feelings of the average people of the street. Where I have been the general strike was a partial one. I had no problem with the public transport and many shops, if not most, were open. One store used the term "Crisis Prices" instead of "Sales" to attract customers. A Greek friend commented that his salary was lowered 20% and that the politicians are discussing to lower it by 20% for a second time. Gas prices have gone from €0.80 to €1.75, i.e. they have more than doubled in a single year. To be truthful I have to say that I was nervous about the decision of the Greek government. I favored a rejection of the credit conditions, but that in turn could be the trigger to a domino effect across nations and economies.

A Greek friend expressed his view as follows. He sees this as a giant battle between banks and governments. Not only on a Greek scale, but on a global scale. In my mind a picture emerged like a Greek tragedy with elements from the Greek mythology; in my head a picture of two snakes formed, one representing a few elite world bankers, the other snake representing the world's governments. He continued to explain that he sees it as a fight between financial power and the political system. Furthermore he sees it as a sort of pilot project. If the banks win over democracy then they will take the Greek case study and rubber stamp it on other nations worldwide. He sees it as a reference case that will be repeated and replicated in the near future in other countries.

At the end of the day the Greek government accepted the bailout conditions and in my friend's view the political system gave in to the financial powers. My friend was disappointed with the decision. The political system and the Greek people are no more than slaves to the banking system. With the acceptance of the credit slice the problem is not averted, and certainly not solved. Everybody knows that it is just delayed by exactly 3 months until September when the next credit payment is due. So, the whole Greek tragedy will repeat itself shortly. Each time it will be worse. The only question I have is: How often will it repeat itself?

Artificial Photo Synthesis

2011-06-22T16:39:00.001+02:00

MIT professor Daniel G. Nocera has researched artificial photo synthesis and already 2 years ago presented his approach as a highly distributed and highly personalized solution to the world's energy problem. In short, he wants to replace power stations of all kinds with small inexpensive photo synthesis solutions installed in your home. Here are his talks given 2 years ago: Dan Nocera: Personalized Energy (22min) and Personalized Energy for 1 (x 6 Billion): A Solution to the Global Energy Challenge (78min). The idea itself is not new, already in 1912 (no type here) -- 100 years ago -- it was suggested as a solution to our energy needs.

I am not expert enough to qualify his research, but his speech and vision are impressive. It promises democratic and clean energy, auto-sufficiency, individual independence, risk avoidance, pollution avoidance and sustainability. With such promises it is certainly worth investment, but it frightens the establishment as it would be the end of the day of utility companies and remove our energy dependency.

D. Nocera now works with the Indian Tata conglomerate to bring the research into the commercial market. There is hope after all.

Gold Purchases

2011-06-21T12:12:00.001+02:00

Who is buying gold? The latest data of state gold purchases and sales have been published by the World Gold Council. This data shows the following countries as leading gold purchasers over the last 10 years:

China: some 550 tonnes
Russia: some 420 tonnes
India: some 200 tonnes
Mexico: some 100 tonnes

It is interesting to see that there is no European country, not a single one, that has purchased any significant (5 tonnes or more) amount of gold at any point in time. The US hasn't bought any gold either. India and Mexico have been single one-time purchases. China and Russia are continuously buying mid-sized amounts year by year. Europe as a whole has sold around 3,000 tonnes of gold over the last decade.

Saudi Arabia is listed with a one-time 180 tonnes entry, but as far as I can tell this is not a real purchase but a paper adjustment.

It is a telling sign that the US and EU are not purchasing any gold with respect to any future currency decisions the politicians/banks of these countries will make.

Bitcoin Hacked

2011-06-20T13:16:00.002+02:00

Amazing. The dollar is crashing. The Euro is crashing. And now also the Bitcoin is crashing. But the crashes are for different reasons, and the causes the resulted in the Bitcoin crash are easier to fix. Read this article on the events of this month in Bitcoins entitled "Inside the Mega-Hack of Bitcoin: The Inside Story".

What we learn from these events are:

Bitcoin like any other currency is affected by human emotions and speculations. It goes up and down. Its value rises or drops on rumors, politic events and so forth. To this degree the currency does not reflect value but perceptions. Nothing new about this but the drastic rise in value over the last weeks and the following drop has demonstrated it.
Bitcoin as a currency is still very young and not yet mature. The key issue currently is that some 90% of all exchange operations are traded on a single exchange. The currency is distributed by design, but currently its exchange is nearly centralized through this near-monopoly of the exchange named Mt. Gox. More companies must come forward and build exchanges so we have a more decentralized and less monopolized exchange infrastructure. This heavily used exchange Mt. Gox was compromised and user login, password and wallet data stolen, misused and later published openly. This is equivalent to a master heist in which a major bank is hacked, online bank account data such as account numbers, user names, and passwords stolen to be used later to login and transfer money. Clearly the exchange Mt. Gox is to blame. They had a poor security set-up.

Let's give it some more time to mature.

Beyond Greece

2011-06-09T09:33:00.000+02:00

The New York Times as well as the National Herald posted an article entitled "It's Not About Greece Anymore". The content of this article is not surprising and nothing new. The article identifies the fears of the European politicians to let Greece go into bankruptcy as it might cause a bank run in similarly positioned countries like Spain, Portugal, etc. In short, afraid of a melt-down of the European currency or the European Union (several nations have threatened to revert back to their own independent currencies) EU politicians are willing to do about anything to rescue Greece. As always politicians are trying to save their own hide more than anything else and any solution for Greece is only a temporary one.

The article goes on with the authors' suggestion that the Euro must be devalued drastically and then a dramatic political change must take place in order to survive.

What is surprising is the frankness of the article and that it was published in the NYT and National Herald. The writing is not just on the wall. It is in plain view, published by major mainstream newspapers.

Both US and Europe have overspent, gone into massive debts, and despite the crisis since 2008 nobody wants to face the music. We don't want to see and we pretend not to see the root causes and all we do is apply patchwork fixes here and there, billion dollar band aids that will fall off anytime we shake ourselves. What we need is radio and chemotherapy to get rid of the cancer of our times: the bankers and the politicians they have bought.

The End of Money

2011-06-03T12:06:00.000+02:00

Franz Hoermann is a professor at the university of economics in Vienna, Austria. Recently he published a book entitled "Das Ende des Geldes". The book is in German and so is most of the available information about Hoermann. There is a good summary TV interview (16 min) he gave after the documentary presentation of "Zeitgeist - Moving Forward".

The title of his book is frequently translated as "The End of Money" or "The Death of Money". He presents some off-the-beaten path ideas of how to eliminate money and suggests a substitute solution that is more just and socially fair. His replacement for money is a new innovative social accounting system based on "units" rewarded for actions valued by society. Each individual receives a base "income" to which he adds more income received for the productive actions he performs. The received units are stored on a credit card like card and can be spent in any store, gifted, traded, etc.

Here is an English translation of an interview given to the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. This article covers several items mentioned in the TV interview. He briefly comments on his view of an unconditional basic income for everyone. Growth and full employment pressures are removed in his proposed system. People have more spare time and more freedom to decide on what they want to work on. This part is similar to concepts presented in the Zeitgeist documentary series.

The Thdrussell blog offers this article which talks about Hoermann's view of money and the currently used double entry accounting system. This article does not go into the suggested money replacement.

On the KeimForm blog is an article with 3 critical comments on the TV interview given after the Zeitgeist presentation.

Here is a 19-page paper of his entitled "Premises and Promises" in which he outlines how he wants to convert today's zero-sum economic "game" into a more cooperative system where everybody can win.

The Guardian points out that -- according to Hoermann -- money is rewarded with money. We don't reward accomplishment in our system, we reward property. The economists Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger proved that modern money – worldwide – is not backed by value. Rather, whenever money is created an equal debt is created with it. The systemic problem arises out of the fact that the debt is loaned at interest. The money for this interest is not created. The money for the interest doesn't exist at all. Hoermann's suggested solution eliminates interest completely and creates a solution that rewards actions rather than possessions (as is the case in today's monetary system).

There are several good ideas in his work. The unjust money creation process has been outlined many times before (e.g. The Money Masters). Money as debt and the impossibility to repay the interest is a well understood theme (e.g. Money as Debt). Money should not be rewarded with money. The rat race is equally absurd. We cannot and we should not achieve full employment. We do not need full employment in today's world. As a joke I saw a graffiti that says "We do not lack money, we just have too many thieves". It is so true, we have enough resources, we just spend them unwisely. The thieves are the bankers and politicians. Given our resources we could all live well without putting in so many hours of inefficient and unproductive work. A basic income as suggested brings many advantages, more so than disadvantages. It removes pressures, crime, oppression, not to mention stress and illnesses. No, his plan is not perfect. No system seems to be ever perfect. But we can cherry-pick. There certainly seems to be less evil and risk in his approach than in today's twisted money game controlled by a few bankers.

Worst Emissions Ever

2011-05-31T10:21:00.000+02:00

Mankind is not heading in the right direction. The Guardian published an article entitled "Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink". The article starts with "Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach". The recession has not helped either in reducing emissions. Kyoto, G8 meetings, political campaign promises, ... as one can see it is all just hot air, or shall I say "hot CO2 emissions".

Inside Job

2011-05-15T10:24:00.000+02:00

Inside Job is an extremely well made documentary from 2010 that won a series of awards for its content and quality. Interviews with the director Charles Ferguson are on YouTube. It explained the crisis that started showing its effects in 2008 exceptionally well. I loved how the documentary film started, the very first 30 seconds. "Iceland. Population 320,000 inhabitants. GDP $13 billion. Bank losses $100 billion." That first glimpse into the crisis explained it all too well. These 4 partial sentences drove the point home. It made us grasp the issue in a few seconds. 3 tiny local banks borrowed 120 billion dollars. 10 times the size of Iceland's economy. The accounting firm KPMG audited the banks and found nothing wrong. International rating agencies gave them a AAA credit rating. But that all changed in literally an instant. The house of cards collapsed. The full movie can also be found here. Watch it.

Hybris

2011-04-20T11:14:00.076+02:00

I am in a phase of pondering human attributes. I was thinking about greed recently. Another personality trait that I am mulling over is 'hybris' or 'hubris'. Often they seem to go together. Megalomaniacs usually think they can't fail and they are greedy beyond measures while believing they alone deserve it all.

Hybris is especially misplaced in areas that deal with the environment and nature. We think we understand it all. We believe our science explains it all. We mess with nature (pesticides, biocides, gene manipulation, nuclear power plants) and we think we can't fail. We should be more humble and understand that there are risks. And often these are risks that are not worth taking. Nuclear power is a good example. Sure it works. But it is more expensive than we are made to believe. We do not understand it all. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl resulted because we did not think of a certain chain of events. And while the crisis was ongoing operators at the plants did not understand the why nor know how to respond or react. It is not worth the risk knowing that there are lower risk alternative energy sources. The same for GM food. It is hubris to think we understand all effects of the production and consumption of GM food over large periods of time. Decades ago we thought we understood it all when we sprayed DDT on wide areas just to ban it later. The list goes on and on. Things we thought we knew, things we thought are explained with our science, just turned out to be different just a few years later.

We must be more humble. Maybe we should read more books from Fukuoka. In his The One-Straw Revolution but also in his other books he speaks about his world view that is based on the idea that we know nothing, that science is too specialized, too focused, too much operating in isolated silos to be able to give us true knowledge. From that he concludes that nature does things better than we can and that by doing less, we harm less and eventually obtain better results.

Naomi Klein gave a talk at TED entitled "Addicted to Risk" arguing for a cautious approach to serious issues such as energy production or global climate control. In her talk she says that Tony Hayward, former CEO of BP, had a plaque on his desk engraved with the following inspirational slogan: “If you knew you could not fail, what would you try?” As we know attitudes like this lead to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The video is here. The text is here. A typical hybris attitude and result.

There are limits to everything. The world's energy, our science, our knowledge, our abilities and our wisdom. Let's start with ourselves, let's be humble and teach humbleness to our kids.

Greed

2011-04-10T10:41:00.003+02:00

I often think about greed. What does it mean? Is it learned? Is it conditioned? Is it in our genes? Is it a survival instinct? What role did it play if any in the evolution of mankind? Where does it come from? What are the consequences and direct or indirect effects?

I see it as one of the causes of many social problems and a stumbling block for increased cooperation. Religions even consider it a sin. In the 21st century the social perception of greed does not seem to be very negative. Many of us have some of it in us, I certainly do have my share of it as well.

I was not aware of it, but by chance I stumbled across the US TV series "American Greed". One can watch some episodes here. Wow, I was astonished. The show is scary and entertaining at the same time. What lovely case studies of greed and human behavior surrounding greed. It was not surprising to see that most of the "case studies" shown on American Greed were people that were admired, filling cover pages in magazines and newspapers, awarded with business, social and even philanthropic awards, in shorted respected citizens. They rubbed shoulders with US presidents, Fortune 500 CEOs, and Hollywood stars. Newsweek and Time Magazine presented them to us as role models, people to look up to and imitate, in short our heroes. And usually their fall was rapid, from high flying stardom to fall or prison often in a matter of days or a couple of weeks. Whenever I see an episode or read some similar story in the newspapers I have to think of Enron and WorldCom.

I have no answer to greed, but I do know that enough is enough. How many houses and palaces does one need? How many yachts can one use? How many Bentley's can one drive? For many of us, the term 'greed' should be food for thought and lead to some personal changes.

Resource Economy vs. Freedom

2011-03-31T17:28:00.001+02:00

Freedom Force International makes an analysis of the Zeitgeist movies. This analysis boils down to identifying the resource based economy suggested by the Zeitgeist movement as a collective or communist system that is in contrast to the individual freedom. It sees two opposing forces that cannot be unified: resource based economy and freedom. As Freedom Force International is a strict defender of freedom it rejects the Zeitgeist approach.

I am bit like Dustin who wrote a comment on the analysis. I like both freedom and the Zeitgeist vision. Dustin chose the title "The profit motive has to go" (source). The freedom concept is easy to understand. Most people like freedom. Most freedom and libertarian definitions include a phrase like "I have a right to protect myself from harm" (source). The difficult part is being able to see and agree on what actions harm others. My freedom ends where the freedom of the other begins. In order to preserve freedom one must not harm others. In today's world:

What happens to the individual who pollutes the air? It could be the neighbor with his lawn mower or a corporation like Shell burning off millions of tons of gases in places like Nigeria.
What happens to the individual who pollutes the water? It could be the neighbor who throws a plastic bag into the ocean or a corporation like BP who spills millions of gallons of oil into the ocean.
What happens to nuclear reactors? There are clearly risks and many people get harmed (Tokio kids drinking tab water). What happens to the corporations that build and run them?
What happens to the corporation who genetically pollute? What happens to genetically modified seeds of corn, soy, wheat, etc. that spread out of control? I have the right not to buy GM food. Fine. But the problem is that GM seeds are carried by wind, birds, trucks, and many other means from place to place and after more than a decade of use of GM seeds, GM seeds show up where one does not suspect them. Ecological farmers have found them on the land. GM corn seeds have been found in far away and insulated valleys in Mexico. Organic food is polluted and tainted by GM crops. Who protects the organic farmer and the consumer of their products from harm?

In the definition of freedom Freedom Force Intl says "one of the primary functions of a just state is to protect each individual from the greed and passion of the majority". I feel that today the vast majority of people needs protection from a few greedy individuals/corporations. Millions get exploited and live in unhealthy conditions exclusively because of the greed of a few driven by the insatiable profit and hoarding motive. Billions of people are being harmed by polluted water, by polluted soil, and by polluted air. This includes all the "developed" world countries like the US and Europe. Just to give an example: We all have plastic molecules in our blood. Pesticides are found in the breast milk in many countries around the globe.

Where is my freedom on all these issues? How do I protect myself from being harmed in respect to these issues?

I believe that many corporations in today's government controlled society have far too many "freedoms". Their "freedom" infringes on my individual freedoms and harms me. Deep sea oil exploration, nuclear energy and GM food all have one thing in common: They carry a very high risk, an unnecessary risk as their output can be achieved through safer means (e.g. energy savings, reduced energy consumption, alternative energy sources, conventional or organic food). They have done and will do harm to people and hence violate personal freedoms. Why are these projects being implemented then? I'd say because of the profit thinking. They exist because of the greed of a few and for the profit of a few.

I see some common ground between freedom and the resource-based economy. I can use both to justify the elimination of pollution (air, water, soil, food, ...). I also see that both "ideologies" are basing themselves on equality. One of the three commandments of freedom is "equality under law" (source). The basic promise of communism (including the Zeitgeist Movement) is equality. Often I feel that special interest groups (governments, corporations) have more rights than I. Both, the implementation of true freedom as well as the resource based economy would eliminate (or at least try to eliminate) these special interest groups.

The governments would look quite differently according to the two systems. The freedom movement would reduce the government to a minimum, to only the freedom-protection functions. The Zeitgeist movement would on one hand reduce government, but on the other hand take on new massive roles like resource management and resource distribution.

Ownership also plays a big role. Who is the owner of what? Zeitgeist takes a communist approach. We are one world, one planet, one people, we should use the resources for the good of all, for the good of the common. The freedom movement also talks clearly about ownership and property. But what happens to the resources. Oil created through millenniums is found under the ground of some country whose existence is defined by some lines drawn on a map. That country might only exist for a few decades as political borders have changed frequently in the last century. Does that make the government of this country owner of the oil? I am not so sure. What about an underground lake of oil that stretched into two bordering countries? Who is the owner of the oil? The country who pumps it faster? Who is the owner of the rain water? The owner of the wind? Clouds form over the ocean. The oil was in existence way before countries were created and populated. So, who's the owner? Doesn't it make sense that we are all the owners? Shouldn't we strive for a common solution and a common use?

But what is the bottom line? What's better? Freedom or a resource-based economy? Can we have both? Are they mutually exclusive? I believe that in a complete implementation both movements are incompatible and mutually exclusive. In a society where freedom overrides everything we will not be able to build a resource based economy. The same on the other side. In a society where the common good of the resource based economy overrides everything we will not find full individual freedom. There are some common grounds between these two though as I have indicated above. Both also share some objectives. Both systems want to eliminate the current control held over us by financial institutions, corrupt governments, and industrial exploitation of people around the globe. Since we cannot have both, shall we look for a compromise? But the core values of both movements are unshakable and hence uncompromisable. Sounds like a compromise is out of the question, at least for the hard core defenders of these two "ideologies".

On an emotional level, I feel that the profit thinking often (but not always) goes against the good of the common. I feel that we should seek and would benefit immensely from common solutions. I am also a believer in freedom and choices. Yet, I wonder if in a purely freedom-based system we wouldn't come to a grinding and halting deadlock. Nearly any action we perform does harm to someone. At least in today's world. If you drive a car who harm someone due to air pollution or noise. Nearly all manufacturing processes pollute either air, water or soil. Certainly all agroindustry today pollutes soil and food and thereby harms people and generations to come. In short, all production (energy, food, consumer goods) and all distribution do some harm to someone. In a pure extreme freedom system they would all have to be outlawed. They would all have to be pollution free. Who defines pollution free? How about noise pollution, light pollution, visual impacts and so forth? Oversimplified, when one builds a nuclear facility across the road from my home, it harms me and (according to the freedom laws) I should be able to defend myself from these harms and the governments role should be to defend me as an individual. How does the freedom system avoid this complete system shut down because everything does some harm to someone? I don't know. In reality, countries then used the excuse "for the common good" to allow certain polluting corporations, violating the freedom rules.

The resource based economy would take away our freedom. And the freedom system would shut most of current infrastructure and production facilities down. We are in a dilemma. Neither system is perfect, both systems have their problems. Maybe a compromise is still in order? We use a little bit of this and a little bit of that? Or maybe we implement both systems in parallel and give the people the choice. Do you want to join a) the freedom system or b) the resource-based economy? Of course, the compromise as well as the parallel implementation of both lead to new problems and even more questions. More thinking is needed. Certainly for me.

12 Countries to Go Belly-Up

2011-03-10T10:33:00.000+01:00

AdvisorAnalyst.com has released a ranking of the countries most likely to go belly up according to financial risk. Here is the article. Fascinating reading.

Here are the top 12:

Italy (1)
Belgium (2)
France (3)
Sweden (4)
Germany (5)
Hungary (6)
Denmark (7)
Austria (8)
Japan (9)
United Kingdom (10)
Finland (11)
Greece (12)

Notably Spain and Portugal, the PIIGS countries, are not in the Top 12, while Germany - the strongest European motor - is.

Food Prices

2011-03-09T10:45:00.001+01:00

About 2 years ago I realized that food has to take a more central role in our life. Certainly I placed food close to the center of my thoughts. Very slowly - at the pace of a turtle - I am taking mini-steps to deal with this. The key reasons for putting more focus and emphasis on food is the continuing erosion of quality of food in the market. Every year, food products are more industrial, more artificial, more polluted, more genetically modified, less transparent in respect to their ingredient list, and so forth. That boils down that we need higher quality food with better nutrition for a better health. Secondly, food has to move more into our focus due to quantitative problems and distribution problems that are foreshadowed. That means we need more local food and more self-grown food. Peak oil will let food production cost rise drastically. Last year food cost has risen 30%. Imagine in a year with little official inflation, food prices have soared. See this article entitled "Will increasing food prices lead to more revolution?". Rich people like us in the "developed" world spend a small percentage on food, and we did not notice the 30% increase. But poor people that spend 50% of the income on food have painfully and instantly noticed.

Peak oil will not only cause food production (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) to become more expensive, but also transport costs will increase drastically. Add to that issues like peak phosphorus, peak water, peak arable land, etc. The good way out or at least a form of insurance policy to this upcoming storm is to engage in a more local food economy. In short, it seems to be a good idea to make friends with local farmers, know where to buy fruits or eggs. Join a local food basket service. And lastly, we must grow a little bit of our own food. I took some courses on gardening and food conservation. I always sharpen my ears when I meet people who grow their own food. This year I will also start with a tiny 2 square yard vegetable garden. These are all tiny baby steps. With a 2 square yard garden I will not be able to produce any noticeable amount of food for my family. It will literally be a drop in the bucket. It might be 1% of our family food consumption. Still, 1% is 1%. I also have to look into the future. I will learn a skill, i.e. farming. Maybe next year I can do 2%. Anyhow, it is crystal clear to me that local food supply and home grown food are essential to a sane life style. I recommend container gardening and square foot gardening to everyone. I hope to see green roof tops and back yards that replace lawns with veggie beds in the near future. I would not mind seeing a certain amount of the Cuba-approach around here.

Not everyone will agree with me. Have a look at this OilDrum articles entitled "The Fallacy of Reversibility" that argues that in the future due to peak oil there will be even more industrial, even larger-scale agrobusiness. One can join this opinion or not, but even if we follow this argument, it is clear that the final cost of this even more industrial, even larger agro-business will be carried by the consumer. In short, even in this scenario, or better said, especially in this scenario, the food prices will go up.

Food is so close to the human heart and soul, there are many things we can live without, but food is not one of them. Instead of outsourcing it to others (agro-business, big chain supermarkets) we should keep this core skill within our family or at least within our community. And on top of that we should mentally prepare for further price hikes,

Solar Cooking

2011-03-08T11:50:00.000+01:00

This 2-min video on the world's largest solar cooking system is inspiring.

Collapse

2011-03-02T12:44:00.001+01:00

I just watched the full-length 2009 documentary "Collapse". The film is in its entirety an interview of whistleblower Michael Ruppert. The line I liked best is: Von Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. [Michael Ruppert adds that] Politics is a continuation of economics by other means. [at 0:35:00] At the very end Michael Ruppert reaches the spiritual and philosophical conclusion that can be summarized with the belief that the love of money is the root of all evil. The love of money has the potential to exterminate, to render extinct, the entire human race. [at 1:10:00] This is inline with Zeitgeist 3 which wants to create a new humankind, a new society, without money.

Slow Money

2011-03-01T10:18:00.000+01:00

NextWorldTv just publishes this article. Just like the "Slow Food" movement suggests a slow, but conscious engagement and consumption of food, "Slow Money" wants to do the same in the financial environment. Woody Tasch, author of "Slow Money" speaks in this half hour interview about a more integral approach to circulating money. NextWorldTv underlined the quote: "Slower, smaller and local does not mean unimportant, provincial and silly." Money, like any other resouece, should be used and enjoyed consciously and sustainably.

Zeitgeist 3

2011-02-28T10:21:00.002+01:00

The third documentary of the Zeitgeist series has been released. At the current rhythm director and activist Peter Joseph is producing one every year. Zeitgeist - Moving Forward is available freely. It is revising all the same topics of the previous Zeitgeist movies, with less emphasis on religion and spirituality. The goal remains a bias-less, science-founded, money free society that is using a resource-based economy. Certain individual freedoms will be compromised to accomplish this sustainable planet. But we have heavy restrictions on our freedoms today in the capitalistic society (and others). The 1% of the super-rich can bypass some of the restrictions on freedom, but the middle class and lower have no escape route. I belief that absolute personal freedom is illusionary and unfair. Since freedom ends where injustice begins, it is acceptable to me to seek a society that balances sustainability (isn't sustainability nothing else than the freedom of the future generations?) with current freedoms. Oversimplified, if we want to give future generations the freedom to use some oil, we have to reduce our oil consumption today. It is worth watching. Just like the in previous Zeitgeist documentaries, I remain somewhat sceptical about the dependence on high technology. I believe it to be risky and it as well needs to balances with "low technology", even if it just as an insurance policy. Placing all eggs in the same "hi-tech" basket, is not a wise choice for the basis of the whole planet. Watch it, form your own opinion.

PS: Here is a good critique, or a warning, about the Zeitgeist thoughts by James Corbett called The last Word on Utopia.

10 Roads to Happiness

2011-02-19T13:32:00.002+01:00

Again from YES Magazine is this list of "10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy". The list is simple enough to try a few of these 10 ideas. While they will not guarantee happiness they will not cause any harm either.

51 Ways to Spark a Commons Revolution

2011-02-18T13:27:00.000+01:00

Under the title "51 Ways to Spark a Commons Revolution" YES Magazine list dozens of ideas on how we can live, play and work together to make us happier, more self-sufficient and sustainable. 51 ideas to strengthen the commons and to take benefits from them. All of us can find a few points on that list that we can easily and meaningfully integrate into our on lives right now.

Peak Oil

2011-02-17T12:01:00.000+01:00

WikiLeaks released US Embassy cables that emphasize a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels, that is nearly 40%. This embassy cable caused a whole bunch of reports in various new outlets. The UK Guardian reports "Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on the price". The Oil Drum has a discussion on these cables. What shall we make of that?

Food and Energy

2011-02-10T11:37:00.000+01:00

This video is worth watching, because it gets the key message about the relationship between food and energy consumption across in only 3 minutes. It is entitled "Watch your (Fo)odometer". Approximately 20% of all the energy used in the US is spent on food production, food packaging, and food transportation.

The Age of Stupid

2011-02-09T13:35:00.001+01:00

The documentary "The Age of Stupid" has been released in 2008, but I just got to see it now. A trailer is here. The full 90-min documentary can be found here. And "The Making of The Age of Stupid" is online as well. It is a gloomy look back from 2025 to our generation, asking these questions: Why did we not see the coming environmental predicament? Why did we not change direction when we still had the possibility to do so? Why did we not change direction as a global community? For more info go to the official www.ageofstupid.net website. The most memorable scene from the film was when a woman from Nigeria had to wash a fish that she just caught at the shore with laundry detergent because it was covered with crude oil.

43 Million

2011-02-03T13:31:00.000+01:00

According to the latest data (Nov 2010) more than 43 million Americans received food stamps. In other words, more than 14% of the US population draws food stamps. Mind boggling. This is just one more piece in the puzzle showing that the political and social system of the richest nation has failed. It is time to rethink.

War and Food

2011-02-02T16:04:00.000+01:00

This video entitled "The End of Farming in the Fertile Crescent" outlines in 5 minutes the relationship between the Iraqi war and the Iraqi food independence. Now that the US has placed a person from the US agro-business as chief of the Iraqi agriculture, subsidized imported US food (wheat, rice, soy, etc) undermine the local market, local seeds have been destroyed through the war, and saving any left over local seeds has been made illegal. Imported seeds and fertilizers have increased 100s of percent making the local farming cost higher than prices of imported US grains. As a result Iraqi farmers are unable to work the land and the idle land erodes and converts itself into salt flats and desert. A few US corporations gain while Iraqis lose their jobs, income and land fertility. With food dependency achieved, the Iraqis are enslaved not only militarily but also in the food dimension.

The Economics of Happiness

2011-01-20T13:07:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I turned on the radio and listened to a song. One of the lines was "when you don't know when enough is enough you'll lose everything". I was surprised. It was a deja vu. I have been thinking about this intensively over the last week and had some discussions with friends on this very topic. This is ancient wisdom. Have a look at these quotes:

"The secret to happiness is being satisfied with enough" Thomas Aquinas
"When there is no desire, all things are at peace" Lao Tse
"The secret of happiness is not found in seeking more, but in the capacity to enjoy less." Socrates
"Happiness is knowing when 'enough is enough.'" Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk
"Rather than make money to live the way you want, figure out how to live the way you want without money." One of my friends

A handful of economists started studying "the economy of happiness". The first book under this title was published in 1906. That's more than a century ago. Very recently a documentary was released under the same title. Wikipedia has an article on "Happiness Economics". Bhutan was probably the first country in the 20th century to introduce a Gross National Happiness index to contrast the standard GNP. Apparently since 1999 they are measure this quantitatively. Having it on a public agenda might have helped bring Bhutan to be considered the 8th most happy nation on our planet. Now other countries have picked up on this (e.g. Thailand) and others are currently discussing its introduction (UK, France).

Mark Anielski has written a more recent book with the title "The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth". He uses a stylized 5-petal flower to visualize 5 factors of happiness or genuine wealth. For more details on what he means by that listen to his 80-min talk.

But back to the core: we need to know when enough is enough. A financial person would put it: we need to know when it is better to reduce spending instead of increasing income (in order to become happier). My friend calls it the dual problem. From a mathematical economics standpoint either approach from the dual sides should lead to a solution. From an isolated viewpoint one can balance a budget by either earning more or spending less. From a more holistic approach taking resource depletion and natural balances into account, it seems obvious that if spending or using less can lead to the same goal (of a balanced budget and a happy life) then this seems not only the preferred but the only true solution to the problem.

Socially we are far behind or far away from accepting this truth. The materially rich are admired, the ones who earn a lot of money are called successful, but the materialistically or monetary humble ones are disrespectfully called cheapskates. It is time to shift our attitude. Why not call the materially rich ones "spendthrifts" and the frugal ones "resource efficient"?

My friend also views the quote "A penny saved is a penny earned" by Ben Franklin equivalent to the above ones. I guess a penny saved can lead to happiness. This brings us (once again) to Voluntary Simplicity and Simple Living. Voluntary simplicity can work beyond the individual. The one fact that all happiness researchers agree is that happiness is relative. In other words, a poor amongst poor is as happy as a rich amongst the rich. Furthermore, a poor amongst poor is happier than a rich amongst the even more rich. If a whole nation or the whole of mankind were to make a step towards a simpler life we would all stay at least equally happy, if not become more happy due to the same factors that individuals attain happiness via simplicity (more spare time, less stress, less worries, less dependencies, more social time, more social ties, etc.).

The reverse is not an option. Voluntary wastefulness as many practice it today will lead us all into ruin, either socially or ecologically. We desperately need an attitude shift, we need to first recognize and accept, then embrace and cheer that less can be more satisfying.

Agroinnovations

2011-01-14T08:38:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I stumbled across the www.agroinnovations.com site. Frank Aragona runs both a blog and a podcast. Podcasts are mostly 30-minutes episodes and the corresponding blog entries provide additional textual information as well as videos related to the individual podcast episodes. The podcasts are of extremely high quality. The Agroinnovations podcast is now in its 5th year with more than a 115 episodes published. His interviews include the who-is-who of thinkers in the permaculture, transition, and eco-agriculture movements and related fields. I urge you to browse through his podcast list. You will find interviews with Bill Mollison, Larry Korn, P.A. Yeomans, Rob Hopkins, Paul Stamets, and many more.

Money

2011-01-12T16:13:00.000+01:00

Money is such a crucial resource in our lives, yet nobody teaches us about money. There are no classes in high school. Most people have no true understanding where money is coming from. An expert on teaching about money is Bill Still. In 1995 he produced the classic documentary on money entitled "The Money Masters". This video is available here and here. He just released for free his updated version published in 2009 entitled "The Secrets of Oz". A must-watch video for anyone. Have a look at Bill's channel.

The One Straw Revolution

2011-01-11T19:24:00.003+01:00

Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka is one of the key names in the creation of the permaculture movement. He himself would not see it that way. Several countries had a figure stand out in this field. They were visionaries that were decades ahead of their time. In Australia there is Bill Mollisson, in Austria Sepp Holzer and in Japan it was Masanobu Fukuoka. They are legends, rightfully so.

Already in 1975 he wrote the classic book "The One Straw Revolution" sometimes nicknamed "Zen and the Art of Farming". This book is an easy read, just some 100 pages. I had heard and read a lot about him and his techniques. I had some preconceived notion what the book would be about. But it harbored a few surprises for me. His point of view is that we cannot and will not know or understand nature. "When [we] think [we] are beginning to understand nature, [we] can be sure that [we] are on the wrong track." Basically his beliefs are that we cannot truly understand anything. Another key opinion is that he sees nature as something highly connected. Nothing can be seen in isolation. However, our world and society are too complex. He experienced that many scientists came to study his fields but each looked at it only from one very specific angle according to his research speciality. He knew that such a narrow-sighted approach would not lead to insights or results. According to his thoughts it would require scientists, researchers, politicians, artists, poets, philosophers, men of religion, and farmers to gather jointly to talk things over together.

He was on a search of effective farming that is simple. He always asked himself what can I remove from typical agriculture while still keeping it effective. Slowly and with many tries and failures he reduced agriculture to the bare minimum input while not losing and even increasing health and output. In his way of farming external energetic input is at a minimum. He says that putting "doing nothing" into practice is the one thing the farmer should strive to accomplish. The farmer is freed from useless or even countrproductive chores and free to take a midday nap or write poetry.

His method, he calls it no-method, is based on four principles.

no cultivation: no plowing or turning of the soil
no chemical fertilizers or prepared compost: For fertilizer Mr. Fukuoka grows a leguminous cover of white clover, returns the threshed straw to the fields, and adds a little poultry manure
no weeding, no herbicides: Straw mulch, a ground cover of white clover interplanted with the crops, and temporary flooding provide effective weed control in his fields.
no pesticides, no chemicals: The sensible approach to disease and insect control is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment (rather than weak - often laboratory made - crops optimized for size or color).

I liked this phrase a lot: "Before researchers become researchers, they should become philosophers. They should consider what the human goal is." He certainly views farmers as philosophers. "The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings." As you can see "The One Straw Revolution" is not only a book on agriculture or permaculture, it is a book on life. "In nature, there is life and death, and nature is joyful. In human society, there is life and death, and people live in sorrow." Isn't it time we change our objectives?

PS: Just found this video "The One Straw Revolution" that brings the book in context with Larry Korn , translator of the book, who worked for the old master for a total of 2.5 years. Here I also found the reference to the web site www.onestrawrevolution.net. More videos and links are to be found there.

Awareness Test

2011-01-10T19:26:00.000+01:00

Do this awareness test without any cheating. What does tell you about our perception and about what we think we know? Let's walk through life with our eyes wide open.

Monsanto and the US State Department

2011-01-06T13:00:00.000+01:00

WikiLeaks reported that the US Ambassador to France planned pain-causing "retaliation" against France over the ban on Monsanto's GMO corn. Need I say more? Who are your friends? Big business? Governments? Nah, there is no difference between these two anymore.

Vive la France.

New Start

2011-01-01T12:35:00.000+01:00

Today, 1-1-11, is another opportunity for a new start. A TV-like internet channel was opened today that promises to cover these topics with a daily link to a short video:

local food production
permaculture
energy
transportation
community response
co-housing
enlightened simplicity
and positive transition initiatives of all kinds

Sounds interesting, today in its first "episode" the link was to a 5-min video with Geoff Lawton on a permaculture food forest in Vietnam. The TV-like channel is called "Next World TV". If you subscribe you get one email daily with a link to a relevant video or video segment.

Zone of Influence

2010-12-31T16:15:00.004+01:00

2011 is approaching. It is natural to think about the upcoming year. The way I see our mid and long term future is as follows. Next on the horizon in time is another big financial crisis that will hit the US, and again it will be mortgage-based. As the US is so big and the dollar so influential this crisis will indirectly and slowly affect other nations, i.e. the EU and the rest of the world. Both the US and the EU will go through a period of recession of 1 to 3 decades. It will not happen instantaneously or especially in the EU, all changes will be slow and gradual. Example changes will be: salary 5% down, unemployment 5% up, food quality 5% down, etc. There won't be this cataclysmic big event, this big crisis is not about suddenly there will be no food or no petrol, instead the typical living standard will be gradually but consistently going qualitatively downhill in most nations. Civil rights will be reduced step by step. Governmental and corporate scams will become wilder and weirder. Our personal sanity and well being must come from the immediate environment around us: our family, friends and neighbors. Despite Tea Parties, Transition Movements and many more activist groups I see hardly any change around me as I walk through the city. Above all I see no change in how-we-do-business and in politics, no corporate ethical change, no politics for the masses. Since it is hard to find positive political change, there is a high level of doubt that in 10 years we have advanced politically into a more ethical, just and sustainable society. I sound pessimistic. Unfortunately. But it just means as a way of safety and a way of moving forward we must focus on our small and immediate surrounding where we do can make change: our homes, our gardens, our neighbors, a small community group in our village or city, etc.

At the national level, we are very reactive: only when the oil prices really hurt and the cars stand idle in the parking lots will be seriously think about other modes and technologies of transportation. We could be so pro-active as a society, but instead we are forced to behave in certain ways through laws and regulations which includes building codes, tax laws, governmental incentive schemes, and so on. Pro-active behavior currently only has room at a personal level, where an individual takes the burden upon himself. We must take this challenge and shoulder this burden for the sake of our morality, our kids and our long-term hope.

Religion and Sustainability

2010-12-24T21:26:00.000+01:00

Just by chance I stumbled across this book today on Christmas Eve. After reading a few pages it dawned on me that this book is very appropriate for this religious day. The title is "Religion and agriculture: sustainability in Christianity and Buddhism" by Lindsay Falvey. It is available freely. In the introduction it states that it uses "sustainability as the meeting point of science and religion". It raises questions like "Why chose agriculture as the entry point to sustainability?" "Why even relate religion to the search for sustainability?" "What is sustainability anyway?" For 300 pages it then goes into details on western and eastern religions and how they lead and relate to sustainability. I haven't read all the way through it but if you are interested in any two of the three topics of agriculture, sustainability and religion/spirituality, then this book might be of interest to you. It certainly is spiritually motivating, a good book to start reading on December 24th.

Collaborative Consumption

2010-12-22T16:02:00.000+01:00

The term "Collaborative Consumption" was coind in 2007 and in 2010 pushed by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. It is about shared owning, owning access but not the product, and community ownership. This leads to community consumption. Rachel and Roo have written a book "What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption" and created the matching website www.collaborativeconsumption.com. It gives some good ideas on how collaborative technology (internet and its services) enabled new concepts of sharing (car sharing, ride sharing, real-estate sharing, etc.) and reuse (swapping and donating products). If you are more into audio and moving pictures, have a look here at collaborative consumption videos.

Freecycle

2010-12-21T15:57:00.000+01:00

Recycle. Free + recycle = Freecycle. Hence, www.freecycle.org. The idea of Freecycle is so simple. We all have things we throw out, and our trash can be somebody else's treasure. Whenever we throw away an old door, a used book, a child's toy, we fill up the landfills and these items might be reused by somebody else. Freecycle is an online network bringing people together to form a local community. You announce an item that you want to give away for free, and somebody from the community can come by and pick it up. Freecycle.org's mission is: "to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources and eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community." Go ahead, join or start your local Freecycle community.

Home Improvement

2010-11-29T13:53:00.000+01:00

If you are planning or working on some home improvement project or even a new home, have a look at these two recent presentations from TED. Both these videos give inspirational ideas on sustainable construction and building. Dan Phillips builds unique and personal houses from reclaimed materials. One can pick up many creative thoughts from him.

John Hardy has created a green school and this video presents his green school dream in Bali. It was interesting to see the first proposal for his school as made by an apparently traditional architect: all building as square boxes and the largest box in the center was labeled "the Administration Complex". It seemed so wrong that the administration should be the largest structure on the school campus. A nagging inner voice hinted that any school should be about teaching and eduction and accordingly the largest building should be dedicated to that objective. It was also speaking of itself to call it a "Complex" implying - even if only at a Freudian level - that it was a complex thing or complex solutions. We should strive for simplicity not complexity. Anyway, this "typical" architectural proposal was rejected and a set of building was realized following ideas from permaculture. The central building was designed as an intertwined double spiral which looked like a permaculture pattern to me. The building was named "Heart of School" (instead of Administration Complex), and yes part of it houses the administration facilities. As material they used bamboo and local natural materials. I found it creative and an idea worth copying to use thrown away glass panel from old cars with white paper placed behind it as white board for kids. Now that is cheap and functional design.

Refuse - reduce - reuse - recycle. These builders give us some examples of how it can be done and how beautiful the result can be. Maybe it will influence our next personal home improvement project.

Gold

2010-11-27T12:22:00.001+01:00

Just like silver, gold is also up and climbing. And there are lots of news around gold.

First, there is World Bank chief Bob Zoellick who said "Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today." He made further comments that hinted at a gold standard. Amazing, the chief of the World Bank hinting about a gold standard. That is massive news. It was reported instantly. The next day came all the expected retractions and he said he was misinterpreted and that in fact he did not call for a gold standard.

One may think about this as a slip of the tongue or true misinterpretation. Independent of that, he was certainly right when he said "Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today." Why? Gold has been made an official currency for collaterals of large financial transactions. A press announcement from ICE states: "IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), a leading operator of global regulated futures exchanges, clearing houses and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, today announced that ICE Clear Europe will accept gold bullion as collateral for all energy and credit default swaps (CDS) transactions beginning 22 November 2010." With ICE putting this policy in place other operators and clearing houses will have a competitive incentive to follow.

Gold is gaining in importance in the financial world it seems.

Silver

2010-11-26T11:23:00.004+01:00

Silver is acting unusually in the markets. In 2010, silver has doubled. The 2010 low-price was $14.82. The 2010 high mark so far was $28.638. What could justify such insane increase in the silver price. Speculation is the only possible answer. When can we get to a real economy based on real productivity, producing real and useful goods? We must move away from a speculative, financial economy where gains and losses are all in numbers if we want to avoid bursting bubbles and a unfair and unjust society.

A friend sent me these links: JP Morgan and HSBC are manipulating the silver market since 2008. This is not the first time in history that banks or rich individuals are manipulating the silver market. The interesting part about this current manipulation is that it was picked up by the independent news and activist groups. People like Max Keiser and Alex Jones rallied and promoted people to buy silver in order to financially hurt JP Morgan and cohorts. It is a risky business to put yourself as a single small investor against the bullies like JP Morgan. Nonetheless, it is fascinating strategy - although uncertain in success - to band together many small investors to bring down a giant bank by betting against it on a market gamble, in this case the silver market. According to Max Keiser as long as the silver price remains higher than $25/oz. JP Morgan is punished. As a last note: let's not forget that this war cry to buy silver to crash JP Morgan is also a form of silver market manipulation. But at least this is a public one talked about on the internet, while JP Morgan's shorting is a stealth maneuver hidden from the public.

PS: About 2 weeks later this was posted: Is J.P. Morgan Getting Squeezed in Silver Market? According to this JP Morgan is now manipulating the copper market to offset losses in the silver market.

European State of Affairs

2010-11-25T11:18:00.000+01:00

European state of affair is very gloomy. First Iceland. Then Greece. Now Ireland. Next is Portugal. And the prediction is that Spain will follow. Thereafter maybe Italy. Many people have predicted it. It did happen just as predicted. Only the governments said it would never happen. Take Ireland, up to the very last day, the government of Ireland was denying any problems and talks to the IMF and the EU about a rescue plan. The next day it was all official. How can anyone lie so blatantly?

About Spain? Some say the the European Financial Stability Facility will be out of funds to rescue Spain. Will they increment the fund? Where would the money come from? EU printing presses? US printing presses? Currently the Euro/US$ exchange rate is approaching 1.50. The Euro is very strong and the EU economy is suffering under it. This seems a good opportunity to print Euros, rather taking a $-based credit from the US (IMF or similar). Printing Euros would weaken the Euro currency and remove pressure from EU companies, but it would be against US wishes as the only interest of the US is to flood the whole world with printed US dollars. The gain for the US of sending $-based credits to the EU would be 3-fold: more dependency of the whole world on the US currency, weakening the US dollar even more thereby strengthening US companies, and profiting from future interest payments. So, will the political strength of the US be powerful enough to force the EU to take a US credit rather than print its own Euro money?

Will Spain be rescued? I am sure about it, the question is only how, i.e. by whom.

A Lesson in History

2010-11-24T16:42:00.000+01:00

This TED video presentation shows a small part of history, as "seen from the other side". It outlines the history of the Native American Lakotah tribe since 1824. History is always written by the victor. 15 griping and sad minutes of video by Aaron Huey. Minority groups and natives around the world have and are still suffering the same treatment.

Germany upholds Restrictions on GMO

2010-11-23T10:31:00.001+01:00

This week a German court voted in favor on keeping current restrictions on planting and growing GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) plants. Overall there is good news and there is worrisome news. The good news:

Existing restrictions on distance and liability of genetically polluting neighboring fields are kept in place. [Proving pollution and the source of pollution however seems dauntingly difficult.]
In April 2009, Germany's government banned commercial production of GMO maize type MON 810 GMO from U.S. biotech giant Monsanto on health concerns despite European Union safety approval.

The worrisome news:

In 2010 Germany accepted an EU decision to approve commercial cultivation of the GMO potato Amflora developed by German group BASF for industrial starches, not human food.
The EU is responsible for GMO approvals in the bloc, but is considering new rules to permit individual member states to decide whether biotech crops are cultivated in their countries.

Slowly the rules and laws safeguarding us from GM pollution in the EU are eroding. It seems that the industry (Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, etc.) is partially successfully working on a divide and conquer strategy.

The Story of Electronics

2010-11-16T11:18:00.000+01:00

It started with The Story of Stuff. Annie Leonard presents her thoughts on the sad story of the production process in a concise, yet cheerful manner. Her upbeat attitude to solve these critical issues make her educational videos nearly fun to watch. Annie Leonard made the Story of Stuff a great story. Over the last four years she has added to it, and made a number of sequels: The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Bottled Water, etc. And now: The Story of Electronics, 7 minutes worth watching. Here is her site: The Story of Stuff, and here is her YouTube channel. Perfect for us as adults, perfect also to teach teenagers the role of corporations and the outsourcing of cost to other nations. Well done Annie.

Economy

2010-11-05T15:28:00.002+01:00

This phrase taken from Tim Jackson's talk "An Economic Reality Check" at TED (time 7:00) sums it up pretty well. No additional comment needs to be added: The world we live in is an economy in which we the people are "being persuaded to spend money we don't have on things we don't need, to create impressions that don't last, on people we don't care about."

Cash

2010-11-04T15:27:00.001+01:00

I like Cash. No, not the green bills, I am talking about Johnny Cash. I admire his songs and lyrics. However, listening to his songs we too often get reminded that things aren't changing. The 1960s and 2010. It is all the same. One of the biggest problems - especially for the poor people and the poor nations - remains debt.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store.

This song under the title "Sixteen Tons" was first recorded in 1946 and later in 1987 by Johnny Cash. How far have we come? It is deja vu all over again. Debt is dictating our lives and enchaining us as individuals as well as at the national level. Today we owe our souls to the bank (or the World Bank and IMF in the case of nations).

And environmental pollution is also not something new. He sung about it in "Don't go near the water" in 1974. Here is a video version that will correlate words from 1974 with photos from 2010. Another one of my favorites is "The Man in Black". Listen to it if you have time.

Hemp

2010-11-03T14:08:00.000+01:00

Hemp is a truly versatile material. It is well known that it was used for making quality ropes. It can be used for clothing. It is an excellent insulating material. Recently I found this video on hemp as a construction material: Hemp bricks are stronger and lighter than concrete. Hempcrete is sound absorbent , moisture absorbent, and has thermal mass. The list of uses goes on and on: paper, car bio-fuel, plastic-like panels, shampoos, soaps and food. No surprise that hemp is sometimes called the plant of 30,000 uses because it combines the utility of the soybean, the cotton plant and the Douglas Fir tree into one single plant. Now that is an impressive plant.

ParEcon

2010-10-21T15:19:00.000+02:00

ParEcon is short for Participatory Economy. ParEcon is a social economic model trying to achieve: equity, solidarity, diversity, and self-management. Equity is defined here as "a condition in which each person gets what they deserve for what they have done, and no one gets more (or less) than that". A key site publishing information on ParEcon is at Z Communications, a company adhering to the parecon principles.

A good starting point might be reading the Capitalism vs. ParEcon comparison sections. The full book "ParEcon - Life after Capitalism" published in 2003 gives additional details.

For those who prefer videos of textual info, have a look at this short intro video clip.

The ParEcon model is certainly strong on equalities, justice and democracy. The resulting economy will be stronger in terms of sustainability and social interaction. It has the ingredients for more happiness and promises to reduced materialism. Its criticism is primarily in the area of efficiency. Capitalism as we have it today has certainly failed as it has failed to serve 80% of the population. We need a new model and studying ParEcon is worth the effort of a few hours of reading.

Competition

2010-10-20T16:22:00.011+02:00

Competition is such a crucial concept in our daily lives. Free market economists see competition as a key element to their economic model. Socially, the results of capitalistic competition have been disastrous. There is positive and negative competition or at least one can agree while competition could be seen as something neutral as a concept, there are positive and negative effects of competition.

While competition is a crucial factor in economy and society, the amount of books written on this topic is relatively small. A simple search revealed that most articles deal with the concept of competition in sports and tend to give instructions to coaches on how to introduce, manage and train competition in their sports team. A typical article is this, published by Damon Burton and Thomas Raedeke in Sport Psychology for Coaches. Here is a simple and limited article on competition at the workplace.

In Webster competition is defined as

1.a: the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms
1.b: active demand by two or more organisms or kinds of organisms for some environmental resource in short supply
2: a contest between rivals

This definition is all "negative", it is about one-against-the-other, a zero-sum-game attitude, a fight for scarce resources, and rivalry. Why can't we define competition as something positive? How about a definition like this?

the effort of two or more independent parties to achieve a desired common result by comparing and contrasting independent ideas

I was criticized once for criticizing competition and labeling it as cut-throat, stab-in-the-back and winner-takes-it-all. Competition could be a positive force, but for most part in our economy it has a negative social impact. Discussing the topic I started wondering why we don't have two words, one for positive competition and one for negative competition. In the English language at least its definition seems to be describing a rather fierce force in a zero-sum game. Maybe other languages distinguish between competition leading to negative effects and competition leading to positive effects.

I am not against competition, we need competing ideas and we need freedom of choice between these ideas. The same for products, let the best product win. What we need is an open and fair competition that reflects human values and is based on respect for the others (the competing teams). A competition based on sharing which has the benefit of all in mind. Forced monopolies are usually not a good thing. One of the most urgent areas were we need to abolish a monopoly and need to introduce competition is at the heart of the monetary system. Let's legalize creation of money and give the FED some competition.

That reminds me of code competitions and challenges to solve particular problems that are based on an open and positive competition. For example a mathematical problem is publicly posted to all competing teams together with a means of scoring a result. Different teams now start coding different solutions. Whenever a solution is available it is published online and rated on a public scoreboard. All teams can see all current algorithms and their score. All teams can and are encouraged to take existing solutions (source code) and improve on them, combine them with their own algorithms, and re-post these improved solutions. [Our economy would call that stealing ideas.] This iterative game stops when a defined time has passed or a defined goal regarding score has been reached. Astonishing creativity and results have come forward through such competitions. Some universities and companies nurture such challenges. Some events are called code-a-thon or similar where people from different companies come together usually for a day or two to cooperate and compete in a positive fashion to derive a common solution.

In a TED talk an education specialist explained that in a test the best results have been achieved by dividing a class in multiple groups, having them all in the same room, requiring that all share their current results at all time, encourage adopting ("stealing") others' ideas, and allowing team members to switch teams voluntarily whenever they wanted.

On Wikipedia the definition of competition is also in terms of a zero-sum game, as rivalry and it states that competition arises whenever two or more parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared. The page acknowledges the positive and negative competition. It labels the one as cooperative competition and the other as destructive competition. Co-operative competition is based upon promoting mutual survival and strives for a "everyone wins" solution through peaceful exchange and without violating other people. This is clearly the type of competition we must foster.

On a side note: The Wikipedia page makes also a reference to the term coopetition. At first glance it sounded like an attractive term for positive competition. At a second look though, it is not the right term as defined by some people. Webster does not recognize the term. Wikipedia defines coopetition as a dual-faced attitude of cooperating with the competitor (enemy) where victory seems impossible while at the same time continuing with destructive competition against the same competitor in other areas. So, the cooperation only stems from the realization that competition is futile and at the same time destructive competition continues. There is no voluntary cooperation in this at all. It is more or less forced cooperation as a last resort to survival. And still the mind set has not been changed as destructive cooperation is still followed as the principle way of doing business wherever possible. Furthermore, at a linguistic level US First claims a trade mark on the term. According to this definition and the legal claim on the term, coopetition is not what we need, and for lack of having found a better term, I will still need to refer to terms such as "positive competition" and "cooperative competition".

Happiness

2010-10-15T10:03:00.000+02:00

Nic Marks talks about happiness at the planet level, the national level and the personal level in his talk "The Happy Planet Index". The HPI (Happy Planet Index) rates all countries on their happiness, or better said on their sustainable happiness, i.e. simply put happiness in relation to the resource consumption. Which is the happiest country? Costa Rica. Why? They did away with the military all together, 99% of the electricity comes from reusable resources, they invested in social and health programs, they enjoy a 78-year life expectancy (higher than US), they have one of the highest literacy rate in the world, they were the first country committed to be carbon neutral by 2020. And they did all this while using only 25% of the resources used by Western countries. Time to get rid of the GDP as measure and replace it with the HPI. Here is the official site of the Happy Planet Index.

On a more personal level, have a look at 5 Ways to Well Being.

An inspiring talk!

Oil and Corexit

2010-10-13T09:31:00.001+02:00

Susan Shaw has dedicated a great part of her life to the damages caused by oil disasters such as the Exxon Valdez and the BP crime in the Mexican Gulf. She is an expert on marine toxins and her brief talk "The oil spill's toxic trade-off" is an excellent summary of the dangers of Corexit and the political and big-business attitude in which it is used.

Dark Side of Housing Bubble

2010-10-06T16:07:00.000+02:00

This is one of the most touching videos about the negative after-effects of the housing bubble: Foreclosure, a short 8-min news report by KCET bringing it all to a (sad) personal level.

Individualism vs. Collectivism

2010-10-04T16:11:00.001+02:00

Why is it that "me", "I" and "individualism" are so ingrained in US culture? How does that compare to Asian cultures that are deeply rooted in "us", "together", "community" and "collectivism"? The TED talk entitled "The Art of Choosing" by Sheena Iyengar shows some intriguing scientific results related to this topic. Is this an explanation why cooperation is difficult in the US and most things in the US are based on hyper-competition?

Find Oil, Get Poor

2010-09-30T11:12:00.001+02:00

For some time I wondered why rich countries that find oil get richer, but poor countries that find oil get poorer. There is not a single example of an African nation that found oil and by doing so improved economic conditions for its people. In all cases, in the African continent, income and wealth from oil ended up in the pockets of the multinational exploring companies (MobilExxon and the like), arms dealers and manufacturers, and a handful of corrupt politicians, but never in the pocket of the people. Often the issue is also meddled with by intrusions from the IMF and the World Bank. The involvement of these two organizations in these poor countries having discovered oil does not improve these nations' fate of getting poorer. It is not limited to oil, other resources will do as well, and it is not limited to poor nations in Africa, poor nations in other continents are likely to follow the same path. There are some exceptions, most notably Bolivia and Venezuela.

Today I started reading up on this known issue and I learned that there is even a term for this behavior. It is called "the Curse of Oil" or the oil curse for short. The general term is Resource Curse. The 16-page report by Samuel R. Schubert published in the scientific journal Oil and Gas Business in 2006 entitled "Revisiting The Oil Curse: Are Oil Rich Nations Really Doomed To Autocracy And Inequality?" describes the situation and the facts in an excellent fashion. Read it, it is fascinating.

When Western politicians, organizations, corporations (Bush, Obama, Blair, IMF, World Bank, etc.) say and dictate that poor countries must do what is right for the people, they really mean the western corporations. And they (with help from their credits) have the power to modify policies to see through that the benefits of oil finds in poor countries flow back into the rich nations. An article entitled "When Two Poor Countries Reclaimed Oilfields, Why Did Just One Spark Uproar?" in the Guardian written by George Monbiot also talks about this topic.

Also relevant and compelling is the TED video entitled "Four Ways To Help The Bottom Billion" that suggests that the rich nations should help install good governance in poor countries to avoid the resource curse.

We Feed the World 2

2010-09-29T13:01:00.000+02:00

I re-watched the "We Feed the World" video. This 96-minute documentary produced by Austrian Erwin Wagenhofer in 2005 shows the relations between small farmers and fishers and big agro-industry and the effects the global food trade has on individuals, at a personal level. Even the second viewing was interesting. It is the little details that will get stuck in your mind: Austrian farmers today have to work 6 times the size of land to produce the same living standard as their farming parents. ... Every day the largest city of Austria Vienna throws away the amount of bread from overproduction that the second largest city of Austria Granz consumes. ... In the largest vegetable and fruit market in Dakar, Africa, one can find subsidized Spanish vegetables. Subsidized vegetables from European agro-business sell for one third less than local products causing the irreversive death of African farms. ... European governments pay large amounts of subsidies to European farmers to produce wheat and corn. Europe then burns subsidized wheat and corn to fire electric power plant, i.e. wheat and corn are used to produce electricity. Europe then imports soy for feeding its animals, mostly from Brasil. The world's biggest soy exporter is Brasil. Despite being the world's largest soy exporter and one of the world's largest food producing nation people starve in Brasil. ... The global web of interconnections becomes clear. What we eat and how we produce food not only affects us but many people around the world.

World Economy and Global Trade

2010-09-28T12:25:00.005+02:00

One line in the 2002 PBS documentary "Commanding Heights - The Battle for the World Economy - Part 3" subtitled "The New Rules of the Game" (19m49s) stuck out: Global Trade consists of a) $8 trillion in trade in goods and services and b) $288 trillion in trade in currencies. That told me something. Global trade and globalization is much more about moving big money around in split seconds and about multi-national financial speculation than it is about actual trading of goods and services. We should keep this in mind when we hear proposals from the WTO. And since currency trading is a zero-sum game, wherever there is a winner there is a loser. We can assume with near certainty that the big winners in the currency trade are the big financial institutions, while the losers are the millions of average income or poor people that hold a little bit of savings or just have enough cash for the day's food purchase. Global trade has been presented for decades in a false light and above all it is measured by false parameters. It is measured by trade volumes. Just like GDP is not an appropriate measure of the health, progress or wellbeing of a nation, trade volume is not an appropriate measure for economic, social or national health, progress or wellbeing. Countries that have seen explosions of trade volume have seen neither an explosion of national health services, nor of national or social progress. Trade in Mexico has grown 700% in 6 years after the enactment of the NAFTA and yet workers are as poor as before. Global trade should be measured by the benefit for the people: Do people have access to more goods at a reasonable price? How did prices of goods and services develop that were dominating the local eceonomy before the new trade agreement? How did the workers income develop? How did workers rights develop? How about environmental impact of the new trade and production? Is it increasing or decreasing national or global divides? These and similar factors combined would form a better multi-facetted indicator to tell us if increased trade was positive on the whole. Just because we grow soy now in Brasil and ship it to the US and Europe instead of growing it locally does not make the trade a positive thing. In contrary, we increase transport, CO2 emissions and place the burden of mono-culture dependency on Brasil while destroying the rainforest for ever greater soy fields. Is it a good thing that 90% of product X are now produced in country Y and then shipped around the world? Is this positive trade? You may replace placeholder X with product like palm oil, T-shirts, sneakers, television sets and place holder Y with countries like China, Indonesia, or Mexico. The goal of trade should be to enrich people financially, socially and culturally and not to add additional power to a few already powerful banks and corporations. We need high-quality trade, not high-volume trade.

On the official PBS site one can find everything, all videos and all transcripts. A subset is on YouTube.

IMF and Indonesia

2010-09-27T12:38:00.001+02:00

There are many examples of the wrong-doings of epic scale of the IMF and the World Bank. Here is the example of the rape of the nation of Indonesia by the IMF. The 53-min video documentary was produced by John Pilger for British television in 2001 and entitled "The new Rulers of the World". After highlighting Indonesia as a case study of the IMF processes at a detailed level, the documentary concludes in the last minutes that the newest ruler of the world is the WTO (World Trade Organization) and that the WTO has been created by a few as an unelected embryonic world government above all nations and responsible only to the world's richest corporations. The last sentences is "Why not abolish the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and replace them with genuine trade institudions that are democratically acountable? ... Why should we accept this? Why should our children have to face these visions and dangers? None of them is god-given, all of them can be changed."

Overdose

2010-09-21T12:48:00.001+02:00

The documentary Overdose shows us the future. My favorite sentence is: "The US government has handed out stimulus packages to the tune of ten thousand billion dollars ($ 10,000,000,000,000). That's more than the total cost of the US government for World War I, World War II, the Koren War, the Vietnam War, the invasion of Iraq, the New Deal, the Marshal Plan, and the moon landing". (37:17 or if you are watching the equivalent 3-part series it is Part 3, 6:00-6:22). Wow. Now, that is a good visualization of the amount spent on the bail outs and stimulus packages. My second favorite sentence follows right afterwards: "G.W. Bush has recked up more national debt than all presidents combined before him, from George Washington to Bill Clinton. And Obama is close to create more national debt than all presidents before him, including G.W. Bush."

Watch the Swedish 46-min documentary from 2010 entitled "Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis".

Food Secrets

2010-09-20T13:21:00.010+02:00

"Food - The Ultimate Secret Exposed" is a 15-minute video by Alex Jones. In his typical style this video is exaggerated and dramatized. Nonetheless, filtering out some of the theatrical allegations, there is an essence of truth in this video. It is a rapid run through the dangers in today's processed food: Aspartame, GM corn, GM soy, GM cotton seed oil, growth hormone meats and milk, fluoride in water and toothpaste, dimethylpolysiloxane (a type of silicon) in TV dinners, GM salmon, MSG, mercury tainted fertilizers, viral meat spraying, ... For those who do not have time to spend on viewing 1-hour documentaries with more facts on each item of this list, this might be an appropriate summary warning us of the many items to watch out for in the food shopping aisle. Think before you shop.

War on Drugs

2010-09-15T14:15:00.001+02:00

The British newspaper The Guardian wrote a surprisingly candid and thoughtful article on drugs, its social and political implications and the war on drugs. This Guardian article is entitled "Our 'war on drugs' has been an abysmal failure". It is an excellent summary on the issue and a must-read. It reaches the conclusion that the current political legislation of declaring drugs illegal leads to tens of thousands of deaths annually, 1.5 million prisoners in the US alone, millions of impoverished people, social suffering, corruption of entire states, political instability, crime and criminals, 100s of billions of dollars of spending of tax money of fighting it, and the list goes on. Who benefits? Corporations who provide arms and services to fight wars in and outside the US, a few drug lords, people who are offered employment by agencies like the DEA and similar, politicians who gain rights and are given excuses to more control over society as well as support from corporations in the war-on-drugs sector. The war on drugs cannot be won and should not be carried out. Legalization is the path to reduce the negative effects of the drug business and surprisingly to drug consumption reduction as well, as shown by countries such as Netherlands, Switzerland and Portugal.

Independent of this article, a different author published a second - slightly related - article on the topic of drugs in the Guardian on the same day: Hillary Clinton: Mexican drugs war is Colombia-style insurgency. Here are two more articles from the Guardian reporting on the lost war on drugs and calling for an end of drug prohibition: Time to prohibit drugs prohibition and Prohibition's failed. Time for a new drugs policy.

And by the way, war on anything seems to be absurd and misplaced. We should be looking at the approach for tackling difficult issues from a different angle. War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on Hunger, all this indicates a one against another. Problems need a coming together not a fighting each other. A war - no matter on what - can never be a sustainable solution.

Global Dimming and Warming

2010-09-14T10:09:00.000+02:00

This 48-minute documentary film produced in 2007 by the BBC for their Horizon series introduces the term "Global Dimming" to the general public and puts global dimming in context with global warming. While the documentary is too dramatic and too sensational for the taste of many people, it still might be a worth while film for the sake of understanding the causes and the trend of global dimming, i.e. the reduction of sunshine reaching our planet's surface due to visible air pollution.

There is a lot of data on both global dimming and global warming, and as with nearly all data, it can be interpreted in many different ways. I do not believe in the main predictions of the main stream scientists. They might be right, but they might also be wrong. Is there global warming? Maybe, probably, but maybe not. Is the global warming caused by mankind? Maybe, maybe not. Is global warming bad? Maybe, maybe not. In my opinion all this data is inconclusive because in today's world it is nearly impossible to know whom to trust.

I am even more opposed to the way greenhouse gas reduction is planned to be implemented. International auctions on CO2 emissions and similar forms scream of injustice, inefectiveness and seem to be another scheme to enrich a few CO2 emissions brokerage companies, paid for by all while not delivering on real, sustainable and just emissions reduction. In short such schemes will turn out to be expensive, ineffective and will be a hidden form of financial transfer from the masses to a few rich, similar to taxation. Emissions reduction will be misused to become a laudable and admirable front face for creating a new system inline with the current abusive banking system that will have a high maintenance cost, induce speculation, will eventually lead to an emissions market bubble, be full of negative side effects, and worse of all: it will not make people responsable for pollution and will not change the attitude of corporations on the topic of pollution. Regarding side effects: Without being able to remember the source, I read a stories that in Thailand large plots of jungle are being cleared to create monoculture palm plantations for palm oil production and that for such actions CO2 emissions bonuses are being handed out. If this story is true than it is clear that we have to expect a lot of unwanted negative side effects to the greenhouse gas emission policies.

Ignoring the data that can be interpreted either way and is only as trustworthy as the scientist who created it, it seems to me it is more appropriate to go back to common sense and basic, local thinking. In your own home, would you want to have a source of air pollution? Image for a second as a mind game, that your hot water boiler has some defect and black smoke would come out of it whenever you take a hot shower. Wouldn't you fix it? In the worst case wouldn't you replace it with a new model that does not pollute your own home with smelly smoke that stinks, makes your baby son cough and paints the walls black with time? It seems obvious. You would not put up with such a water boiler for long. You would replace or fix it. I would extrapolate from your home, to your home town, to your home planet. What is good for your home, along common sense, will also be good when applied on a global scale. Setting strict policies that force the reduction of visible pollution as well as green house gases at the source is a simpler, more transparent, more reliable solution to actually reduce emissions and to do it in a controlable and fair manner for the benefit of all and at the cost of the appropriate corresponding consumer groups.

Plastic

2010-09-07T09:29:00.000+02:00

If you don't have time to watch "Plastic Planet" or "Addicted to Plastic" watch this different video on the same topic that is a good summary in just 7 minutes. It is entitled "World biggest garbage dump - plastic in the Ocean".

Overdose

2010-09-06T09:40:00.001+02:00

"Overdose - The next financial crisis" is an 45-minute Australian-produced documentary explaining the upcoming financial crisis in layman's terms. It was released in August 2010.

Daily Permaculture News

2010-07-29T20:49:00.000+02:00

Are you a news junkie? Looking for your daily dose of up-to-date news on permaculture? Goggle News started to allow the creation of private news channels recently. These channels are published just like any other Google News channel. To date there are 5 Google news channels on permaculture. This number as well as the number of readers is sure to grow over time. Currently the most popular permaculture channel is this one: Permaculture News Channel.

Simplicity and Buddhist Economics

2010-07-23T14:24:00.001+02:00

Once you start reading on Voluntary Simplicity each article keeps pulling you in even further. Following E.F. Schumacher's "Buddhist Economics" article a much more detailed work was published by P.A. Payutto (Ven. Phra Dhammapitaka) entitled "Buddhist Economics - A Middle Way for the Market Place". It was first published in 1981 and an improved version followed in 1984. This book goes a lot deeper into Buddhism and one can argue that it focuses more on Buddhism than on economics. If you don't mind reading a philosophy book that touches on economics (rather than an economics book that touches on ethics) this might be a book for your reading list.

BP, Trust, Transparency

2010-07-22T08:02:00.001+02:00

Nowadays it is common knowledge to about everyone that one should not trust to words of a politician, a business man or a car sales man. It is also pretty common knowledge that one should not trust statistics from just any source. What we still have to learn is that we should not trust what we see in the media or photos released by corporations.

In just a single week BP had to admit 3 times that photos released to the public and related to the oil spill catastrophe have been doctored and manipulated. The Washington Post published this article "More doctored BP photos come to light". Similar article from PCWorld.

And if you have been to the movies in the recent years it should also be clear, that one should not trust video footage either. Welcome to the virtual world or the world of Orwell's 1984 where words, images and video can be altered after the fact to suit any political or corporate message desired.

Eliminating National Debt

2010-07-17T21:42:00.001+02:00

Very creative and imaginative, or maybe not so, anyway it is just a joke: "U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt".

Environmental Damage

2010-07-16T22:43:00.000+02:00

According to an unreleased report by the United Nations Environment Programme that took 8 years to produce, the world's 3,000 biggest public companies created $2.2 trillion in environmental damages in 2008 alone! Here are two articles by The Guardian and the American Society of Landscape Architects about this report. The study was conducted by Trucost. A final version will be made public.

It would seem only normal and fair if these large corporations were to pay to undo these damages. If they were to pay these $2.2 trillion in environmental repair, they would still take an incredible $4 trillion home in profits. However, today's politicians are far away from putting regulations in place or enforcing existing laws to hold corporations responsible for their environmental damage. Sad. Even more sad if you consider that the cost of the environmental repair for their pollution would only be a third of their profits.

The report also states that the $2.2 trillion is only a lower boundary of the cost, as it does not take into account long term effects and the cost of toxic waste, the cost of social impact, etc. The final version of the report will include some of these costs.

We clearly live in a world with no appreciation or understanding of the value of nature, which lead to the creation of two sets of rules: Rules for you and me: You do damage, you will be forced to fix it. Rules for the large corporations: Profit is everything without regard to environmental damage.

Simplicity and Non-Violence

2010-07-15T16:10:00.000+02:00

Four quotes from E.F. Schumacher's "Buddhist Economics" 8-page article.

"Simplicity and non-violence are obviously closely related. The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching: “Cease to do evil; try to do good.” As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each other’s throats than people depending upon a high rate of use. Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade."

"Just as the modern economist would admit that a high rate of consumption of transport services between a man’s home and his place of work signifies a misfortune and not a high standard of life, so the Buddhist would hold that to satisfy human wants from faraway sources rather than from sources nearby signifies failure rather than success. The former tends to take statistics showing an increase in the number of ton/miles per head of the population carried by a country’s transport system as proof of economic progress, while to the latter — the Buddhist economist — the same statistics would indicate a highly undesirable deterioration in the pattern of consumption."

"As the world’s resources of non-renewable fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—are exceedingly unevenly distributed over the globe and undoubtedly limited in quantity, it is clear that their exploitation at an ever-increasing rate is an act of violence against nature which must almost inevitably lead to violence between men."

"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people."

There is no need to add any comments. These words (from 1966) speak for themselves.

Voluntary Simplicity, Yet Again

2010-07-14T16:26:00.002+02:00

This theme of Voluntary Simplicity is turning into a trilogy. After "The Value of Voluntary Simplicity" and "Voluntary Simplicity" I am onto "Small is Beautiful" a 300-page book by E.F. Schumacher. It was published in 1973. The author, an economist, takes an economic view on voluntary simplicity. The subtitle reveals a lot about the book: Economics As If People Mattered. His thoughts put people and wellbeing of people in the center, and not economic growth and profits. He recognizes that GNP is an ill measure of the economy. He emphasizing that "the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption." Under his definition our society today is extremely inefficient and wasteful. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination.

He also coined the term Buddhist Economics which is an economic concept founded on ethics and in which people's wellbeing are the essence. The PDF is here.

The E.F. Schumacher Society appropriately has its homepage under www.smallisbeautiful.org.

Voluntary Simplicity, Again

2010-07-13T14:58:00.000+02:00

As follow-on to the article "The Value of Voluntary Simplicity" I started reading the 40-page article from 1977 by Duane Elgin entitled Voluntary Simplicity.

According to Duane these 5 values are at the heart of Voluntary Simplicity:

Material Simplicity
Human Scale
Self-Determination
Ecological Awareness
Personal Growth

As maximum future growth, in 1977 Duane predicted the following figures for the US.

Millions of US adults fully embracing Voluntary Simplicity: 5 in 1977, 25 in 1987, 60 in 2000.
Millions of US adults partially embracing Voluntary Simplicity: 10 in 1977, 35 in 1987, 60 in 2000.

I have no statistical data for current years, but it seems that the maximum growth has not been reached. He explains that these maximum projected figures can only be reached if both pull and push forces are at work. Here, it seems that while pull force can be seen throughout the society, few pull forces have been created by the economy, media, corporate or political leaders. In other words, individuals seem to continue to have an inner desire for voluntary simplicity, but corporations and political parties are hell-bound on growth and material consumption.

I concur that developed nations seem to be in a period of social drift. They appear to be losing both momentum and a sense of direction. People seem to be waiting for some leader or chain of events to make clear the nature of an alternative social vision.

Duane foresees 4 principal social evolutions (again, remember he did this in 1977) for the US:

technological salvation
descent into social chaos
benign authoritarianism
humanistic transformation

In your opinion, which one most closely matches current reality 33 years later? I would say that the mainstream has evolved along 1 and 3. We live in a near-authoritarian state and pin our hopes on technology to resolve our problems. Example: Laws prevent us from filming and approaching the BP oil catastrophe while at the same time we hope that through technology we can clean up the immeasurable mess. Voluntary simplicity could play a part in the humanistic transformation of choice 4, but only a small minority of individuals have gone that path.

Duane points out that voluntary simplicity not only plays a role in 4, but also in options 1, 2 and 3. Regarding 1, voluntary simplicity can positively amplify technological solutions by tackling the inherent resource scarcity issues. Regarding 2, social unrest and wars can more easily be defused in a society with voluntary simplicity in place. Chaos is likely to stem from imbalances of rich and poor and wars over resources. Voluntary simplicity helps in reducing both risks or the size of the conflicts. Regarding 3, voluntary simplicity with one of its essences being in self-determination can be counterbalancing grass-roots force to compete with authoritarianism and to help keep it in check. Hence, Duane argues that voluntary simplicity will be a positive and desired movement in all sorts of social evolutions (with the 4 mentioned possibilities just being examples).

What kind of society would emerge if voluntary simplicity were to become the predominant way of life? On page 28 he compares the two world views.

Emphasis in Industrial World View	Emphasis in Voluntary Simplicity World View
Value Premises Material growth Man over nature Competitive self-interest Rugged individualism Rationalism	Value Premises Material sufficiency coupled with psycho-spiritual growth People within nature Enlightened self-interest Cooperative individualism Rational and intuitive
Social Characteristics Large, complex living and working environments Growth of material complexity Space-age technology Identity defined by patterns of consumption Centralization of regulation and control at nation/state level Specialized work roles—through division of labor Secular Mass produced, quickly obsolete, standardized products Lifeboat ethic in foreign relations Cultural homogeneity, partial acceptance of diversity High pressure, rat race existence	Social Characteristics Smaller, less complex living and working environments Reduction of material complexity Appropriate technology Identity found through inner and interpersonal discovery Greater local self-determination coupled with emerging global institutions More integrated work roles (e.g., team assembly, multiple roles) Balance of secular and spiritual Hand crafted, durable, unique products Spaceship earth ethic Cultural heterogeneity, eager acceptance of diversity Laid back, relaxed existence

In which world would you rather live?

Voluntary Simplicity

2010-07-12T15:20:00.002+02:00

I have blogged about Voluntary Simplicity before. Today I realized that the term "Voluntary Simplicity" dates back to 1936 when it was coined by Richard Gregg in his article "The Value of Voluntary Simplicity". When I saw that the article is only 16 pages long I started reading. Considering it was written in 1936 it is far ahead of its times.

The most impressive thoughts of the article follow. The quotes are adapted liberally.

In Volume III of Arnold J. Toynbee's great Study of History he discusses the growth of civilizations. For some sixty pages he considers what constitutes growth of civilization, including in that term growth in wisdom as well as in stature. With immense learning he traces the developments of many civilizations—Egyptian, Sumeric, Minoan, Hellenic, Syriac, Indic, Iranian, Chinese, Babylonic, Mayan, Japanese, etc. After spreading out the evidence, he comes to the conclusion that real growth of a civilization does not consist of increasing command over the physical environment, nor of increasing command over the human environment (i.e., over other nations or civilizations), but that it lies in what he calls "etherealization": a development of intangible relationships. He points out that this process involves both a simplification of the apparatus of life and also a transfer of interest and energy from material things to a higher sphere. He follows Bergson in equating complexity with Matter and simplicity with Life.
The great advances in science and technology have not solved the moral problems of civilization.
... science, technology, and money are on the quantitative rather than the qualitative side of life. The essence of man's social life lies in qualitative rather than quantitative relationships.
There can be beauty in complexity but complexity is not the essence of beauty.
I commented to Mahatma Gandhi that it was easy for me to give up most things but that I had a greedy mind and wanted to keep my many books. He said, “Then don’t give them up. As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you, or when it seems to interfere with that which is more greatly desired.”
Simplicity can also be applied to our eating habits. Knowledge will help us select food wisely so that we may be healthy while maintaining simplicity.
We need examples of people who, leaving to Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek—not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure, not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession.

He also argues that world is crumbling because morality is the base for everything. We have overdeveloped our technology and finance but we have not nurtured our morality. As a result our world is like a massive engine but it is supported only by two flimsy legs of morality. We are vastly out of balance and we should focus and strengthen our morality before we do anything else to once again create a sound foundation.

His article weighs pros and cons of individual voluntary simplicity, and then applies it at the level of a nation viewing nations just like a conscious being consisting of many individuals. He finds most arguments against simplicity as flawed and finds real benefits of simplicity at all levels, the individual as well as the national. In his opinion, a simple nation will be more satisfied and more moral nation.

He summarizes that voluntary simplicity is not enough. He says, In addition to the changes in consumption which widespread simplicity would bring about, it will be necessary also to develop great changes in the present modes of production. Decentralization of production would be one of these changes. The social effects of that would be far-reaching and profound. Many other great changes will be necessary, including a different control of large-scale production and of land, and changes in distribution and in money as an instrument and as a symbol.

Later, Duane Elgin built upon the thoughts of Richard Gregg. Duane wrote articles and several books on Voluntary Simplicity. Here is his home page, also the home of Voluntary Simplicity. A 40 page article from 1977 is entitled Voluntary Simplicity. This article looks at the goals and values of people embracing voluntary simplicity. It discusses who the people are, their living patterns, and plausible trends out to the year 2000. The paper then discusses the social and business implications of voluntary simplicity. It sounds promising. I will make it reading material for another day.