(I'm getting interesting "bits" coming my way these days)
Warren Buffett: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html
Just because the days of children and labourers going down stinking coal mine shafts are over (in the West any way) does not mean that class warfare is not being waged, it is covert and representative democracy has tended to water down any sort of class consciousness that may have existed in the West.
What/who controls the economy, culture and politics? The ruling class, ie. capitalists. It is true that what it means to be "working class" has changed over the years, and there is some potential for members of the working class to gain capital through loans etc..however it is not possible to say that the middle class or small business owners have more influence over the economy, culture or politics than say Rupert Murdoch or major financial institutions.
Also, from the ABS
The share of the economy going to profits has hit the highest level since the ABS started keeping records in 1959, while the share allocated to wages has hit a new 43-year low, today's National Accounts data has revealed.
The data shows the "profits share" of the economy hit a new record high of 27.8% in trend terms, the greatest share going to profits since the ABS began collecting the data in the September quarter of 1959.
At the same time, the "wages share" of the economy fell to 52.7%
Just because the term "class war" seems cliched and old fashioned does not mean that it does not exist. It is a tragedy that the winning team (Warren Buffett and his friends) can see and wage this war. The losing classes are so over worked; stressed by mortgages and interest rates; distracted by reality TV and plasmas and caught up with celebrity style politics to the point that they pose no real challenge to the system. Workers are playing by the rules of the ruling class and are getting ripped off.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Fear in life ..
(Part of a post sent by a friend in the USA)
Fear is a natural part of everyone’s life. It only becomes a problem when it blocks you from being who you are and achieving what matters most to you. Many people fail to find their path in life because of fears of what might happen if they change, try something new, don’t agree to what others want or fail to follow the conventional path.
Most fears are groundless. Our minds are exceptionally good at imagining all the things that could go wrong. They call up images of embarrassment, criticism and even ruin. They assume whatever could go wrong will. Everyone will laugh. Maybe you’ll be demoted or fired—who knows? Understanding how what you value most produces your strongest fears can go a long way towards showing you which concerns are over-blown, even imaginary, and which you should take seriously.
Everything you are attached to produces a corresponding fear
The more strongly you value anything, the stronger the fear associated with it will be. That’s why high achievers, for example, are terrified of failure in any activity, however trivial.
When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap.
When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap. Achievement is a good example. It’s a powerful area of attachment for many successful people. They’ve built their lives on it. They have always achieved success in everything: school, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each fresh achievement adds to the power of their attachment and the central place of achievement in their lives.
Because of this, failure becomes unthinkable. They’ve probably never failed in anything they’ve done, so they have no experience of coping with it. The mere prospect of coming second frightens them. Failure becomes the supreme nightmare: a frightful horror they must avoid at any cost. Nothing—not ethics, not honesty, not other people, not even their nearest and dearest—can be allowed to come between them and the next achievement.
The collapse of ethical standards in major US corporations over recent years probably has more to do with fear of failure among long-term high-achievers than criminal intent. Many of the people at Enron and Arthur Andersen were supreme high-fliers, basking in their success and the flattery of others. Failure was an impossible prospect. They had to win every time. And if brutal working schedules and harrying subordinates wouldn’t ward off the prospect of ‘failure’, they were ready to lie, cheat, falsify numbers and hide anything negative to make themselves ‘winners’ in the eyes of the corporation and their rivals.
Beware of the very things you value most in your life
When your attachment to anything you value, however benign in itself, becomes too powerful, it will increase the chance that the corresponding fear will corrode your life and destroy your relationships from within. Over-achievers destroy their lives and the lives of those who work for them. People too attached to ‘goodness’ and morality become self-righteous bigots. Those whose desire to build close relationships become unbalanced slide into smothering their friends and family with constant expressions of affection and demands for ever greater love in return.
Balance counts for more than you think. Some tartness must season the sweetest dish. A little selfishness is valuable even in the most caring person. And a little failure is essential to preserve everyone’s perspective on success. Are you a positive person? Maybe you need to cherish the negative parts too.
Fear is a natural part of everyone’s life. It only becomes a problem when it blocks you from being who you are and achieving what matters most to you. Many people fail to find their path in life because of fears of what might happen if they change, try something new, don’t agree to what others want or fail to follow the conventional path.
Most fears are groundless. Our minds are exceptionally good at imagining all the things that could go wrong. They call up images of embarrassment, criticism and even ruin. They assume whatever could go wrong will. Everyone will laugh. Maybe you’ll be demoted or fired—who knows? Understanding how what you value most produces your strongest fears can go a long way towards showing you which concerns are over-blown, even imaginary, and which you should take seriously.
Everything you are attached to produces a corresponding fear
The more strongly you value anything, the stronger the fear associated with it will be. That’s why high achievers, for example, are terrified of failure in any activity, however trivial.
When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap.
When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap. Achievement is a good example. It’s a powerful area of attachment for many successful people. They’ve built their lives on it. They have always achieved success in everything: school, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each fresh achievement adds to the power of their attachment and the central place of achievement in their lives.
Because of this, failure becomes unthinkable. They’ve probably never failed in anything they’ve done, so they have no experience of coping with it. The mere prospect of coming second frightens them. Failure becomes the supreme nightmare: a frightful horror they must avoid at any cost. Nothing—not ethics, not honesty, not other people, not even their nearest and dearest—can be allowed to come between them and the next achievement.
The collapse of ethical standards in major US corporations over recent years probably has more to do with fear of failure among long-term high-achievers than criminal intent. Many of the people at Enron and Arthur Andersen were supreme high-fliers, basking in their success and the flattery of others. Failure was an impossible prospect. They had to win every time. And if brutal working schedules and harrying subordinates wouldn’t ward off the prospect of ‘failure’, they were ready to lie, cheat, falsify numbers and hide anything negative to make themselves ‘winners’ in the eyes of the corporation and their rivals.
Beware of the very things you value most in your life
When your attachment to anything you value, however benign in itself, becomes too powerful, it will increase the chance that the corresponding fear will corrode your life and destroy your relationships from within. Over-achievers destroy their lives and the lives of those who work for them. People too attached to ‘goodness’ and morality become self-righteous bigots. Those whose desire to build close relationships become unbalanced slide into smothering their friends and family with constant expressions of affection and demands for ever greater love in return.
Balance counts for more than you think. Some tartness must season the sweetest dish. A little selfishness is valuable even in the most caring person. And a little failure is essential to preserve everyone’s perspective on success. Are you a positive person? Maybe you need to cherish the negative parts too.
Monday, 17 November 2008
Another perspective on the current "world financial crisis"
In the Notes from the Editors for the September issue of Monthly Review (written in late July) we asked why, with the United States bailing out the financial sector of the economy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, there was no public outrage. As we observed at that time, “In the end there seems to be no satisfactory explanation for lack of popular protest over a series of ad hoc grants showering hundreds of billions of dollars of public money on the masters of finance, collectively the richest group of capitalists on the planet. And that raises the question: Is this outrage present nonetheless, growing underground, unheard and unseen? Will it suddenly burst forth, like some old mole, unforeseen and in ways unimagined?” The collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, the resulting freezing up of credit markets, U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson’s emergency plan for a $700 billion bailout of financial firms, offering “cash for trash,” i.e., proposing to buy up the toxic waste of virtually worthless mortgage-backed securities at taxpayer expense—quickly answered our question. When the U.S. Treasury got into the act with its bailout proposal, requiring Congressional authorization (previously the Federal Reserve had led the way in bailouts, to the point that treasury securities had sunk to just over half of the Fed’s assets, as we explained in September), all hell finally broke loose. Suddenly, the public outrage that had been growing beneath the surface burst forth. The U.S. capitalist class was abruptly confronted with a major political as well as economic crisis.
The visible anger of the population over the bailout plan did not stop the Treasury Department, the Congressional leadership, the president, and the two presidential candidates—together with financial capital—from going ahead and patching together a deal based largely on the original Paulson proposal. What was completely unexpected, however, was the revolt in the House of Representatives on September 29 with 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats voting down the $700 billion bailout package, leading to the largest one-day point drop in U.S. stock market history. To be sure, the powers that be soon had their way, and a version of the Treasury Department proposal, with added elements designed to provide political cover for representatives who switched their votes, was soon passed. But the initial revolt in the House forever changed the nature of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, making it overtly politicalfor the first time, and leaving a legacy of popular dissent. The politicization of the bailout issue and the increasingly desperate economic conditions guarantee that the longer-term consequences for U.S. capitalism will be immense.
No one has a crystal ball to look into the future, and the nature of this crisis makes it impossible to predict what will happen next. But a few things seem obvious. First, the bailout to be carried out by the Treasury Department, though massive, will at best only stop an immediate meltdown. It will not bring the financial crisis to a close. The genie of financialization is out of the bottle and it is going to take time to get it back in again. The crisis of housing and mortgage lending has not in any way abated. The Federal Reserve and other agents of the federal government had already poured more than the $700 billion bailout package (including home mortgage rescues) into the financial system over the previous year in the form of loans, guarantees, swaps, giveaways, and takeovers (“A Tally of Federal Rescues,” New York Times, September 28, 2008; “Treasury and Fed Looking at Options,” New York Times, September 29, 2008). Moving rapidly from a lender of last resort to an investor of last resort, the federal government has enormously stretched its resources—already under strain due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Second, the rapid decline in U.S. economic hegemony is now obvious to the entire world and is likely to impair the willingness of foreign investors and governments to take dollars—necessary to finance the growing U.S. debt. International pressure is growing to prevent Washington from exporting its crisis abroad. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has demanded that Latin American, African, and Asian states not be made into “victims of the casino erected by the American economy” (“U.S. Crisis Deepens Divisions in S. America,” Washington Post, October 1, 2008). Indeed, U.S. imperialism is visibly weakening everywhere—despite $1 trillion of actual U.S. military expenditures in 2007 alone (see “The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending,” Monthly Review, October 2008).
Third, the real problem is still not being addressed: the stagnation of the U.S. (and advanced capitalist) economy. This is not so much an effect of financial crisis, as commonly supposed, as the cause of the vast growth of the financial superstructure in the first place—and why the bursting of the financial bubble is such an immense and currently insurmountable disaster (see “The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis,” MR, April 2008). The stagnation of production, symbolized by the recent $25 billion in federal loan guarantees to the big automakers, has received relatively little attention in the face of the astronomical financial crisis, but remains at the heart of the economic malaise.
Finally, it is now sinking deep into the public consciousness in the United States that the most important question in the end is: Who will pay? The bailout deal skirted the issue by leaving it up to the next president to come up with a way to compensate the public for losses from the Treasury’s buying up of financial toxic waste. What this means is that the real political battle has only just begun.
If these are the main dimensions of the problem, what should U.S. leftists do at this point? This is not an easy question to answer. It is not our job to fix their system. Nor in fact is it fixable. As Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy argued in 1988 in the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crisis, this is, judged from the longer-view, an Irreversible Crisis. There are therefore no visible solutions. Under these circumstances the emphasis should be on reducing inequality, strengthening the position of workers, providing decent jobs for people doing the work for which they are equipped, and guaranteeing such social essentials as: adequate health care, nutrition, housing, education, Social Security, retirement pensions, and environmental protection. Military spending should be cut drastically and used to fund needed social programs. A tax on securities trading and ideally a wealth tax should be imposed. Such things can only be achieved, however, if the population rises up and demands control over the political economy. Again, we should not pretend for a moment that any of this would repair what is wrong with the capitalist system. It would not. But some such set of measures is necessary to create a better life for the vast majority of the population, and as a step away from capitalism and toward a better socioeconomic alternative.
Certainly, there is something to be said for the view of U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) when he wrote in response to the Paulson bailout(“Wall Street Bailout Won’t Help Main Street,” Eugene Register-Guard, September 29, 2008): “In President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, we invested in building roads, bridges, hydroelectric dams and other public works projects to rebuild our nation’s broken economy.” DeFazio went on to argue that if a bailout plan was to be adopted it should be paid for by a securities transfer tax, such as actually existed in the United States from 1914 to 1966. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has proposed a five year, 10 percent surtax on individuals with incomes of more than $500,000 a year and of households with incomes of more than $1 million a year. None of this would solve the core contradictions of the system. But such actions would represent a start in the right direction. It is high time that in the relentless class war that has been waged by the capitalist class against the working class since the early 1970s, the U.S. populace at last begins to fight back en masse, insisting that their needs be met. In much of the rest of the world of course the continued existence of the U.S. dominated order of monopoly-finance capital, commonly identified as neoliberalism, is already—or soon will be—under challenge.
The visible anger of the population over the bailout plan did not stop the Treasury Department, the Congressional leadership, the president, and the two presidential candidates—together with financial capital—from going ahead and patching together a deal based largely on the original Paulson proposal. What was completely unexpected, however, was the revolt in the House of Representatives on September 29 with 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats voting down the $700 billion bailout package, leading to the largest one-day point drop in U.S. stock market history. To be sure, the powers that be soon had their way, and a version of the Treasury Department proposal, with added elements designed to provide political cover for representatives who switched their votes, was soon passed. But the initial revolt in the House forever changed the nature of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, making it overtly politicalfor the first time, and leaving a legacy of popular dissent. The politicization of the bailout issue and the increasingly desperate economic conditions guarantee that the longer-term consequences for U.S. capitalism will be immense.
No one has a crystal ball to look into the future, and the nature of this crisis makes it impossible to predict what will happen next. But a few things seem obvious. First, the bailout to be carried out by the Treasury Department, though massive, will at best only stop an immediate meltdown. It will not bring the financial crisis to a close. The genie of financialization is out of the bottle and it is going to take time to get it back in again. The crisis of housing and mortgage lending has not in any way abated. The Federal Reserve and other agents of the federal government had already poured more than the $700 billion bailout package (including home mortgage rescues) into the financial system over the previous year in the form of loans, guarantees, swaps, giveaways, and takeovers (“A Tally of Federal Rescues,” New York Times, September 28, 2008; “Treasury and Fed Looking at Options,” New York Times, September 29, 2008). Moving rapidly from a lender of last resort to an investor of last resort, the federal government has enormously stretched its resources—already under strain due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Second, the rapid decline in U.S. economic hegemony is now obvious to the entire world and is likely to impair the willingness of foreign investors and governments to take dollars—necessary to finance the growing U.S. debt. International pressure is growing to prevent Washington from exporting its crisis abroad. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has demanded that Latin American, African, and Asian states not be made into “victims of the casino erected by the American economy” (“U.S. Crisis Deepens Divisions in S. America,” Washington Post, October 1, 2008). Indeed, U.S. imperialism is visibly weakening everywhere—despite $1 trillion of actual U.S. military expenditures in 2007 alone (see “The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending,” Monthly Review, October 2008).
Third, the real problem is still not being addressed: the stagnation of the U.S. (and advanced capitalist) economy. This is not so much an effect of financial crisis, as commonly supposed, as the cause of the vast growth of the financial superstructure in the first place—and why the bursting of the financial bubble is such an immense and currently insurmountable disaster (see “The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis,” MR, April 2008). The stagnation of production, symbolized by the recent $25 billion in federal loan guarantees to the big automakers, has received relatively little attention in the face of the astronomical financial crisis, but remains at the heart of the economic malaise.
Finally, it is now sinking deep into the public consciousness in the United States that the most important question in the end is: Who will pay? The bailout deal skirted the issue by leaving it up to the next president to come up with a way to compensate the public for losses from the Treasury’s buying up of financial toxic waste. What this means is that the real political battle has only just begun.
If these are the main dimensions of the problem, what should U.S. leftists do at this point? This is not an easy question to answer. It is not our job to fix their system. Nor in fact is it fixable. As Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy argued in 1988 in the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crisis, this is, judged from the longer-view, an Irreversible Crisis. There are therefore no visible solutions. Under these circumstances the emphasis should be on reducing inequality, strengthening the position of workers, providing decent jobs for people doing the work for which they are equipped, and guaranteeing such social essentials as: adequate health care, nutrition, housing, education, Social Security, retirement pensions, and environmental protection. Military spending should be cut drastically and used to fund needed social programs. A tax on securities trading and ideally a wealth tax should be imposed. Such things can only be achieved, however, if the population rises up and demands control over the political economy. Again, we should not pretend for a moment that any of this would repair what is wrong with the capitalist system. It would not. But some such set of measures is necessary to create a better life for the vast majority of the population, and as a step away from capitalism and toward a better socioeconomic alternative.
Certainly, there is something to be said for the view of U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) when he wrote in response to the Paulson bailout(“Wall Street Bailout Won’t Help Main Street,” Eugene Register-Guard, September 29, 2008): “In President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, we invested in building roads, bridges, hydroelectric dams and other public works projects to rebuild our nation’s broken economy.” DeFazio went on to argue that if a bailout plan was to be adopted it should be paid for by a securities transfer tax, such as actually existed in the United States from 1914 to 1966. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has proposed a five year, 10 percent surtax on individuals with incomes of more than $500,000 a year and of households with incomes of more than $1 million a year. None of this would solve the core contradictions of the system. But such actions would represent a start in the right direction. It is high time that in the relentless class war that has been waged by the capitalist class against the working class since the early 1970s, the U.S. populace at last begins to fight back en masse, insisting that their needs be met. In much of the rest of the world of course the continued existence of the U.S. dominated order of monopoly-finance capital, commonly identified as neoliberalism, is already—or soon will be—under challenge.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Not fitting in
I found these few snippets the other day.
You don't fit and that's your gift
It reminds me of a marshall macluhan quote - the role of the artist is to create an anti-environment as a means of perception and adjustment.
There are lots of artists, prophets, creatives, entrepreneurs, and change agents for whom this is true and it is why they are able to do what they do. Cultures need people that don't fit - it's how things get moved on when they get stuck.
You don't fit and that's your gift
It reminds me of a marshall macluhan quote - the role of the artist is to create an anti-environment as a means of perception and adjustment.
There are lots of artists, prophets, creatives, entrepreneurs, and change agents for whom this is true and it is why they are able to do what they do. Cultures need people that don't fit - it's how things get moved on when they get stuck.
Monday, 10 November 2008
It's all about being "contextual"!?
The following came from an excerpt in Craig Mitchell's blog. I too have been "banging on" about being contextual. Seemingly for ever. I keep trying to tell folk that our life as a congregation in Jetty Rd. Glenelg cannot be anything but contextual if we are to be a church and not a museum.
Aptitudes of Spirit-Led Missional Congregations in Context
1. Spirit-led missional congregations learn to read a context as they seek their contextuality.
2. Spirit-led missional congregations anticipate new insights into the gospel.
3. Spirit-led missional congregations anticipate reciprocity.
4. Spirit-led missional congregations understand they are contextual and, therefore, particular.
5. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that ministry is always contextual and, therefore, is also practical.
6. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that doing theology is always contextual and, therefore, is also perspectival.
7. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that organization is always contextual and, therefore, is also provisional.
Aptitudes of Spirit-Led Missional Congregations in Context
1. Spirit-led missional congregations learn to read a context as they seek their contextuality.
2. Spirit-led missional congregations anticipate new insights into the gospel.
3. Spirit-led missional congregations anticipate reciprocity.
4. Spirit-led missional congregations understand they are contextual and, therefore, particular.
5. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that ministry is always contextual and, therefore, is also practical.
6. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that doing theology is always contextual and, therefore, is also perspectival.
7. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that organization is always contextual and, therefore, is also provisional.
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