I have to say, the over-riding image for me of this disaster is of how
we appear to fall back completely on the public sector when something
like this happens.
Four months ago or so the UK had a General Election - not that you
would have noticed, the same people voted, fewer of them than ever
voted for the party that led us to war and its treasonous leader but
they still got back in...
Anyway - during the campaign there were some 'opinion polls' that
asked, for fun, no doubt, who they would really prefer to run the
country based on their performance in 'delivering the goods' by
whatever means. Out on top came Tesco and ASDA (once a dairy co-op now
known to you lot on the other side of the pond as "Wal-Mart UK") -
where between them one in four pounds of all UK retail spending gets
spent.
They have a system that enabled them to get fresh Strawberries on
Christmas Eve from ten thousand miles away. They account for 35% of
all the goods traffic on our roads. But what good are they in New
Orleans now, huh? A makeshift police precinct. Great. The biggest
things that appear to have been lacking over the past few days are
"bread and water" and who normally supplies these commodities, and how
much do they make from supplying them? And where have all their
sophisticated systems gone when they are really needed.
I once read somewhere that some early internet infrastructure was
doubled up with redundancy provided through the Holiday Inn chain - at
least the military would have a communications base in every major
conurbation sort of thing. Given that the profit hungry appear just to
shut up shop when the crunch comes, I do hope world security is no
longer dependent on such fairweather friends.
Jock
On 3 Sep 2005, at 13:26, Keith Wilde wrote:
> A truly disgusting aspect of this disaster is the "contribution" of
> conventional economic doctrine. Within hours of the hurricane's
> passage, possibly even before the break in the levees, the NYT had an
> article from the "economic growth" enthusiasm gloating over all the
> jobs and resources consumption that will be stimulated by the
> rebuilding of the old city and the gulf coast. A disaster maybe, but
> also an opportunity for gold!
>
> Disgusting, but inevitable from the acquiesence of economic theories
> to the greed of speculators for quick bucks and grabbing of resources
> in the name of providing opportunity for peasant farmers and other
> slaves to work for a living. The faulty doctrines are of course
> responsible for the great gap in national data gathering and analysis,
> reinforced in the Keynesian Revolution by a narrowing focus on pure
> activity and income flows to the neglect of any effort to document and
> estimate the value of existing wealth.
>
> I am a bit surprised, or at least curious, that advocates of Social
> Credit do not seem to put more of their efforts into looking for
> alliances with potential cooperators who could understand the concepts
> of permance and wealth-creating, building for posterity instead of
> consuming ourselves to death in the name of "keeping the economy
> growing". There are people out there (some of whom Ryan likes to
> denigrate as Malthusian) who might join in a movement to build the
> data banks that could eventually be used to promote the compensated
> price and dividend policies, even though they may not be aware of
> those policies at the time of making common cause. Why is this not
> the primary focus of activists?
>
> Another curiosity, possibly a gap in my reading of orthodox texts, is
> the attitude of Douglas purists on the increasingly collective nature
> of real investment as society becomes progressively urbanized. Surely
> public sanitation, water supply, electrification, telecommunications
> facilities, parks and green spaces, regulation of many kinds,
> policing, fire and rescue capacity are all critical elements in
> "cultural heritage". But they also are "public goods" to a great
> extent, meaning that they do not get built in the best ways for
> cost-effective service (as contrasted to exploitative) without a
> collective financing effort--public utilitities financing. This
> aspect seems to be left out in my scattered reading, leaving me with
> the impression that Douglas orthodoxy entails only private initiatives
> to provide new and better (productive) services on a rather piece-meal
> basis. This, it seems to me, would be an inhibitor of many positive
> (possible) aspects of urbanization. Can someone clear that up for me
> from a purist perspective?
>
> Keith Wilde
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: <cymric@xtra.co.nz>
> To: <socialcredit@elistas.com>
> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 6:38 PM
> Subject: [socialcredit] Re: COGEXEC: Rebuilding New Orleans
>
>
>> What I take out of this is the basis reality of the relationship
>> between the banking industry and the insurance industry.
>> There can be no doubt that the financial weight behind insurance
>> companies is huge as is the banks. Where is the leadership of
>> insurance if politicians procrastinate over investing in updating
>> infrastructure like the levees putting their industry and all the
>> policy holders investments at risk?
>> However it is xmas for the banking industry and the corporate friends
>> of those in power who do the rebuilding, as in Iraq.
>> And lets not overlook the fact that weather tools like earthquakes
>> and tsunarmi are weapons of war. No difference between creating a
>> military war of destruction than a weather war of destruction.
>> Peter H
>>
>> "William B. Ryan" <w_b_ryan@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Talking about financial gimmicks in this situation is
>>> to trivialize the tragedy, and to completely miss the
>>> lesson that should be learned.
>>>
>>> First, it's a regional problem extending beyond New
>>> Orleans through three states.
>>>
>>> As to "interest free" money, tens of billions in
>>> insurance settlements will flow into the region that
>>> is not only "interest free," but with no requirement
>>> for repayment. So, forget about "Binary Economics" in
>>> this situation. It's totally irrelevant.
>>>
>>> The lesson that should be learned is that we ignore
>>> the necessity for continuous improvement to
>>> infrastructure at our peril.
>>>
>>> The damage came from wind, wind driven water or "storm
>>> surge," and flooding.
>>>
>>> New Orleans missed most of the storm surge from the
>>> gulf because the eye of the storm passed to the City's
>>> east, but did have some surge in reverse off Lake
>>> Pontchartrain due to the counter-clockwise rotation of
>>> the storm, hence the broken segments to the I-10
>>> causeway.
>>>
>>> Most of the damage to New Orleans is from flooding due
>>> to the broken levees, which should have been
>>> strengthened years ago. If they had been
>>> strengthened, New Orleans would now be mostly intact
>>> today.
>>>
>>> The city is now submerged in Lake Pontchartrain. A
>>> decision will have to be made to recover the city or
>>> abandon it forever, like Pompeii.
>>>
>>> Most of the damage to the east of New Orleans is from
>>> storm surge. We have had the technology to mitigate
>>> the effects of storm surge for more than a century.
>>>
>>> After the 1900 storm that devastated Galveston, the
>>> Corps of Engineers built a magnificent seawall to
>>> protect the developed area of the island, which was
>>> extended in the 60s.
>>>
>>> The era of "privatization" has ended such projects.
>>> -
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Some introductory materials to the discussion topic of this list are
>> at
>> http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
>> You're subscribed to this list with the email keithwilde@sympatico.ca
>> For more information, visit http://www.eListas.com/list/socialcredit
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Some introductory materials to the discussion topic of this list are at
> http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
> You're subscribed to this list with the email
> jock.coats@oxfordshirecommunitylandtrusts.org.uk
> For more information, visit http://www.eListas.com/list/socialcredit
>
--
Jock Coats
At:
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Work: +44 1865 483353
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