Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1692

Thomas Kida (Amherst, MA) is a professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of many articles on decision-making.

Do you believe that you can consistently beat the stock market if you put in the effort? —that some people have extrasensory perception? —that crime and drug abuse in America are on the rise? Many people hold one or more of these beliefs although research shows that they are not true. And it’s no wonder since advertising and some among the media promote these and many more questionable notions.
Although our creative problem-solving capacity is what has made humans the successful species we are, our brains are prone to certain kinds of errors that only careful critical thinking can correct. This enlightening book discusses how to recognize faulty thinking and develop the necessary skills to become a more effective problem solver.
Author Thomas Kida identifies “the six-pack of problems” that leads many of us unconsciously to accept false ideas:

• We prefer stories to statistics
• We seek to confirm, not to question, our ideas.
• We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in shaping events.
• We sometimes misperceive the world around us.
• We tend to oversimplify our thinking.
• Our memories are often inaccurate.

Kida vividly illustrates these tendencies with numerous examples that demonstrate how easily we can be fooled into believing something that isn’t true.
In a complex society where success—in all facets of life—often requires the ability to evaluate the validity of many conflicting claims, the critical-thinking skills examined in this informative and engaging book will prove invaluable.

World Population Growth Infographic

http://www.upack.com/press/population-growth/ 

Just how much is the world's population expected to grow over the next 40 years? Here's a look at how the massive population growth over the past 60 years has impacted the world we live in and what to expect as the world population continues to grow.
Originally seen on: http://pimentanegra.blogspot.com/

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
- Walden - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

TAX HAVENS: How Globalization Really Works

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=5576

From the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man to the Principality of Liechtenstein and the state of Delaware, tax havens offer lower tax rates, less stringent regulations and enforcement, and promises of strict secrecy to individuals and corporations alike. In recent years government regulators, hoping to remedy economic crisis by diverting capital from hidden channels back into taxable view, have undertaken sustained and serious efforts to force tax havens into compliance.

In Tax Havens, Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, and Christian Chavagneux provide an up-to-date evaluation of the role and function of tax havens in the global financial system-their history, inner workings, impact, extent, and enforcement. They make clear that while, individually, tax havens may appear insignificant, together they have a major impact on the global economy. Holding up to $13 trillion of personal wealth—the equivalent of the annual U.S. Gross National Product—and serving as the legal home of two million corporate entities and half of all international lending banks, tax havens also skew the distribution of globalization's costs and benefits to the detriment of developing economies.

The first comprehensive account of these entities, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom about tax havens. The authors reveal that, rather than operating at the margins of the world economy, tax havens are integral to it. More than simple conduits for tax avoidance and evasion, tax havens actually belong to the broad world of finance, to the business of managing the monetary resources of individuals, organizations, and countries. They have become among the most powerful instruments of globalization, one of the principal causes of global financial instability, and one of the large political issues of our times.

Authors:
Ronen Palan is Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places, and Nomad Millionaires, also from Cornell.
Richard Murphy is CEO of Tax Research, LLP, based in the UK. He is a frequent adviser to the media, NGOs, and politicians, and writes a blog at taxresearch.org.uk.
Christian Chavagneux, based in Paris, is deputy editor in chief of Alternatives Economiques and editor of L'Economie politique.

"Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."
- Garth Jowett

A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disasters

"The freshest, deepest, most optimistic account of human nature I've come across in years."
-Bill McKibben

Rebecca Solnit - Author 

The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides. A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster's grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become-one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local.

Rebecca Solnit is the author of numerous books, including Hope in the Dark, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and Art, which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. In 2003, she received the prestigious Lannan Literary Award.

The Evolution of Cooperation

Insects that survive on plant sap alone offer insights into the likely origin and evolution of all multicellular life

Source: http://seedmagazine.com/

Credit: Flickr user Michael Hodge

Suppose you were imprisoned in a room with no food supply except for a huge trough of maple syrup. How long do you think you could survive? Sure, the syrup would provide plenty of energy for basic bodily functions, but it would perhaps be only a few months until scurvy or other nasty diseases of malnutrition ravaged your body. Without the ability to somehow produce vitamins and amino acids necessary for survival, consuming a food composed of just sugar and a few minerals likely wouldn’t sustain you for even a year.

Yet many animals do survive on very limited diets, and they have no more ability than you do to produce the basic building blocks of life. Last week, microbiology researcher Ryan Kitko pointed out that the candy-stripe leafhopper thrives while consuming only the xylem and phloem of plants—sap. So how do sap-sucking insects like leafhoppers and aphids survive? Kitko points to two studies on a type of leafhopper commonly known as sharpshooters. Researchers found cells in sharpshooters that were jam-packed with bacteria, which converted the raw materials from sap into the vitamins and amino acids the insects need to survive.

The glassy-winged sharpshooter has two different resident bacteria, each of which creates different nutrients for the host insect from its base diet of plant sap. The bacteria are transmitted directly from the mother to her eggs, so young insects hatch with all the apparatus they need to live on plant sap alone. The bacteria, in turn, have very limited genomes. They wouldn’t be able to survive without the host insects to provide protection and a ready supply of food. In fact, the two bacteria that provide nutrients for the sharpshooter themselves have complementary genomes, each having lost formerly essential sections of their genome now found in the other. The bacteria not only produce nutrients for the host, but also depend on each other’s presence to get the nutrients they themselves need.

Most biologists now believe that complex cells with nuclei—eukaryotes—originated from simpler cells by combining and integrating the functions of those cells. A eukaryotic cell’s mitochondria, which convert food to more readily usable energy sources, or a eukarotyic cell’s chloroplasts, responsible for photosynthesis, are both believed to derive from what once were separate and distinct organisms. Similarly, the bacteria in leafhoppers have become essential for the leafhoppers’ survival, reproducing along with the insects themselves.

Perhaps not surprisingly, mutualistic relationships between bacteria and host organisms aren’t limited to insects. The biochemist who blogs as “Lab Rat” points to another such relationship, which allows plants to use otherwise inaccessible nitrogen in the atmosphere. While the importance of the relationship between plants and the bacteria in root nodules has been recognized for years, recent advances in genome sequencing have helped shed light on how the relationship may have evolved. Lab Rat cites a review published last month by Christina Toft and Siv Andersson in Nature Reviews Genetics. Toft and Andersson say that as a mutualistic relationship becomes more advanced, genomes in mutualistic bacteria become progressively smaller.

In the early stages of a mutualistic relationship, a bacterium must be able to survive on its own in addition to within a host organism. In fact, its genome might become more complex as it develops the means to interact successfully with its host. But once the bacterium is completely dependent on its host, the genes and apparatus that allowed it live independently become unwieldy vestigial baggage. The research on genome size in these bacteria backs this up: Bacteria that are fully dependent on their hosts have significantly smaller genomes than those that are also able to live on their own.

After nearly a billion years of evolution, the mitochondria in your cells bear small resemblance to their bacterial ancestors, but they still possess their own DNA and the ability to reproduce. Their tiny genome contains just enough information to preserve their function, independent of the vastly larger genome of your cell nucleus. Without the protection of your body and the food delivered by your digestive and circulatory systems, your mitochondria couldn’t survive. But without mitochondria, all eukaryotic life as we know it, let alone plants and animals, would be impossible. While it’s impossible to reconstruct the evolution of mitochondria with certainty, other mutualistic bacteria can give us insight into how mitochondria may have evolved.

And while it seems unlikely that humans will ever develop the ability to survive on syrup alone, insects that thrive on an equally simple diet can still show us something about how human life evolved, with all its diverse tastes and needs.

Dave Munger is editor of ResearchBlogging.org, where you can find thousands of blog posts on this and myriad other topics. Each week, he writes about recent posts on peer-reviewed research from across the blogosphere. See previous Research Blogging columns »

L' oligarchie, ça suffit, vive la démocratie - Hervé Kempf

http://www.seuil.com/fiche-ouvrage.php?EAN=9782021028881

Sommes-nous en dictature ? Non. Sommes-nous en démocratie ? Non plus. Les puissances d’argent ont acquis une influence démesurée, les grands médias sont contrôlés par les intérêts capitalistes, les lobbies décident des lois en coulisses, les libertés sont jour après jour entamées. Dans tous les pays occidentaux, la démocratie est attaquée par une caste. En réalité, nous sommes entrés dans un régime oligarchique, cette forme politique conçue par les Grecs anciens et qu’ont oubliée les politologues : la domination d’une petite classe de puissants qui discutent entre pairs et imposent ensuite leurs décisions à l’ensemble des citoyens.

Si nous voulons répondre aux défis du XXIe siècle, il faut revenir en démocratie : cela suppose de reconnaître l’oligarchie pour ce qu’elle est, un régime qui vise à maintenir les privilèges des riches au mépris des urgences sociales et écologiques.

Car la crise écologique et la mondialisation rebattent les cartes de notre culture politique : l’Occident doit apprendre à partager le monde avec les autres habitants de la planète. Il n’y parviendra qu’en sortant du régime oligarchique pour réinventer une démocratie vivante. Si nous échouons à aller vers la Cité mondiale, guidés par le souci de l’équilibre écologique, les oligarques nous entraîneront dans la violence et l’autoritarisme.

Au terme de ce récit précisément documenté mais toujours vivant, le lecteur ne verra plus la politique de la même façon.

Comment les riches détruisent la planète et Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme, les précédents ouvrages d’Hervé Kempf, ont rencontré un réjouissant succès. Ils ont été traduits dans de nombreuses langues. L’intérêt soutenu qu’ils continuent de susciter en fait désormais des références de l’écologie politique.

The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey

http://davidharvey.org/

Since the moment the deeply unsettling financial disaster erupted in September 2008, a crisis of confidence has gripped the economic mind. Experts of all stripes, from Alan Greenspan on down, were at a loss to explain what had happened.

A legendary scholar and critic of capitalism, David Harvey has been warning of problems for decades. Now, in The Enigma of Capital , Harvey provides a sweeping and brilliantly clear explanation of how the disaster happened, and how we can avoid another like it. Unlike other commentators, Harvey does not focus on subprime loans or mortgage securitization as the root cause of the calamity. Instead, he looks at something that reaches far deeper into the heart of capitalism--the flow of money through society. He shows how falling profit margins in the 1970s generated a deep transformation. With government assistance, capital was freed to flow across borders, and production moved to cheaper labor markets, depressing workers' incomes in the West. But as more and more money moved out of the laboring classes and into the pockets of the wealthy, a problem arose--how could the workers afford to buy the products which fueled the now-global economy? To solve this problem, a new kind of finance capitalism arose, pouring rivers of credit to increasingly strapped consumers. Moreover, these financial institutions loaned money to both real-estate developers as well as home buyers--in effect, controlling both the supply and demand for housing. But when the real-estate market collapsed, so did this financial edifice, an edifice that dominated our economy.

We cannot afford to simply shore up this financial system, Harvey writes; we need to undertake a radical overhaul. With this landmark account, he offers a richly informed discussion of how we can turn our economy in a new direction--fairer, healthier, more just, and truly sustainable.

Understanding and Forecasting the Credit Cycle

Why the Mainstream Paradigm in Economics and Finance Collapsed

by Richard A. Werner

Table of contents

Introduction
Crises Have Disproven Mainstream Neo-Classical Economics
What’s Wrong with Mainstream Economics?
The Reality of Credit Creation: There Is No Such Thing As a Bank Loan
How to Fix the Banking System and Ensure Employment

The Reality of Credit Creation: There Is No Such Thing As a Bank Loan

What are the implications for finance and banking? For small firms, the price of money (the interest rate) is usually less important than the question of whether a loan can be obtained at all. Banks prefer to ration and allocate credit—even in the best of times—because due to the high demand for this useful thing called money, the theoretical market-clearing interest rate would be so high as to leave them with only risky projects, while sensible projects could not service the loans. This explains why interest rates are far less important in the economy than is generally claimed. Instead, the quantity of credit is the most important variable determining growth, asset prices, and exchange rates.

The most important institutional reality that has been neglected by theoretical equilibrium economics is the key function banks perform: they create between 95% and 98% of the money supply. The first and most important form of privatization that has swept the world has been the privatization of the creation and allocation of money, which is implemented by privately-owned commercial banks.

This means that there is no such thing as a “bank loan.” Banks do not lend money. “Lending” refers to transferring control of the lent object to the borrower. If I lend you my car, I can’t drive it at the same time. That’s not what banks do when they issue a “bank loan.” Instead, they are allowed by the current regulatory framework to create new money out of nothing—which is called “credit creation.” The collective decisions of commercial bank staff thus determine how much money is created, who gets the newly created money and to what use it is put.

Mainstream economics assumes that the best possible outcome will be achieved if banks are left alone in making their decisions about how much money should be created, to whom it should be handed over, and for what purpose. But the current crisis has demonstrated that we can’t expect banks’ credit decisions to be in any way beneficial to the overall economy, social welfare, or even the bankers themselves—as Alan Greenspan has now admitted. The incentive structure at banks is such that they tend to create too much credit, when not needed, and for unproductive use. This is followed by banks creating too little money, when more would be needed.

There are some simple rules for sound banking and sound economics that need to be followed. Whenever credit is created and used to increase the amount of goods and services provided, it will result in noninflationary growth; more money comes about, but also more goods and services. Whenever credit is created and used for unproductive purposes, inflation comes about; more money chases limited goods or assets. The unproductive credit creation can take two forms. When credit is extended for consumption, it will result in consumer price inflation. When credit is extended for non-GDP transactions (which means mainly financial and real estate transactions), there will be asset inflation. Both cases are unsustainable and, if sufficiently large, result in banking and economic crises.

In the research experience of this author, this framework (first proposed in a 1992 paper, published as Werner, 1997) delivers the most reliable models for forecasting nominal GDP growth, equity markets, bond markets, and even currencies. Credit used for GDP transactions is the most reliable forecaster of nominal GDP growth. Credit used for non-GDP transactions ends up driving up real estate and asset prices, and ultimately turns into bad debts. It is thus a key variable to watch by policy makers, if one wants to prevent asset bubbles and banking crises, as I have suggested many times in the past two decades. Empirical evidence and further details can be found in the book, New Paradigm in Macroeconomics.

To prevent banking crises, it must be ensured that the bulk of credit creation is used for productive purposes. Specifically, aggregate bank credit for transactions that are not part of GDP (something that can be easily verified by loan officers) needs to be monitored, and suppressed when it rises in excess of overall bank credit growth (see Werner, 1997, 1999). This simple measure would have prevented the credit bubbles in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and many emerging markets, which have now burst and caused the current crisis. It would also have prevented the Japanese depression since 1990 or the US Depression of the 1930s, among others. Central banks used to monitor precisely this but, following the deregulation advice of mainstream economics, they chose to abolish their “credit guidance” policies and instead let rip the unproductive bank credit expansions. Ironically, now the UK, French, and German governments want to monitor the allocation of new bank lending (to small firms) policy advice of the kind I have given consistently and repeatedly since 1991, but which was rejected as ‘inefficient interference’ in ‘free markets’. This amounts to closing stable doors when the horse has already bolted.

Thus one also needs to ask why those institutions that could have prevented the bubbles have singularly failed to do so, although they had been given unusually strong powers with little accountability to democratic institutions—the central banks. They cannot feign ignorance: apart from employing the largest number of economists of any institution and spending vast resources on ‘research’ (none of it on the taboo topic of credit creation), I have also contacted many central banks and finance ministries and have in the past twenty years published many articles based on my credit model, warning of pending crises (such as today’s UK banking collapse) and indicating that bubbles and subsequent collapses could easily be prevented by monitoring and restricting speculative (non-GDP) credit creation. Central banks – and governments for that matter – were not interested. This suggests that the very independence and lack of accountability of central banks has been a factor in allowing the creation of credit bubbles and the propagation of the current crisis. Central banks should be made to monitor credit flows and be more directly accountable to democratically elected assemblies for the macroeconomic results.

Modernities, Class, and the Contradictions of Globalization: The Anthropology of Global Systems

"Bacall and Bogart typify a particular time in film. Ekholm Friedman and Friedman define a particular time in anthropology. Bacall and Bogart did it with grace; Ekholm Friedman and Friedman do it with disciplinary elegance. What they do is to rethink anthropology, specifically by using global anthropology to explain the emergence and dynamics of the modern world. In Modernities, Class, and the Contradictions of Globalization, the second volume of their monumental The Anthropology of Global Systems, the authors introduce concepts and theoretical debates that have characterized different attempts to understand the global. Ekholm Friedman and Friedman help us understand the modern world's changing ethnographic landscape, forms of political order, and diverse modes of discourse. They are the Bacall and Bogart of systemic globalization."—Stephen Reyna, University of Manchester

In Modernities, Class, and the Contradictions of Globalization, two distinguished anthropologists look at how global processes have shaped the emergence of our dynamic and often difficult and contradictory modern world. The authors are particularly interested in structures that link individual human beings to more general social transformations. This book is a synthesis of the Friedmans' decades-long anthropological research into the human consequences--whether for good or bad--of globalization. (http://iris.ehess.fr/document.php?id=714)

About the Authors

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman is professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at Lund University, Sweden.

Jonathan Friedman is directeur d'études at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, and professor of social anthropology at Lund University.

Benign Bigotry: The Psychology of Subtle Prejudice

http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item2712693/?site_locale=en_GB

Kristin J. Anderson, University of Houston-Downtown

http://www.benignbigotry.com/Site/Introduction.html

While overt prejudice is now much less prevalent than in decades past, subtle prejudice - prejudice that is inconspicuous, indirect, and often unconscious - continues to pervade our society. Laws do not protect against subtle prejudice and, because of its covert nature, it is difficult to observe and frequently goes undetected by both perpetrator and victim. Benign Bigotry uses a fresh, original format to examine subtle prejudice by addressing six commonly held cultural myths based on assumptions that appear harmless but actually foster discrimination: 'those people all look alike'; 'they must be guilty of something'; 'feminists are man-haters'; 'gays flaunt their sexuality'; 'I'm not a racist, I'm color-blind' and 'affirmative action is reverse racism'. Kristin J. Anderson skillfully relates each of these myths to real world events, emphasizes how errors in individual thinking can affect society at large, and suggests strategies for reducing prejudice in daily life.

The financialization of the Ecosystem Services:

How and why should we trust profit driven markets to solve the problems created by a mindset of permanent economic growth? "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." - Albert Einstein (neither by the same instituitional framework. Institutional diversity is required to tackle the multidimensional challenges that human kind needs to adress properly.)

Ecosystem Services: Pricing to Peddle

by Brian Czech

Souce: http://steadystate.org/ecosystem-services-pricing-to-peddle/

On November 15, five nations issued a complaint about a UN initiative called the “Global Green New Deal.” These nations claim that “nature is seen [by the UN] as ‘capital’ for producing tradable environmental goods and services.” They express their concern about the “privatization and the mercantilization of nature through the development of markets for environmental services.” They also declare their “condemnation of unsustainable models of economic growth.”

For the purposes of this week’s Daly News, it matters little who these nations are, nor does it matter if their interpretation of the Green New Deal is completely accurate. What does matter is that their complaint ripens our attention to a widespread and growing controversy about the implications of valuing ecosystem services.

The good news from the Green New Deal is that ecological microeconomics (such as valuing ecosystem services) has risen from the recesses of academia into the realm of international diplomacy. The bad news is that ecological macroeconomics (such as limits to growth) apparently has not. Let’s take a look at the implications.

The primary distinction of ecological economics, in contrast with conventional or “neoclassical” economics, is that ecological economists recognize limits to growth and a fundamental trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. The economic pie can only get so big even if all its pieces are correctly priced, including ecosystem services. Because the economic pie can only get so big, society must also pay greater attention to fairly distributing the pieces. In order to protect the environment, and to help allocate resources in the fairest manner, it helps to recognize the economic value of ecosystem services. That’s what ecological microeconomics is all about; estimating the value of natural capital and ecosystem services.

In mainstream economic circles, on the other hand, limits to growth are seen as nonexistent or too far off to worry about. That leads to a nonchalant attitude about fairness; just grow the economy because a “rising tide lifts all boats.” Traditional economists don’t mind valuing ecosystem services, however. As long as the prices are right, and markets are established, ecosystem services can be allocated efficiently, just like steel and milk into guns and butter.

The valuation of ecosystem services provides some common ground for neoclassical and ecological economics. That should be a good thing. However, common ground can be a minefield, too. Many a well-meaning bureaucrat and diplomat are stumbling toward the landmines.

Perhaps the two most common concerns about valuing ecosystem services are: 1) Many ecosystem services are beyond the ability of humans to estimate the value of, much less to “price” for the market. “Value of the ozone layer? Priceless.” 2) The valuing of ecosystem services begs a market, then monetization of the services such that they are viewed as commodities to be traded like hogs or hoola hoops. For many cultures this offends the senses of dignity and harmony with the natural world. “Would you take 40,000 hogs for the climate regulation provided by that forest over there?”

But my concern is with another problem; namely, our inattention to where the money comes from to pay for services such as water filtration, carbon sequestration, pollination, etc. There seems to be an attitude that, if we just throw enough money at a problem, we’ll solve it. And that is precisely the attitude that creeps in when ecological microeconomics is not complemented with a healthy dose of ecological macroeconomics. Markets convey the idea that you can have as much as you want as long as you pay the right price; ecological macroeconomics says the total is limited and the right market price should simply ration the limited total. And if the total is not limited then it is hard for the price to be “right”.

We especially need more awareness of the trophic origins of money. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it does come from the ground in a very real sense. The amount of money available for the purchasing of guns, butter, hogs or carbon sequestration originates from the agricultural and extractive surplus that frees the hands for the division of labor.

In other words, it is not the ozone layer that “generates” money for throwing at its priceless service. Nor does the North Pole “generate” the money for ecotourists to witness it. What generates money is activity on the ground – on the farm, in the forest, in the fishery – that gives everyone else their food, as well as the materials for their clothing and shelter. Everyone else is then free to work in the manufacturing or service sectors. With plenty of surplus, the economy can even support bankers, actors, and financial engineers who set up markets for trading carbon permits. That’s the trophic structure of the human economy.

The more our farmers, loggers, and fishermen produce, the more money we’ll all have for the bank, the movies, and trading in biodiversity credits. But of course the more we ask them to produce, the more environmental impact we’ll have. If you insist on growing the economy and protecting the environment, eventually the bank and the theatre will be empty; your money’s going straight to the ecosystem services market. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Now consider the other side of the coin, so to speak. We often hear about the investment in the Catskill Mountains watershed that provides clean water to New York City. I’m all for it! But it’s no example of reconciling the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. What do the growthers think they’re going to do in that watershed: open hog farms and build high-rises? No, by “investing” in that natural capital a decision was made to keep the land relatively free from intensive economic activity. That’s not the kind of investment they like to hear about in New York City, at least not on Wall Street.

So I’ll stop short of saying, “Let’s encourage all the ecological microeconomics we can get.” Let’s encourage some of it, while realizing that there are only so many ecological economists to go around. Let’s encourage far more study and practice of ecological macroeconomics. With microeconomics, let’s help to demonstrate what’s at stake when we mine an aquifer or pull up a fishery. But more importantly, let’s not peddle those ecosystem services like they’re rubber boots. Remember where the money comes from to pay for them: the liquidation of natural capital stocks somewhere else. That’s ecological macroeconomics, and that leads to a steady state economy where some of those precious ecosystem services stay where they belong: out of the market.

Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View

http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061765216

"The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act."
- Stanley Milgram, 1974

In the 1960s Stanley Milgram carried out a series of experiments in which human subjects were given progressively more painful electro-shocks in a careful calibrated series to determine to what extent people will obey orders even when they knew them to be painful and immoral-to determine how people will obey authority regardless of consequences. These experiments came under heavy criticism at the time but have ultimately been vindicated by the scientific community. This book is Milgram′s vivid and persuasive explanation of his methods.

Big Government and Big Business ... will try to impose social and cultural uniformity upon adults and their children. To achieve this they will (unless prevented) make use of all the mind-manipulating techniques at their disposal and will not hesitate to reinforce these methods of non-rational persuasion by economic coercion and threats of physical violence. If this kind of tyranny is to be avoided, we must begin without delay to educate ourselves and our children for freedom and self-government. Such an education for freedom should be ... first of all in facts and in values — the facts of individual diversity and genetic uniqueness and the values of freedom, tolerance and mutual charity, which are the ethical corollaries of these facts. 
- Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)
http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/Illuminating_Quotes.cfm

"A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection not an invitation for hypnosis."
- Umberto Eco

Ellen Brown from the book Web of Debt

"Today the government is actually run by the money cartel. Big business holds all the cards, because its affiliated banks have appropriated the power to create money for themselves. These giant cartels can be brought to heel only by cutting off their source of power and returning it to its rightful sovereign owners, the people and their representative government. The problem with the current monetary scheme is not that the government is irresponsibly running the printing presses but that private bankers are covertly engaged in that practice. Bankers have monopolized the business of issuing and lending the national money supply, a function that the Constitution delegates solely to Congress. What hides behind the banner of "free enterprise" today is a system in which giant corporate monopolies have used their affiliated banking trusts to generate unlimited funds to buy up competitors, the media, and the government itself, forcing truly independent private enterprise out. Big private banks are allowed to create money out of nothing, lend it at interest, foreclose on the collateral, and determine who gets credit and who doesn't. They can advance massive loans to their affiliated cartels and hedge funds, which use the money to raid competitors and manipulate markets. If some players have the power to create money and others don't, the playing field is not 'level' but allows some favored players to dominate and coerce others. "

There is a disturbing amount of evidence that our problems don't just extend to the private corporate banks, but that in fact the entire World Banking System exists not to enrich humanity but to enslave humanity beneath its debt.

While I certainly cannot claim to know the motivations that guide those behind the institutions currently in power, I can however investigate their history and their actions.

http://secret-of-life.org/the-Federal-Reserve

La décroissance: Entropie - Écologie - Économie (1979)

La table des matières; Quatrième de couverture.

Introduction à la deuxième édition, 1995; Préface à la première édition (1979).

Table des figures

Fiches des auteurs cités par Georgescu-Roegen (Annexe II, pp. 203-231)

Le texte de La Décroissance au format Word 2001 à télécharger (Un fichier de 213 pages et de 1 Mo.)

Le texte de La Décroissance au format PDF (Acrobat Reader) à télécharger (Un fichier de 213 pages et de 956 K.)

Le texte de La Décroissance au format rtf (Rich text format) à télécharger (Un fichier de 213 pages et de 1,5 Mo.)

Une édition électronique réalisée à partir du livre de Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994). La décroissance. Entropie - Écologie - Économie (1979). Présentation et traduction de MM. Jacques Grinevald et Ivo Rens. Nouvelle édition, 1995. [Première édition, 1979]. Paris: Éditions Sang de la terre, 1995, 254 pp. [Autorisation accordée par les ayant-droit et les traducteurs, MM. Jacques Grinevald et Ivo Rens, Université de Genève, le 17 février 2004] Une éditions numérique réalisée par Gemma Paquet, bénévole, professeure retraitée du Cégep de Chicoutimi.
Courriel: Ivo.Rens@droit.unige.ch, professeur, Université de Genève.

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

http://judithrichharris.info/tna/tna2larg.htm

This groundbreaking book, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times notable pick, rattled the psychological establishment when it was first published in 1998 by claiming that parents have little impact on their children's development. In this tenth anniversary edition of The Nurture Assumption, Judith Harris has updated material throughout and provided a fresh introduction. Combining insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, primatology, and evolutionary biology, she explains how and why the tendency of children to take cues from their peers works to their evolutionary advantage. This electrifying book explodes many of our unquestioned beliefs about children and parents and gives us a radically new view of childhood.

Conséquences politiques d’une crise énergétique annoncée

Parmi les nombreuses manifestations de l’échec du système productiviste capitaliste – catastrophes « naturelles », épuisement des ressources, pandémies, famines, disparition d’espèces – la crise énergétique qui pointe et qui se confirme de jours en jours est riche d’enseignements. À travers cet événement majeur on tentera de dégager les caractéristiques du procès de production capitaliste, d’en montrer sa relation organique avec l’accumulation, d’en cerner les limites, d’évaluer les conséquences humaines de son effondrement et de dégager quelques orientations pour l’action.

« Nous allons désormais entamer une ère nouvelle, ère que je décrirais comme celle de la désintégration de l’économie-monde capitaliste. Tous les beaux discours au sujet de la création d’un « nouvel ordre mondial » n’ont été qu’autant de gesticulations, paroles proférées comme le vent, auxquelles plus personne ne croit, ou peu s’en faut, et dont la réalisation paraît chaque jour un peu plus improbable »
Immanuel Wallerstein [1]

ISELIN François

SOMMAIRE

•  1 CRISE DU MODÈLE PRODUCTIVIST
• 2 MODE DE PRÉDATION CAPITALIST
• 3 CAPITALISME ET DURABILITÉ
• 4 ESSENTIEL ET SUPERFLU
• 5 NÉCESSITÉ ET ABONDANCE
• 6 EMBALLEMENT DU PILLAGE
• 7 PENURIE ÉNERGÉTIQUE
• 8 PÉNURIE DE TEMPS
• 9 DOUBLE ACCUMULATION DU (...)
• 10 USAGE ET USURE
• 11 PRODUCTION ET REPRODUCTION
• 12 REPRODUCTION SPONTANNÉE
• 13 VILLE CAMPAGNE
• 14 COUPER LE CONTACT
• 15 REDÉMARRER

7 Ways to Transform Banking

Photo by Ryan MacFarland

Each of us can help build a resilient financial system that will serve real people in real communities.

Fran Korten wrote this article for YES! Magazine

Are you as outraged as I am by the Wall Street bankers with their fat bonuses, shoddy mortgages, and financial shenanigans? With the gridlock in Washington, I wanted to know what “we the people” can do to turn our fury into constructive action. So I turned to my friend Jared Gardner for advice. Jared comes from the financial industry and thinks hard and well about how to change the system.

Here are seven things I gleaned from my discussion with Jared about what we can each do to build a resilient financial system that will serve real people in real communities.

Move your money.

You may have heard about the Move Your Money campaign. The idea is to move your deposits from a Wall Street bank to a community bank or a local credit union. This is a terrific first step to keep the banksters from playing games with your money. Check out Green America's Community Investing website for ideas on what to do.

Move your debt.

Don’t stop with just moving your deposits. Move your debt. It’s in servicing debt that banks make the big money. So if you have a credit card, a car loan, or a mortgage, consider moving them. Find someone at your local bank or credit union who can help you review your debt and see what you could move to a local institution. Your interest payments can build your local economy instead of fattening those Wall Street bonuses.

Persuade your institutions.

Do you belong to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? How about the place where you work? Or a club or nonprofit where you are a member? All of these institutions likely have money and debt. Talk with the leadership about where they do their banking and encourage them to explore what they could move to a local bank. The First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon is considering moving its entire banking relationship from a Wall Street bank to a local bank. And the Responsible Endowments Coalition is urging colleges and universities to do the same. We need to follow these examples and make this a nation-wide movement.

Advocate a state-owned bank.

Sadly for the nation, North Dakota stands alone in having a state-owned bank. But that may change. Ellen Brown reports that five states now have pending legislation to create state-owned banks, and more are studying the possibility. The advantages are tremendous. The Bank of North Dakota has kept credit flowing throughout the financial crisis. More important, the state bank keeps community banks thriving. North Dakota has more community banks per capita than any other state in the union. Those community banks serve local businesses, which in turn generate local jobs—a winning strategy in a job-starved market. According to Brown, last year North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

Form or join a group.

Working with others keeps motivation high. One good option is a Common Security Club. Chapters are forming in communities across the country. Members find ways to help each other with financial difficulties, discuss the roots of the economic crisis, and advocate policies that will turn the system around.

Learn more.

The New Rules Project has a community banking initiative that’s a font of current information on breakthroughs for community banking. Ellen Brown provides regular insights into openings for transforming the banking system. Oregonians for a State Bank is developing allies across the political spectrum who want to strengthen their local economy. And the YES! Magazine website provides a steady stream of stories that spotlight the actions people are taking to build a new economy.

Share these ideas.

People of all political stripes are furious with the Wall Street banks. But they don’t know what to do. So tell everyone you know what you’re doing and why. And share this list. Together we can build a force strong enough to transform the banking system to one that will work for us all.

Conferência-Palestra sobre DECRESCIMENTO SUSTENTÁVEL

Fonte: http://pimentanegra.blogspot.com/

Sexta, 12/11/2010 - 11:00
Local: Auditório da Biblioteca FCT-UNL (Almada)

É possível criar uma sociedade onde se possa viver melhor com menos?

Palestra sobre decrescimento sustentável com a participação de Giorgos Kallis, professor ICREA do Instituto de Ciências e Tecnologias Ambientais da Universidade Autónoma de Barcelona (http://icta.uab.cat/icta )

Degrowth Conference Barcelona 2010 - http://www.degrowth.eu/v1/

Thermodynamic Roots of Economics

by Herman Daly

The first and second laws of thermodynamics should also be called the first and second laws of economics. Why? Because without them there would be no scarcity, and without scarcity, no economics. Consider the first law: if we could create useful energy and matter as we needed it, as well as destroy waste matter and energy as it got in our way, we would have superabundant sources and sinks, no depletion, no pollution, more of everything we want without having to find a place for stuff we don’t want. The first law rules out this direct abolition of scarcity. But consider the second law: even without creation and destruction of matter-energy, we might indirectly abolish scarcity if only we could use the same matter-energy over and over again for the same purposes — perfect recycling. But the second law rules that out. And if one thinks that time is the ultimate scarce resource, well, the entropy law is time’s irreversible arrow in the physical world. So it is that scarcity and economics have deep roots in the physical world, as well as deep psychic roots in our wants and desires.

Economists have paid much attention to the psychic roots of value (e.g., diminishing marginal utility), but not so much to the physical roots. Generally they have assumed that the biophysical world is so large relative to its economic subsystem that the physical constraints (the laws of thermodynamics and ecological interdependence) are not binding. But they are always binding to some degree and become very limiting as the scale of the economy becomes large relative to the containing biophysical system. Therefore attention to thermodynamic constraints on the economy, indeed to the entropic nature of the economic process, is now critical — as emphasized by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in his magisterial The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971).

Why has his profound contribution been so roundly ignored for forty years? Because as limits to economic growth become more binding, the economists who made their reputations by pushing economic growth as panacea become uncomfortable. Indeed, were basic growth limits recognized, very many very prestigious economists would be seen to have been very wrong about some very basic issues for a very long time. Important economists, like most people, resist being proved wrong. They even bolster their threatened prestige with such pretension as “the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel” — which by journalistic contraction becomes, “the Nobel Prize in Economics,” infringing on the prestige of a real science, like physics. Yet it is only by ignoring the most basic laws of physics that growth economics has endured. Honoring the worthy contributions of economists should not require such flummery.

I once asked Georgescu-Roegen why the “MIT-Harvard mafia” (his term) never cited his book. He replied with a Romanian proverb to the effect that, “in the house of the condemned one does not mention the prosecutor.”

Source: http://steadystate.org/thermodynamic-roots/

The Artificial Ape by Timothy Taylor

How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution

Timothy Taylor, PhD is the author ofThe Buried Soul and The Prehistory of Sex. He has appeared on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and National Geographic specials. He contributes to such publications as Nature, Scientific American, and World Archaeology, and is editor-in-chief of the Journal of World Prehistory. He teaches archaeology at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.

A breakthrough theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution

Although humans are one of the great apes, along with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are remarkably different from them. Unlike our cousins who subsist on raw food, spend their days and nights outdoors, and wear a thick coat of hair, humans are entirely dependent on artificial things, such as clothing, shelter, and the use of tools, and would die in nature without them. Yet, despite our status as the weakest ape, we are the masters of this planet. Given these inherent deficits, how did humans come out on top?

In this fascinating new account of our origins, leading archaeologist Timothy Taylor proposes a new way of thinking about human evolution through our relationship with objects. Drawing on the latest fossil evidence, Taylor argues that at each step of our species’ development, humans made choices that caused us to assume greater control of our evolution. Our appropriation of objects allowed us to walk upright, lose our body hair, and grow significantly larger brains. As we push the frontiers of scientific technology, creating prosthetics, intelligent implants, and artificially modified genes, we continue a process that started in the prehistoric past, when we first began to extend our powers through objects.

Weaving together lively discussions of major discoveries of human skeletons and artifacts with a reexamination of Darwin’s theory of evolution, Taylor takes us on an exciting and challenging journey that begins to answer the fundamental question about our existence: what makes humans unique, and what does that mean for our future?

Decrecimiento: 10 puntos para desintoxicarse del crecimiento y reconectarse a la vida

El decrecimiento, más que una teoría nueva, es un nombre impactante para alertar de la necesidad de un cambio.

http://es.demagazine.eu/

UNA PREMISA

El decrecimiento, más que una teoría nueva, es un nombre impactante para alertar de la necesidad de un cambio. La información que utiliza es conocida desde hace tiempo, lo que aporta, tal vez, es una visión de conjunto, un espacio de confluencia, como una cuenca hidrográfica extensa que recoge ideas y prácticas "alternativas". El decrecimiento reúne conocimientos y perspectivas que son el legado de movimientos sociales y tradiciones culturales, espirituales y religiosas diversas: el movimiento de las mujeres y, en general, los movimientos de emancipación, los movimientos por la paz, los derechos civiles, la noviolencia , el movimiento ecologista, que trabaja por la protección y recuperación de la diversidad biológica y sociocultural, pero también de una visión integrada de la realidad y de la vida, los movimientos "alterglobalizador", que se oponen a la exportación a nivel mundial de una estructura de dominio, que es a la vez económico, tecnológica y mental, donde la jerarquía, el control y la competición imponen su lógica encima de cualquier otra; estas voces proponen un camino alternativo para compartir el mosaico de diversidades y hacer -una red que abarque el mundo, basada en la equidad de los intercambios y en la capacidad de cooperación ante los retos enormes a los que las sociedades humanas han de hacer frente en las próximas décadas.

Así, por un lado, se plantea la necesidad de salir de un conjunto de adicciones que generan "deudas", y por otro, se propone restablecer una serie de conexiones y arraigos, hoy en peligro, para volver a alimentar la vida. Entre estas polaridades, se abre un camino de experimentación y síntesis creativa entre lo viejo y lo nuevo, las tradiciones y las innovaciones, que no se puede agotar ni en diez ni en cien o mil puntos.

Desintoxicarse

1. Salir de la adicción energética

Gran parte de las sociedad humanas se han vuelto adictos, desde hace 150 años, a una inyección elevada y creciente de recursos energéticos, especialmente de origen fósil, el principal es el petróleo. Este es un capital energético "ahorrado" durante miles de millones de años de fotosíntesis, que nos hemos medio gastado sin pedir permiso a las generaciones futuras, y que seguimos utilizando para construir una sociedad cada vez más alejada de su viabilidad ecológica. El cambio climático es el síntoma más contundente que muestra el contrasentido de esta cultura de falsa abundancia energética, que genera una deuda ecológica que deberán pagar nuestros hijos y nietos. Se pondrá freno a este abuso, y dar pasos decididos, desde ahora y progresivamente, hacia un metabolismo social y tecnológico basado en la radiación solar-la única que recibimos de forma gratuita-y sus derivados (eólica , hidráulica, biomasas, mareas ...). Es necesario promover formas de generación distribuida de energía y políticas de ahorro, con una revisión de todas las prácticas energívoros (transporte, agricultura, etc.).

2. Salir de la adicción financiera

La desregulación de las finanzas nos ha hecho vivir los últimos cuarenta años en un estado poco menos que al.lucinatori. El espejismo del dinero fácil nos ha hecho perder el mundo de vista. Muy pocos se han aprovechado y muchos, muchísimos, han sufrido las consecuencias. La suma de abstracción y anonimato ha hecho del dinero el arma de destrucción masiva más devastadora del planeta, para que más inadvertida. En pocas décadas se ha generado una deuda astronómico, que ha llevado el sistema a su colapso y no sabemos cómo y cuándo se podrá devolver. El poder del dinero mueve las palancas del poder a menudo en formas ocultas, a través de operaciones delictivas que no dejan rastro. La actividad especulativa no añade valor sino que aumenta precios, y recaudando sin esfuerzo las rentas que otras personas han generado con trabajo e ingenio. Es necesario adoptar medidas, como la Tasa Tobin o similares, que hagan tributar la circulación del dinero en el mercado, para desincentivar las operaciones puramente especulativas. Hay que recuperar los bancos públicos el monopolio de la creación de dinero, limitando el mecanismo del multiplicador bancario que facilita la expansión incontrolada del crédito. Hay que avanzar hacia una moneda informativa y hacia un sistema económico-transparente.

3. Salir de la adicción productivista

La actividad industrial ha dejado en gran medida de ser funcional a satisfacer necesidades fundamentales y concretas. El engranaje productivista responde más bien a la necesidad de amortizar gastos y generar dividendos para los accionistas. La carrera hacia el crecimiento parece ser el único camino para alimentar este mecanismo insaciable. El circuito producción-consumo se va acelerando constantemente, gracias a la cultura del usar y tirar ya la política de la obsolescencia programada. Por otra parte, se genera al mismo tiempo la necesidades de ingresos proporcionados a la fiebre consumidora. La adicción al consumo se prolonga en la adicción al trabajo, en la dependencia del sueldo, que todavía se hace más perversa con el difundirse de actividades "autónomas", que en realidad se traducen en formas de autoesclavatge aún más alienante. Repensar la actividad productiva, sus prioridades, sus procedimientos, el ciclo de vida de los productos, los criterios de distribución ... son pasos indispensables y urgentes, igual que lo son el reparto de las horas de trabajo, la participación de los trabajadores en el empresa, o unas nuevas pautas en el consumo de manufactes, su mantenimiento, reutilización, reparación y reciclaje.

4. Salir de la adicción informativa

El imaginario ha sido y es la última frontera de un proyecto de colonización planetaria. La publicidad, los medios de comunicación, la industria del entretenimiento, han jugado un papel fundamental en decantar las preferencias del gran público hacia la simplificación y superficialidad de los mensajes. La adicción a la "noticia", es decir, a "pastillas de información" de consumo rápido, carentes a menudo de contexto y de profundidad temporal (ni antecedentes, ni consecuencias) va paralela a la pérdida de capacidad narrativa y sentido crítico. Televisión, videojuegos, imágenes sin conexión que ocupan todo el espacio perceptivo, favorecen el adviento de una sociedad más "fluida", donde se pasa del individuo a la masa sin pasajes intermedios. Se generan hábitos de participación ficticia, o bien porque directamente virtuales, sin repercusión, o bien porque reducidos esquema de la competición bipolar, que banaliza cualquier motivo, incluso serio, de conflicto. Hay que reducir la dosis de exposición a inputs informativos desconectados de la vida real de cada persona. Hay que favorecer el ejercicio del sentido crítico ante lo que nos viene de fuera y que, con promesas inverosímiles, nos manipula. En especial, hay que frenar la omnipresencia de la publicidad y encontrar formas de reglamentación de sus mensajes.

5. Salir de la adicción jerárquica

Un modelo de dominio se basa en los mitos y en la retórica de la independencia, la superioridad y el control. La geopolítica mundial sigue respondiendo a esta lógica imperial, más o menos disimulada, y no a la voluntad de gestionar en común el uso de los recursos y la solución de los problemas. Con todos los medios alimenta una especie de aspiración colectiva a liderazgos fuertes y carismáticos, a "hombres de la providencia" que nos tengan que salvar los desastres que justamente esta ansia de dominio ha generado. Y aquí es pertinente hablar de hombres, ya que este modelo tiene connotaciones históricamente masculinas. La burocratización creciente de las sociedades y de sus servicios principales (administración, salud, educación, justicia, representación política ...) visualiza una tendencia general a la cesión de las propias capacidades y responsabilidades, ya la delegación de una cuota de poder personal. Se siembra la sospecha, por otra parte, que quisieron participar en la política no sea civismo sino el síntoma de una ambición personal, y nos hacen creer que la lucha competitiva es obligada. Todos los racismos-por sexo, condición social, credo religioso o color de piel-nacen de esta cultura de la superioridad, incentivada por la mayoría de culturas. Hay que salir de este imaginario, de este modelo mental "único" y de las prácticas que genera en todas las escalas, grandes y pequeñas.

Reconectarse

6. Arraigarse en el territorio

La relocalización es la primera gran opción para reconectar a una forma de vida posible. Hay que invertir la doble tendencia de urbanización acelerada de una parte y despoblamiento del territorio por la otra. Hay que construir una nueva síntesis entre actividades primaria, secundaria y terciaria basada en el cuidado territorial y en un nuevo equilibrio de distribución de la población. El territorio debe volver a ser la fuente principal de la riqueza material y también identitaria. Reconstruir el mosaico de usos, aprovechar al máximo la actividad fotosintética, redescubrir la biodiversidad local, las rotaciones de cultivos, las complementariedades múltiples entre actividades diversas ...

7. Reencontrarse con el propio tiempo vital

Habría que tener muy clara la percepción de que el tiempo no es simplemente un contenedor anónimo y abstracto, sino también tiempo vivido, y como tal emanación de la persona, vinculado a su salud y etapas vitales. La actividad de los individuos se inscribe en este marco, por lo que habría que repensar las formas sociales de cesión del tiempo propio para garantizar las tareas colectivas y el sostentament personal y familiar. Una renta básica universal permite reconocer un valor intrínseco al hecho de ser persona y desvincular una parte de la capacidad adquisitiva de la actividad "asalariada". El tiempo necesario para la reproducción y el mantenimiento de la vida, o la participación en los asuntos colectivos recibiría de esta manera una ayuda concreto para reservarlo. También se evitan los mecanismos perversos del mercado laboral, donde la abundancia de mano de obra modifica a la baja tanto la remuneración del trabajo como sus garantías.

8. Redescubrir la dimensión comunitaria

La aceleración de los últimos 50 años ha "liquidado" estructuras sociales y formas de convivencia muy antiguas. El ser humano es un mamífero, por el que la socialidad y la identificación en un grupo tiene valor de supervivencia. El haber sustituido los "bienes relacionales" con el consumo de bienes materiales no siempre ha supuesto una mejora de nuestra existencia. El reencuentro de la socialidad y de los bienes que las personas pueden intercambiarse sin hacer uso de dinero es un paso importante en la buena dirección. Un retorno a formas de propiedad pública o comunitaria del territorio (referido a la nuda propiedad, con posible usufructo privado) permitiría dar solidez a experiencias de moneda local en beneficio de la comunidad, para favorecer intercambios dentro de un área geográfica concreta. El ámbito local también es propicio para formas de democracia más participada, con un mayor grado de consenso y de corresponsabilidad sobre el futuro colectivo.

9. Elegir la sobriedad

Con un planteamiento más sobrio, todos podríamos tener lo suficiente para vivir con satisfacción. Volver a reconocer las necesidades reales ya diferenciarlas de las necesidades falsas, es el paso previo para construir un mundo en el que podemos sentirnos prósperos sin malgastar recursos ni humillar a nadie. Es necesaria una mayor conexión entre necesidades y consumo, tanto a la hora de comprar como, también, de producir. Reorientar las prioridades productivas hacia bienes y servicios duraderos, fáciles de arreglar, de poco impacto, por mercados lo menos alejados posible, es otra de las prioridades. Esto será más fácil de realizar, si la empresa se democratiza, con una mayor implicación de los trabajadores en las decisiones de la empresa, según una lógica cercana a la del cooperativismo.

10. Reanudar al sentido

Personas y comunidades tienen otra necesidad fundamental: dar un sentido a la propia actividad y presencia en el mundo. La autodestrucción colectiva no puede ser la respuesta que buscábamos. Hay que hacer espacio, redescubrir el silencio, la quietud, la escucha, para imaginar un mundo posible donde el diálogo, la condivisió, la simplicidad, la belleza, sean la base para un nuevo equilibrio arraigado en la vida.

[Este escrito me solicitó Martí Olivella para intentar resumir la propuesta del decrecimiento en el proceso del "Consenso de Barcelona", del que es uno de los principales impulsores]

Carta Maior - Boaventura de Sousa Santos - A ditamole

Se nada fizermos para corrigir o curso das coisas, dentro de alguns anos se dirá que a sociedade portuguesa viveu, entre o final do século XX e começo do século XXI, um luminoso mas breve interregno democrático. Durou menos de quarenta anos, entre 1974 e 2010. Nos quarenta e oito anos que precederam a revolução de 25 de Abril de 1974, viveu sob uma ditadura civil nacionalista, personalizada na figura de Oliveira Salazar. A partir de 2010, entrou num outro período de ditadura civil, desta vez internacionalista e despersonalizada, conduzida por uma entidade abstrata chamada “mercado”. As duas ditaduras começaram por razões financeiras e depois criaram as suas próprias razões para se manterem. Ambas conduziram ao empobrecimento do povo português, que deixaram na cauda dos povos europeus. Mas enquanto a primeira eliminou o jogo democrático, destruiu as liberdades e instaurou um regime de fascismo político, a segunda manteve o jogo democrático mas reduziu ao mínimo as opções ideológicas, manteve as liberdades mas destruiu as possibilidades de serem efetivamente exercidas e instaurou um regime de democracia política combinado com fascismo social. Por esta razão, a segunda ditadura pode ser designada como ditamole.

Os sinais mais preocupantes da atual conjuntura são os seguintes. Primeiro, está a aumentar a desigualdade social numa sociedade que é já a mais desigual da Europa. Entre 2006 e 2009 aumentou em 38,5% o número de trabalhadores por conta de outrem abrangidos pelo salário mínimo (450 euros): são agora 804.000, isto é, cerca de 15% da população ativa; em 2008, um pequeno grupo de cidadãos ricos (4051 agregados fiscais) tinham um rendimento semelhante ao de um vastíssimo número de cidadãos pobres (634.836 agregados fiscais). Se é verdade que as democracias européias valem o que valem as suas classes médias, a democracia portuguesa pode estar cometendo suicídio.

Segundo, o Estado social, que permite corrigir em parte os efeitos sociais da desigualdade, é em Portugal muito débil e mesmo assim está sob ataque cerrado. A opinião pública portuguesa está sendo intoxicada por comentaristas políticos e econômicos conservadores – dominam os meios de comunicação como em nenhum outro país europeu – para quem o Estado social se reduz a impostos: os seus filhos são educados em colégios privados, têm bons seguros de saúde, sentir-se-iam em perigo de vida se tivessem que recorrer “à choldra dos hospitais públicos”, não usam transportes públicos, auferem chorudos salários ou acumulam chorudas pensões. O Estado social deve ser abatido. Com um sadismo revoltante e um monolitismo ensurdecedor, vão insultando os portugueses empobrecidos com as ladainhas liberais de que vivem acima das suas posses e que a festa acabou. Como se aspirar a uma vida digna e decente e comer três refeições mediterrânicas por dia fosse um luxo repreensível.

Terceiro, Portugal transformou-se numa pequena ilha de luxo para
especuladores internacionais. Fazem outro sentido os atuais juros da dívida soberana num país do euro e membro da UE? Onde está o princípio da coesão do projeto europeu? Para gáudio dos trauliteiros da desgraça nacional, o FMI já está cá dentro e em breve, quando do PEC 4 ou 5, anunciará o que os governantes não querem anunciar: que este projeto europeu acabou.

Inverter este curso é difícil mas possível. Muito terá de ser feito em nível europeu e a médio prazo. A curto prazo, os cidadãos terão de dizer basta! Ao fascismo difuso instalado nas suas vidas e reaprender a defender a democracia e a solidariedade tanto nas ruas como nos parlamentos. A greve geral será tanto mais eficaz quanto mais gente vier para a rua manifestar o seu protesto. O crescimento ambientalmente sustentável, a
promoção do emprego, o investimento público, a justiça fiscal, a defesa do Estado social terão de voltar ao vocabulário político através de entendimentos eficazes entre o Bloco de Esquerda, o PCP e os socialistas que apoiam convictamente o projeto alternativo de Manuel Alegre.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos é sociólogo e professor catedrático da Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal).
Fonte: http://www.cartamaior.com.br/

'No somos héroes sino víctimas de empresarios que ganan millones'

Franklin Lobos a su hija al salir de la mina. I Reuters

'La gran mayoría pensó que la empresa nos iba a dejar ahí. Salía más barato dejarnos morir que rescatarnos'

 

El minero Franklin Lobos, que pasó 70 días atrapado en un yacimiento en el norte de Chile junto a otros 32 trabajadores, huye de la fama que han adquirido tras el rescate y asegura que no son héroes, sino "víctimas" de la irresponsabilidad de los dueños de la mina San José.

"La gente nos dice que somos héroes y no, no somos héroes, somos víctimas. Nosotros luchamos por nuestra vida no más, porque tenemos familias. Somos víctimas de los empresarios que no invierten en seguridad", dijo Lobos en una entrevista que publica hoy el diario El Mercurio.

Lobos, ex futbolista profesional de 53 años, indicó que la "gran mayoría" de los 33 obreros creyó que la compañía San Esteban, propietaria de la mina San José, los iba a dejar en el fondo del yacimiento después del derrumbe del pasado 5 de agosto.

"La gran mayoría pensó que la empresa nos iba a dejar ahí. Salía más barato dejarnos morir que rescatarnos", reconoció el minero, que el pasado miércoles fue el rescatado número 27.

Aseguró que nunca perdieron la esperanza de ser salvados, aunque hubo momentos difíciles. "Es que no dependía de nosotros, no teníamos ninguna posibilidad de salir", explicó.

El ruido de las sondas que perforaban la roca para hallarlos les devolvió la ilusión, aunque admite que les cayeron las lágrimas cuando la primera pasó de largo de la zona donde se encontraban.

"Y llorábamos, se nos caían las lágrimas porque veíamos que una posibilidad de salir se escapaba", recuerda Lobos.

Sobre el futuro, el ex futbolista se muestra dispuesto a trabajar de nuevo de minero, oficio al cual se ha dedicado durante los últimos cuatro años y que le ha permitido mantener a su familia.

"La mina no nos quiso llevar, la mina nos quiso con vida, porque nosotros no éramos los malos, éramos víctimas de los empresarios que ganan millones y no piensan en el sufrimiento de la gente pobre", lamenta Lobos, que hasta el día del accidente llevaba cuatro meses trabajando en el yacimiento San José.

Lobos, conocido como el 'Mortero Mágico' en los años 80 por su habilidad para lanzar tiros libres, ha recibido una propuesta de la FIFA para ofrecer charlas de motivación basadas en su experiencia en el fondo de la mina, donde se preocupó de dirigir los ejercicios físicos de sus compañeros para que se mantuvieran en forma.

Aunque todavía no se ha pronunciado sobre esta propuesta, lamentó que aparezca como consecuencia del encierro en la mina, y sostuvo que el acoso mediático al que son sometidos actualmente durará poco.

"Vamos a tener todo, van a llamar de todos los medios, pero en quince días, esto va a pasar", comentó Lobos.
Source:  http://www.elmundo.es/america/

The Coming Collapse of the Real Estate Market

The system for financing mortgages and regulating that financing has failed, completely and utterly. The mortgage and real estate markets are now in collapse. 

Yesterday I wrote about how positive feedback loops lead to collapse. Welcome to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. As I have documented here numerous times, the entire U.S. mortgage market has already been socialized: 99% of all mortgages are backed by the three FFFs--Fannie, Freddie and FHA--and the Federal Reserve has purchased a staggering $1.2 trillion in mortgage-backed assets in the past year or so to maintain the illusion that there is a market for mortgage-backed securities.

There is, but only because the mortgages are backed by the Federal Government and propped up by the Federal Reserve.

The mortgage market is completely dependent on government guarantees and quasi-Government purchases of securitized mortgages. If the mortgage market were truly socialized, then the Central State would own the banks which originate, service and own the mortgages.

But then the private owners and managers of the "too big to fail" banks would not be reaping hundreds of billions in profits and bonuses. And since the banking industry has effectively captured the processes of governance (that is, Congress and the various regulatory agencies), then what we have is a system of private ownership of the revenue and profits generated by the mortgage industry and public absorption of the risks and losses.

Could anything be sweeter for the big banks? No.

The incestuous nature of the system is breathtaking. The Fed creates the credit which enables the mortgages, the Treasury guarantees the mortgages via Fannie, Freddie and FHA, the Fed buys the mortgages ($1.3 trillion in mortgages are on their balance sheet) and the private banks collect the fees and profits.

One of the core tenets of my critique is the State/Financial Plutocracy partnership. There are many examples of this partnership (crony capitalism in which the State is the "enforcer" which collects the national income and distributes it to its private-sector cronies), but perhaps none so blatant and pure as the mortgage/banking sector.

But now the entire legal basis for that privatized-profits, socialized losses system has dissolved. The foreclosure scandal is not just a "scandal" in which various frauds were brought to light; it is the failure of the entire system of originating mortgages that props up the entire real estate market.

I recently reported on the depth of the crisis for AOL's Daily Finance: The Foreclosure Crisis: Eroding Trust -- and Ending the Recovery?

The Mainstream Financial Media has been forced to gingerly poke around the delicate topic, and surprise, it is difficult to put a positive spin on the crisis:

Document Questions Cloud Recovery: Agents Fear Housing Could Stall as Uncertainty on Foreclosures Unnerves Buyers, Especially Investors.

"Title companies would be crazy to ensure title on anything remotely associated with a foreclosed property because we don't know how this is going to resolve itself," said Mark Hanson, an independent housing analyst in Menlo Park, Calif.
The result: Not only could sales slow on foreclosures now listed for sale, but it could also become harder to sell or refinance properties that have been foreclosed upon at some point in the past few years.
Real-estate agents are particularly worried about the situation's impact on investors, the buyers who fix up foreclosed homes for resale. Investors accounted for 21% of all home sales in August, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Little-Known MERS Faces Big Challenges in Foreclosure Battle:

Success in challenging MERS’ role in a foreclosure could mean the owner of a mortgage holds a loan without claim to the house as collateral, Mr. Weissman said. That result could set off a chain reaction reducing the value of mortgage servicing rights, an asset many banks keep as an investment.

Here is another MSM story: Are We Headed for Housing Armageddon?

So to summarize:

1. The banks which depend on revenues collected from mortgage servicing are facing the possibility that millions of distressed mortgages will enter legal limbo and not be paid; additionally, millions of underwater homeowners realize they can stop paying their mortgages with no near-term consequence because the foreclosure system is frozen.

If you doubt this, please read Gonzalo Lira On The Coming Middle-Class Anarchy.

2. The mortgages which the banks are holding on their books as income-producing assets at full face value are in effect either worthless or depreciated to some significant but unknown degree. If this fact were reflected in their balance sheets, all the big banks would all be insolvent.

3. Evictions based on foreclosures can be halted, delayed or even cancelled. Consider this alternative response to wrongful eviction: Evicted Family Breaks Into Their Former House (WSJ.com)

4. Pending sales of properties that were foreclosed are now of dubious legality.

5. Anyone buying a house in foreclosure, or a house that was foreclosed, cannot get title insurance.

6. Investors who have been propping up the housing market by snapping up properties in foreclosure (REOs or "distressed properties") face high risks and uncertainties in buying any real estate that was in or is in the foreclosure pipeline. That means markets will lose 30% to 50% of their buyers. (Click to enlarge)



7. Buyers who closed on foreclosed homes now face legal challenges to their ownership and potentially even "clawback" of the property as the previous owner can claim he/she was defrauded by a flawed/defective foreclosure process.

8. Real estate attorneys can rejoice: everyone will get sued, in every court in the land. Banks will get sued, title insurance companies will get sued, realtors will get sued, foreclosure mills will get sued, MERS will get sued, and so on. The attorneys general of the states will all sue the banks and mortgage mills, claiming billions in damages.

Anyone who thinks this is all trivial technicalities is wrong.

9. The real estate market will collapse as the imbalance of buyers and sellers swings to extremes. Buyers vanish as trust in the institutions of real estate finance and property rights has collapsed, and millions of distressed/defaulted mortgages don't get paid. Underwater sellers have a stark choice: either dump the house for cash (assuming the bank allows a short-sale and eats a massive loss) or stop paying the mortgage and see what happens.



That sets up a new positive feedback loop in a very tenuous market: millions of underwater homeowners will realize their homes are plummeting in value and "recovery" is hopeless. Millions more who were on the edge will be pushed underwater as prices fall. The incentives for the newly underwater are clear: stop paying the mortgage, since price "recovery" is hopeless and the foreclosure process is frozen.

The imbalance between few buyers and millions of properties on the market or in the shadow inventory has only one "capitalist" resolution: the destruction of price down to levels that clears the inventory.

Las Vegas offers a example of this clearing: condos are selling for 15% or 20% of their bubble-era valuations--and this is with massive Federal subsidies of the mortgage market.

10. There is a fundamental legal battle playing out between the property rights and rules of law embodied in state laws, and the Central State/Federal laws which enable MERS to transfer ownership of mortgages as securities. You can't have both systems at the same time; either transfers of mortgages and ownership and the procedure of taking real property (foreclosures) meet state laws or these laws have been rendered moot.

Either there is due process of law or you have a kleptocracy/"banana republic" oligarchy. At present, that is the decision we face as a nation. If the banking Elites and their partners in the Central State (Fed and Treasury) are allowed to "win" and gut the property laws of the states, then the U.S.A. will be revealed as a kleptocracy/"banana republic" oligarchy.

If state laws are upheld, then the "too big to fail" banks are insolvent and they will fail.Then the question of kleptocracy arises once again: will the banks be allowed to fail as per Classic Capitalism, that is, their owners and managers will have to absorb the losses of that bankruptcy/failure, or will the Central State use its powers to collect taxes and cover the private losses of the Bank/Financial Power Elites? Privatizing profits and socializing losses has been the entire game plan since the global house of cards collapsed in 2008.

It's decision time, citizens. Either the banks/Central State "win" and we are a kleptocracy/ "banana republic," or they lose and the U.S. mortgage/ banking sector implodes and is either formally socialized (i.e. owned lock, stock and barrel by the Central State) or rebuilt from scratch without big banks, Federal guarantees and the Fed's incestuous interventions. ("We create the credit that enables the mortgage, you issue the mortgage, and then we buy the mortgage.")

There is no "fix" or half-measure that can patch this over now.

The non-mainstream media can speak the truth directly. For example, here is the excellent Acting Man blog:

Total Chaos:

The biggest question of all, is there anyone working on a solution? I know the answer to that:
No.We now have socialized housing. If you disagree, just imagine the consequences if government intervention were withdrawn. Real estate markets would collapse immediately. The government is the market. There is no exit strategy.

The feedback loops are in full runaway mode, and the end-state will be a collapse of one system or the other: either the incestuous banking cartel/Fed/Treasury system of "private profits, socialized losses" implodes, or property rights and the real estate market implode.

Right now, both are imploding, and each system's implosion reinforces the other's collapse.

Charles Hugh Smith writes the Of Two Minds blog (www.oftwominds.com/blog.html) which covers an eclectic range of timely topics: finance, housing, Asia, energy, longterm trends, social issues, health/diet/fitness and sustainability. From its humble beginnings in May 2005, Of Two Minds now... More

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/