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1 month ago
in Norquist: It’s ‘Foolish’ to Declare the End of Tax Cut Politics on The Washington Independent
Among the bought-and-paid-for politicians in Washington, DC, the Greedy Boys of Greenwich and the Wonder Boys of Wall Street, is there one human being in this "Axis of Arrogance and Greed" who will speak out for something other than their own selfish interests?
Who is going to stand up and speak out clearly, loudly and often as President Barack Obama is doing?
Many voices are needed now.
Who is going to stand up and speak out clearly, loudly and often as President Barack Obama is doing?
Many voices are needed now.
2 months ago
in Is Hope for Homeowners Hopeless? on The Washington Independent
Dear Friends,
Perhaps you can assist me. There must be something wrong with the “picture” I am about to draw, but no one with wealth, power, status, and privileges to conspicuously consume and endlessly hoard has said anything. Their bought-and-paid-for politicians and absurdly enriched minions in the mass media are also silent.
Picture this:
A remarkably tiny group of conniving, deceitful, ostentatiously greedy, patently fraudulent financial schemers on what is left of Wall Street in the remaining investment houses and the major {stress-tested} banks that are described as “too big to fail” are at one and the same time being given hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, racking up billions of dollars in profits, and paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. All the while, millions of people are losing their livelihoods, homes, pensions, etc.
What is wrong with this picture?
Sincerely,
Steve
Perhaps you can assist me. There must be something wrong with the “picture” I am about to draw, but no one with wealth, power, status, and privileges to conspicuously consume and endlessly hoard has said anything. Their bought-and-paid-for politicians and absurdly enriched minions in the mass media are also silent.
Picture this:
A remarkably tiny group of conniving, deceitful, ostentatiously greedy, patently fraudulent financial schemers on what is left of Wall Street in the remaining investment houses and the major {stress-tested} banks that are described as “too big to fail” are at one and the same time being given hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, racking up billions of dollars in profits, and paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. All the while, millions of people are losing their livelihoods, homes, pensions, etc.
What is wrong with this picture?
Sincerely,
Steve
1 reply
america
wellcome to SOCIALISM>people just think help is coming,and it never does,because its impossible.this central government stuff has al-ready been tried,it is not new.look at any bankrupt liberal state,or any democratic ran longterm county.
2 months ago
in The Day’s Biggest Economic News: Judge Decides Fate of Bernie Madoff’s Mets Tickets on The Washington Independent
Dear Friends,
Perhaps you can assist me. There must be something wrong with the "picture" I am about to draw, but no one with wealth, power, status, and privileges to conspicuously consume and endlessly hoard has said anything. Their bought-and-paid-for politicians and absurdly enriched minions in the mass media are also silent.
Picture this:
A remarkably tiny group of conniving, deceitful, ostentatiously greedy, patently fraudulent financial schemers on what is left of Wall Street in the remaining investment houses and the major {stress-tested} banks that are described as "too big to fail" are at one and the same time being given hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, racking up billions of dollars in profits, and paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. All the while, millions of people are losing their livelihoods, homes, pensions, etc. The children of these less fortunate people are going hungry.
What is wrong with this picture?
Sincerely,
Steve
Perhaps you can assist me. There must be something wrong with the "picture" I am about to draw, but no one with wealth, power, status, and privileges to conspicuously consume and endlessly hoard has said anything. Their bought-and-paid-for politicians and absurdly enriched minions in the mass media are also silent.
Picture this:
A remarkably tiny group of conniving, deceitful, ostentatiously greedy, patently fraudulent financial schemers on what is left of Wall Street in the remaining investment houses and the major {stress-tested} banks that are described as "too big to fail" are at one and the same time being given hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, racking up billions of dollars in profits, and paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. All the while, millions of people are losing their livelihoods, homes, pensions, etc. The children of these less fortunate people are going hungry.
What is wrong with this picture?
Sincerely,
Steve
6 months ago
in louisgray.com: 10 Predictions for 2009 In the World of Tech on louisgray.com
Resolution for 2009: SPEAK OUT loudly, clearly and often
Dear Friends,
In calling for change in our time, great scientists are speaking about what could somehow be true to wealthy and powerful people who prefer that the "business as usual" status quo be maintained. Industrial/big business powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians want to keep things going along just as they are going now, come what may for the children and coming generations, for life as we know it, for the integrity of Earth and its environs.
Many voices are needed to support "voices in the wilderness" like those of Jim Hansen and John Holdren, exemplary scientists who have been willing to speak truth to those with the power to make the kinds of necessary change that make belief in a good enough future at least a possibility. Assuring a chance of a good future for the children and for life as we know it is an achievable goal that will lead us to overcome the arrogance and avarice of many too many leaders of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation" of elders.
If too many leaders of the family of humanity choose to keep doing precisely the things they are advocating and doing now, and if we in the human community keep getting what we are getting now, then it appears a sustainable world for our children cannot be achieved. By so doing, the limited resources of Earth will be permanently dissipated, its biodiversity massively extirpated, its environment irreversibly degraded and life as we know it recklessly endangered. The current gigantic scale and anticipated growth of per-capita overconsumption of limited resources, global production and distribution capabilities, and absolute human population numbers worldwide are simply, clearly and patently unsustainable, even to the year 2050. Given Earth's limitations as a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet, the projected increases in these currently unbridled consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species could soon lead the human family to come face to face with some sort of colossal ecological wreckage.
Now is the time to speak out loudly, clearly and often about what is true for you. Forget about political correctness and convenience. Let go of economic expediency and greediness. Embrace necessary change rather than waste another day preserving the selfish interests of the small group of rich and powerful people, and their many minions, all of whom are adamantly and relentlessly defending an unsustainable, same old "business as usual" status quo.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
Dear Friends,
In calling for change in our time, great scientists are speaking about what could somehow be true to wealthy and powerful people who prefer that the "business as usual" status quo be maintained. Industrial/big business powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians want to keep things going along just as they are going now, come what may for the children and coming generations, for life as we know it, for the integrity of Earth and its environs.
Many voices are needed to support "voices in the wilderness" like those of Jim Hansen and John Holdren, exemplary scientists who have been willing to speak truth to those with the power to make the kinds of necessary change that make belief in a good enough future at least a possibility. Assuring a chance of a good future for the children and for life as we know it is an achievable goal that will lead us to overcome the arrogance and avarice of many too many leaders of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation" of elders.
If too many leaders of the family of humanity choose to keep doing precisely the things they are advocating and doing now, and if we in the human community keep getting what we are getting now, then it appears a sustainable world for our children cannot be achieved. By so doing, the limited resources of Earth will be permanently dissipated, its biodiversity massively extirpated, its environment irreversibly degraded and life as we know it recklessly endangered. The current gigantic scale and anticipated growth of per-capita overconsumption of limited resources, global production and distribution capabilities, and absolute human population numbers worldwide are simply, clearly and patently unsustainable, even to the year 2050. Given Earth's limitations as a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet, the projected increases in these currently unbridled consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species could soon lead the human family to come face to face with some sort of colossal ecological wreckage.
Now is the time to speak out loudly, clearly and often about what is true for you. Forget about political correctness and convenience. Let go of economic expediency and greediness. Embrace necessary change rather than waste another day preserving the selfish interests of the small group of rich and powerful people, and their many minions, all of whom are adamantly and relentlessly defending an unsustainable, same old "business as usual" status quo.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
6 months ago
in <i>Best of The Streak</i>: Maestro, Indeed on The Washington Independent
Three cheers for scientists who will not be silenced by the chance at great wealth, power, privileges and status that are sure to be derived from saying loudly and clearly only what is politically convenient and economically expedient.
Why not lay blame for the current economic catastrophe and the looming environmental calamity where it belongs: at the feet of the economic powerbrokers who organize and manage a colossal pyramid scheme, a modern representation of the ancient Tower of Babel? Is the pernicious denial of anthropogenic global warming and the human-driven destabilization of Earth's climate not primarily for the purpose of preserving the selfish material interests of a few wealthy and powerful people, and their minions?
Let's look a bit more closely at the scandulous 'business' of Bernie Madoff, confidence games, Ponzi schemes and other financial vehicles for funneling, accumulating and concentrating billions of dollars in unearned wealth into the hands of a tiny minority of people who comprise the top of the global economy.
There are many minions of the wealthy and their bought-and-paid-for politicians who "spread the word" of these schemes. Con men operate pyramid schemes. They assure "plausible deniability" and "legal cover" for all that is said and done.
Only a telling of the truth about what they are doing is forbidden. That is the one and only thing that is verboten. Do not break their vow of silence by telling what is true about the perpetration of the schemes {ie, the only games in town, so they say}, because the "houses of cards" out of which a modern Tower of Babel is constructed immediately is exposed as fraudulent and patently unsustainable. These pyramidal constructions can withstand any force except that which is presented by speaking out loudly and clearly about what is happening in these enterprises. As soon as light of what is true was shed on Bernie's scheme, the house of cards he had constructed fell.
Bernard Madoff may be the first of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation's" kingpins to find that his "house of cards" has collapsed; but I dare say, Bernie will not be the last. There are other kingpins and many too many minions ready, willing and able to play along in what looks like the greatest self-enrichment scam in human history.
Why not say that greed is not good and mean it? Why not assign value to personal honesty, accountability and transparency?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
Why not lay blame for the current economic catastrophe and the looming environmental calamity where it belongs: at the feet of the economic powerbrokers who organize and manage a colossal pyramid scheme, a modern representation of the ancient Tower of Babel? Is the pernicious denial of anthropogenic global warming and the human-driven destabilization of Earth's climate not primarily for the purpose of preserving the selfish material interests of a few wealthy and powerful people, and their minions?
Let's look a bit more closely at the scandulous 'business' of Bernie Madoff, confidence games, Ponzi schemes and other financial vehicles for funneling, accumulating and concentrating billions of dollars in unearned wealth into the hands of a tiny minority of people who comprise the top of the global economy.
There are many minions of the wealthy and their bought-and-paid-for politicians who "spread the word" of these schemes. Con men operate pyramid schemes. They assure "plausible deniability" and "legal cover" for all that is said and done.
Only a telling of the truth about what they are doing is forbidden. That is the one and only thing that is verboten. Do not break their vow of silence by telling what is true about the perpetration of the schemes {ie, the only games in town, so they say}, because the "houses of cards" out of which a modern Tower of Babel is constructed immediately is exposed as fraudulent and patently unsustainable. These pyramidal constructions can withstand any force except that which is presented by speaking out loudly and clearly about what is happening in these enterprises. As soon as light of what is true was shed on Bernie's scheme, the house of cards he had constructed fell.
Bernard Madoff may be the first of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation's" kingpins to find that his "house of cards" has collapsed; but I dare say, Bernie will not be the last. There are other kingpins and many too many minions ready, willing and able to play along in what looks like the greatest self-enrichment scam in human history.
Why not say that greed is not good and mean it? Why not assign value to personal honesty, accountability and transparency?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
6 months ago
in A Tale Of Two Paragraphs That Sum Up The Bush Administration on The Washington Independent
Does anyone have the feeling that our communication, here and now, appears to be convoluted and confused because many too many of us do not yet recognize that the family of humanity literally lives within a modern version of an ancient edifice, the Tower of Babel? The new leviathan-like, distinctly human construction is not made of stone, but instead built out as a "house of cards". This colossal, artificially designed structure is noticeably pyramidal in shape, duplicitously organized as a patently unsustainable pyramid scheme, and named the global political economy.
For the people who are the primary beneficiaries of such a scheme, the global economy is effectively an object of idolatry. Nothing else really matters. These people are the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe among us. They could not care less about the natural world, life as we know it for the children and future generations, the integrity of Earth. You can readily recognize the idolaters as the leading, self-righteous elders of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation". Endlessly consuming and hoarding resources as well as power-mongering are regarded as religious rituals.
Nothing in this missive is new, I suppose.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
For the people who are the primary beneficiaries of such a scheme, the global economy is effectively an object of idolatry. Nothing else really matters. These people are the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe among us. They could not care less about the natural world, life as we know it for the children and future generations, the integrity of Earth. You can readily recognize the idolaters as the leading, self-righteous elders of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation". Endlessly consuming and hoarding resources as well as power-mongering are regarded as religious rituals.
Nothing in this missive is new, I suppose.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
6 months ago
in Bailed-Out Banks Stiff Credit Card Customers on The Washington Independent
Yes, definitely yes, some of the darkest of dark days are passing into history......finally. The future is about to begin.......mercifully.
An unnecessary and unjustifiable war at a cost of three trillion dollars; a crashing economy at a cost of trillions more; a degraded environment, a dissipated Earth.......priceless.
And people responsible for these nightmares want their 2008 bonuses......predictable.
An unnecessary and unjustifiable war at a cost of three trillion dollars; a crashing economy at a cost of trillions more; a degraded environment, a dissipated Earth.......priceless.
And people responsible for these nightmares want their 2008 bonuses......predictable.
6 months ago
in The Sob Stories of Madoff’s Wealthy Victims on The Washington Independent
Perhaps hubris, corruption and greed have unexpectedly resulted in the colossal collapse of the global economy.
In a world in which too many politicians are posers; too many economists are deluded; too many business powerbrokers with great wealth are con artists, gamblers and cheats; and many too many absurdly enriched minions/’talking heads’ in the mainstream media parrot whatsoever serves political convenience and economic expediency, Jim Hansen's truth about global climate change is buried amid cascading disinformational and anti-informational garbage derived from a `tool box’ of pernicious rhetorical devices.
Do you think we have reached a point when we can say, however tentatively, that the global manmade economic colossus {a veritable and proverbial, modern Tower of Babel in all its glory} could crash before the overproduction, over-consumption and overpopulation activities of the human species worldwide collapse the frangible biological systems and finite physical resources of the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit and not to ravage, I suppose?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
In a world in which too many politicians are posers; too many economists are deluded; too many business powerbrokers with great wealth are con artists, gamblers and cheats; and many too many absurdly enriched minions/’talking heads’ in the mainstream media parrot whatsoever serves political convenience and economic expediency, Jim Hansen's truth about global climate change is buried amid cascading disinformational and anti-informational garbage derived from a `tool box’ of pernicious rhetorical devices.
Do you think we have reached a point when we can say, however tentatively, that the global manmade economic colossus {a veritable and proverbial, modern Tower of Babel in all its glory} could crash before the overproduction, over-consumption and overpopulation activities of the human species worldwide collapse the frangible biological systems and finite physical resources of the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit and not to ravage, I suppose?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
7 months ago
in Remembering FDR on The Washington Independent
Dear Friends,
The global, human-induced predicament visible in our time to the family of humanity makes one thing clear: people with eyes to see, ears to hear and no speech impediments have got to speak out loudly, clearly and often now. Silence, the greatest power the rich and powerful possess, cannot be allowed to prevail. The reckless way a few people with wealth and power maintain a "golden" silence, one that protects their greed, gluttony and hoarding, is dangerous and cannot longer be endured because a good enough future for our children and coming generations is being mortgaged and threatened by these leading elders in my not-so-great generation.
Regardless of whether or not other human beings choose to accept the "answers" to one question, I believe we must ask ourselves, "Can we teach one another to live within limits?"
It is necessary, I suppose, for human beings to recognize and affirm human limits
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender....
and Earth's limitations
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYP/is_...
To do otherwise and, by so doing, choose willfully and foolishly to ignore the practical requirements of biophysical reality runs the risk of putting life as we know it and our planetary home as a fit place for human habitation in peril, even in these early years of Century XXI.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
The global, human-induced predicament visible in our time to the family of humanity makes one thing clear: people with eyes to see, ears to hear and no speech impediments have got to speak out loudly, clearly and often now. Silence, the greatest power the rich and powerful possess, cannot be allowed to prevail. The reckless way a few people with wealth and power maintain a "golden" silence, one that protects their greed, gluttony and hoarding, is dangerous and cannot longer be endured because a good enough future for our children and coming generations is being mortgaged and threatened by these leading elders in my not-so-great generation.
Regardless of whether or not other human beings choose to accept the "answers" to one question, I believe we must ask ourselves, "Can we teach one another to live within limits?"
It is necessary, I suppose, for human beings to recognize and affirm human limits
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender....
and Earth's limitations
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYP/is_...
To do otherwise and, by so doing, choose willfully and foolishly to ignore the practical requirements of biophysical reality runs the risk of putting life as we know it and our planetary home as a fit place for human habitation in peril, even in these early years of Century XXI.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
7 months ago
in AIG Still Paying Bonuses to Top Execs on The Washington Independent
Perhaps it is time for the same ol' business-as-usual, pin-stripe-suited leaders, the ones who adamantly espouse and religiously exemplify an apostate's creed of greed, to be replaced by new leadership.
Too many leaders of this patently unsustainable culture of avarice evidently define the culture's efficacy by the endless accumulation of material possessions; by the unbounded acquisition of more money, money, money, money; by recklessly overconsuming and relentlessly hoarding limited resources. They demonstrably declare to all the world that greed is good.
Are we not members of a culture that worships consumerism? Are the products of greed nothing more or less than the objects of our idolatry?
Are the pin-striped suits, fleet of cars, chauffeur, private jets, McMansions, distant hideaways, secret handshakes and exclusive clubs...... all "signatures" of success in a culture promoted by the 'goodness' of greed?
Consider for a moment what perversity greed has wrought.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
Too many leaders of this patently unsustainable culture of avarice evidently define the culture's efficacy by the endless accumulation of material possessions; by the unbounded acquisition of more money, money, money, money; by recklessly overconsuming and relentlessly hoarding limited resources. They demonstrably declare to all the world that greed is good.
Are we not members of a culture that worships consumerism? Are the products of greed nothing more or less than the objects of our idolatry?
Are the pin-striped suits, fleet of cars, chauffeur, private jets, McMansions, distant hideaways, secret handshakes and exclusive clubs...... all "signatures" of success in a culture promoted by the 'goodness' of greed?
Consider for a moment what perversity greed has wrought.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
7 months ago
in The Great Black Friday Markdown on The Washington Independent
A culture that defines its very raison d'etre by endless accumulation of material possessions; by the unbounded acquisition of more money, money, money, money; by recklessly overconsuming and relentlessly hoarding limited resources, demonstrably declares to all the world that greed is good.
Are we not members of a culture that worships consumerism? Are the products of greed nothing more or less than the objects of our idolatry?
Are the pin-striped suits, fleet of cars, chauffeur, private jets, McMansions, distant hideaways, secret handshakes and exclusive clubs...... all signatures of success in a culture borne of the 'goodness' of greed?
Consider for a moment what greed has wrought.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
Are we not members of a culture that worships consumerism? Are the products of greed nothing more or less than the objects of our idolatry?
Are the pin-striped suits, fleet of cars, chauffeur, private jets, McMansions, distant hideaways, secret handshakes and exclusive clubs...... all signatures of success in a culture borne of the 'goodness' of greed?
Consider for a moment what greed has wrought.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
7 months ago
in The Great Black Friday Markdown on The Washington Independent
See the "Horsemen of the Apocalypse" ride during "blitz" of Wal Mart in Valley Stream, NY.
"Blitz" lines are a sign of the times. These 'lines' are designed to evince rampaging greed. How many other ploys can you think of that surreptitiously exploit human avarice?
Here and now we behold the chimera, the "paint horse and its pin-striped-suited rider, named GREED" being followed closely by a pale horse ridden by Death.
"Blitz" lines are a sign of the times. These 'lines' are designed to evince rampaging greed. How many other ploys can you think of that surreptitiously exploit human avarice?
Here and now we behold the chimera, the "paint horse and its pin-striped-suited rider, named GREED" being followed closely by a pale horse ridden by Death.
7 months ago
in The Great Black Friday Markdown on The Washington Independent
Behold a chimera on the far horizon, a paint horse upon which imperious and ignoble GREED rides. This horse and its pin-striped rider are an unexpected front runner, a Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. The "Four Horsemen" in tandem are following close behind.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
7 months ago
in The Real Reason Citigroup Is a Mess on The Washington Independent
GUEST COLUMN by Steven Earl Salmony
November 26, 2008
Chapel Hill(NC)News
http://www.chapelhillnews.com...
Billions end up paying for excesses of the wealthy on Wall St.
Our lexicon of business activities is being expanded daily, thanks to the "wonder boys" on Wall Street. We are learning about derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, recapitalization, puts, short selling and so on. We are gaining a new vocabulary from the recent meltdown of the financial system and expected slowdown of the real economy worldwide.
Where did this debacle begin? Well, it began in the center of the human community's banking and investment houses in the financial district of NYC. Supposedly, the "brightest and best" among us go to Wall Street, know what they are doing and do the right thing. Unfortunately, such assumptions turn out to be colossal mistakes.
How did this calamity occur and why is the human family in such dire economic straits? It appears that grotesque greed and a culture of corruption have come to dominate significant operating systems of the global political economy.
Powerful people in high offices within huge business institutions with access to great wealth are recklessly and deleteriously manipulating the unbridled expansion of the global economy in the small, finite planetary home God blesses us to inhabit.
Self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe have surreptitiously "manufactured" a subprime "asset bubble" and perversely fostered its uneconomic growth within the world economy. Not unexpectedly, this asset bubble did what bubbles do. The subprime bubble burst and made a mess. Global credit markets have frozen, stock prices are tumbling and the value of the dollar is gyrating.
Evidently organizers, managers and whiz kids overseeing the global economy, and the unraveling (i.e., deleveraging) of the worldwide subprime swindle are running the artificially designed financial system of the global economy as a pyramid scheme. This is to say that the international financial system is being operated so that most of the wealth funneled pyramidally into the hands of a small minority of people at the top of the world economy where this wealth is accumulated and consolidated. Note that 30 percent of annual corporate profits end up in the accounts of a tiny number of people. At the same time, the vast majority of people on Earth, near the bottom of the global economic pyramid, are left with very little wealth. Does the economy of the family of humanity exist primarily to provide wealth to the already stupendously wealthy? The "bankstas" among us evidently think so.
In the 1980s, this extremely inequitable method of distributing wealth and arranging business activities was called a "trickle-down" economy. We have been repeatedly told how this 'rational' economic scheme is good because it "raises all ships." And yet, from my limited scope of observation, the billion people living on resources valued at less than one dollar per day and the additional 2.7 billion people being sustained on two dollars per day of resources now appear to be stuck in squalid conditions. The 'ships' carrying these billions of less fortunate people (i.e., more people than lived on Earth in the year of my birth) do not appear to be lifting them out of poverty.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/content.html...
November 26, 2008
Chapel Hill(NC)News
http://www.chapelhillnews.com...
Billions end up paying for excesses of the wealthy on Wall St.
Our lexicon of business activities is being expanded daily, thanks to the "wonder boys" on Wall Street. We are learning about derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, recapitalization, puts, short selling and so on. We are gaining a new vocabulary from the recent meltdown of the financial system and expected slowdown of the real economy worldwide.
Where did this debacle begin? Well, it began in the center of the human community's banking and investment houses in the financial district of NYC. Supposedly, the "brightest and best" among us go to Wall Street, know what they are doing and do the right thing. Unfortunately, such assumptions turn out to be colossal mistakes.
How did this calamity occur and why is the human family in such dire economic straits? It appears that grotesque greed and a culture of corruption have come to dominate significant operating systems of the global political economy.
Powerful people in high offices within huge business institutions with access to great wealth are recklessly and deleteriously manipulating the unbridled expansion of the global economy in the small, finite planetary home God blesses us to inhabit.
Self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe have surreptitiously "manufactured" a subprime "asset bubble" and perversely fostered its uneconomic growth within the world economy. Not unexpectedly, this asset bubble did what bubbles do. The subprime bubble burst and made a mess. Global credit markets have frozen, stock prices are tumbling and the value of the dollar is gyrating.
Evidently organizers, managers and whiz kids overseeing the global economy, and the unraveling (i.e., deleveraging) of the worldwide subprime swindle are running the artificially designed financial system of the global economy as a pyramid scheme. This is to say that the international financial system is being operated so that most of the wealth funneled pyramidally into the hands of a small minority of people at the top of the world economy where this wealth is accumulated and consolidated. Note that 30 percent of annual corporate profits end up in the accounts of a tiny number of people. At the same time, the vast majority of people on Earth, near the bottom of the global economic pyramid, are left with very little wealth. Does the economy of the family of humanity exist primarily to provide wealth to the already stupendously wealthy? The "bankstas" among us evidently think so.
In the 1980s, this extremely inequitable method of distributing wealth and arranging business activities was called a "trickle-down" economy. We have been repeatedly told how this 'rational' economic scheme is good because it "raises all ships." And yet, from my limited scope of observation, the billion people living on resources valued at less than one dollar per day and the additional 2.7 billion people being sustained on two dollars per day of resources now appear to be stuck in squalid conditions. The 'ships' carrying these billions of less fortunate people (i.e., more people than lived on Earth in the year of my birth) do not appear to be lifting them out of poverty.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/content.html...
7 months ago
in No Echoes of FDR in Obama’s First News Conference on The Washington Independent
Dear Mary Kane,
This thread is a wonderfully timely and perspicacious of what needs to be happening now. Thanks for all you are doing to protect biodiversity from mass extinction, to preserve Earth's body from wanton dissipation, to halt relentless degradation of the environment and, with a bit of luck and a great deal of work, to save the family of humanity from reckless endangerment as well as to spare the human species from an even worse threat.
Make no mistake, the blogging world is making a positive difference. Even though the 'talking heads' in the mainstream media, the ones who are owned by economic powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians, wish all of us would go away, we need to keep going.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
This thread is a wonderfully timely and perspicacious of what needs to be happening now. Thanks for all you are doing to protect biodiversity from mass extinction, to preserve Earth's body from wanton dissipation, to halt relentless degradation of the environment and, with a bit of luck and a great deal of work, to save the family of humanity from reckless endangerment as well as to spare the human species from an even worse threat.
Make no mistake, the blogging world is making a positive difference. Even though the 'talking heads' in the mainstream media, the ones who are owned by economic powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians, wish all of us would go away, we need to keep going.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
7 months ago
in Science and the Next President on The Washington Independent
With the election of Barack Obama, a new day is surely dawning for the family of humanity. We have good reasons to be hopeful. The agonizing throes of the severe and colossal storm we have endured in the past several years have produced an unexpected outcome. The air is being cleansed and the dark clouds that had been gathering on the horizon are being blown away.
Al Gore has reminded all of us that now is the time for intellectual honesty and moral courage as necessary attributes for responding ably to the human-driven global challenges which are looming ominously before humankind. As the horrendous, once in a century storm is being swept away by benevolent winds of change, perhaps we will see that honest and courageous activities of many people will begin to replace cascading, self-interested behavior of a few misguided, greedy people who have been willing to do whatsoever is politically convenient, economically expedient and socially fashionable... come what may for our children.
Perhaps sufficiently reality-oriented changes in policymaking and action planning, changes that protect biodiversity from mass extinction, prevent more wanton environmental degradation and preserve Earth's body from relentless dissipation as well as the children from endangerment, are in the offing.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
Al Gore has reminded all of us that now is the time for intellectual honesty and moral courage as necessary attributes for responding ably to the human-driven global challenges which are looming ominously before humankind. As the horrendous, once in a century storm is being swept away by benevolent winds of change, perhaps we will see that honest and courageous activities of many people will begin to replace cascading, self-interested behavior of a few misguided, greedy people who have been willing to do whatsoever is politically convenient, economically expedient and socially fashionable... come what may for our children.
Perhaps sufficiently reality-oriented changes in policymaking and action planning, changes that protect biodiversity from mass extinction, prevent more wanton environmental degradation and preserve Earth's body from relentless dissipation as well as the children from endangerment, are in the offing.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?c...
