Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"
Buy Now From Amazon
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm
Thursday, August 5, 2010
My New book is for Sale
Barry Fitzgerald
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm
Friday, July 30, 2010
Fix it locally!
Dublin city council and a state agency are planning to pump water from the River Shannon, in the midlands of Ireland, up to the catchment area of Dublin, a distance closing on 80 miles. They are proposing to pump 350million litres of water per day to the city, to help serve as drinking water for the next 70 years.
Obviously, this is stirring up huge controversy. I am not going to get involved in either side of a passionate debate like this. I am more interested in the sanity/logic of this project, as more and more proposals like this will be mooted by governments worldwide, as a reactionary measure to counteract against increasing population levels and climatic changes. In this instance the project proposes moving water 80 miles for drinking purposes for a large urban area, at a proposed cost of 500million euro!
If I were a resident in the Dublin region, then two things look apparent. Firstly, it looks like my future water supply is in jeopardy and secondly, I am going to have to pay a lot of money over the years towards meeting that 500million bill, if this project goes ahead. However, by paying all this money in taxation is one actually guaranteed good quality water going forward? Im afraid not. Then, the question becomes why does one need to pay for this water to be moved. Why can't my council meet my water needs from water in my region?
If Dublin is running out of water then there has to be a reason. One has to question if Dublin may have significantly less rainfall than the rest of the country. It is slightly drier than the West, but still receives a large rainfall of approx. 900mm per year. Also, the beauty of a temperate climate is that this rainfall is fairly evenly spread out over the year and does not fall in a short monsoon season. Therefore the water cycle has a chance to keep working. This must mean that a lot of water is getting wasted in the city. And as it transpires this is the case. Victorian era pipe work leaks water like a sieve underground throughout the city.
So it is deemed sensible to move a great mass of water 80 miles to feed into pipe work that is totally inefficient. This is madness of the highest order. All at a cost of 500million euro. A pretty expensive bill for an illogical and poorly thought out proposal.
How to fix things:
Preservation of water has to be key. Don't even allow it into the pipework in the first instance. Trap water at source, e.g. capture rain water from roofs and store in individual household tanks. Get this tank plumbed into toilets/washing machines etc. Now less and less clean water is required from the council for these services. Now fresh water demand drops exponentially and the need to ship water cross country is negated.
Of course there will be a cost in implementing hardware in houses to capture water and feed it into the houses. However, if tens of thousands of houses across the region are getting this retrofit, then it could be done at a much reduced rate. Let’s just say we still spend this 500million euro, but instead redeploy it. If 500,000* houses, (nearly all of Dublin hinterland houses) all received a rain water harvesting system at a cost of say 1000*Euro (reduced price due to the quantity), it means we are empowering all those householders to help meet a lot of their water needs. If we get them to pay for this retrofit themselves, either up front if they can afford it, or over time if they can't (years if needs be), then they will not be hit with huge water charges going forward to pay for moving water by their council. This 1000*euro should also be written off against individual taxation. It is an investment in sustainability that means the government needs to perform less central delivery of services, and therefore it should be supported financially in the means of tax reduction. This means it will cost significantly less than the 1000*euro for the individual.
Of course people will cry foul at having to pay at all. However, with the plan of moving water the housholder will be forced to pay index linked taxation and water charges indefinitely into the future. Hence, they will pay a lot more than 1000Euro! However, if they paid 1000Euro now as a set amount to install their own collection system, then they know they cannot be forced to pay off a piece of state infrastructure indefinitely into the future.
Since we do live in a democracy it is a choice to implement a solution like this. However, those who do install it should be rewarded. Perhaps they would become exempt from all water charges going forward, or indeed just pay a token contribution (50Euro/year), whereas those who refuse to install their own water collection system should be those who need to install a full water metering device and pay for their usage. This also solves the crisis of how to apply water charging.
This project has the added benefit of creating thousands of jobs in installing these systems NOW, hence stimulating economic activity in the region. While a great big pipe from the midlands will create jobs, there would be far less due to large machines performing the bulk of the work. House to house retrofits are much more labour intensive and hence will create many times more jobs.
Now water doesn't need to be moved. It is generated at source.
We have to start coming up with local solutions like this. It is too easy for planners/councils/governments to sit in offices and make sweeping infrastructural decisions that have no long term benefit without pushing back and proposing better alternatives.
We gain security when we invest in these projects. It is far better putting our individual finances/savings into solutions like this, than investing in places like the stock exchange. We gain security when we invest locally. Now we know, at the very least, that we can meet a lot of our water needs, a somewhat basic human right. Shipping water 80 miles does not guarantee us this.
Also someone needs to explain first principles to these decision makers. A leaking bucket will always need more water. 350 millions litres today, 800million in a few years, where does it end!
Fix the leaks, coupled with introducing a widespread water saving project like rain water harvesting would secure water needs permanently for the region of Dublin city.
* These figures are not exact and are only used as illustration of the possibility of redeploying this money into better local solutions.
p.s. While obviously it's a major project to retrofit houses like above, it is not too outlandish an idea. There was once a time where every house in the Dublin region (albeit less houses) all had single glazed windows. Then this new fangled concept came to pass where they put two panes of glass together!.......try to find more than a handful of houses nowadays with single glazing throughout. That was quite a labour intensive project for all those houses, but obviously achieveable over time. Nothing to say the same couldn't happen with this project.
Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"
Buy Now From Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/22t3mkc
Kindle Version - http://tinyurl.com/2vq2e2d
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm
Obviously, this is stirring up huge controversy. I am not going to get involved in either side of a passionate debate like this. I am more interested in the sanity/logic of this project, as more and more proposals like this will be mooted by governments worldwide, as a reactionary measure to counteract against increasing population levels and climatic changes. In this instance the project proposes moving water 80 miles for drinking purposes for a large urban area, at a proposed cost of 500million euro!
If I were a resident in the Dublin region, then two things look apparent. Firstly, it looks like my future water supply is in jeopardy and secondly, I am going to have to pay a lot of money over the years towards meeting that 500million bill, if this project goes ahead. However, by paying all this money in taxation is one actually guaranteed good quality water going forward? Im afraid not. Then, the question becomes why does one need to pay for this water to be moved. Why can't my council meet my water needs from water in my region?
If Dublin is running out of water then there has to be a reason. One has to question if Dublin may have significantly less rainfall than the rest of the country. It is slightly drier than the West, but still receives a large rainfall of approx. 900mm per year. Also, the beauty of a temperate climate is that this rainfall is fairly evenly spread out over the year and does not fall in a short monsoon season. Therefore the water cycle has a chance to keep working. This must mean that a lot of water is getting wasted in the city. And as it transpires this is the case. Victorian era pipe work leaks water like a sieve underground throughout the city.
So it is deemed sensible to move a great mass of water 80 miles to feed into pipe work that is totally inefficient. This is madness of the highest order. All at a cost of 500million euro. A pretty expensive bill for an illogical and poorly thought out proposal.
How to fix things:
Preservation of water has to be key. Don't even allow it into the pipework in the first instance. Trap water at source, e.g. capture rain water from roofs and store in individual household tanks. Get this tank plumbed into toilets/washing machines etc. Now less and less clean water is required from the council for these services. Now fresh water demand drops exponentially and the need to ship water cross country is negated.
Of course there will be a cost in implementing hardware in houses to capture water and feed it into the houses. However, if tens of thousands of houses across the region are getting this retrofit, then it could be done at a much reduced rate. Let’s just say we still spend this 500million euro, but instead redeploy it. If 500,000* houses, (nearly all of Dublin hinterland houses) all received a rain water harvesting system at a cost of say 1000*Euro (reduced price due to the quantity), it means we are empowering all those householders to help meet a lot of their water needs. If we get them to pay for this retrofit themselves, either up front if they can afford it, or over time if they can't (years if needs be), then they will not be hit with huge water charges going forward to pay for moving water by their council. This 1000*euro should also be written off against individual taxation. It is an investment in sustainability that means the government needs to perform less central delivery of services, and therefore it should be supported financially in the means of tax reduction. This means it will cost significantly less than the 1000*euro for the individual.
Of course people will cry foul at having to pay at all. However, with the plan of moving water the housholder will be forced to pay index linked taxation and water charges indefinitely into the future. Hence, they will pay a lot more than 1000Euro! However, if they paid 1000Euro now as a set amount to install their own collection system, then they know they cannot be forced to pay off a piece of state infrastructure indefinitely into the future.
Since we do live in a democracy it is a choice to implement a solution like this. However, those who do install it should be rewarded. Perhaps they would become exempt from all water charges going forward, or indeed just pay a token contribution (50Euro/year), whereas those who refuse to install their own water collection system should be those who need to install a full water metering device and pay for their usage. This also solves the crisis of how to apply water charging.
This project has the added benefit of creating thousands of jobs in installing these systems NOW, hence stimulating economic activity in the region. While a great big pipe from the midlands will create jobs, there would be far less due to large machines performing the bulk of the work. House to house retrofits are much more labour intensive and hence will create many times more jobs.
Now water doesn't need to be moved. It is generated at source.
We have to start coming up with local solutions like this. It is too easy for planners/councils/governments to sit in offices and make sweeping infrastructural decisions that have no long term benefit without pushing back and proposing better alternatives.
We gain security when we invest in these projects. It is far better putting our individual finances/savings into solutions like this, than investing in places like the stock exchange. We gain security when we invest locally. Now we know, at the very least, that we can meet a lot of our water needs, a somewhat basic human right. Shipping water 80 miles does not guarantee us this.
Also someone needs to explain first principles to these decision makers. A leaking bucket will always need more water. 350 millions litres today, 800million in a few years, where does it end!
Fix the leaks, coupled with introducing a widespread water saving project like rain water harvesting would secure water needs permanently for the region of Dublin city.
* These figures are not exact and are only used as illustration of the possibility of redeploying this money into better local solutions.
p.s. While obviously it's a major project to retrofit houses like above, it is not too outlandish an idea. There was once a time where every house in the Dublin region (albeit less houses) all had single glazed windows. Then this new fangled concept came to pass where they put two panes of glass together!.......try to find more than a handful of houses nowadays with single glazing throughout. That was quite a labour intensive project for all those houses, but obviously achieveable over time. Nothing to say the same couldn't happen with this project.
Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"
Buy Now From Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/22t3mkc
Kindle Version - http://tinyurl.com/2vq2e2d
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Hand Back the Keys!!!
A body in Ireland tasked with coming up with "creative" ideas to try and ease the pressure on struggling mortgage holders, reckon the best solution for these people is to hand back the keys to their homes, and to then go and join the social housing lists.
No consideration of the stress implications, the social impact of this, the fear and desperation of the people involved. They are treated like numbers, not people terrified out of their wits. Is there a better solution? One thing is for sure. People will need to help themselves, as inspiration ain't coming from the top down, as seen from above.
If we look at the figures, we are told 4% of mortgage holders are in dire difficulty. And anything up to another 10% are under uncomfortable strain meeting their repayments. Of course, the demographic involved is the 30-40 year old, with a couple of kids, i.e. the working (or not working, as the case may be) middle class poor. Also a major tax contributing demographic, if they are working. So they should just hand back their keys and give up. Yeah right!
It's time for unified thinking. Let's look at all of those who have no mortgages, e.g. the empty nesters, early 60's, who may be quite comfortable. Approximately 40% of people have no mortgage commitments and most of those are that type of profile described above. If we have a fit and healthy couple in their 30's who are unemployed, then they shouldn't languish under the stress and strain of potentially losing their homes through no fault of their own. If they can't (and many can't) gain employment, then perhaps we can marry these two demographic ranges together. For every unemployed person who can't get a job and who can't repay their mortgages, there is, in most likelihood, 10 mortgage free householders (or more) of more advanced years.
What if the young couple were to work in a socially agreed fashion for those 10 households? Any type of work; from manual labouring, painting, garden maintenance, to driving services etc.. Also more socially oriented work like house calls, counseling services, letting their young kids interact with what can often be a quite lonely demographic, i.e. the retired/elderly person. A fee could be pre-arranged, of say 10 euro per hour, for services rendered from the young couple to the older people. If each young couple performed just 10 hours work for another "older" household per month, then it would mean a remittance to them of 100Euro per month. Do that for 10 households and you have 1,000 Euro/month, for only 100 hours of your now "free time". That 1,000 would often meet, or go a significant way to meeting a monthly mortgage repayment.
Of course the "older" household has to have that 100 Euro spare every month. But a lot would have that. Secondly, they have to want to participate. But, if they are getting work done by a trusted, regular caller to their house, well they may well want to engage with such a scheme. Very often maintenance on something will prevent future catasptrophic failures, and so, a scheme like this could actually utimately save them money. Also, at a rate like above of 10 Euro they are getting a very fair price.
The upside is huge.
A ratio of 1:10 is what's needed. Find ten comfortable households for each struggling household. Oh, and I believe that that 1000euro/month should be tax exempt. It is people helping themselves through a very difficult time; hence they are not now so dependent on the government. They will not end up on social housing lists, will need less state support and will get back on their feet a lot quicker. A government should be encouraging schemes like this, and the best way to do that is to grant them official tax free status. The economic and social payback from a scheme like this far outweighs whatever puny (in relative terms) taxes it would raise.
How to set up this scheme? Well it would be easy to operate, easy to follow rules. The hard part, as always, is to own up and to actually ask for the help, if one is struggling. We have forgotten we are a society, not a collection of economic producing housing units. The scheme should run from the ground up though, i.e. do not let incompetent institutions (including private banks) near the reins of power. A simple website to advertise the idea, publish profiles of those seeking aid, and of those willing to offer "work". A matching process could then begin, based on location.
People helping people. The only way out of this mess. And nobody is getting screwed.
It sure beats having thousands of house keys dangling from a banker’s office wall, with their corresponding houses lying empty.
Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"
Available Now From Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/22t3mkc
Kindle Version - http://tinyurl.com/2vq2e2d
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm
No consideration of the stress implications, the social impact of this, the fear and desperation of the people involved. They are treated like numbers, not people terrified out of their wits. Is there a better solution? One thing is for sure. People will need to help themselves, as inspiration ain't coming from the top down, as seen from above.
If we look at the figures, we are told 4% of mortgage holders are in dire difficulty. And anything up to another 10% are under uncomfortable strain meeting their repayments. Of course, the demographic involved is the 30-40 year old, with a couple of kids, i.e. the working (or not working, as the case may be) middle class poor. Also a major tax contributing demographic, if they are working. So they should just hand back their keys and give up. Yeah right!
It's time for unified thinking. Let's look at all of those who have no mortgages, e.g. the empty nesters, early 60's, who may be quite comfortable. Approximately 40% of people have no mortgage commitments and most of those are that type of profile described above. If we have a fit and healthy couple in their 30's who are unemployed, then they shouldn't languish under the stress and strain of potentially losing their homes through no fault of their own. If they can't (and many can't) gain employment, then perhaps we can marry these two demographic ranges together. For every unemployed person who can't get a job and who can't repay their mortgages, there is, in most likelihood, 10 mortgage free householders (or more) of more advanced years.
What if the young couple were to work in a socially agreed fashion for those 10 households? Any type of work; from manual labouring, painting, garden maintenance, to driving services etc.. Also more socially oriented work like house calls, counseling services, letting their young kids interact with what can often be a quite lonely demographic, i.e. the retired/elderly person. A fee could be pre-arranged, of say 10 euro per hour, for services rendered from the young couple to the older people. If each young couple performed just 10 hours work for another "older" household per month, then it would mean a remittance to them of 100Euro per month. Do that for 10 households and you have 1,000 Euro/month, for only 100 hours of your now "free time". That 1,000 would often meet, or go a significant way to meeting a monthly mortgage repayment.
Of course the "older" household has to have that 100 Euro spare every month. But a lot would have that. Secondly, they have to want to participate. But, if they are getting work done by a trusted, regular caller to their house, well they may well want to engage with such a scheme. Very often maintenance on something will prevent future catasptrophic failures, and so, a scheme like this could actually utimately save them money. Also, at a rate like above of 10 Euro they are getting a very fair price.
The upside is huge.
- Unemployed struggling young people can "work" without being dependent on the wider paralyzed economy to employ them
- Older people who physically may not be up to some tasks can get a lot of work done to their homes at a moderate rate
- There is a sharing of problems
- A feel good factor for the older generation, in being of such valuable social service
- The obvious easing of stress on young couple which feeds into less stress/pressures passing on to their kids
- The building of relationships that will trancend the generational gaps. When the younger people come out the other side of their difficulties down the line, valuable and deep relationships will have been forged. etc.etc.
A ratio of 1:10 is what's needed. Find ten comfortable households for each struggling household. Oh, and I believe that that 1000euro/month should be tax exempt. It is people helping themselves through a very difficult time; hence they are not now so dependent on the government. They will not end up on social housing lists, will need less state support and will get back on their feet a lot quicker. A government should be encouraging schemes like this, and the best way to do that is to grant them official tax free status. The economic and social payback from a scheme like this far outweighs whatever puny (in relative terms) taxes it would raise.
How to set up this scheme? Well it would be easy to operate, easy to follow rules. The hard part, as always, is to own up and to actually ask for the help, if one is struggling. We have forgotten we are a society, not a collection of economic producing housing units. The scheme should run from the ground up though, i.e. do not let incompetent institutions (including private banks) near the reins of power. A simple website to advertise the idea, publish profiles of those seeking aid, and of those willing to offer "work". A matching process could then begin, based on location.
People helping people. The only way out of this mess. And nobody is getting screwed.
It sure beats having thousands of house keys dangling from a banker’s office wall, with their corresponding houses lying empty.
Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"
Available Now From Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/22t3mkc
Kindle Version - http://tinyurl.com/2vq2e2d
Publishing house: ATTM Press.
http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sustainability; The most abused term in the English language.
In 2010 it seems everyone has a "sustainable" product and a lot of businesses use the term to describe their operations. Government and institutional officials throw the term around like confetti. Everyone seems to think that just using the term makes them fit in with the new zeitgeist and new world order. After all the people want everything to be sustainable, right?
Unfortunately nearly every single use of this term in our world means one of two things;
a.) either we have to consume more to enable this so called sustainability or,
b.) we will have to work more and more in our lives to pay for this term.
If we are constantly buying products, this doesn't make the operation sustainable, even if there is no damage to the environment. And this is really the only criteria we use to measure the term sustainability, i.e. the impact on our environment. But sustainability should be so much more than that.
It should include us as human beings in the equation. Is it sustainable for us to continue to work so hard, so we can just purchase more and more goods, even if those self same goods earn their stripes as "clean" products. I contend that this is not sustainable. Similiarily it is not sustainable for us to work longer and longer in our lives to pay for legislation and carbon taxes etc.. that are meant to bring us into line with environmental standards.
In all this we are missing a key component. It is only with increasing population levels that we can operate our current economic models, i.e. markets always getting bigger as population levels continue to rise. This has been the case for so long, but soon (within 6 decades) we will have a population peak. Thereafter what will we do? I mean how can we market, produce and sell "sustainable" products in an unsustainable market over the longer term. How can we tax and legisltate the average Joe and Jane to excess, when again we live in an unsustainable market economy.
This is why our abuse of the term "sustainability" has to stop. We need to re-define this term so it can only be used when we ALL achieve equal access to the resources of the world, to allow us to have security in our lives from cradle to grave. Only then are we free of an unsustainable market economy. Only then can we work to a more humane schedule, e.g. an average of 4 hours per day. Only then will we truly come into line and only consume that which we truly need. Only then will we be able to realise that we can achieve self sufficiency in our localities. Only then can we lay claim to using the term sustainability.
Why?, because we have regained our individual power, aligned into strong local communities and "own up to owning" our path in life. We trust our ability to meet our needs in our lives and now we are sustainable. We don't need carbon taxes or low energy consuming products to fool us into thinking we are sustainable. You are sustainable when you trust your needs in life will be met, both today and tomorrow and all the days after tomorrow. Of course minimum damage to our environment should be (and can be) a minimum requirement.
That leaves the lingering question. How do we ALL get equal access to the resources of the world. Simple, it is time we demanded it from those who fool us into thinking we cannot have it.
Unfortunately nearly every single use of this term in our world means one of two things;
a.) either we have to consume more to enable this so called sustainability or,
b.) we will have to work more and more in our lives to pay for this term.
If we are constantly buying products, this doesn't make the operation sustainable, even if there is no damage to the environment. And this is really the only criteria we use to measure the term sustainability, i.e. the impact on our environment. But sustainability should be so much more than that.
It should include us as human beings in the equation. Is it sustainable for us to continue to work so hard, so we can just purchase more and more goods, even if those self same goods earn their stripes as "clean" products. I contend that this is not sustainable. Similiarily it is not sustainable for us to work longer and longer in our lives to pay for legislation and carbon taxes etc.. that are meant to bring us into line with environmental standards.
In all this we are missing a key component. It is only with increasing population levels that we can operate our current economic models, i.e. markets always getting bigger as population levels continue to rise. This has been the case for so long, but soon (within 6 decades) we will have a population peak. Thereafter what will we do? I mean how can we market, produce and sell "sustainable" products in an unsustainable market over the longer term. How can we tax and legisltate the average Joe and Jane to excess, when again we live in an unsustainable market economy.
This is why our abuse of the term "sustainability" has to stop. We need to re-define this term so it can only be used when we ALL achieve equal access to the resources of the world, to allow us to have security in our lives from cradle to grave. Only then are we free of an unsustainable market economy. Only then can we work to a more humane schedule, e.g. an average of 4 hours per day. Only then will we truly come into line and only consume that which we truly need. Only then will we be able to realise that we can achieve self sufficiency in our localities. Only then can we lay claim to using the term sustainability.
Why?, because we have regained our individual power, aligned into strong local communities and "own up to owning" our path in life. We trust our ability to meet our needs in our lives and now we are sustainable. We don't need carbon taxes or low energy consuming products to fool us into thinking we are sustainable. You are sustainable when you trust your needs in life will be met, both today and tomorrow and all the days after tomorrow. Of course minimum damage to our environment should be (and can be) a minimum requirement.
That leaves the lingering question. How do we ALL get equal access to the resources of the world. Simple, it is time we demanded it from those who fool us into thinking we cannot have it.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
There is a better way to finance our futures.
Current Madness re: financing of countries.
Bondholders = faceless "beings" who loan money to our governments to keep the show on the road; daily, weekly, monthly, annually. Our governments never realistically plan to pay off the principal borrowed, but only to service the loans yearly with interest repayments. The bond holders get fairly attractive returns on their investments plus huge individual re-numeration, and who can be a better debtor than a sovereign nation! Or so the theory goes.
One slight glance behind this little arrangement highlights how dysfunctional it truly is. I would like to point that out here and also to offer one viable alternative to this system.
Since no country at the moment seems to have money to loan, except perhaps China, then one has to ask who are the bondholders and where do they get their cash? After all to hear political, economic and journalistic commentators talk on the possibility of debt default to bond holders, would make one think they were human eating lizards who could zap us all into oblivion with their advanced cosmic ray guns! No, the boring truth is that these bond holders are simply human beings like the rest of us. No ET lizards anywhere. However in truth who they work for, and represent, is often the pension funds and insurance companies of the world. A few bondholders in percentage terms are individual wealth holders, but mainly they comprise funding from these two industries.
So, we have the crazy situation where money collected from the people of the world through investments in pension funds and the buying of insurance policies of all kinds is pooled together and then used as finance to lend to completely incompetent governments and administrators in countless countries. Remember the money collected from the people is supposed to guarantee them personal security in their future, i.e. either through a guaranteed pension fund, or through the guarantee of an insurance claim being covered.
Investors believe that at some point they will be able to cash in their pension fund or their insurance policy and the cash will be there to meet their demands. This has worked to date for a few reasons. Primarily the biggest reason was that that we had a rapidly expanding population, hence it was perfectly acceptable for governments to defer debt principal payments and to be able to meet annual bond interest payments - (as they believed this debt will always deflate into the future, i.e. ever increasing population levels will make this debt a smaller and smaller burden. This allowed a malaise/incompetence to set in with the efficiency of handling finance raised in the bond markets. Countless articles could be written about how inefficiently government money is handled). However we are facing a population peak within decades. This should be the most alarming fact facing humanity at the moment as our whole economic system is built on the premise of more consumption, more people to pay taxes, more building, more cheap labour, more markets to sell to etc... So governments cannot assume that our current debt will always deflate, i.e. we will soon reach a point where more and more people are not available to pay off and devalue the borrowings of today.
Secondly, people up to very recently did not have hugely long retirement periods as the average age of death for both men and women was only about 10 years past retirement. That too is changing rapidly. In recent years people are living 20/30 years past retirement age. This will mean more and more money needs to be yielded back from pension funds to finance longer retirements, rather than being tied up in government debt repayment structures, with no access to the principal.
We cannot keep financing our lives the way we do today. We need to realise the bond holder is not some untouchable, all powerful demi-God. They handle our/your money. We need to stop investing in the market economy as the only way to ensure our future security. These guys will not be able to hold governments to ransom, raise interest rates and basically rule the world if they don't have your money to empower them. They are using your belief in a secure future to allow them rule the world.
How do we stop them, gain personal future security and by extension force governments to become more efficient?
INVEST in your local community. If we used the money we would have spent on investing in pension funds (public or private) and if we didn't have to buy insurance on everything, it would give us a lot more financial resources to secure our future. We could use that cash today to build the infrastructure (social and physical ) in our local community to give us more security. We could finance shared buildings, finance local food production, permaculture solutions and help build a barter economy where we can trade goods and services into retirement. These empowering additions to our locality (as just a few of many) would build our future security.
As for insurance, we could move to local insurance models. As an example instead of buying home insurance from a faceless corporation we could insure our homes collectively. It would be pretty easy to list the percentage of claims on house insurance policies and the common claim types. Then pool your money together with perhaps 100 neighbouring families. Hire a handy man/several people and pay them through a combination of local barter economy/cash remittances to work on fixing/auditing houses to correct common defects that could turn into future possible insurance claims. Now, instead of investing thousands and thousands over the years into house insurance that you may never need, you are now hiring someone locally to maintain your home and also to work on your house if you have an "insurance" claim. Part of the money you pay into this local scheme annually meets the local workers' salaries and part is used to pay for any bigger insurance claims that are fixed by locals.
Now power is taken from insurance companies/pension funds/bond holders who trade and hold governments to ransom with your money. Also governments will now have to evolve, streamline and become super efficient with reduced pools of money available for future borrowing.
In time, we should get to a situation where government borrowings are drastically reduced naturally as local solutions kick in. The more we finance/fund/fix our own lives, the less we need governments to do so for us.
I am not advocating the abolishment of something like a bond market. I am though advocating more individual empowerment over where your money is going and also empowerment over your future security. Everyone wins!
Bondholders = faceless "beings" who loan money to our governments to keep the show on the road; daily, weekly, monthly, annually. Our governments never realistically plan to pay off the principal borrowed, but only to service the loans yearly with interest repayments. The bond holders get fairly attractive returns on their investments plus huge individual re-numeration, and who can be a better debtor than a sovereign nation! Or so the theory goes.
One slight glance behind this little arrangement highlights how dysfunctional it truly is. I would like to point that out here and also to offer one viable alternative to this system.
Since no country at the moment seems to have money to loan, except perhaps China, then one has to ask who are the bondholders and where do they get their cash? After all to hear political, economic and journalistic commentators talk on the possibility of debt default to bond holders, would make one think they were human eating lizards who could zap us all into oblivion with their advanced cosmic ray guns! No, the boring truth is that these bond holders are simply human beings like the rest of us. No ET lizards anywhere. However in truth who they work for, and represent, is often the pension funds and insurance companies of the world. A few bondholders in percentage terms are individual wealth holders, but mainly they comprise funding from these two industries.
So, we have the crazy situation where money collected from the people of the world through investments in pension funds and the buying of insurance policies of all kinds is pooled together and then used as finance to lend to completely incompetent governments and administrators in countless countries. Remember the money collected from the people is supposed to guarantee them personal security in their future, i.e. either through a guaranteed pension fund, or through the guarantee of an insurance claim being covered.
Investors believe that at some point they will be able to cash in their pension fund or their insurance policy and the cash will be there to meet their demands. This has worked to date for a few reasons. Primarily the biggest reason was that that we had a rapidly expanding population, hence it was perfectly acceptable for governments to defer debt principal payments and to be able to meet annual bond interest payments - (as they believed this debt will always deflate into the future, i.e. ever increasing population levels will make this debt a smaller and smaller burden. This allowed a malaise/incompetence to set in with the efficiency of handling finance raised in the bond markets. Countless articles could be written about how inefficiently government money is handled). However we are facing a population peak within decades. This should be the most alarming fact facing humanity at the moment as our whole economic system is built on the premise of more consumption, more people to pay taxes, more building, more cheap labour, more markets to sell to etc... So governments cannot assume that our current debt will always deflate, i.e. we will soon reach a point where more and more people are not available to pay off and devalue the borrowings of today.
Secondly, people up to very recently did not have hugely long retirement periods as the average age of death for both men and women was only about 10 years past retirement. That too is changing rapidly. In recent years people are living 20/30 years past retirement age. This will mean more and more money needs to be yielded back from pension funds to finance longer retirements, rather than being tied up in government debt repayment structures, with no access to the principal.
We cannot keep financing our lives the way we do today. We need to realise the bond holder is not some untouchable, all powerful demi-God. They handle our/your money. We need to stop investing in the market economy as the only way to ensure our future security. These guys will not be able to hold governments to ransom, raise interest rates and basically rule the world if they don't have your money to empower them. They are using your belief in a secure future to allow them rule the world.
How do we stop them, gain personal future security and by extension force governments to become more efficient?
INVEST in your local community. If we used the money we would have spent on investing in pension funds (public or private) and if we didn't have to buy insurance on everything, it would give us a lot more financial resources to secure our future. We could use that cash today to build the infrastructure (social and physical ) in our local community to give us more security. We could finance shared buildings, finance local food production, permaculture solutions and help build a barter economy where we can trade goods and services into retirement. These empowering additions to our locality (as just a few of many) would build our future security.
As for insurance, we could move to local insurance models. As an example instead of buying home insurance from a faceless corporation we could insure our homes collectively. It would be pretty easy to list the percentage of claims on house insurance policies and the common claim types. Then pool your money together with perhaps 100 neighbouring families. Hire a handy man/several people and pay them through a combination of local barter economy/cash remittances to work on fixing/auditing houses to correct common defects that could turn into future possible insurance claims. Now, instead of investing thousands and thousands over the years into house insurance that you may never need, you are now hiring someone locally to maintain your home and also to work on your house if you have an "insurance" claim. Part of the money you pay into this local scheme annually meets the local workers' salaries and part is used to pay for any bigger insurance claims that are fixed by locals.
Now power is taken from insurance companies/pension funds/bond holders who trade and hold governments to ransom with your money. Also governments will now have to evolve, streamline and become super efficient with reduced pools of money available for future borrowing.
In time, we should get to a situation where government borrowings are drastically reduced naturally as local solutions kick in. The more we finance/fund/fix our own lives, the less we need governments to do so for us.
I am not advocating the abolishment of something like a bond market. I am though advocating more individual empowerment over where your money is going and also empowerment over your future security. Everyone wins!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Book to be Published by ATTM Press
Exciting News: March 14th 2010.
My book also entitled "Building cities of Gold" will be published by ATTM press later in 2010. ATTM press are an exciting press that promote and publish work that has a positive message at its core.
My book will be for sale on both ATTM press website or on Amazon.com when it is published.
My book also entitled "Building cities of Gold" will be published by ATTM press later in 2010. ATTM press are an exciting press that promote and publish work that has a positive message at its core.
My book will be for sale on both ATTM press website or on Amazon.com when it is published.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Copenhagen
Copenhagen 2009:
2 weeks to save the world. That is what they are telling us, the leaders of this conference on climate change. According to them if we do not get agreements at the end of this conference then we will have wasted our last chance to save the world. The world, this amazing world that has supported life forms for 4 billion years. The mother earth who seems to have a benevolent predisposition to supporting life in so many infinite formats. 2 Weeks to sort our crap out or else she will expel us, or kill us all.
Will Our mother do either of these things; will she banish or discard us forever? Do we understand her enough to be able to decide at a 2 week conference how to find harmonious balance with her nature?
I fear our egos are exceeding their remit once more. We still see ourselves as masters of nature and our environment. We believe that a collection of our "suits" can solve all of the earth's problems and that we can reverse, arrest or dictate climate change by virtue of a series of conferences and man made laws.
I believe one of the main reasons why climate change has gripped so many of those in power into such a vice of fear is that it highlights to them how irrelevant and how lacking in control this particular phenomenon makes them. They believe they can control everything; however climate change is one thing that they realise they may not be able to control.
So what will happen in Copenhagen or at the next several conferences? As a guarantee taxation will increase and revenue generation mechanisms will be instigated. Big business will get bigger and the man or woman on the street will pay from their pockets. But will anything change? Will we get a handle on climate change and gain the power to stop, arrest or reverse its effects?
I don't know the answer to these questions but I fear that as long as we allow our leaders, our businesses and our governments to tackle this problem exclusively, then it will only be engaged with intellectually and from a purely financial basis ONLY. It is a problem that they think can be fixed by throwing money (our money!) at.
The child, woman, man, grandmother and grandfather in their individual lives will not be empowered to engage with their environments from their heart spaces. In this heart space they can come into harmony with their local environment and hence regain their place in the cycle of nature. In this space they will align with their local community and form powerful alliances who heal their locality. In short they will make the enlightened choices that eliminate harmful activities, consumption and pollution from their lives. To put it bluntly they are not now being directed or legislated into submission from above, but rather are leading and empowering themselves from the ground up.
Will this more desirable path lead to us arresting or reversing climate change? Again, I don't know the answer, but surely this is a much better route to go down. Why should we allow the few to create taxation (carbon taxing), new industries, new legislation etc. that are supposed to stop climate change, but offer absolutely no guarantees that they will succeed. We will spend billions and trillions and may well end up causing more pollution problems through incompetence (very likely), or corruption.
It will cost us nothing (or very little) individually to step up to the mark and make enlightened, empowered decisions in the moment. DO we really need those new products?, do we really need to pollute with certain activities?, do we really need to throw so much of our food away? etc...
The earth has an intelligence that we cannot comprehend. As mentioned she has supported life forms of such staggering variety and abundance over such a long timescale that our place in her history is truly minuscule. We are powerless to control her. If we accept this then we can relinquish so much fear and come to a place of acceptance and empowerment.
She (The Earth) may well be in a cycle of climate change that will permanently alter our environment. Change is guaranteed here on Mother Earth. She is constantly shifting and moving, recycling, evolving, dying and birthing. Are we adding to her woes at the moment by pumping excessive quantities of CO2 into her atmosphere? More than likely we are, but if we stop will she then co-operate as we wish her to and stop changing? What if she doesn't? Only she can answer these questions.
If we TRUST though that this benevolent mother who is so predisposed to harbouring life in all it's formats may be changing but will always have a space and home for us, her children, then we don't have to be so afraid and so powerless. If we ourselves evolve alongside her evolution, then we can make the enlightened choices as mentioned and come into balance with her.
She will look after us, provided we make the effort individually and honour her presence and gifts to us. Climate change or not we need to honour our home. We need to trust we have a role in the future of this world, even if our environment does alter greatly from the way it is now.
Carbon taxing alone will not bring us into balance with our mother!
2 weeks to save the world. That is what they are telling us, the leaders of this conference on climate change. According to them if we do not get agreements at the end of this conference then we will have wasted our last chance to save the world. The world, this amazing world that has supported life forms for 4 billion years. The mother earth who seems to have a benevolent predisposition to supporting life in so many infinite formats. 2 Weeks to sort our crap out or else she will expel us, or kill us all.
Will Our mother do either of these things; will she banish or discard us forever? Do we understand her enough to be able to decide at a 2 week conference how to find harmonious balance with her nature?
I fear our egos are exceeding their remit once more. We still see ourselves as masters of nature and our environment. We believe that a collection of our "suits" can solve all of the earth's problems and that we can reverse, arrest or dictate climate change by virtue of a series of conferences and man made laws.
I believe one of the main reasons why climate change has gripped so many of those in power into such a vice of fear is that it highlights to them how irrelevant and how lacking in control this particular phenomenon makes them. They believe they can control everything; however climate change is one thing that they realise they may not be able to control.
So what will happen in Copenhagen or at the next several conferences? As a guarantee taxation will increase and revenue generation mechanisms will be instigated. Big business will get bigger and the man or woman on the street will pay from their pockets. But will anything change? Will we get a handle on climate change and gain the power to stop, arrest or reverse its effects?
I don't know the answer to these questions but I fear that as long as we allow our leaders, our businesses and our governments to tackle this problem exclusively, then it will only be engaged with intellectually and from a purely financial basis ONLY. It is a problem that they think can be fixed by throwing money (our money!) at.
The child, woman, man, grandmother and grandfather in their individual lives will not be empowered to engage with their environments from their heart spaces. In this heart space they can come into harmony with their local environment and hence regain their place in the cycle of nature. In this space they will align with their local community and form powerful alliances who heal their locality. In short they will make the enlightened choices that eliminate harmful activities, consumption and pollution from their lives. To put it bluntly they are not now being directed or legislated into submission from above, but rather are leading and empowering themselves from the ground up.
Will this more desirable path lead to us arresting or reversing climate change? Again, I don't know the answer, but surely this is a much better route to go down. Why should we allow the few to create taxation (carbon taxing), new industries, new legislation etc. that are supposed to stop climate change, but offer absolutely no guarantees that they will succeed. We will spend billions and trillions and may well end up causing more pollution problems through incompetence (very likely), or corruption.
It will cost us nothing (or very little) individually to step up to the mark and make enlightened, empowered decisions in the moment. DO we really need those new products?, do we really need to pollute with certain activities?, do we really need to throw so much of our food away? etc...
The earth has an intelligence that we cannot comprehend. As mentioned she has supported life forms of such staggering variety and abundance over such a long timescale that our place in her history is truly minuscule. We are powerless to control her. If we accept this then we can relinquish so much fear and come to a place of acceptance and empowerment.
She (The Earth) may well be in a cycle of climate change that will permanently alter our environment. Change is guaranteed here on Mother Earth. She is constantly shifting and moving, recycling, evolving, dying and birthing. Are we adding to her woes at the moment by pumping excessive quantities of CO2 into her atmosphere? More than likely we are, but if we stop will she then co-operate as we wish her to and stop changing? What if she doesn't? Only she can answer these questions.
If we TRUST though that this benevolent mother who is so predisposed to harbouring life in all it's formats may be changing but will always have a space and home for us, her children, then we don't have to be so afraid and so powerless. If we ourselves evolve alongside her evolution, then we can make the enlightened choices as mentioned and come into balance with her.
She will look after us, provided we make the effort individually and honour her presence and gifts to us. Climate change or not we need to honour our home. We need to trust we have a role in the future of this world, even if our environment does alter greatly from the way it is now.
Carbon taxing alone will not bring us into balance with our mother!
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