Paul Craig Roberts: Virtual Recovery, Bond Bubble, Inflation at 9%, Collapse Potential of Dollar

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
Paul Craig Roberts

The Virtual Recovery

October 29, 2012

Since mid-2009 the US has been enjoying a virtual recovery courtesy of a rigged inflation measure that understates inflation. The financial Presstitutes spoon out the government’s propaganda that prices are rising less than 2%. But anyone who purchases food, fuel, medical care or anything else knows that low inflation is no more real that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction or Gadhafi’s alleged attacks on Libyan protesters or Iran’s nuclear weapons. Everything is a lie to serve the power-brokers.

During the Clinton administration, Republican economists pushed through a change in the way the CPI is measured in order to save money by depriving Social Security retirees of their cost-of-living adjustment. Previously, the CPI measured the change in the cost of a constant standard of living. The new measure assumes that consumers adjust to price increases by lowering their standard of living by substituting lower quality, lower priced items. If the price, for example, of New York strip steak goes up, consumers are assumed to substitute the lower quality round steak. In other words, the new measure of inflation keeps inflation down by reflecting a lowered standard of living.

Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com), who closely follows the collecting and reporting of official US economic statistics, reports that consumer inflation, as measured by the 1990 official government methodology has been running at about 5%. If the 1980 official methodology for measuring the CPI is used, John Williams reports that the current rate of US inflation is about 9%.

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Rickard Falkvinge: Wendy Cockcroft on The Next Big Battles – Secret Trade Agreements Bad for People

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, IO Impotency
Rickard Falkvinge

The Next Big Battles

Posted: 27 Oct 2012 11:26 AM PDT

Activism – Wendy Cockcroft:  Since ACTA was decisively beaten on 4th July 2012, the first time a free trade agreement had been scuppered by the people of EU member nations, the big business lobbyists have taken heed and resolved to change in order to be more successful. Hence the secrecy. CETA and the EU-India trade agreement are the next big battles. We need your help.

The term “Free Trade Agreement” is a misnomer. The idea is to remove barriers, taxes, and tariffs, but since people can end up being shackled to a multinational corporation’s agenda, the only freedom is in the ability of the corporations to operate in ways that often end up utterly destroying local economies or harnessing law enforcement agencies to protect their interests. The worst part is that we the taxpayers have to foot the bill for our losses of national sovereignty and civil rights. We saw ACTA off in July, but there are two more major agreements to deal with and we need to be ready to contact our M.E.P.s when the time comes.

Continue reading “Rickard Falkvinge: Wendy Cockcroft on The Next Big Battles – Secret Trade Agreements Bad for People”

Michel Bauwens: Collaborative Economy Destroying Jobs [and Tax Base] – What’s Next?

03 Economy
Michel Bauwens

Yes, the collaborative economy is destroying jobs. So what’s next?

OuShare, 16 October 2012

by Stanislas Jourdan

Let’s not be blind: yes, the collaborative economy is destroying a massive number of jobs. Is that a disaster though? It is, if we don’t redefine what ‘job’ and ‘work’ means, and how they relate to income. However, if we seriously consider the radical alternatives, this could be a great step for society.

. . . . . . . .

The major point of the Collaborative Economy is that value creation is being scattered among society. This makes it difficult to be measured. For instance, consumers are now involved in the co-production of the products they buy. The problem is not only that they do not get paid for their contribution, but a large number of companies would not even exist if they could not use open-source tools created by communities of developers , long before these businesses were even created, for free. In other words, a large amount of the market economy’s profits is built on a large free lunch – the one of the non-market economy.

. . . . . . .

A simple solution to this would be to give everyone a basic income grant, without conditions and not means-tested. Philosophically, this would be a compensation for what the French economist Yann Moulier Boutang calls the “retribution for pollinisation”, or a reward for all non-marketable values we create by accident, like bees that fertilize flowers by carrying pollen.

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Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Collaborative Economy Destroying Jobs [and Tax Base] – What's Next?”

Michel Bauwens: Worker-Owned Cooperatives

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Ethics
Michel Bauwens

Worker-Owned Cooperatives Offer A Vision Of A Different Kind Of Capitalism

A new documentary, Shift Change, explores a kind of company where the workers are also the owners, which results in a quite different economic model than we’re used to.

In an era when income disparities and anger with financial institutions in the U.S. are generating powerful social movements, it’s not surprising that people are starting to look towards alternative business models. Shift Change, a new movie from filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, looks at the world of worker cooperatives, where reasonable salaries, job security, and general work satisfaction prevail.

Nowhere are the benefits of this model more obvious than in the Mondragon Corporation, a giant federation of worker cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain (there’s nothing about dragons involved, it was founded in a town called Mondragon) that works in finance, retail operations, production of consumer goods and industrial components, and more. Co.Exist spoke with Young about her experiences making the film, and visiting the notoriously closed-off Mondragon Corporation.

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Phi Beta Iota:  Worker-owned cooperatives do not out-source jobs and do focus on community equities.

See Also:

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

Yoda: Stop Rote Education, Begin Apprenticeships

03 Economy, 04 Education
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Learn work, work learn.  Not sit, BE.

Old and New Models for Tackling the Skills Gap

I got the chance to talk on NPR last year about ideas to deal with the jobs crisis. My perspective then, as it is now, was that education is the key. I don’t just mean a good high school education, which is obviously critical. I mean having the right set of educational choices when it comes to training for employment. One way to encourage this is by re-energizing apprenticeships, which have largely faded away over the last few decades in America. Why have apprenticeships faded away? I think it is because they have failed to keep up with many of the new fields that offer the best employment opportunities. I question why there are not more apprenticeships available in software development or design or even entrepreneurship. These disciplines, amongst many others, are ones that benefit from hands-on learning rather than conventional teaching. Universities are not necessarily the best place to train for these skills—in countries like Germany, a combination of training in the workplace with some supplementary college attendance has proven to be a very successful model.

Apprenticeship represents a mutual commitment between trainees and employers and ultimately benefits both. The retreat of apprenticeship has coincided with a change in attitude of many employers away from investing in the education of their workforce, toward an expectation that the education system should ‘manufacture’ the right ‘product’ for them to employ. I believe that if employers recommitted to the idea of apprenticeship they would reap significant rewards not only in terms of better trained employees, but also a less transactional, more purposeful workplace with significantly higher engagement and loyalty.

I recently came across a startup that, in the absence of a resurgence of apprenticeship, is letting prospective employees take matters into their own hands and train themselves before applying for a job. LearnUp, founded by Alexis Ringwald and Kenny Ma, lets employers post the training materials they usually use once they have employed someone. Applicants can then ‘learn up’ on the job before they apply, making them more competitive as applicants and reducing training time for employers. Companies like Whole FoodsKPMG, and Gap already have training programs available there. This seems like a great example of an innovative educational model that can reduce the skills gap and give those looking for employment a better shot at getting the jobs they want. What other innovative models exist for reducing the skills gap?

Berto Jongman: New World Order (Banks) Facing Challenge from New New World Order (BRICS+)

01 Brazil, 02 China, 03 Economy, 03 India, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement
Berto Jongman

Being read in Europe.

Swiss Study Shows 147 Technocratic “Super Entities” Rule the World

Susanne Posel
Infowars.com
October 10, 2012

Click on Image to Enlarge

The Swiss Federal Institute (SFI) in Zurich released a study entitled “The Network of Global Corporate Control” that proves a small consortiums of corporations – mainly banks – run the world. A mere 147 corporations which form a “super entity” have control 40% of the world’s wealth; which is the real economy. These mega-corporations are at the center of the global economy. The banks found to be most influential include:

• Barclays
• Goldman Sachs
• JPMorgan Chase & Co
• Vanguard Group
• UBS
• Deutsche Bank
• Bank of New York Melon Corp
• Morgan Stanley
• Bank of America Corp
• Société Générale

However as the connections to the controlling groups are networked throughout the world, they become the catalyst for global financial collapse.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: New World Order (Banks) Facing Challenge from New New World Order (BRICS+)”

Berto Jongman: Food Security Index & Map 2013

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence
Berto Jongman

Food security in 75% of African countries at high or extreme risk – Maplecroft global index

‘Arab Awakening' countries at increased risk from 2013 food price shocks

10/10/2012

Despite strong economic growth, food security remains an issue of primary importance for Africa, according to a new study by risk analysis company Maplecroft, which classifies 75% of the continent’s countries at ‘high’ or ‘extreme risk.’

Click on Image to Enlarge

In the light of recent food price spikes, the findings are especially significant for areas of sub-Saharan Africa where poverty, armed conflict, civil unrest, drought, displacement and poor governance can combine to create conditions where a food crisis may take hold.

Africa accounts for 39 of the 59 most at risk countries in Maplecroft’s Food Security Risk Index and hosts nine of the eleven countries in the ‘extreme risk’ category. These include: Somalia and DR Congo (ranked joint 1st in the index), Burundi (4), Chad (5), Ethiopia (6), Eritrea (7), South Sudan (9), Comoros (10) and Sierra Leone (11). The countries of Haiti (3) and Afghanistan (8) complete the category.

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