Nu ne mai vaccinam copiii,
In schimb le lasam mostenire o gramada de datorii,
Iar atunci cand vine vorba de cheltuit banul public nu reusim sa ne intelegem la imparteala…
Cat o sa mai tina chestia asta oare?
Archives for category: yes but
First of all freedom is a state of mind and only subsequently may become translated (or not) into social reality.
Whenever an oppressor/oppressed relationship exists neither of them is really free, not even the oppressor: he is permanently bound to take care, of sorts, for the oppressed. Otherwise the oppressed would wither away, either literally or by gaining their liberty.
This doesn’t mean Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t right, it still is the duty of whoever feels oppressed to start fighting for liberty, it just puts the onus on both sides of the relationship.
In fact time and time again human history has produced ample proof that as entire societies became freer their individual members fared better and better.
Wealth and technology can only help but cannot replace (perceived) individual liberty.
A rather heated debate is currently going on between ‘specialists’ about how ‘economic fairness’ is influencing growth:
The problem is that most of these ‘specialists’, usually economists or politicians, while sometimes finding interesting facts, rarely stick their heads out of their narrow fields of expertise high enough to notice that too much economic inequality is counterproductive precisely because it creates a relationship of dependency between the haves and the have nots.
Taking care of your dependents uses precious resources that could be better spent concentrating on further development.
This is exactly what Henry Ford had understood and motivated him to double the wages of his employees. This is the sole explanation for why the American economy took off after WWII. More and more individuals were able to stand on their own two feet because the economic climate was good, business thrived AND the wages were decent – without the government or the unions having much to say about this.
Today business people care almost exclusively about the bottom line and the next quarterly report – thus favoring short term results versus sustainable growth, the governments regulate more and more, arrogantly believing that they know better than the (no longer) free market and the union leaders concentrate on gathering more and more clout instead of taking care of the long term interests of their union members.
This byzantine maze does nothing but creates a highly oppressive medium in which everybody is oppressed by everybody else.
And human society, if it is to work properly, needs free cooperation, not generalized oppression.
Do you remember my bewilderment about how come so many people think it’s OK to use, indiscriminately, every opportunity to increase their personal wealth?
“Si mai vorbim despre “globalizare”…”
“And we are still speaking about “globalization”…”
“- What’s your opinion about the food shortages in the rest of the world?
– What does ‘food’ mean?
– What’s that a ‘shortage’?
– What’s that ‘the rest of the world’?
– What’s that an ‘oppinion’?”
“- Ce parere aveti despre lipsa de alimente din restul lumii?
– Ce sunt alea ‘alimente’?
– Ce inseamna ‘restul lumii’?
– Ce este aceea ‘lipsa’?
– Ce este aceea ‘opinie’?”
Pai da, vorbim!
Si pe drept cuvant.
Din pacate ‘globalizare’-a asta inseamna deocamdata ca toti alergam ca disperatii dupa bani. In loc sa actionam firesc, sa reactionam la imprejurarile in care ne aflam, incercam, in disperare, sa folosim aceste imprejurari pentru a ne umfla conturile din banci.
Si dupa aceea ne miram de ce a iesit…
Yes we do!
And rightfully so!
Because, until now at least, ‘globalization’ only meant a planet wide treasure hunt. Instead of acting naturally – reacting to the circumstances in which any of us happens to find himself – we desperately/obsessively try to use those circumstances with the sole goal of inflating our bank accounts…
And then we are flabbergasted by the outcome…
Bine, inteleg ca pentru asta ar trebui sa intelegem odata (?) ca bogatia este doar o unealta, ca telul suprem ar trebui sa fie doar ‘supravietuirea’/capacitatea de a evolua si ca astea doua nu sunt chiar identice … dar oare de cate argumente in acest sens mai avem nevoie?
OK, I understand we’d need to understand, once and for all (?) that wealth is nothing but a tool, that the sole reasonable goal is survival/ability to adapt and that these two are not exactly similar… but how many more proof do we still need?
OK, amu’ sa vad eu cine musca primul din cat-burgherul asta!
OK, now I’m anxiously waiting to see who’s going to take the first bite!
“Sus : William, Ducele de Cambridge (viitorul rege al Angliei) și fratele său, Henry al Țării Galilor
Jos : …
Ambele inundații sunt din 2014“
Fratii Windsor n-au functii executive asa ca pot face ce vor, inclusiv ceva folositor.
Ceilalti doi fac parte dintr-un intreg aparat politic astfel incat sunt la intersectia/discretia multor si conflictuale seturi de interese.
Ce ma intriga pe mine este insistenta cu care adversarii lor dau vina exclusiv pe ei, fara sa vorbeasca nici un moment despre faptul ca ei n-ar fi avut pe ce sa se aseze daca nu aducea cineva barcile alea si nici nu s-ar fi vazut la televizor (ca d-aia s-au dus acolo, sa-i vada lumea ca ‘le pasa’) daca televiziunile (atat cele prietene cat si cele dusmane) nu s-ar fi inghesuit si ele in acelasi model de barca…
Poate pentru ca singurul lucru care ii intereseaza pe adversarii lor este sa le ia locul iar pe televiziuni doar sa faca rating? In conditiile astea e normal ca nimeni sa nu vrea sa deschida cu adevarat ochii electoratului ci doar sa-l traga dintr-o parte in alta…
Si atunci cum sa nu te intrebi cum de l-a luat gura pe dinainte pe Basescu: ‘Nici un ministru sau mare mahar din administratia de stat n-ar putea sa-si faca mendrele daca n-ar fi ajutati de o parte din subalternii lor si daca restul nu ar inchide ochii!’?
PS. L-am auzit cu urechile mele la un ‘telejurnal’, cu vreo doi ani in urma.
I remember that John F. Kennedy once said something similar
Yet now, fifty years later, we still act as if the planet was infinite, we had found a cure for death and we had given up about the fate of our children…
I remember that as a child I used to play with electric trains. Models, of course. I think I still have the power source tucked someplace.
Me and a couple of other guys in the neighborhood had tracks that our mothers allowed us to set from time to time on the table in the living room so we took turns. We all gathered at one of us, build the track and played for a while.
The gear wasn’t cheap, for sure, but not more expensive than today’s smart phones.
The important thing was that we got together, learned something about how to deal with electricity, how to put things together and how to use our toys collectively. Later I found out that that some adults never out-grow these trains and develop quite a passion for them. Some even transform this passion into a way of living.
This morning I stumbled upon this video:
I wasn’t put off as much by its cheesy-ness, check out the struts that are holding the plane ‘aloft’ or the access door with the ‘beware of electricity’ sign as by the fact that too many children no longer build anything. Too many children don’t really play anymore, at most some of them are taken to visit places like the one described in this video and where all they can do is shoot a video of their experience using, yes, you guessed it, their smart phones.
This morning I watched on BBC a documentary with this title. A young Cambodian gets a helping hand from a Bangladeshi textile entrepreneur on her road to becoming a fashion designer. OK, so what?!? Nothing but a normal occurrence. In fact both are helping each other. Well…yes only five years ago the promising designer was scraping for food at the edges of the Phnom Penh garbage dump, unable to read or write. Scott Neeson was the one who gave her a helping hand and the whole story brought back to my mind an IMF study I’ve read recently: “Inequality and Unsustainable Growth: Two Sides of the Same Coin?” Inside are some interesting ideas about the dynamics between inequality and growth but, a lot more important and almost at the beginning, the reader stumbles upon the explanation for why the considerable efforts that have been spend towards this goal have brought so scarce results: “Over the long run, sustained growth is central to poverty reduction. The rapid growth seen in much of the world over the past few decades—notably, but not only, in China and India—has led to an unprecedented reduction in poverty. And, in general, increases in per capita income tend to translate into proportionate increases in income of the poor. As Dollar and Kraay (2002) memorably put it, ―Growth Is Good for the Poor.‖ All the more reason, then, to place sustainability of growth at the center of any poverty reduction strategy.” The point is that we’ve been chasing a ghost. What is ‘poverty reduction’? In order to do such thing one needs to define poverty, measure it and then come up with a grand strategy about how to solve a problem invented by ourselves. All of them arbitrary activities. Let me make myself perfectly clear. ‘Poverty’ is a problem indeed. Both for the poor themselves and for the society at large. Problems are to be solved but before starting doing so we should identify the real nature of the problem. Nowadays most of us agree that ‘poverty is a problem’ but when it comes to solving it we find ourselves divided into two camps. Some say this is an individual problem and those involved, the poor themselves, are the ones who should do something about it – work more that is. Some others consider that poverty is a social problem and should be solved by others but those directly involved, either by the government or by charitable organisations. In this camp we find quite a lot of people, from the ‘kind hearted’ who consider they have to help their fellow human beings to the ‘economically minded’ who say that by reducing poverty we’ll be able to increase consumption which, in turn, will induce economic growth. Both approaches are fundamentally flawed. How much help are we going to extend to the needy? What (long term) consequences is this all this help going to have? How much consumption is needed? What is the ‘optimum’ economic growth rate? I think we are missing the essential here. The real problem with the existence of poverty is the enormous waste it produces. Yes, waste, and the worst kind of waste. The waste of human potential. Poverty is, and always was, relative. Sreymom Ang, the promising fashion designer, was dirt poor when she lived on the fringes of the Phnom Penh’s garbage dump yet her chances for survival were far better then that of the most Europeans living three hundreds years ago. Her real problem was that she didn’t see any way out of a situation she (and those around her) saw as being desperate while for those Europeans it was ‘business as usual’. This very difference in attitude is crucial. Our forefathers did their best to improve their lot while most of today’s poor are feeling so depressed as to let things happen to them instead of having a more active approach. Right now I have a distinct feeling that the ‘let the poor fend for themselves’ people are polishing the ‘I told you so’ placards… Not so fast! As everybody who has been really depressed knows, it’s hard to ‘get out of it’ on your own and specially so when the deck of cards is set against you. So where I’m driving at? That we should treat this whole business as an efficiency problem instead of a poverty problem. A person with at least some (useful!!!) education is a lot more likely to be able to ‘fend for himself’ than a complete illiterate. Even more important he/she will be able to cooperate with others in order to produce and consume, efficiently, marketable goods and services. A person who knows that he/she will receive some help if in dire need will summon more easily the courage to start something, be it a new business, a new career or anything else. A person who has a reasonable expectation to be treated fairly by those around him/her is a lot more likely to come up into ‘the open’ than one who has a previous experience of being treated as a second (or third…) class citizen. As history teaches us, countries where the creative power of the people could find it easier to manifest itself and where a bigger proportion of the people were really free fared better than countries where the opposite situation prevailed. This is the only argument for which I am convinced that allowing for considerable human potential to go unused, because of crippling poverty but not exclusively, is more than an individual problem and that we’ll all be considerably better off by finding a way for a bigger and bigger proportion of the people living at one time on the face of the Earth to be able to do something meaningful. For them but also for the rest of us.
nicichiarasa 