[MD] It's all Obama's fault?

[Andre Broersen]

dmb said:
They call it freedom but what they're really pushing is unregulated global capitalism.

Andre:
I think that's pretty right dmb. I came across this on the web as a result of hearing an interview on the radio the other day between the host and a retired Christian banker named Leo Andringa. If you can gloss over the christian rhetoric their analysis of the current global economic situation is very interesting.

Here are some excerpts:
"This paper is important because it offers a Gospel approach to economics which does not
treat economics as its own gospel, to be accepted unquestioningly. Through a prophetic inquiry,
Bob Goudzwaard, as a Christian economist, and Leo Andringa, as a retired Christian banker,
offer a place where the Gospel ethically engages the economics of globalization.

"People earn money with their labour. With that money, they provide for their daily needs and
desires. The money that people spend is received by companies and then spent on wages and the
purchase of raw materials. A portion of the wages earned is deposited in the bank. Banks then
loan money to families who, for example, take out a mortgage to buy their own house.
Money therefore makes possible an exchange of goods and services. Some have pictured
the relationship between goods and services and money as a two-sided coin: one side represents
the goods and services paid for, while the other side expresses their monetary value. The government must ensure that there is approximately as much money in circulation as is needed for the
exchange of goods and the payment for services.


"One would expect that, along with the growth of international trade in goods and services,
a corresponding growth in the international trade in money and capital would also have occurred.
But surprisingly, that has not at all been the case. On the contrary, over the past twenty years,
international trade in money has increased not four times, but ONE HUNDRED times!

"More recently, however, banks have also done something else. Through the development
of communications technology, banks can profit from the differences in exchange which exist in
different places around the world for the same currency. With the touch of a keyboard, an order
can be given to buy money in Singapore and to sell money in Mexico. Billions of euros, dollars,
yen and other units of currency flip from one side of the world to the other instantly each day.
People also think up and try out more and more financial instruments in the trade of both stocks
and goods, such as stock options, swaps, futures and other so-called derivatives. What all of
these “bank products” have in common is that they profit from the distribution of financial risks
across various times and places.
In this way, money is turned over without a corresponding production of goods. It is like
inflating a large balloon. The turnover does not add any social value; it does not result in more
bread being baked, more bikes being made or more houses being built... .
Banks hire talented young people to sit behind a computer screen all day, watching for
places around the world where currency deserves attention.

"These developments in international currency speculation have gradually led to the remarkable situation that the volume of international trade in money and money products is now, as
mentioned, ONE HUNDRED TIMES GREATER than the total volume of international trade in goods and
services. Money is therefore not merely the flip side of the goods and services coin. IT HAS BECOME AN INDEPENDENT GOOD OR PRODUCT IN ITS OWN RIGHT. Trade in currency-derived “products”
is becoming more and more independent from trade in goods.
Money has therefore acquired a different role. If earlier money was primarily a medium of
exchange representing the value of goods and services provided, today money is primarily commodity from which one can make a large profit. For banks, trade in this commodity has now become their most important source of income. But the production of goods and services has not increased accordingly. (Their emphasis)

Here's the link if anyone is interested.

http://action.web.ca/home/cpj/attach/globalization-and-christian-hope.pdf

I am not an economist but is seems to me that there are clear links between these practices and what has happened to Ireland and Greece. In this sense this development is NOT 'independent' from the rest. Predictions by financial analysts here are that Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium are the next to follow. Entire nations held at ransom by the vicissitudes of the global financial market. And of course the politicians must respond by introducing severe cuts in national spending. One caption I read on my way to work the other day was: 'Do not enter the Netherlands: there's a cultural meltdown".

"What people buy and what people sell, in other words what people VALUE, can never be contained by any intellectual formula." (LILA, p 225)

Right. It is pure, unadulterated, egocentric greed. I, me, mine...and fuck the rest. And not tomorrow, not next month, not next year... I want it NOW, including the bonuses!!!

"The ideal of a harmonious society in which everyone without coercion cooperates happily with everyone else for the mutual good of all is a devastating fiction". (LILA, p 314)

Seems to me we need a few more Obamas and he can do with a few intelligent Americans to support him, in and outside of Congress.

Apologies for the length of the post.