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Sustainable Development
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The following countries have planned economies:
Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Burma
Since their authoritarian governments have the power to direct all economic activity in their nation, they should be able to pursue sustainable development better than most.
Yet many of these governments struggle to produce basic necessities of daily life for their citizens, something we almost take for granted with our market economy.
Is political ideology the problem?
Carl
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Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Burma
Is political ideology the problem?
Maybe they're just living within their means...?
Mike
Peace on Terra http://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/ http://www.greenhousedesign.green.net.au
Sustainable development is sort of an oxymoron. Beyond the fundamentals, no one can say what future generations will need. To its credit, the notion was hopeful.
authoritarian governments have the power to direct all economic activity in their nation, they should be able to pursue sustainable development better than most.
Yet many of these governments struggle to produce basic necessities of daily life for their citizens, something we almost take for granted with our market economy.
Is political ideology the problem?
That and more, including the blinders that enable you to observe that the market economy produces, without struggle, the basic necessities of daily life for citizens.
Authoritarian and sustainable and development can come together only in a mythology. Briefly, the ideology that permits doing to/for them because we know best, however it's manifested, neglects or otherwise dishonors the fundamental need of each human to choose her/his responses to reality.
Suppression dooms (makes unsustainable) what suppresses.
David Eggleton http://woburnite.com/blog/5 | http://www.appliedecologics.com "There is a chief way for the production of wealth, namely, that the producers be many and that the mere consumers be few." - a Confucian observation (of ecosystems, I believe)
A while back, I stopped buying tuna that was being caught by fishermen using methods that also kills dolphins indiscriminately.
This was a personal choice but our collective action was effective, since I was apparently not the only one who disapprove.
A major tuna canner soon announced it would no longer buy tuna from fishermen using methods that kills dolphins. I dare say they are responding to the loss of sales more than the dispicable act. The point I'm trying to make is consumers have more power (collectively) than they perhaps recognize. Consumer actions guide production: what to produce in what quantity and what price. Once you move away from a subsistence economy, you will need the cooperation of others to produce and sell what you cannot: trade.
Could a similar change happen as quickly if canned tuna production was controlled by government?
Mike,
The N Korean citizens were not living within their means, they were starving. Why...
Carl
A "sustainable" economy cannot exist without a "sustainable" money system. China has a sustainable money system which is why they are kicking butt. Debt based systems, like ours, are doomed from the start.
This is not just a political phenomenon, it is a mathematical fact.
END the FED before it ENDS US
Planned economies seem to lack the flexibility of a non-planned system. If you decide that a lot of young people should eb trained to go into an existing field, but the real gropwth comes from new technology, you are dooming your citizens to be a second class people, or play perpetual catch-up. The former Soviet Union had a planned economy and was often in that position. Sadly, they seemed to get most--not all, they had some briliant scientists--but MOST of their new technology by reverse engineering or spying.
From what I can see planned economies may also be a part of some European countries' economic malaise.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The following countries have planned economies:
Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Burma
Hey! Our economy is planned too. Planned to make the top 1% rich. Look how succeful it is. Ah....American ingenuity.
"Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honor or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are." - Fyodor Dostovevsky
Larry: "China has a sustainable monetary system which is why they are kicking butt"
A casual search produced this non mathematical political phenomenon facts, from wikipedia-----
"Years of government directed lending has presented Chinese banks with large amounts of non performong loans. According to the Central Banks report, non performing loans account for 21.4 % to 26.1% of total lending of China's 4 big banks in 2002.
In 1999 four "Asset" management companies(AMC) were established to transfer the non performing assets from the banks. The AMC plans to repackage the non performing loans into viable assets and sell them off to investors."
The nation just may be experiencing what it's like to be in a mother of all bubbles, directed by their very own government.
You can bet that once it crashes, the party members will readily identify the source of the problem as the "free market" or some evil banker cabal ( the foreign ones of course.)
And the solution is-------(drums please!) even more party control of money, of production, of markets. But of course.
Now that is a political phenomenon all "free" market economies like ours.
ps. Does anyone have any government bonds in their portfolios? Just curious.
Carl
Development implies an increase in production of some sort, and the consequent need for constant growth. This makes "sustainable development" sound like an oxymoron.
On this little matter of speculation ...
... in the grand scheme of things, print the money out of thin air, race to the very bottom of the markets and see how much equity can be mopped up from the losers along the way; Greece being a good example; thankyou IMF ...
Hard fall, soft landing, this is pure pornography if your trade is banking and equity markets. And damn my eye if a couple of million or three starve in the process of asset stripping and capital profit per country, for bean counting portfolio wielding elbow jockeys; thankyou George Soros ...
... cos if you lie with dogs, you get fleas ...
Fear And Loathing As The Hedge Funds Take On The Euro
... little people; you, me, kids, wife, Grampa and Uncle Bob, will still be canning them veg crops while George's 'portfolio' is sinking due to sea level rise at his tax haven money laundering accounts in the Cayman Islands ...
... watch out for dem sharks George ...
Cuba had it licked before tourism dragged in the American Dollar and will be lifting the pavements all over again along the streets of the capital, showing you 'The Power Of Community The sequal' at a cinema near you, real soon ...
The greater part of the Western World will still be blaming someone else while they die in their droves ...
It's a matter of mindset. Do for each other - Do you for me ...
Life Immitating Art Immitating Life
Welcome to the grand show with front row seats!!!!!!!!
VF
In his address to the House of Commons (during the Q&A) Chris talked about how to a certain extent a command economy (like China's) seems to have an advantage inasmuch as they needn't rely on so-called market forces to act intelligently in the planning and execution of things -- esp. major projects such as e.g. investing in alternative energy. But he also said that in his opinion democracy does better in times of big crisis. The whole speech and Q&A is well worth a listen.
Viva -- Sager
"Show some !@#$%^ ADAPTABILITY!!" -- Sergeant Jack Shaftoe, USMC ("Cryptonomicon")
"It's all goin' *down*, man! Martha Stewart's polishing the brass on the Titanic!" -- Tyler Durden
"Have the courage to use your own understanding!' -- Immanuel Kant
"Dreams are the seedbed of the possible." -- William Greider
"One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice." -- Mary Oliver