Over the past 300 years, humanity has succeeded in pulling itself up by its bootstraps, establishing wondrous scientific projects and creating the technology and production lines that allowed us a glimpse of a bright future liberated from want. Nevertheless, the same path has led us to the edge of a precipice from which we are staring into a hideous abyss.
The key to rapid growth was a word beginning with C: commodification - the conversion of goods into commodities and their mass manufacture for profit. With the determination of an unscrupulous invader, for 300 years the market has been colonising more and more realms of human activity. It created new assets, like ingenious new forms of debt, and it fully conquered the Manufacture of Things. Then, more recently, it penetrated areas that it was ill equipped to treat with the due respect. It crossed several bridges too far...
Commodification entered the microcosm, altering the DNA of organisms in order to claim property rights over creations of age old evolution, of magnificent rain forests and of long lived communities of farmers. Soon commodification will take over the moon, even the sun, if it can. Once its greatest weapon, property rights, could no longer be secured by strong fences, but rather required innovative, complex contracts, humanity entered new, treacherous, uncharted territory.
Just like 1991 unveiled Marx's error, 2008 exposed Adam Smith's folly. The great C- process, the commodification drive, gave rise to a sorry litany of other C-words that have darkened our prospects and browned our planet. Three Cs that capture our collective shame:
CREDIT CRUNCH
CARBON
COPENHAGEN
The above text was written by Greece's new Finance Minister. Try to imagine a US Secretary of the Treasury or the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors writing like that.
Greece will neither seek an extension of its controversial bailout nor cooperate with the so-called "troika" of international creditors, the country's new finance minister declared Friday, following up on a previous threat to "blow the whole thing up" in order to win concessions designed to boost the Greek economy.
The comments by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist and member of the leftist Syriza party, threaten to unravel carefully negotiated but deeply unpopular bailouts of Greece by the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Commission that led to harsh austerity and severe cuts in government spending. The Syriza party won Sunday's national election.
Greece's economy has shrunk by about 30 percent since 2008, according to data compiled by the World Bank. Its economy was smaller in 2013 than in 2005. About a quarter of its workers are unemployed, according to the Hellenic Statistical Service, or Elstat. Youth unemployment exceeds 50 percent.
"We are not going to cooperate with a rottenly constructed committee," Varoufakis said, according to news reports. The troika has been monitoring Greece's progress toward commitments made by previous administrations as part of its bailout, such as selling off state assets and trimming worker benefits and government payrolls.
Varoufakis added that the Greek government would not seek to delay the approaching Feb. 28 deadline to extend the terms of the country's bailout. "This platform enabled us to win the confidence of the Greek people," he reportedly said.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Vital Space is built on the belief in the power of art to change the world.
Vital Space is a participatory platform for all those who believe that an artistic perspective can help civilise, humanise and, even, rationalise the debate on the current confluence of environmental and economic crises. The platform functions as an open invitation to artists, scientists, activists, theorists, historians etc. to contribute diverse viewpoints from which to look again at the mounting problems regarding Humanity's relationship with Nature and with itself.
(Reuters) 2012 - European banks should face penalties if they loan cash for share issues by other banks, national regulators from across Europe told Reuters. This comes after a Greek bank was found to have raised money from offshore companies financed by other institutions.
A survey of central banks and other authorities found that in most euro zone countries such transactions, if discovered, carry a hefty price: banks providing loans for the purpose of investing in another bank's share capital should deduct an equivalent amount from their own capital.
The findings come after a Reuters report exposed how a major bank in Greece raised share capital via special offshore companies funded by other Greek banks. Some academic experts described the scheme as tantamount to raising "virtual capital" through a Ponzi scheme.
The Bank of Greece, which regulates the country's banks, said that nothing prevented unconnected banks funding each other's equity, raising concerns the technique might be widespread.
"European Union law does not prohibit granting loans to an entity (person or organisation) in order to participate in a share capital increase of another credit institution," the Bank of Greece said in a statement.