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Friday, October 17, 2008 |
ILO: "Despite strong economic growth that produced millions of new jobs since the early 1990s, income inequality grew dramatically in most regions of the world and is expected to increase due to the current global financial crisis, according to a new study published today by the research arm of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The new report, entitled World of Work Report 2008: Income inequalities in the age of financial globalization), produced by the ILO's International Institute for Labour Studies also notes that a major share of the cost of the financial and economic crisis will be borne by hundreds of millions of people who haven't shared in the benefits of recent growth.
'This report shows conclusively that the gap between richer and poorer households widened since the 1990s,' said Raymond Torres, Director of the Institute responsible for the report. 'This reflects the impact of financial globalization and a weaker ability of domestic policies to enhance the income position of the middle class and low-income groups. The present global financial crisis is bound to make matters worse unless long-term structural reforms are adopted.'"
(The Report and Summary can be downloaded from the window on the right on this link's site.)
The financial crisis will soon have an impact on the real economy. Some expect a total economic collapse and a subsequent world-wide martial law. Chances are that the neocons will try to devolve their crisis onto the real economy and use the crisis as a means to attack the real economy and the consumers.
DailyMail: "The growing army of the jobless is set to number three million by the time of the next election, economists warned Gordon Brown yesterday."
Harper's: "Meanwhile, where are the deep thinkers who might enlighten us in this hour of fear, including Karl Marx? Don't laugh - Marx had much to say about the so-called 'contradictions of capitalism' that bears re-reading today. Nothing he wrote is perfectly applicable to subprime mortgages and the derivatives crapshoot. But Marx's understanding that unfettered capitalism, while fantastically productive, leads to instability by concentrating wealth in too few hands - that a mass-production/mass-consumption society is fundamentally incompatible with oligarchic control of wealth - is something even Rush Limbaugh could appreciate."
Thomas Jefferson: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
3:42:56 PM 
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America is very much 'in the picture' as the saying goes. Simon Schama has his series about The American Future. Unfortunately, the iPlayer is a purely British thing, no foreigners allowed to watch those videos. Will Gross Britain next prohibit all BBC broadcasts abroad? Splendid isolation, what, what? Well, I did watch the first episode of Schama's series. Very interesting. The historic view.
Then there is also Stephen Fry's travel series about good old Murka, Stephen Fry in America. I like Stephen; I can even say I love Stephen, he is cute on tv, he is entertaining, he is fun. But, and yes there is some disappointment in my but (no pun intended). For the past decades we have been inundated by the mainstream media with broadcasts telling us how great America is, how wonderful Americans are, how freedom and liberty loving and all that rot. Now, after we have experienced eight years of the most awful Murka ever shown in a theatre near you, we finally get a chance to learn about the 'real, intellectual, democratic' American. I thought we'd had all that. This is nothing new, this is old stuff. Moreover, talking about how America loves democracy, when it has destroyed democracy in half of this world and has disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Americans, and is still in some parts very racist, that is really overdoing it a bit. Of course, Stephen did not know the financial crisis would spoil it all. But, yes, America is a failure.
Nevertheless, it shows Stephen doesn't know a thing about the real America. He is presenting an idyll. All very entertaining - I loved the lobster in trance, nice to know for one's Christmas lobster before it is popped into the pan - but it doesn't cut wood. Yes, there are some insightful windows on the real America. Like when a 'witch' (has her own shop!) claims it is her 'religion', or when Stephen visits some redneck hunters full of disdain for the intellectual east coast. Stephen asks the hunters not to shoot the deer, and the blokes are happy though uncomfortable to oblige. These little things show through. That's the best of Stephen's tv broadcasts.
But when he talks about 'liking McCain' I start mistrusting his whole intention. How can one like McCain? That is pretty superficial. What does Stephen mean by it? And flirting with the idea that he almost was American, cor!
TheSun: "Americans mistakenly believe that they invented democracy but because they have that mistaken belief, it means they're intensely proud and aware of the nature of democracy. I think that's probably why they have higher turnouts than we do and why they take their democracies so seriously."
Come on, Stephen, you can't be that insensitive and ignorant. There certainly are intelligent and good Americans, and I even believe there are more of those than 'bad' uns, but the real face of modern America is an ugly face. I am very disappointed in this series, though it is amusing. It is again that same self-indulgent happy face that we are presented with. Get real! I have a feeling I have seen these broadcasts somewhere before.
NewStatesman: "Fry, in his adorably tight knitwear, never fails to charm, of course, but I'm still damned if I can work out the point of this travelogue, with its whistle-stop visits and its fondness for emblems: lobsters in Maine, cabbies in Queens, rich old bags in Newport. Did he just fancy a break, or what?"
He is welcome to his break and I shall watch all the episodes on tv, as amusement, nothing more. Maybe it was wrong of me to expect more.
But, oh god! he is now going to Africa. I don't think I can digest that. It sounds like Claude and Eustace going to South Africa or Tartarin chez les Teurs.
Here is a good antidote from John Cleese.
If you want to see the real, intellectual, compassionate American, look at RAM, Remote Area Medical, an organisation that gives free medical care to Americans who can't afford it. The doctors working for RAM are my heroes. The organisation was meant for foreign countries, but now the situation in America is that bad that Americans need help. So they created Rural America Program. These are your true Americans who deserve medals, attention and support.
There are now forty seven million Americans without health insurance.
Dutch tv had a special about this organisation, which you can watch here after the actual broadcast. The interviews are in American.
3:26:24 PM
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© Copyright 2008.
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