XXVIII 15th January 2004
From time to time we are offered a field by a local farmer, who often wishes to retire for a pension and retain only the house, with small area of land, as continuity of tradition and a holiday place for children after he is gone. Our policy has now developed - on geometrical basis: to acquire more land, to relate the four year cycle to our largest field of 25 hectares, which would then be worked as a single field, instead of two - which makes a total necessary as 100 hectares. We are fortunate that the farm is in one piece and we therefore consider only buying fields which are adjacent to it: we purchased first Q, R and S (Queeni, Rose, Sonya), which lie around the western edge of our land, bringing additional 12 hectares.
As a result of this and in anticipation of joining shortly the EU and its Common Agricultural Policy, we plan to increase spring crops to 50 % from present 25 %, by bringing in spring wheat. This will slightly reduce the wheat production, as the yield of spring wheat is lower, but still retain the basic aim to produce wheat for white bread, but will enable us to claim for additional cover-crop. We constructed two new silos: No 9 and 10, adding 120 tons to our storage, remembering the experience of last summer and hopeful that it may be repeated.
We are surrounded with business news 24 hours a day and with economic issues ad nauseam, which could be acceptable as periodic planning of economy but not as constant news. They are used as daily reasons to project justification for all world decisions, often moral as well as physical. The change of bank interest, the increase of borrowing by a nation, the selling price of a product, known often as Market Forces, are closing schools here, depriving people of homes there, bankrupting hospitals somewhere else and interfering in internal business of a nation by outsiders, all being looked upon as inimical and beyond control, like the weather. What a lot of baloney; they are largely controlled, producing a kind of paradise for luckier ones - imposed by manipulation of the awareness of a society, with little reference to the primary economic laws. The bigger the business, the more it can be used in this arbitrary way and the more, it should be observed and evaluated. The United States of America is the biggest business and her geopolitics is as doubtful as her methods in using business to implement them.
If a) is the amount a country produces and b) is the amount it needs, then if a) is greater than b) it has a spare capacity c) which it can lend, or if the other way round, then it has a shortage d) which it has to borrow. Common sense tells us that in the total world picture c) must equal d) meaning that the world spare capacity must equal the shortfall, as otherwise the ʻsupplyʼ would have to come from fresh air, like manna. At the present time the US representing 5 of world population uses 25 % of world wealth, much of which it has to borrow from societies like China, Japan or other countries which are overproducing for their own needs. Borrowing is a dicey business, as Mr Micawber pointed out, especially if it is running into trillions, for which there are only two solutions: reducing need b) or increasing production a).
Concerning the first America has little temperament for reducing its consumption, and convinces herself that it is her right to consume 25 %. Concerning the second, there are three ways to increase supply of goods: first is to increase productivity which is difficult with an expansion which is hesitant in US and takes time, second is in effect to steal it, by creating or accentuating recessions, during which capitalist centres can make hay. It happened on the advice of Washington in South Korea, Thailand or Indonesia, and brought Russia - to her knees, while ostracising Malaysia for ignoring the advice. Most drastically the theft can be achieved by bankrupting the capitalist system in a world recession like that of 1929. The third way of increasing the supply is simply by robbing those who have more; many already equate this with reason for American invasion of Iraq, as being about oil. Many financial commentators refer now to the possible collapse of the system, not as if but as when which mirrors my views. With this in mind I sent yesterday a letter to the European Central Bank:
| M Jean-Claude Trichet, | 14.01.2004 |
| Monsieur | |
As a senior citizen (having fought in Normandy) I would like to urge you not to concern yourself with helping the dollar but with preparing a contingency plan for when the dollar is not worth the paper it is printed on.
It would be prudent to assume that the US is planning such an event in combination with the market collapse to create socially destabilizing conditions similar to 1929 which among other things created Nazism (America no longer friendly, is substituting National Capitalism for National Socialism). The distress in Europe will be great whilst the propaganda in the daily news is already trying to build up public opinion against the EU and against the ECB blaming Europe and the Euro for the recession. A strong message should go out to the world that any danger of financial crisis is due only to the US becoming a bankrupt, unable to survive without help from outside. It is now a propaganda war in order to give our politicians the strength to resist and remedy the social crisis. I believe the time is short because America cannot survive much longer without drastic measures (cancelling debts, zeroing interest payments, perhaps the gold standard and so on) to rebuild its economy.
I feel that allowing the dollar to drop now will be pre-empting what is planned for it by Mr Greenspan in one fell swoop in perhaps a yearʼs time after the elections. It would place the blame in the court in which it belongs, with the US Treasury. It is not essential that you accept my thesis a priori, but read the signs of financial turmoil with open eyes and observe the mendacious statements from the US and financial experts (todayʼs Herald Tribune) and maybe you will come to view that it is worth making a contingency.
European governments should concern themselves now in relating to Trades Unions, Pension funds, Insurances and to protecting Europeʼs enterprises, whether Mercedes, Renault or Airbus, on an assumption that conditions similar to those following 1929 will arise. It would be a tragedy if our Europe was left unprepared or blamed. I believe you can and should do it.
Yours sincerely MATTHEW WALLIS
Most geopolitics fail - after causing immense misery; one may say that the Nazis, with their lebensraum, were the greatest geopolitical failure. At the early stage they needed a miracle to mask the economic collapse, which they did with gigantic arms production programme. Globalisation is the American geopolitical solution, which incidentally is accompanied by the greatest ever rearmament, larger now than all world countries put together. In this battle, the Multinationals are the fighting divisions and although not the only country to have them, theirs are the biggest.
John le Carréʼs “Gardiner” says: “You are history, Donohue. You think countries run the fucking world! Go back to fucking Sunday school. Itʼs God save our multinational, theyʼre singing these days”. Well, multinationals are only tools conveniently hiding the principals from public view: “Youʼd never do all those ugly things to people who donʼt make their numbers, would you?” asked President Bush of an Enron friend known to him as ”Kenny boy” - whilst three Enron men were pleading guilty to criminal charges. They become super-monopolies pretending to compete, and incidentally creating another feature, a class of super-rich individuals, who are the agents for controlling the masses - it is the beginning of a new class system - since the one analyzed by Marx has been overtaken by events, with the object of maintaining the Masters ruling in the society.
Marx was a Newton of Economics, with Adam Smith and Ricardo before him and they like Kepler and Galileo before Newton and Keynes, like Maxwell after him, but we are still waiting for an Einstein in Economics. Marx with his Theory of Money created the Science of Economics and finding it so close to the well-being of the people he took it into the social field - for which he is so hated and abused; what if Newton took his science to be commentary on religion or morality, as he almost did, he would have been hated too; but the result would be not less true. The more we are plunged into economicsʼ news, the less ordinary man can understand it: how can a lad like Nick Leeson, bankrupt Barings Bank by secret borrowing of nearly a billion, or how can another lad Bill Gates in a few years build up a fortune, which would allow him to buy VW, the biggest car firm in Europe, with cash to spare; who are the computer screens stealing from, whilst turning billions every morning? It is certain they are skimming somebodyʼs pocket.
Economics is put on its head, with credit, capital and money becoming meaningless; it needs re-definition and hard new laws, plenty of which exist to pamper rapaciousness, while introduction of new ones, for prudence and for a true world economy is dismissed by private interests as tampering with the freedom of the market. The same businesses which when threatened by bankruptcy become socialistic in asking for support from public funds rampage against new regulations. An Economics Einstein is needed: a man like Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner, could perhaps do it. He expresses his views clearly and must understand both Marx and what is going on - and yet, being so close to the big altar, he may not be permitted to do so. The need for a new world economic theory is paramount to replace todayʼs Capitalist financial system, dependent on hoarding - in which one dubious operation is covered by other, not for the purpose of making a profit, but often to take over capital of others, on a screen - with another financial system which is not so based. An expression should be given again to simple principles that Bank-rate defends economy by control of inflation, Keynes protects production and employment and fiscal policies play in between.
In 1957 I was granted a prestigious Architectsʼ Journal Research Bursary after Michael Ventris who deciphered ʻLinear-Bʼ script and dealt with the building language. I proposed research into: “Productivity as Motivator in Design” aiming to establish forces in productivity as significant, as dynamic forces observed by Gothic builders. I worked for a year, through Building Research Station under Official Secrets Act (OSA), having access to productivity of seven biggest building firms in the country - and produced such views: as that design may be expressed in column sizes being kept through 5 to 10 stories, and not reducing like the Gothic flying buttresses, to express a stress content. The draft report was read by many including Sir Keith Joseph, subsequent guru of Mrs Thatcher, who scribbled across it ʻthis must be publishedʼ. But it was not and I was threatened with OSA and AJ warned about being ostracized. The profession did not lose much, only an opening of a small window on the workings of productivity, which might have been of some help to some architect; but the occurrence shows how an independent or inconvenient view can be squashed at the outset. And a year or two later working as RIBA representative to British Standards Institution in Park Street, I learned of the separation between executive and administrative divisions of the Civil Service, which may have been useful in the building of the empire, but are now grounding the nation down by giving power to the rheumatoid administrators.
On the whole people would agree that the behemoth of Multi-nationals has to be stopped - they do not like and are suspicious of these corporations, although tied to using them. Billions of profit which a firm like Texaco or BP can garnish during a quarter, represent capitalist hoarding, which it can use, or misuse without control, making a power which has become independent of society. How can so much power be given to individuals, without voting, in countries which call themselves democracies? Is it time to see the dissolution of monasteries as a pattern for dissolution of multinationals? They have now become incongruous monsters outside our control and should become what they are meant to be: the property of the people.
Neither should one overlook the fact that many of these great Corporations are committing various crimes, and most are appearing frequently in courts for dishonesty of one kind or another. The courts which, if they manage not to be intimidated themselves, or bribed, before doing so, offer them generally only cosmetic troubles. The continuous cheating by the corporations becomes accepted as a way of life in society, making sections of the public at large follow suit, whilst you are listening to their presidents, holier-than-thou, say:
“I speak to you not as a businessman, nor as your president, but as a National (whichever) deeply concerned for our Nation: my message is to expose the ever expanding maze of government regulations, the ever increasing cost of bureaucracy, of welfare cheques, the handouts, the state is doing, to work welfare, in the belief that throwing a little of your and my money to them will solve all the problems. In a word I speak to you of socialism - not as some distant threat but here and now. And I would add, we need to take adequate steps in the National defence, we must insist that the state increases the subsidies to the military and to others who, like us, work and put our shoulders together to help to do it. God bless our Nation in her rightful endeavours.”
Common sense tells us that there must be a better way to manage our money, and to establish a financial system in which we have rules which can be observed. It also tells us that the present one is devised for a purpose and that the purpose is to create an Oligarchy of the Rich and its corollary, to keep the masses poor. It further tells us that the saturation of financial commentary, is devised to hide the fact that economyʼs steps are under strict control and not as unpredictable as the weather as constantly described by the renowned financial experts. It stems from the fact the powerful see the need to keep the public disciplined by fear.
Alas with it goes the knowledge that America heads this view. It may have a surprising result in that she may not suit the world, in the sense that her 5 % of world population consumes 25 % of its wealth and that conversely: worldʼs existence does not suit America in the way it does not wish to accept Kyoto Protocol, Geneva Convention, or World Court of Justice. Assuming, hopefully, that it is not a question of one getting rid of the other, it may be a question of trying to live apart: as if we lived on different planets. It is bizarre to watch an essentially peaceful world being taken for a mad ride, by a group posing as leaders of the world.
