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Will this credit crisis stunt eco-efficiency?

Gary Sage — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:27:41 +0000

A friend asked me what my coach’s view was on this matter the other day. It’s a difficult call. It’s down to the individual again.

There are those people who sacrifice their spirit (and the spirit of their loved ones) for a lie that is mediocrity, by abdicating individual responsibility and allowing procedures and systems, media hegemony, and celebrity opinions to dictate and provide the excuses for their fate in life. They surrender their will to opinion dressed as transient authority and make every effort to blindly become a paid up, card carrying member of society at large or (in the inimitable words of the late Robert Anton Wilson) domesticated primates.

Then there are those, who are aware that there is an ebb and flow, an essence, in all that is life. Those who will seek, through coaching, thinking and learning, to attain deep awareness, wisdom and understanding; those who, no matter what becomes of the structure, or what the structure becomes, are able to create prosperity and growth. These are the true conquerors, the real heroes, for they provide solutions when others simply expect them.

Those that curtail or dither on eco-efficiency should understand that in the very near future their actions will in effect become crimes against humanity. I suspect a lot of those who cover their backsides by misguidedly tossing the ROI term about; those who “protect” their jobs will in this context have at least one pathetic excuse at hand.

Those that step to the plate and do something radical now are the true leaders (perhaps even saviours) - my guess is that their actions will be easy to spot.

Rudyard Kipling on the Credit Krunch

Gary Sage — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:14:18 +0000

“IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
“If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a “Mensch”, my friend!

I had to modify the last line to avoid any sexist bias!

Should the EU’s emissions-cutting targets be eased because of the global crisis?

Gary Sage — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:32:15 +0000

Never ever. If we wait for better time or decide we can’t afford to make risky decisions we will become like a puddle on a carpet, we’ll get absorbed by our surroundings and trodden on through our own naive delusion to go back to a bygone era where life was easier.
The global crisis has come about as a result of naîve arrogance and not heeding the warnings.(According to the IMF there have been 42 systemic banking crises in 37 countries between 1970 & 2007) The financial world will keep on changing and continue to grow; it did after 1930 and 9/11 and will continue to do so. This is a crisis in a financial system whose very processes are all made up - the JP Morgans, Gordon Browns, Alan Greenspans and the Federal Reserve of this world can make it work again albeit in “new” way.
BUT
We need to treat emissions and befouling our environment like we would a serious global disease epidemic - perhaps using union style “outrage rhetoric” could get some fresh thinking going! To decide on the fate of humanity and condemn communities to a filthy death because the global banking system is having issues is depraved and hideously naîve. To sanction this for cheaper electricity bills is even more gratuitous.

Great work

Gary Sage — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:25:52 +0000

Just a public hurrah to some special people who did something big in order to make a difference in this world.

Well done Steve Clarke & the Silicone Comrades

Well done Jonathan Whitaker

US bailout - 700Billion is a designer number.

Gary Sage — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:39:30 +0000

At last things are starting to make sense!

Why $700 billion? Why not $4.65 billion? Or $1.17 trillion?
Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody’s Economy.com., said, “It’s a number that is designed to reassure the financial markets that the government is serious about getting the financial markets back into shape.”.
Yes, but is there any economic or scientific rationale for the figure? “Not that I can tell,” Faucher responded.

The rest all makes sense, this is how all this banking stuff gets to work.
The taxpayers (represented by government) lend money to the banks . . . . . however the taxpayers don’t have any money. OK. . . then the taxpayer borrows money from the banks to lend it back to the banks (so the banks have reserves). Little problem now . . . . the banks have no money to loan back to the government. So they simply make it up and turn it into reality (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to the man in the street, the consumer, with interest added, so we can then give it back to them.

What about fractional reserve? All is revealed - here is a LINK