A lot of comments (mainly in agreement) could be made on your findings below. However, I'll confine myself to just one because, in my opinion, it will lead to some immense changes in the not-too-distant future.
At 07:43 13/05/2005 -0400, you wrote:
Good morning.Secretary of State Rice, though far more articulate and intelligent than Bush, is far short of sufficient experience or ability in that slot. She, like Bush, simply flits around the world making brief appearances here and there, giving a short speech, gets filmed with presidents and then departs on the next flight. Never stays, never discusses. She's just a PR appointment to show how liberal Bush's White House is.
We completed an update of our Iraq-Afghanistan-US Foreign Policy assessment yesterday.
Bottom-line conclusions:
- The situations in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to deteriorate for the presence in those places.
US stature globally will continue to deteriorate, and be aggravated when it is realized that Sec. Rice is not bringing any new policies to the table.
However, her deputy Zoellick is doing a lot of work around the world. At the moment he is on a 10-day visit to south-east Asia and has already set up a committee of Chinese and US Treasury officials who are considering the dollar-renminbi currency problem. If a dollar collapse and a deep US recession are to be avoided then very close coordination will be required between US monetary policy and the Chinese banking system. The Chinese have for some time been cutting down on hot money entering the country (in the expectation of the renminbi being revalued), and they are also opening the doors to senior Western bankers with senior experience. They are also preparing one of their state banks for the stock market. Bernanke's recent appointment as Economic Policy Advisor is all part of this also. As the most distinguished member of the Fed board he was waiting for Greenspan's retirement later this year so he'd previously turned down the White House position. He wasn't going to play second fiddle to Cheney, as Mankiw had to. But now, it's a different ballgame. There can be little doubt that he is also deeply involved with Zoellick. Zoellick has now become a very powerful figure. He has already put down one of the cleverest EU Commissioners, Peter Mandelson, who hasn't made a cheep since.
So, in my opinion, there's a lot going on behind the scene. They do not amount to any sort of restitution of America's good name in the world but, economically and financially, they're of the greatest importance. Otherwise, Bush faces a winding down of the American economy and deeper embroilment in an Iraqi scene of greater violence and mayhem. An awful lot of changes are going to take place. Whether Bolton is finally accepted by the Senate or not doesn't really matter, Rumsfeld will be gone soon. There's a new team in the White House now -- Negroponte, Bernanke and Zoellick -- capable people all, and their job is to rescue Bush from his Cheney follies.
In my opinion. Watch this space in the next few weeks.
Keith
The resistance to Bolton is a good sign, but comes too late and is too minor to effect the larger trends summarized above. If he is confirmed to the post of US ambassador to the UN, the USs standing will take a further stumble. Not reported by the press is Boltons dismal performance among the USs G-8 allies when he was responsible for non-proliferation. The rest of the G-8 were appalled by his behavior and non-proliferation discussions ground rapidly to a halt. Other US diplomats were constrained to telling their international colleagues to hold onuntil Bolton (and Pres. Bush) were out of the picture. This is similar the Armitages private message to US ambassadors to hold onuntil the 2004 USD presidential elections took place. Sadly, it provided no relief.
- Resistance to US occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan will grow, spreading to general civilian untrained populations. Popular demonstrations and acts of self-sacrifice will become more prominent as tactics of non-violence are seen to be effective.
- The US-backed governments will continue to lose credibility. Assassinations and an eventual overthrow of these governments can be expected.
- The US will continue to fail to see that it is its occupation presence that is the lead cause of resistance and anti-American actions in those countries. The US will continue to assert that the resistance is caused by other things (such as foreign influence, discontent with the slow pace of reconstruction, local inter-group rivalry, criminality, a few mistakes, etc.) and fail to understand or recognize that the US occupation is the cause above all others.
- The US military presence elsewhere will emerge in the press, as local resistance to the US there increases. Examples, Djibouti Somalia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey.
- Accounts of US mistreatment of detainees will continue to emerge, further swinging world opinion against the US. US legal action against a few individual underlings will only emphasize the lack of accountability and legality in the US policies of detention, lack of due legal process, and mistreatment.
- All of this will cause something we have not seen much of: mistreatment of individual Americans overseas.
As the US passes from being a country that could truly have been a great and helpful world leader in the post WWII decades to one that is generally held in contempt, we can only feel sad that the world has lost a major asset. The US has shown how much willful arrogance and ignorance can void the potential for goodness that a country can have.
Lawry
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 6:48 AM
To: Lawrence deBivort; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
I have to restate what I said, Lawry. If one is talking about individual families, then of course each generation tries to leave a better world for its kids, or at least as good a world. If one is talking about large groups like nation states or humanity as a whole, I see little evidence of that. Despite grand speeches by statesmen, what happens from one generation to the next often seems quite unexpected and unintended. I'm now in my early seventies and my generation is a case in point. I and a lot of my friends were born into very poor immigrant families in the midst of the great depression. Yet by the time we were in our twenties ever so many of us had university degrees and were pursuing successful careers. If one projected the 1930s forward, that shouldn't have happened to us. If, to quote Nevil Chamberlin, we had had "Peace in our time", we would probably have become poor dirt farmers on the Canadian prairies, nothing more. The conventional explanation for our good fortune was that our parents had the good sense to migrate to the new world, the place of opportunity. But it wasn't that, it was the war. WWII made stagnant economies pull themselves together and produce huge quantities of armaments. It created a huge demand for military labour aka soldiers. Having participated in the destruction of Europe which then had to be rebuilt, those soldiers returned home and created a wave of domestic demand that lasted a decade or two. The 1950s and 1960s were a world of opportunity.
But what had also taken place in the 1940s was a huge slaughter of innocent people - five million Jews, millions of people in Europe, Hiroshima and Negasaki. When I think of my good fortune, it is those innocents, members of my family among them, that I think about. I'm sure they wanted to leave me a better world, but not at so great a sacrifice.
Having grandkids, I can now look ahead to the next two generations. My three older kids by my first marriage are all OK. They all went to university and are pursuing careers. My second marriage kid has just entered university and all my wife and I can do is roll our eyes and keep our fingers crossed. My five grandkids are bright and deserving. Their parents and I will do our best to leave them a better world. But given the tensions that exist in that world, will it indeed be a better place?
Regards,
Ed
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Lawrence deBivort
- To: [email protected]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 11:18 PM
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- Yes, it is a matter of choice. Ive indicated what my choice is, but do not suggest that it should be the choice of all. Ive been very fortunate in being able to be engaged in some large systems change, including national and international systems. I have not been able to find clients for species-level work, though. Ill have to content myself with a book that Im trying to finish <smile>.
- But your thoughts on leaving a better world to future generations puzzles me a bit, Ed. If it were so, as you say, that no generation has ever done so, then it is hard to see how humans could have made any progress at all. It seems clear that many generations have managed to leave a better world to their children. In any event that is what every generation should aspire to, IMO. I admit it looks like the present generations are struggling to do so, and perhaps the best we can aspire to in the US is to limit the damage. I wish I could be more optimistic. Optimistic or not, trying to build a better world seems like the only worthy game in town, and I think if failure lies ahead that I will still have preferred to try and fail than not try.
- Besides, engaged in this work, I meet the most interesting and vivacious people.
- Cheers,
- Lawry
- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 9:59 PM
- To: Lawrence deBivort; 'Cordell, Arthur: ECOM'; 'Darryl and Natalia'; 'Karen Watters Cole'; [email protected]
- Subject: Re: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- That's all very admirable, Lawry, but surely pragmatism requires that one tackles the problems that one can and helps those within one's reach. That reach may be helping people locally or it may at times be doing something to help people far away, but one has to make choices and recognize that doing one thing precludes doing a lot of others. I try to do what I can, but as a member of the older generation I would never allow myself the illusion that I can leave a better world to the younger generation. I don't see that happening. I don't think it ever really has. The younger generation will have to make do with the world it gets. It has always had to do that.
- Ed
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Lawrence deBivort
- To: 'Cordell, Arthur: ECOM' ; 'Darryl and Natalia' ; 'Karen Watters Cole' ; [email protected]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 4:27 PM
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- Greetings, all
- I do not view myself as idealistic; I view myself as intensely pragmatic. The species-perspective is the only one that is, IMO, truly pragmatic. All else is short term gains and the infliction of suffering.
- My neighbors have been suffering for centuries, as they do now. They include: Vietnamese rice farmers smitten by US napalm bombs; AIDS victims, victims because others could not get HIV testing; American natives, decimated by European colonizers; Cathars, destroyed by the Rome Papacy; UAL older workers; Iraqi children, held captive to the US-driven trade embargo; European gypsies, persecuted by local and national governments; Rwandan Tutsis, butchered by their fellow countrymen; children in Mali, ravaged by various exoticdiseases; American kids who will go deaf because they listen to R&R too loudly; etc. I have lots of neighbors. It is hard for me to say who is the lost and least deserving of better.
- Overall, it is, IMO, the obligation of older generations to leave to younger ones a better world. An obligation, not a choice.
- Favoring those who live in ones geographic neighborhood over those who dont is, at best, capricious.
- It would be easy for me to favor my immediate family and neighbors, but it would harm my ability to hand on to future generations a better world. Better to raise the children to have a pan-species perspective and responsibility. Maybe theyll have a chance of getting it right.
- Cheers,
- Lawry
- From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 4:02 PM
- To: Lawrence deBivort; Darryl and Natalia; Karen Watters Cole; [email protected]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- I admire and envy the idealism of your position.
- However when your neighbours lose their jobs, when the housing market plummets and when there is social breakdown then you may want to re-consider if the gain of the other outweighs the chaos which will affect the "my" when there is a global redistribution of income.
- arthur
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Lawrence deBivort [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 3:34 PM
- To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; 'Darryl and Natalia'; 'Karen Watters Cole'; [email protected]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- Yes, my thought has to do with how we define my.
- Some would define it as themselves, others as ones family, other as ones tribe, or nation, or race, or religion&.
- My myis usually that of the species, Homo sapiens. Globalization seems a lot less threatening when viewed from this perspective.
- Cheers,
- Lawry
- From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 3:24 PM
- To: Lawrence deBivort; Darryl and Natalia; Karen Watters Cole; [email protected]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- A loss is a loss, even though my loss is another's gain.
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Lawrence deBivort [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 2:24 PM
- To: 'Darryl and Natalia'; Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; 'Karen Watters Cole'; [email protected]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- A pithy summation, with which I agree re. the effects of globalization.
- BUT: perhaps this view is too chauvinistic? Only western workers will lament these impacts, and they are but a fraction of the worlds population. For the rest, the equalization is positive. Should we not be celebrating their gains, even more than Europeans and their American colonists losing their advantages?
- Lawry
- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Darryl and Natalia
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 12:33 PM
- To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; Lawrence deBivort; Karen Watters Cole; [email protected]
- Subject: Re: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- So, if we look at #3 (
Unrealistic worker expectations:) then, we see that as the global economy kicks in, we in the western nations (first-world economies) must lower our sights, lower our expectations, lower our standards of living to become second and third-world nation workers governed by the greed and corruption of capitalist corporations bent on greater profits while the CEO's etc continue to reap the whirl-wind of consumer greed (spurred on by insane advertising) and set up their platinum parachutes for retirement.
- Gee, retirement!
- I guess UAL has it right. How can the exec's get those wonderful retirements if they have to pay into the worker's retirements? It's just not fair. The exec's give and give and all those workers want to take it all away just because they think they should have the same rights as the exec's when it comes to retirement.
- Just a thought: maybe there was so much stress from too few people to do the work that much of this "bad service" began.
- But, really, why should any exec's of any company care for anything other than their own hides. That is how we are taught in this society. And things will continue to get worse.
- Darryl
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
- To: Lawrence deBivort ; Karen Watters Cole ; [email protected]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 8:29 AM
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- Your point number 3 is the key one for me.
- Much needed is some "truth-telling." Which political party is willing to point out the costs/benefits of "going global." Which party is willing to talk about trade-offs?
- From what I can see on CNN it seems that Lou Dobbs is the only US media person who seems concerned with the preserving the hard won gains of the US economy.
- arthur
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Lawrence deBivort [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 11:07 AM
- To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; 'Karen Watters Cole'; [email protected]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- I think that there are three issues:
- 1. Executive immorality: many are taught in Business School that the bottom line is making money (for themselves).
- 2. Bankruptcy and other commercial law: corporations are treated as individuals, and so benefit from the clean-slate opportunity once reserved for individuals. Combine that with the ability of highly paid executives to retire after just one big gig, and you have a prescription for unmitigated corporate bad-faith.
- 3. Unrealistic worker expectations: some American workers expect more compensation than their productivity justifies. In a time of international outsourcing, American workers have been unwilling to bite the bullet and figure out ways either to radically improve their productivity or to take gradual and significant cuts in pay. Like all other Americans, we are willing to take the benefits of globalization (cheap stuff) but unwilling to accept the same low wages received by those who produce the cheap stuff overseas. And so some American workers have become obsolete, literally. It is a harsh reality, and I dont see anyone willing to tell them that, including labor union leadership.
- Lawry
- From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 10:55 AM
- To: Lawrence deBivort; Karen Watters Cole; [email protected]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] corporate governance: the end of pensions?
- It's interesting how promised pensions to workers (flesh and blood humans) can be so easily scrapped so that a corporation (a legal fiction) can be saved.
- Priorities??
- arthur
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_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
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http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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