Thank you very much for your excellent message. And thank you very much for joining !
Peace and best wishes. Xi On Jan 8, 11:12 am, sifors <[email protected]> wrote: > I suppose historians will point to several crossroads in world affairs > that have been instrumental in shaping global development. However, I > submit that the crossroads we find ourselves approaching now is more > crucial than at any time in our history. It's not just the threat of > military conflict. We face an entire spectrum of adversarial division: > military, economic, cultural, religious and developmental. During the > last ten years we have debated the merits and demerits of > globalisation. Perhaps this was premature, as we are now facing global > fragmentation as economic power shifts rapidly to the east, the > influence of the US on world affairs dimishes and the emergence of > radicalised regimes is a regular occurence. And the root cause of this > global malaise? Simply put, it is about the allocation of resources. > Who has what and who goes without. At this point many people may be > tempted to raise the population (or over-population) issue and with > good reason. However, they would be wide of the mark in this instance. > Its not so much the head count that's driving the current conflict, > but resource utilisation. The unprecedented growth of the last ten > years in the world's leading and emerging economies has exerted a huge > demand for skills, fossil fuels, minerals, food and capital. Aside > from the distorted allocation of resources that this demand creates, > the ensuing wealth that is generated is highly concentrated leading to > the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. This is a truly > global phenomenon but one that has also been officially recorded in > the UK. > > Economists have, since the 1970s, been warning of the consequences of > a highly skewed distribution of resources and benefits of development. > No matter how obviously unsustainable the growth of the last decade > may be, these warnings continue to fall on deaf ears, as evidenced by > our own Government's attempt to grow their way out of recesssion by > rekindling rampant consumerism - much to the disgust of religious > leaders. Which brings me to my greatest concern - the lack of > statesmanship that exists among the current crop of world leaders at > this crucial juncture. Whilst the economic and environmental summits > of the last few years have produced the rhetoric of collective action, > the reality has been 'every man for himself'. The national and short- > term demands of democracies the world over conspire to prevent the > true collective action that is needed at this point in time. Will Mr > Obama break ranks and forge a new era of morally-based global co- > operation? Its a tall order! But what else have we to look forward to? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World-thread" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/world-thread?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
