Action

 

Charlie says:  We are living a nightmare.  Let us wake up and get on with the task.  There has been enough TALK, it is time for ACTION.  The planet is in danger and must be saved.  There are many groups and individuals out there who are aware of the problem and keen to tackle it.  They need to unite, under one banner, and impose themselves.  But they lack a plan of action.  At SOS we aim to develop that plan and provide that banner.

 

Nothing less than the removal of our present system of Free Market Capitalism will save us.  It must be brought down and replaced with a modest system with strictly controlled money supply and all speculation ended.    There will banks, co-operatively owned and run, that provide low interest short term loans for individuals.  There will be no lending to business which will have to grow on the basis of profits made.  There will be no lending to governments which will provide services only on the basis of taxes levied.  Hard work and endeavour will be rewarded, but the scale will be different.  The "socially useless" billionaire paper-pushers in the City will be history. 

 

A dramatic drop in economic activity has taken place in this recent slump, not least in Ireland and Iceland.  There have been victims who have suffered because of this failure in capitalism.  But the slump has had a beneficial effect on emission levels and no damaging effects on the lives of most ordinary people, in fact many report that they are happier now than they have been for many years.  If we protect the most vulnerable, who are not being protected under our present system, we can cool the overheating in our financial world and really make strides towards achieving those 80% emission reductions we need for survival.  It's a good plan.    

 

Capitalism is killing us.  If you are a chicken farmer and you have a dog that is killing your chickens, at some point you have to get rid of the dog.  So it is with capitalism. 

 

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is most valuable, a most sacred right--a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."
--Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848

 

The different ways people respond to climate change:

 

SOS IS SOLUTIONIST.  It is now Sink Or Swim.  We vote for Swim.  

We intend to play our part in bringing capitalism down to size.  We are preparing the world to embrace the next financial collapse.  If the collapse doesn't come along soon, we will precipitate that collapse.

 

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change, was published on October 30 2006 - led by Lord Stern, not a soggy liberal tree-hugger but Head of the Government Economic Service and former World Bank Chief Economist! He said:

 

“ultimately, stabilisation - at whatever level - requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels.” (cf Stern Report. cf IPCC report on which his figures were based.)

 

In the context of current dilatory global efforts to curb emissions a reduction of 80%, or maybe any reduction at all, is a fantasy.  We have to make it a reality.

 

Obama and the American people do not take climate change seriously.   During the recent slump in the USA the production of cars fell by around a half.  Did Obama embrace this miracle?  No, he borrowed hundreds of billions and spent most of it shoring up the failed and discredited (literally) financial markets and used billions more to artificially revive the car industry, artificially pumping car production back towards it’s catastrophically world-choking levels.  To call that a missed opportunity is an understatement.

During that slump the Chinese closed up to 100,000 factories, container ships stayed in port and emissions fell.   We had been offered a miraculous salvation, and we ignored it.

 

If Brown and Darling took climate change seriously they wouldn’t be encouraging banks to lend more to help people increase consumption.  To encourage more lending in a world where most people, businesses and countries are over-borrowed already is idiotic and irresponsible.   They don't have the courage or the vision to see that the death of the sick beast that is capitalism is to be embraced, not struggled against.

 

That Obama didn't even mention that a slowdown in production might be a godsend shows a lack of seriousness about the impending climate catastrophe.  It also shows that one the most impressive men ever seen in world politics is hamstrung by a self-centered and ignorant electorate  (sadly true of all world leaders).  It also shows that the West is under pressure from China and other lenders to get back to growth so the vast debts incurred by this misguided resuscitation can be repaid.

 

If Obama had embraced the slowdown in US manufacture and consumption he would have been isolated, removed from office or even assassinated.  Had he intentionally allowed the US economy to shrink, and default on its repayments, he might well have triggered threats of war from China.

 

If however the collapse in Free Market Capitalism was not directly attributable to Obama, but was seen as a natural occurrence in a financial system that has subsided into a fantasy not unlike a bad acid trip (where even prominent economists and financiers haven’t the faintest notion of what is happening)  then how could Obama be blamed by China and the other creditor nations and how could he be blamed by his own electorate?

 

If we hand Obama a second chance at economic collapse he is absolutely the best man to steer the world to the softest landing possible.  No revolution required, our democracies still in place, and with capitalism still active but massively reduced in its scale.  

 

And whatever the industrialised world (Annex 1 countries) may be prepared to do it is unlikely that China and India (plus Brazil Russia et al) will be prepared to reduce their production and emissions in any meaningful way.   If there is an 80% reduction in the amount of money in the west then there will be no need for most of those new Chinese and Indian factories and power stations (1 new coal power station being built in China every four days).    

 

Our Proposal:

 

We propose a concerted run on the banks.  They are very fragile and it won’t take a great deal of pressure to bring the major banks down.  We were seconds away from such an outcome in September 2008 and our leaders can’t be blamed for lacking the intellectual and moral strength needed to realise it was a collapse that should have been welcomed with open arms.

 

It will not take too many people withdrawing their funds on the same day to cause the meltdown.  All the big boys will be at the front of the queue if they think their hard-earned (?!) billions are under threat.

 

We will publish a list of co-operative banks and credit unions who will be approved recipients for the money.  Any bank with any speculative investment arms will be proscribed. 

 

All shares, bonds, derivatives and all their perverted cousins will be phased out.   In reality most of them are close to worthless.  Pensions will be protected up to a point but the big players may perhaps be reduced to their last billion or two.

 

The removal of bonds and shares is a contentious issue.  I see it like this:  Much of the bloating of the economic system is created by borrowing and debt.  Borrowing and debt are a massive and increasing burden to individuals and countries worldwide.  On its way to burning up our planet capitalism will impose a greater and greater burden of debt onto most of us.  A few, who know how to play the game, will get richer and the rest will get more burdened, poorer and crushed. 

A point will be reached again, as it did in September 2008, when the lack of foundation for all this so-called “wealth” becomes apparent.  Bonds are government debt.  They are traded and gambled.  They are also not as bomb proof as people might think – c/f Dubai, Greece, Ireland and others – watch this space! Pensions should not be dependent on bonds and shares and the like, which are all actually little more than chips on a blackjack table.  If we want to protect the old and those who have saved we have to move away from such gambling with their futures.  We cannot wipe such things away at a stroke so it has to be phased out carefully.  But I believe institutional debt and institutional gambling are too dangerous to be tolerated for much longer.   The world of casino banking must end and the vast streams of funny money that pour down from the top and stimulate the obscene degree of consumption must dry up.

 

All that funny money is the root of the overheating of our capitalist system, and our world.  We could remove 80% of "money" (shares et al) from the system and most of us would barely notice the difference.  Less money trickling down through the fingers of Blankfein (Goldman Sachs boss - $68 million salary this year to add to his $500 million shareholdings - for makign what?  Doing what?  Growing what?!!) would mean less private jets, yachts and SUVs.  And less trickles down to us us so that we only get to buy a new car every ten years instead of every two, and take two flights every year instead of ten.  But that means consumption is reduced by 80%.  Instead of fiddling about with 10% here and a bit of carbon trading there we'd have made a massive change in almost no time, a realistic effort to truly face up to the challenges.

 

 

Quotes:

 

"If we go on as we are we are at best chance trusting in chance, and at worst trusting in science.  If we tear the whole thing down and start again at least we will be trusting in humanity." -- Charlie Lennox.

 

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

  

there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency."
-- Franklin Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address

  

"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise."
-- Winston Churchill