WOMEN TALKING COMMONSENSE MACRO-ECONOMICS TO WOMEN

Women talking macro-economics, Ann Pettifor. “My conversation earlier this week with Elena Sisti - of Italy’s Altreconomia on macro-economics, reform of the finance sector, money, and yes, how we women have left the all-important matter of finance to the boys. Big mistake. It’s time to get in there, and exercise influence. Too much is at stake… To create credit there is no need for our banking system to depend on the weather, on land, or even on labour.”

The following, taken from The Social Crediter is a smatter from the original question and answer article:

Elena: You have always been convinced that the complication of finance could be explained to everyone and masses could be mobilised even for finance issues. Why have you always considered the finance sector as crucial for people?
Ann: Finance is not complicated really - especially not for women, most of whom have to manage budgets, small budgets. And managing a little bit of money, making it go far, requires far more skill and intelligence than managing huge sums of money.
The fact is we all need money to be economically active. The poor in particular need money. We are intellectually mesmerised by this thing we call money, partly as a result of our dependence on it, even though many have difficulty understanding it. The ones that have the most difficulty are economists. Very few economists understand or study the nature of money - in particular bank money. Having said that, some of the greatest economists and political leaders from President Abraham Lincoln, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, President Roosevelt to JK Galbraith - understood the nature of money - and acted accordingly.

“One of the reasons we have difficulty understanding in particular the nature of bank money, is that for most of us our first experience of money is when we leave school; we are penniless, work for a week or a month, and then find money deposited in our bank. We think that the money arrives as a result of our economic activity. In reality exactly the opposite is the case: money stimulates economic activity. Credit creates economic activity. Credit creates deposits. Expenditure creates income. The money deposited in the young worker's bank account existed prior to the economic activity of that young school-leaver, and made it possible for her to get paid work.
To put it slightly differently: it existed before that young person engaged in economic activity – it did not come into existence as a result of her activity. People find it hard to get their heads around this concept, but we must... or else we will fail to understand the financial system…

Before western societies invented bank money and institutionalised banking systems – there were often shortages of money in the economy as a whole. This was because money was linked to a commodity - like gold - which was limited, and indeed was used as an anchor, precisely to limit the availability of money. Then some geniuses (including one John Law) discovered that it was not necessary to have the same amount of 'money' or 'credit' in circulation, as there was gold in the bowels of the earth. One just needed to create enough money equal to the amount of economic activity in the economy…

We have just lived through three decades of financial de-regulation where economic policy makers have encouraged reckless, privatised credit creation. This in turn led to crazy speculation and gambling - in derivatives, collateralised debt obligations, and a range of other parcelled up, sliced-and-diced securities.
At the same time central bank governors and finance ministers succeeded very successfully in repressing the inflation of wages and prices - while allowing the prices of assets (property, race-horses, works of art, stocks and shares etc.) to rocket upward in an inflationary bubble.

None of economic gurus complained about inflation of assets: However none of the economic gurus of the time - from US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, to European central bankers, to orthodox economists - while ferociously opposed to the inflation of prices and wages, ever complained about the inflation of assets. Why? It is my belief that this is because it is the rich, on the whole, that own assets. The rest of us live by our wages, or by the prices we can obtain as farmers or small business women... The rich live on rent from their assets - be it property, stocks and shares or any number of assets. And orthodox economists allowed bankers and the rich to inflate the value of their assets with easy credit. This enabled the rich to enrich themselves over the period of financial liberalisation to an extent probably unknown in our history.

Debt-induced deflationary spiral:
But invariably that asset-price inflation bubble had to burst. Because if more credit is created than there is economic activity - then the result is inflation. And if inflation grows into a vast asset price bubble as it did in the 90s and early noughties, then it will invariably burst – leaving the detritus of excessive debt to spread the destructive forces of deflation over both assets and other economic activity. One has only to look at Japan's debt-deflationary spiral of the last two decades. Twenty years after Japan's asset bubble burst, property prices are still falling! Can you imagine what that would mean to us, if in 20 years time, the property that we thought would finance our old age - just keeps falling in value?
So today we are trying to clear up a mess, a mess made by the greedy and excessive explosion of unregulated credit-creation, which while the party was on, excessively enriched a few.
This mess was created by the ideology of "easy" but expensive credit (i.e. credit lent at high rates of interest). (Many argue that low interest rates were the cause of the crisis. Not so. Interest rates were lowered after the bursting of the first of the asset bubbles - the dot.com bubble after 2000. In reaction to that first manifestation of the crisis - central banks lowered base rates. But that did not mean that, for example, sub-prime borrowers, or companies wanting to undertake risky investments paid less... they paid usurious rates, because of course they were risky, but to the bankers, very profitable borrowers!)

They should be indicted /imprisoned – but so far, nary a one:
The mess that we are living through is a debt-induced deflationary spiral. As borrowers de-leverage their debt and save more; as they are bankrupted by high, real rates of interest, so they reduce their economic activity. As they reduce economic activity, so more companies go bust (especially if they have heavy debts), so more people have to be made unemployed. As more people lose their jobs and cut their economic activity - so prices fall more, and more jobs are lost. It is a wicked and vicious spiral. The perpetrators of this crisis – orthodox economists/central bank governors/regulators, politicians, reckless and irresponsible bankers and financiers - should be imprisoned and punished; but not a single one has even been indicted!

It’s a wicked old world:
The real worry is this: in a deflationary environment the cost of debt (including interest rates) rises. While the price of e.g. tomatoes can fall below the cost of growing tomatoes – the ‘price' of money - interest rates - can never fall below zero. So while prices and wages might turn negative (i.e. people lose their incomes) the price of money cannot turn negative... It's a wicked old world. Which is why we women should make a strong effort to understand finance and economics - monetary policy as well as fiscal (taxation) policy - and not let the boys in pin-stripe suits run the economy. They have amply demonstrated their incompetence.
There I go again! Another broad generalisation! And apologies for the very long answer...”  

BREACHING NORMS OF HUMANITARIAN BEHAVIOUR

Phil Shiner, Supervisor of Public Interest Lawyers, United Kingdom, said during the panel discussion on the Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People that the Advisory Opinion was extremely helpful as it had identified three different pre-empting norms Israel had breached, explaining that peremptory norms or jus cogens norms were actions recognized in international law that no State was ever permitted to commit, such as genocide, slavery and denial of the right to self-determination. The opinion was crystal clear that Israel was in breach of international law and set out the obligations of third States.

He said that customary international law was part of the common law of the United Kingdom and part of the jurisdiction of other European States. He had unsuccessfully brought two cases to Court where the United Kingdom was in violation of international law through, for instance, permitting the sale of arms to Israel, which had then been used in the Gaza offensive, and suggested that civil society, should identify EU States where legal actions in that regard could be brought.

The EU-Israeli Association Agreement is also in breach of jus cogens norms, as the Agreement includes a provision which says that relations between parties must be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles. That clause requires parties to respect customary international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter which prohibits acquisition of territory by force. He was working on a court challenge in that regard and suggested that what was being done in the UK could be done elsewhere.

Watch: Phil Sheiner Speech at UN 26.03.2010 from Kawther Salam on Vimeo.
Speech delivered by Phil Sheiner of Public Interest Lawyers in Birmingham, UK, at the UN Civic Society Meeting for Palestine held at the UN Vienna on 26.03.2010. Source: Palestine Think Tank, 29 Mar 2010.  

RAUNCH-CULTURE, WOMEN AND CIVILISATION

by James Reed
You know that a civilisation is at an end when amongst conservatives, critics such as myself sound the warning alarm and a salvo is fired to kill the messenger – not the enemy. Thus, nothing seems to upset a small segment of our readership more than critical remarks that may implicate … women … or powerful men who do ‘dirty deeds’. My criticisms of our hyper-sexual, degenerate culture seem more upsetting than the degeneracy itself! Yet, even now in the mainstream press there are criticisms of sex culture or raunch-culture where unspeakable (for conservative Christians) sexual encounters become a form of weekend entertainment.

The Cover Story in The Weekend Australian Review 13-14/3/2010 says it all: “In 1998, the British author and feminist Natasha Walter wrote a book “The New Feminism”, which attacked older feminists' censorious approaches to sex and romance, fashion and body image.
‘The puritanism that was expressed by so many earlier feminists is a hindrance rather than a help,’ declared the 31-year-old torchbearer for a generation who didn't want to be judged for what they wore or with whom they slept.
‘Puritanism alienates women because it does not reflect the real, often wickedly enjoyable relationship they have with their clothes and their bodies’ she declared. Walter's book, lauded by some, derided by others as a work of "post-political blandness" and "cyclical amnesia" - urged activists to concentrate on political and economic issues and to quit the bedroom. ‘Now feminism has nothing to bring to women's sexual experiences,’ she wrote with cast-iron certainty.

Twelve years on, the women's movement has stalled, Walter is in early middle age and has written a new book, “Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism”. Oddly enough, it charges back into the bedroom: its author has discovered that the personal can be intensely political, after all”.
This new feminist critique of the activities of young women, seems to be from 30-something feminists, including former editors of top-selling women’s magazines, who now fear for the future of children in raunch-culture. Sorry ladies, I think it is all too late.

This problem, which is too hard for us to even talk about will sink and destroy us as a people even if we had got the economic/finance problem right. Perhaps in a leisure society with a degenerate culture, things would be even worse than they are now – if that is possible.
A ‘James Reed over-reaction’ you think? Go to www.youtube.com and have a look at the music video by Lady Gaga “Telephone”. But please, don’t write criticising me, I am but the messenger.

Andrew Bolt’s blog carries on where James Reed’s article left off. 30/3/2010:
“Associate Professor Barbara Baird, head of Flinders University’s Women’s Studies Department, appears from her profile page to have taken her studies to heart. From 2005 - 2007 Barbara held an Australian Research Council Discovery grant titled ‘Reconfiguring intimate life: Gender and sexuality as sites of national redefinition in Australian since 1996’. (No personally abusive comments. She herself has made an issue of her appearance, but only in the context of a discussion on constructs of gender and femininity. You may discuss, seriously for preference, but not abuse.)

Update 1- Baird is the very model of modern academic:
Barbara Baird lives and works on the land of the Kaurna people, the Indigenous owners of much of the country occupied by the city of Adelaide. She heads the Dept of Women’s Studies at Flinders University. Her research has considered the history and cultural politics of reproduction and sexuality. Her concern is to place the categories of race and nation at the centre of such research via the use of theories of critical race and whiteness studies alongside feminist and queer theories.
Update 3 - Reader Arden notes that Baird has shared a conference stage with Dr Alison Moore of the University of Queensland, author of:
• Kakao and Kaka: Chocolate and the excretory imagination in nineteenth-century Europe. No, not kidding. Her other academic works include:
• Relocating Marie Bonaparte’s Clitoris. Australian Feminist Studies (forthcoming 2009)
• Rethinking Gendered Perversion in Visions of Sadism and Masochism, 1886-1930.
• Recovering Difference in the Deleuzian Dichotomy of Masochism-without-Sadism.
• Colonial Visions of ‘Third World’ Toilets: A nineteenth-century discourse that haunts contemporary tourism
• Fin de Siècle Sexuality and Excretion.
• Cultures of the Abdomen: Dietetics, Digestion and Obesity in the Modern World.
Just when you think you can satirise modern academia, along comes an academic, laughing..”  

THE HEINER AFFAIR

- Bronwyn Bishop 'whistleblower supporter':

“It’s not everyday, as Chairman of a Committee, you get an award like the one given to me in 2004 as Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The inscription reads - Whistleblowers Action Group (Qld) - Whistleblower Supporter of the Year 2004.
I was presented for the work we did in formally taking evidence and reporting on the infamous Heiner Affair. Since then there has been a huge report assembled by David Rofe QC which to date has not been published because some of the material needs privilege. But other notables have carried the cause forward, particularly Piers Akerman and Alan Jones. Kevin Lindeberg is the catalyst in this saga as he continues to pursue justice for a young 14- year-old girl who was an inmate of a Queensland government correctional centre and allegedly raped whilst on a supervised outing.

Here’s the background
Noel Heiner comes into the picture in 1989 when he was appointed by the Cooper Government as a retired magistrate to investigate allegations of abuse and mismanagement at a Queensland correctional centre. The Cooper Government was defeated on 2nd December 1989 and Wayne Goss became Premier and Kevin Rudd his Chief of Staff. They almost immediately turned their attention to Mr Heiner and his enquiry.

On the 5th March 1990 the Cabinet officially determined that documents containing evidence taken by Mr Heiner, and relating to child abuse, be destroyed. Prior to this the manager of the institution placed the Government on notice that he required access to these documents for the purpose of taking legal action. Knowing this, the Cabinet ordered the destruction of the documents on the 23rd March 1990. On this same day the photocopies of the original complaints were shredded by the Department.

The Cabinet relied on an opinion given by the Criminal Justice Commission, which was set up after the Fitzgerald Enquiry to ensure justice in Queensland. They failed in this instance to do so. The opinion interpreted the meaning of S)129 of the Queensland Criminal Code Act which makes it a criminal act, liable to imprisonment for three years, to wilfully destroy any document, book or other thing, knowing that any of these may be required in evidence in a judicial proceeding.

The opinion said there was only an offence if legal proceedings had already begun. Many, including Mr Lindeberg, argued vociferously against this interpretation. The critics were proven to be correct when one, Pastor Enderby, was convicted of such an offence – that is destroying evidence which may be required in a judicial proceeding. The real problem for Mr Goss, his former Cabinet members and relevant public servants, including Mr Rudd, is that they were not prosecuted under S)129 but Pastor Douglas Enderby was.

On the 11th March 2004, whilst our enquiry continued, Pastor Enderby was found guilty under S)129 for destroying the diary of a child abuse victim, six years prior to the girl reporting the incident to police and the possibility of instituting legal proceedings. Therefore there seems to be in Queensland one rule for Cabinet ministers and public servants and another for ordinary citizens. One gets prosecuted and convicted – the others go scot free. But back to the award. The public hearings allowed the Heiner Affair to be aired and the conviction of Pastor Enderby to be known and compared with the disgrace of the Heiner Affair and cover up of the alleged rape of a young girl.

My committee recommended in our 2004 report that the Goss Cabinet members be prosecuted in the same way Pastor Enderby was and that under the COAG process ensure that all allegations relating to the abuse of children be kept for 30 years. Premier Beattie’s response was that it had happened 14 years ago – so forget it. Pastor Enderby’s offence was 6 years old when he was convicted and at the time of the enquiry a Goss Cabinet Minister was Treasurer of Queensland.

Meanwhile a young woman has had no justice after 20 years of enquiry, debate and cover up. The case is however now part of legal history and the Goss Cabinet, and those around him at the time, identified as abuses of the law and clear evidence. If we don’t continue to prosecute this case we set a most dangerous precedent.”  

BOAT PEOPLE - WE TOLD YOU SO

Straight from the oppressive new world order’s mouth: The UN’s refugee agency has said that Rudd’s decision to allow dozens of Sri Lankans to jump the immigration queue will encourage more to head to the once-lucky country. Indeed, the queue-jumping, allowing the lucky 78 into Oz, was done at the expense of others who have been waiting longer to get into Australia. A high-ranking official from the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees told The Australian: “When you’re faced with an emergency and have people demanding resettlement, the (UNHCR’s) position is you should not give in to that because it does give the incentive for people to try this irregular movement”. (The Australian 25/3/2010 p.1)

In other words, the Rudd decision is ore ‘pinko’ then the most politically correct ‘pinko’ organisation on Earth! In fact, the Labor Party adores the 29 per cent increase in asylum-seeker claims; for refugeeism and immigration are their new religions. Thus the Labor party has gone from the party defending the white man, to the party burying him, his culture and his legacy. To be even fairer, the Liberals are but a nanometre behind them in the self-loathing steeple-chase.  

OUR NATION’S BORDER SECURITY - A JOKE

What does “intercepted” mean? How Kevin Rudd’s navy “intercepts” boat people: A media release issued by Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor announced:
“HMAS Broome. . . operating under the control of Border Protection Command, today intercepted a suspected irregular entry vessel in the vicinity of Christmas Island.”

In fact, the opposite was closer to the truth: the boat’s 41 passengers and three crew effectively intercepted HMAS Broome. Sources on the island said the boat sailed under the nose of the patrol boat as it lay at anchor before arriving at Flying Fish Cove, the island’s harbour.

The Australian has been told authorities became aware of the vessel only after Australian Federal Police duty officers on the island received two phone calls from a heavily accented person, apparently an asylum-seeker using a mobile phone. In one of the calls, a male caller told the officer: “You need to come, you need to come.” When asked where the caller was, the voice replied: “At Christmas Island. We arrived today.”

The costs mount: The 100th boat ... brings the number of asylum seeker arrivals under the Rudd Government to 4386. At $80,000 each, according to official figures, boat people have already cost taxpayers an estimated $350 million to process on Christmas Island. The cost of running Christmas Island has already blown out by $132 million this year, according to revised Budget estimates.  

TRUTH IS NEEDED ON POLICE ‘RACISM’ AND ETHNIC CRIME

by James Reed
“Police Shelved Complaints from Africans” (The Australian 18/3/2010 p.1), tells the tale of Victorian police who may in 20 incidents have committed acts of violence, illegally, against Africans. If these stories are correct, there is also evidence of racial hatred in some of these incidents. The police involved should be investigated by an independent body, and, if claims prove true, prosecuted.

But by the same token, there needs to be an open discussion of ethnic crime as well. “Tell the Truth on Ethnic crime” (Herald Sun 19/3/2010) details that the Victorian police are essentially gripped by political correctness and are reluctant to say that an attempted rapist is, say, an African, because doing so can “cause an offence”.

Nor do police release figures on ethnic crime rates to the public. But when such figures leak out, they are truly astonishing. For example, to quote the Herald Sun article, Sudanese refugees are four times likely to commit crimes than are other Australians and the rate of serious crime among Lebanese-born is almost double that of other Australians, and the crime rate of Vietnamese and Cambodians is higher.

Could it be that the frustrations of political correctness have led to individual police officers wrongly taking their anger out on perhaps innocent ethnics? As I have said before, political correctness itself is one of the principal causes of “racism”.