Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Daily Archives: October 10, 2008

Why this weekend’s financial summit should be held at the UN

The financial crisis is about to be solved by seven people.  7.  And the IMF.  Yay.

Finance ministers from the G7 (I guess Russia is completely out of the picture now) will meet this weekend and into next week to sit around, pick their noses, maybe play a little backgammon and find new ways to screw their taxpayers.  It’s unlikely that they’ll find a solution to the financial crisis that is threatening to topple the global economy.

At least, a solution that will be palatable to everyone that lives on this planet.  There are (at least) 192 countries on this planet and only 7 will be able to dictate how the other 185 operate financially.  This is criminal.

We have to appreciate the massive implications of these meetings.  They’re not just getting together to glad-hand and swap photo ops.  They’re getting together to talk about our collective financial and economic well-being and yet we don’t have a say.

Ministers that represent governments that are on their way out.  Like Jim Flaherty of the Canadian Conservative Party.  This man should not be representing the will of Canadians unless the Conservatives actually win the election on Tuesday.

We need to rally quickly to clearly tell them, the media and make the rest of the world realizes what’s at stake.  We need to tell them that fate should not be left to these people.  They’ve ruined our economies to this point by giving all of the surpluses to corporations that redistribute wealth to the top 1 or 5% of the world and they certainly don’t have my vote when it comes to the solutions that we should be talking about.

Like expanding the depth and breadth and influence of co-ops.  Do you think that will be on their agendas?

Or continuing to distribute a percentage of wealth to the world’s most needy countries.

Or by simply letting Wall Street teeter and fall, much like the twin towers did 7 years ago.

It’s time we started demanding a new way and a new approach to the world’s economic structure.  This is our opportunity.

How do we start?

Save the Planet: Stop Harper

Avaaz.org has mobilized a noble effort to stop Harper.  I was kind of ignoring their pleas to make donations.

Until now.

I just made a financial pledge and I encourage you to do the same.  They are using contributions for media spots (mostly radio) in the ridings where they believe (and I do as well) that they can make a difference.

Please feel free to do the same.

Here’s where to find their pledge page:
http://www.avaaz.ca/ca/stop_harper_pledge/

Afghanistan: Karzai’s Brother Linked to Heroin Trade?

This report is a little stale , but this report came out yesterday .

I’ll get to the connection in a sec.  You can probably guess where it’s going to go.

But first, allow me to rant about the cost of the Afghan mission.  Why is that Conservatives are so inept when it comes to managing budgets.  They pretend they are fiscally responsible.  They are the only party that Canadians should trust with their tax dollars.  They say they are the ones to manage financial situations, but they have no clue about where the money is being spent and they have no idea what the final numbers will be.

Within 12 months of being in office, they took a $12 billion surplus and gave it away to corporations.

Where’s the accountability?  For Afghanistan, $18 billion is a guess at this point.  Here’s my guess:  it’ll be a hell of a lot more.

But even if it’s $18 billion, that’s about $600 for every single Canadian, give or take.  It may not sound like a lot, but it’s $600 (per person) we should have been spending on (a) peacekeeping instead of war making, (b) Canada or (c) people who really want to create change in their countries (feel free to provide a list in the comments).

Which gets me to my second point:  I don’t believe that the people who are ruling Afghanistan are committed to using NATO forces for anything other than protecting their drug trade.  I know:  this is a bold statement and it’s an emotional one, but it’s hard to feel otherwise.  The president’s brother has been labelled as having a connection with heroin traders in that country and it’s hard to imagine how such a close connection could not resonate throughout the entire family.

I could be wrong.  I’d like to be wrong.  Like the Bin Laden family had one big black sheep.  Right?

Anyways, it seems reprehensible to me that we can’t track what’s being spent and when we’re spending it, we might be indirectly fostering one of the world’s largest suppliers of heroin.  To think that this is what nearly 100 young Canadians gave their lives for makes me sick.

Futher Exploration of the Financial Bailout

People keep asking how and why the financial is happening.  With running commentary from progressive Democrat Dennis Kucinich, Chris Hedges explores the financial crisis in layman’s detail .

Basically, Americans got screwed.  The bailout package represents the greatest shift of wealth upwards that the world will ever see and few, if any, pennies will be spent on the 10 or so million Americans that are walking away from their homes.

As I’m going through some of the links, I also came across this piece by Paul Craig Roberts (scroll past the bit on McCain), who was Asst Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan years.

His main point is that the financial crisis began in 1999, with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking.

He also predicts that we’re not finished because the bailout doesn’t address the core issue, debt issues for the average American.  Credit card debt could become the next wick to light the next big pile of dynamite because the $700 billion doesn’t address job creation and stability for the working middle class in America.

It’s all good reading and very, very informative.