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Like many of us, I am questioned by the impoverishment of countries "that were and are developing", and the impoverishment of many countries called "developed" by the increasing loss of power purchase. In France 8 million people live below the poverty level.
http://www.inegalites.fr/spip.php?article270 et http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauvreté_en_France
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Like many of us I wonder about the exponential trend to speculate on markets for food and basic care, even basic needs.
I am appalled and disgusted to discover that Chinese companies are buying vineyards and farmland in France, without the government reacts.
The new colonists, new pillagers have been activated.
I am appalled to see that pharmaceutical companies sell at high prices some essential treatments whose manufacturing cost is derisory: such a drug for hepatitis C sold 650 euros while the production cost is 2.50 euros. (lab Gilead) as well as some drugs against cancer, with unjustified exorbitant cost
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Like many of us, I discovered the existence of rating agencies, and how our leaders are subject to these agencies.
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As many of us I am sick of discovering that the government of Sarkozy and the parliament supposed to represent the interest of the French have adopted a convention exempting from taxes "real estate gains and capital gains realized by Qatar or Its "public entities" - including the Emir's family - on property held in France. Another article of the Convention extends the period for excluding wealth tax on property located outside France for Citizens of Qatar residing in France ".
Knowing that Kuwait already benefits from this measure. On the pretext of strengthening ties between France and these oil producers and encouraging their investments in France! By investing we must understand the sale of our heritage, our land, our goods. As a prostitute does not rate her sexactions !
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Like many of us I am amazed to discover how much they lie to us constantly in particular with regard to our food, our health (which drugs are effective? Safe?). Traders (banks) and multinational speculate on the meat, the oil, on wheat, rice and other food products to the detriment of the health of human beings.
Meat from sick Hungarian and Romanian horses that is passed to beef, Italian olive oil coming from Spain, adulterated Eastern Europe mixed oils unfit for consumption, French and Italian tomato sauce made from Chinese products (le Cabanon), Greek feta cheese from sheep's milk made in Denmarkwith cow's milk, wild fish caught in the Mediterranean coming stright from Turkish factory farms (En quête d'actualité D8 23h00 05/07/2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt_9HnRE5-g )high toxic salmon from Norway (85%), poisoned panga produced in Vietnam (Envoyé Spécial FR2 07/11/2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27HVmJ1huJM )
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Like many of us I wonder about aid and European and states subsidies, as well as their beneficiaries and the merits of certain awards.
http://www.presseurop.eu/fr/content/news-brief/4150391-tricher-sur-les-subventions-europeennes
http://www.bio-marche.info/web/Europe/Pologne/UE/363/379/0/7919.html
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Like many of us, I am shocked to find out what the banks are doing with our money, that is, speculation about arms when it is not a direct sale of weapons,or to finance arms purchases: http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2017/06/29/la-bnp-visee-par-une-plainte-pour-complicite-de-genocide-au-rwanda_5152846_3210.html
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Like many of us, I am intrigued by this crisis about what every talk to finish now to impose austerity.
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Like many of us, I wonder about our loss of citizenship, and the tendency of a system dominated by money to treat us as consumers servile system, subject to mercantile imperatives. I am amazed to see how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates tought millions of people in addiction to products in order to maximize profits.
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Like many of us, I am appalled to see that money and those who handle dominate the world, to the point of removing all value to citizenship of a people. Emptying meaning of politics.
I discovered the impact of lobbying on the world, in total disrespect of individuals interests for the benefit of a minority.
Lobbying is a set of influence and pressure action by a lobby (industrial interest groups, pharmaceutical, food, professional federations, innovative companies) to defend its interests against institutions or individuals who can take decisions that could affect them.
These groups use lobbying firms, economists, jurists, who interfere in politics, by courting national and international parliamentary (Europe) to influence the voting of laws, up to propose texts to serve their private interests to the detriment of the interests of citizens. Many amendments, many repeals, many laws are proposed due to these interest groups.
Most media are those that apply to laws banning certain products (pesticides, medicines etc ...) harmful to human health, the use of GMOs, restricting power of whistleblowers, the repeal of a legislation on food advertising to children, limiting the implementation of laws regarding transparency on food, or conflicts of interest in the health sector.
Knowing that no parliamentary escapes out of these influences, the pressure is terrible, whether left or right.
Enslavement go through many strategies: lavish gifts, honors, trips (business), worldly invitations, narcissistic interventions in congresses and conferences, VIP square in major sports tournaments, or blackmail and defamatory revelations. Our politicians are no longer free and rarely represent the interests of the people who elected them.
I wanted to know and understand, beyond what people want to say and despite the talkers of forums only giving opinions without ever trying to argue. Beyond communist, socialist or liberal ideologies.
I needed a conductive wire. I found a call to rebel that I found original. The publicized intervention Eric Cantona.
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Bluff, fit of bad, or indecent proposal but realistic. Cantona would he right ?
October 08, 2010, during an interview organized by Ocean Press, Eric Cantona says to the make a revolution, rather than demonstrate, strike or be violent to influence an unbearable situation, it is more efficient and more peaceful to remove the money we deposit in banks.
This would result in destabilizing the financial system that runs the world and remove the power left to Financial System.
He was treated as irresponsible, unconscious, having to returne to what he knows: football, by the political class and the "do-gooders", by those who are responsible for this situation and probably afraid that their own system collapses.
Those who support him are treated as growth objectors, conservators, or anarchists. Alterglobalist becoming an insult !
Maybe the tone, words and perhaps a lack of arguments of Cantona played against him, But does he wrong so far?
I accept his wish to end with a diktat of the financial system in the world, the desire to do non-violent manner, and in watermark his desire to give value of citizenship.
Subtract the power entrusted to banks, and punish their greed removing our economies do seem to be an effective non-violent means to regain our dignity and citizenship. As well as civil disobedience advocated during the salt march or boycott of british manufactured, by Mr. Gandhi
Others have proposed before and after Mr Cantona: in USA, Arianna Huffington, Eugene Jarecki, and Move Your Money movement, Move Your Money in Britain, in Belgium with Geraldine Feuillien and BankRun site in France Pascal Canfin http://jechangedebanque.org,
Patrick Viveret, Kaizen magazine 1, Friends of the Earth, ATTAC h http://www.financeresponsable.org etc ...
It is in United States that the proposal worked best: following the call of A. Huffington "if enough people who put money in six major U.S. banks to transfer the smaller local banks, then the people have collectively made a big step towards restoring the financial system to make it back to what that it is supposed to be: a productive and stable engine for growth. "
In 2012, 10 million accounts (companies, individuals, churches, unions, municipalities, including Los Angeles) were transferred from multinational banks to small local banks or municipal. Not enough to shake the multinationals steamroller.
In Britain, the invitation to boycott banks was intended particularly the banks involved in the economic crisis and financial scandals. Transfers occurring to credit unions, mutual. Insufficient.
In Belgium the movement slightly worried banks before wither. Bankrun got the default to aim for a collapse of the system, which is not wanted here.
In France many investors are afraid to face lashing political reaction that brought the intervention of Cantona. The tenors of all stripes waving as usual spectrum of decline and disaster it would create. "Because of you ....."
Old Judeo-Christian fear of authority belonging to a normative education, based on the threat of punishment, generating a tendency to conform.
But what is it anyway?
Contrary to what the detractors do believe, it is not to cause the collapse of an economic system, or to affect the economy of a country, much less to oppose growth in general.
We need banks. In their initial operation, they are useful when financing projects, necessary activities for evolution of humanity, when protecting our savings, when they are confined to their role of banks.
It is like Zoe Williams writes in The Guardians 04/07/2012, to "withdraw the power of money to those who believe that they are acquired." 2
This is nothing other than what was said Cantona, but in France it goes wrong. Find the error! !
This is about removing our accounts and savings from private banks who live on undistributed profits, which evade taxes, that charge interest rates and pay obscene bonuses, who speculate in markets for consumer goods or arms, at the expense of households and people, who impose their laws to dispossess nations and citizens of their economic strength, who despise democracy in favor of an authoritarian capitalism where the free market has become an illusion.
These removing would benefit from cooperative banks, which invest savings locally and / or ethical and solidarity projects, practicing transparency of capital, not excessive speculation in the markets. (No traders)
Should we get out of political or financial high school to speak and to act ?
Not necessarily when I see how our elected representatives manage the budget ....
I do not intend to play the expert, I look for reliable information and have no other purpose than to push yourself to do the same.
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Some basic information, or welcome to the land of "evidence":
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Currency:
Money, as we usually call it, is as old as the world. Since man is part of the exchange of what it produces or what nature produces, he uses a symbolic way to regulate this trade.
"Money is the convention by which a human community opens its members with a right to draw on the collective wealth ... wealth is multiplied by the exchange and transformation ... it is multiplied again when humans rather than resorting to barter agree to a single standard, which allows them to develop their activities and to remember the state of their debts and their receivables, as with regard to other exchange partners that the community as a whole. " 3
We tend to forget that money was only a means, a symbol that allowed men to exchange goods, services, and skills. To public community comes the duty and the right to determine the value of the symbol. It is a social convention based on trust. Money raised during these exchanges allowed to acquire other property, other services. More money circulates, the more there is exchange the better for the community.
Money is a debt as are consented society in recognition of the work done by the members of this society.
Providing what we can do, the result of work or skills makes possible to obtain enough gain what others can do. The money was not intended to be accumulated, except to anticipate more substantial purchases, it was intended to be used.
Depending on the culture of the place, the period, it was pebbles, shells, jewelery, precious or useful objects, metals, animals ... etc..
Formerly the currency had an eigenvalue given to it by the value of the metal that it was made (copper, gold, silver).
When it came to precious metals, rather than carry on his fortune so we took the habit of a deposit with "goldsmith", who in turn handed a bill of exchange that allowed to retrieve or transmit deposited funds. This is the dual currency.
Like most people used these bills of exchange circulated without always demand the return of precious metal (FFR), goldsmiths turned into bankers, leveraging unused funds to create additional bills of exchange for lending or borrowing. Betting on the fact that the lender would make the equivalent of a bill of exchange borrowed.
For several centuries, until 1970 the currency was issued by the state, according to its reserves of precious metal (gold). He put in circulation to facilitate the production and trade that resulted from this production. It was a match between the amount of circulating currency and gold stock that matched him that the value was varied. The Bank of France (public bank) plays an important role in this regulation. The majority of gold reserves within the United States, the dollar became the currency "stallion" enthroned in all international trade. Until 1971, when the gold reserve of the U.S. began to decline in relation to the circulating currency.
Bills of exchange became our credit cards, our checkbooks, writes international banks (money).
Our account statement is a piece of paper making it appear that the bank is supposed to get us if we ask her, but she has not in stock. What was previously guaranteed by central banks lend to banks to deal with the possible influx of requests.
If everyone asked to recover the amounts shown on their account statements, banks would be unable to meet demand and would be bankrupt. (we begin to see why Cantona made them scared!)
Since the last third of the 20th century, leaders were brought under various pressures to cede (give up) the power to create and regulate money to private banks, thus submitting to the demands of investors. (Article 104 of the Maastricht Treaty, and Article 123 of the Treaty of Lisbon).
Since then, the private banking system took power over the currency circulating in the world. Assuming the right to create a virtual currency (dematerialized = unrelated to stored value), depending on its needs, its "appetite". Having gained independence of Central Banks that are no longer subject to political control but have become dependent on private system.
Since this period is also largely the private banking system "lends" money to civil society, asking a lot more in return than it emits, since it sets itself the interest rates, according to criteria he himself set. Hence rating agencies created by the private banking system, as feared by nations.
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The currency and the value of "things"
"Modernity, in its primary principle and its original intentions, could have been a chance for humanity on the basis of the Industrial Revolution, but it made a fatal mistake, of which we are only beginning to measure the disastrous consequences with The great crisis of today: it has subordinated the collective destiny, the beauty and the nobility of the planet Earth in its entirety to the vulgarity of the finance.
From then on, the fate has been cast. Everything that has no price has no value.
Money invented to rationalize barter, a noble representation of effort, imagination, creativity, material useful to life, has been distorted by what one gains by sleeping". Pierre Rabhi - Towards Happy Sobriety - Actes Sud -2010
The value of items and goods exchanged was often calculated based on its rarity and / or on work that was necessary to achieve the item.
What to suggest that the money was used medium of exchange was largely in relation with work.
"Human labor was universally accepted as a fundamental source of wealth. The modern economy has come to consider human labor as a necessary evil. For the company and its shareholders, it is a simple element of cost that is appropriate reduce to a minimum (by offshoring in others) unable to eliminate it completely by automation "17
It's what happened since the 70s, to the extent that the value is no longer based on the quality of a good or service, but on the amount.
"Money, a simple means of exchanging real goods and services which are the fruit of a work that is also real, becomes capital, that mysterious force that creates wealth. The capital then turns into an investment which in turn and after multiple arrangements turns into a return on investment. Those who do not do the actual work but control the wealth produced by the exploitation of nature and individuals always accumulate more money and use it to further exploit nature and society "19
"On the market reign and triumph quantity rather quality. Everything is made equivalent of all: making things equivalent means giving them a price and make them interchangeable.
$ 10 = $ 10 oil of wheat = $ 10 = $ 10 shoes hotel room = $ 10 of bombs, rifles or cannons, which differentiates the products is the rate of profit by providing that the one can achieve "17
Money is no longer based on work but on speculation. This is no longer the value of work and the cost of work (whether that of the worker or employer who created the company) which predominates by serving as a support, but the gain shareholders who make money without working.
Speculate (Larousse): Make financial or commercial transactions in negotiable values, in order to profit from rate fluctuations. Counting on something to take advantage, to achieve his ends.
It is a bit like gambling and betting, except that in gambling, it is the capacity of the horse and his jockey, boxer or football team come into account. In speculation, shareholder wants his investment brings him a profit regardless of how this happens. The money is not directly related to a manual or intellectual work, or a natural resource, but with speculation on the expected exponential value of products, goods, services, transactions.
We can now live without working, only speculating. Banks being "clever intermediaries". This has led some to place money (investing!) In the production and sale of weapons.
Speculation is largely what produces economic crises: the priority is no longer the remuneration for work with the corollary living conditions of workers (who work for a living), but the shareholder remuneration (which not work to live).
That is what explains the appearance of emerging nations: countries where wages (workers'wage) are low or very low, suddenly become "emerging" nations, fast growing. Increased production, whatever remuneration = GDP = growing nation!
This is not because the wages and living conditions of workers increase or improve, it is because production costs are low, because companies relocating to these countries, because these countries themselves compete with other nations to produce low-cost goods that everyone needs: clothes, household appliances, furniture, vehicles, and now pharmaceuticals, high technology, weapons ...
For example : for a washing machine that costs 400 euros (it could be a car, a TV, a pair of jeans ', etc ...) the wages of men is about 20% of the production cost which represents 40% of the sale price retail . On these 400 euros, from 30 to 40 euros were paying the French workers. (source Que Choisir No. 522 - February 2014 )
When relocating the company to produce the same washing machine in Poland where the minimum wage is half that in France , the share of wages ( payment for work ) fell by half. The washing machine is always at the same sale price, it has become clear that the difference goes into the pockets of shareholders who have provided no work in return .
Given that the European Union offers billion euros in subsidies to promote "the economic emergence" of Poland, it was discovered that the company (the shareholders and the CEO) who relocates has everything to gain: the transplantation will partly covered by subsidies and salaries are twice less high for a retail price will be the same or even higher than initially practiced.
Imagine what happens when offshoring to Asia where wages are sometimes 10 times lower than French wages (without The European subsidies).
A hotel room in Delhi, Hanoi, Beijing is the same price as in New York or Paris, for salaries and construction cost 10 times less. What is about the difference?
The human part of the production cost is ridiculously low compared to the value of the object, against the portion of the gain of shareholders becomes outrageously high. What could go back to say that the value of the object has nothing to do with the work required to produce it.
When looking at the selling price of Apple accessories, Microsoft and others (all made in Asia and often in the same companies) one wonders what really worth these accessories and what is still human in these practices. Steve Jobs or Bill Gates have nothing of benefactors, nor a humanist!
They do not care workers or clients
If we add a planned obsolescence and the scarcity of spare parts in time to force the consumer to change hardware more often, we get the result of the current market economy.
We are no longer in a ratio useful and necessary exchange (at the base of barter), we are in a slaving relation to money.
This does not stop with consumer products: include this principle in health with for example generic drug production offshoring to India or China, with the consequences we know.
Another area that also concerns the basic needs of man is touched by this phenomenon, the need for shelter, to get to safety, the need to inhabit.
In recent decades, always under the same impulse the concept of home has changed significantly. He became a real estate, a financial product, the user becomes a customer, an investor rather than an inhabitant. The availability of suitable habitat, durable, comfortable to everyone, has become secondary compared to financial issues, it is becoming a luxury that many can no longer afford, and on which many others get richer.
Money is no longer a medium for exchange, it has become a tool of enslavement and contributes to an exponential debt situation.
As for the over-indebted households, nations are forced to borrow sometimes reimburse only the interests of the original loan, without ever managing to repay the loan, which permanently confined them to the role of debtors.
Nations are constrained to a private banking system which decides whether the credits at rates that alone decides. What is telling to many of us that it is the banks that run the world.Power that goes beyond the financial power as it affects humans in their ability to survive. Without money we do not eat, we take care in addition, we live more.The banks have therefore the power of life and death over humanity.
"If the freedom of exchange is a multiplying factor of the exchange as well as money, they are only really effective if it is the freedom of each and currency of each.
Once the process of grabbing and domination have the effect of restricting the reality of these rights to a part of the community, freedom becomes the "free fox in the henhouse "and the currency become vector of social dominance and violence. " 4
"Modernity, in its first principle and its original intentions, could, based on the industrial revolution, be a chance for humanity., But she made a fatal mistake, which we are only beginning to realize the disastrous consequences with today's great crisis: it has subordinated the collective destiny, the beauty and nobility of the Earth in its entirety to the vulgarity of finance Therefore the spell has been cast. Anything has no price has no value. Money, invention designed to streamline the barter, noble representation of effort, imagination, creativity, the useful life material, was spoiled by that one gains while sleeping. " 5
Maybe Mr. Cantona is not entirely wrong ...
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Growth:
"The idea of unlimited economic growth, the policy of more, more and more, until everybody is saturated with wealth must be seriously questioned at least on two points: the availability of basic resources, and the ability of the environment to withstand the degree of interference that this growth requires.
Infinite growth is incompatible with a limited environment. Natural resources are not infinite: oil, minerals, fish, soil fertility, etc ...
The man produces nothing he transforms only.
Each processing activity depends on raw materials, including energy, hence the need to establish an essential distinction within the natural wealth between those that are renewable and those that are not.
A philosophy that advocates the fulfillment of man in the only pursuit of wealth, in short, materialism, does not fit with that world, because such an attitude does not know any limitation principle, while the environment in which it fits, it is strictly limited. This environment already tends to warn us that some tension become excessive " 17
Infinite growth is incompatible with a limited environment. Natural resources are finite, we see at our expense every day oil reserves, minerals are depleted, some consumption of fish varieties are endangered, soil fertility is depleted, all people no longer have access to drinking water etc ...
The idea that growth can be pathological, unhealthy, may harm humans or the planet is not part of the economic concerns.
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If it is human to strive for a growth, which raises question here is the subject of growth: Is the welfare of humanity or that of an elite and privileged few? Growth to a quality of life or quantity of goods and money? -
If growth is to remove the man from the production circuit, replacing him with machines that deny the sense of usefulness and creativity, deprive the man of job, deprive the man of protection and social justice, one is led to wonder what and who benefits from growth?
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Does growth aim to respond to real needs, or strengthen the power of the economy and finance, and those who pull the strings ?
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If we need food quality, safety, health, teaching and some comfort, do we need of all these chemicals and other strategies designed to produce more, knowing that production will be regulated (or delocalized ) to maintain the current products or to increase profits?
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If we need to communicate do we need to buy a new iPhone, iPad, smartphone every 2 years? Do we need all applications that invented the digital industry for a living?
The operation of the private banking system and their shareholders tend to generate growth and competition at all costs to maintain the punctuality of payments. What would happen if no state could not repay their debt or the interest on their deb t? Hence the tendency to run toward progress is not always justified to the well being of humanity (we survived without iPhone)ready to promote exponential demand at the point of use every manipulations, starting with planned obsolescence.
Drift central banks (such as the European Bank) that are made to support this process by subtracting the control from states and peoples, only reinforces the situation.
"This fiscal pact up investor (shareholders) interest above the interests of the people." 6
Hence the feeling of helplessness that we share, facing an economic crisis that is not really, as such, the world having never been so rich, so productive.
Hence the frustration with the "paternalistic" speech (because the tone of "I know what I'm doing, trust me") of the various governments that encourage us to tighten our belts and just talk of austerity. Is it a coincidence that it is always ours austerity and rarely of them discussed ?
Having given up their power to the banks, the politicians become powerless and return to households asking them to make an effort. This is intolerable and can eventually lead to a violence that we do not need.
Violence we return against us and between us. These are households that are robbing, small shops and old ladies who are attacked, the poor dying of hunger, political and wealthy having good guards, well secure residences, cozy bank accounts.
"The economic war produced a growing number of losers, which prepares the bed of totalitarianism, nationalism, fundamentalism, called democracy not offering a guarantee against social decay." 7
It is clear that the sovereignty of the people is violated, and that they are not the ones we elected who lead, but men who put themselves above the rules, laws, collective interests.
It is clear that the policies of austerity that we are and will be subject poorer households, but continue to enrich speculators. It's not the crisis for everyone ...
It is clear that all major financial lobbies, pharmaceutical, petro-chemical, food companies have offices with legal and economic consulting in the European Parliament. Their role is to "accompany" - "affect" - "suggest" policies in the preparation of laws and other regulations that are imposed on us. Our representative can they still claim to be free / neutral ?
May be Mr Cantona is not wrong ....
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GDP
The leitmotiv which comes with each government: reviving growth. But what are they talking about?
Most of the time, growth is associated with GDP or GNP.
GDP: Gross Domestic Product would be an indicator to measure the production of a given country at a given time.
It would be the total value of production of wealth of a nation in a given year. It also represents the measurement of income from the production of the country.
For ordinary people, more high will be GDP more productive will be country, therefore growing.
In reality this is false: the GDP is not interested in the nature of it adds up. It reflects only what generates cash flow. This may well be an added value due to industrial production, that added value in the fight against a natural disaster, epidemic, reconstruction after a war.
Mad cow disease, the tsunami, the influenza A H1/N1, generate added value in the same way that agricultural or industrial production.
The activities can be constructive, positive or destructive, negative, they generate a value that is added to GDP.
As bombs, or care cream, poisons or organic products are manufactured, it raises the GDP.
"If the GNP of a country is higher than 5%, the economist econometer does not and can not consider the question of whether to see this as a good or bad result"17
So much so that Italy will soon integrate income from smuggling, drug trafficking and prostitution in its GDP, which will help boost its national growth ... when there are no work or no factories, just call the mafia to growth!
Maybe France should integrate the "black labor" to GDP, since it represents about 11% !
http://www.journaldunet.com/economie/magazine/travail-au-noir-en-europe.shtml
French are the biggest consumers of drugs, it adds to GDP, because it is working for pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, doctors ...
Our discomfort produces cash flow, and according to these criteria, growth ... Imagine what would happen if we were good!
It is difficult to admit that when we fight against pollution, it generates a cash flow and that the same pollution by making us sick also generates flow. In your opinion which is the most interesting for growth ?
Wich growth does one speak ? With a GDP that is not representative, intolerable relocation, indecent tax evasion, exodus of brain damaging, outrageous differences of incomes...growth seems to be an illusion !
Sometimes I dream of exile in Bhutan whose the national goal is GNH: Gross National Happiness. Which a priori seems successful. (Until the globalization invade)
It is interesting to observe how this small country trying to protect themselves from those who would like to pass it by GDP.
This sounds suspiciously like what was written in 1930 by distinguished economist JM Keynes, thinking about the future of his grandchildren:
"It will be people able to preserve the art of living and to grow more intense, able also not sell themselves for their livelihood, will be able to enjoy the abundance for the day it will be there. " 8
"This economic war without real economic reasons fills a notable cultural function: it allows the ideological shift from the concept of competition in the growth in the image of struggle for survival." 9
The famous struggle for life that so many parents fear (those who have not yet resigned)
"How do to make my children will not be on the losing side?" Hence education for "every man for himself", and "the law of the strongest."
Many politicians complain that the French consume less, and when they consume they conume more foreign goods!
Whose fault ? Lowering the purchasing power, we are not going to start consuming more. About products, we are not responsible for the fact that two thirds of manufactured products sold in our stores come from China, Bangladesh, India or czechoslovakia.
Are there still a French car manufactured in France, outside the top models?
The arguments of the manufacturers are shocking: "to maintain an attractive price on the best selling models (small cars) we are, forced to make them elsewhere where production costs are lower!" You believe that ?
A vehicle that cost to buy x0000 euros at the time it was made in France, still costs x0000 euros since it is made in Turkey, except that it is much cheaper to manufacturer. The sale price has not changed, what has changed is the margin of profits earned, and the satisfaction of shareholders, who are, outside the State which always ends withdraw, mostly foreigners.
We find the same principle in the food: produce more, at lower cost and a bigger profit. This is what is causing a notorious decline in the quality of our food and one of the main causes of diseases of civilization.
The arguments of agribusiness are as shocking as those of car manufacturers: "We are conscious of the demographic changes in the world given the number of people to feed, we strive to produce more at lower prices to remain affordable togreater numbers. Hence the use of methods, products, and rationalizations that rarely go in the consumer interest. Knowing that the decline in nutritional quality of food has repercussions which also benefit to the pharmaceutical industry. Everyone wins except us ! Again the savings we make about food, we give them back 10 times to heal us. See the excellent book by Pierre Eat Weill- Eat, we do the reste - Plon, 2014.
Maybe Mr Cantona is not wrong ....
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Crisis:
For years we have witnessed violent protests and uprisings in various countries in Africa, Asia, South America due to a significant increase in the price of wheat, flour, rice, and other raw materials. The people no longer have the resources to feed, heal, access to education, because speculators investing markets survival.
Nestlé CEO Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe up to say that the water should be privatized and become a market value !
Monsanto, Bayer, Nestle and other monsters of the chemical and food speculation going to impose products, seeds, practices of small farmers around the world, to the detriment of local crops to quench their thirst for capital.
Worse when the multinational food and chemical locate indigenous natural products effective, they are patented in order to capture the monopoly, always at the expense of local and global populations. 17
But what crisis is it?
After poisoning by reassuring messages from economic experts who were in denial about the crisis, we are bombarded with alarmist messages on the probable end of oil supplies, with its attendant increases in all fuels and products. Households reduce their consumption as producers increase their profits ... Alternative formulas exist, but do not have access to the market! Find out why!
We are witnessing an indecent increases in cost of real estate, and an artificial shortage of housing ...
Shortage maintained - artificial scarcity of raw materials, rates that collapse or explode depending on the game of speculation.
A speculator buys all rice production in a region. He stores it and waits lack is felt. When there is no more rice on the market, rice becoming rare (artificial scarcity), prices rise. Some are willing to pay any price to have a little rice. When prices are high enough, the speculator opens its stocks and releases some of the rice, just enough for the course is maintained at a good level for him. Although it is not a producer or transformer, conditioner, he is the one who pocket the maximum benefits, which are not based either on work or on production.
Asian speculators are paying poachers to exterminate hundreds of elephants in Africa (Kenya, Cameroon), they store the ivory recovered until the elephant becomes an endangered species (even "encourage" its disappearance) to sell ivory at exorbitant rates. JT 20h TF1 10/01/2013
Maybe your bank speculates (made your money work) on defense procurements, market of food, market drugs? http://www.rse-et-ped.info/
This is what happens on everything bought and sold, including currency, products essential to survival, seeds and grains, to the detriment of all people in need.
Today when people are dying of hunger is often because other "fatten" more than real reasons of famine.
"We now live in a state of global economic war ... the object of this war is for each nation to create at home, jobs and income growing to the detriment of its neighbors" 7
The T-shirt or jeans manufactured in India or Haiti you buy 2 euros less than those made in France, are made by children, or women who are barely paid. Knowing that neither India nor Haiti will contribute to social security, unemployment insurance, one day for these 2 euros saved, you will have to pay 4 under the social contribution. Worth it worth it?
We could apply this remark to everything you use daily, from the car to what is in your plate, via the phone or food processor. All the savings you make by buying what is done - cheaper - abroad, or by robots (which does not contribute) you pour it back multiplied under various forms: taxes, social contributions, and soon pension cuts. Do the calculation in your household and imagine what happens at the level of a nation!
Some articles from Figaro and Le Monde Economique show how some nations will do anything to rule the world and enrich: ""When China acquires the world" and "Welcome to Chinafrica" for example. This can relativize the French enthusiasm about the Chinese partnership, although it is very trendy to cede our heritage! What will we have left in a few years? What we will leave to our descendants?
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2011/01/29/04016-20110129ARTFIG00004-bienvenue-en-chinafrique.php
What will happen to poor African farmers who sold their land for a "pittance" to Chinese speculators?
Stop believing that China is creating jobs in countries where it does business: we observed that it exports its workforce and sometimes prisoners sentenced to hard labor.
In 2004, Ali and Denis Laïdi Lanvaux wrote "in this kind of conflict victims do not count the number of dead (which I doubt today in terms of what is happening in India and elsewhere with farmers cheated by Monsanto , for example), but layoffs, ANPE replaced the military hospital, ASSEDIC replaced war pensioners. Losers mourn the number of unemployed and excluded, the winners celebrate the stock increases and pocket the dividends. " 10
The number of people living below the poverty line is increasing in the world, even in so-called "rich" countries.
The "warriors" and "emerging" gargle globalization to an audience applause, while others (not necessarily anti-globalization) are labeled reactionary, conservative, unconscious, and watch each other die.
This shortages strategy leads to situations of monopolies which are no longer controlled Monsanto, Microsoft, Nestle, China, the UAE, Russia and many others are included in a struggle to remove, at any price , any competitor, just like in a strategy of ethnic cleansing.
"Democracy representative of individuals by individuals for individuals is rapidly transforming into a democracy of companies by companies for companies. Worse, the concentration of economic power in the hands of a small group of unelected and unaccountable people results in the exercise of de facto political power which influences governments, laws and decisions. decisions and shape the future of our food, our health and our planet. The super rich use governments to design laws and regulations allowing them to accumulate wealth ad libitum. Yesterday as today they create monopolies by annexing the commons and killing the competition" 19
In France we are witnessing offshoring that under the guise of "burden of charges" will also be making products that cost us the same as when they were produced in our country.
Given that wages in the host country are 3-10 times lower, it is not difficult to understand what is the difference, and where does it go, without having no compensation for losses resulting from the relocation.
There are almost no French cars (excluding some high-end models) made in France! Check with your dealer ....
Maybe Mr Cantona is not wrong ....
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The maintained myth of the welfare state:
The state has replaced the church, and is crowned with the power to ensure the welfare of citizens, on the basis of welfare and social justice, redistribution of wealth, developing business skills, cultural social, accompanied by laws and regulations to promote the exercise of this power and this kindness.
Many social progress falls under this intention, as the trade union and labor, social security, the National Employment Agency, the Assedic, the development of health and social system, access to care, aid to companies etc ...
As one advances in this system approaches diversify, and become so complex as to arrive at a form of addiction: people are no longer able to fulfill their responsibilities, not even those of their errors and they look for any reason to the state that is supposed to overcome all situations. We are seeing more and more surprising deviations:
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Some banks that have mismanaged their investments in an economy type "casino" seek help from the state bails out deficits. When these banks have a sales turnover equivalent to the GDP of some countries, there is not a lot of redistribution!
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When prevention campaigns and tobacco prices affect consumers point to lower sales, tobacco shops (tobacco shops) request and receive state subsidies to compensate for the loss of their income!
Small grocers were never compensated and have never received compensation when appeared supermarkets and unwavering competition.
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When the season is bad, too much rain or too much sun, farmers, ranchers, growers demand and obtain grants and compensations (still insufficient!) of the state for the losses. Sometimes the climate is nothing to do with, it is sometimes error of management! When all goes well, the crops exceeded expectations, commodity prices increase we do not see a lot of redistribution or lower price. Would not it be better to make reserves in anticipation of year when crops are not as good?
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When the season is bad, too much rain or not enough snow, beach resorts and winter sports hotel demand subsidies or compensation from the state, while during normal seasons, even highly profitable, it is not created reserves to compensate for bad seasons or tariff reductions to facilitate access to the greatest number.
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When big companies that have relocated their production to a maximum (car sector, for example) are in trouble, often due to a poorly evaluated competition or mismanaged, they turn to the state to compensate losses (shareholders) often threatening to close the only factory they have left France.
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When Alston falls, it is the state, so you and I (our taxes), who will pay the recovery of the company. Employees of Alston seem very happy to receive this windfall and solidarity "imposed". Are they so supportive when the state reduce our pensions, when closing of small factory ? When Alston made large profits, I have not really felt redistribution. Apparently there are only shareholders who benefited.
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How many multinationals, businessmen, sportsmen (football, tennis, motor sports), movie actors and actresses, singers, television presenters, political men, how many people and companies with huge income, evading taxes, therefore redistributing wealth, by domiciling abroad, opening offshore accounts in tax havens ? The recent report "Panama Papers" is an invitation to revolt against all wealthy beyond sharing.
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It is inconceivable that Arab nationals, whether from royal families or not, should be exempt from tax on commercial or real estate transactions carried out in France, under any pretext. It is inadmissible that very wealthy people escape tax on our territory while the French people are increasingly called for solidarity, austerity. Macron plans to add by increasing VAT and drawing on the purchasing power of pensioners.
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When confirmed singers and millionaires like Aznavour, Zazie, Eddy Mitchell, Johnny Hallyday, Chimen Badi are receiving "Young Creators" grants to fund the recording of their new album, it becomes obscene. Knowing that half of them are living abroad to avoid taxes and the redistribution of wealth, it could redefine the illegal downloading of their works (provided that this is not for profit) to social justice.
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The ultimate of the Generous State is reached by the demagogues of the Valls government who plan to give 400 euros "pocket money" to all young people from 18 years, without compensation, to pay the driver's license training to all students, to give a bonus to all baccalauréat holders, to give starting bonus from 2500 euros to migrants entered the territory illegally to go back home. Why not offer an iPad or a Smartphone to all the kids so that they awaken to the new technologies, it is Santa who is in power with our money! While the most fortunate go abroad so as not to participate in the redistribution of wealth.
http://www.regionsjob.com/actualites/rsa-allocation-400-euros-jeunes-precaires.html
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This leads to delirious excesses as the realization and maintenance of the website of the wife of a president (Carla Bruni) for thousands of euros paid by the taxpayer, without this causing revolution or social movements.
Mr Holland's hairdresser is paid 9,985 euros per month for the duration of the presidential term, which let imagine how much are paid butlers, cooks, drivers, protection service for girlfriend etc ..
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Paradoxically, the athletes who will represent France at the Olympics games are forced to appeal to the crowdfunding (free financing their activities by individuals) for their expenses: housing, food, travel and trainings, while any politician (president, ministers, deputies, senators, and other VIPs) gets paid all his expenses by the state (us) and gets paid for travels, sometimes those of their relatives by the taxpayer.
Liberal Right or Caviar Left, we are always in the presence of an elite that benefits while they impose austerity to the people.
Protect and guarantee the purchasing power of the people who worked and contributed all their lives may not be attracting these defenders of social justice.
I could give hundreds of other examples to note that citizens no longer take responsibility for the risks they take, as the state has invested a "divine mission" to provide for all our needs, overcome not only the vagaries of life, but also to our errors.
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• The sportman who wins between 750,000 and 1 million euros per month (which I think is abnormal compared to those who work) or 12 million per year, would end up with 6 million of net income after tax or EUR 500 000 per month, which is still a more than adequate income, and allow him to have a lifestyle that few people can afford !
This does not prevent the majority of them from exiling abroad in order to avoid taxation. They want to make a lot of money, sometimes even without much work, but they do not want to share.
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• The shareholder takes the risk of playing the stock market. This risk varies depending on the market. You can win or lose money on this adult game. Compulsive refusal to lose causing economic concurrency strategies, competition, at any price, leading to the development, increasing inequalities, divisions and injustices.
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• Hotels, service delivery, commerce depend on many factors: climate, fashion, infidelity of customers who want more and more new things. These are risk in sales trades and service. There is no guarantee that a trade will profit all the time.
Shopkeepers, small farmers, artisans who do not have the resources to be heard or defend themselves, assume the risk of their fluctuating economy, to which is added market volatility caused by the "big" speculators. They often manage their affairs accordingly, suffering some unbearable setbacks.
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• Big producers, big groups, big traded companies (shareholders) have the resources to be heard and make pressure to get multes compensation, while the European Community decided to reduce or eliminate aid to the poorest.
"The use of compassionate solidarity will end, and no one knows what will take over. It is useless to produce goods for sale at the same time, by excluding, a large number citizens can not acquire. The policy of pyromaniac fireman has the serious drawback to clear the states of their responsibility to the citizens who appoint for the governance of collective fate. Failures and incompetence are such that uncontrollable rebel, increasingly violent will multiply, on expanding, if global governance continues to maintain an inhuman logic that produces suffering and indifference. " 11
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We are all affected by this situation to the extent that financing these grants, these compensations, such aid, and non-redistributions of wealth comes largely from taxes and mandatory contributions paid by us (small and middme salaries). One way redistribution!
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-Why contribute to the bailout of a bank speculating and playing the stock market? I do not have money to lose in the casino.
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-Why contribute to the grant to a tobacconist knowing he made his trade with poison?
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-Why should I confide my savings to a bank which speculates on armaments, when it does not supply arms directly to the belligerents?
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-Why contribute to the compensation of big farmers whose production is exported, while I am bombarded with lower quality products from abroad?
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-Why contribute to help Renault or PSA, as they have reduced thousands of French workers to nil in favor of Eastern Countries and unscrupulous shareholders?
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-Why should I go see a match, a concert, a movie, a TV show or I buy a disk that would bring a lot of money to people who do not participate in the redistribution of wealth and social justice ?
OK and then ...?
How to retrieve a bit of citizenship, freedom, dignity ?
How to avoid an economic war and civil war, without violence ?
Among other things by replacing the currency serving the trade and not the domination.
By engaging and becoming responsible, already at its own level.
By changing how we save, spend and consume.
It behooves us to take things in hand, if those to whom we delegate this power, do not.
"The issue of collective transformation is not separable from the change in our own life positions." 12
We need to change our perception of things, and revisit the values acquired or imposed by our environment.
We must break clichés and established models such as the power in terms of domination, money in terms of end in itself, love in terms of consumption.
This means leaving the logic of competition and economic war it entails, changing our relationship to power, wealth, life in general.
Jean Ziegler writes citing J.J.Rousseau "Between the weak and the strong, it is the freedom which oppresses and the law that liberates."
He added "the marke ttotal freedom is synonymous with oppression.. Law is the first guarantee of social justice The global market needs norms and overdetermined by the collective will of the people's. Struggle against the maximization of profit as the sole motivation of dominant market players and fight against passive acceptance of poverty are urgent requirements. Should be reformed agricultural commodity exchange in Chicago (Chicago Commodity stock Exchange, entirely in the hands of banks) , fighting again continued deterioration of terms of trade ... We can not accept a world economy which refers to the nonexistence of the fifth of humanity. "16
I think Mr. Cantona was right ...
Without having to make a revolution, without violence, without the need to come together, without the need to know whether others agree or not, we can work to change each at our level, to ensure universal access to freedom of trade and currency.
In a democracy it is important that it is no other than monetary legitimacy conferred citizenship.
To summarize:
"The transformation of currency in finality, which is the source of the casino economy and corrupts our society has no democratic legitimacy. This is a pure rapt calling for democratic struggles, which must oppose the hijacking of a collective public good intended to promote the exchange and the activities of all, to make a private property designed to satisfy desires of profit of a minority of wealthy and powerful. " 13
It is essential that the state regains control of the market and laws set limits, including:
"giving back to the democratic political community the authority to issue and guarantee the currency, refusing any new capture of the currency by economic and financial players, but also by" public confiscateurs "that hide behind the state interest to restore power to a minority of "powerful" 14
In cases where the confiscation of money continues, it is up to citizens to resist, as they do when they are invaded by an enemy nation, under a right of resistance against oppression, stated in the constitutions and declarations of human rights.
Move your money, and again become responsible citizens.
Most banks have now turned their function and use of the economy instead of serving.
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This is to deal with it and in a peaceful resistance it is proposed to transfer our accounts and savings from speculative private banks to other smaller banks, more ethical, more transparent. Withdraw your money from foreign-owned banks, whose shareholders are Arabs, Russians, Chinese. Withdraw your money from banks that speculate on the production or sale of weapons. Like BNP Paribas, which financed the purchase of weapons for the Rwandan genocide. That is your savings.
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A peaceful and effective complementary means, rarely mentioned, is to boycott( (buy in an informed manner) the products of speculation, offshoring, companies or countries that do not respect the dignity of workers and the health of consumers.
I look forward to the day we can do without oil, and deprive these emirs of sources of income earned easily. Alternative solutions exist, but under the pressure of the oil lobbies, they can not be implemented with the complicity of our governments. Let us change the way we vote.
Our credit card is a voter registration card and can influence the course of things, depending on how we use it.
When nobody buys records of artists "offshored", will go to see a football game or tennis match, with sportmen "offshored", will buy a product, a good, a service from acompany hosted in a tax haven, then they will realize that the power can change hands and that social justice is an inalienable right.
In some cases the illegal downloading should not be regarded as theft but as civil disobedience or even reverse wealth redistribution.
When we no longer will buy "made in China", which requires certain sacrifices at first, we are happy to contribute to the re-development of handicrafts and small French industry.
Some 14 believe that the boycott can be dangerous, since it sometimes has disastrous consequences on the chain of production or distribution, citing examples such as the dismissal of children in Bangladesh, Pakistan, or the closure of businesses in Asia.
How many French or Western workers and employees were dismissed, how many families have gone below the poverty line as a result of unfair competition including "emerging" countries in Asia and Eastern Europe, to relocations of European companies to Eastern Europe, south America, Asian countries ? In general those who oppose the boycott are not those who lack the resources to live ...
It is not for me to give advice in the choice of banks, or the products or companies to boycott. Search, call, check, make a choice "enlightened" and responsible.
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By changing our way to save, spend our money and consume.
"These are not the earth's resources are missing, these are the modes of production and consumption that make them inadequate."
Philippe Derudder in the movie "The currency, from the purchasing power to the power of Being"
Relocations, competition and wild liberalism deprive Europ of the contributions needed to cope financially with the loss of jobs, social difficulties, pensions.
"It's a crazy world where everything must be made in China, while elsewhere people are unemployed. Since they have less money, people are forced to buy in supermarkets that import cheap Chinese products.
What we need is to move from an idea of cheap, which harms the environment and humans to a real and reasoned cost which is cheap to humans and the planet, " Vandana Shiva. - Interview - Quest direction - 2015
While traders and shareholders get richer at the expense of workers and while various governments make us pay the bill for their impotence, it is important to protect workers, small farmers, to help job seekers and guarantee purchasing power of households and honorable retreats: leaving the system of speculative private banks, ensuring buy Made in France (or Made in EU limit) whenever possible, ensuring it is good products made in France and not products from elsewhere assembled and packaged in France, practicing moderation consumption that Pierre Rabhi called Happy Sobriety, emphasizing the shared habitat, or participatory grouped home or housing cooperatives .
A label is to identify financial products that are involved in human economy: Finansol http://www.finansol.org/
Look about the GABV: Global Alliance for Banking on Values. Global alliance of 21 banks based on values: human, environment and transparency. In France alone the Credit Cooperative has met the membership criteria. It may not be a coincidence.
A study of this group (Strong and Straightforward: The Business Case for Sustainable Banking) on the difference between systemic and sustainable banks show that sustainable banks, relative to their size, attract more deposits, are better capitalized, investing in a more equitable and have a stronger business model company. http://www.credit-cooperatif.coop et http://www.gabv.org
The return to earth and simplicity advocated 40 years ago, when we anticipated that does not fail to happen, seems more and more difficult because as P. Rabhi says "paradoxically, to live simply on a piece of land, as aspire to more people, it is first necessary to be financially well endowed."
Relocation, competition and unbridled liberalism deprive France of contributions necessary to cope financially with job losses, social difficulties, pensions.
"It's a crazy world where everything must be made in China, while elsewhere people are unemployed. Since they have more money, they are forced to buy in supermarkets that import Chinese products cheap.
What we need is to move from an idea of cheap, which harms the environment and humans in a real and rational cost that is cheap to humans and the planet, "Vandana Shiva. - Interview - Searching direction - 2015
While traders and shareholders enrich themselves at the expense of workers and the various governments make us pay the bill for their helplessness.
I think it is important to protect employees, producers, to help job seekers and ensure honorable retirement: it is the reason why I left the system of speculative private banks, I make sure to buy Made in France (at the limit made in U.E) whenever possible, making sure that it is indeed made in France and not products coming from elsewhere packaged in France, by favoring the shared habitat, or grouped participatory housing cooperatives or habitats. I practice moderation in consumption as Pierre Rabhi called Happy Sobriety, sharing skills and consumer goods. 15
Links that help identify French products: http://www.madine-france.com/fr/ http://hexaconso.fr/ http://www.mesachatsfrancais.fr/
To those who accuse us of being a brake on growth, I'd remember that nothing in this world is permanent. Will imagine that the growth can be is an illusion, which does not prevent them from enjoying progress and certain qualities of liberalism.
E.F.Schumacher, a renowned economist of the 1970s, already drew our attention to the danger of believing in unlimited growth, poor management of natural resources, disrespect for the planet and its inhabitants. He wrote a real advocacy for a new economy. Small is beautifull, a society to the measure of man - Le Seuil Edition - 1978
If I criticize some form of liberalism, I'm not advocating communism nor socialism which have not shown so far that they could do better. A new economic and social model is to invent being vigilant that progress is to serve humanity, not the money.
There are times where it is necessary to calm things down, return to a more moderate liberal market. Make progress for the benefit of humanity is one thing, always wanting more money at any price is another.
When you see the figures published by the UN and UNDP on the global waste, even about food, we realize that the world has never been richer, and the share does not exist yet. http://www.lesechos.fr/economie-politique/monde/actu/0202491251820-nourriture-un-gaspillage-stupefiant-527378.php
"The real challenge is to believe that we ordinary citizens can bring change. We are not atoms in society, we are a community. We must see themselves as beings in relationship, not as individuals isolated. As soon as one comes out of our isolation, we experience the power of the community.
The isolation we feel is a system construction, for which there is no society, there are only individuals. It is vital for multinationals to reduce us to simple consumers identity " Vandana Shiva. - Interview In Quest for meaning -2015
Prior to tighten our belts, there may be brains, arms and hearts to open!
Some interesting articles : (please will you find by yourself the same in your country)
Sur le rôle des banques http://www.lemonde.fr/la-crise-financiere/article/2009/10/29/speculation-financiere-comment-controler-les-banques_1260182_1101386.html
and http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2012/10/02/banques-la-speculation-au-piquet_850471
How banks are starving the world http://www.notre-ecole.net/comment-les-banques-et-la-speculation-affament-le-monde
1 - Kaizen - n° 4 septembre -octobre 2012
2 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/04/banking-move-your-money
3 - 4 - 6 -7- 9 -12-13 - Patrick Viveret - Pourquoi ça ne va pas plus mal ? - Fayard -2005
10 - Ali Laïdi - Denis Lanvaux - Les secrets de la guerre économique - Seuils - 2004
8 - John M Keynes - Perspectives économiques pour nos petits enfants - Payot -1990
5 -11 -15 - Pierre Rhabi - Vers la sobriété heureuse - Acte Sud- 2010
14 - Que choisir ? - n° 511 - Février 2013
16 Jean Ziegler - la faim dans le monde expliquée à mon fils - Seuil - 2011
17 - Vandana Shiva - victoire d'une Indienne contre le pillage de la biodiversité - Terre Vivante - 2013
18 - Small is Beautiful - E F Schumacher - 1973
19 -Vandana Shiva - 1% reprendre le pouvoir face à la toute puissance des riches- Rue de l'Echiquier - 2019
If Eric Cantona was right ?
"The Earth is an oasis, not a deposit to exhaust". P. Rabhi"
If the money at the personal level leads our life, it is not surprising that the finance leads the world"
Philippe Derudder in the film Money, from purchasing power to power to Be"
Move Your Money
