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Buddhaman

Listed below are comments made by Buddhaman between Sunday, 12th October 2008 and Tuesday, 15th September 2009.

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How would you make the weather forecast easier to remember? 5:38pm on 15 Sep 2009 Just make it like the shipping forecast - go around the country in a set pattern and give very basic information e.g. temperature, precipitation, sunniness, wind etc.

Simple.
Blubbing bankers 12:08pm on 29 Jan 2009 Is it a coincidence that Davos and Davros, Dr Who's arch-enemy and creator of the Daleks, are separated by only a single letter? Because Davos is evil, isn't it? All these rich masters of universe coming together once a year to reinforce their shared dogma about how to rule the world, while the poor saps who have to suffer their decisions are excluded.

Climate change means the end to 'growth' as the dominant mantra of the age. Where is the new, radical thinking about realistic alternatives? Not at Davros - oops, Davos.
The year we lost the kids 10:25am on 24 Dec 2008 We have most definitely not run out of ideas of what to do. Wonderful, pioneering organisations like Leap Confronting Conflict are helping to train peer mediators and turn around the lives of thousands of young kids - I'm looking now at their report for 2008, which says

'Around 4700 young people and 1380 adults have been trained in conflict resolution by Leap this year. They, in turn, have passed on their skills, benefiting an estimated 22000 further young people and adding value to many other youth organisations.'

More reporting on things like this please, Mark, to show what can be - and is being - done.
Spend, spend, spend? 09:39am on 16 Oct 2008
Robert, you say:

'[Governments have] been powerless to prevent the banks contracting the amount of credit they're providing, which has reduced the ability of companies and individuals to invest and spend, and risks turning an economic slowdown into something rather worse.'

Well, I apologise for repeating wholesale what I posted in one of your blogs a few days ago but it explains precisely why the current crisis is a function of the way the entire money system works. It is a few lines from the final page of 'The Ecology of Money' by Richard Douthwaite:

'[In 1994] two economists, FX Browne and JPC Fell, who then worked for the Central Bank of Ireland but later moved to the European Central Bank...suggested that central banks were losing their power to control the money supply. Professor Kevin Dowd of Nottingham University Business School agrees. He points out that banks are already providing a smaller proportion of all loans as a result of 'securitization' - the sale of a bank's loans to non-bank investors who are not subject to reserve requirements. This, and the development of electronic cash, means that more and more money can be placed in circulation on a smaller and smaller reserve base. Dowd writes, "As base money becomes less significant, it will gradually lose its effectiveness as a channel through which the central bank can influence broader money supply."

In other words, our current money system is coming to the end of its useful life. Its radical reform has become necessary as well as desirable. Only a widespread debate on the issues, by a well-informed public, will ensure that when changes are made they are on the right lines.'

This was written in 1999. And the time for that debate is now - especially if we taxpayers now own (much of) the banks!
Banks should be boring 9:37pm on 13 Oct 2008 #24

In the boom times very few people wanted to listen to those warning about a coming global financial crash - and look what happened.

Ignoring well-founded and extremely well-researched warnings about a coming global ecological crash is just as foolish.
Banks should be boring 5:32pm on 13 Oct 2008 This is a giant sticking plaster. We need a wholly new approach to global finance that recognises that we cannot have infinite economic growth in a finite ecology.

Only if that nettle is grasped is there likely to be a sustainable future on the planet.
Dawn breaks on a socialised banking system 5:22pm on 13 Oct 2008 #22

Point taken and well made - especially in light of the report last week warning that 25% of all mammal species are threatened with extinction.

Why don't those in power seem to get it?
Dawn breaks on a socialised banking system 2:59pm on 13 Oct 2008 At last, Paul - someone talking about root-and-branch reform:

'The politicians and technocrats have a huge opportunity, rare in life, to shape something different from scratch.'

I apologise for repeating wholesale what I put into one of Peston's blogs but here it is:

Yes, there has to be a global solution but in light of climate change there must also be a fundamental rethink of a financial structure that seeks to stimulate infinite growth in a finite system.

I recommend reading 'The Ecology of Money' by Richard Douthwaite. Here are a few lines from the book's final page:

'[In 1994] two economists, FX Browne and JPC Fell, who then worked for the Central Bank of Ireland but later moved to the European Central Bank...suggested that central banks were losing their power to control the money supply. Professor Kevin Dowd of Nottingham University Business School agrees. He points out that banks are already providing a smaller proportion of all loans as a result of 'securitization' - the sale of a bank's loans to non-bank investors who are not subject to reserve requirements. This, and the development of electronic cash, means that more and more money can be placed in circulation on a smaller and smaller reserve base. Dowd writes, "As base money becomes less significant, it will gradually lose its effectiveness as a channel through which the central bank can influence broader money supply."

In other words, our current money system is coming to the end of its useful life. Its radical reform has become necessary as well as desirable. Only a widespread debate on the issues, by a well-informed public, will ensure that when changes are made they are on the right lines.'

This was written in 1999. And the time for that debate is now.

Especially if we (part) own the bloody things!
Momentous Monday 08:51am on 13 Oct 2008 'RBS and Lloyds TSB/HBOS have promised to the government that they'll maintain mortgage lending and small-business lending at 2007 levels'

So same old same old? Here we go again - the housing bubble has to be re-inflated or the economy doesn't work.

Bonkers.
Humbling of our banks 9:33pm on 12 Oct 2008 101

Thanks for the linguistic correction, Jim - so good to see someone is paying attention!
No one has taken up the substantive point, though.

In this crisis I believe there is a danger that the authorities around the globe will 'fix' the financial system and so allow economic growth to start up again unhindered, all the while ignoring the unsustainable environmental damage that will do, especially to the atmosphere.

But there is the opportunity in this crisis for a complete rethink and re-engineering of the financial system that takes the finite resources of the planet into consideration.

Douthwaite's 'The Ecology of Money' has some very interesting ideas.

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