Finding False Figures And Flying

Was it like this when the dinosaurs disappeared? Was it a gradual collapse of the ecology and environment necessary to their survival and reproduction? Why did all those magnificent creatures, large, dominating, strong with immense powers fail in their struggle to exist?

So what has been the “ecology” and “environment” of the human race over the last fifty years and perhaps a little more. In all the many and various economic and political theories created to explain what we are and do and how the ordinary business of life is transacted we seem to have lost sight of what happens.

It now appears that in a world where markets, economies and money are critical we have built our present systems for survival on false markets, false economic systems and with false money.

So it is all beginning to break down. Unluckily we think we have governments that have authority and powers and are able to deal with matters. In turn many of us are beginning to realise that amongst the falsities is false government in many forms.

The USA, proud of its democracy and independence is now neither democratic nor independent. Europe, once a series of combinations of national governments has become a supra-national entity that cannot even govern its own administrative services.

The constitutional mess that is the UK cannot even govern its politician’s expense accounts. Go round the world and there seem to be very few states that can exert anything like the powers they once did.

Where does sovereignty now lie across the earth? Not much of it is with governments, if any organisations have that quality it seems to be corporate bodies in finance. These have the advantage of not being based anywhere except in places where they store information in their computer systems.

But they are dependent on the way they create false money and the ways that is sent around the various false markets and how far the false economies can be kept going to provide the base for it.

Also they depend on the false governments to co-operate to keep the peasants quiet and paying and able to continue piling up the debt on which the whole financial ecosystem depends.

Santa Claus may not be around next year. He will have maxed out his credit card, failed his criminal records check, be unable to pay off the elves and also barred for not doing the due diligence. Also, no border control will let him in.

That is, if you believe in Santa.

Time For The Toothpaste Revolution

As the USA says goodbye to its old middle class and the UK seems to be doing the same the question is asked why? One proposed answer appears in an article picked up from http://www.economicroadmap.com/ suggesting that global corporate bodies are now close to detaching themselves from their home nation states.

Also that those states in any case have become subject to domination by the corporations as the middle classes shrink and detach themselves from politics, leaving it to the professionals who can be bought.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb11/corp-jobs-02-11.html

According to one hedge funder dealer if one American or European family goes down and four in once poor countries go up this is all to the good.

It may not be as simple as that. If the global corporations and their senior people no longer pay much tax and the middle class taxpaying capability reduces sharply a state will have to say goodbye to all those social programmes and benefits the poorer classes have become used to.

So in the once developed countries it is not just the middle class that shrinks it is the incomes and futures of many of their poor that go as well.

The article suggests that stability in the USA and Europe are the basis for allowing all this to happen and to permit the corporations to follow their own stars.

One of the markers for wealth accumulation and spending power given is toothpaste. This is described as a “basic” need. So the richer a country becomes the more people rush out to buy the toothpastes they see advertised, helpfully provided by global consumer products organisations.

There could be some slight flaws in all this. According to Inspector Gadget the life in many of our urban areas is anything but stable at the moment and things do seem to be getting rougher as the more and more of the young and old do not like what is happening.

In any case, who needs toothpaste? We haven’t used it for years. It is nasty slimy stuff that stinks, leaves a horrible taste that spoils food and drink and often contains substances used in Agent Orange and pesticides.

What is more it costs good money better spent on other things. Strangely, since stopping our teeth have needed far less attention.

So here is my way to start a revolution. Stop using toothpaste and use the cheap natural alternatives.

Say It Without Flowers

On Thursday 23 May 2009 I posted on “Les Fleurs Du Mal” about flowers. Some of my comments may have seemed exaggerated. Today, however, it was good to see the subject being picked up again in http://newgatenews.blogspot.com/

Also, today in http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/ was an item concerned with the tax implications in this “globalised” trade. There will be the claims that the trade creates jobs but just how many and who really benefits?

Also, where is our “development” money going? Is it into the incomes and homes of the local population or into the accounts of the multinationals?

Quote:

Taxjustice dot blogspot dot com - Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Kenya loses from flower firm tax tricks

From Kenya's Daily Nation:

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) says it is investigating some multinationals for abusive transfer mispricing. Among them, according to Mr John Njiraini, the KRA commissioner of domestic taxes in charge of the large taxpayers, are the country's three largest flower companies."We have seen cases of multinationals reporting losses in Kenyan subsidiaries while their parent firms are making huge profits. We are investigating whether they have abused their transfer pricing policies," Mr Njiraini, said.

The article, quoting TJN's Africa network, adds that there is a great problem with enforcing transfer pricing arrangements, and with the arrangements themselves:

Mr Njiraini says to be able to crack the abusive transfer pricing syndicate, Kenya requires experienced lawyers in the area as well as tax experts, who are not currently available. Some of the tax-avoidance methods are rampant because there is no legislation against them.

Recently, the OECD's Jeffrey Owens noted that an astonishingly low 0.1 percent of foreign development assistance is allocated to supporting revenue and customs in developing countries, even though tax revenues are a multiple of the value of foreign assistance: ten times as much, in Africa's case.

It is small wonder that African and other governments have such a hard time confronting the complexities of transfer pricing (and other) abuses by global multinationals.Regarding transfer pricing, the OECD's arm's length principle, which is used as the international standard, is all but unworkable -- although the ensuing complexity does create billions in profits for accountancy firms.

As Michael Durst, Michael Durst, a former director of the U.S. Internal Revenue Services's Advanced Transfer Pricing Program, notes:

"Experience to date is sufficient to demonstrate that the current system is based on faulty assumptions regarding the way multinational business is conducted, so that the system, no matter how hard one seeks to reform it, simply is not capable of functioning acceptably."

Time for some fresh thinking on transfer pricing, in the interests of the citizens of developing and developed countries.

Unquote.

When you pay your pounds for those apparently fresh supermarket flowers, stop for a moment to think about the markups down the line, the distribution costs, the running costs of installations where they are grown and then wonder how much the employees might earn.

Also, there is the interesting problem of how much water is used and how little clean water is left for the locals.