NEO-NATIONALISM’S PREMISES & CONTENTIONS / Reform the international financial system

NEO-NATIONALISM’S PREMISES & CONTENTIONS / Reform the international financial system

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

The global financial system is indubitably a homestead of predatory financiers. Usury and global speculation, the masterpieces of financiers, are the enemies of nations. Usury in international finance is at an all-time high, raising questions about the legality and moral propriety of   current lending practices. Incidentally, the said financiers are the ones who exercise the clout within the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, whose chiefs have always been CEOs from the bank headquarters of the financiers. The said banks have always acted out as the marketing agents of financial cartels, even as many nations that have followed the austere ‘structural adjustments’ imposed by them have been reduced to paupers.

 

It is high time for ‘white knights’ to appear in global finance, lending money accordingly for developmental and investment purposes at very low interest rates (lower than 1.5% annually) and at very long-term payments (25-50 years). Such institutions are now beginning to appear, but creditors remain cautious about their moves. Such institutions are autonomous from the power orbits of the Western financial cartels, are well niched in Asia (e.g. China), and appear to be creditor-friendly.

The reform though should go beyond the ‘white knight’ route. We must actively participate in Asia’s establishment of its own monetary fund and a single-currency regime, and take a leading role if opportunities allow. It may prove beneficial yet to re-institute a regime of gold reserve standard, which should back up the Asian currency. This same monetary fund will then serve as the regional ‘white knight’ that will provide credit to nations in need in the region and continent. The actions will also accelerate the economic cum political integration of the ASEAN and the economic integration for the entire East Asia, steps that will further stabilize the national economies and continuously sustain their respective growth. Meanwhile, a regional currency can stabilize soon enough upon its launching, that it would be a difficult job for criminal financiers to manipulate it, such as the success of the ‘Euro’ now exhibits to the globe.

 

Still another key intervention measure is the control of predatory speculation through a ‘Tobin tax’ on cross-border currency and related purchases (J. Tobin’s proposal in the early 70s). A tax of 0.75% alone on the current cross-border exchanges, which amounts to $300 Trillions annually, would generate $2.25 Trillions. The said money will then be used to fund the operations of international organizations such as the United Nations, UNDP and authentic international NGOs for social development purposes. The money can also be used by ‘white knight’ financing institutions of international scale. This set of actions will then induce reforms in the other institutions, with chain reaction effects leading to declining speculation in the long run, as the oligarchic bankers/financiers adjust their rates to more competitive rates in the face of challenges coming from global ‘white knights’.

[From: Erle Frayne D. Argonza, “New Nationalism: Grandeur and Glory at Work!”. August 2004. For the Office of External Affairs – Political Cabinet Cluster, Office of the President, Malacaňan Palace.]

NEO-NATIONALISM’S PREMISES & CONTENTIONS / Strengthen national banking and the monetary system

NEO-NATIONALISM’S PREMISES & CONTENTIONS / Strengthen national banking and the monetary system

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

 

Economic stability at all levels demands the strengthening of a national banking system, and concomitantly the strengthening of monetary system with sovereignty-backed parameters and rules. First and foremost of monetary missions is the re-assertion of the powers of the Constitution of the Republic over the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Needless to say, the country today faces a weak national bank, and necessarily a weak monetary system engendered by it. Sovereignty questions impede the effective operations of national banking in the country, as indicated by the excessive meddling of the International Monetary Fund, acting as agent of the global financial cartels, in the Bangko Sentral’s operations. The first step should be a thorough investigation by the Congress of the Republic to determine precisely who owns and controls the Bangko Sentral, and conduct related oversight functions to assess the entire consolidated assets of the said bank inclusive of unaccounted precious metals.

Should there be a need to institute maximum monetary controls, the national bank should be mandated by the Congress precisely to exercise such controls through a regime of currency controls, where found warranted. In no way should our national currency be subjected to attacks by predatory financier speculators, as what the latter have been doing from the mid-1997 onwards. Money is the lifeblood of the economy, and rendering our money under a regime of free exchange rates and free trade leaves us extremely vulnerable to the machinations of such greedy forces, further weakening our national economy. Monetary controls are the best antidotes to the ailment of a weak currency. Were it possible to revive a system of gold reserve standard, then let such a strategy be studied and enforced, to ensure stability in monetary concerns and the currency markets.

The interest rate controls should likewise continue, but the state must see to it that the rate regimes are within the bounds of sovereignty parameters, representing thereof the national interest and the subsidiary interests of the various social sectors. And, should conditions warrant, our national bank should be among the key initiators for constituting new supra-national institutions, such as an Asian Monetary Fund, thus signaling our participation in reforming the entire financial & monetary system (see below). Our involvement in an Asian Monetary Fund could be a fitful strategy to finally exit from the International Monetary Fund, further strengthening our national banking and monetary system.

 

[From: Erle Frayne D. Argonza, “New Nationalism: Grandeur and Glory at Work!”. August 2004. For the Office of External Affairs – Political Cabinet Cluster, Office of the President, Malacaňan Palace.]

EMERGING MARKETS JOCKEY FOR IMF ECHELON, FRENCH OLIGARCHIC PUPPET GETS POST

EMERGING MARKETS JOCKEY FOR IMF ECHELON, FRENCH OLIGARCHIC PUPPET GETS POST

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Emerging markets are currently contesting for top posts in the Jurassic IMF. The downfall of Strauss-Khan, former managing director of the said bank, highlighted the deep crisis that has beset the bank lately, a crisis that threatens its very own legitimacy.

My position about the IMF was clear since the middle of last decade yet: abolish the bank, and let the member nations concur a new global financial architecture. The IMF was used by Western financier oligarchs to bleed the 3rd world to bone dry misery, it is a thug bank that clobbered member nations in order to fatten the purse of select financier families, and it continues to make members such as Greece suffer via forced austerity programs.

At any rate, just recently the French finance minister, Madame Legard, was selected to replace Strauss-Khan. What do we expect, that the evil Western financiers will permit the ‘Mandingo nations’ to get that juicy post?

Below is an update from the DevEx regarding the debates and actions by member nations regarding the Jurassic thug bank.

[Philippines, 03 July 2011]

From: DevEx – http://www.devex.com
In IMF Leadership Debate, Emerging Countries Renew Push for Greater Representation in International Forums
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the world’s top emerging economies, released on Wednesday (May 25) a joint statement where they dismissed as obsolete the existing convention of naming a European to the top job at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF directors from these countries stressed that the next IMF managing director should be the best candidate chosen through a merit-based and transparent process, not on the basis of nationality.
The joint statement is the latest, and perhaps most concrete and concerted, effort by emerging countries to assert their voice at IMF. Emerging and developing countries, particularly the so-called BRICS countries, have been pushing for more representation at IMF and a chance to have a candidate from their ranks lead the organization.
This push by emerging nations for a bigger say in IMF appears to be part of a broader campaign of middle-income countries for a more prominent role in the international community. China, for instance, continues to expand its assistance program in Africa, while India, Brazil and South Africa are also positioning themselves as “alternative” sources of development finance.
This campaign is not going unnoticed. The “traditional” donors, in particular, are beginning to recognize the changing global political and financial landscape: The United Kingdom recently indicated its intention to engage with emerging nations, while the United States has already entered into several partnerships with Brazil.
In IMF itself, emerging nations have been “victorious” in having European countries agree to cede some of their seats in the fund’s executive board in their favor. This deal, sealed in October 2010, increased the emerging countries’ influence and voting power in the board, but they are still less influential than industrial countries, particularly the United States. Whether this increased clout will contribute to their campaign to end Europe’s dominance of IMF remains to be seen.

PHILIPPINE BANKS HEALTHY FOR THE BIG CHALLENGES AHEAD

PHILIPPINE BANKS HEALTHY FOR THE BIG CHALLENGES AHEAD

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to you fellow global citizens!

The world reels anarchic over the geological ramblings in Japan-New Zealand-China and the tumult of the Arab peoples. These events cast veils on the clarity of the economic boom now going on in Asia, and so let me be among those who will project the boom side every now and then. Among such good news is the readiness of Asian banks for the bigger economic battles ahead, a trend that includes the Philippines’ banks.

Do recall that the Asian financial meltdown came in ’97, triggering recessions, mass lay-offs, manufacturing slumps, and heightened poverty. The policy environment then was one of free trade in the movements of finance and money across borders, which enticed portfolio capital to swamp Asia. Regulators were therefore caught off guard by the currency attacks fomented by the Anglo-European oligarchs fronted by the Quantum Group of George Soros.

Asia’s banks, monetary authorities, and financial stakeholders all learned precious lessons from that economic catastrophe. Short of establishing capital and monetary controls (such as what Mahathir did for Malaysia), Asian banks did institute quasi-regulatory reforms such as to raise banks’ reserve requirements, mop up excess liquidities when situation demands so, and finally fix caps on the asset requirements for banks.

The reforms instituted across the last fourteen (14) years since the meltdown paid off very handsomely for the commercial and universal banks in particular, as well as for strengthening central banks. It is important to ensure stabilization mechanisms in the said banks first of all, a pattern that will snowball in the thrift banks and rural banks.

As far as the Philippine republic is concerned, the latest situational reports do indicate very clearly the compass of a healthy banking overall. Total aggregate assets of commercial & universal banks exceeded P6 Trillions, deposits breached the P2.5 Trillions, and trust funds skyrocketed to past the P4 Trillion mark. Needless to say, our banks here are prepared for the big challenges, inclusive of financing big ticket Private-Public Partnership or PPP projects.

The same banks are very much prepared too for the latest regulatory requirements imposed by the BIS or Bank for International Settlements. The BIS adjustments are actually coming late in the day, as the said bank has been too Euro-centric for a long time. Were it not for the fiasco of the USA and European banks from 2007 through 2010, the BIS couldn’t have acted appropriately.

Western banks ought to admit it that they are learning the new adjustments from their Asian counterparts. And the lessons being shared by the Asian banks are the ones being considered strongly today by the BIS itself, which as one can see has been commending Asia’s central bank bosses for jobs well done in their respective backyards.

There are more reforms that must be instituted however, which means that the earlier reforms should only be the start of a series of long-term changes in the banking and monetary systems. I subscribe to a global effort to ban banks from participating in portfolio investments so as not to repeat the catastrophe that hit certain big US banks that disappeared overnight during the height of the recent Great Recession there.

The more efficacious management of bankruptcies should also be put into order. We are right now witnessing a bank run in the Bangko Filipino, which seems to repeat old patterns. More stringent regulations ought to be put into place, as it is getting tiresome now to see bank runs every now and then.

Essential corporate governance reforms are among those that need to be accelerated in the banking and monetary systems. Bank mismanagements and hostile take-over of smaller banks by bigger ones are spooky phenomena within the banking community, which pose as challenges to regulators.

Let the banks and regulators keep tab of the gaps in the system and address them accordingly. Meantime, with a healthy banking situation now in place, banks can clearly become stakeholders in creating the boom situation in the Philippines, ASEAN, and the whole of Asia.

[Philippines, 17 March 2011]

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:
@MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com
@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com
@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

FOOD PRICES UP, SPECULATORS ATTACK ANEW!

FOOD PRICES UP, SPECULATORS ATTACK ANEW!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Winds of change are blowing hard on the granite edifices of autocratic regimes in pan-Arabia. As this is happening, financier speculators cashed in on the conflict by playing it up in the petrol spot market, thus raising oil prices to scorching heat levels. More areas of the global economy are under attack by the financier speculators, food & beverage among them.

As gas price in Manila has been rising by the week, so have the prices of food been going up. We are today on a bounty season for fruits here at the tropics—near the equator—yet such commodities’ prices are also moving up abnormally like they were in a situation of scarcity. Grains, vegetables, meat, cooking oil, and other related prime commodities have been accompanying the spurious OPH (oil price hike).

Little do common folks realize the handiwork of greedy speculators in the present inflationary patterns in food on a worldwide range. But that’s the fact, and many times before was it proved beyond doubt that greedy speculators, fronted by dirty operators, have always been busying their hands in reaping mega-profits on food commodities during times of crises.

Fact is, even when there is no crisis—such as crisis in the supply line—the speculators create the situation of crisis by hoarding millions of tons of specific commodities, e.g. rice. The instantaneous effect is the sign given off to traders in the commodities markets to play it up on the trading engagements, and elevating the emotive facet of the matter to the level of panic and near-hysteria.

Remember that time three (3) years back or so when rice suddenly began to disappear in the retail end of the market in the Philippines. There was a bounty season at that juncture, which came as a shock to me upon knowing from insiders (ground-level traders) that gargantuan hoards of rice were hidden inside many warehouses. President Arroyo then announced to the world that the PH will buy rice from overseas no matter how much the price is.

Of course, the commodities traders (speculative investors) heard the signal well. And voila! Rice prices across continents skyrocketed almost overnight! I even went on to forecast that it the near future, a cartel of sorts will be organized by certain countries to protect themselves versus the attackers. To make my hair rise on ends, hardly a day passed when I published my blog article about the forecast, certain Southeast Asian countries announced the formation precisely of such a rice cartel.

As the conflict situation in pan-Arabia boils up for some time, mark it down that the same coterie of financier speculators will keep on pursuing speculative attacks on certain prime commodities. Let’s not be surprised at all if the major staples—wheat, rice, sorghum, barley, oat, potatoes, yam—will experience inflationary upsets on the retail end over the next forty-five (45) days or so.

I have to prepare myself psychologically for the hyper-criminal speculative attacks this time. During the global rice crisis mentioned, I experienced sudden hypertension attack, as my cardiac condition quickly reacted to the rapidity of the crisis up to the pronouncement of rice cartel formation, rendering my forecasts a 100% mark hit.

So you fellow global citizens better watch out for the unfolding events, so as to prepare yourselves psychologically and financially too.

[Philippines, 08 March 2011]

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:
@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com
@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website & Mixed Blogs:
MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

OIL SPECULATORS CASH IN ON LIBYAN TURMOIL

OIL SPECULATORS CASH IN ON LIBYAN TURMOIL

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

A full-blown civil war is now brewing as I write this note. As the gloomy events unfold, greedy speculators are busy taking advantage of a conflict situation by playing it up nauseatingly on the petrol spot market. Wars and mini-hotspots surely have a way of making some greedy families make lots of money, so let me add more reflections about the Libyan hot fires’ impact on oil price.

The notorious financier speculators have been planning all along to cash in on a global conflagration that should have pitted the Sunni-Zion alliance versus Iran-led coalition. Such a planned catastrophe was suddenly derailed by the mass rousing of younger generations of Arabs who now desire for the overthrow of their respective tyrants or sovereigns.

With the world war III prospect now sorely diminished, the financiers had to find a quick fix to their addictive greed for easy profits. And that’s how their fixated eyes marveled at the conflict that suddenly unveiled in Libya which, as everybody knows, sits on huge reserves of oil from where the tyrant largely derives his income for country and family.

Nobody knows how long the conflict lasts in Libya, but it is getting clearer as of this writing that Kadhafy’s legitimacy before his own supporters is rapidly effacing. The situation is as fluid as petrol gushing out of Libya’s oil wells, so it pays to keenly observe the events on a day-to-day basis.

One thing though is certain about the conflict’s time frame: it will be short, and no protracted war will come from the forecast loser—tyrant Kadhafy and minions. So, given the short time frame, the speculators have to ride along with the waves of turmoil, and cash in quick on the hot events.

So the spot market is ablaze at this moment with a sort of hour-by-hour anaysis of the situation and superficial forecast of oil prices. Superficial, because insider trading is the in-thing among the dirty players in the same commodity market, with a coterie of financiers fronting for their invisible sponsors among the Anglo-European oligarchs. There is no science into the oil spot market, just plain mafia-type dirty speculations.

Already, retail oil prices are skyrocketing in countries that are dependent on oil imports. In the United States, oil prices get hiked on a daily basis. East Asian countries follow very closely not far behind from the USA in terms of constant rising of retail prices, or those that hurt the pockets of downstream end-users. Food prices are direly affected by the same OPH (oil price hikes), and so you could imagine the glee of another branch of the dirty speculators cashing in on the food commodities trading.

With the dizzying rapidity of the flow of conflict-induced events, we can only surmise that OPH will hover the $170-$200 per barrel of oil (‘sweet crude’ standard). As the events are happening, anti-OPH and anti-food price hikes are now raging across the globe, including the Philippines. These protest actions are complicating the mass panic that is generated by the rising prices of oil & food, with potential hysteria that could explode into food riots in the short run.

While billions of poor folks suffer from the rising prices, the greedy speculators’ pockets are satiated anew rendering them instantly happy over very fat profits. Commodities speculation is done without any compunction over their catastrophic effects on peoples, as they are done by conscienceless market players.

But never forget that the greed of the dirty speculators is insatiable, and so the said financiers’ eyes are again busy searching for some other hot fires in the event that the Libyan conflict ends soon. Those hot fires are no other than the socio-political turmoil that is now brewing across the Arab region.

[Philippines, 04 March 2011]

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:
@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com
@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website & Mixed Blogs:
MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

PHILIPPINE STOCKS @4,200+ POINTS, WILL SURGE ANEW BY 2011

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Asian bourses continue to perform excellently, and the Philippines is a contributor to this bullish trend. In the past year, there were some junctures when the bourses did dip a bit, but never too dip as not to be able to surge back ahead. The bourses reflect the optimal growth patterns in Asia and are bound to replicate the feat in 2011.

By the start of 2010, I was of the opinion that the Philippine stock exchange will trade very bullishly, that it will eventually breach the all-time best record of 3,600+ points achieved during the era of the Ramos presidency yet. True enough, it did breach the 3,600 points and ended up at 4,200+ points by end of December 2010.

To recap, 2,000 points is the bourse’s psychological break point in my beloved Philippines. Quite a barometer of the economy’s health, the stock index says that the economy here is faltering when the bourse crashes below the 2,000 point barrier and stay down there for many months. At some time in 2009, that incident happened, though fortunately for the country the stock index climbed back past the 2,000-point threshold quickly.

Being among the Asian countries that have learned to insulate themselves from global economic downturns and great recessions, the Philippines did bounce back right away and saw the index breach the 3,000-point level in the first semester of 2010. This trend alone is cause enough for great hope for the coming months and years in this country.

With ‘smart money’ leaving the North due to stagnation and recession, it wasn’t long before the Ph bourse soon felt such ‘manna from heaven’ getting invested into its stock options. With that happening, the stocks  meteorically ascended the 4,000-point level in the 2^nd semester, and was optimistically forecast to reach 4,600+ points by certain quarters.

Witnessing the pattern of periodic decreases amid a general trend of sharp climb, I did raise eyebrows over the mega-optimistic forecast. I was already happy to see the 3,600+ points breached, but a 4,600 point conclusion is far from achievable in 2010. And so, true to my intuitive forecast, it settled at 4,200+ points, or just 200+ points beyond the new barrier of 4,000 points.

As big ticket projects are now on the pipeline for negotiations and implementation soon, we can expect investments to surge upwards more sharply this 2011. This will be reinforced further by the upgrading by Moody’s of the country’s investment grade from “stable” to “positive” just as soon as the new year commenced.

An offshoot of the optimism in the investment field will be entry of more players locally to purchasing stocks in the new IPO options opened to the public. Furthermore, ‘smart money’ from overseas will inflow into the local bourse and capital markets, thus ensuring another year of surge in the stock index.

This time around, I will be among those who will accept a forecast of the Philippine bourse breaching the 4,600+ points at the end of 2011. Granted that fairness in the stock trading and surety of regulatory mechanisms will be stronger this year, the Philippine bourse will perform excellently again this year and facilely breach that new forecast level.

[Philippines, 13 January 2011]

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:

IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:

IENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com

@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website & Mixed Blogs:

MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

ASEAN BETTER LAUNCH THE ASIAN MONETARY FUND NOW!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Buoyed up by the positive economic performances and regional integration efforts of ASEAN member-states, let me ensue with the ASEAN agenda, and articulate this time the matter of the Asian Monetary Fund or AMF. What makes the urgency of constituting the AMF even more exigent is the recent pronouncement made by the Asian Development Bank or ADB about the same theme: launch the AMF now!

The idea of an Asian Monetary Fund actually began with the late strong man Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Awash with colossal hoards  of gold, Marcos vouched for the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund that shall function as monetary stabilizer, steward of an Asian currency, and financer of bold development projects.

As per note from some of his own former close supporters (they were my fellow economists in the Independent Review, c. 1998 to 2000), Marcos was very eager to back up (securitize) the Asian currency with his very own gold hoards (they amount to hundreds of trillions of US. $ today).

It was too bad that Marcos had downside images among the global financiers, who conspired behind the scenes to overthrow him. They never liked the idea of an AMF that will compete with their stooge thug bank International Monetary Fund, and they were salivating to control his gold hoards. The Trilateral Commision in fact undertook steps toward aiding the process of social turbulence to unfold in the Philippines, turbulence that eventually overthrew the dictator.

It took some time before the AMF idea would resurface. The opportunity for resurfacing came with the Asian financial meltdown of 1997. That crisis saw the region’s currencies attacked by an insidious cabal of Western oligarchic financiers fronted by George Soros, who all rested happy from their criminal currency attacks that fattened their coffers by the trillions of dollars.

Thus came the technocratic and public policy responses to the crisis of that time, with the Asian Monetary Fund idea floating to the surface as a viable option. Necessarily, the stabilization of currencies will come with the institution of an Asian currency, which came alongside the AMF idea.

It then took many years of haggling and bargaining before a continental resolution was finally signed into a sort of a memorandum of undertaking. To recall, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives (Philippines), Hon. De Venecia, took much pains to legwork Asian leaders into finally signing the concordat and presenting the same to the Philippine state leaders for immediate action after accomplishing his mission.

This time around, it is the Asian Development Bank that has taken the cudgels for pushing for the urgent institution of the AMF. As articulated in a previous article, the ADB is among the continental institutions that can aid in launching an ASEAN central bank (circa 2015) as well as an Asian Monetary Fund.

Since the ASEAN is the most actively engaged regional formation among Asians, it is the most logical body that can facilitate the launching of the AMF. Its country members could easily role play the core membership of the AMF, with the quid pro quo that the latter will aid ASEAN in forming its regional central bank comes 2015.

As early as the late 90s yet, this analyst was very highly supportive of the institution of an AMF and Asian currency. The launching of the currency alone will catalyze the stabilization of monetary-fiscal environments, and can even out the very uneven cost of living situations across countries.

AMF would surely be of great help to insulating Asia’s emerging markets versus the destructive undercurrents of the economic crises of North America, Europe, and Japan. It can likewise aid enormously in regional trading efforts, precisely by securitizing and/of directly financing the pioneering and expansion efforts of exporters.

I would, however, add a caveat to the AMF’s formation: securitize the operations via a gold reserve standard or equivalent. The eradication of the gold standard in 1971 is among the factors behind monetary-financial instabilities and emergence of criminal financial predators over the last four (4) decades, predators that were responsible for de-industrialization, agricultural decay, and economic decline altogether.

The launching of the AMF shouldn’t be delayed a day longer. The global economic roof is collapsing due to the structural defects of the northern economies, and so as a measure of mitigation the region’s own economies be insulated from that crash through launching of the AMF, buffering financial collapse via collective money reserves for contingency uses, and instituting the Asian currency very soon.

To re-echo the theme: there is no better time to constitute the AMF than now. Act now, before it is too late!

[Philippines, 17 November 2010] 

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

EURO-AMERICAN BANKRUPT COMPANIES ARE LEPERS, ASIANS BE WARY!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Leper Companies, Inc. could very well describe the so many huge corporate entities in the West that are now expectantly waiting for some investors to breath fresh life into them. The compass of that search points to Asia as the source of the badly needed ‘smart money’.

What a mess indeed had Western economies turned into, as their respective enterprises have been crashing to bankruptcy levels after liberal policies have become granite rock in them since the Thatcher-Reagan era. De-industrialization, massive loss of jobs, and measly investments in S&T have made elephants out of huge companies such as the once mighty Bethlehem Steel.

“Bankruptcy! Bankruptcy!” would be an apt line in a classic opera production in New York and London, save that even classic opera groups of the West might even go the bankruptcy route. From manufacturing to culture industry, inclusive of Hollywood stalwarts, Western companies are going down the drain one after the other.

Insatiably greedy financiers are of course waiting in the wings to dip their hands into those crashing industries, waiting for the moment to buy them at dirt cheap prices. They did that after the 2^nd world war, a war that the global oligarchy created, when they bought so many European factories at rummage sale. Their war chest had been reinforced by slash funds past $3 Trillions circa 2007 yet, so they’re ready for the ‘ukay-ukay’ transactions any time (‘ukay-ukay’ is Filipino term for re-sale of used clothes at cheap dirt prices).

The same financier oligarchs did the rummage buying spree on former Soviet bloc economies’ flattened factories groups, with mafia groups joining the fray for purchase of the rummage sales. At one instance in the early 90s, Russia’s mafia groups owned and controlled 80% of the rummage industries, thus prompting patriotic KGB chekka to replace then incumbent president Yeltsin, a puppet of the financier oligarchs, with Putin.

Asia has been the undisputed driver of the global economy more so when both USA and Europe began burning economically as early as 2007. Logically, the compass of SOS for fresh investments and loans would be Asia notably the China-Korea-ASEAN-India corridor.

The involvement of the Indian group Mittal in purchasing Alcelor of Europe is classic case of Asian buys. Bookkeeping accounts seemed to have served Mittal right then, with the merger not exactly draining down the stock value of Mittal in the bourses. Mittal-Alcelor came to be born as the largest steel producer, churning out a total volume of 100 tons of steel every year (toppling Korea’s POSCO as top producer).

That was then. The times have quite changed in an era when changes happen so rapidly. Western enterprises, notably those of the USA’s and EU’s, are magnets for perceptions of being leper corporations. Getting associated with them could burn down an Asian company’s own par value, and whether the trend could be reversible is something that is tantamount to launching a Herculean PR campaign to reduce negative perceptions owing to buy-ins/mergers.

Enormous window dressings have to be applied to the accounts of the leper companies too so as to sweeten their toxically sour values and make them more palatable to Asian investors. Whether Asia’s negotiating agents are naïve to the window dressings is something worth researching.

Caucasians still have that perception—conscious and/or unconscious—of Asians as “monkeys with no tails” (subhumans) who can be lured into traps without the latter noticing it. Western financier oligarchs led by the likes of the UK-Netherlands royal houses and Rothschild empire will brook no quarters in condescending on Asians who they regard as cattle or eaters worth controlling, subordinating as Mandingos, and short-changing in business transactions.

Such a perception hasn’t changed. Look at how the Indian executives of Mittal et al are perceived in Europe today not just by the oligarchs but by the White executives in their payroll. Why don’t you examine case studies in Western business schools and find out for yourself whether Asian groups are worth studying at all in the West. It’s the same old Victorian perception of racial hubris and arrogance at work!

That may just be what western ‘corporate social responsibility’ is all about: to continue derisively condescending at former Asian colonies by dangling carrots to poor communities in Asian backyards. In exchange, Asian ‘smart money’ moves to the West to ensure that leper companies keep on churning out more funds, with 1% of the profits later to allocated for ‘corporate social responsibility’.

Is that what we can regard as an impeccable fair exchange?

[Philippines, 13 August 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

USA’S LEADERSHIP HAD EVAPORATED, WHY OUGHT STOCK MARKETS FOLLOW?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day fellow global citizens!

It’s late afternoon here in the Philippines, daylight is still around though quite faded a bit. The time of the day seems to be delivering the message that there is still some light in the global economy, and that is a feel-good ambience.

Light there may be for the global economy, but that light no longer comes from the Western economies. Definitely no longer from the once mighty ‘economic superpower’ USA that had lost the leadership leverage this decade when it suffered two (2) successive recessions within a short span.

I’ve already treated the matter of declining Western techno-economic power and hegemony over the rest of the globe in many articles. There is hardly any serious, highly-informed analyst in the world today who doesn’t share the same view, a view that Western (Caucasian) social forecasters do likewise hold even as they forewarned the West of the catastrophes that will confront them.

Stock markets across the globe, however, just couldn’t adjust to the new reality soon enough. They still behave like old hush puppies that look up to Wall Street for precedence in setting the trends of local bourses. That renders the local bourses as laughing stock dinosaurs that need to retool quickly, and the quickest that such retooling will be translated into practice, the better will it be for their respective stock trades and financial-monetary markets.

To reminisce a bit, America was the unchallenged global leader after World War II as it contributed 40% to the Gross World Product or GWP. Its European & Japan partners contributed another 20% to GWP, so that empowered the USA & partners’ (OECD) 60% contribution to GWP to exercise hegemony in all regions of the planet.

Today, the economic landscape had entirely changed. The USA’s $13+ Trillion GDP is down 22% of world income, while the entire EU’s $13+ Trillion is another 22%. EU + USA/Canada + Japan put together couldn’t even amount to 50% of Gross World Product, so the old partners may just have to metamorphose out of their old identities and retool quickly. They no longer hold the planet’s collective purse and should desist from bullying other nations with their economic clout that is pathetically a non-clout today.

Herd behavior, of course, is the least that we can make of the behavior of plummeting bourses. “Follow the leader” mindset of cave dwellers is still in, a mindset that is a messy sticking point for retooling purposes.

Why should local bourses refuse to see the new reality and dis-engage from the antiquated herd instinct? After all, stock markets are the exclusive games of the big corporate boys and consummate traders who have been addicted to the casino economy of antiquity. They hardly matter for the real economy sectors, such as those of Asia’s that have effectively built firewalls between the real economy and casino stock markets.

If to serve a bit of relevance to domestic growth at all, local bourses ought to look at the health of their own domestic physical economies and financial-monetary wellness.

Take a look at East Asia. The region has been driving the global economy beyond doubt, its average investments and savings rates are high, gross international reserves are equally high, and the physical economy as a whole has shown the way to high value-added production. Stock markets should better follow the lead of the healthy conditions of their domestic economies rather than look up to an offshore global leader that is now a chimera.

Or, if they can’t resist looking at offshore patterns, then they should look at their very own regional backyards for such models. Regional integration has been the strategy of the day, so why get fixated to a dinosaur fiction (USA as leader) when there are regional economic patterns that can show the lead.

USA’s lead will never ever return, this is a foregone conclusion. And Europe ought to rethink its integration efforts, as the Eurozone is now hotly burning, so Europe better not behave like a global hero that can  fill up the vacuum left by the USA. A continent that is perennially flat on its back and is now burning in financial-monetary flames can never fill up such a vacuum.

As already articulated by me in previous articles, the Western markets will decline progressively across time. Consumption from 2007 through 2015 will decline by as much as 30% of their pre-recession levels. In contrast, Asia’s consumption will more than double during the same period, thus rendering Asia the unquestioned driver of the global economy in terms of (a) technological cutting edge, (b) production levels of the real economy, and (c) consumption levels.

In closing, just like the pattern for mega-cities where no one mega-city can be considered a global center today, so is it with national economies. Economic leadership has already been de-centered, global hegemony had been erased, and there can only be inter-dependence between markets as the most viable option. That interdependence should find translations in the bourses and currency markets.

[Philippines, 13 August 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

EURO-OLIGARCHS’ SLASH FUNDS AWASH AMID EU’S BANKRUPTCY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good evening from the Philippine suburbs!

I wish Europeans could find sufficient reason to brighten themselves up these days. Maybe the northern Europeans can still find some reason to smile in the light of welfare state graces still flowing to their pockets, while those of southern Europe’s are grilling in the heat of a continent burning in economic firestorm.

Europe is rapidly going down the route of bankruptcy as shown by the panic behavior of its Brussels-based central bank as well as the respective member-states’ own central banks. Whatever the serial bankruptcy could forebode, the Europeans better prepare for the worst scenario.

Economic intelligence updates report that only the IMF and USA are infusing some fresh monies unto the European coffers. The problem is that the IMF is itself running out of funds soon, and so it may decide to   probably print money that it just puzzlingly couldn’t securitize enough (does IMF possess gold bullions to back up those monies in case?).

As to the USA providing fresh cash to Europe, we concerned observers are simply befuddled about. The USA was bankrupt even before Obama became president, a fact that amplifies our own confusion about where does the USA source such funds and how will it securitize them in case of its aiding of a burning Europe.

It seems that coteries of Nero officials were designated as chief execs and technocrats in the entire continent plus the UK & Ireland, Neros who fiddled in their palatial roofs while their respective countries burned. I wish the likes of Brown, Merker, Sarkozy, and Barroso could convince me that they are not some Nero clones who collectively did burn their own continent at the behest of the financiers. [Cameron replaced Brown recently, performing a “too late the hero” act.]

Now, just to remind the readers more so the Europeans, around a couple of years back, when the USA was in the midst of its ‘great recession’, the greedy Anglo-European financiers reportedly stashed a staggering $3 Trillions worth of slash funds in the big financial houses of the continent itself. That was then, it’s now 2010 and the slash funds may have grown to at least 33% its original size.

A very suspicious act for sure, as it reveals a highly privileged class that operates outside the ambit of established rules in the continent. Just exactly what are those funds intended for, we can only speculate. The greedy financiers know about a coming turbulence that will engulf the entire trans-Atlantic economies most likely, and they were preparing for the worst scenario.

The worst scenario is now taking shape, the scenario of total bankruptcy and the Eurozone’s economic roof collapsing. The Jurassic bank IMF was already called upon to intervene with emergency measures for central banks to stash hundreds of billions of euros to salve ailing banks, while it imposed austerity measures on heavily affected countries such as Greece.

To say that the financiers are but passive observers of events would be over-stretching naïve posturing bordering torpor. The greedy financiers led by the House of Rothschild and its subordinate subalterns (Soros & cronies) have been orchestrating the events in the continent, even as they were responsible for directing the pliant IMF to enter the scene in order to hasten anarchy and economic collapse.

Europe’s member states could all but wish for some more industries that could be sold to the financiers who wait in the wings for more bankrupt companies to be sold at cheap dirt prices. Europe has already been effectively de-industrialized across the decades via virtual economy policies of deregulation, privatization, and liberalization, so there isn’t much an industry left for such a purpose.

Maybe the last frontier of Europe to generate money is to sell all of its major infrastructures—freeways & roads, bridges, levees, wharves, airports/runways, railways—to the financiers via their agents. Netherlands’ flood control infrastructures, for instance, would surely be cause for salivation by the same greedy moneybags which they can perhaps maneuver to buy at rummage sale.

Concerned Europeans themselves should keep watch over the reports filtering to the OECD and Bank for International Settlements about the country performance of EU’s member states. Panic and desperation, at a given juncture, is sufficient cause to pad data, rendering such central institutions as unreliable and suspect. When an economic house burns, a central bank would casually resort to lying such as our own central bank in the Philippines did during the depression years of ‘84-‘86.

Likewise should the Europeans, more so the working class, better keep track of oligarchic slash funds being stashed surreptitiously in their own backyard. Such funds should be allowed to surface and be applied with transparency rules to know what they are intended for.

[Philippines, 31 July 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

ISLAMIC BANKING RECONSTRUCTED

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 Islamic banking is part of the totality of ‘best practices’ that originated from Asia. Being among the strong proponents of the ‘Asian way’ as the way out of our capitalist economic malaise and crises of our times, I’d share my own notes of hallelujah to Islamic banking.

I am among those development practitioners and social scientists who propose that let’s all undertake a review of Islamic banking. This banking practice is based on zero-interest banking. The challenge is for us to reconstruct the practice to suit the current context of  information society. 

Usury is among the proscriptions of spiritual masters and sages of the East. It is within the context of a non-usurious finance, embedded in spiritually-guided livelihood practices, that Islamic banking emerged in Western Asia. 

Zero-interest financing contributed immensely to accumulating wealth for the Asiatic polities that engaged in them in antiquity. The same wealth was utilized for social services, ambitious projects, building cities, and advancing the arts, sciences, and philosophy. 

Usury is alien to Asia, even as its massive introduction to the continent brought untold miseries to the marginal folks. It had also tied up Asian economies in debt peonage to the financial cartels of the West and their local banking/financial partners. 

Before the Asian economies, notably the emerging markets, will go down the drain and lose their growth gains due to usury and predatory finance, their own stakeholders should rethink their borrowed paradigms. They better review those golden Asiatic economic principles taught by spiritual masters, and make ways to re-carve their financial systems following such principles. 

Asia is indubitably the driver of the global economy today. It is time for Asia to set the trends by beginning with new financial paradigm such as the one offered by Islamic banking. 

[Philippines, 07 June 2010] 

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com,

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

BAILING OUT AILING BANKS IS IMMORAL/CRIMINAL

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good afternoon, fellows!

Bailing out ailing banks with people’s money (taxes) is immoral and criminal. I have already stated this contention in previous articles, and I’d re-echo it again in light of the financial fiasco going on in Europe right now.

We’ve had more than enough bad experiences in past crises that point out to massive speculative engagements by banks that have contributed to economic downturns and crash. Japan started the ball rolling by salving big banks with taxpayers’ money in the 1990s, and this practice is awefully wrong and immoral.

Fast forward to the year 2007, when we saw big banks implode as the bubble economy of the USA burst. The same ‘Japanese solution’ at salving ailing banks with taxpayers’ money was again repeated, this time in the USA.

Taxpayers’ money is hard earned revenue for the state for purposes of advancing the general welfare. The priorities for revenues should be infrastructures, social services, pump priming, and ensuring ‘safety nets’ for the marginal classes and groups against the impacts of financial volatilities on the productive sectors.

The solution to ailing banks lies in strengthening regulatory mechanisms. The first agenda on the line is to ban banks from engaging in speculative engagements notably those hedge funds operations. Another agenda is to institute good corporate governance and instilling public accountability by the banking sector.

Bailing out ailing banks in Europe, through taxpayers’ money, can only mitigate the systemic crisis for a while. Also, it will push more folks down grinding poverty due to austerity measures. It is part of the ‘rule of madness’ that now governs ‘late’ capitalism as a whole.

[Philippines, 07 June 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

‘LATE’ CAPITALISM CRASHING DOWN ITS DEATH BED

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good evening!

The events in the Eurozone are now getting to be more alarming. Forecasters are now claiming that another round of recession is in the offing, as the bubble burst that began in Greece will spread to Spain, Ireland, and other member-states of the EU.

Will liberal capitalism continue to live a life that seems to hang in the balance? Or will capitalism need to restore itself through totalitarian means? What’s so wrong with the system that it just can’t be sustained enough?

Let me share to you past blog writings about the subject: ‘mad economics’ and the ‘demise of liberal capitalism.’

[Philippines, 23 May 2010]

‘LATE’ CAPITALISM ENDS IN CRASHING BLOW POST-‘MAD ECONOMICS’

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good afternoon!

At this moment, I’m sipping coffee contained in a pack that is sold for worth P130, or $3.00. The pack is one of the domestic brands of brewed coffee blends, ready for the drip coffee maker, of the Arabica and/or Robusta varieties. In economic parlance, this coffee is a commodity because (a) it was intended for exchange and not for the coffee producer’s consumption alone, and (b) money was used to acquire (purchase) it.

I have such deep fondness for coffee, as I acquired my coffee-drinking behavior as a childhood habit yet. In my hometown of Tuguegarao (city), Cagayan province (North Philippines), coffee beans were grounded into powder form and sold right inside the ‘wet’ market, was brewed using the local decoction techniques, and was consumed by people of all ages from pre-school to senior’s age. That was then, and that was how I learned to drink this beverage at age 5 more or less. I was hooked to the habit since then, even as I continued to drink milk that I still do till now.
Both coffee and milk are among my health formulas, and both are commodities.

The question I’m asking now is, will commodity-based economics survive the times ahead? Both coffee and milk will survive for sure, but will the money economy that underpins them survive as well? As to the broader world system of capitalism, will it survive too or is it in fact on its death knell today?

Capitalism was the last of the world systems that embodied the ‘money economy’ to which it properly belongs. With the opening of the 20th century, the socialist world system appeared on the social landscape and attempted to serve as an alternative to capitalism, but this experienced its early demise as its implementers found out that it cannot be sustained after all. Both capitalism and socialism are embodiments of the ‘money economy’ as it later turned out to be, they are just but two sides of the same coin: the ‘money economy’.

Socialism is gone, and no matter what attempts there may arrive to survive it in some other forms, this variant of the ‘money economy’ is gone. Now capitalism is all alone, and it is getting more real than virtual that it too is bound to crash a catastrophic end, and with its demise, the “last of the (economic) Mojicans” is bound to disappear (my apologies to Mojicans if my note sounds ethnically incorrect). And with capitalism’s demise, the whole of the ‘money economy’ folds up like unto a book that had reached its last chapter, and deserves more to be consigned to the archives of history.

The Frankfurt school thinkers, notably Jurgen Habermas, cogitated that capitalism’s life span was extended somehow, and was dubbed as ‘late’ capitalism in this last phase of the world system. In this phase, state planning and interventionism were infused into the system to extend its life. Before ‘late’ capital came the mercantile, free enterprise, and monopoly phases of this world system. Will there be another phase to capitalism after ‘late’ capital?

Before I answer that extension of life span, let me stress that ‘late’ capitalism shall end in the following process and manner:

· The re-introduction of liberalization—of free market and free trade principles—into ‘late’ capital shifted engagements away from production, the real foundation of the economy, to the sphere of predatory finance, thus producing the gargantuan ‘bubble economy’. The ‘physical economy’ of production transmogrified into the ‘virtual economy’ that produces no real value other than imaginary or delusional values. It is ‘mad economics’ in operation, no longer the ‘rational economics’ of mercantilists, classicists and neo-classicists.

· The ‘mad economics’ led to the yawning gap between actually produced values and the aggregates of financial derivatives and debts combined, to the extent that the former shrinks at a rapid rate relative to the latter. As bubbles burst from one commodity sector to another, leading eventually to a crisis of gargantuan proportion, all the more will production shrink, unable to produce values that can input into the demand functions for fresh money to pay for aggregate credits, primary debts, secondary debt obligations, and so on.

· The crisis will then move on to the further shrinking of production, tightening of credit sources, and hyperinflationary situation in utilities (notably gas & power), food, base metals and other vital commodities. Total economic collapse results from the foregoing.

· The economic collapse then leads to social unrests, turmoil, upheavals, civil wars, food wars, water wars, and possibly intercontinental wars such as another 3rd world war. The clash of world powers and their surrogate emerging markets will become the flames of a possible long war akin to the 30 Years War (c.1618-48).

Let me now end at that instance. Suffice me to proclaim that the death knell of ‘late’ capitalism and the whole of the ‘money economy’ of the last 2000 years or so are ending. The ‘non-cognitive economics’ of the Roman to feudal era, the ‘rational economics’ of the Renaissance to monopoly capital era, and the ‘mad economics’ of ‘late’ capital were markedly the underpinning mediation processes of that entire 2000-year epoch. The epoch and its last phase of capitalism is rapidly drawing to a close.

[Writ 22 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

CAPITALISM’S DEMISE: WHAT WENT WRONG?

Erle Frayne Argonza

To all fellow men and women out there who may have deep fondness for the liberal capitalist model of economic adaptation, I hope that you can make some adjustments in your cognitive banks. Capitalism is not a permanent facet of human life, but merely one among various epochs that will come to pass. Only impermanence is sacrosanct in the cosmos, so please refrain from singing hallelujah to a world system that is on its death knell as I articulated in a previous article.

And please refrain from swallowing hook-line-&-sinker the contentious propaganda of Francis Fukuyama about the ‘end of history’, that accordingly history had concluded with the galvanization of liberal capitalism, that history makes no more sense. Fukuyama’s theory is a slapstick narrative of hyper-valuation of the ‘mad economics’ of late capitalism and hypo-statization of reality that has no relation at all to the real in the world out there. Fukuyama had taken as ‘real’ what is actually ‘virtual’, and froze time much like unto a fairy tale of timelessness, of history-less Nietzschean moment that is fit more for infants than for adult humans.

Fukuyama epitomizes the ‘mad economics’ of all those Pied Pipers of the global oligarchy for whom he works, and his discourse is akin to the ‘mad discourse’ so described by the late Michel Foucault. The ‘mad economics’ of Friedman, Hayek, Fukuyama, and all those technocrats who serve as processors and bagmen for the global oligarchy, is precisely symptomatic of that colossal ailment of a world system, and as we all know, madness can never salve ailments but rather hasten the system’s death. Caput! Blow your horns, prepare dirges to this Dead One!

Unless that you yourselves have become maddened by the seemingly infinite monies flowing unto your purses as you are among the beneficiaries of ‘late’ capital, unless that you are indeed now suffering from combined maladies of sociopathy and schizophrenia, unless that sanity had departed from thee forever, please heed the last plea of your own conscience where sanity had retreated: CAPITALISM IS DEAD! No amount of propagandizing, of contorted interpretations, can ever change the course of history at this juncture, as we are all headed for a TOTAL SYSTEM COLLAPSE in the months ahead. Read that please: MONTHS AHEAD, not years ahead.

What went wrong with capitalism? I’m sure all of you fellows knew what went wrong, do I even need to answer that? Your previous thinker mentors, among economists and sociologists, forewarned you all of the forthcoming demise of capitalism, but you paid nary an attention to those brilliant minds as you were so engrossed in your ‘conspicuous consumption’, behaving more like some infantile EATERS or as anthropoids rather than as thinking and spiritually evolving humans. You are all very much human, so please consistently behave like one, and begin by listening to the Inner Voice of your conscience, for that voice is your soul’s.

Let me summarize the diagnostics, forewarnings and/or prophecies of our thinker mentors from the West, and I’d stress WEST because there are some other thinker mentors from the EAST and SOUTH whose peregrinations are so recondite they are not so easily digestible. Let me just stress the WEST as this is what is common to us all. So let me re-echo the thinkers and their theories:

· Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: The internal contradictions between the private nature of capital (ownership of means of production) and the social nature of production. The ‘crisis of overproduction’ and the ‘law of the falling rate of profit’ are attendant patterns. Social revolution results, then the alternative society will be constructed.

· Max Weber: Industrial capitalism’s granite product, the bureaucracy, led to dehumanization. He never forecast though whether this dehumanizing system can be sustained—but please read between the lines. (His contemporary Emile Durkheim had a similar observation about ‘anomie’ or normless state of urban/industrial society.)

· Thorsten Veblen: The end-phase of industrial capitalism is markedly pathological. ‘Conspicuous consumption’ is the disease of this phase, the toxic behavior from the ruling class that later filtered down to the emerging middle class.

· Joseph Schumpeter: The internal contradiction between the desire for profit and the revolutionary character of innovation. The demise of capitalism will see the possibility of the technical class taking over society and build that alternative system later.

· Daniel Bell: The ‘post-industrial’ society had already been born right inside capitalism. A distinct modality in itself, post-industrialism will eventually prevail in a system that isn’t capitalist (or money economy) but rather knowledge-based. The ‘service worker’ had arrived on the social landscape, the prototype class of the future.

· Theodore Adorno, Jurgen Habermas, Herbert Marcuse: ‘Late’ capital is characterized by the pervasiveness of ‘instrumental reason’, where reason is used to justify the non-rational (‘madness’ in Foucault’s argot), where state planning/intervention was infused into a system that scorned intervention.

· Alvin Toffler: Both capitalism and socialism are based on hoarding, both are variants of the same industrial society of yesteryears, both are based on ‘2nd wave’ capital-intensive technologies and non-renewable energy sources. The ‘post-industrial’ society is altogether distinct, isn’t based on hoarding, production-consumption (‘prosumer’) is based on ‘3rd wave’ knowledge-intensive technologies and renewable energy sources, knowledge cannot be hoarded.

I need not articulate further, do I? They all converged on one theme: capitalism is transitory, it bred social maladies (alienation, dehumanization, anomie, conspicuous consumption,…), is systemically flawed, and will be dismantled at sometime in the future.

No matter how delimited their theories maybe, as they all proceeded from certain perspectives (they were all ‘paradigm’-based in the jargon of Thomas Kuhn), they all proclaimed—in either tacit or explicit fashion—the coming demise of the system. They weren’t as silly as Fukuyama who popularized seemingly ‘satanic verses’ (distorted precepts) about a non-changing, permanent economic landscape called ‘liberal capitalism’, but were rather so adroit at social forecasting that they saw a vision of the future as they were articulating on their empirical observations of the present society.

So, fellows out there, prepare for the months and years ahead. We are headed towards those stormy months, years, maybe even decades. How the future society will come to shape is not easy to forecast. “Something blurs the Force, darkens our sight of the future,” declared a Jedi Master in the Star Wars cinema fame. Let me end right here.

[Writ 22 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

EUROZONE’S BURNING, CONVENE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CONFERENCE!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi! Good evening!

Eurozone is burning. Before the flames would reach infernal levels, the contagion effects thereof burning the other regions of the globe, a global financial conference should be convened most urgently.

The purpose of the conference would be to configure a new financial architecture. Such a policy architecture would then as guidepost to all nation-states and regional alliances (EU, trade regimes such as ASEAN, NAFTA, Mercosur, others) to follow.

In the absence of such a policy architecture, palliatives can only emerge from the board rooms of incompetent bureaucrats. Among such palliatives now arising are: (a) Merkel’s solution to regulate hedge funds operations (financial derivatives); and, (b) Obama & US Congress’ regulations of speculative excesses of its stock markets.

Such palliatives are merely piecemeal solutions, even as they are too partial and parochial. They weren’t derived from a comprehensive paradigm that could have generated clear explications of the financial/economic crises of our times. They are reactive rather than responsive. Absent a policy architecture, and the piecemeal solutions will only have short-run impacts, and will be folded up when “things will get better.”

The top agenda that must be taken up are:

1. Criminalize speculative excesses. Speculation has fueled bubble economies worldwide. Financial predators have emerged from the oligarchic quarters up North, who have played havoc on the equities and currency markets. If it will turn out beneficial to ban and criminalize hedge funds operations later, then so be it. Such vulture funds have no place in a civilized world where we witness poverty and hunger rising.
2. Tobin Tax cross-border transactions. In no way should unbridled cross-border transactions be allowed without taxation. A minimum Tobin Tax of 0.75% on all such transactions should be imposed. Higher tax on derivatives and commodities futures of 1.5% can also be agreed upon. The accruing tax revenues will then be turned over to the United Nations and attached agencies for their operations & maintenance budgets.
3. Condone fraudulent/usurious debts. Debts that are fraudulent or too usurious, notably those lent to developing economies, should be completely condoned. The same economies can then have a fresh start and breathing space for anti-poverty, jobs, and related social development efforts.
4. Abolish the Jurassic Fund (IMF). It is now time to re-assess the International Monetary Fund, leading to its abolition. It does not represent the interest of the member-states, but is rather a middle man peddling the interests of global financial cartels. Its top executives come from the ranks of the same cartels. It had imposed austerity measures on many developing economies, causing more hunger, poverty, low wages, and unemployment. This Jurassic Fund (to borrow from Walden Bello) must go!
5. Identify financial ‘White knights’. Authentic financial ‘white knights’ from among the emerging markets should be properly identified and urged to expand their operations. These financial groups can offer long-term financing at very low interest rates. The end-users should be authentic market players that are engaged in the productive sectors, which will end the practice of ‘white knight’ financing (such as the Yen Initiative Package) that lent money to financial cartels which in turn re-lent them at higher interest rates.
6. Ban banks from speculative pursuits. Commercial banks and development banks, or all banks for that matter, must be banned from engaging in speculative pursuits such as hedge funds, commodities, and ‘hot money’ operations. Banks must service the productive sectors and must infuse moral philosophy in their organizational cultures.
7. Abolish stock markets. Stock markets have never been instruments for wealth redistribution. They are filled with dirty operators. It’s now time to abolish them. In their stead should be instituted a direct link between investors and market players in need of fresh money, thus abolishing the stock trader as ‘middleman’. Reforming the stock markets isn’t the answer, but rather their abolition.
8. Institute gold reserve standard. The gold standard of the past was abolished, in order that gold be hoarded by a few cartels up North. It is time to institute a new form of gold standard serving as stabilizer and securitization instrument for currencies. The standard will eventually lead to a re-institution of currency control policy which redounds to a more stable global economy in the long run.

Let it be reiterated, that should the present situation be allowed to go on, with piecemeal parochial solutions carved out at best, a bigger global catastrophe will be in the offing. A more colossal nightmare is now unfolding, which we hope the Northern countries’ incompetent bureaucrats can see at all.

[22 May 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com,

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]