EUROZONE’S BURNING, CONVENE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CONFERENCE!

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:

• 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.

• 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.

 

• 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.

• 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!

 

• 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.

• 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.

 

• 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.

 

• 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]

MY MOTHER’S NOBILITY BLOODLINE: MARCOS, BRUNEI KINGSHIP, MAJAPAHIT EMPEROR

MY MOTHER’S NOBILITY BLOODLINE: MARCOS, BRUNEI KINGSHIP, MAJAPAHIT EMPEROR

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

My Noble Pedigrees: Maternal & Paternal

 

This note concerns my bloodlines, which, to my own amusement, traces to ancient noble pedigrees, both on my maternal and paternal lineages. That I was birthed by parents who are both of noble roots is surely privilege enough, as the DNA (genetic) of ancient nobles –notably (a) Kingship and (b) Priestly classes—is of such profound construct, rendering it as one deep enigmatic mystery of antiquity that is being unlocked only in recent times.

 

My parents—Steve Narag Argonza and Felisha Nonesa Delago—were sired by mothers who are of noble pedigrees: my father Steve, from his maternal Narag lineage; and, my mother Felisha, from her maternal mother’s Nalundasan y Marcos lineage. I will focus this article on my maternal line [my father’s lineage will be treated in a separate article].

Oral tradition plus historical studies were the basis for me to infer conclusions about such bloodlines. That is, I based my conclusions on secondary information + anecdotal accounts, given the lack of financial resources on my family’s part to launch a thorough biographical research on the subject. It takes at least P2 Million to conduct a genealogical research with 6 months time frame today, or P4 Millions for both lineages, with the results published as quality books, an amount for an agenda that no one in my family could think about (Filipinos aren’t accustomed to spending for genealogy research).

Nalundasan y Marcos: Root of my Mother’s Grandmother Angela

 

My mother Felisha (she used Felisa in the 20^th century) is among children of Soledad Nalundasan Nonesa and Leopoldo Delago. The Nalundasans and Nonesas are from Ilocandia, while the Delagos are from the Central Visayas.

As per anecdote of my maternal kins (notably the Ilocos-based), my maternal grandmother Soledad was mothered by Angela Nalundasan y Marcos. She is a sibling of the late Julio Nalundasan y Marcos, gentry and politician, who was for some time a legislator in the Commonwealth Era Congress. As to how many siblings were the total, no data came my way. The knowledge bucket ends with the sibs—Angela and Julio—with no oral legacy about who were their parents, sibs, and related roots.

Tragedy marked the situation for the Nalundasan family, as Don Julio chose to slug it out with his 1^st cousin, Don Mariano Marcos, for the bailiwick of Ilocos Norte. Based in Batac town, the two gentry (i.e. Big Landowners) competed for the congressional seat at one juncture, whereby Don Mariano lost to Don Julio. That Nalundasan poll victory ignited a chain of events that saw Don Mariano’s brilliant son Ferdinand land in jail, blamed as he was for the assassination of Don Julio.

It was a double tragedy for my great grandmother Angela, as she chose to marry a commoner on top of the trauma of her brother Julio’s gory death due to political violence. The members of the Gentry class, to recall our history, comprised the nucleus of power that came from the Encomienda (Spanish era) who, prior to American occupation, comprised the exclusive Principalia town leaders of old. From ancient nobility were they rooted, and the Nobility held the protocol for marrying a member only to a member of another Noble family, or later of Gentry family. Strict adherence to such protocol was observed, which led any wayward member, more so a young woman, to lose her (a) inheritance of property, (b) expansive good breeding & High Culture, and (c) access to corridors of power and circles of esteemed friends and fellows.

Being a male-centered society, the mainstream Ilocandia gentry ensured that family authority, possessions and their dispositions were passed on to a male scion, notably the eldest male. Incidentally, no anecdotal data came my way as to whether Don Julio is the eldest scion, but one thing is sure: Angela is female, under-privileged as gender, and married to a commoner, or behaved contrary to the protocols of the class to which she belonged to. Not only did she lose a conferred title as Doña, all privileges to possessions, accessions, and esteem she likewise lost.

Royal/Priestly and Commoner DNA’s Differences, Curse of Breaking Protocol

 

As per my own deep studies into the ancient mysteries, the Benign Creators of ancient humanity ensured that the general population possess only a 2-strand DNA to delimit access to higher Divine connections and endowments. Such was truism for the folks or commoners, who were largely evolutionary Laggards, unfit to rule and make wise judgement for the common welfare. Save only for two classes, the Kingly and Priestly classes, whose DNAs went beyond 2 strands, the extra (out of a total of 12 human DNA strands) enabling them to connect to higher reality dimensions for greater knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration needed to perform their duties, for indeed great responsibility went along with rulership and administration of a realm.  

That was the reason behind the Caste System of antiquity: avoid the dilution of genetic structures, by dis-allowing any member of the noble Kingly and Priestly families to marry with the commoners. With the conditions set for good breeding and culture, the souls of persons with gifts for leadership, wisdom, intellect, and philanthropy embodied accordingly among the nobles. Neither should those from Kingly (Royal) family marry those from a Priestly family, as each class has certain special roles to perform and are of distinct temper meant only for their class. Yet in the conduct of affairs for the commoners, both King and Priest collaborated, for the good of all.

Breakage of the protocols of conduct by any young member of the nobility does not only mean a lost of access to properties, power, and esteem. Often than not, the aggrieved family plants curses on the betraying youngling, with the negative energy (‘jinx’) sufficient to bind the wayward and offsprings to existential misery till up through the seventh (7^th) generation thereafter. One cost of the betrayal is marring of offsprings’ genetic stream, rendering the Nobility traits recessive thus, and the birthing of simpletons, morons, abnormals, or persons whose later mediocrity would invite defamation more than esteem from the community and locality.

The offsprings who bear the Nobility DNA will hardly feel the special impact of such a treasure, as the special genes remain dormant. Not until a later descendant would, upon maturation, unintentionally marry a person who bears a similar Nobility DNA pool within. The long dormant recessive traits would then waken up, and serve as beacons to Higher Dimension Beings to birth children with artistic and luminary talents accorded a person who will be a future Civilization-Builder, or at the minimum, an Achiever worth the esteem of peers and community.

Marcoses Trace to Brunei Kingship and Majapahit Emperor, Gold Treasures Top!

It was during my studies about the Majapahit Empire and the vast treasures of the region that I stumbled upon knowledge of the gold of the Marcos family. Along the way did I discover that the Marcoses of Ilocos do trace descent from the ancient Brunei kingship. In turn, the Brunei kingship (+ princes & princesses) carried the bloodline of the founder Majapahit Emperor whose scions spread their seeds by cross-marrying with the noble bloodline members of Malayan kings and princes in the vast expanse of southeast Asia.

So vast is the treasure hoard—of the Malayan royal families—that enabled them to build High Culture for all Malays. Southeast Asia was avowed as the richest region of the world during the heydays of the Majapahit, with gold treasures so gargantuan that their quantities and prices today are overwhelming and mind-boggling. Upon the arrival of the conquering Western powers, the Emperor ensured that the treasures are well kept and safe, by distributing them among the diverse kingships and principalities of the Malayan realm. [Note: Ferdinand Marcos’ gold hoard was estimated by 1.33 million tons by the Limcaoco Committee tasked to do studies and treasure hunts so concerned.]

As to how the Brunei kingship connect to the Marcoses, I could at best hypothesize that a prince or princess of Brunei was married to an Ilocandia spouse who, in turn, belonged to the Ilocos nobility. That auspicious marriage amplified the process of depositing huge hoards of gold bars/treasures from Indonesia and Brunei through the Ilocos corridor [note: the local Nobility already had treasures prior to the marriage]. Such treasures were sufficient to propel food production boom and international trade in Ilocos, a fact that could have spilled over to the Ibanags of Cagayan who were also ruled by Nobles.

Today, the same Noble/Royal families are silently working out to envision grand projects that will end global poverty and see economic progress for all nations. Needless to say, the Nobles will bankroll the projects, with a global institution entrusted to solve global poverty and meet the needs of all. At one juncture, the late Ferdinand Marcos envisioned an Asian Monetary Fund and Asian currency, which will be bankrolled by his gold.

Looking at the composition of the Marcos family itself, being wise and conforming to the protocols of the ancient nobility, it’s no wonder at all to see luminary figures and professional champions among them. Ferdinand married a Romualdez (Imelda) who comes from the gentry likewise and, without doubt, is of ancient noble pedigree.

The Nobility DNA IS THE TREASURE!

 

For any person of excellent Breeding and High Culture, virtuous at the minimum, it would appear impeccable that possession of a NOBILITY BLOODLINE IS THE TREASURE foremost of all. For a person with little virtue, worldly, greedy and materialistic, the sight is upon the possessions as the foremost treasures of the family.

Possessing a Nobility DNA can have two consequences: (a) a well-bred & cultured person, grounded in solid virtues, will propel forces and attract person who will ensure success worthy of a High Achiever, if not a great Civilization-Builder of sorts; (b) a mediocre person, of low breeding and without culture, materialistic and greedy, will propel forces and attract persons of negativity, leading to the possible self-destruction of the person concerned.

As for my own kins in the Nalundasan y Marcos lineage, both of the Delago and Robles families that spinned off from Grandmother Soledad, it is up to them to choose their own paths to follow based on their perceptions about this Inner Treasure. The Nobility DNA will always remain intact, however it may be recessive now for us all, shall never be stolen, and waiting for that moment, by which shall come forth scions who will ennoble the family line and attract Graces from the heavens. This is not a promise, but a vast possibility brought forth precisely by that Treasure borne by all descendants of Angela Marcos-Nalundasan Nonesa.

[Manila, 03 August 2015]

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY: CAN IT SURVIVE THE COMING ‘TECHNOTRONIC’ CAPITALISM?

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY: CAN IT SURVIVE THE COMING ‘TECHNOTRONIC’ CAPITALISM?
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

‘Late’ capitalism, this current phase that replaced the ‘monopoly’ capitalism of the pre-war era, is now DEAD. As elucidated by Jurgen Habermas, thinker of the Frankfurt school, capitalism was able to move to its present state but only with massive state planning/intervention. State intervention had since the early 70s been relaxed, via globalization, but this only created monstrous predatory finance that hastened the collapse of the system.

As already elaborated in previous articles, the system is now DEAD. In the late 1990s yet, we Fellows of the Independent Review (a circle of economists and experts in Manila) were of the opinion that the system will be dead in couples of years. The ‘virtual economy’ based on magical statistics, speculation, fictitiously valued investments, and conspicuous consumption, can never be sustained, and is bound to crash and die. It was just a matter of time, as we all noted in 2000 (the last time I met the Fellows), before the bubble will burst somewhere (we forecast it will the USA) and the global economy will come crashing down…And it did, beginning last 2007 yet. That descent to the marshes of death is still going on today.

As I also declared in some previous articles, capitalism can still survive, though no longer the ‘late’ capitalism of state planning-to-globalization era. It will be a capitalism in an era of state terror heretofore unparalleled: ‘technotronic’ capitalism in the aegis of global police-state. Nation-states are enemies of the global oligarchy which will re-engineer the world by destroying nations (aftermath of atrocious World War III and global synarchy) and replacing them with city-states and region-states.

If corporate social responsibility or CSR will survive the times, it must be re-tooled at this juncture when the tumultuous changes are gathering winds. Failure to do so, many CSR pursuits will disappear in time, while only those CSR platforms of the most powerful and wealthy oligarchs can survive. All the CSR formats of today can last in relevance maybe till 2040 at the most, after which my forecast is their relevance will have reached its end.

By the year 2050, when populations will have leveled down to a census target of 2 Billion warm bodies, a figure that will be more manageable to the global elites, every member of society will be chipped and provided for. By that time, there will be no further need for ideological movements as Pied Pipers of the new system. Everyone else will be programmed by the system, from cradle to grave the chipped Manchurian Candidate or MC will be provided for. Poverty will end by then, the Millenium Development Goal of the UN will be finally met (the UN will be transformed into the tyrannical global state headed by a global Bonaparte, armed with its own police/military forces), and then will end the ‘sustainable development’ or ‘social development’ pursuits of ‘late’ capitalism.

The chipped Manchurian Candidate or MC will be half-human half-machine hybrid, and will be well provided for as mentioned. Population will be totally controlled, weak and senior members of the population will be ‘oven-baked’ or eliminated, natality will be controlled following China’s pattern of today, criminality will be almost nil, and no one will ever be poor again. Hybrid-human behavior can be easily modified using those advanced cybernetic prototype programs past 2050, and so nobody can fool around with the system.

Tell me, fellows, in a situation such as that coming context of advanced cybernetics or ‘technotronics’ (machine-controlled humans), what need will there be for CSR? Maybe CSR will go back to Victorian Era philanthropy practices, whereby wealthy sponsors will fund the theaters and chipped performers whose performances will be perfected all the more by cybernetics. The staff of the CSR formats of that era, if indeed applicable, will be chipped as well, like those outfits that will be funded because they will perform before the oligarchic-intellectual crowd by then.

When that next capitalist system comes, there will be no more activists or revolutionaries save for those who will proclaim Hallelujah forever to the radically altered, new system. Libertarian activists will be the species of yesteryears, the CSR proto-activism of today will be consigned to history, and anybody who will go against the system will be easily eliminated by sentinel robots of the most advanced prototypes.

Let me end with the challenge: CSR better retool now and reshape its image if it desires to exceed its institutional career. Now is the time.

[Philippines, 28 August 2008]
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EUROPE & AMERICA ON DOWNWARD SLIDE TO 3RD WORLD ECONOMIES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi! Good evening!

It’s dusk time as I write, and this dusk at a time of intensifying monsoon rains seems to bode images of a grim future for the West at large. The European Union or EU members and the USA, the gigantic pillars of the global economy, are particularly in dire straits as they have entered the zone of flat growth and perpetual recession.

As already tackled by me in diverse articles, the East is surging forward bringing life to the global economy as a whole. In contrast, the West is spiraling downwards, and the strategies their stakeholders are putting into place to arrest the downslide are at best palliative. As the East continues to surge upward, the West continues to stagnate and decay.

After World War II, both Europe and America embarked on massive infrastructures and heated industrialization that saw both economies dominating the global economy’s wealth production. The result of that was an OECD producing 60% of Gross World Product or GWP for some decades (today that’s down to 40% of GWP and will still go down).

That was the situation back then. By the 1990s, the situation had been badly reversed as a result of liberal economic policies instituted in the previous decade (80s). The rise of a ‘virtual economy’ dominated by predatory finance was instrumental in the West’s massive de-industrialization, decay of relatively unattended infrastructures, decline in science & technology research, and neglect of the transport sector (only Japan & Germany were actively pursuing maglev railways).

By the early 1990s yet, certain experts among economists and sociologists in America began echoing alarming notes about the possible downslide of the USA into a 3^rd world country should the economic decay, such as that of relatively unattended infrastructures,  be allowed to continue till past 2010s.

In the late 1990s, my own circle of political economists in Manila (Sunday Kapihan/Independent Review) saw such a possibility ourselves as we consolidated the data made available to us thanks to the internet. By 1998 all fellows of our circle were convinced of the catastrophic direction that the USA and Europe were plunging themselves into, which could begin with a depression past 2005 and a thirdworldization by 2010s (both have been hit by recession this decade as a matter of fact).

When Katrina struck the USA and when those floods struck Europe just a few years back, and the same free market policies stubbornly remained in place, I knew the downslide would turn out to be irreversible. The fate of New Orleans, with its residents lining up for food akin to a depressed city, revealed an appallingly decayed 3^rd world city inside the USA which, to my mind, is but a fractional tip of a gigantic iceberg that are America’s decaying cities on the way to 3^rd world infamy.

If, for instance, just about 55% of the top 700 cities of the USA will be so badly decayed by 2015 and be declared as 3^rd world or ‘developing cities’, then we know more or less that America had catastrophically seen its worst state. With 97% of U.S. population living in cities (urban), likewise will the whole of the USA be declared as a ‘developing economy’ as early as 2015.

That is, again, if the destructive ‘virtual economy’ policies will not be taken down and reversed sweepingly. As I’ve declared in previous articles before (when Obama was still campaigning for the presidency), America must quickly return to a New Deal-type policy regime: interventionist, with great stress on revivifying infrastructures, revitalizing transport R&D (railways, shipping, etc), upscaling science & technology investments (including rockets), returning heavy industries (revive steel and many dead manufactures), and ensuring agricultural productivity.

Europe is not far behind such near-catastrophic downslide of the USA, just to remind our friends in Europe and the globe. Decisively institute interventionist policies in the continent, regulate the financial-banking sectors (criminalize predatory finance), and revivify social policy that were hallmarks of a once strong and mighty European economy.

And there’s no better time to act then now. Failure to act soon, by stubbornly instituting the palliatives (e.g. bailing out failing big banks, semi-regulating stock exchange), will be the best sure-fire formula to see a rapid thirdworldization of the West.

Before long, some messianic mad leaders in both continents would be drum-beating their being “stubbed behind the back” and generate  new Hitlers and Bonapartes in their backyards. Act now, Western peoples, to avoid this eventuality from ever taking place at all.

[Philippines, 21 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]

GLOBAL TOTALITARIAN POLICE-STATE & TECHNOTRONIC SOCIETY: EXTENDING CAPITALIST LIFE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Let me go back to the question of what lies ahead of us—when ‘late’ capitalism dies and yet capitalism will be extended.  I am not discounting the possibility that capitalism’s life span will be extended, but this will no longer be ‘late’ capital, just to remind everyone.

You better fasten your seat belts, as the stormy days ahead will come for sure, and as this heraldry from me will sound as stormy already as those times ahead. Stormy heraldry, because (a) you will not come to like it and that (b) its impact will be so nauseating and revolting that you’d rather sedate yourself most quickly with wine, liquor, pot or anything that can reduce that revulsion. I forgot, for the fundamentalists, you’d pray for hours to allay your fears.

By the time ‘late’ capital arrived up to the current juncture, or roughly the whole of the post-Great Depression era, the following developments have come about:

·        State intervention/planning was infused into the system. Post-war former colonies proceeded on their industrial development tracks along this dirigist market model. The USA and Europe were saved from collapsing, emerging markets appeared.

 

·        Market reforms were later introduced, bringing back free market and free trade principles. Centrally planned economies China and Vietnam infused market reforms to construct a ‘social market’ model, while former socialist states folded up in Eastern Europe and 3^rd world states.

 

·        The era of ‘mad economics’ resulted from the system integration efforts of ‘instrumental reason’. The dividing line between the rational and the mad in decision-making and system maintenance was effectively deconstructed and erased. In esoteric-mystical argot, this era is the period of the Demonic Mind, the era of Anti-Christ.

 

·        ‘Virtual economy’ based on predatory financial practices of creating values from out of money flows (rather than from concrete production) was exemplified by ‘bubble economies’. Bubble bursts were followed by destructive, catastrophic crises and shrinkages of affected economies.

 

·        Nation-states’ economies came to be integrated into a single economy, via globalization. A planetary economy was already institutionalized, yet no planetary state exists to regulate conduct of commerce and business at a global level. The contradiction between the norms of the planetary economy and the interests of the nation-state has led in no small measure to the fragmentation of nation-states and  emergence of mini-states. Globalization has been undermining the nation-state in general.

 

·        All of such developments will hyper-converge in the months ahead in a general system crisis characterized by hyper-inflation, great depression, and total system collapse. As the economist Lyndon LaRouche correctly perceived, that collapse phase is now taking place at a rapid rate.

 

·        Wars and hostilities are intensifying across the globe. Surrogate wars of world powers have also been rehearsed, such as the Georgia-Russia conflict. All of these conflicts will hyper-converge in a World War III or intercontinental war, the duration of which no one can forecast so easily.

 

So, going back to the issue, if the ‘virtual economy’ cannot be sustained and its collapse will bring the final death blow on ‘late’ capital, is it possible to extend capitalism’s life span? Yes, the possibility is very likely. But the context emerging from the resolution of the general global crisis will hardly resemble what you’ve ever seen before nor imagine.

First of all, the consolidation of the system and attempts to prolong it can never take place without draconian police state tactics. As Lenin correctly emphasized, the dividing line between liberalism and fascism is a superficial one. Neo-fascism will become the political modality in order to save capitalism and bring it to its next phase. State terror heretofore untold will unravel the old order of things and bring the ‘new world order’ into place, resulting to pogroms that will dwarf both Hitler’s ‘final solution’ and Stalin’s ‘purges’ combined.

The possibility of a global state will finally become granite rock, with the United Nations most likely the base for creating that global regulatory mechanism governed by a demonic ‘world rule of law’. This global state will have its own military and police forces, and will have no qualms in quelling dissent and enforcing global fiats in order to bring forth the ‘new world order’.

The global corporations of the moment, whose assets and revenues are already so huge that they dwarf those of nation-states’, will all the more become gigantic. The same corporations will then declare their respective turfs among region-states and city-states that will be created from the dismantled nations. Each mega-corporation will be endowed with its own private army, akin to the British East India Company or BEIC of old, of professional mercenaries beholden to no state but to the corporation, but which can be mandated by the global state to engage hostile forces in other regions and cities.

The era of New Feudalism will then ensue from the social and urban-ecological arrangements emerging. The era of ancient Florence, Venice, or city-states with their own respective armies and ruled by powerful commercial families, will come back though in more sophisticated vogue. The competing powerful & wealthy city-states will then give rise to new conflicts in the form of ‘wars of the cities’, much akin to the ancient Greek city-states’ conflicts. Before this century’s end, no more nations shall exist, but rather a world of cities and regions integrated largely through the mediative and regulative planetary state. Weaker cities and regions will become the vassals of powerful cities and corporate groups, at a time when technology will even be more revolutionary. The New Feudalism will be based on an integration of capital and information, contrasted to the Old Feudalism that was based on land.  

As soon as 3^rd phase cybernetics will conclude, and probably a 4^th phase will begin, which will all the more erase the barrier between human and machine, the envisioned Technotronic Society will become the manifest order. Cyborgs and machines will then become perfected and endowed with quasi-human intelligence, while those humans with weak minds will be totally controlled via perfected chips, mega-computers, and new cybernetic systems. Large numbers of subhuman ‘Manchurian candidates’ or MCs will become the docile slave labor of the day, well fed and provided for, but whose behavior will be totally programmed and re-programmable.

That technoronic society of the neo-feudal capitalist ‘new world order’, or simply Technotronic capitalism, was fitfully described and forecast in the film series Matrix and Terminator. As 3^rd phase cybernetics is advancing today in laboratory incubators of the North, cybernetics that will dismantle the barrier between human and machine, the possibility of an early arrival of that dreaded machine-controlled ‘new world order’ has become concrete. The question is no longer ‘will technotronics come’, but rather ‘when will it come’? Matrix and Terminator are no film fantasies but are rather scientific extrapolations based on existing and developing cybernetic principles.

So, fellows out there, would you count yourself among the fanatical supporters of ‘capitalist life-span extension’, or would you rather opt for a new economy & society other than the ‘new world order’ that has been engineered by the global oligarchy? Or, would you rather be silent about the matter, as the ‘silence of the lambs’ means the Keynesian “In the long run, all of us will be dead!” Caput!

Let me now end here. Suffice that I shared my notes about the possible extension of the favorite economy of the pro-capitalists or the most abhorred society by capitalism’s detractors. At least I didn’t fail to show you the possibilities, I being a sociologist and economist who learned from my thinker mentors the craft of social forecasting or ‘futurology’.

Till next writing! Adios! Adieu! Paalam! Farewell! 

[23 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 ‘2^nd 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 ‘3^rd 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.]

RE-ECHOING ROOSEVELT’S ‘PHYSICAL ECONOMY’ SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

Erle Frayne Argonza

My beloved country remembers the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt very well. It was his presidency that paved the way for preparing the Philippines as an independent state, by first granting the country the status of a commonwealth with its own constitution (1935 Constitution), and by permitting such domestic government to prepare the legislative measures and policy environment for a future independent state (granted independence in 1946).

Roosevelt’s regime also paved the way for the developmental paradigm that would propel the Philippines along the road to industrialization (we now term this as Import-Substitution Industrialization). The paradigm, based on the works of previous thinkers Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich von List, and the exemplar development policies of Abraham Lincoln, puts great stress on the ‘physical economy’ as the foundation for a prosperous and mighty economy in the long run.

Roosevelt further went on to cogitate that colonialism should fold up after the war, and that all former colonies must follow the road to development and prosperity, this being the road to genuine international peace and cooperation. The international doctrine of Roosevelt became the foundation for post-war cooperation, and buttressed the founding of the Bretton Woods agencies whose mandates were propelled precisely by the physical economy framework, the need for undertaking development in the former colonies, and the need to regulate national currencies via fixed exchange rate backed by the gold standard.

The current circumstance is now too remote from the ‘physical economy’ policy regime of the post-war era. Economic liberalization policies led to globalization and the galvanization of the ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance. The ‘virtual economy’ had led to de-industrialization, agricultural decay, decline of S&T, and deteriorating infrastructures in the most affected economies, and had fragmented developing states into ‘failed states’.

The global financial system created by the relentless liberalization of financial, fiscal and monetary policies across borders, had already collapsed and is beyond salvation using the present intervention tools that now seem to be burnt out tools altogether. A global conference must be convened most urgently to carve out a new financial architecture based on a ‘physical economy’ framework, and to decisively criminalize predatory finance.

Below is a press release of relevant notes on the global financial collapse, by the economist Lyndon LaRouche.

[27 July 2008, Quezon City, Metromanila. Thanks to the Executive Intelligence Review database news.]

 

LaRouche: Financial System Is Dead, Cannot Be Saved

July 13, 2008 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).

With the U.S. and British financial press full of wild speculation about how the Bush Administration is going to intervene Monday morning, to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lyndon LaRouche today issued a sharp, preemptive warning: “The financial system is already dead. It cannot be saved.”

LaRouche expanded: “If any of the reports of a planned bailout of the two big mortgage lenders, by the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve are true, I say, ‘Forget it.’ Any such efforts to delay the funeral of the present global financial and monetary system will only make matters worse. A bailout will cause an accelerated hyperinflationary explosion, far worse than the hyperinflation that hit Weimar Germany in the autumn of 1923. Back then,” LaRouche continued, “Germany had a gun pointed to its head. The gun was called the Versailles Treaty, and Germany had no choice. Today, the United States has a choice. I spelled out the choice in numerous recent locations.”

LaRouche cited his recent call for the Federal Reserve to immediately raise interest rates to 4 percent, as a stop-gap measure to prevent a massive flight of institutional capital from the banking system. He demanded that this move be accompanied by clear statements from the Fed that there will be no more Bear Stearns-style bailouts of the speculative bubble. Instead, the Fed will protect the chartered Federal and state banks, through bankruptcy reorganization, on the model of what Franklin Roosevelt did, when he first took office in March 1933, and faced the same kind of collapse of the banking system that we face now. “Only, today’s crisis is orders of magnitude worse,” LaRouche added, “due to the massive leveraging by the banks and other financial institutions.”

LaRouche warned that Bush Administration and Fed officials, like Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, may be on an “ego trip—unwilling to admit that they have failed miserably. But the reality is that they, like the George W. Bush Administration, have failed, with wretched incompetence. For one thing, they failed to reverse the Alan Greenspan monster bubble, which is now blowing.”

LaRouche added that there is no way to even estimate the magnitude of the financial bubble, that has now blown. “The collapse of Fannie and Freddie means the end of the system. And that has already happened, and nothing can be done, within the rules of the current system, to solve that problem. We can keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alive, but only through actions reforming the system, in terms echoing the precedents of President Franklin Roosevelt, that in ways appropiate for the actual conditions of today.

“The only alternative is to implement my three-step solution to the crisis,” LaRouche concluded. “If the so-called leadership in Washington is unwilling to do that, then this financial system, and, by extension, these United States, are finished. It may be a tough reality to swallow, but it is the only reality that there is.”

Lyndon LaRouche will be delivering an international webcast on Tuesday, July 22, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. (EDT). The webcast takes place on the first anniversary of LaRouche’s July 25, 2007 Washington, D.C. webcast address, in which he announced that the financial system had already crashed. Days later, the collapse of Countrywide, and other major mortgage lenders, and the blowout of Bear Stearns, illustrated that LaRouche was 100% correct.

US WATCH: TRANSPORT U.S. BACK TO PROSPERITY

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

The final feature of the US ‘real economy’ worth featuring is transportation & communications. This is among the most productive sectors that produce real wealth, contrasted to the ‘casino economy’ of predatory finance that produces wealth from out of wealth itself, producing really nothing worth our value. Broad as it is, let me focus on the transport sector.

 

Time was when the railway industry took off, inducing growth as soon as the railways hit the West. The continental divide among the US states was bridged quickly, intra-trade exponentially increased. Soon enough, foreign trade also increased in leaps and bounds as maritime shipping grew and matured quickly, making US articles of trade be exported to all corners of the planet.

 

Trains, ships, airplanes, automotives, trucks, heavy equipment, tractors, and other state-of-the art prototypes came out of America’s workshops to propel growth not only in the US but in other countries as well. “Made in the USA” products became household words everywhere, including my Wild Wild West province of Cagayan in Northern Philippines, precisely due to the miracle of the transport sector that was broadly a facet of the ‘real economy’ of America. I was a child in the 1960s and early 70s when the “Made in the USA” was chic and almost a cult-level cliché.

 

That era now is now consigned to the dustbins of a remote past. Sure, America still produces state-of-the art transport prototypes. But look, railways have stagnated (is there a mag-lev there now?), automotives are shrinking by the day (laying off and displacing thousands of top quality industrial technicians), while the cutting edge technology for almost all prototypes, save for military transport, have already been surpassed by Asia.

 

McCain and Obama should better do their homework and understand the catastrophic future that awaits America if the transport sector remains neglected and ceaselessly ravaged inch-by-inch by the infernal fires of predatory finance. The policy makers there better salve the ailing sector quickly, and get back those laid-off topnotch industrial technicians to work before they lose every iota of motivation to even get involved in the sector they grew up with but which rejected them (how traumatic!).

 

If there’s any sector to begin with, it’s railways. Better renovate the railways, and establish maglevs in all the major continental routes of the US. And quickly take the initiative to establish cross-border maglevs with Canada and Mexico. Later, establish maglevs connecting Alaska with Russia via Siberia, thus connecting US to the Asian land mass.

 

Sorry for sounding ‘interventionist’, fellows in America. We Asians are as concerned with your economy as you are, and we would want your economic leadership to again rise to the fore. If America does that, other nations will then move on, propelled by growth in the ‘real economy’ because America is doing so. Failing to do that, the economic baton will transfer to Asia, and it will crash our hearts to see our fellow Earthans of America sinking in esteem by the day, because of their collapsing prosperity.

 

We are all siblings on Earth, this is certain, that’s why we share words of wisdom about your economic conditions. May you finally have a reform-oriented President comes this coming electoral contest.

 

[Writ 07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: S & T CUTTING EDGE EROSION

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

As I’ve been stressing in previous articles, “it’s the economy” that count much as top agenda to be addressed by policy makers, bureaucrats and growth stakeholders in the USA. And this should be the primary concern of the political bigwigs when election comes by the end of the year.

 

A policy shift that will veer away America from the destructive flames of the ‘virtual economy’ founded on predatory finance, back to the ‘real economy’ based on tangible outputs in manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructures, S & T, and transportation & communications.

 

This time around, do make reflections on the S&T facet of America’s economy and society. For over two (2) centuries the USA was a hallmark of development, precisely due to the ingenuity manifested by its entrepreneurs who built the mighty industrial economy. The S&T facet of production has been a well established fact-of-life in America, and I should stress that facet here means ‘cutting-edge’.

 

Without S&T cutting-edge, America would still be a backwoods economy today, much like some backwoods states there. But since the founding fathers of America laid down the foundations of growth and prosperity—foundations based on the ‘real economy’ or ‘physical economy’—and propelled by the collective will to drive relentlessly till the grand visions are achieved, America has risen meteorically to where it is: a mighty economic juggernaut, the object of high esteem by many nations.  

 

But when the ‘virtual economy’ began encroaching on every economic sector there, most specially after the collapse of the gold standard, gradually did the priority for developing S & T erode. Today that erosion is severely felt, as many analysts from the West have heralded the admission that Asia had already surpassed the essential technological cutting edge of the West as early as 2007 yet.

 

Let’s take solar technology for instance. Solar panel design had already reached maturity in California, home to solar energy development. The early take off of the industry there prompted the investors to immediately establish branches overseas, one of which is the Philippines. One leading company was so surprised that its Filipino engineers (Philippine-based) had already surpassed the innovation designs of their California counterparts (Americans) before the end of 2007 yet.

 

Now, as you go from one economic sector to another, most specially the productive sectors, and assess the cutting edge situation of technologies, then you can see the reality that America & EU (West) were already surpassed. It won’t take long before the wealth boosted by the Asian cutting edge will move up, making Asian regions surpass both the US and EU in terms of GDP.

 

Well, the other option is the ‘neo-con’ option: nuke all competitor nations back to the stone age. If you do so, say if you nuke the Philippines today which designs and produces ½ of the worlds Intel chips, think of the consequences. Nuke India, China, ASEAN, South Korea, come on demonic neo-cons! Enjoy your Nero madness with wild abandon!

 

I’d rest my case.

 

[07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: INFRASTRUCTURE DECAY, NEEDS MASSIVE REDEVELOPMENT

Erle Frayne  Argonza

A bridge has fallen, the Mississipi river flooded Orleans like some pathetic third world city, airports are too cramped up as they are incapable of containing the surge in passenger & cargo levels, the East Coast experienced the emergency shut down due to grid overload (causing massive blackout), railway tracks are thinning out and overall capacity is on downward trend, and more.

They seem to be unrelated, but for economists and sociologists the trends all tell the same story. Pieced up together, they indicate crumbling infrastructures. Not because the structural engineers of America are sloppy, and definitely not that the heavy equipment sector couldn’t provide quality machines to reinforce the burgeoning infrastructure need of the juggernaut US economy.

The true story is that, as the economy shifted to the ‘virtual economy’, there was the systematic abandonment of infrastructure as a priority for fiscal and budgetary allocations. “Leave that to the private sector!” was the slogan for infrastructure. Even the famed fast lanes of America are already being sold out one after the other to the highest bidders, financial speculators all led by the likes of Felix Rohatyn & partners, thanks to deregulation and liberalization.

The thing is, most of America’s major infrastructures—airports, wharfs, roads, bridges, dikes, dams, power distribution, and more public works—were built in the 50s and 60s yet, at the height of the post-war boom under the aegis of the New Deal. Such infrastructures now require massive renovation, with entire replacement for those decaying beyond salvaging.

Did the civil engineers of America speak about the matter clearly? They did, and they have been saying alarming things since the 1990s yet. At the height of the ‘bridge over troubled water’ fiasco, they came out with the report that ¼ of America’s roads and bridges needed major repairs and replacements as soon as possible.

The other sectors’ experts have spoken as well. In the airlines industry, no less than state officials have forewarned that if no renovations (toward expansion) will be done on airports in 10 years’ time, there will be major crisis in the airlines sector. The possibility of emerging markets overshooting the USA’s cutting edge in air transport delivery also looms ahead in the short run.

With no reversal of policies in sight, chances are that, in 20 years’ time, the USA will be an apocalyptic landscape of fallen bridges, impassable roads, rotten wharfs, fallen dikes and inoperable dams, rotten buildings left to nature, and forest cover claiming back once bustling cities.

Only a timely policy reversal can nip the apocalyptic future in the bud. That is, if the political bigwigs in the coming election—McCain and Obama—do their homework well, comprehend the problem deeply, and begin large-scale strategic solutions to colossal problems in infrastructures.

[Writ 06 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]  

US WATCH: ECONOMY’S REAL VALUE

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

Great and mighty is America’s economy! America can buy the whole earth and feed all the world’s people! Americans are the world’s wealthiest, they can buy any and all guys outside the borders!

 

What delusional arrogance from some demonic Pied Pipers! The USA’s GDP ended up at $12.5 Trillion last year, though some indicator massage could yield a higher figure of $13.5 Trillion (using Purchasing Power Parity or PPP). Measure this against the Gross World Product of GWP of $59 Trillion more or less, end of 2007. Estimates by experts is that the US contributes to 22% of the GWP, and ditto for the EU.

 

That figure of $12.5 Trillion, fellows, is simply the ‘nominal value’ of the US economy. Nominal and real are two different categories in economics. Granting that the ‘virtual economy’ based on financial speculation has been the one that raised values of commodities and services in the USA, the ‘nominal value’ is actually inflated, rendering the ‘real value’ at a much lower level.

 

Do recall when the stock market crashed in 2001. At that time, the psychological benchmark was 10,000 points at the Dow Jones. Each point in the Dow Jones then was approximately $1 Billion worth. A decline of 100 points means $100 Billion pared off from the economy, or at least the virtual economy. The stock market eventually crashed down to 7900+, which made my own hair rise with horror all over my body.

 

The stock market then stayed for a time at the 7,900-8,300 points, for couples of months, before it again steadily climbed. For simplification, let us use the figure of 8,000 points as the lowest level that the economy can crash down to, the rock bottom. That is around 77% of the 10,000+ benchmark more or less.

 

That figure, fellows, is the rough estimate of the ‘real value’ of the US economy. If we multiply 0.77 by $12.5 Billion, this yields $9.63 Billion. That’s the real figure, the real value, the real score of the US economy. If we convert this to PPP, this will rise a bit to $9.8 Billion more or less. The remaining balance of $3 Billion, to complete the $13.5B –PPP, is all ‘casino economy’ value, all speculative value and nothing more.

 

So now, going back to a previous question, where and how will the USA get funds to pay for $50 Trillion worth of debts? Do the electoral bigwigs in America possess with them the proper framework to comprehend and recommend practicable solutions to America’s ailing debt crisis and overall economic malaise?

 

I wish you American voters will do your own deep inquiries about the depth of your problems. The health of the global economy is being endangered by the impending US economic collapse, a fire that can easily burn out the EU as well (this fire had already begun there in fact). When both the EU and USA are in economic collapse or ‘fire function’, the entire global economy will catastrophically fall in deep quagmires.

 

[Writ 05 June 2008, Quezon City, Metromanila]

US WATCH: THE ‘VIRTUAL ECONOMY’ WRECKED UNCLE SAM

Erle Frayne Argonza

So, fellows out there, whatever happened that the once mighty US economy—once contributing to 40% of Gross World Product (GWP)—is now drifting downwards, producing now just 22% of GWP?  That the EU would itself catch up with the USA and equally produces 22% of GWP, though EU’s money is bloodily mightier than Uncle Sam’s once mythical Dollar?

 

As a matter of realistic forecasting, if trends today would continue across the globe, Asia would overshadow both the US and EU, as follows: China will overtake each one of them by 2015; India, by 2022; ASEAN, by 2030.

 

While the US ‘real economy’ keeps on contracting (and the EU’s stagnates), the Asian economies are still expanding. 100 years ago the Western thinkers Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee already forecast so sharply the ‘decline of the West’, while Daniel Bell foresaw in the 1950s-60s the rise of Asia-Pacific and its overtaking of the US 60 years hence (2005-2015 period). No one listened to them.

 

If we all recall, in the 1930s the great statesman Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the ambitious New Deal. This program initiated gigantic growths in the ‘real economy’, solved unemployment, and led to high-growth and high-wage trends for sustained periods. By ‘real’ is meant the most productive sectors, namely: manufacturing/industry, agriculture, infrastructures, S&T, and transportation & communications.

 

By 1971, with enormous pressures from the financial cartels, the famed ‘gold standard’ was junked, the fixed exchange rate system was likewise junked in favor of ‘floating rate’, and after which serial liberalization of economic sectors and the bureaucracy went on in very radical fashion. This led eventually to the rise of the ‘virtual economy’ led by predatory finance, featuring hedge fund operations and ‘vulture funds’ to salve crisis-ridden financial enclaves more so overseas.

 

The ‘gambling economy’ based on speculation, conceit, lies, rather than based on the real value of consumable articles of trade, became the dominant modality in the USA. Debts and more debts piled up, since having no debt was moralized as bad behavior. Debs quadrupled in just a few decades, resulting to $5 Trillion worth of debts today.

 

How can an economy that churns out merely $12+ Trillion a year pay up for debts worth 4 times the GDP? It’s madness, blatant madness! The US economy is largely now a bubble, so gigantic that when it bursts, it can reveal the real flaws behind the ailments, and the weakness of the ‘real economy’ altogether.

 

The message to the next President & VP of the USA is to take down that ‘gambling economy’ or ‘virtual economy’ and quickly bring back the powerful ‘real economy’ in place. Failing to do that, Uncle Sam will be faced with many mass out-migrations beyond 2010, as true-blue Americans leave for more stable and promising jobs and businesses offshore. They’ve already began doing that in fact.

 

[Writ 05 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

US WATCH: IT’S THE ECONOMY!

Erle Frayne  Argonza

The US presidential polls are approaching. The Democrat Party nomination was recently concluded, and there goes the polls.

As an observer of ‘US reality’, I’d candidly say that if there’s anything most worrisome in the US right now, it’s the economy. Without the pejorative ‘stupid’ by the way, I leave that to Bill Clinton’s spin doctors.

Whoever wins, and whoever would be vice president, this tandem of statesmen (hopefully) will have to go about moving heaven and earth to salve the ailing economy. The ailment is not just a structural one that will be resolved with some palliatives.

First of all is the recession. There is no more denying about this fact. The more that the fed and monetary officials would deny information, the greater the amount of suspicion, the greater the legitimacy question. It was good that finally, there was the admission about the sad state of the economy.

Now, folks, most especially you American voters out there, the recession may not be the end of the downspin yet. Watch out, for the recession could well slide into depression. A 6-quarter period of sustained depression (which means a contraction below the established average, or below zero growth) could be the final blow to the long-drawn drift towards the total collapse of the once-mighty US economy.

Look at the signs of the times, Joe! After World War II, the US produced 40% of the Gross World Product or GWP. It’s now down to 22%. The EU, by integrating their economies, produce a similar aggregate of 22% of GWP. The trend is still of a downward drift, including the EU’s, over the years, not an upward lift.

As to what has been causing the downward drift, let’s take those matters slowly in quite chewable fashion. For now, it’s clear to this observer that “it’s the economy” and not the war or parochial sectoral matters such as immigration, gender, more autonomy for states and cities, and so on.

[Writ 05 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila] 

NY STOCKS LOSES TOTAL $3 TRILLIONS, AND STILL GOING DOWN

Erle Frayne Argonza

Since the stock markets began to plunge late last year, downturns that began with the implosion of the housing subprime mortgage bubble, over 2000 points were already shaved off from the Dow Jones index, the prime index of the USA’s stock markets. It’s now down to nearly 11,000 points from its best time total of 13,000+ points last year, representing actually a 20% plunge.

Each point in the Down Jones is worth $1 Billion as the roughest minimum estimate, though this may range up to $1.5 Billion, depending on the season of trading. Using the minimum as the yardstick, a 20% plunge from a total of 13,000+ index represents at least $2 Trillion worth of loses. If we were to add the loses in the other indices notably the Nasdaq, the figure can get us up to $3 Trillions loses.

Do note that the figure of $3 Trillions is only a conservative estimate. If we use the same figure to compute for the Global Portfolio loses, and multiply this with the number 6 (US’ portfolio capital flows represent 16% or 1/6 of total global flows, using BIS index), the operation would yield a total of $18 Trillions worth of portfolio investments gone down the drain.

It should be stressed that those loses are now gone forever. The stock market investors should better think of other options at this moment, since the plunge hasn’t ceased yet. Those loses of theirs will not return, rest assured. The plunge, per my forecast, will take a long time going yet till middle of next year.

The alarm bells are now up for a total global financial meltdown, and so every concerned fellow of the planet must make necessary preparations for the worst, whatever the worst could be. Corporate social responsibility or CSR may now need to do some contingency re-assessment and re-adjustment of goals and strategies, in the light of the continuing plunge.

Likewise should states rethink their goals and options, recheck their fiscal situation and re-adjust targets accordingly. There has been so much knee-jerked reactions by state players, central banks included, that must be re-examined, including pumping too much liquidities, rescuing ailing or bankrupt banks the erroneous way, and re-allocating budgets for populist welfare subsidies that would, in the short run, only lead to serious fiscal problems in the short run.

What is surfacing much clearly is that the old tools being applied—to salve the crisis—don’t seem to work as much as expected. The search for sound options is a tough challenging one, and the expectations from consumers, who have already slowed down consumption generally, are intensifying. Let us watch out for more contingent events.

[Writ 26 June 2008, Quezon City, Manila]

RECESSION STAYS, SPIRAL POINTS TO GLOBAL MELTDOWN

Erle Frayne Argonza

The recession stays, the downward global economic spiral will continue for an indefinite time. This is the pattern that we can now see across the globe.

Stock markets have been crashing, going through a freefall for couples of months now. In Manila, the Philippine stock market is down at 2,500+ points as of this morning, or 800 points short of its best performance of 3,300+ late last year. The pattern is true in other stock markets as well.

One thing is clear: this is a global meltdown going on, and the spiral’s turn-around towards more positive gains in the succeeding months. Trillions of dollars have already gone down the drain, loses that may never be recovered again.

Many pockets are getting badly hurt, both from the fund-rich hedge funds and portfolio financiers to ordinary middle class investors. Just about two (2) years ago, everything was bullish in world stocks, most especially in Asia. That situation had since evaporated.

Unfortunately, the harbingers of liberal dogma are still banking on liberalization policies that have proved to be so bankrupt they are, in fact, the very cause of this global meltdown shaping up. The ‘virtual economy’ unleashed by liberalization resulted to looting sprees by fund managers and hedge fund operators, the same money that they partly utilize for corporate social responsibility.

Now the oil price hikes and currency market volatilities have compounded the recession. It’s just mid-2008 by the way, and there’s still the bombing of Iran that we all await as the non-surprise ‘surprise attack’ from neo-cons and Zionist fascists, which will guarantee higher prices for oil and better dollar leveraging power. This will come sooner or later.

Forecasting has been made simpler by anarchic events at this moment. There is no end in sight to the recession, oil prices will still move up, and the recession will lead to a deeper meltdown of the liberal financial-monetary system of casino-style looting by financier operators.

Better do some belt-tightening if you haven’t done this yet. Let’s continue to watch the horrible unfolding of events. Madness and unparalleled greed have shattered the financial-monetary system, the ‘virtual economy’ of predatory financiers.

[Writ 12 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]