Pioneers, Builders, and Termites.

BarryW says: @ December 26, 2013 at 5:29 pm
I think it started well before that….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You can trace it back to the 1800s (Carroll Quigley was President Bill Clinton’s Mentor)
The Anglo-American Establishment
by Carroll Quigley

p3
One wintry afternoon in February 1891, three men were engaged in earnest conversation in London. From that conversation were to flow consequences of the greatest importance to the British Empire and to the world as a whole. For these men were organizing a secret society that was, for more than fifty years, to be one of the most important forces in the formulation and execution of British imperial and foreign policy….

Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
by Carroll Quigley

Pg. 62:
In addition to their power over government based on government financing and personal influence, bankers could steer governments in ways they wished them to go by other pressures. Since most government officials felt ignorant of finance, they sought advice from bankers whom they considered to be experts in the field. The history of the last century shows, as we shall see later, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally. Such advice could be enforced if necessary by manipulation of exchanges, gold flows, discount rates, and even levels of business activity….

Now think of the 2008-2009 ‘Bank Bailouts’ and financial crisis….

BarryW says: @ December 26, 2013 at 5:29 pm…
I should add, despite what the propogandists try to tell us, Capitalism does not work without law. There must be respect for and protection of property rights from the thugs, raiders and parasites, whether lawless or sanctioned by government. Fractional reserve banking is government sanctioned raids on everyones property (wealth)
Sen. Daniel Webster, during the debate over the reauthorization of the Second National Bank of the U.S. in 1832, summed up my view on bank issued fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.

“A disordered currency is one of the greatest of evils. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy. And it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is one of the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s field by the sweat of the poor man’s brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation: These bear lightly the happiness of the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies and robberies committed with depreciated paper.”
link

Woodrow Wilson is the president who signed the Federal Reserve act of 1913.
The New Freedom
a book by Woodrow Wilson, 1961

Pg. 29-30:
one of the most significant signs of the new social era is the degree to which government has become associated with business. I speak, for the moment, of the control over the government exercised by Big Business. Behind the whole subject, of course, is the truth that, in the new order, government and business must be associated closely. But that association is at present of a nature absolutely intolerable; the precedence is wrong, the association is upside down. Our government has been for the past few years under the control of heads of great allied corporations with special interests. It has not controlled these interests and assigned them a proper place in the whole system of business; it has submitted itself to their control. As a result, there have grown up vicious systems and schemes of governmental favoritism (the most obvious being the extravagant tariff), far reaching in effect upon the whole fabric of life, touching to his injury every inhabitant of the land.
Pg. 20:
In most parts of our country men work, not for themselves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but generally as employees,–in a higher or lower grade,–of great corporations. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
You know what happens when you are the servant of a corporation. You have in no instance access to the men who are really determining the policy of the corporation. If the corporation is doing the things that it ought not to do, you really have no voice in the matter and must obey the orders, and you have oftentimes with deep mortification to co-operate in the doing of things which you know are against the public interest. Your individuality is swallowed up in the individuality and purpose of a great organization.
Pg. 24:
Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
They know that America is not a place of which it can be said, as it used to be, that a man may choose his own calling and pursue it just as far as his abilities enable him to pursue it; because to-day, if he enters certain fields, there are organizations which will use means against him that will prevent his building up a business which they do not want to have built up; organizations that will see to it that the ground is cut from under him and the markets shut against him.

We are seeing the culmination of plans that were made generations ago. Yes it sounds like a “Conspiracy’ which is why I use so many direct quotes, but there is too darn much evidence from sources like president Wilson. Heck the former Director-General of the World Trade Organization came right out and stated it very bluntly.
Pascal Lamy: Whither Globalization?

The reality is that, so far, we have largely failed to articulate a clear and compelling vision of why a new global order matters — and where the world should be headed. Half a century ago, those who designed the post-war system — the United Nations, the Bretton Woods system, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) — were deeply influenced by the shared lessons of history.
All had lived through the chaos of the 1930s — when turning inwards led to economic depression, nationalism and war. All, including the defeated powers, agreed that the road to peace lay with building a new international order — and an approach to international relations that questioned the Westphalian, sacrosanct principle of sovereignty

Democracy? What Democracy? We, the little people were shut out of the conversation before we were even born!

climateace says: @ December 26, 2013 at 5:37 pm
This article is truly bizarre.
The thing is this: Australia has, over the past couple of decades, climbed UP the ladder of the world’s largest economies….
That is because the rot is world wide. Most if not all countries have fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking as Webster so colorfully stated in my above quote siphons money out of your pocket and into the pockets of the bankers and his friends.
For those who can not understand Webster here is “[s]ome of the most frank evidence on banking practices… given by Graham F. Towers, Governor of the Central Bank of Canada (from 1934 to 1955), before the Canadian Government’s Committee on Banking and Commerce, in 1939.”
Money Is Created by Banks Evidence Given by Graham Towers

Q. But there is no question about it that banks create the medium of exchange?
Mr. Towers: That is right. That is what they are for… That is the Banking business, just in the same way that a steel plant makes steel. (p. 287)
The manufacturing process consists of making a pen-and-ink or typewriter entry on a card in a book. That is all. (pp. 76 and 238)
Each and every time a bank makes a loan (or purchases securities), new bank credit is created — new deposits — brand new money. (pp. 113 and 238)
Broadly speaking, all new money comes out of a Bank in the form of loans.
As loans are debts, then under the present system all money is debt. (p. 459)
Q. When $1,000,000 worth of bonds is presented (by the government) to the bank, a million dollars of new money or the equivalent is created?
Mr. Towers: Yes.
Q. Is it a fact that a million dollars of new money is created?
Mr. Towers: That is right.
Q. Now, the same thing holds true when the municipality or the province goes to the bank?
Mr. Towers: Or an individual borrower.
Q. Or when a private person goes to a bank?
Mr. Towers: Yes.
Q. When I borrow $100 from the bank as a private citizen, the bank makes a bookkeeping entry, and there is a $100 increase in the deposits of that bank, in the total deposits of that bank?
Mr. Towers: Yes. (p. 238)…
Q. But if the issue of currency and money is a high prerogative of government, then that high prerogative has been transferred to the extent of 88 per cent from the Government to the merchant banking system?
Mr. Towers: Yes. (p. 286)
Q. Will you tell me why a government with power to create money, should give that power away to a private monopoly, and then borrow that which parliament can create itself, back at interest, to the point of national bankruptcy?
Mr. Towers: If parliament wants to change the form of operating the banking system, then certainly that is within the power of parliament. (p. 394)….

And yet despite this very frank evidence nothing changed and nations such as Greece, and Iceland are going bankrupt because of bankers…
More on money and how the bankers transfer wealth to themselves and their buddies.

Mises on Money
Mises concluded that money is neither a consumption good nor a capital good. He argued that production and consumption are possible without money [Think Barter – G.C.] Money facilitates both production and consumption, but it is neither a production good nor a consumption good. Money is therefore a separate analytical category.
“It is illegitimate to compare the part played by money in production with that played by ships and railways. Money is obviously not a ‘commercial tool’ in the same sense as account books, exchange lists, the Stock Exchange, or the credit system”
Because money is not capital, he concluded that an increase of the money supply confers no identifiable social value. If you fail to understand this point, you will not be able to understand the rest of Mises’s theory of money. On this assessment of the value of money, his whole theory of money hinges.
An increase in the quantity of money can no more increase the welfare of the members of a community, than a diminution of it can decrease their welfare…..
If a producer benefits society by increasing the production of a non-monetary good, later finding a buyer, then society is benefitted because there are at least two winners and no losers….
New money does not appear magically in equal percentages in all people’s bank accounts or under their mattresses. Money spreads unevenly, and this process has varying effects on individuals, depending on whether they receive early or late access to the new money
It is these losses of the groups that are the last to be reached by the variation in the value of money which ultimately constitute the source of the profits made by the mine owners and the groups most closely connected with them.
This indicates a fundamental aspect of Mises’s monetary theory that is rarely mentioned: the expansion or contraction of money is a zero-sum game. Mises did not use this terminology, but he used the zero-sum concept. Because the free market always maximizes the utility of the existing money supply, changes in the money supply inescapably have the characteristic features of a zero-sum game. Some individuals are made better off by an increase in the money supply; others are made worse off. The existing money is an example of a “fixed pie of social value.” Adding to the money supply does not add to its value.

@ climateace
December 26, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Oh, yes? What “mass extinction event” would that be?
What “trashing of our soils”?
And as for “the utter degradation of our largest river systems” – try that one on the many flood victims of the past few years.

Gail Combs says: December 26, 2013 at 5:38 pm
Dang, Gail hits the nail right on the head with this line she quoted:
“…..the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally….”
Then in her next comment follows up with another great truth: Capitalism is a wonderful thing, but it only functions because of a myriad of laws and regulations.
Countries and governments should be investing in infrastructure within their own shores. If you think government can’t run it (very likely the case) then set up a sovereign wealth fund (Singapore and China style), and let that buy the companies and their assets, and run them exactly like normal companies.
Note that many power assets in Australia were privatized and sold off. Who bought them? Singaporean and Chinese companies owned by their sovereign wealth funds. Someone must be wrong and made an awful economic decision there, and I suspect it was not the foreigners.

Coalition projects surge hits $400bn
The Australian December 27, 2013 12:00AM
RESOURCES, infrastructure and road projects worth a total of $400 billion have been given the green light as the Abbott government demolishes objections from the Greens and moves to reverse a predicted fall in mining investment that could drag down the economy for two years. Environment Minister Greg Hunt has taken decisions on 125 projects in the Coalition’s first three months in office, including approving 29 major projects, which the government estimates are worth $400bn.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalition-projects-surge-hits-400bn/story-fn59niix-1226790338185 (paywalled)

Our current leadership tells us we didn’t build our businesses – we didn’t build our forges and mills and foundries, our great engineering marvels that placed us time and again at the top of the heap. We didn’t build our factories that turn out designs we surely didn’t create. We are told we had help and that help deserves, has a right to, a share of our hard work’s produce. We are not told who helped us so all comers expect their fair share of our pie. Our leadership doesn’t understand. Can’t or won’t, doesn’t matter. The understanding isn’t there. And our pie is no more – it has gone to China where it is out of reach of our leadership’s absurd self loathing, and it is thriving.

Subordination of nations to self-selected experts is the wet dream of leftism. “A republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.” She is failing.

climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 5:37 pm
This article is truly bizarre. The thing is this: Australia has, over the past couple of decades, climbed UP the ladder of the world’s largest economies.
============
Norway has $ 71,870,000,000 in the bank, while Australia, in very distinct contrast, owes $57,140,000,000.
The thing is, over the past couple of decades, The Commonwealth of Australia Corporation has climbed UP the status ladder to rank #6 on the list of the world’s largest debtors:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html
And we flaunt our debt proudly, as if it were wealth.

We have not only sponged off of the capitol our ancestors built up, we have systematically looted the capitol our grandchildren have yet to create.
National debt anyone?
Chad Wozniak covers most of our government disorder.
We pretend we are operating with democratic political systems, but it seems clear to me we are living in Kleptocracies.
Who benefits from acts of government?
Another way to look at the bureaus and politicians, is as actors who begged for the opportunity to play the roles of a very old morality play.
Civilization requires rule of law, some order and equality before the law for all, simply put we need to be able to trust strangers, to be able to trade and cooperate to our mutual benefit.
Govt is a gong show/morality play to help maintain the illusion, that civilization works, hence the actors who contribute nothing productive to society except this illusion, must perform their roles as written. Punishment of the ruling actors must be dramatic.
Violent retribution for breaches of public trust are required, the moral authority of government must be enforced or civilization falls.
Otherwise ask yourself, What do the functionaries of government contribute?
They produce no food, no durable goods and take not make wealth.

I notice that anyone who disagrees with anything that the anointed ones pontificate on in the blogs is almost automatically called a troll. If you can’t argue the issues, please desist from calling me a troll. It is rude.

jr
[We have not only sponged off of the capitol our ancestors built up, we have systematically looted the capitol our grandchildren have yet to create.
National debt anyone?]
In fiscal terms the Australian national government debt is small and manageable. But you are onto a reasonable approach when it comes to the environment: we have chewed up our forests, soils, river systems and biodiversity – all examples of eating the beneficence of future generations.

‘[Khwarizmi says:
December 26, 2013 at 9:52 pm
climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 5:37 pm
This article is truly bizarre. The thing is this: Australia has, over the past couple of decades, climbed UP the ladder of the world’s largest economies.
============
Norway has $ 71,870,000,000 in the bank, while Australia, in very distinct contrast, owes $57,140,000,000.]
You are demonstrating that you know nothing about economics. Australia’s economy is far larger than Norway’s economy. According to Forbes, this is impossible because Australia is uncompetitive. Forbes is spouting economic rubbish on a climate science blog.
I fail to see why Anthony allows this sort of specious rubbish to defile his science blog.

A fine essay. You write the truth.
or more jobs will follow Holden.
Who or What or When was “Holden”?

SE
[A fine essay. You write the truth.
or more jobs will follow Holden.
Who or What or When was “Holden”?]
Holden was the local marque for locally-built cars by General Motors. Following a rant in parliament by our Treasurer, Holden decided to pull the plug on car manufacturing in Australia.

[Watts
“climateace” can’t really help himself, he’s just another govwonk in Canberra that likely never had to actually produce anything of substance. Other than reports I doubt he has anything tangible.]
It is interesting that when people cannot argue the issues, the attack the person. It does not really matter whether I have produced anything of substance or not.
Unlike metereologists, for example, I have produced concrete stuff. At one stage in my life, I grew food that people ate. It was quite satisfying if very hard physical work.
But I didn’t like being the victim of farmgate prices contrived predatory international food corporations so I got out of there. I still, for old time’s sake, produce some beef.

Patrick
[Australian farmers; largest group of middle class welfare beneficiaries.]
Someone ought to do something to re-design the welfare. Most farmers are heavily in debt and working for the banks.

Lessee, if debt is growing in absolute and relative terms faster than GDP, it means …

@AW: re climateace You said: “Other than reports I doubt he has anything tangible” could that mean seeing he uses OPM, could those reports have been OPR’s?. BTW, Mr. Forbes essay is short to the point and as he pointed out has been happening all over the world sadly enough. I just hope as with your efforts to take on the Gore’s of this world others in different segments of our society will take the “termites” to task. Thanks and a Happy New Year.

Patrick
[While their Gov’nt allows imports from the EU zone (Olive oil, tomatoes and oranges for instance – I do try to buy Aussie owned/grown foods in any case). The ALP/Greens sold Australia out to the “carbon” banks in 2010. What will the UN do with our ~AU$800mil (10% of carbon tax revenue) annual carbon tax contribution?]
It is an abiding mystery to me why successive Australian governments of all persuasions bargain away free trade in primary produce. Let’s hope that the Abbott Government does not repeat the dose with the TPP.

patrick
[Talking of facts, can you document any/all of Abbotts direct action plan projects that have been/are being implemented?]
It is true that the Abbott Government has been remarkably slow off the mark. As you would be aware, Minister Hunt, just before Christmas and after three months on the job, has issued a Discussion Paper.

I regret that this issue was raised.
LM
[Yes, many of us, myself included, agree overall with Viv’s article. But so what?
If we start mixing our politics with our science, we’ll end up as badly wrong as the extreme greens.]
Science and politics should never be together seen.

climateace;
Could you answer one question, please?
Does your name “climateace” refer to more than one person?

Gerard
[Climateace is obviously on holidays from public service job – sitting on his verandah of his hobby farm house using comments from this post for entertainment – what a sad life!]
I promote the truth as I see it. All the rest is irrelevant. (BTW, you could always discuss the issues raised by Forbes.)

climateace,
Unanswered, unresolved.

Lewis
At last, an intelligent comment on the Forbes article! In terms of timing there can be little doubt that the GM execs listened (live) to what Hockey said in the House and that it was the last straw. But I was being a (bit) wicked in attributing the degree of causation implied.
Beyond that there are systemic reasons why our vehicle manufacturing plants are closing down. The main reason is that we have a terribly strong currency because of our mining industry exports. It is the Australian version of the Dutch disease.
Beyond that, there are lesser reasons having to do with government subsidies for car manufacturing overseas, a lack of capital investment in productivity (very low rates of robotics compared with o/s plants) and other factors, as you rightly point out, including economies of scale.
Labor productivity was definitely a factor. That said, it is interesting to know that car workers in places like Germany earn more than car workers in Australian.
Finally, it has long been a matter of considerable angst for me that Australian plants specialized in huge, heavy, gas guzzling Australian tanks at a time when petrol prices are heading north and we need to move to decarbonise the economy.
The government subsidies that have propped up this archaic nonsense for decades would far better have been spent on improving mass transit in Australian cities.

It always amuses me that the same people who say this sort of thing are often righteously apoplectic about sovereign risk in countries where governance is weak, the laws chaotic, the rule of law largely absent and the bureaucracy inefficient, ineffective and riddled with corruption. Such countries notoriously also have badly educated workforces prone to the sorts of disease absent in well-ordered countries. The infrastructure in such countries is absent or poorly maintained. Using the infrastructure by way of a car ride can be lethal. Ecosystem services in terms of clean water, clean air are often lacking. In the absence of effective regulation the food can be lethal. Managing currency risk in such countries can be a nightmare. Finally, in terms of law and order you might wake up one day and find that your mine workforce has been murdered and your mine taken over by a local warlord.
============================================================
Who knew Elizabeth Warren was an Aussie?!?!?!?

climateace again:

Someone inquired about Australian extinctions. Below see links of extinctions of vertebrate fauna and vascular plants. You can safely assume suites of invertebrate and non-vascular plant extinctions to go with each higher order extinction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_flora_of_Australia
The true damage to Australian biodiversity has been within-species loss of genetic diversity.
Forbes ignores each and every one of these which leads inevitably to the view that he does not give a rat’s about extinctions.

He “ignores” them because his article has nothing to do with the subject. And in any case, how come YOU never said a word about AIDS in Africa!!!??? This leads inevitably to the view that you do not give a rat’s about sick Africans.
The previous paragraph was just trying to wake up a stultified mind – other readers please ignore. Back to the point. You point us to a site listing 66 extinct fauna in over 200 years. I asked you to list 100 since 1901. And for very good reason. The background extinction rate on Earth since life began is about 3 extinctions per year. Modern humans have made it about 4 – i.e. 1 extinction per year due to human beings. (1) That’s not much of a mass extinction event. and (2) you haven’t shown the remotest reason why Viv Forbes has to answer anything about it. 1000 extinctions in a century plus, which I challenged you to find worldwide, would be 3 x the background rate, about the minimum you could call a mass extinction event. 100 in that time a rough guess of Australia’s contribution. And you can’t demonstrate it. The null hypothesis (no mass extincti0on event) stands unless YOU provide the evidence otherwise. Make your case. In trying you might learn something if your mind is not completely shut and welded solid.
Oh, and then you said:

I notice that anyone who disagrees with anything that the anointed ones pontificate on in the blogs is almost automatically called a troll. If you can’t argue the issues, please desist from calling me a troll. It is rude.

You are a troll, I did argue the issues, unlike you. You are the one who came here insulting Viv Forbes with ranting nonsense about subjects he wasn’t writing about. Given what you clearly are and your own language quoted above, I couldn’t care less how rude I am to the likes of you. And these are all my own opinions, thank you, unlike yours which came direct from the alarmists’ mass production belief factory.

climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 2:18 am
“Finally, it has long been a matter of considerable angst for me that Australian plants specialized in huge, heavy, gas guzzling Australian tanks at a time when petrol prices are heading north and we need to move to decarbonise the economy.”
Why would you need to decarbonize the economy?
Now, I know this is the centerpiece of your religion, but the necessity to decarbonize rests one hundred percent on the believe that climate models can forecast the future.
Maybe you should look into that assumption a little closer. I take it you are not a mathematician or the likes. Let me tell you this: The climate modelers played you like a fiddle. Maybe you should ask them some questions.
Believing Six Impossible Things before Breakfast, and Climate Models.

Eric Worrall says:
December 26, 2013 at 6:49 pm
Gail Combs, the social good that banks do is help individuals and companies manage risk.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not with Fractional Reserve Banking. That is propaganda to get the masses to agree to allowing the bankers and their buddies to rob them. What banks do is print fiat money. The value of that money is stolen from the last people to have access to that money. It was YOUR wealth that bought the assets for the companies but YOU get cut out of the deal except as the patsy who pays for it.
Another way to say that is the value of the money placed into the pockets of the elite comes from the inflation of the price of goods the poor and middle class must pay and the devaluation of their savings and wages. The dollar I earned and placed in savings in the 1960s could buy ten colas or ten candy bars or three gallons of gas. Today it does not even buy one.
This is the actual situation in the world as a result:

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND World Economy
Convergence, Interdependence, and Divergence
Finance & Development, September 2012, Vol. 49, No. 3
…In many countries the distribution of income has become more unequal, and the top earners’ share of income in particular has risen dramatically. In the United States the share of the top 1 percent has close to tripled over the past three decades, now accounting for about 20 percent of total U.S. income (Alvaredo and others, 2012).

What happened three decades ago in the USA to account for the wealth that was transfered?

January 29, 1989 New York Times
Of mergers and acquisitions each costing $1 million or more, there were just 10 in 1970; in 1980, there were 94; in 1986, there were 346. A third of such deals in the 1980’s were hostile. The 1980’s also saw a wave of giant leveraged buyouts. Mergers, acquisitions and L.B.O.’s, which had accounted for less than 5 percent of the profits of Wall Street brokerage houses in 1978, ballooned into an estimated 50 percent of profits by 1988…
THROUGH ALL THIS, THE HISTORIC RELATIONSHIP between product and paper has been turned upside down. Investment bankers no longer think of themselves as working for the corporations with which they do business. These days, corporations seem to exist for the investment bankers….
In fact, investment banks are replacing the publicly held industrial corporations as the largest and most powerful economic institutions in America…. THERE ARE SIGNS THAT A VICIOUS spiral has begun, as each corporate player seeks to improve its standard of living at the expense of another’s.
Corporate raiders transfer to themselves, and other shareholders, part of the income of employees by forcing the latter to agree to lower wages.

In a leveraged buyout the raider has the bank print up money and give it to him. The ‘collateral’ is the business he does not even own. Once the raider has control he often just sells the hard assets; the land, buildings and equipment taking the accumulated wealth and turning it into cash and then goes on to the next victim. This is how the USA lost many of her mid sized companies. I knew a guy whose business in Boston MA was packing up whole factories and shipping them overseas. The company I worked for, well run with no debt, was a victim. That company and those factories no longer exist here in the USA.
This is the result:

The Network of Global Corporate Control
Abstract
The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability…. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers….
Introduction
A common intuition among scholars and in the media sees the global economy as being dominated by a handful of powerful transnational corporations (TNCs). However, this has not been confirmed or rejected with explicit numbers….
Concentration of Control
In principle, one could expect inequality of control to be comparable to inequality of income across households and firms, since shares of most corporations are publicly accessible in stock markets. In contrast, we find that only 737 top holders accumulate 80% of the control over the value of all TNCs [transnational corporations]

Do you understand what this paper is saying? There are 737 people/families who control the economy of the entire world!
Article relating to this paper:

Speakers James B. Glattfelder: Complex systems theorist
First a physicist and then a researcher at a Swiss hedge fund… The study looked at the architecture of ownership across the globe, and computed a level of control exerted by each international player. The study revealed that less than 1% of all the players in the global economy are part of a highly interconnected and powerful core which, because of the high levels of overlap, leaves the economy vulnerable.…

An earlier work by the same physicists.

World’s Stocks Controlled by Select Few
A pair of physicists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich did a physics-based analysis of the world economy as it looked in early 2007. Stefano Battiston and James Glattfelder extracted the information from the tangled yarn that links 24,877 stocks and 106,141 shareholding entities in 48 countries, revealing what they called the “backbone” of each country’s financial market. These backbones represented the owners of 80 percent of a country’s market capital, yet consisted of remarkably few shareholders….

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, This is what he has to say.

I am amazed that the US government, in the midst of the worst financial crises ever, is content for short-selling to drive down the asset prices that the government is trying to support….The bald fact is that the combination of ignorance, negligence, and ideology that permitted the crisis to happen still prevails and is blocking any remedy. Either the people in power in Washington and the financial community are total dimwits or they are manipulating an opportunity to redistribute wealth from taxpayers, equity owners and pension funds to the financial sector. http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts250209.htm

I vote for a redistribution of wealth from us to the elite using Fractional Reserve Banking.

Banksters are capitalists. Give them an opportunity, and they capitalize. “Laws” are what might limit their behaviors and expansion into fraud. But there must be a large population that cares about laws that limit — whether the power of owner/managers of large corporations or of governmental elites. Where is that large population to come from?
So much of the standard debate around “capitalism” is about pride of the builders/makers (yes deserved, and also often immense wealth to go along with the risk of capital and inventiveness) and envy from the workers (little wealth from the risk of one’s body/mind during a relatively short working life, therefore unions, etc.). Very few have worked on how to solve this conundrum of pride and envy.
In brief, let the prideful builders/makers try to retire on savings from a life of honest labor. Therefore, the workers turn to union bosses who become like government elites with bloated salaries and no creative input into any economic/financial process. Another layer of termites.
There is the tremendous fear of “democracy” from those of builder/maker abilities (this does take great intelligence and fortitude), but little imagination about how to expand (the possibility of)opportunity to all from their good effort. The “gambling spirit” is in most of us. Pride and joy from our achievements. The excitement of the win, and the possibilities before us as a result. Think of the banksters.
Those on the “conservative” side of the debate might have had great numbers following them into battle against the elitist big-government types (no risk/no creativity/no hard personal work) if they had a dog in the fight, too. Some percentage of that immense wealth of the builders/makers should have been the birthright of the workers. And, when you count it, that wealth had been obscene compared to the returns from the labor of those who ALSO made it possible.
There should be a common purpose of worker/builder/maker against the termites, who are evolving into fire ants. I see no love, no community of purpose, no willingness to bring the workers into the fold of “I built that”. Until that happens, democracy will bring wrong choices every time — government hand-outs permitting parasitic elites.

“wind-energy prayer wheels”
Nice.

SAMURAI says: @ December 26, 2013 at 7:44 pm
The world economy is being slowly being destroyed by statist governments’ EXCESSIVE: rules, regulation, mandates, greenmail, public sector union extortion, taxes, government debt and insane monetary policies necessary to feed the Leviathan and create economic bubbles.
The malinvestments, economic distortions, debt and economic inefficiencies created by statist governments will eventually cause one of the worst worldwide economic collapses in human history….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unfortunately I am afraid that is the plan. Alexander Fraser Tytler published The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic in 1776. The Fabians became active more than a hundred years later. From my comment it is obvious there were men who were looking ahead with plans to shape the world as they saw fit. Carroll Quigley who documented the group was all in favor of them. (So was Clinton)
One of Milner’s groups operating in the USA was the Council on Foreign Relations another was the Committee on Economic Development. This well researched article shows how a goal was arrived at just after WWII, ridding the USA of independent farmers, and pursued through the present day culminating in the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009.
George Bernard Shaw was a founding member of the Fabians and gives us a glimpse of how these people think.

“The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are drive to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”
Source: George Bernard Shaw, Prefaces (London: Constable and Co., 1934), p. 296.
A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them.”
Source: George Bernard Shaw, Lecture to the Eugenics
Education Society, Reported in The Daily Express, March 4, 1910
link

I would love to believe this was just the rantings of a mad man but unfortunately we see the same mindset in Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren. From the books he co-authored:

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. . . . Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political”
– John Holdren, Anne Ehrlich, and Paul Ehrlich, Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (San Francisco; W.H. Freeman and Company, 1973), p. 279.
Only one rational path is open to us—simultaneous de-development of the [overdeveloped countries] and semi-development of the underdeveloped countries (UDC’s), in order to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between. By de-development we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.”
– John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, “Introduction,” in Holdren and Ehrlich, eds., Global Ecology, 1971, p. 3.
“organized evasive action: population control, limitation of material consumption, redistribution of wealth, transitions to technologies that are environmentally and socially less disruptive than today’s, and movement toward some kind of world government” (1977: p. 5).
Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and John Holdren, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1977), p. 954.
link

From another article

Page 837: Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution…
Page 787-8: Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today…

Again it sounds like the ranting of mad men but if you bother to look you see it being implemented.

UN Agenda 21 – Sustainability.
”
Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. Social justice, urban renewal and development, the provision of decent dwellings-and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole./b>… Source: United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I)

We are being told Apartments are the core of any sustainability strategy. They are more resource- and energy-efficient than other types of residential development because their concentrated infrastructure conserves materials and community services. California towns passes laws requiring new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. and cities are putting in Micro-mini’ 14 foot by 15 foot apartments that used to be too small to pass the old zoning laws.
Worse we find in the UK and the USA the collection of the DNA of newborns. You can then add in the fact the Supreme Court Upholds Warrantless Collection Of DNA from persons who are arrested. This is arrested not convicted. It has gone even farther Federal contractors set up roadblocks in over 60 U.S. cities to harvest DNA samples

The Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) installed the roadblock north of the city during daytime traffic. They flagged down some motorists at random and asked them to give breath, saliva, and blood samples. The FWPD claims the effort was “100 percent voluntary” and anonymous.

It acknowledges that most of the drivers had broken no law, but it said the effort was valuable to federal contractors working to complete a 3 year, $7.9M USD survey on behalf of the The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) aimed at collecting medical data for use in combating drunk driving.

The problem is, some drivers didn’t get the impression this DNA sampling was voluntary….
link

Next you can add in the fact that the USDA gave Epicyte bio-lab in San Diego grant money to develop a ‘’contraceptive corn’

…after researchers discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm. By isolating the genes that regulate the manufacture of these antibodies, and by putting them in corn plants, the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives.
Announcing his success at a press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants and announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”
Shortly after the 2001 Epicyte press release, all discussion of the breakthrough vanished. The company itself was taken over in 2004 by Biolex and nothing more was heard in any media about the development of spermicidal corn…. link

Are you starting to feel like cattle yet?

Chad Wozniak says: @ December 26, 2013 at 8:43 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
Excellent list. I would add some sort of campaign funding laws.
All moneys go into a slush fund and divided equally between all candidates. Heavy fines/jail sentences for smearing candidates with untruths especial those that can not be proven either way (I am thinking of Herman Cain and those paid to smear him.)
Finally NO MONEY from foreign entities or persons.
Also get rid of the Corporate/Government revolving door. Once you serve in office or in the bureaucracy you are barred from working for corporations in that field.

Bill says: @ December 26, 2013 at 9:24 pm
…All the issues I have seen on this site boil down to the exposure of different frauds, and the beautiful search through many slings and arrows for the truth.
The truth is that the financial systems of this planet are all frauds, made legal by fraudulant laws.
This is the reason for the failure of our economies.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Very well said. What is interesting is all the strings attaching many of these frauds to each other.
I originally thought that the problems in the USA were just from the accumulation of more and more laws over a period of 200 years. Then I started digging.

This post seems about as well thought out and documented as something we might expect in a paper from a high schooler.
Where are the facts and figures, the charts, the reference data?
And how does the author explain this story from one year ago that says “AUSTRALIA has recorded its 21st consecutive year of economic growth, the only developed nation in the world that can make that boast.” One would have expected Australia to have had one of the worst growth records in the world with “green tape” and the so-called “Termite generation”.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/economists-expect-solid-gdp-growth/story-e6frfkur-1226465183237

Leo Morgan says: @ December 27, 2013 at 12:26 am
I regret that this issue was raised.
Yes, many of us, myself included, agree overall with Viv’s article. But so what?
If we start mixing our politics with our science, we’ll end up as badly wrong as the extreme greens.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Since science is connected at the hip to government via grants, you CAN NOT take the politics out of science. That is why science has been so badly corrupted, it serves its paymaster.
Without that insight you are just spining your wheels over in a corner while Big Money and Big Media and Big Government get on with the job of tightening our slave collars.

I agree with Gail.
It is nothing short of total capitulation and surrender to let a fear of over steering deter one from acting to stop the extreme green left. They would like nothing better than for you to have such fear leaving them a free range to impose anything they decide.
Leo Morgan’s worry may as well be a decree that resistance is futile.

What I find sad is the number of people who fall for the outside covering. Whether it is CAGW or “We are from the government and we are here to help you.”
DEATH BY GOVERNMENT by R.J. Rummel should be required reading in every school around the world. The “termites’ seem to think life is a bowl of cherries and we live in an ‘enlightened’ era where the government is responsible for protecting and feeding and clothing them from cradle to grave without them lifting a finger. After all they are ENTITLED. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It was the same George Bernard Shaw who wrote:

“The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way.
Source: George Bernard Shaw, Prefaces (London: Constable
and Co., 1934), p. 296.

Who also wrote “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” and designed the Fabian Window with its coat of arms of a wolf wrapped in a sheepskin. One wonders how soon that sheepskin is going to be removed.

169,202,000 Murdered: Summary and Conclusions [20th Century Democide]
Just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being 5′, then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century….
After eight-years and almost daily reading and recording of men, women, and children by the tens of millions being tortured or beaten to death, hung, shot, and buried alive, burned or starved to death, stabbed or chopped into pieces, and murdered in all the other ways creative and imaginative human beings can devise, I have never been so happy to conclude a project. I have not found it easy to read time and time again about the horrors innocent people have been forced to suffer. What has kept me at this was the belief, as preliminary research seemed to suggest, that there was a positive solution to all this killing and a clear course of political action and policy to end it. And the results verify this. The problem is Power. The solution is democracy. The course of action is to foster freedom.
POWER KILLS

@
climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:27 pm
Regarding Mass Extinction
It can hardly be stated that the minor species loss experienced in Australia over the last 225 years would qualify as “Mass Extinction” under any definition.
“mass extinction
The extinction of a large number of species within a relatively short period of geological time, thought to be due to factors such as a catastrophic global event or widespread environmental change that occurs too rapidly for most species to adapt.”
Your linked WIKI articles indicates that over the last 225 years 67 animal species and 52 plant species have been confrimed as extinct. This equates to 1 animal species every 3 years and 1 plant species avery 4 years. There is no apparent “Mass” episode of vanishing species in any given Decade or 1/4 century period that can be determined as a Mass Extinction episode where any greater number of species has vanished over what could be expected from Natural Selection.
Man has done more damage from the introduction of the Cane Toad than any possible Climate induced disruption that could be atributed to industrialization.
Can you find any other possible supporting evidence of “Mass Extinction”?

Decarbonize the economy?
This is newspeak, perhaps the decarbonizers, such as Climate Ace, would show us the way, please decarbonize yourself.
The insanity of ,a carbon based life form, demonizing carbon, is very hard to parody.

[climateace says: December 27, 2013 at 2:09 am
… efficient and effective bureaucracies.
AJB
Oxymoron alert.]
Some bureaucracies (whether in large multi-national corporates in the private sector, large religions, or in the public sector) are efficient and effective. Others are not.
Clearly, the issue is not whether to have a bureaucracy because bureaucracies are indispensible.
The issue is how to get and keep an effective and efficient bureaucracy. This is harder than most people think.

climateace puts forth a nice strawman agrument, doesn’t
he? His statement was:

It always amuses me that the same people who say this sort of thing are often righteously apoplectic about sovereign risk in countries where governance is weak, the laws chaotic, the rule of law largely absent and the bureaucracy inefficient, ineffective and riddled with corruption. Such countries notoriously also have badly educated workforces prone to the sorts of disease absent in well-ordered countries. The infrastructure in such countries is absent or poorly maintained. Using the infrastructure by way of a car ride can be lethal. Ecosystem services in terms of clean water, clean air are often lacking. In the absence of effective regulation the food can be lethal. Managing currency risk in such countries can be a nightmare. Finally, in terms of law and order you might wake up one day and find that your mine workforce has been murdered and your mine taken over by a local warlord.

As if there is no choice between an overbearing, smothering government
and a third-world hellhole. Governments are not a quantum entity, but
a continuum entity. They are not necessarily either huge, smothering
masses or incapable of enforcing their will beyond a day’s infantry march.
It is possible to have a government that is sufficient to do its job but still
small enough to be minimally intrusive. It has just become extremely
difficult.
The bureaucracy which climateace praises is the
directly culpable party. Once a bureaucracy has come into existence, its
stated mission inevitably becomes secondary to
its real mission. The real mission becomes simply
the preservation and expansion of the bureaucracy itself! Goals
become evaluated not on the basis of, “Is our particular agency
able to do its nominal job efficiently, or has it become too obese?”,
but instead on the basis of, “How can we expand our budget, staffing,
and reach?” This is simply due to human nature–people want to feel
good about themselves, and their jobs. In a bureaucratic setting,
that equates to a larger budget and a larger number of people
controlled. This desire operates up and down the bureaucratic
chain.
I wish I could confidently recommend a set of solutions that would
keep a government lean, mean, cost-effective and focused on
delivering value to the people governed. Such a set of solutions
may not exist, since it would have to effectively counter human
nature. I would suggest that a citizenry that is sceptical about the
ability of government to do “everything” is a small first step.

Patrick said @ December 26, 2013 at 10:57 pm

Australian farmers; largest group of middle class welfare beneficiaries.

Liar! That’s the kind of crap my brother came out with when he was a Canberra policy wonk!

The OECD has released it’s annual survey of national agriculture subsidy levels by OECD members. While internationally, farm subsidy levels have been lower in 2010 due to the relatively high commodity prices, Australia and New Zealand farmers receive the lowest levels of subsidies of any farmers, and Australia is right at the bottom when it comes to total expenditure on agriculture as a proportion of national GDP.
The OECD compiles national farm sector subsidy data on an annual basis, in order to provide an international comparison of farm subsidy levels, and to encourage OECD nations and others to reduce farm subsidies and distortions to agricultural trade. In its report just released for 2010, New Zealand farmers received the lowest levels of subsidies of any nations farmers (averaged over the 2008-2010 period), with an estimated 1% of their farm income being generated through subsidies, trade restrictions or other forms of government support. Australian was ranked second lowest, at 3.2% of farm income derived from government support measures averaged over this period. This compares to an OECD average of around 20%, and a high for Norway of 60%.
When agriculture sector support (including subsidies to farmers, subsidies to consumers and government R&D contributions) is measured in terms of government outlays to the sector as a proportion of national GDP, Australia had the lowest level, with outlays to agriculture equivalent to just 0.12% of GDP. This compares with an OECD average of 0.85%.
The data actually overstates current support levels in Australia, because it is reported as an average of the 2008 – 2010 years – during the earlier years of this period the drought subsidies being paid to farmers were higher than in the current year. For the 2010 year, subsidies and support for Australian farmers were equivalent to just 2.23% of farmers income.
Next time someone tell[s] you Australian farmers are just whingers who are always on the Government teat, tell them they’re dreaming!

http://farminstitute.org.au/_blog/Ag_Forum/post/Australia_still_at_the_bottom_when_it_comes_to_farm_subsidies/
Here in Tasmania several business sectors had their costs of compliance assessed and farmers’ costs were far higher than any other business.

Several posters appear to be having difficulty with accepting that Australia is undergoing a mass extinction event.
Australia has lost around .09% of its vertebrate species in 200 years. This is caculated using a figure of around 70 vertebrate species extinct out of a total of around 7,500 vertebrates.
(The numbers change around a bit as new species are found, species are reclassified and so on and so forth).
At this rate it will take around 10,000 years before ALL vertebrates are extinct in Australia.
Complete extinctions of this nature are unlikely but it is unarguable that we have initiated a continent-wide mass extinction event.
The pipeline of species threatened with extinction is extensive.
Other people questioned why I raised the issue of the mass extinction event in the context of the Forbes article.
The reason is quite simple: the only thing standing between our mass extinction event and the pioneers, the settlers, the builders, the developers, the farmers and the miners are government laws and regulations about environmental standards. OTOH, Forbes was arguing against green regulations.
My view is that we need to have development but that the development has to be constrained in order to be sustainable.
Where our mass extinction event goes from here is a matter of national choice. If the choice is to stop it, then green regulations will be required.

Climateace.
Seriously. You’re seriously arguing that?

farmerbraun said @ December 27, 2013 at 1:05 pm

Long may it continue to be that way.

From the bureau of census and stats:

Farming as a vocation tends to be characterised by a high degree of self-employment and long working hours. In 2011, half (50%) of farmers worked 49 hours or more a week. Only 17% of other workers put in such long hours.
….
Despite working such long hours, the average weekly disposable income of farmers in 2009-10 ($568) was considerably lower than that of people working in other occupations ($921).

So you believe these “middle class welfare beneficiaries” don’t deserve a fairer deal?

Blofill
[obvious glaring problems.
1 – we are extrapolating from .09% over 200 years a linear trend that will continue for 10K years?]
This is a reasonable question. My understanding is that there are around ten times as many endangered as extinct species so a reasonable extrapolation is that if we don’t modify our behaviour the mass extinction event will continue. In fact, the list of endangered species continues to grow rather than to decline. If anything, the trend looks to be increasing.
[2 – it is unarguable that we have initiated a continent-wide mass extinction event.
Is it? Who’s we? What’s the nature of this event? Specific mechanism? Evidence? As Willis says, can you show me the bodies?]
The documentation of Australian vertebrate extinctions is, zoologically, quite sound. In terms of bodies, most Australian natural history museums have collections of skeletons. In terms of endangered species, the process for allocating status is fully documented.
[3- he only thing standing between our mass extinction event … are government laws and regulations about environmental standards.
This has not been demonstrated or supported, merely asserted. For that matter, the extinction event has not been demonstrated or supported, merely asserted.]
Extinction processes and causes for Australian vertebrates are generally well-documented in scientific terms. In nearly every case activities of the sorts positively supported by Forbes (above) are complicit. Green regulations and government activities such as the declaration of national parks respond to these processes and causes.
So, there are no ‘obvious or glaring problems’: only the reality that we have choices about whether to proceed with our mass extinction event.

climateace says: @ December 27, 2013 at 12:40 pm
…Clearly, the issue is not whether to have a bureaucracy because bureaucracies are indispensible…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Talk about serendippity, I just now finished read an article by Mark Stoval addressing that very issue. An article about a long lasting civilization WITHOUT BUREAUCRATS!

Irish Brehon: a legal system
..There are examples of the private production of law and my favorite example is Brehon, or Early Irish law which arose during the Irish anarchy of old….
Brehon, the Irish legal system lasted until the mid 1600s and was a fully developed system prior to any invasion by other peoples. Those invasions only weakened the system, and certainly did not improve it any. It is thought that the legal system dates back to perhaps 2,300 BC. The laws were concerned with property rights, contracts, inheritance, and so forth….
This legal code survived, it is thought, for about three millennia and that is testament to the sense of honor of the people; after all, the law was the people’s law. The law’s authority came from the acceptance and moral strength of the people who were governed by the Brehon Code. In ancient Ireland an individual’s word was his bond….

Some of the unique features of early Brehon Law, compared to our modern law, included recognition of personal responsibility scaled to ones position in society, the priority of individuals over property, equal rights between genders, environmental concern and lack of capital punishment. Most importantly, it was a system that required restitution for wrong rather than punishment. The effectiveness of the body of law is reflected in the great respect given it by its citizens. The law was so revered and honored by the people that there were neither courts needed nor police forces required to enforce it. ~ Michael Ragan

…Since the law arose out of the people themselves through their experiences and real legal cases, the law could not be changed without public approval. It took a majority of “free people” in a public assembly of the people to change any portion of the code. This was a law supported by the people because it was their law. It was not ruler made law handed down from on top but rather it was people made law.
link

This was a real eye opening article for me because I alway considered anarcho-capitalists to be nice people but not living in reality. No nation-state? How could that possibly work? Stoval goes on to explain what is meant here: The State versus Governance – “One of the problems that gets in the way of many people understanding our position is that they confuse the ‘State’ with ‘governance’ or with ‘government’. As I have mentioned many times in the past, there is no one that I know of that wants total chaos.”
SO Climateace not only can a society exist without a bureaucracy, but it lasted a heck of a lot longer than the civilizations that DID have bureaucracies. Two hundred years vs ~ 3,000 years? That alone seems to prove bureaucracies strangle civilizations not prolong them.
And in answer to Lord Monckton’s article on morality:

…law enforcement was not a function of the king in the Irish tuath, rather it was dependent on each party in a suit to provide themselves with sureties who would guarantee that the monetary judgment of the Brehon’s court would be honored. There was an elaborate system of surety-ship which formed the basis of the entire legal system. Hence, a man’s character, reputation, and property were highly important in this society. Honor was highly valued since the honorable would follow the code. …

Remember this dated back 2000 or more years before Christ.

Climateace,
You merely reiterate your assertions.
Look, it shouldn’t be too hard to go find climate studies that suggest climate change will cause extinctions. I’d open fire on those if they were presented, but you’re not even meeting me halfway by doing that. Give me something to shoot at.
Even given such studies, even if we accepted them as the simple truth, … well, we’ll blow up that bridge when we come to it.

climateace said @ December 27, 2013 at 1:30 pm

Green regulations and government activities such as the declaration of national parks respond to these processes and causes.
So, there are no ‘obvious or glaring problems’: only the reality that we have choices about whether to proceed with our mass extinction event.

One “obvious and glaring problem”: farmers and foresters being put out of business through green regulations. A local greenie was skiting about the success of destroying thye forestry industry to a friend the other day. My friend commiserated with the woman over the imminent loss of her orchard adjacent to bushland when the bush caught fire. “I’ll just call the fire brigade,” she said. Unfortunately, the “fire brigade” were volunteers from the forestry workforce. The foresters have sold their machinery including the large bulldozers used to cut firebreaks.
So it goes…
Also I note that your “mass extinction” doesn’t rate in the list of mass extinctions on the wiki-bloody-pedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

@ Gail Combes
Iceland had a working anarchy in the past. Sadly, it was destroyed by the church:

Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government
Those who claim that government is the source of social order say that in its absence there would be violence, chaos, and a low standard of living. They cite civil wars in Africa, drug wars in South America, or even Gengis Khan in Mongolia. They claim that these things, which are actually examples of competing governments, are what life without government will produce.
Another common objection to stateless legal enforcement systems is to ask for “just one example of where it has worked.”
Medieval Iceland illustrates an actual and well-documented historical example of how a stateless legal order can work and it provides insights as to how we might create a more just and efficient society today.

http://mises.org/daily/1121

The Pompous Git says: @ December 27, 2013 at 12:52 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Farmers also get squeezed because there is only one buyer who sets the price, at least here in the USA. If you look at the retail cost of food over time the farmer is getting a smaller and smaller chunk.

…farmers and ranchers receive only 15.8* cents of every food dollar that consumers spend on food at home and away from home?
According to USDA, off farm costs including marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing account for more than 80 cents of every food dollar spent in the United States.
smaller chunk.
link

In fact, the farmer’s share of the retail food dollar has been on the decline for more than 60 years. In 1950, farmers received more than 40 cents for every food dollar that consumers spent in the grocery store. Today, they receive a paltry 19 cents.
And that 19 cents isn’t even pure profit—instead it’s put towards the many expenses of running a farm, such as seeds, machinery, fuel, and fertilizer. The farmers simply have to hope and pray that their yields and market prices are high enough to cover the costs. If not, they hope for a better year next year in order to pay off the loss-or worse, hang it up.
link

Doreen expresses my sentiment towards those bashing farmers: LET THEM EAT GRASS

The Pompous Git says: @ December 27, 2013 at 1:42 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unfortunately I doubt the woman is capable of putting 2 + 2 together when her orchard and home burns to the ground thanks to ‘Green practices”. Unless of course she also earns a Darwin Award.

Number of Australian vertebrates
http://www.environment.gov.au/node/13866
List of vertebrates rendered extinct over the past 200 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_Australia

http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl

http://collections.ala.org.au/public/show/co12
Hundreds of thousands of accession records for plants including extinct plants.

Climateace,
Thank you. I’m reading your stuff now.

MB
http://www.ala.org.au/

climateace said @ December 27, 2013 at 2:42 pm

In relation to apples, you raise the issue of pesticides. But the orchardists, quoted in the article you link, raise the high aussie dollar (note that Forbes refers to a ‘weak currency’ when the situation is actually the reverse) which knocks off as much as 30% of their revenue. They also cite a lack of infrastructure (transport) and finally they cite high labour costs.
Australia has the Dutch disease – too much export revenue from mining is driving the Aussie dollar too high for farmers and manufacturers to compete.

There are many issues not mentioned for what is a fairly obvious reason: there are ever so many of them. Not mentioned:
Greenpeace lying about Tasmanian apple growers using Alar. Alar was used on the mainland to colour Red Delicious in the absence of cold nights and sunny days that we enjoy in abundance.
As well as reducing costs by more rational chemical use, the industry adopted management practices that resulted in pack-out rates of between 90 and 95%, well ahead of the 60% when those practices were mooted.
A dramatic increase in the cost of agricultural lime when the greens lobbied successfully to shut down the Lune River lime quarry. Bob Brown suggested we should be importing lime from Japan. It was costly enough importing what is a very dense material from the North West of the state.
The average Tasmanian farmer now has to spend at least one whole day a week filling in forms to satisfy green-tape.
Dating back to the days of St Keating de Paul, the elimination of almost all farm subsidies (such as tax rebate on diesel fuel).
President of the Australian Dairy Farmers, Noel Campbell, believes the carbon tax is pushing up costs for dairy farms by an average of $5,500-$7,000 per year through increased power prices and processing costs. Tasmanian dairy farmers also have the additional cost of the carbon tax on freighting product to the mainland and importing inputs.
Australia’s disease is not caring about what they put in their mouths. China clearly has no compunction about selling produce here that is unfit for human consumption. The average person wants cheap food-like substances rather than real food and castigate farmers as “middle class welfare beneficiaries”.
Now I’m off to mow a meadow…

The Pompous Git
I agree that there are a range of reasons not canvassed upstring that impact on farming profitability. Nevertheless, seasons aside, Australian farm commodity exports are booming.
How do you rationalise this discrepancy?

I agree with the comment above that there is too much red tape.
I would get rid of all that Costello-induced nonsense having to do with the introduction of the GST for a start…

Whatever the merits of some of the points that climateace (the same as the earlier Climate Ace?) raises in amongst his streams of blustering rudeness, the extinction meme seems to be a furphy. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with the original article. For example: almost all of the ‘Australian’ bird extinctions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_Australia) were on islands (many, e.g. Norfolk, Lord Howe, Macquarie only politically Australian) and those with probable causes all have to do with very early hunting, fires and introduction of exotics (esp. black rats). The frog extinctions are most likely due to the introduction of the chytrid fungus. The mammal extinctions are also most likely primarily due to introduced exotics and only secondarily to direct human persecution or habitat destruction. Even the unfortunate Thylacine was done-in by disease after bounties had been lifted – the thriving colony in the Melbourne Zoo also was wiped out. Pathogen pollution has been and continues to be (Myrtle Rust is a current example) a major threat to Australia’s fauna and flora, but has nothing to do with the Forbes article.
I don’t know enough to say much about the vascular plants that are alleged to be extinct (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_flora_of_Australia), but it isn’t much of a list and some are not very impressive. For example, Euphrasia ruptura – a grass-parasitic subshrub described in 1997 from 2 branches collected in 1904. Species in this genus are known to be profligate interspecific hybridizers and a ‘species’ based on two old branches seems very weak and probably only proposed because it appeared to be ‘extinct’. Acacia kingiana was probably destroyed by agriculture, but the wild banana Musa fitzalanii from the Daintree? I doubt it (known only from the type specimen and it is only presumed extinct).
climateace’s sweeping statement “You can safely assume suites of invertebrate and non-vascular plant extinctions to go with each higher order extinction” is, in my opinion, garbage. There is no supporting data that I know of. Bryophytes have very good dispersal abilities and tend to have broad distributions. Many thrive on disturbance. I’m sure any host-specific invertebrate parasites or commensals of the extinct vertebrates went extinct too, and no doubt most of the large insects or those with long generation times or requiring specific hosts or microclimates on islands have taken a hit, but again introduced exotics are more likely primary causes of such extinctions than direct human disturbance.
Red tape, bureaucracies, carbon taxes, ‘green’ energy (think windmills, vast solar arrays, strip mining for rare earths for batteries), and the like are not friends of wildlife or wild plants: any that get in the way will be chopped or plowed for the political opportunists that promote them and the profits they reap from government subsidy.

DaveW
If you really want ‘blustering rudeness’ you should see some of the things that people upstring have been saying about me.
I argued that the original article was bizarre in two ways:
(1) it argued that Australia was an uncompetitive economy inter alia because of green regulations and expensive energy.
(2) it implied that there was no benefit to green regulations.
I put it that the first position was invalidated by the Australian economy growing for something like 21 quarters in a row and that the Australian economy by size was moving up the international table.
In relation to (2) my position is that we have entered a mass extinction event and that we have a choice. We can have a mix of regulations and positive actions to stop the mass extinction event or we can allow it to continue.
There seems to be some reluctance to face our mass extinction event or to address the statistics. Many of the species listed as vulnerable, threatened or endangered are not island species, for example. Yet denialists always head for the islands.
In relation to reasons for extinctions, you are quite right to point out that they arise from different processes and different variables. As far as I am aware, none of the relevant processes have been either halted or reversed. Pathogens, pests, predators, weeds continue to be introduced by settlers, farmers, miners and horticulturalists, for example. Clearing continues.
In relation to invertebrates, BTW, your example is actually irrelevant. Individual vertebrates and vascular plants typically ‘carry’ a species-specific set of invertebrates. These might, for example, include highly specialized creatures like moths which depend on termite-mound nesting birds. Some of these have been documented.

On extinction:

the sixth mass extinction is in progress, now, with animals going extinct 100 to 1,000 times (possibly even 1,000 to 10,000 times) faster than at the normal background extinction rate, which is about 10 to 25 species per year.

Presumably the background rate occurred before there were humans to count them. How they do that?

The Hawai’I chaff flower, the golden coqui Puerto Rican tree frog, the Martinique Parrot, the Yuman box turtle, the Madagascan Pygmy hippo, and the Japanese sea lion are amongst the list that include the 784 species of plants and animals that have recently vanished from earth because of human activities.

Yet:

In October, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) published a list of 441 new species that have been discovered in the Amazon in the last four years: 258 plants, 84 fish, 58 amphibians, 22 reptiles, 18 birds, and one mammal. That’s “an average of two new species identified every week for the past four years,” read a WWF press release, and “[t]his doesn’t even include the countless discoveries of insects and other invertebrates.”

Emphasis mine.
Note that this only the Amazon and it’s a mind-bogglingly big planet.
Sources:
http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html
http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/38639/title/New-Species-Abound/

Pompous Git
Plus, the soil micro-fauna has hardly been scratched.

daveW
(1) If you can explain why an economy that is uncompetitive in divers ways can (a) grow absolutely and (b) catch up on the next larger economies, please do so.
(2) I was using the vertebrates because someone raised them – as a proxy for the rest.
(3) You obviously have no idea about coprophagous invertebrates which are obligate to specific hollow-nesting species of birds.

Mark Bofill said @ December 27, 2013 at 5:36 pm

Okay, look. This is interesting material and I’m not done yet, but I’ve got a more general problem with this whole discussion. What definition of extinction event are we using? How do we differentiate between humans causing a few species to go extinct vrs say, an event that causes 75% or more species to go extinct?
Are we just using the phrase ‘extinction event’ because it’s catchy, or is it technically correct? Can we agree on a definition for mass extinction?

According to one of the sources I quoted from above, we are already witnessing a mass extinction of up to 250,000 species per annum. Willis Eschenbach had already disparaged the possibility of such a figure elsewhere on this website. See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/

Figure 2 shows see the complete record of every known bird and mammal extinction. In general, the timing reflects the various phases of the expansion of a variety of European species, including humans. Starting from the Caribbean extinctions in the 1500′s, extinctions continue through the age of exploration in the 1700′s and the colonial period of the 1800s. This wave of “alien species” extinctions peaked around 1900 at 1.6 extinctions per year. Extinction rates have dropped since then, with the most recent value being 0.2 extinctions per year.
Wilson’s claim that 27,000 extinctions per year have been occurring since at least 1980 means that there should be 26 bird extinctions and 13 mammal extinctions per year, a total of 39 bird and mammal extinctions per year.
The historical extinction rate, however, has never been greater than 1.8 per year, far below the 39 extinctions per year claimed. In addition, the most recent rate is lower than it has been since about 1830. Looking at the entire bird and mammal extinction record, there is no sign of the hundreds of extinctions that Wilson says have already occurred.

It’s a very interesting and enlightening essay.

PG (can I call you that? I don’t want to call you Pompous Git, it seems rude),
I’m sorry, I got sidetracked. I’ll go back and re-read. Thanks.

@ Mark Bofill
If I thought being called a Pompous Git was rude, then I would hardly have selected it as a pseudonym.
I was once called the syphilitic offspring of a mongoloid whore’s melt. My response was “You make me feel homesick. My mummy used to talk to me like that!”

PG,
I understand. But I’m the one who has to defy his neuroses to say it.

I was once called the syphilitic offspring of a mongoloid whore’s melt. My response was “You make me feel homesick. My mummy used to talk to me like that!”

:>

@ Mark Bofill
PG is fine, just so long as you understand that it’s the abbreviation for 1,2-propanediol or propane-1,2-diol. That pompous enuf, Brian? 🙂

I suck at chemistry. I honestly think I’ve got more aptitude for childbearing. And I’m male.

@ Brian H
Not just food — fuel!

Just a couple of points for “climateace”.
The list at Wiki of “extinct” animals is flawed in two basic ways when considering an “Extinction Event”.
Firstly, as has been mentioned, many of the species lived on small islands. Extinctions are far more common in small ecological areas. So these numbers should not be extrapolated to the Continent. One should also consider that they are part of “Australia” as a matter of chance and due to a line on a map. They could just have easily been part of “Holland” or “France”.
Secondly, and more importantly, many of the vertebrates do not even have a drawing and may not have existed at all. “New” species were being claimed on the basis of two feathers and a lower jaw without the creature ever being actually sighted at all. Perhaps it is better that a species be proven to actually exist before claims of its extinction can be considered?
Now one could argue that since it was described it must have existed, however as an Aussie I’ve never heard of a creature that matches these descriptions;
“an animal as large as a grey hound, of a mouse coulour and very swift;”
“The people who went over the River saw the animal again and describd him much in the same manner as yesterday.”
“it was (says he) about as large and much like a one gallon cagg, as black as the Devil and had 2 horns on its head, it went but Slowly”
“he was not only like a grey hound in size and running but had a long tail, as long as any grey hounds;”
Those extracts are from the Journal of Sir Joseph Banks detailing the First voyage of Lt James Cook where in late July of 1770 the HMS Endeavour was careered after being holed on the Great Barrier Reef.
Interestingly the entry for the 29th June says;
“One of our Midshipmen an American who was out a shooting today saw a Wolf, perfectly he sayd like those he had seen in America…”
As there are no wolves in Australia, or creatures “black as the Devil and had 2 horns on its head” then may I claim discovery of the two species “Canis Australis” and “Blackanhairythingyme Frightenus”? Since they appear to no longer wander the land can I also claim them as extinct?
climateace, you have made some good points, but you lose credibility by reaching past what the data can prove.
For the Bibliophiles out there who are drooling at reading such old texts the full directory of the works of Sir Joseph Banks that are digitised at the State Library of New South Wales is here;
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/
The Journal of the First voyage is here;
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/series_03/03_view.cfm
July 1770 is here;
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/endeav/jul_70.cfm
To put a final spike into the “It was described so it must be real” category I give you some of the works of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) who wrote some 400 volumes on Natural History but I suspect a number of the species described and illustrated did not exist 😉 ;
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/library/blog/2013/02/15/item-of-the-month-february-2013-monsters-in-the-library

_Jim says:
December 27, 2013 at 8:40 pm
=============
I’ve never taken a business course.
I dare you to explain “commercial paper” as it affects the world economy.
Maybe it doesn’t ?

Hey, Viv! Er, Miss… the link to your website’s borked in the headpost. It’s http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/26/pioneers-builders-and-termites/http://www.carbon-sense.com rather than http://www.carbon-sense.com.
[Verify link properly corrected. Mod]

_Jim said @ December 27, 2013 at 8:58 pm

As the only true wealth is natural resources, which includes energy sources (as well as mineral resources)…

Which would seem to imply that Gates, Jobs and Dell you cited earlier generated false wealth. How remiss of them…

DaveW
[I like moths and don’t like the idea of any non-pest species going extinct, and the two termite mound nesting parrot species are in strife, but I don’t see any mass extinction here. Even if all the termite-mound nesting parrots went, the genus would still be represented by its known generalist T. euryspoda and the Oecophoridae would still be hyper diverse. Specialization is always a risk over evolutionary time and it is no real surprise when highly specialized species go extinct. So while I find it interesting that climateace is obsessed with coprophagous moths, I don’t see how it adds to the debate about mass extinction through climate change.]
(1) Island species, specialized species, coprophagous species, obligate-dependent species are all species. An extinction is an extinction is an extinction.
(2) I have not introduced climate change into this string. You have. MB did. I am not sure why.
(3) Thank you for the details on the moths. The details reflect the point I was making: that for every vertebrate extinction there will be extinctions of invertebrates. (IMHO, many of these will not be obvious Insecta, like moths, but will be smaller. In most cases we will never know that they existed at all.)
(4) My main point is that Australia is losing around .o45% of its vertebrate fauna per century. That gives it around 100 centuries worth of vertebrate species left. (MB’s point about this not being linear, is a good one, and stands).
(5) Around 1% of the vertebrate fauna is regarded as being vulnerable, threatened, endangered or critically endangered with extinction. Without action, the next couple of centuries worth of extinctions is in the bag.
(6) My original point, that Australia has started a mass extinction event, stands.
(7) All the processes that generated the extinctions remain in place. To these can be added additional processes which are being added all the time: new predators, competitors, pathogens, propagules, nutrients and so on and so forth.
(7) My second point stands. We have a choice about whether to continue with our mass extinction event. If we choose to halt the mass extinction event then we will have to have effective regulations, constraints on development, recovery actions and protected areas.

Dave W
“(2) I was using the vertebrates because someone raised them – as a proxy for the rest.”
It seems to me you slung vertebrates and vascular plants out all on your own – and what else would you use to support your specious claim of an ongoing mass extinction? Shellfish would be one – they have always been used as markers for mass extinction events (lots of species, good fossilization). Surprisingly, I don’t see a Wiki page on recent extinctions of Australian shellfish.’
If you check upstring you will see that someone else raised vertebrates… just as you have now raised vascular plants. The facts for plants are that they are becoming extinct at the rate of around 25 a century. With hundreds more in the pipeline, noting that the list of critically endangered and endangered Australian plants is very, very long:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_threatened_flora_of_Australia
‘In fact, outside of islands, vertebrate and vascular plant extinctions in the last 200 years are surprisingly rare, especially considering the stress that has been put on them by human expansion.’
They are so ‘suprisingly rare’, whatever that means, that if we do nothing hundreds of species which have already reached vulnerable, threatened, endangered and critically endangered status on the mainland will also become extinct.
‘If you really cared about protecting existing populations, then you should be trying to stop wind, biomass and other poorly conceived ‘green’ solutions and supporting cheap natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear energy. Rich societies are far more likely to try and protect their ecosystems than poor ones.’
Oh dear. Dragging climate change into the discussion.
‘(3) You obviously have no idea about coprophagous invertebrates which are obligate to specific hollow-nesting species of birds.”
You make arrogant assumptions easily, but you are wrong again: I actually do have more than a basic knowledge about nest associates of mammals and birds. I also understand what ‘mass extinction’ means, as you do not.’
Congratulations on knowing about nest associates of animals and birds. You would then know that if they are obligate species specific then if the vertebrate becomes extinct, so do the nest associates – which was my original point.
My view is that losing .045% of your vertebrates per century is the start of a mass extinction event.
What we do with the start might ensure that we get one.
You appear to need for just about everything to be extinct before you agree that it just might be a mass extinction event which is too damn late, of course.