Fundamentalism

I am watching a History Channel program on the medieval mind and it strikes me how much 21st century Islamist fundamentalism shares the idiotic, thoughtless ideas about women, sex and God, that were prevalent in 12th century medieval Christianity.

Egypt

The arrogance of youth meets the arrogance of power.

Requisites for Worldly Success

I have spent much of my adult life studying the qualities required for worldly success, whether it be political, financial, or otherwise. Here are the qualities that I find extremely common among so-called highly successful people:

1. MOTIVATION

It seems all too obvious that one must be motivated to be successful. However, do we ever ask what it is that provides fundamental motivation or the desire to move? The answer is clearly unhappiness and insecurity. Simple! A happy, secure person is not motivated; has no need to move. So, a deep unhappiness and insecurity bordering on, if not full blown, neurosis is the fundamental requirement for worldly success.

2. DETERMINATION - SINGLE-MINDEDNESS

I don't think that many would argue against the observation that the vast majority of the world's population meets the first criterion. What else then is required? Is it not a certain energy, drive, determination, focus, single-mindedness? Do not we speak of "the drive for success?" Do we not find that many high achievers seem profoundly driven? And what else is this other than obsession and compulsion? Serious and deep obsession-compulsion at least bordering on psychosis.

3. RUTHLESSNESS

Here we separate the wannabees and pretenders from the high achievers. For top level success there must be a certain disregard even disdain for anything which would impede the success drive, such as rules, regulations, morals, ethics, other people.

4. COMPETITIVENESS

It is obvious that for someone to be successful he/she must be extremely competitive. In the most successful, they see everything in terms of winning and losing.

5. AGGRESSION

The desire to take the initiative and to dominate is also required for competitive success.

6. MANIPULATION

Strategic thinking aimed at maximizing personal advantage is another necessity.


So, the ideal candidate for worldly success is a seriously neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, mild-to-moderately psychotic sociopath. While there are certainly a few exceptions, this is without doubt in my mind, the most common path to "success." Is it any wonder, then, that the world is in strife? With this profile for our leaders and cultural icons how could there be any possibility of peace and tranquility in the world?

The Music Business is in Really Sad Shape

I must admit that I am not the first to follow trends (gee...what would have been your first clue?), but I can now see what sorry shape the music industry is in. I just had my first experience of Taylor Swift...HOW BLOODY PATHETIC! A skinny, ordinary looking teenager with a thin, nasal voice who can't carry a tune. Unbelievable!

It certainly points to the power of marketing. Perhaps the marketeers could make me the new sex symbol. Yeah, right!

Economic Normality

This morning Dr. Alan Bollard, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was addressing a conference of business executives on the state of the economy. About the recent past he commented, "...we learnt that recovery to economic normality can be a slow, fragile and uncertain process, with temporary set-backs and aftershocks."

Throughout the world economic forecasters and politicians are anticipating and jaw-boning a return to "business as usual." THERE WILL BE NO RETURN TO THE ECONOMIC NORMALITY OF THE PAST! NEVER! There will intead be the development of a rather radically different new normality, with reduced growth rates, no real estate boom and significant shifting of economic power. John Maynard Keynes is long since dead, god rest his soul. The growth-at-any-cost policies engendered by his theories have brought us to where we are today. The ride up was good for quite a few, but the law of economic gravity...

What goes up can (and probably will) come down."

has come into effect. I commented in 2000 that we would have a major economic crash before George W. Bush left office. I described the US economy as a bit like the coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons. In an attempt to catch the roadrunner, coyote runs out off a cliff. He keeps going until he looks down and then.... Yep, you got it. In 2007 someone looked down and we haven't seen the bottom yet.

Almost 50 years ago I tried to introduce the concept of two kinds of wealth - real wealth and paper or fiat wealth. Real wealth is where the activity adds real value to the economy - mining, manufacturing, and agriculture. Fiat wealth is derived from services like accounting and legal as well as the speculative profits of money marketeers. The entire financial system has become a gigantic slot machine with a major exception - the biggest players can alter the odds, just like at the horse races with, however, the opposite effect - they can alter them in their favour. In the long run fiat wealth can only exist on top of a foundation of real wealth. In the last 50 years the USA and western Europe have allowed their real wealth to atrophy and decline so that fiat wealth is all that remains. The result of that has been observed over the past 3 years. Amazing how fast fiat wealth disappears. The ongoing effects are yet to be seen and it won't be pretty!

"Motivation is a combination of neurosis and obsession."

The Fundamental Cause of Global Warming

IF (and I say this with consideration) in fact there is global warming and IF it is caused by human activities, then it is absolutely clear that the fundamental cause is...

TOO MANY GLOBAL WARMERS!

and nothing, absolutely nothing, that is done will make even the slightest dent without a significant reduction in both world population AND the amount of consumption per capita. All the machininations and hoop-jumping currently in process or being proposed have NO possibility of being effective in the face of an absolute tsunami of growing world consumption.