"Worst Global Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression"? No, Not Really
- The Federal Reserve's $85 billion bail-out of insurance giant AIG.
- U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's bailout refusal and subsequent bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.
- The effective nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
These events have restricted access to U.S. dollars for banks around the world. In response, the Fed has added $180 billion to its U.S. dollar swap line with foreign central banks. Other central banks followed:
- The European Central Bank increased its dollar swap line to $110 billion, and an extra €25 billion into its funds available for euro lending.
- The Swiss National Bank swap line got boosted to $27 billion.
- The Bank of England offered an extra £25 billion in local money markets.
- The Bank of Japan injected the equivalent of $24 billion into the local yen money market.
- The Central Bank of China dropped interest rates for the first time in six years.
It's like a giant game of musical chairs, and the only solution the government has is to keep the music playing by flooding the markets with cash. (Source: WSJ, Central Banks Take Coordinated Action, Economist React: Damage Limitation, September 18, 2008)
What It Means to You
The Great Depression of 1929 was caused by a liquidity problem. The central banks around the world are doing exactly what they should be doing - and exactly what they did not do prior to the Depression.The current situation looks like a liquidity problem, since LIBOR rates have risen much higher than usual above the Fed Funds rate. In actuality, it is a credibility problem, since the banks don't trust each other.
What will it take to restore credibility? Exactly what is happening now...companies who have the bad loans on their books are going under (Lehman) or being split up and sold off (AIG). Expect to see more of the same over the next few months, and then the global economy - which does have liquidity - will return to more normal functioning.
Comments
B.S.
Well, Emerson, I’d have to agree with you. Although my analysis was correct, my conclusion was not. As it turns out, this WAS the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Kimberly
and it still IS.
DECLINE OF ECONOMICS AND GREAT DSEPRESSION II:
ROLE OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS IN AGGRAVTING
THE GLOBAL CRISIS*
DR. RAJU M. MATHEW
The Present Global Crisis
The world is under a great financial and economic crisis. To almost all finance and management experts it is just a financial meltdown or a credit crisis or at the maximum a recession. But for the economists with strong backgrounds in Economic Theory, Policy and History, who are very limited in numbers, it is the Great Depression II, far more severe than the Great Depression of 1929.
CEOs and MDs
Economics has been denigrated into oblivion in the onslaught of the glittering courses of the Modern Business Schools and their high salaried and bonus earning graduates as CEOs and MDs or top managers, during the time of the just receded Boom, However, the present crisis brings back Economics into the forefront for drafting strategies and policies for making a speedy recovery. In the height of the crisis, as almost all the products of the Business Schools, including Harvard turned like ostrich dipping their heads in the sands. Now they are accused the prime culprits of the present crisis. Now they are treated as dirty as pick-pockets and street pimps for their greed and immorality.
Breach of Trust and Mismanagement
Almost all products of the B- Schools who are elevated to CEOs or MDs of big corporations in the banking, insurance and financial sectors are charged with breach of trust and mismanagement besides eating away the big bonuses and committing money laundry, presenting false and fabricated statements, for their greed and fraud .In their passion for glamour and glitter, they violated the basic principles of management due to their ignorance of the fundamentals of Political Economy, as their knowledge, more correctly information, is in capsule form without any deep understanding of theory, history and strategies.
Political Economy
Political Economy or Economics is as old as the origin of the human societies and also of the nations. Kaudialya, the Indian strategic thinker, in his ‘Arthasatra’ and Machiavelli, the Italian strategist, in his ‘The Prince’ had dealt with Political Economy . The Pharaohs of Egypt had applied basic economic principles in constructing dams and pyramids while employing the Israelites as slaves, besides successfully managing the economy for a very long time. Learning from the Pharaoh, Moses too had applied basic economic principles in levying taxes, waging wars and sharing the loots, including women.
However, Economics as a branch of Science emerged with the publication of Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ that paved the way for the emergence of Capitalism, especially the industrialized western economies. It was J. M. Keynes, a well known British economist, with his General Theory, saved Capitalism from eternal peril during the Great Depression of 1939. F.A. Hayek became the first Nobel laureate in Economics.
The Great Depression
Almost all industrialized economies have been undergone with the phenomena of ‘business cycles’, characterized by high growth, stagnation and recession. Innovative entrepreneurs could make new strides in the growth of Capitalism. However, the Great Depression of 1929 had challenged the very foundation of Capitalism as supply had not created its own demand. It was J. K. Keynes who prescribed the medicine of public spending and deficit financing besides championing the cause of establishing the IMF and the World Bank, gave new foundation for Capitalism.. However, the over dosage of the Keynesian remedies, especially deficit financing and public borrowing, designed for emergencies, have become a regular practice for almost all governments. As a result, they have getting ineffective, just like the regular and over-dosed use of anti-biotic.
New Corporate Culture
After the Second World War, especially during the Cold War period, most of the military technologies, including internet, had been put into civilian applications that gave new impetus to industrialization, networking, globalization and trade-in-services. The Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have emerged with grater influence over almost all governments and their budgets exceeded far ahead of the governments of smaller countries. Information Technology, has become the most powerful tool in the hands of the MNCs to control and manage their operations, spreading across several countries.
They have entered in all major services like, banking, finance, insurance, networking and communications, management and consultancy, marketing, retail trade and real estate to have a virtual control over the entire economy and to make quick profit in terms of billions and trillions. A new type of corporate culture has emerged with the motto of making quick profit, high salary and bonuses at any cost. It has created greedy and jealousy CEOs and other corporate heads and managers who thrive with fraud and corruptions besides false and manipulated accounts and statements to deceive the government and the general public.
The Service Sector has started to dictate or dominate all the other sectors, side tracking both Agriculture and Industrial Sectors and thereby upsetting the very basis and balance of an economy. Information Technology has penetrated in all the domains of the service sector, reducing everything into bits and bytes. In the over-emphasis of Information, the worth of Knowledge and Wisdom has withered away.
Death of Economics
Almost all B-Schools rivaled each other for creating and supplying greedy, jealous, manipulating and unscrupulous, high salaried managers and business executives in the age of corporate culture. They challenged the very foundation and wisdoms of Political Economy. In the new age of Information Technology, a new breed of economists with mathematical and statistical tools and computing techniques have dominated the scene and they have denigrated Economics with a set of formulas and equations., that have reduced economics, a minor branch of Mathematics ort Statistics. Economics has been reduced into mere data and information without the backing of any wisdom and knowledge. Thus Economics has lost its purpose and foundation besides its human face and social commitments towards the weak and the poor. As a result, Economics, basically concerned with ‘wealth of nations’, ‘social well being’ ,‘income and employment’ and ‘constitution of liberty’, resource allocation efficiency and optimality’ has become unfashionable in the age of highly fashionable ‘Business Management or Administration’.
Do We Need Business Schools?
The actual contribution of the Business Schools and their graduates in the healthy development of the national as well as the global economy and in the promotion of global trade is a disputed or questionable one. Of course, they have squeezed the entire economy for their own greed and added the misery of the millions, especially of the poor for promoting consumerism, aggressive marketing and credit based purchase of consumer items. They ruined the financial stability of the millions of families, turning them into debtors and wiped out thrift and saving mentality from the society. With their lavish funding, they have even corrupted all the major religions that have become more and more materialistic by promoting consumerism at the cost of spirituality and compassion. It must be highlighted that almost all major business and industrial establishments are built by the real entrepreneurs without qualifications from any of the B-Schools. Now the basic question is do we need the immoral, unethical and greed and fraud- promoting Business Schools and their short and long courses and academic programs.
Re-Inventing Economics
It is high time to make Economics free from the narrow boundaries of a set of mathematical formulas and equations besides the computer generated data and information. It is a crime to reduce economics within the narrow framework of data and information, ignoring Knowledge and Wisdom. Wisdom and Knowledge are our real wealth and they alone save us at the time of crisis and perils. The world needs the visions, wisdom and knowledge of the Political Economists for a fair and ethical global order and society.
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Universities must come forward to give re-emphasis to the study of Political Economy by attracting the best students and professors so as to develop a holistic view of the working of an economy, inter-dependence of its various sectors and units besides the diverse economies of the world and finally of the global economy.
It is time to critically examine the social value and worth of the mushrooming Business Schools with their long and short term academic programs, including M.B.A and several other gilt-edged diploma courses without any strong basis in Economics. The present global crisis made the world realized that management is not mere making profit and earning high salary and bonus, by exploiting both the workers and customers and cheating the share holders and the governments.
Managers must be made socially committed for the creation of wealth, income and employment and thereby attaining social well being both at national and global levels. They have to plan, organize and getting things done for attaining the set objectives of their firms and also the broader social goals of making a sound and healthy economy. They must be made to follow a set of well defined business ethics and fair practices. Other wise, they become criminals to brake the very foundations of families, enterprises, nations and the entire global economy.
(* This is the sixth series of work by the author on The Great Depression II – the Present Global Crisis. All his other works can be found if a search is made in the internet under ‘Dr. Raju M. Mathew’. )
About the Author
Dr. Raju M. Mathew is an economist, a strategist and theoretician with strong background in Cybernetics, Education and Information Technology with long years of experience in teaching and research, including directing a major research project and supervising ten doctoral works. Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published in 1985 and appeared in several languages. Now these theories are known in his name and have become an area for doctoral research.
In 2005, Prof. Mathew proposed Knowmatics and Knowledge Technology as the two Post-Information Technology disciplines for processing and handling knowledge so as to develop knowledge industries. He is the founder president of the International Forum for Knowmatics & Knowledge Technology (IFKT). Some of his works are available in the site: http://www.ifkt.net. Now he is working with the Al Ain University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Mathew is on a mission of making the world aware of the impacts and intensities of the present crisis, the Great Depression II of 2009 and persuading the governments and international agencies to formulate correct strategies and policies and implement them urgently to deal with it and make an early recovery from it, so as to save the lives of millions, especially the young and the poor. Dr. Raju M. Mathew can be contacted by e-mail: rajoocyber@yahoo.com.
OIL, CARS AND CONSUMERISM
AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS:
DISCUSSION ON THE GREAT DEPRESSION II
DR. RAJU M. MATHEW
Global Economic Crisis
The world is under a great economic crisis. For the conventional economists it is only a Recession and not a Depression at all, for their partial analytical techniques, over-simplified models with unrealistic assumptions and over emphasis on data. It may take at least five years for them to realize that it would be a Great Depression and by that time it may be over. When Cybernetics is employed for the study of the working of the global economy as a whole with multi-sector approaches on the basis of the deeper understanding of Political Economy, we are forced to admit that this is not a simple Recession, but a Great Depression that requires not only economic stimulus but Ethical or Spiritual and Political Stimulus also to recover.
Dreadful Consumerism
Not only the capitalist or developed countries but also the Socialist or Islamist or Less Developed Countries too are brought under the Great Depression II. It is not only Islam or Christianity but also Communism could not save the world from Consumerism and the unethical or immoral business practices that are hundred times deadlier than Materialism or even Atheism. Consumerism has emerged as the greatest threat to the very existence of Capitalism for it drained away saving and investment, that constitute Capital without which there is no Capitalism.
The corporate culture has corrupted almost all religions and communist movements and made them the victims of Consumerism. The corporate culture made everything expensive and unaffordable for the majority for it aims only ‘the chosen few’. It has speeded up the process of the demise of spirituality and moral values. Eroding of the basic spiritual values has paved the way for greed, fraud and corruptions at all level. The present crisis is the result of the total ethical and moral failures besides the economic and technical failures.
Spirituality and Human Values
In the demise of spirituality and basic human values, religions turn towards rigorous and harsh customs, practices, devotions, prolonged prayers and fasting without any element of love, mercy and forgiveness. All these factors acted as catalysts for religious fundamentalism. A big vacuum in spirituality of religions paved the way for terrorism. The youth, especially the poor, are indoctrinated and getting believed that the greatest virtue is become martyrs and to die and kill for their religions for they are rewarded with all the luxuries and pleasures of a ‘seven star hotel’ besides the service of seven virgins in the Paradise after their martyrdom. Sex, drugs and money are administered to them as the immediate rewards.
Islam and Christianity
Islam and Christianity, the two major world religions have miserably failed, in practice, to imbibe the basic moral, spiritual and ethical values to the humanity. After embracing the corporate culture, they have been rivaling each other in spreading across nations and adhering to the rigorous religious practices. Their champions or leaders have become as materialistic as the ancient Epicureans.
Because of their warring or quarreling factions and their quench for pomp and acquiring more and more material wealth, almost all religions miserably failed to lead the world in the realm of spirituality and to inculcate minimum ethical and human values to the society. Most of the sects or cults in Hinduism and Buddhism also assumed the role of big multinational corporations with assets in terms of trillions.
Oil and Cars
Industrialization started with steam powered locomotives and nurtured by the automobile industry that speeded up the processes of urbanization and fast life style besides giving predominance to oil industry. Oil producers and automobile industry started to dictate the entire economies of the world, especially of the western industrialized economies. OPEC has squeezed oil importing nations by charging exorbitant price for oil and amassed the wealth of nations.
The corporate world has effectively employed Information Technology to have a virtual control over the entire globe by e-money, e-banking and e-commerce and spread the corporate culture of greed, fraud and consumerism. Oil, cars and consumerism, originally acted as the catalyst of boom have turned the catalysis of Doom or the Great Depression II. They have drained away the saving and investment habits of the middle class and made everybody debtors and upset not only the balance of economies but also of the Nature.
New Awareness
People are getting aware that for the wrong logistics of their places of stay, work, shopping and entertainment, they have to travel a lot and burn out a lot of oil unnecessarily. . They could have avoided over 60 per cent of their journeys, especially in the age of advanced communication technologies. By a proper development of public transportation system and its effective use, many could have avoided owning cars or traveling in cars. A good majority of business trips are unnecessary or unproductive. All these make a very dark future for the oil, automobile and hospitality sectors. Consuming lesser and lesser oil for the recovery of the economy and for the health of the environment would emerge as a major slogan in almost all countries.
Natural Death
It is time for the Multinational Corporations to have a natural death for their crimes committed against the humanity, especially against the poor nations and peoples. Championing the cause of consumerism, they have even turned a malignant cancer of Capitalism and Globalization besides corrupting Islam and Christianity and other religions. They destroyed the economic foundations of millions of families and virtually wiped out the middle class not only in the west but also in emerging economies with their aggressive marketing strategies. Selling dreams and fantasies, they pushed everyone into illusions. They have hidden or invisible link with almost all terrorist organizations. They are involved in money laundry, corruptions and fabrication of wrong accounts or documents and cheating the shareholders and the general public.
The Stimulus Packages
It is fact that, none of the stimulus packages, though in terms of several trillions, could save the world from the impending peril and miseries of the millions unless the world saves itself from the dirty hands of consumerism and controls the growth of automobile industry besides reducing oil consumption to the extent of 30 to 40 per cent. This is the time for fair business practices and code of ethics for all economic activities besides regulating marketing and advertisements for which a global summit must be held soon. Ensuring sustainable income along with reasonable saving and investment is the only means for recovery on a long time basis. Otherwise, all the stimulus packages and recovery efforts would vanish within three to six months after making some symptoms of recovery and then aggravate and prolong the crisis to the extent of ten years.
Survival Strategy
The present global crisis taught the basic lesson that humanity and its various socio-economic systems or organizations could not survive without the basic moral and ethical values and some element of spirituality and upsetting the balance of the Nature. It is high time in burying down Consumerism and Corporate Culture besides adopting slow and simple life styles and turning towards spirituality and setting right the imbalances between urban and rural sectors and also between agriculture, industry and service sectors and the different regions of the world for the very survival of humanity. Humanity could not afford to pay so much high salary and bonus in terms of several millions to the CEOs and Managers and to allow the traders and business people to make such a huge profit within a short span of time.
It is a great crime against Humanity and the Nature to burn out so much oil and generating so much heat and sound from the speeding millions of cars and driving away the millions from farms and rural life to the cities. It is high time to redefine the very meaning of development and urbanization especially when the entire humanity is under threat and peril.
The people of OPEC or OECD Countries must shed away the deadly and inhuman ideology as they are the chosen people of God, an ideology originated at the time of Abraham and aggressively implemented during the time of Moses to dominate or exterminate other tribes or races. For the Just and Loving God, all men are chosen and everybody has an equal right for a decent life just like the people of the OPEC or OECD countries and everybody must observe spiritual and ethical values. Nobody has any right to dominate or dictate over other people. If Islam and Christianity fail to bridge the gap between the rich and poor, among their followers, and upheld basic spiritual and human values, their very worth and relevance will be questioned in the age of crisis and globalization of religious faiths.
About the Author
Dr. Raju M. Mathew is an economist, a strategist and theoretician with strong background in Cybernetics, Education and Information Technology with long years of experience in teaching and research. He has so far supervised ten doctoral works, including the basic approaches of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam towards knowledge, economy and spirituality.
Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published in 1985 and appeared in several languages. Now these theories are known in his name and have become an area for doctoral research. In 2005, Prof. Mathew proposed Knowmatics and Knowledge Technology as the two Post-Information Technology disciplines for processing and handling knowledge so as to develop knowledge industries.
He is the founder president of the International Forum for Knowmatics & Knowledge Technology (IFKT). Some of his works are available in the site: http://www.ifkt.net. Now he is working with the Al Ain University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Mathew is on a mission of making the world aware of the impacts and intensities of the present crisis, the Great Depression II of 2009 and persuading the governments and international agencies to formulate correct strategies and policies and implement them urgently to deal with it and make an early recovery from it, so as to save the lives of millions, especially the young and the poor. Dr. Raju M. Mathew can be contacted by e-mail: rajoocyber@yahoo.com.
ISLAM, CHRISTANITY AND CONSUMERISM:
THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS
DR. RAJU M. MATHEW
Global Economic Crisis
The world is under a great economic crisis. For the conventional economists it is only a Recession and not a Depression at all, for their partial analytical techniques, over-simplified models with unrealistic assumptions and over emphasis on data. It may take at least five years for them to realize that it would be a Great Depression and by that time it may be over. When Cybernetics is employed for the study of the working of the global economy as a whole with multi-sector approaches on the basis of the deeper understanding of Political Economy, we are forced to admit that this is not a simple Recession, but the Great Depression II that requires not only Economic Stimulus but Ethical or Spiritual and Political Stimulus Packages too to recover.
Dreadful Consumerism
Not only the capitalist or developed countries but also the Socialist or Islamist or Less Developed Countries too are brought under the Great Depression II. It is not only Islam or Christianity but also Communism could not save the world from Consumerism and the unethical or immoral business practices that are hundred times deadlier than Materialism or even Atheism. Consumerism has emerged as the greatest threat to the very existence of Capitalism for it drained away saving and investment, that constitute Capital without which there is no Capitalism.
The corporate culture has corrupted almost all religions and communist movements and made them the victims of Consumerism. The corporate culture made everything expensive and unaffordable for the majority for it aims only ‘the chosen few’. It has speeded up the process of the demise of spirituality and moral values. Eroding of the basic spiritual values has paved the way for greed, fraud and corruptions at all level. The present crisis is the result of the total moral, ethical and spiritual failures rather then the economic and technical ones.
Animal Farms
Both Capitalism and Socialism are built up with thrift, saving, investment and allocation of resources, production and distribution of wealth and income and treating consumers as rational human being and above all giving emphasis to social well being. That is why; both Islam and Christianity could survive or flourish under Capitalism or Socialism for they too adhere to hard work, thrift, investment and social well being.
Islam and Christianity never advocate theft and looting or plundering, though the Israelites had committed theft, looting and plundering and devised formulas for sharing the loot, including women, especially virgins even to the priests and the God during the time of Moses as stipulated in the Chapter 31 of Numbers of the Old Testaments. On the other, Consumerism is an ideology of harvesting without sawing and nurturing just like looting and plundering. It treats human being as mere irrational animals for consumption without any concern for individual and social well-being.
‘Party Animal’ is a very popular word under Consumerism as it reduces men and women just like animals for consumption with animal behaviors besides treating them, especially women as consumable products to be bought though for a short period. The Corporate Culture with the powerful weapon of Consumerism aims at making the entire globe, ‘a very big animal farm’ with men, women and children.
Terrorism is a strategy of Consumerism to uproot the very foundation of Islam and Christianity besides Capitalism and Democracy. Unfortunately, Islam is the hardest hit and the greatest victim of Terrorism that aims at burying down it. Unless Islam, especially the peace-loving and spiritually sound Muslims could contain the onslaught of Consumerism and Terrorism, it would be vanished for ever, as a very big human tragedy.
Spirituality and Human Values
In the demise of spirituality and basic human values, religions turn towards rigorous and harsh customs, devotions, stereotype prayers and fasting, like a military drill, without any element of love, mercy and forgiveness. All these factors acted as catalysts for religious fundamentalism. A big vacuum in spirituality of religions paved the way for terrorism. The youth, especially the poor, are indoctrinated and getting believed that the greatest virtue is to become martyrs and to die and kill for their religions for they are rewarded with all the luxuries and pleasures of a ‘seven star hotel’ besides the service of seven virgins in the Paradise after their martyrdom. Sex, drugs and money are indiscriminately administered to them as the immediate rewards for their loyalty and commitment.
Their Failures
Islam and Christianity, the two major organized world religions, have miserably failed, in practice, to imbibe the basic moral, spiritual and ethical values to the humanity. After embracing the corporate culture, they have been rivaling each other in spreading across nations and adhering to the rigorous religious practices. Their champions or leaders have become as materialistic as the ancient Epicureans.
Because of their warring or quarreling factions and their quench for pomp and acquiring more and more material wealth, almost all religions miserably failed to lead the world in the realm of spirituality and to inculcate minimum ethical and human values to the society. Most of the sects or cults in Hinduism and Buddhism also assumed the role of big multinational corporations with assets in terms of trillions, using sophisticated technologies.
The Ideology of ‘the Chosen People’
Both Islam and Christianity claim that they are the chosen people of their God. The ideology of chosen people was originated at the time of Abraham and developed into violent and aggressive form during the time of Moses, after the Exodus, on the march of Israelites towards the ‘Promised Land of Canaan’. The Bible gives a detailed account of the kings or peoples who were looted, raped, captured or exterminated in their hands.
When a particular tribe or race or religion claims that it is chosen by the God, it undermines other tribes or races or religions and subscribes to the deadly ideology of superior race or tribe or religion that would become the basis of Fascism as had advocated by Adolph Hitler. As a result, others are branded inferior or even sub-human being so that they could hate or subjugate or exterminate them and thereby they could please their God.
Christianity is a thousand kilometers away from Jesus who taught to make peace on earth and to love and forgive the enemies and to consider all human beings the children of the Loving Heavenly Father. So also is the case with Islam as it is away from Koran that taught to worship the Most Merciful Allah who demands every Muslim to give mercy and care not only to all human beings but also to animals and even trees.
Both Islam and Christianity are corrupted with power, money and Consumerism besides the deadly ideology of ‘the chosen people’ with the right to punish or exterminate the disobedient or men without the ‘official version of the faith’ or men with alien faiths who are branded as ‘Pagans’ or ‘Kaferes’ as the communist are branding their enemies as ‘revisionists’ or ‘imperialists’ for extermination.
For the Just, Loving and Merciful God or Allah, all men are chosen and everybody has an equal right for a decent life just like the people of the OPEC or OECD countries and everybody must observe spiritual and ethical values. Nobody has any right to dominate or exterminate other people. If Islam and Christianity fail to bridge the gap between the rich and poor and to end discrimination between the Black and the White and upheld basic spiritual and human values, at least among their own followers, their very worth and relevance are questioned in the age of the Global Crisis and thereafter. This is the fundamental crisis of both Islam and Christianity, threatening their very existence.
Oil and Cars
Industrialization started with steam powered locomotives and nurtured by the automobile industry that speeded up the processes of urbanization and fast life style besides giving predominance to oil industry. Oil producers and automobile industry started to dictate the entire economies of the world, especially of the western industrialized economies. OPEC has squeezed oil importing nations by charging exorbitant price for oil and amassed the wealth of nations.
The corporate world has effectively employed Information Technology to have a virtual control over the entire globe by e-money, e-banking and e-commerce and spread the corporate culture of greed, fraud and consumerism. Oil, cars and consumerism, originally acted as the catalyst of boom have turned the catalysis of Doom or the Great Depression II. They have drained away the saving and investment habits of the middle class and made everybody debtors and upset not only the balance of economies but also of the Nature.
New Awareness
People are getting aware that for the wrong logistics of their places of stay, work, shopping and entertainment, they have to travel a lot and burn out a lot of oil unnecessarily. . They could have avoided over 60 per cent of their journeys, especially in the age of advanced communication technologies. By a proper use and development of public transportation system, many could have avoided owning cars or traveling in cars. A good majority of business trips are unnecessary or unproductive. ‘Traveling less and less and consuming lesser and lesser oil for the recovery of the economy and for the health of the environment’ would emerge as a major slogan in almost all countries. All these make a very dark future for the oil, automobile and hospitality sectors.
Natural Death
It is time for the Multinational Corporations to have a natural death for their crimes committed against the humanity, especially against the poor nations and peoples. Championing the cause of consumerism, they have even turned a malignant cancer of Capitalism and Globalization besides corrupting Islam and Christianity and other religions. They destroyed the economic foundations of millions of families and virtually wiped out the middle class not only in the west but also in emerging economies with their aggressive marketing strategies.
Selling dreams and fantasies, they dragged everyone into illusions. They have invisible links with various terrorist organizations. They are involved in money laundry, corruptions and fabrication of documents and cheating the shareholders and the general public. For the high salary and bonus besides aggressive marketing, spending billions for sales promotions and thereby making big profits, they keep on going the cost post of production higher and higher as they push up of cost of living too. That is why; no popular government could dare to support or bail out them with tax payers’ money. Let them pay the price.
The Stimulus Packages
It is fact that, none of the stimulus packages, though in terms of several trillions, could save the world from the impending peril and miseries of the millions unless the world saves itself from the dirty hands of consumerism and controls the growth of automobile industry besides reducing oil consumption to the extent of 30 to 40 per cent and turning towards spirituality and ethical values. This is the time for fair business practices and code of ethics for all economic activities besides regulating marketing and advertisements. Ensuring sustainable income along with reasonable saving and investment is the only means for recovery on a long time basis. Otherwise, all the stimulus packages and recovery efforts would vanish within three to six months after making some symptoms of recovery and then aggravate and prolong the crisis to the extent of ten years.
Recovery and Growth
The present global crisis taught the humanity the basic lesson that various socio-economic systems or organizations could not survive without the basic moral and ethical values and some element of spirituality and maintaining the balance of the Nature. It is high time in burying down Consumerism and Corporate Culture besides adopting slow and simple life styles and turning towards spirituality and setting right the imbalances between urban and rural sectors and also between agriculture, industry and service sectors and the different regions of the world for the very survival of humanity. Humanity could not afford to pay so much high salary and bonus in terms of several millions to the CEOs and Managers and to allow the traders and business people to make such a huge profit within a short span of time. Cost of production and cost of living must be put back at the minimum for sustainable development.
It is a great crime against Humanity and the Nature to burn out so much oil and generating so much heat and sound from the speeding millions of cars and driving away the millions from farms and rural life to the cities. It is high time to redefine the very meaning of development and urbanization especially when the entire humanity is under threat and peril. The fruits of development must be reached in the hands of all people, sparing none on any ground. Then only we could bring out a real recovery and attain sustainable growth.
(This is the seventh series of work on ‘The Great Depression II’ by the same author and prepared on 20th April 2009).
About the Author
Dr. Raju M. Mathew is an economist, a strategist and theoretician with strong background in Cybernetics, Education and Information Technology with long years of experience in teaching and research. He has so far supervised ten doctoral works, including the basic approaches of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam towards knowledge, economy and spirituality.
Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published in 1985 and appeared in several languages. Now these theories are known in his name and have become an area for doctoral research. In 2005, Prof. Mathew proposed Knowmatics and Knowledge Technology as the two Post-Information Technology disciplines for processing and handling knowledge so as to develop knowledge industries.
He is the founder president of the International Forum for Knowmatics & Knowledge Technology (IFKT). Some of his works are available in the site: http://www.ifkt.net.
Dr. Mathew is on a mission of making the world aware of the impacts and intensities of the present crisis, the Great Depression II of 2009 and persuading the governments and international agencies to formulate correct strategies and policies and implement them urgently for an early recovery, so as to save the lives of millions, especially the young and the poor. Dr. Raju M. Mathew can be contacted by e-mail: rajoocyber@yahoo.com.
I would like to know where your getting your so called facts from, did you do any research on your own, or are you just regurgitating what you have been taught from your professors.