Now that we are entangled in the coils of this second Great Depression in our recent history, these economic imbalances and great fractious shocks have radicalized the political and economic systems, push the planet to the brink of a new World War and driving the engines of war once again forth.

Some suspect that the Neo-conservative changes of mind since 2008 are opportunistic and cynical. It’s true that cynicism is never entirely absent from global politics, but Realpolitik is another thing altogether. Now the gloom and doom of war clouds is here to stay. Of course bitter and strong conscious cynicism is much rarer than you might suppose amongst the hawks of war, but there you have it.

Because so few of us have the self-knowledge and emotional discipline to say one thing while meaning another – our political classes are amuck. If we say something often enough, we come to believe it. We don’t usually delude others until after we have first deluded ourselves. Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama has gone far beyond conventional American liberalism and is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism. No counter evidence will dissuade them from this belief. Not record-high corporate profits, not the almost half a million job losses in the public sector, not even the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration. It is not easy to fit this belief alongside the equally strongly held belief that the president is a pitiful, bumbling amateur, dazed and overwhelmed by a job too big for him—and yet that is done too. Sadly conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment.

Conservatives have been driven to these fevered anxieties as much by their own trauma as by external events. In the noughts, Republicans held more power for longer than at any time since the twenties, yet the result was the weakest and least broadly shared economic expansion since World War II, followed by an economic crash and prolonged slump. Along the way, the GOP suffered two severe election defeats in 2006 and 2008. Imagine yourself a rank-and-file Republican in 2009: If you have not lost your job or your home, your savings have been sliced and your children cannot find work. Your retirement prospects have dimmed. Most of all, your neighbors blame you for all that has gone wrong in the country. There’s one thing you know for sure: None of this is your fault! And when the new president fails to deliver rapid recovery, he can be designated the target for everyone’s accumulated disappointment and rage. In the midst of economic wreckage, what relief to thrust all blame upon Barack Obama as the wrecker-in-chief.

So what can we expect? We’ll see folks who are looking for a new way of reaching the same goals — namely, globalization, open markets, and democracy. But the retention of the same goals will prove an obstacle in and of itself. The real question is going to be what values — and ultimately which of these fundamental pillars — is the developed world prepared to compromise on, or even sacrifice, to gain sufficient global cooperation. Some of this is about cash, on issues from climate change (the clash over footing the bill between developed and developing countries) to competitiveness in the euro zone, as the core and the periphery struggle over the nature of moving towards a stronger fiscal and real union. But mostly, the balance of power is about the powerbrokers themselves, those determining who makes the rules, who sets the agenda, who prioritizes and on whose laps the benefits first accrue.

So as this overarching play works out, what does it spell for the foreseeable future? Global governance will continue to dissolve — and nations and institutions will pick up some of the slack on a regional level. But what of war?

Because this is a scenario about the future and our future does includes war — as it always does. Since this is the natural reaction to fundamental imbalances, disharmonies and the constant crises of the past decades, and because now there is a fundamental area of tension again in the Middle East. For more than 40 years, the US has reflected a world order dominated by elites of the developed world, championing a system of globalization — a system that has been driven and informed by their values and priorities and their economic and political frameworks. And for the same amount of time Persia has been running the other way. And a nuclear armed Persia is a clear and present danger for all concerned…

Or is it?

Yet for now, American policy lives between the two extremes. The flight or fight instinct is taking hold and the adrenalin building. The two opposing poles of attack and acquiescence, in the realm of uncertain calculation and imperfect options are the limits to our foreign policy vs War delivery provided that war isn’t allowed to become an instrument of foreign policy… It’s a quagmire any way you look at it. Because if you want to measure the next US President against a hellish dilemma, here’s that rare   chance…

And why war is more imminent than not, is this: The global system no longer functions. It has been crumbling slowly, and the events of 9/11 and the financial crisis distracted us from this overarching trend, decades in the making. So the world’s former architects will do their best to repair the old jalopy and add a new paint job. But like putting lipstick on this particular pig, not much can be achieved. So they have no choice but to seek new models that they hope will still allow their values, priorities, and institutions to hold sway. But in a world with so many important global players with such diverse values and systems, the world will need new models altogether. If and when they come, in order to reflect a very different balance of power, they will have to be a significant departure from the system of today.

This is an era of growing pains, where the old system doesn’t work, but those in a position of authority have a stake in dragging their feet. To the extent that reality is resisted, new models are likely to be more haphazard, less effective, and take longer to emerge. It’s been extremely interesting to watch this debate play out already this year. And I’m going to do my best to keep it at the forefront of discussion as we go forth boldly to prophesize.

The Bush war years cannot be repudiated. Yet the memory of the failed wars can be discarded to make way for a new and more radical ideology, assembled from bits of the old GOP war mongering platform. Still the rogue elements, that were once sublimated by the party elites but now roam the land free, the ultra libertarianism, the crank monetary theorists, the populist fury harpies, and all of their paranoid visions of a pan-islamic threat and rampant terrorism are the toxins of this debate. And let’s not forget the tea partiers. Those hardy folks who love barbecues, flag waving and beating their chests with enthusiasm — all the while holding the bible to their hearts. Because they are an instrument of foreign policy too, even they don’t know it, since in the past few years, their enthusiasm and energy has brought the GOP and their Neo-Con agenda within sight of the White House. Much as viewers tune in to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions of the Republican candidates, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn. But they love the idea of war shows, like 24… Yet even that spectacle has grown thin. Now they need heartier fare – like blood sport and televised carnage – and patriotism to boot.

The Neo-Cons obsession with Iran and it’s incessant drumming of the drums of war are not only indicators of bad leadership, but there are also indicative of a real crisis of solutions. The tea party never demanded knowledge or concern for foreign policy, proper governance, war management, diplomacy, global affairs, a multi-polar world and real power balances, and so of course it never got the education it needed and the leadership it sought. So the easily deluded always go for the easy solutions… And war is the easiest spring to bounce in the collective subconscious.

Still many hope that the tea-party model of executing policy and especially foreign policy, is just a passing mania, eventually to subside into something more like the main business of Republicanism: WAR and the inexorable drive to a Mercantilist empire.  A certain drive the American public wants once more, as it gets pushed over the edge frothing in the mouth to vilify Iran… War as practised with the “everloving hate” of Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld and offered in the Fox news hour, under their colours in the hope to coalesce the strident rhetoric of the tea party and Republican radicalism into a solid war machine all over again.

And it would be easy to do so, because American Foreign policy has been consistent through the Bush and Obama administrations: (1) a declaration that a nuclear Iran is “unacceptable”; (2) a combination of sticks (sanctions) and carrots (supplies of nuclear fuel suitable for domestic industrial needs in exchange for forgoing weapons); (3) unfettered international inspections; (4) a refusal to take military options off the table; (5) a concerted effort to restrain Israel from attacking Iran unilaterally — beyond the Israelis’ presumed campaign to slow Iran’s progress by sabotage and assassination; and (6) a wish that Iran’s hard-liners could be replaced by a more benign regime, tempered by a realization that there is very little we can do to make that happen.

Yet in practice, Obama’s foreign policy promises to be tougher than Bush’s. Because Obama started out with an offer of direct talks — which the Iranians foolishly spurned — world opinion has shifted in our direction. We may now have sufficient global support to enact the one measure that would be genuinely crippling — a boycott of Iranian oil. The administration and the Europeans, with help from Saudi Arabia, are working hard to persuade such major Iranian oil customers as Japan and South Korea to switch suppliers. The Iranians take this threat to their economic livelihood seriously enough that people who follow the subject no longer minimize the chance of a naval confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not impossible that we will get war with Iran even without bombing its nuclear facilities. And that’s not the only problem with the current approach to Iran.

The point of tough sanctions, of course, is to force Iranians to the bargaining table, where we can do a deal that removes the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. But the mistrust is so deep, and the election-year pressure to act with manly resolve is so intense, that it’s hard to imagine the administration would feel free to accept an overture from Tehran. Anything short of a humiliating, unilateral Iranian climb-down would be portrayed by the armchair warriors as an Obama surrender. Likewise, if Israel does decide to strike out on its own, Bibi Netanyahu knows that candidate Obama will feel immensely pressured to go along with the sirens of blood lust war.

On the war siren’s call a US-Israel combined pre-emptive strike, designated Operation, will entail bombing the yellowcake-conversion plant at Isfahan, the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, the heavy-water reactor at Arak, and various centrifuge-manufacturing sites near Natanz and Tehran… A good size list of targets and plenty of collateral damage…

And here’s the plan. Sometime in the next few months the Department of Defense is going to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, because it’s an election year, and some people will say this is a cynical rally-round-the-flag move, but a nuclear Iran is a problem that just won’t wait and the military can’t stay unemployed for too long now that they are out of Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s the realpolitik of a US diplomacy based primarily on war doctrine, power and material factors, rather than ideological and ethical ones.

Yet for the seasoned observer, the short-term paradox comes back stronger than ever and now is wrapped up in a long-term paradox like those never ending Matryoshka nesting dolls. A riddle inside a riddle inside a gryph. Is this gonna be a lucky strike or is it going to involve regime change and maybe ignite another global war in the offing, to get us finally out of the global Great Recession?

Because in the end, who is to know the consequences of war on Iran and how far they will extend? But the oil companies know. Because they want to get the second biggest oil production under contract… soon as possible. But then the costs of war are not borne by them, so they don’t care since war is good for business… Goofy bastards, they don’t think that socializing the costs of their oil production usually backfires long term, but there you have it. They’ve been spoiled by the banker wankers into expecting a bail out too because a huge bail out will be needed once we open up this hornets nest.

After all, an attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Islamic world and especially the Shiites all over the Middle East and it will amalgamate the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke their supreme leaders to redouble terrorist activities across the globe. And of course it will lead them to pursue Iran’s nuclear weaponry goals in a fevered pitch and to use the fruits of their uncertain labours against all comers… A certain nightmare scenario easily follows. And this time, their plants and their gas centrifuges, will be driven deeper underground, and without the benefit of any international inspectors kissing and telling…

It comes to me that the Pentagon smart asses, put it this way:

“Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent.”

Yours,

Pano

PS:

Here’s the bottom line of how this thing is gonna play out.

An Israeli or combined American air attack unites Iran in fury, locks in the Islamic Republic for another generation or two, saves the Syrian dictatorial regime, radicalizes the Arab world, freezes the Arab spring at a moment of delicate transition, ignites Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, boosts Hamas, endangers US troops in the region, sparks a global wave of terrorism, propels oil prices skyhigh, triggers a regional war or an international one, offers a lifeline to Iran just as Europe is about to stop buying its oil, adds a Persian to the Arab vendetta against Israel, and all that for what?  So we may at best set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions a couple of years — at most…

While both the United States and Israel dream about shutting down Iran’s nuclear program, that outcome might actually be one of the worst in the long run. In a twist of irony, it turns out that the best way to assure oneself that Iran’s nuclear activities remain peaceful is to keep the current program intact—subject to heavy monitoring and constraints that would lengthen whatever time Iran needs to build a nuclear weapon. Any other outcome, including the destruction of Iran’s visible nuclear program through military strikes and/or regime change, would likely increase the chances that Iran could, and would, make a nuclear weapon in secret. Forget about the vicious nation building to follow too…

On the negotiating track, I think  you need some baby steps. Steps that lead to small but significant successes in order to convince each side it’s worth working with the other side if only to delay strikes. This will be the key in allowing enough time for diplomacy until both sides are ready to talk more seriously. I think there’s presently no hope of the United States being able to engage seriously on the big issues in an election year, and in particular no hope of the United States being able to compromise on zero enrichment this year. Lastly, I think much like the American election, on the Iranian side, there is a competition for who can be the most patriotic as the 2013 Persian Presidential election approaches. And the significance of this is that there may also be a competition for who can get us out of this unpleasant situation we’ve gotten into, and also avoid a popular uprising of the “Greens.”

There are lots of things we might be able to gather with Diplomacy and also get a small yet significant deal this year. Things that could start building some confidence between the two parties and delay itchy happy bomb trigger-fingers… all the while delivering a sobering persona for the President [each one of them] and maintaining Peace that is such a great gift to have and to hold unbroken.

United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq.  Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought — and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world.  (Applause.)  For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.  (Applause.)  For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country.  (Applause.)  Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated.  The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces.  At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations.  They’re not consumed with personal ambition.  They don’t obsess over their differences.  They focus on the mission at hand.  They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.  (Applause.)  Think about the America within our reach:  A country that leads the world in educating its people.  An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs.  A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.  An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this.  I know we can, because we’ve done it before.  At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.  (Applause.)  My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.  My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

The two of them shared the optimism of a nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism.  They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share — the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive.  No challenge is more urgent.  No debate is more important.  We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.  (Applause.)  What’s at stake aren’t Democratic values or Republican values, but American values.  And we have to reclaim them.

Let’s remember how we got here.  Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores.  Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete.  Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren’t, and personal debt that kept piling up.

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed.  We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them.  Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money.  Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.

It was wrong.  It was irresponsible.  And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hardworking Americans holding the bag.  In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs.  And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect.

Those are the facts.  But so are these:  In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs.  (Applause.)

Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.  American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s.  Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion.  And we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again.  (Applause.)

The state of our Union is getting stronger.  And we’ve come too far to turn back now.  As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum.  But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.  (Applause.)

No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits.  Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last -– an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.

Now, this blueprint begins with American manufacturing.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse.  Some even said we should let it die.  With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen.  In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility.  We got workers and automakers to settle their differences.  We got the industry to retool and restructure.  Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number-one automaker.  (Applause.)  Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company.  Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories.  And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers.  We bet on American ingenuity.  And tonight, the American auto industry is back.  (Applause.)

What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.  It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh.  We can’t bring every job back that’s left our shore.  But right now, it’s getting more expensive to do business in places like China.  Meanwhile, America is more productive.  A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home.  (Applause.)  Today, for the first time in 15 years, Master Lock’s unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity.  (Applause.)

So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back.  But we have to seize it.  Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple:  Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.  (Applause.)

We should start with our tax code.  Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas.  Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world.  It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.  So let’s change it.

First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it.  (Applause.)  That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.  (Applause.)

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas.  (Applause.)  From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax.  And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America.  (Applause.)

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut.  If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making your products here.  And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.  (Applause.)

So my message is simple.  It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America.  Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away.  (Applause.)

We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world.  Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years.  With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.  (Applause.)  And soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea.  Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago.  (Applause.)

I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products.  And I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules.  We’ve brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration –- and it’s made a difference.  (Applause.)  Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires.  But we need to do more.  It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated.  It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.

Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trading practices in countries like China.  (Applause.)  There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders.  And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing financing or new markets like Russia.  Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you -– America will always win.  (Applause.)

I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can’t find workers with the right skills.  Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job.  Think about that –- openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.  It’s inexcusable.  And we know how to fix it.

Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic.  Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College.  The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training.  It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.

I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did.  Join me in a national commitment to train 2 million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job.  (Applause.)  My administration has already lined up more companies that want to help.  Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, and Orlando, and Louisville are up and running.  Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers -– places that teach people skills that businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help that they need.  It is time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work.  (Applause.)

These reforms will help people get jobs that are open today.  But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier.

For less than 1 percent of what our nation spends on education each year, we’ve convinced nearly every state in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning — the first time that’s happened in a generation.

But challenges remain.  And we know how to solve them.

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced states to lay off thousands of teachers.  We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000.  A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.  Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives.  Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies — just to make a difference.

Teachers matter.  So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal.  Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones.  (Applause.)  And in return, grant schools flexibility:  to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.  That’s a bargain worth making.  (Applause.)

We also know that when students don’t walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma.  When students are not allowed to drop out, they do better.  So tonight, I am proposing that every state — every state — requires that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.  (Applause.)

When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college.  At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July.  (Applause.)

Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves millions of middle-class families thousands of dollars, and give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.  (Applause.)

Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid.  We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money.  States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets.  And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down.

Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who’ve done just that.  Some schools redesign courses to help students finish more quickly.  Some use better technology.  The point is, it’s possible.  So let me put colleges and universities on notice:  If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.  (Applause.)  Higher education can’t be a luxury -– it is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge:  the fact that they aren’t yet American citizens.  Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation.  Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

That doesn’t make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration.  That’s why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before.  That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.  The opponents of action are out of excuses.  We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now.  (Applause.)

But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country.  Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship.  I will sign it right away.  (Applause.)

You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country.  That means women should earn equal pay for equal work.  (Applause.)  It means we should support everyone who’s willing to work, and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.

After all, innovation is what America has always been about.  Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses.  So let’s pass an agenda that helps them succeed.  Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow.  (Applause.)  Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs.  Both parties agree on these ideas.  So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year.  (Applause.)

Innovation also demands basic research.  Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched.  New lightweight vests for cops and soldiers that can stop any bullet.  Don’t gut these investments in our budget.  Don’t let other countries win the race for the future.  Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries.

And nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy.  Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.  (Applause.)  Right now — right now — American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.  That’s right — eight years.  Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.  (Applause.)

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough.  This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.  (Applause.)  A strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years.  (Applause.)  And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.  Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.  And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use.  (Applause.)  Because America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.

The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.  (Applause.)  And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock –- reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.  (Applause.)

Now, what’s true for natural gas is just as true for clean energy.  In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries.  Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled, and thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance.  But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan.  Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts.  Today, it’s hiring workers like Bryan, who said, “I’m proud to be working in the industry of the future.”

Our experience with shale gas, our experience with natural gas, shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away.  Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail.  But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.  I will not walk away from workers like Bryan.  (Applause.)  I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here.

We’ve subsidized oil companies for a century.  That’s long enough.  (Applause.)  It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising.  Pass clean energy tax credits.  Create these jobs.  (Applause.)

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives.  The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change.  But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation.  So far, you haven’t acted.  Well, tonight, I will.  I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes.  And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -– with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.  (Applause.)

Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy.  So here’s a proposal:  Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings.  Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, more jobs for construction workers who need them.  Send me a bill that creates these jobs.  (Applause.)

Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America’s infrastructure.  So much of America needs to be rebuilt.  We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges; a power grid that wastes too much energy; an incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.  After World War II, we connected our states with a system of highways.  Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects.  But you need to fund these projects.  Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.  (Applause.)

There’s never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest hit when the housing bubble burst.  Of course, construction workers weren’t the only ones who were hurt.  So were millions of innocent Americans who’ve seen their home values decline.  And while government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

And that’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low rates.  (Applause.)  No more red tape.  No more runaround from the banks.  A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit and will give those banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.  (Applause.)

Let’s never forget:  Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same.  It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom.  No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.  An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.

We’ve all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them.  That’s why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior.  (Applause.)  Rules to prevent financial fraud or toxic dumping or faulty medical devices — these don’t destroy the free market.  They make the free market work better.

There’s no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly.  In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.  (Applause.)  I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense.  We’ve already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years.  We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill — because milk was somehow classified as an oil.  With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.  (Laughter and applause.)

Now, I’m confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder.  (Applause.)  Absolutely.  But I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago.  (Applause.)  I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury poisoning, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean.  I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny your coverage, or charge women differently than men.  (Applause.)

And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules.  The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system’s core purpose:  Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, or start a business, or send their kids to college.

So if you are a big bank or financial institution, you’re no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers’ deposits.  You’re required to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail –- because the rest of us are not bailing you out ever again.  (Applause.)  And if you’re a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can’t afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices — those days are over.  Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job:  To look out for them.  (Applause.)

We’ll also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments.  Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender.  That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing.  So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.

And tonight, I’m asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorney general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis.  (Applause.)  This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

Now, a return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help protect our people and our economy.  But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile.  (Applause.)  People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year.  There are plenty of ways to get this done.  So let’s agree right here, right now:  No side issues.  No drama.  Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.  Let’s get it done.  (Applause.)

When it comes to the deficit, we’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings.  But we need to do more, and that means making choices.  Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.  Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households.  Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans?  Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else –- like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans?  Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.

The American people know what the right choice is.  So do I.  As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long-term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.

But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes.  (Applause.)

Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule.  If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.  And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right:  Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires.  In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions.  On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up.  (Applause.)  You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages.  You’re the ones who need relief.

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want.  But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes?  Most Americans would call that common sense.

We don’t begrudge financial success in this country.  We admire it.  When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich.  It’s because they understand that when I get a tax break I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference — like a senior on a fixed income, or a student trying to get through school, or a family trying to make ends meet.  That’s not right.  Americans know that’s not right.  They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to the future of their country, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility.  That’s how we’ll reduce our deficit.  That’s an America built to last.  (Applause.)

Now, I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes and debt, energy and health care.  But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right about now:  Nothing will get done in Washington this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.

Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical?

The greatest blow to our confidence in our economy last year didn’t come from events beyond our control.  It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not.  Who benefited from that fiasco?

I’ve talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street.  But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad — and it seems to get worse every year.

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics.  So together, let’s take some steps to fix that.  Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress; I will sign it tomorrow.  (Applause.)  Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact.  Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa — an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days.  A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything -– even routine business –- passed through the Senate.  (Applause.)  Neither party has been blameless in these tactics.  Now both parties should put an end to it.  (Applause.)  For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.  (Applause.)

The executive branch also needs to change.  Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote.  (Applause.)  That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy, so that our government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.  (Applause.)

Finally, none of this can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town.  We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common-sense ideas.

I’m a Democrat.  But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed:  That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.  (Applause.)  That’s why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and states.  That’s why we’re getting rid of regulations that don’t work.  That’s why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program.

On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about government spending have supported federally financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home.

The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective government.  And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress.  With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow.  But I can do a whole lot more with your help.  Because when we act together, there’s nothing the United States of America can’t achieve.  (Applause.)  That’s the lesson we’ve learned from our actions abroad over the last few years.

Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies.  From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.  (Applause.)

From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan.  Ten thousand of our troops have come home.  Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer.  This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.  (Applause.)

As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a to Tripoli.  A year ago, Qaddafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators -– a murderer with American blood on his hands.  Today, he is gone.  And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be denied.  (Applause.)

How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain.  But we have a huge stake in the outcome.  And while it’s ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well.  We will stand against violence and intimidation.  We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings –- men and women; Christians, Muslims and Jews.  We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.

And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests.  Look at Iran.  Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.  The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent.

Let there be no doubt:  America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.  (Applause.)

But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe.  Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever.  Our ties to the Americas are deeper.  Our ironclad commitment — and I mean ironclad — to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.  (Applause.)

We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope.  From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.  (Applause.)

That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world who are eager to work with us.  That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin, from Cape Town to Rio, where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years.  Yes, the world is changing.  No, we can’t control every event.  But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs –- and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way.  (Applause.)

That’s why, working with our military leaders, I’ve proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget.  To stay one step ahead of our adversaries, I’ve already sent this Congress legislation that will secure our country from the growing dangers of cyber-threats.  (Applause.)

Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it.  (Applause.)  As they come home, we must serve them as well as they’ve served us.  That includes giving them the care and the benefits they have earned –- which is why we’ve increased annual VA spending every year I’ve been President.  (Applause.)  And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our nation.

With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we’re providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets.  Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families.  And tonight, I’m proposing a Veterans Jobs Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that America is as strong as those who defend her.  (Applause.)

Which brings me back to where I began.  Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn a thing or two from the service of our troops.  When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian, Latino, Native American; conservative, liberal; rich, poor; gay, straight.  When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails.  When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one nation, leaving no one behind.

One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden.  On it are each of their names.  Some may be Democrats.  Some may be Republicans.  But that doesn’t matter.  Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates — a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary — and Hillary Clinton — a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission.  No one thought about politics.  No one thought about themselves.  One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission.  It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job — the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs.  More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other — because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s somebody behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America.  Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars and those 13 stripes.  No one built this country on their own.  This nation is great because we built it together.  This nation is great because we worked as a team.  This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.  And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard.  As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

In its added excess and insatiable curiosity for investigating the limits to growth?

In it’s drive for inefficiencies?

In it’s stagnant mode?

Has the invisible hand ben playing with itself?

Or in it’s applications?

Yes, probably gone wrong on all fronts.

Because it has gone wrong disastrously.

Yet the roots of discontent with capitalism run much deeper than the current slump.

Now am here to debate that Capitalism in it’s basic form – plain vanilla Das Capital management – hasn’t gone wrong in and of itself but has been micromanaged to death by inept and afraid handlers of our resources and proxies of our vote and governing systems.

Over the past three decades, as capitalism has become freer and more globalized, the rich have benefited enormously while the many have often been left with the crumbs. The gap between rich and poor has been widening just about everywhere. In a 2011 report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figured that the level of income inequality in the 22 member nations it studied increased by 10% since the mid 1980s, with conditions deteriorating in 17 of them. Free-trade-led globalization has forged an international labor market that pits Indian and American college students against one another, pushing those who can’t compete to the sidelines. Factories are shuttered in the U.S. and Europe, only to reopen in China, costing the West millions of manufacturing jobs.

Those still on the payroll in the US don’t gain as much from today’s capitalism as their bosses do. A recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based think tank, found that CEOs at large U.S. firms earned, on average, $10.8 million in 2010, a 28% increase from the year before, while the average worker took home $33,121, a mere 3% more. At that level, CEOs’ paychecks are 325 times bigger than their employees’. In the 1970s, CEO pay rarely topped 30 times more. A lot of people say capitalism doesn’t work. We want to see capitalism used to create more, not consolidate power into one small subset, where the rest of America is saying, “Where’s our slice?”

Last week, Mitt Romney the Billionaire Republican Presidential candidate, finally admitted that he pays a measley tax rate of just 15 percent, which is lower than that of all middle-class families. Romney is taxed at such a low rate because, as he freely admits, all of his income comes from investments, and is thus subject to the top capital gains tax rate of 15 percent, rather than the top income tax rate of 35 percent.

However, Romney has refused to sign on to the Obama administration’s “Buffett rule,” which aims to ensure that millionaires can’t dodge taxes to the extent that they’re paying less than teachers. When Billionaire investor Warren Buffett himself was asked about Romney’s tax rate, replying that letting millionaire investors like Romney pay such low taxes is “the wrong policy” because he makes his income by just “shoving around money”:  ”He makes his money the same way I make my money. He makes money by moving around big bucks, not by straining his back and going to work cleaning the toilets or whatever it may be. He makes it shoving around money. I make it shoving around money. If you look at the 400 highest incomes in the United States, they average $220 million. Something like 90 of them are effectively unemployed. They have no earned income, and that number has gone up over the years. [...] It’s the wrong policy to have. Nothing wrong about Romney doing that. He will not pay more than the law requires. I don’t fault him for that in the least, but I do fault the law that allows him and me, earning enormous sums to pay over all federal taxes at a rate that is about half what the average person in my office pays.”

As the global economic crisis enters its fourth excruciating year, just about everybody who can be blamed for the downturn has been blamed. Irresponsible bankers. Greedy corporate executives. Incompetent regulators. Bickering politicians. Underpaid Chinese workers. Overpaid Greek workers. George W. Bush. Ben Bernanke. Angela Merkel. Credit-rating agencies. The euro. Spendthrift American consumers. Aliens. Yet after the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s, there has been no shortage of vilification to go around. With another grim year likely ahead and no ready solutions in sight, a new target has arisen in the public’s crosshairs: capitalism itself.

It’s easy to see why. As jobs remain scarce and the welfare of middle-class American and European families has come under strain, capitalism, as it functions today, seems to have failed to do what it is supposed to do: provide economic opportunity and a better future for all. We’re taught in school that capitalism is a meritocracy that rewards the hardworking and talented. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, however, capitalism often appears to benefit only the connected and privileged. Too many, Wall Street financiers remain unreformed and unrepentant. After all, they’re still getting rich off the same sport of risky shenanigans that caused the US and the global economy to tank in the first place. Bankers evict families from their homes only to tear those homes down. Greek, Spanish and Portuguese citizens suffer through budget cuts and tax hikes to appease impatient bondholders and bankers. CEOs pocket multimillion-dollar bonuses while laying off thousands.

Capitalism, of course, has confronted such criticism many times before. Karl Marx famously said, that oppression is built into the very way capitalism operates. The Great Depression was pinned on capitalism as well. Immoral bankers ran amuck through unregulated financial markets and caused the disaster, the thinking went. Yet capitalism defeated its chief rival communism, and has absorbed more and more of the globe into its dynamic orbit. That’s simply because no other economic system in human history has proved more adept at delivering the goods, while generating plenty of wealth and development.

Only in the last couple of hundred years, since the first textile looms of the Industrial Revolution began to stir has humankind climbed out of the primordial sludge of peonage and destitution into a new world of opportunity, entrepreneurship and social mobility. Global GDP and imperfect measurement of human progress has nonetheless increased by a factor of seven over the first 1,820 years of the common era, but since then and during the two centuries dominated by modern capitalism, it has surged by more than 70 times. Capitalism has eradicated poverty on a grand scale; propelled innovation in medicine, information and transportation; and stitched together a global community through trade and finance.

The one reason capitalism has been able to deliver such success, however, is that it never stays static. It is fully dynamic and it has been proven so, since it has survived and thrived. It has done so simply because it has reformed, and adapted itself in an evolutionary fashion again and again and again. Always in response to the circumstance, to the ills and to the vagaries of the moment and the economic and sovereign markets. Recently in the last hundred years, the huge pain and suffering brought on by the Great Depression sparked a movement to make capitalism equitable and stable, which led to greater government protection and regulation, led to the New Deal and led to the European welfare state. Then, to overcome the stagflation of the 1970s, capitalism had to be more productive and innovative. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher ushered in an era of deregulation, free trade and free flows of capital that spawned a global economic boom. Today, amid the protracted downturn, capitalism has reached another inflection point. The world’s financial sector remains so unsound, and the pain inflicted on the average family has been so great, that capitalism needs to morph yet again, to become more inclusive and balanced and less prone to recurrent meltdowns. The question is not whether capitalism must be reformed. It is how.

On that, there is no agreement. The answer lies with the never-ending waltz of the state and market that has determined the many historical twists and turns of capitalism. Many today believe the financial crisis was caused, like the Great Depression, by capitalism gone wild, fueled by 30 years of willy-nilly deregulation. Left to their own devices, this thinking goes, bankers and executives can never be trusted to act responsibly. They’ll risk the well-being of the economy to ring up bigger profits or work people to death without paying a decent wage. The solution is a renewed government role to control the worst excesses of capitalism.

But governments may not have that much muscle left. With debt and deficits bulging, governments across the industrialized world have been forced to cut back on the social-welfare spending that protects the poor. The debt is also pressuring politicians to make capitalism even freer — breaking down barriers to entrepreneurship and loosening up protected labor markets — to enhance the competitiveness of their economies. Instead of riding to the rescue, governments across the West are sounding the retreat.

And still, some argue that’s exactly what capitalism needs. The woes of the global economy, they contend, were caused not by a failure of capitalism but by a failure of government. And although we have a lot of sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street guys, they should be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue and the Federal Reserve, not Wall Street.  At the end of the day, it was regulators who permitted the banks to ignore risk, then bailed them out when their risky behavior became a threat to economic stability. Ever since, the Fed has helped Wall Street dodge reform by spoon-feeding it easy money, which allows bankers to turn profits at little cost. In doing so, government has thwarted the self-regulating nature of capitalism by outlawing the punishing failure of the errant banker wankers. And that’s the moral hazard we are all experiencing now…

Because by rescuing big banks, the governments screwed up the game and overturned the just verdict of the markets and rewarded bad practices. And they sent the message to the errant wankers that they are safe no matter what idiocy they perform and no matter how stupid their errant ways are.

But if capitalism had been left to its own devices, none of these wankers would still have a job. The only way to make them responsible is to allow them to fail wholesale.  Capitalism hasn’t perpetrated injustice; faulty government policy has. The way to fix that problem is more capitalism: only freer markets can ensure that wrongdoers lose and do-gooders win. In all honesty, true capitalism hasn’t been given a chance to do it’s work properly. Therefore we must free capitalism to make up it’s own mind about it’s own development and adaptation if we want to have the best system available in order to serve our species’ economic needs and our societal tribal hunt for equilibrium. Let’s Free Capitalism from the fetters of moral hazard and interventionist meddling fearful governments and weasely banker wankers and all is gonna come upright again…

Capitalism, though, hasn’t regulated itself all that well either. Government officials and central bankers aren’t the only ones who failed to prevent the financial crisis. The shareholders, board directors, accountants and other agents of capitalism tasked with monitoring risk and corporate behavior didn’t do their jobs. Big-bank CEOs are more of a threat to capitalism than those on the outside protesting. Reform of capitalism is concerned with restoring the checks and balances that police a well-functioning free-market economy. Shareholders and directors are supposed to safeguard the health of corporations and link compensation to performance. Instead, managers of banks and companies have been incentivized to notch short-term profits over long-term gains, encouraging them to take dangerous risks and earning them tens of millions in undeserved payouts. Such behavior defeats the moral justification for having a capitalist system—that it is more fair and based on merit. Solution is to repair capitalism one boardroom at a time by strengthening corporate governance. The problem with our economic system today is not a problem of capitalism per se, but rather it is due to a lack of fully exercising capitalism in a free style of just punishments and rewards. You cannot remove the stick from the carrot and expect the Pavlovian response to work from imperfect human beings…

These debates will play out for long, yet the capitalism that emerges from this Great Recession will be a different capitalism than your grandfathers version of it. The groundswell of public discontent that has exploded on the streets from Los Angeles to London to Athens simply cannot be ignored and it shapes the new Capitalism fully…

Yet however loud the calls for change, capitalism is here to stay because there are not even marginally better alternatives and because it offers us the best method for the most efficient allocation of scarce resources we have ever invented. Free markets make for free minds and vice versa. Or as the old saw goes free your mind and your ass will follow…

While many in the West have soured on the system that made them rich and developed their countries, others like China, India and much of the rest of the rapidly advancing emerging world are inexorably turning toward freer trade, deregulation and more-open capital flows in their drive for elimination of poverty and occasional wealth, if not outright riches.

The challenges facing the world’s politicians, economists, bankers and corporate leaders are many but the main one should be how to reform capitalism in ways that enhance its power to grow and uplift the downtrodden while mitigating the ill effects of globalization and greed. The outcome will shape not just the fortunes of capitalism — and the world economy but the lives of the next generations to come and the global South to emerge on a more equitable Darwinian level playing field.

Same goes for capitalism as it competes with other economic systems for our hearts and minds…

Let it be FREE

Yours,

Pano

PS:

The thing with my economic theory is that economies and markets pursue some sort of equilibrium, always.

The invisible hand of the market doesn’t exist any more than Santa Claus does, but we still get the holiday gifts because of the both of them.

But rather than observing the disequilibrium the cloak of invisibility of the markets bears, we best attract the present equilibrium as the better place to be.

Yet this equilibrium is seldom achieved, because the fighting occurs between the haves and the have nots and the usurpers of power vs the Status Quo.

So for my ideal scenario, I must say that there are no ideal ways of equilibrium but rather a constantly changing and dynamic equilibrium.

That’s my theory and my chance at the Nobel prize and am sticking with it.

So don;t look to going back to the good old days.

That boat has sailed and is not coming back.

Instead be happy with what happens today, adjust to it as if it’s permanent and be grateful for it.

You’ll see great success through this method…

After all, less is more.

Greece is an old country.

Both have been in the News a lot lately for varied reasons…

Apple for it’s phenomenal founding leader’s death and genius, and Greece for it’s phenomenal economic destruction [death] and its stupidest leadership on record.

And although Greece has a proud and long history, it has taken a barbaric rape and pillage type battering in the financial storms circling the world. Yet still, her image is vibrant as the place to train for throwing cocktail molotovs [young protesters] the longest and for throwing the old and infirm pensioners under the rails of the tram [government ministers] the longest. Further indignation was heaped upon the country when the European Commission claimed that Greece’s loss of sovereignty is a permanent state of affairs.

On the other hand Apple’s gain of personhood in the US makes it a great candidate for President if corporations can be elected to that highest of offices now that they are seen as persons in the eyes of the law…

So what is a young man to do?

Stay in Greece or go work for Apple?

Because the stock of the young [relatively] technology company Apple rose sufficiently to make it more valuable than the country of Greece.

The Apple stock rose sufficiently this month, to value the company at more than $400 billion. That already makes it the world’s most valuable tech company but it also makes it more valuable than several nations.

Apple’s market capitalization is higher than the gross domestic product of countries such as Greece, Austria, Argentina and South Africa. The $400 Billion valuation places Apple in 2nd place as the most valuable companies in the world, behind only Exxon Mobil, which is valued at around $420 billion.  Apple’s valuation is more than double the value of fellow technology heavyweight bluechip companies Microsoft and Google, both of which have strong smartphone divisions and communication arms but not the creative genius behind I-tunes etc.

What’s more, despite the size of the company, it still remains one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world, because we saw last quarter sales to have risen by 45% year on year when they were announced this week.

Instead Greece slides further down and it’s value gets deflated, in the uncertainty of PSI [not the tire pressure] negotiated outcomes with the debtors and the European guarantors clamoring for creating a slave nation…

Yours,

Pano

PS:

Go west young man…

Go and go fast.

It means you won’t be afraid to live.

It means you are not afraid to be.

Or maybe it means you are more afraid to leave…

Yet if it were as simple as doing nothing it would be easy.

Because this is not about being fearless or living on the edge, nor is it about being reckless or an adrenaline junkie. This is not about being daring. It’s about just being there. To simply be. To be left alone to simply have a Life, a family and a job. To be allowed to just be a human being. Being there, where you were born and simply carrying on… the toil of the earth you’ve found your lot into.

It’s about labouring under the same sky and in the same patch of land your forebears toiled too.

But then, sometimes it’s not.

Sometimes you find yourself in those moments that rip your chest open. That was when Hrant Dink was assassinated in broad daylight walking to his journalist office in Isticlal Cadessi. In the midst of the  busiest street of Istanbul, at the most busy time of the day, an assassin’s bullet cut off his golden thread. Only because he was a Turkish Armenian. A hate crime of great magnitude…

I remember writing back then about my friend’s death and feeling sorry for myself too. “It’s so sad that it takes everything you’ve got; not to wrap your arms around yourself to feel protected. It’s time to go… because you are at the edge of a cliff looking down at where you know you want to be, and the knot in your stomach keeps you from making that leap and getting there to be on the safe ground.”

I left Istanbul the very next day as did so many others like Orhan Pamuk, and all the writers, all the ones who were on the list of the writers accused of  ”Insulting Turkishness” either because they spoke of the genocides or because they wrote about them…

All of the ones on the list left. And afterwards we would meet frequently in Paris for a while. Paris where many of the recent emigres shared and swapped horror stories and laughed with strong milk white coffee and black gallows humour. That’s all you can do. You wrap yourself up in thoughts of your family and friends, and thoughts of every day and do what comes natural to human beings. You forget… Pretend it’s not there. Protect yourself from the bumps and bruises you’re sure you’ll get. But the protection is an illusion. Staying safe–that’s what hurts the most. So you go on living and hoping that some day you’ll forget entirely.

But the new French Law about the Armenian genocide denial has brought all of it back and it’s not to be forgotten. It’s a bold move to protect the memories of old and new genocides…

How can you prevent new genocides if you forget the Armenians? How can you forget Rwanda? Can you forget  Nazi Germany and the Holocaust? What about Stalin’s ethnic cleansings? What of Armenia, Greek Asia Minor, Kampuchia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Darfur, South Sudan and so many other lesser known genocides?

Would all of these genocides have to have happened? Could we have escaped maybe one of them if we had properly remembered the Armenian people’s genocide in Turkey back in early 20th century and had punished justly and severely the perpetrators? Could there have been one or more human lives saved? If that answer is yes, then let France shows us the way of Democracy Truth and Justice, and teach us to rightfully declare a spade a spade. A genocide is genocide – no two ways about it.

We must not forget lest we repeat this pattern of annihilation of humans because of their differences. Lest we forget the annihilation of hope… Lest we forget that we are better than this. Lest we forget that we are civilized and not blood crazed savages…

For to forget is to forgive… And we ain’t ready for that yet — as a species. We are not mature enough to forgive and still not forget… Or are we?

Now the story of the Armenian genocide can get told freely by modern chroniclers who go on, like this American perspective from the ambassador of the US in Istanbul at the time of the Armenian genocide: Back in 1916, Henry Morgenthau, American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, resigned. His State Department superiors’ demand that he maintain cordial relations with Turkish nationalists and their brethren, Islamist zealots and ethnic purists of Turkey’s leadership, as they went on and massacred the whole of the Turkish Armenian Christian minority disgusted him.

Morgenthau went on to say: “I found intolerable my further daily association with men who were still reeking with the blood of more than a million innocent human beings slaughtered in cold blood.”

History will tell you that the Turkish nationalists, perpetrators of the first genocide of the 20th century, got away with it, as they almost invariably do. None of them hanged by the neck. Not one went to prison. Instead they were celebrated and are still considered heroes of the Turkish nation… Even later when Turkey found itself with the axis of evil on the losing side of the First World War, the victorious allied armies never held war-crimes trials against the Genocidaires in Turkey. They apparently had bigger fish to fry… And more pressing matters soon took over the attention of the world and the whole sordid mess was forgotten soonest. But their pattern of genocide persisted and the German officers who were close allies of Turkey at the time of the Armenian genocide and in some ways assisted the extermination of the Armenians, they used the lessons learned of how to exterminate human beings at large scale and large numbers efficiently and applied their evil science to the new “others.”  To the gypsies, the homosexuals, the Jews and all other unwanted minorities, they applied the newly learned and unpunished doctrine of genocide  with horrific efficiency and no fear of retribution…

For Turkey, and the fragile world of the intermission between the two world wars, it was convenient to forget the Armenians and to rewrite history. Especially since nothing was heard from the Armenians. Not a peep was heard from the Europeans or the Americans and the Russians either… And in Turkey it was state science to vilify Armenians, Kurds, and Greeks and all the “others” as Unturks. Because the Armenian people who survived in Turkey stayed mouse quiet… They pretended to be deaf mutes. Believing that staying quiet they would be safe in their room with the door shut, and that was easy. But it never is. Then again, because they didn’t seek justice, they missed the boat on that one. And since they didn’t seek redress they also missed out on that land.

Because as we all know, you have to open your door and scream at the top of your lungs. Because if you don’t open that door you miss everything. You miss who you are. You miss who you are meant to be. You miss your purpose. You miss love. You miss Life.

Something Hrant Dink never did… cause he stayed screaming till the end and spoke against genocide and was tried in court three times for the Thought crime of “Unturkishness” because he mentioned and wrote about the Armenian genocide – as a historical fact – something that the modern Turkish state refuses to believe and punishes those who have the temerity to remember it.

Hrant Dink was a fighter for justice and truth. He was a fighter for the People’s future and ultimately he was a fighter for a better Turkey. He was a just warrior of the heart. He loved his country and never wanted to leave even after all that had happened to him and his people. He hoped for a better Turkey. But history proved him that although his aims were noble, himself was ultimately very brave and very brazen…

But the warrior isn’t brave on his own strength. It’s because of the people he protects that he is fearless. It’s because of our sad, tender broken-open hearts that the rest of us can be brave.  And it’s about Love of principles and humanity. It’s about “amour” and not about armor. It’s about being naked of fear, and it’s not about keeping your shield at the ready to protect yourself or others you love. It’s the opposite; it’s stripping off your armor and laying down your shield in Love with Life and it’s true drama. Because genocide is just part of the human drama we are all engulfed into sometime…

It’s getting to the cliff’s edge and diving off — for this is the edge of humanity.

Yours,

Pano

PS:

It’s all about refusing to give up and refusing to stay hidden in bed — even though that feels safer —  but going out boldly to face your fears and live as a person, be it Armenian, Turk, French or Greek.

Do this and scream for justice every chance you get.

Otherwise we will relive these genocides like Hitler’s Nazis did, when he famously urged them on the kill of the Jews and some of his officers objected on the grounds of History…

Adolf exclaimed : “Who now remembers the Armenians ?”

Things are so bad in Greece that soup kitchens are to be found in all central Athens communities. Desperately disillusioned  parents and hungry people give up their kids as they drop them off to schools never coming back to claim them. And now in Athens there has been an explosion of poor peoples’ diseases with Tuberculosis in the centre of the city spreading as fast as rumour does.

Tuberculosis once a prominent feature of the Victorian coal burning and mining era —  the famous black lung death — had been pretty much extinguished in Europe with all children vaccination and the advent of radiology, skin testing and good pulmonary screening and antibiotic therapy, throughout the continent. But Athens now seems to be like Mogadishu and TB is getting epidemic proportions fast…

Because now we see young children and adults suffering from this debilitating disease that has a 50/50 chance of killing you, when it gets to the lungs and becomes pulmonary tuberculosis.

Because of the urgency of the situation, we’ve started a Tuberculosis containment campaign for Athens and Greece’s children, and need your help because the Greek nation cannot cope any longer. And it’s not only the lack of money but also the stupidity of the docile Greek State and the current Minister of Public Health who refuses to release the proper statistics and the real data about the spread of the tuberculosis in Athens because he is afraid that this will be seen as a singular failure on himself and might diminish his chances to succeed the stupid ex-PM Papandreou into the leadership of his corrupt party and maybe the country. What a dreadful bastard…

Politicians willing to sacrifice their people and their children for political gain is a high treasonous crime.

But there you have it…

I just came from Athens and saw with my own eyes the mess these criminals have wrought on the country. They live on the hog while their people go hungry…

Thieving politicians and thieving European and German bankers have been causing the downfall of this country to the lowest point since 1941 when it was occupied by the German army and their Nazis who stole all of the wheat harvest and all other food and left a country poor and destitute, because they had dared to oppose them and vanquish their Nazi ally fascist Italy. After the Wehrmacht stole the harvest of Greece, naturally a great famine ensued that killed more than a million Greek citizens ultimately throughout their long occupation. More than fifteen percent of the population was exterminated thus and that was the highest toll that any country paid in the second world war. And now it seems like Deja Vu with the Germans again inside the Greek Ministries telling people what to do…

And now the new wave of poor health and non existent care, amid semi famine conditions for the unemployed of Athens and malnutrition for their young children, has resulted in an upswing of Tuberculosis and other economic diseases. It’s a dire reminder of economic infanticide.

Because yesterday, when I left Athens was informed that a seven year old kid had died from TB and the Doctors “doctored” and downgraded the death certificate to a Flu death in order to avoid the strict guidelines and the onerous paperwork and not wanting to report TB that the Greek Ministry of Health, denies to accept as existent in Athens. What a shame…

Because of all that we started a new charity called Greek Tuberculosis Campaign for Children to examine and treat all the at risk populations of Athens with mobile free clinics and we invite volunteers and your help in are raising money here:  http://www.indiegogo.com/Greek-Tuberculosis-Campaign-for-Children?a=322198

And if you want further proof of what’s going on in Athens, here it goes…

As a lament comes the voice of a Greek Teacher who just now chose to resign her state job and to come work with us in helping fight the rise of Tuberculosis amongst the children.

A Greek teacher named Maria, today submitted her resignation to the government of Greece….

Here is the text of her resignation letter:

” I have the honour to submit my resignation from my position as a Teacher in the 8th Primary School of Pireas – Greece.

 The reasons that made me choose the resignation route are the following: 

- Because as a teacher I always thought that my attitude is an example and what I feel and teach passes like a breath of fresh air in the souls of the children. 

- Because in my teaching I offer no empty words and no nonsense. 

- Because I offer emotions, actions, and correct attitude. 

- Because I cannot face the eyes of my children begging any longer.

- Because am ashamed to serve an educational system that does not exist. 

- Because I have no rights and am I am not allowed to teach what is right. 

- Because I refuse to participate in the lies of your fake system by repeating the telling of lies you spout, like: “First, the student,” “Free public education,” “Equal opportunities for all” ???

- Because I refuse to waste the taxes of my fellow citizens and refuse to offer them obediently to the traitors of my country without being able to deny or resist their traitorous decisions.

- Because I refuse to endorse, to collaborate and to facilitate those who bleed my country to death.

- Because they are brutal murderers who kill every day someone of my fellow citizens.

- Because among their many victims are many children and even my husband. 

- Because I do not want to cooperate with those who stole the sweat of the Greek pensioners without shame and respect for their lives. 
- Because I do not want to cooperate with those who filled the country with homeless and are now supposedly merciful and repentant.

- Because I do not want charity, and I do not recognize the dirty bully who unlawfully governs our country under the belief that even one of us, agree.

And because of all these reasons  but mainly, 

and BECAUSE MY SOUL SCREAMS,  

I use the only right that I have left for resistance, 

My resignation.” 

…………………………..

Awesome strength of character by a pure teacher of the young

Yours,

Pano

because,

Earth is one country and all people are citizens…

Yours,

Pano

PS:

True patriots dream of one world living in peace

- Benjamin Franklin

Maybe because they see that there are far too many other issues crowding out the scientific points of view on Climate Change Global Warming and other views on the environmental devastation we wrought — because the state of divisive politics right now has made all ecological issues untouchable…

And by the way, money is not wealth.

Or as Robert F. Kennedy spoke on what GDP meant for him, some fourty four years ago, his wisdom transcends the years since:

“Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product now is over 800 Billion dollars a year …  But that Gross National Product…

If we should judge America by that — that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and it counts nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

And it can tell us everything about America — except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

And that fits well here because it is also my view of today’s catastrophic singular focus on money measurement of the economy and of our complete neglect of the environment… and failure to conserve our resources that make up the real wealth and our real global commons. By wasting our natural resources we are diminishing every year both the global commons and our economy in real terms —  because these “externalities” matter and our money measurement culture gets the losing end of the bargain daily.

Because the real global Commons is made up of three simple entities that cannot be measured in GDP and that are truly indivisible and belong to all of us in equal measure. The Atmosphere, the Planet we live in, and the perfectly balanced Environment that allows us to survive. And that is the real global Commons we ought to conserve and spend all of our wherewithal to conserve and maintain in good operating order. On the other hand, the world’s economy is just a networked system of financial economic and trade transactions that might or might not affect our lives greatly depending on how much emphasis we put on this real sideshow. And as it happens we pay inordinate attention to the sideshow, neglecting the real Commons where conservation and protection is of utmost importance and necessary for our survival.

Because if we fail to observe, manage and conserve the real global Commons and fail to institute global coordination of responses to giant problems we’ve created, we shall simply perish. We need desperately the tools of worldwide conservation, in the form of environmental common governance, of clean earth, clean air and clean water, emanating. We want access to these most basic human rights in order to preserve ourselves, that is if we do not want to experience the real tragedy of the Commons as described in the Victorian era ruination of the “village green…”

And as people we’ve faced this issues in the past too and arrived at a system of conserving and protecting the village Green. Not to play golf on, but to manage it as a common grazing pasture, a recreation, an animal feed, a protected environment and as a natural habitat. Somewhat the same is what we are referencing for the earth. Only on a far larger and more abstract way for the earth’s critical ecosystems are our village Commons in their entirety.

And we’ve come up with some interesting institutions to deal with these issues. Valuable institutions that many doubting Thomases, neo-luddites and ideological idiots, now want to disembowel if not abolish altogether… under the guise of economic development. The European Union’s 20/20/20 policy is a great example of this and the development of renewable energy is not the only positive outcome stemming from this great policy.

And the message is clear:
If we take care of the environment, the people and the earth  – the economy will take care of itself.

GDP is not an accurate means of measuring anything relevant to the wealth of nations, because it only measures economic activity and much of it is detrimental to the real wealth and it’s origins. It’s even detrimental to many resources… and to the Peoples of this Earth.

Money is not wealth.

Money after all, was and still is just a clever and convenient invention. And because it was designed as a means of exchange and not as the basic measure of wealth it is ill fitted in it’s new “royal” robes. But somehow that has changed and what was once solely a means to an end has become the end itself, and what was a means of exchange has unfortunately become the only measure of wealth and has gone on to be considered wealth itself. Of course this is a simple delusion foisted upon the simpletons of this earth. No smart person or real intelligence can fathom this as such…  But let this be as it may. Even by that measure for wealth generation, environmental protection in general and EPA in particular is far ahead of it’s time and all other measurements.

Almost half a century has passed since the birth of the Environmental Movement and now we are in a similar path of ecosystem destruction and the hope for redemption is fading fast while we are facing challenges unseen back then and we see certain problems far more great than what our predecessors in the movement ever considered.

We clear cut the rainforests and replace them with vast cow pastures or palm oil plantations or mine the trees and leave the lands fallow, only in order to make industrial process agriculture and a tiny profit. Yet the damage done to the wealth of the nations far surpasses whatever the returns we will ever get out of these lands.

We pollute the rivers, cause anoxic seas, and over-fish the oceans for very little profit and mainly because we do not want to manage our resources. Yet with a little foresight in environmental controls, stoppage of agricultural nitrates runoff, and proper environmental and habitat management we could have sorted out the problem.

We destroy the local economy in search of ever cheaper goods, no matter how much CO2 is emitted in the process and regardless of the human capital costs. Yet with a bot of better management of human resources and product locality we could be seeing a benefit from the globalization trends. Still the bottom line of a few dollars more, always comes first.

We hire and fire people at will, for the sake of balancing the books, meeting financial corporate projections and boosting the economy of the enterprise while we are destroying the overall economy. Yet, the most valuable commodity human capital – people – has now become little more than the switch in the means of production and the instrument of making paper profit.

And all of that in the blind faith and pursuit of some obscure God named money. We are not even talking about folding money, but digital unreal currencies lost at the push of a button in a single FX transaction that might go against you. GM crops, nuclear energy, cloning and animal experimentation – nothing is forbidden – just as long as it adds to GDP and increases the share value of corporations and companies.

Ethics, morality and human dignity are all secondary and subservient to the profit margins. Bankrupt bankers have to be bailed out again and again, even though we can all see that they and all other business leaders are utterly incapable of solving the economic crisis. Politicians and policymakers still want to obey their desires. No wonder that our governments are completely incapable of creating conditions for the stability and well-being of people – because all social, political, educational and communal values — exist solely to serve economic growth, which simply means growth in money supply, in GDP and in consumption.

As long as we are wedded to this financial paradigm and the profit maximization model, the economies will suffer, real capitalism will be decreed amoral, the strong will exploit the weak, and our human, social and environmental fabric will continue to fall apart.

The current economic crisis gives us an opportunity to look deeper and examine the consequences of confusing the means with the ends. Money has a place, of course, but we must keep it in its place and not allow it to dominate our lives in such a manner that we lose all our bearings and become its slaves. Money was made to serve people, not the other way around.

And even with the rudimentary environmental protections, things have progressed greatly and certainly have gone rather badly for the environment over the last 40 to 50 years. Because quite simply the level of threat and problems we’ve created with our present mindset cannot be solved without a serious brain software upgrade or even a new operating system running our head computers. We simply cannot understand the impacts we’ve unleashed in this “the Anthropocene era” of disequilibrium, of magnified returns and of forced results from closed loop ecosystems. Climate forcings are now the norm… with tremendous force storms all the more frequent because of the atmospheric warming up.

Check these little happenings from this last year and prepare adequately for the next one to come, because all of them contribute to the meme sphere of our mind’s attention deficit. The magnitude-9 earthquake in Japan, the momentous climate change summit, the reports on future global “hyperwarming”, and the rumblings about some of the first geoengineering field trials all made 2011 a remarkable year with the environment at centre stage…

The recent cluster of huge quakes around the Pacific Ocean – the December 2004 Sumatra quake, the February 2010 Chile quake, and now the Fukushima one, have fuelled speculation that they are tectonic plates seismically linked and subject to earth’s crust sudden warming and thus releasing their energy forcefully.

The planet is on course for over 3 °C of global warming and maybe up to 5°C by 2025 along with ten billion humans requiring ever more resources yet finding ever less. That temperature rise leaves Greenland – the world’s second-largest ice cap – heading for a melting point of no return. Greenland will surely reach a tipping point in the early 2020s. And after that is curtains because no amount of action on our part, can save the great ice chest of Greenland…

The question of whether climate change is responsible for extreme weather events like the heatwave that set Russia alight in 2010 is one of the hottest topics in climate science. Next year, UK and US climate scientists plan to launch an annual global assessment of whether humans are to blame for the previous year’s extreme weather events. Solving the issue could bring closer the day when disaster victims can successfully sue oil and coal companies.

Field trials for experiments to engineer the climate have begun. When they get approval, a team of UK researchers will hoist one end of a 1-kilometre-long hose aloft using a balloon, then attempt to pump water up it and spray it into the atmosphere. If the test succeeds, a larger-scale version could one day pump sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, creating a sunshade to offset the greenhouse effect. Ocean iron rust seeding for algae blooms has already begun and many other tests are on track most with a rather negative bend and no discernible positive effects. Plans from formal bodies like shooting and exploding into the high atmosphere strategic nukes to bring on the Nuclear winter, in order to cool down the atmosphere, are contemplated by the US Pentagon.Although too far fetched to even think about, yet they constitute the official Plan B of the US government in case of runaway global warming…

And all of us we are having endless meetings…  that lead to naught. Global Climate Meetings like the Bali, Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban ad infinitum

Yet not a single tonne of carbon was saved in the Durban Climate Change Summit organized by the UN and the conference of the parties. Instead a lot of CO2 was emitted due to thousands of delegates flying around and about and talking till nauseum. Fact is on the short term, the planet will benefit not one jot. Some are calling it a betrayal of both science and the world’s poor and we are calling it a disgrace and a Greenwashing exercise in stupidity. Yet the climate conference in Durban, South Africa, did force major developing nations like China, Brazil and South Africa to accept the principle of future binding targets on their greenhouse gas emissions for the first time…

Gas has become the byword for energy companies wanting to greenwash. But gas drilling especially for shale gas poses a major safety hazard if there are water wells nearby. It appears that gas drilling contaminates the waters nearby and destroys the aquifer. The controversial use of “fracking” is also a huge safety risk as regards water contamination and carries other big risks too.

More than ten million people in the Horn of Africa face a humanitarian emergency as the region grappled with its worst drought in the last century. The main climatic trigger for the droughts was Climate Change, a warmer planet and the La Niña, a cyclical meteorological phenomenon affecting how much rain falls in Africa and elsewhere. We were unable to respond in time and yet we knew of this incoming catastrophe, all along, and as far back as five years in advance.

On 31st of October 2011 or thereabouts, a newborn baby somewhere in the world became the Seventh billion member of the human race. Or so said the UN – but behind the UN’s patina of certainty may lie outdated and unreliable census data. These inaccuracies make it harder to answer a more important question: is human population set to peak within the next few decades or will it carry on growing beyond that to the nine Billion mark as many predict within ten years’ time and then on to double again in seven more years?

The perturbations in the networked biological systems we are dependent on for our survival are becoming far too great to deal with, let alone stop, and are tilting whole systems out of balance. Environmental shocks and overstimulation, via temperature changes, osmotic shocks, pressure changes, chemistry alienation, toxicity, anoxicity, oceanic acidification, desalination, and various inauspicious changes are endangering our existence directly. The way of the Dinosaurs is perhaps our Tom-Tom directional GPS driver assist destination…

Environmental policy and the lack of it of course has greatly shifted in the last 40 years in order to incorporate explicit economic analyses of the costs and benefits of restricting the amount of deadly, toxic, and dangerous pollution that is produced, but it never accounted for the positive wealth creation and preservation of nature. And because of that we are now facing the very difficult public policy debate of why having the EPA at all.

Yet the answer is simple. If only because there is an increasing understanding of how environmental policy can correct market failures, by building freer markets by reducing externalities that distort economic incentives and by protecting resources, we are now finally able to acknowledge these externalities. Those great “external” costs that were so great, we left them untold and unaccountable in the business history of our civilization. But the piper has come on calling…

At last we are responsible for paying for the free lunch we so heartily enjoyed for far too long. The open sewer we call atmosphere is chock full with carbon and is slowly cooking up our planet. Are we awake enough to address this catastrophe or we are to slowly cook in the pot like the poor frogs served in the French brasseries all over Paris?

Do we have any other option but to address the climatic and environmental changes brought on by our pollution that is warming the planet?

The drive toward sustainable development has been non-partisan and relatively non-ideological in the past. Why does it have to become so now?

Most US administrations promoted government-business partnerships by which corporations would voluntarily adopt more sustainable business practices instead of setting mandatory regulations.

With advances in environmental monitoring, economic science, and globalization, corporations have integrated sustainability into their bottom lines — often realizing both short-term, and long term profit as well as brand benefit and general societal profit because of the focus on energy efficiency and long-term viability.

GDP is not an accurate means of measuring anything relevant to the wealth of nations, because it only measures economic activity and much of it is detrimental to the real wealth and it’s origins. It’s even detrimental to many resources… and the Peoples.

Money is not wealth.

Real wealth is our Goldilocks planet as a very fine home to us, and to all other species because of that special chemical balance that we are able to survive into.

Real wealth is our clean air, clean land and clean water to help us survive and thrive.

Real wealth is land, forest, rivers, animals and people.

Real wealth is further created by the imagination, creativity and skill of people understanding their purpose.

Bankers and business leaders in search of ever-increasing profit are not the wealth creators; at best they are wealth counters and at worst wealth destroyers.

So let’s honour the true wealth creators, such as the environmental activists, environmental engineers, mechanics helping natural systems recuperate, skilled workers maintaining forested lands and primary pastures, architects and engineers building sustainable buildings, renewable energy developers, sustainable business leaders, creative civil servants, ethical political leaders, morally responsible governors, imaginative legislative artists, environmental public policy craftsmen, caring mothers and women on top of their professions, all teachers, all doctors, most builders and local small farmers and above all else, let’s honour the children to come. For the future and the economy is theirs and we feel it’s safe in their hands.

Let us respect the generous Earth, Gaia and Nature, the eternal source of wellbeing and prosperity.

Because if we take care of the environment, people and nature, the economy will take care of itself.

Happy New Year and please use this bit of food for thought and action…

Yours,

Pano

Time to change our yard stick.

Maybe GNH is the way to measure success going forward.

Much like Bhutan does.