Wave goodbye to the Western Way of Life? But which Western way of Life?

The initial impetus for this analysis was today's (Friday) release of the US Department of Labor's data for March re employment (see a press report by BBC News) as well as a phrase from a statement by the US Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis on March employment numbers: " we need to invest in community colleges and job training programs that prepare our workers for 21st century jobs".

21st century jobs? Studies have showed that the biggest bulk of jobs creation in the US has been in low-skill - low pay jobs such as carer and related.

Plus the US medical sector (mostly private as opposed eg to Europe) has been a job creator even in the midst of the US economic crisis. Please note the continuing resistance by lobbies and others to Obamacare, even without the original public option.

Please also note my view that the No 1 target of the so called "Euro crisis" is not the Euro but the so called European Social Model which is inter alia based on public health insurance and healthcare services.

Take also 8 minutes to listen to my theory on the fundamental causes of the US subprime crisis.

You may also want to read my February 3 post "If GDP per capita in USA, EU, China, India was to converge then ..."

Ms Solis argued inter alia: "We've added nearly half a million manufacturing jobs since February 2010. This week, major U.S. carmakers announced that their U.S. sales rose last month to the highest level in at least four years.... the industry has seen a complete turnaround, adding more than 230,000 jobs since the summer of 2009".

Yet for decades now, manufacturing jobs have been moving East. before China entered the WTO on December 2001, Japan was the main target of complaints by US lawmakers. Since China, a 1.3 billion entity still in communist political mode but with a capitalist model of economy in operation in recent years, has entered the "WTO trade game", the impact on the US and the EU (especially the Eurozone with its inflation phobia that has led inevitably to a hard Euro in most of the 10 years since the intro of the Euro notes and coins on January 1, 2002) is even more remarkable!

Are environmental policies and tools, prompted by global warming, the "wooden walls" (see Ancient Greek history) that will save Western world manufacturing and related jobs?

How about the so called "Western Way of Life"? First of all, what is it? Is it the European Social Model (watch it being destroyed in Greece and other PIIGS as well as in the UK) or the US "success or bust" model (aka venturing without a safety net)?

So what if US unemployment remains above 8% (with more low skill - low pay jobs) and EU unemployment is soaring? As long as the financial - health insurance - healthcare sector is doing well in profits and in jobs ......

Note also the recent initiative of the 5 BRICS countries/economies to stand up to the current "world order". as well as India's refusal to allow its airlines to fall under the EU's  transport CO2 emissions trading scheme.

Plus, as long as listed companies are reaching financial results expected by analysts ..... Times are too financial and too jobless. Or is it because US and EU GDP per capita is starting to converge with China's via "free trade" etc? Growth without jobs (or with low pay jobs)? It's called productivity by some,isn't it? Look at what's happening with Greece's internal devaluation experiment!

And look at how the prices of things are rising in EU member Bulgaria as well as non-EU Albania (prices of food in Tirana are reported to be as high a in pre-crisis Athens) in spite of the fact that salaries in Bulgaria and in Albania have risen only a small fraction compared to the rise in the cost of living! Within the EU, people from the new member states have/are trying to partake in the western way of Life by moving. Romania's 2011 census reported a 12% drop in population compared to the previous one, leaving the country with just over 19 million inhabitants compared to 22 million only a few years ago. Trade or migration?

At the global scene, people are trying to partake in the Wsstern Way of Life either via economic migration (in spite of it being discouraged or outlawed by most destination countries) or via trade.

So as billions of people, in China, in India in other BRICS and other countries around the world (and in "New Europe") are making a rightful claim to the Western way of life, that way of life disappears. Means it was not viable to begin with, ie it was only meant to work for a % of the world, an elite?

In the "old days", eg in Ancient Sparta, the Spartans exploited an 8-fold population of the neighbouring Messinians as helots (slaves). To protect against their uprising, they (the Spartans) became soldiers for life and their state a military one. Compare that to the Athenians. But the Athenians' wall, built by Themistocles, the same Athenian who masterminded the win in the battle of Salamis, turned against them during the siege by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War when an outbreak of the plague (be it Typhoid Fever or other, see About.com) killed 33% of the population, including Pericles.

The world as we know it via History, be it Rome, Middle ages Europe, etc, Charles Dickens' England, etc was mostly a world were elites enjoyed things the masses could not (that 99%).

It can be argue that the industrial revolution and the ensuing mass production techniques provided for a certain way of life for a much wider % than just the elites. To get a rough idea: One can calculate the 99% based on the whole world for this period, ie the Western world as the area of the planet where the elites lived (the 1%, 1% of 7 billion is 70 million, the combined population of the US, Canada and the EU is around 800 million, thus the world's 1% elite is 9% of USA+Canada+EU! Rough calculations, but indicative of the West - rest of the world divide.

In any case. it was in the early 1990s in Brussels that one day my secretary noted that she was seeing beggars in the streets and that was a new thing, in her eyes. I replied that people in need were always present, but in distant parts of the world. Now the "segregation" was diminishing. It seems to me, 20 years later, that I was right. More and more rich people are not in the "West" and more and more poor people are in the "West" compared to the industrial age. A new phase has been on, for some time now.

But does one more poor person in the West make for one less poor person in eg Asia, via trade? Not necessarily, because that value foregone by an average Belgian may not be pricked up by an average Chinaman but by a Western company producing in China (some 50% of China's exports are still not made by Chinese firms in China but by "Western" companies).

Yet, instead of the West's states and welfare systems helping Americans and Europeans adjust to the earthshaking relocation of value (not people) from the West to other parts of the planet, a Euro crisis is used as an excuse for cutting down that European Social Model and passing many fillet parts of it to the private sector. Instead of America getting a public option, Europe is losing its own "public option". That was the main game changer of the last 2-3 years.

No wonder many Europeans, especially, and for now, South European ones, are experiencing a sense of vertigo. The economic poles are shifting. It is 2012.

Food for thought:

a) Can capitalism work to make everyone better off (ie with a minimum number of "losers")?
b) Is modern finance as we are experiencing it in recent years a core element of capitalism?
c) Is China capitalist, communist or both?
d) Is the real "problem" economic immigration or trade?
e) Can "Devaluation" take place successfully in the West to allow for the growth of the rest of the world? By "devaluation" I mean a wider equivalent of the "Greek experiment", ie a reduction in wages that is met by a reduction in the cost of living as well. In Greece. it does not seem to be working. Wages are falling but the prices of most goods and services is not.  Take another example. London real estate prices. Can the London economy sustain them? What will happen after mid-August?

In recent years I have talked to many persons who experienced the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain first hand not only as children but as adults as well (eg until the age of 25 or 30+). Almost all miss the certainty that existed regarding the basics: a job, basic food on the table, a roof over their heads, access to free healthcare.

I will wrap up this post with a piece from Gary Hart's speech at the MIT auditorium in 1984 (I was there): The enemy in South America is not communism, it's poverty.

Draw your 2012 analogies!

What did Alexander the Great and Diogenis of Sinope have in common?

Philosophise on this (re ways of life, life missions, quests, etc):

Why did Alexander the Great, when he met Diogenis of Sinope (see Wikipedia), say that if he wasn't Alexander he would wish to be Diogenis of Sinope?

In other words, what did Alexander the Great and Diogenis (or their missions in life or quests) have in common? Or what is not a common element but an alter element?

In any case, why did he say it?

Back to basics for the US and the rest of the developed world?

Greece's credit rating was yesterday downgraded again, now to "junk bond" level by one of the main three rating agencies.
Plus, as Howard Schneider wrote in the Washington Post last Saturday, April 24, 2010, "For nations living the good life, the party's over, IMF says", referring to the US and the rest of the developed world.

Thus, it is time for back to basics?
Then, dust off the togas, stock on grapes, start writing poetry and philosophising, take the dumbbells out of the closet, get a new mattress, we are going back to (the) basics (of "Western civilisation")! Wave goodbye to material possessions and other post-industrial revolution "perks" , for an austerity that is austere in some ways and more fulfilling in others.

Global Warming, World Affairs, the EU, the US and leadership

Here are some thoughts, a tad radical maybe, food for thought, on the dynamics of our times:

1) EU: -30% not even as a conditional EU offer to the US, China, et al? Hm!

2) Here is a radical strategic scenario for the EU (EU2020 etc):
EU2020 Scenario: The EU adopts a -30% emissions target and stops trading with those who do not match the cut! I know, radical.

3) IMO EUropeans need to adopt a sustainable, simpler, healthier lifestyle anyway! Maybe all the way to a "Fortress Europe" (economic+environmental)? Just brainstorming!

4) How radical would this scanario be: The EU uses only solar and wind energy, no CO2 emitting energy, no nukes and EUropeans adopt simpler lifestyles (anyway). Radical, but the times we live in ....

5) Let's look at it from a wider point of view: The West: Our industrial lifestyles in the West have proved unhealthy, thus Europe, North America and others need to revise many aspects of life.

6) Why all this (the above)? Among other things, because the industrial era brought many good things but many bad ones as well, thus it is maybe time to audit the "basket" and revise models and lifestyles.

EU Leadership?

7) For the EU to assume a leadership position in world affairs, it must IMO be a thought leader, instead of a "world bureaucrat"

8) What sort of leadership has the EU shown in the 9 years of the Doha Round of WTO world trade talks and the COP15 - Climate Change talks in 2009 (leading to the results of the Copenhagen Coneference in December 2009)? With Obama now stuck in the US, there seems to be a certain leadership vacuum in world affairs and the EU could/needs to rise to the occasion and lead the world in thought and in "do as I do" throwing in a negotiation assets its 0.5 billion population - consumers - lifestyles and the economic weight of the "rich" EU in order to be a leader in world affairs. Bold?

The US:

9) In the US, the GOP (+ Fox) sem to have checkmated Obama and the Dems and thus US policy making, home and abroad, may be frozen until .... Jan 2013?


The world:

10) Meanwhile, the Director-General of the ILO (International Labor Organization) Juan Somavia calls for the same policy decisiveness that saved banks to save and create jobs

Make Love not CO2?

Philosophical (applied):

Make Love not CO2: I wonder what is the carbon footprint of each (safe) act of intercourse!

My actual point is that IMO too many people engage in personally and collectively "eco-damaging" activities, many times substitutes of the joy of sex (and the joy of thinking - conversation).

My point re sex is part of a philosophy against materialism and material capitalism and for intellectual and physical satisfaction/joys as opposed to the joys derived by status symbols and other materialist activities and ways of life. Against materialist capitalism and for "intellectual" capitalism (as in production and consumption of intellectual/non-tangible products as opposed to material ones, including many "eco-hostile" culinary pleasures).

And a radical rethink of the pros and cons of the 200 years of the industrial era.

Can the EU lead humankind in sustainability (eco etc)?

Prompted by global warming, humanity must, anyway, revise its ways of life towards simpler, healthier, less materialist, carbon and nuclear free ways of life - lifestyles.

The EU could lead the way in climate change by leaving the WTO + using its internal market to "convince" others to cut CO2 w/o nukes

Humankind's wisdom today

Philosophy

Is humankind today, Dec 29, 2009, wiser than on Jan 1, 2000?

Than Dec 29, 1909?

Towards more sustainable "American way(s) of life"

Philosophy (applied):

IMO, the challenge for the average American is to cut his/her carbon footprint while maintaining the roots of the American "way of life"

But that bring up a very interesting philosophical, sociological etc question:
What are the essential - genuine rather than the superficial elements of the so called American way of life today?

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is ...

According to Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and his 8 part video lecture (YouTube videos) "the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function". For example a 5% stable per annum increase figure says nothing or little to him/her, whereas it leads to a doubling (+100%) in 14 years.

This may help explain, IMO, among other things our inability to realise the effects of population growth, global warming and other dynamics that have a vital effect on us.

But I dare say, with my background in Operations Research and an MBA, that IMO an ever greater shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand or perceive multi-variable functions, in plainer words, the fact that most outcomes do not have a single causal factor but are a result of many and, often, the interplay between them. As well as the ability to understand the distinction between correlation and causality.

This inability manifests itself in all aspects of our lives, from understanding the Universe to daily economics. And forces many people, from attorneys in trials to politicians to marketers to journalists etc, to try to often satisfy our need for mono-factor causality and inability to deal with a variety of causes to one outcome by simplifying and thus distorting reality as they present it to us. It also leads us, IMO, to a propensity for believing conspiracy theories rather than understanding that it was a variety of non-conspiring factors that led to an outcome.

Another major shortcoming of our human race is the inability of most of us to deal with uncertainty which is the way of the Nature. And our quest for certainty or security (be it in investing, etc) often leads to avenues that cost us a lot and still not provide but the feeling rather a reality of security.

Do you agree with Dr. Bartlett's choice or any of my two choices of the "greatest shortcoming"? Feel free to comment or offer your own choice.

Philosophy: "Lifestyling"

Know thyself, manage your household and be aware of the dynamics (socio-econ, policy, etc) that affect your life, work - career, business, household = Lifestyling

How "philosophised" are you? Know thyself and be aware of the dynamics (socio-econ, policy, etc) that affect your life, work, household, etc.

Home ownership - The core of our stability?

I wrote the following in my diary way before the subprime crisis:

George W. Bush Jr once said that owning a home is the center of the American Dream.

Not only of the American! Many Europeans, eg my parents, have home ownership at the center of their "living philosophy".

I do not. Am I "heretical"? Am I wrong? Is selling my flat a "stupid move", an irreversible stupid move?

Many own their home. It gives them and all other homeowners around the world a stable place to "stand", that I do appreciate and I can empathise with.

But in these global, interesting, volatile times, is building a tangible "fortress" ("my home is my fortress") the way to best deal with the dynamics - challenges of the times? Or is it a "life strategy" defensive measure which is not in line with the dynamics of the times?

For one, owning a home ties you down, reduces your mobility. Not only do the things we own wind up owning us (a quote from "The Fight Club") and a home is indeed "a thing" (rather than an intangible or mobile asset). Real estate property, along with alcohol, cigarettes and cars (another key symbol of "having") are the core taxable and red taped things in most systems. For obvious reasons.

But when one moves from state to state (eg USA) or country to country (eg EU) or region to region (eg Canada), does it make sense to have "property" and "taxable assets etc" in more than one locations? Who has time for dealing with more than one tax authorities? Or fees to spend for inter-national tax expertise?

Is relocation a privilege for the very rich (who can afford all the experts) and the have-nothings (who relocate with nothing, thus do not have issues of double taxation avoidance and do not need to file in more than one admins)?

In the EU, owning a car is a barrier to mobility too. For tax revenue related reasons, as well.

Does owning a home or car today make economic or strategic sense for anyone who wants to be "light" enough to be able to deal with the winds of globalisation?

Mobility of social security rights is another major issue. Eg how does a not impoverished old person get hospital insurance is he/she moves to the US or within the US? Can one take one's social security scheme with him/her (not to the after life, but to a new location), be it state or private or a mix?

Capital is mobile these global days. Products too. Services, as well, to some extent. Jobs too. But does one have to be desperate enough to liquidate everything in order to relocate or willing to spend a lot of time in red tape activities. Kind of defeats the relocation rationale, does it not?

What is more core then these days to any modern living strategy? Home ownership or a geo mobile health plan?

Health vs. Strength - Good vs. Evil

How on earth did a nice young man like Anakin Walker turn into Darth Vader? Sad!

The wise Yoda character said: "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side". He also added that Anakin should overcome the fear of losing what was dear to him!

So, to quote Janice Joplin's classic song is "freedom just another word for nothing else to lose"? Or is the key to have and to love but to be prepared at all times to lose what/who we love or is dear to us? Quite a demand on someone's emotions. With that kind of mentality, how can one commit one's self to anything?

All times are interesting. But some are more interesting than others. Who are most prone to stability and a sense of safety for a) themselves or b) their loved ones? How many bad deeds are committed in the name of protecting or serving one's own interests but rather the safety and interests of his/her loved ones? Many, way too many, it seems!

"I can feel your anger: It gives you focus, it makes you stronger" said the bad guy (to Anakin, aspiring Darth).

Wow! What a load of BS! Anger makes one "feel" stronger? By giving him/her an "unhealthy" type of focus.

On the other hand, focus does indeed help people streamline their energy and through that, they become "stronger" on what they focus on. Mothers do it, for example. People "committed" to an ideal, a theory, an emotion, a goal, do gain the focus which channels/streamlines their energy into so kind of strength. But this strength is not a general one! It applies to the field of focus!

Negative energy of all kinds does not lead to healthy outcomes. Not only for the subjects of the actions of "strong" ones, but for the strong ones themselves. Negative energy (anger, hatred, etc) it is like a "cancer" which infects its carrier, first of all. Then it also spreads like a "virus".

Anger makes someone stronger but not happier nor healthier. It is a "drug" with multiple negative side effects.

Some thoughts re philosophy, life, logic, hard work, humor, etc

Who programs people to suffer for a living?
Happiness is the goal in life!

As the Ancient Greeks said, all in good measure (all moderation is best - "ΠΑΝ ΜΕΤΡΟΝ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΝ"


Logic is like a road only motorbike. Philosophy can carry you over rough terrains. When it cannot take you further, then humor does the job!

Philosophy and sex the real "caviar" in life!

The traditional concept of hard work is inconsistent with the dynamics of our era

The harder one works to acquire things, the less time one has to enjoy and appreciate the rewards of one's hard work!

modern man is a wimp?

So claims anthropologist Peter McAllister in his book entitled "Manthropology".

He argues that man's physical capabilities have deteriorated greatly compared to not only to the pre-historic man but the pre-industrial revolution man as well!

Assuming he is right, is that one more reason for a less oil, energy, CO2 dependent way of life, other than global warming?

revamping our way of life

Environment & Philosophy:
How many elements of our "way of life" are we willing to sacrifice to save the planet?

life management: cost management

Life and Jobs: If you cannot make enough money, spend less money. Companies do the same (cost management)

Success keys in 2009

Success Keys in 2009 (IMO):

awareness
thinking
feeling
relaxation
philosophy
humor

Success in 2009 terms

What is "success" in 2009 terms?

Are we dust in the wind?

"Dust in The Wind": A beautiful song by Kansas, one of my fave of all times.

Now, philosophically speaking: Are we indeed dust in the wind? And in what sense?

What is your POV? If we accept that we are, then what could that mean, philosophically, re our personal lives and values/mindsets?

About our values and priorities as "Humankind"? Eg does that make us abstain from petty arguments and feuds and wars and focus on the things that really matter, love for our fellow humans, less greed, etc.?

A more "intellectually" rather than materialist based living?

what do you want, want do you really need?

A music vid philosophical commentary on needs and wants in 2009!