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The Changing 'Language' of the 21st Century
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DEMOCRACY is JURY DUTY.
Thomas Jefferson put it, "Ancient Principles." It is not designed to promote lawlessness or a return to the jungle. The “Ancient Principles" refer to the Ten Commandments and the common law is, in simple terms, just plain common sense and has its roots in the Ten Commandments.In 1776 we came out of BONDAGE with FAITH, UNDERSTANDING and COURAGE. Even against great odds, and with much bloodshed, we battled our way to achieve LIBERTY.
To read the full article..........Click here!
LIVING AT THE LIMIT
As populations grow and demands on resources increase, an aspect of the problem that is often overlooked is the fact that there are major fluctuations in the ability of the environment to satisfy our needs.
In the case of municipal water, if we build new subdivisions sufficient to consume the limiting maximum output of our of our municipal water supply in wet years, then in dry years we will be seriously short.
When one is living at the limit of a renewable resource, small fluctuations in the annual yield of the resource can cause major dislocations.
Prudence dictates that one should plan to consume no more water annually than the water supply can deliver during the dryest years.
This problem is even more critical with world food supplies, which are very dependent on the vagaries of global weather patterns.
By Prof Albert Bartlett.1105
Source: http://www.oilcrisis.com/bartlett/reflections.htm
CIVIL SOCIETY PHILOSOPHY
This document is a "must read" for seniors. Seniors have the ability to cast judgement due to age and experience (hindsight).
It has been font reduced (in PDF format) to enable you to printout the 5 pages, for your convenience.
To read this article........Click here!
SOCIAL RESEARCH UPDATE
Official Social Classification in the UK.
To read this article.....Click here!
Employees 'should work until 70'
Workers may have to work until they are 70 to help solve the looming pension crisis, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said.
European pension systems are crumbling
The OECD said workers should be encouraged to retire later to offset a 5-year increase in life expectancy.
Improved life expectancy burdens are already stretching pension systems.
For the rich countries, the number of workers for each pensioner is expected to fall from four workers for each pensioner now, to just two in 2050.
Shortfall
The pension crisis is worst in continental Europe, said the OECD - a body which represents the 30 leading industrial countries.
Systems in Spain, France, Germany and Italy could all face significant shortfalls by 2050, ranging from an estimated 4% of economic output in France to 8% in Spain.
And the European problems have been exacerbated by a dramatic fall in fertility, especially in southern Europe, where the average woman only has 1.3 children, far below the replacement rate of 2.1.
That means that there will be even fewer workers in the future to pay for pensions.
'Compulsion needed'
Efforts to reform European pension systems have been stymied by strong opposition from unions.
However, Jean-Philippe Cotis, the OECD's chief economist, told BBC News Online that the delay in starting pension reform would mean that an element of compulsion was now essential in ensuring that workers save enough for retirement.
According to Mr Cotis, the pensions crisis will have to be solved by a combination of higher taxes, cuts in benefits, and a longer working life.
But increasing taxes too much could be counter-productive, because high taxes on labour in Europe are already contributing to high unemployment.
Instead, the OECD is urging governments to increase labour force participation rates. Only half of people over 55 in OECD countries are in the labour force now, and better training, changes in tax and benefit policy, and age discrimination legislation could increase that percentage by at least 10% in some countries.
Scandinavian model
The OECD is also urging countries to try and encourage more women back into the workforce through flexible family policies and subsidies for childcare.
Working women reduce the risk of a pension crisis
It pointed out that the Scandinavian countries, which follow these policies, do not have a pensions crisis.
Iceland is the country where workers stay in the workforce longest, due to the strong financial incentives to retire at 70. And it may not be a coincidence that Iceland is also the country with the highest male life expectancy in the world, the deputy OECD general secretary, Berglind Asgeirsdottir, told the BBC.
High health care costs in the future could also make the problem worse, although there is a fierce debate as to whether the new generation of pensioners will be healthier than past generation as well as living longer.
Private provision
Jean Pierre Garnier, the chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, told BBC News Online that European countries needed to partly privatise their health care systems to cut costs and end dependence on a single-payer state system.
He said that introducing co-payments by patients and consumer choice was essential to drive down costs and provide further funds which cannot be met by over-burdened state budgets.
For the Anglo-Saxon countries like the US and Britain, the crisis for the state pension system is less severe, but private sector pension schemes are under severe pressure.
Mr Cotis said that in the UK, the low level of state pension benefits means that the state pension system is solvent well into the future.
However, he added, the problem with this is that there may be many very poor elderly people who will have to be supported by another part of the state budget.
By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online economics reporter in Paris
Source; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3711423.stm
Coping with Retirement.
Twenty or thirty years ago, most people expected to stay in the same job for their entire working lives, collect their gold watch at the age of 65 and see out their days pottering in the garden or taking up a sedate hobby. Today the outlook is very different. The culture of a 'job for life' has virtually disappeared. Many people are retiring earlier either from choice or because they can't find employment and are forced to accept that they have retired.
While the total population is growing, the population of young people is falling and the numbers of older people are rising fast. According to the latest predictions, by the year 2050, 43 per cent of the population in Europe could be over 60! That means you could have twenty or thirty years of leisure time to fill - almost as many years as you spent working!
Of course, you may want to fill your time doing nothing more exacting that pottering in the garden or playing the odd round of golf. But retirement can mark an exciting new phase. In general were fitter and better off financially than previous generations. What's more, the opportunities are limitless.
Preparing for retirement.
Retirement is a big life change that can be hugely stressful, particularly if you're unprepared for it. But it can also represent a major opportunity. Use this checklist of questions to help you think about what retirement means to you.
1. Will I have enough money to live on? What could I do now to ensure I'm financially secure?
2. Am I as active as I could be? Is it time to start a fitness programme now so that when retirement comes along, I'm healthy enough to enjoy it?
3. What will retirement mean to my family? Will I enjoy spending more time at home - will they enjoy having me around more often?
4, How do I want to spend my time? What will I miss most about work? Should I consider adding to my skills so that, if I want to try to get another job, I will have a better chance?
5. Should I consider changing career? How can I get on a training course or acquire new qualifications to make that possible?
6. Will I be bored? What leisure pursuits do I have at the moment - and which new ones would I like to find out about?
7. How do I feel about giving up some of my time for others and taking on some voluntary work?
8. Is this a good time to opt for a major change - perhaps a move of house or area?
Pre-retirement courses
It's definitely worth considering going to a pre-retirement seminar or course. If you work for an enlightened company they might send you on one automatically. Seminars cover questions of lifestyle.
Links and Organisations.
Pre-Retirement Association.......www.pra.uk.com/enter.html
Independent national organisation that offers mid-career and retirement plan and health as well as financial and pension matters.
Source: Jennifer Teague
Social Housing for Older People
In Ireland providing decent and secure homes for this group of older people has long been at the centre of the work of social housing organisations in the European Union. To read more.....Click here!
"What Can (and should) Governments do for Happiness?"
Some Theses on Globalisation and the Role of Culture.Read this article by Stephan Doempke (pdf format).......Click here!
SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
"Accountability can be defined as the obligation of power holders to account for or take responsibility for their actions". To read the article........Click here!
SUSTAINABLE growth ….
In the context of carrying capacity or economics
We get into this debate every time. A population of people can grow in any given geographical area as long as the carrying capacity of that area (eg food producing) is not damaged. It is sustainable if this growth does not endanger carrying capacity for future generations.
Then you have economic growth. This is often translated as Gross national product and the sum of all services bought. If a population is growing, GNP could be increasing whilst GNP per capita is falling. Then you could have a situation where a few rich are getting richer and the rest are getting poorer and you still have high economic growth.
If we could give each other services without involving the eco system we could probably have economic growth in a sustainable way. Like playing monopoly, the more we played, the more we would turn over in services (hotel charges, rent) the higher GNP per capita.
Unfortunately that is not the case. For every kg of stuff you buy 30 kg of waste and effluent are produced.
All that oil burnt up for ever!
THAT is not sustainable!
Source: http://porena.blogspot.com/2005/11/can-we-have-sustainable-growth.html Stockholm, Sweden (11.05)
THE GREAT CHALLENGE
Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?Prof. Albert A Bartlett
FINANCIAL matters.....
Angry shareholders gear up for battle
Labor unions and hedge funds, upset at faltering companies, step up proxy fights for board seats and better disclosure.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Shareholders have a lot to be unhappy with this proxy season. After all, they've lost billions of dollars due to the weakening economy and the mortgage meltdown.
Eager to reverse this trend, activist labor unions and hedge funds are gearing up for what experts say will be the busiest season ever for proxy fights. They have given companies a list of demands, which include board seats and better disclosure of risk management practices.
Already, up to 80 battles are underway, according to industry observers. Investors are taking action because they are upset at financial firms' lax lending policies, which have spurred a credit crisis, and at other companies' failure to respond to the economic downturn. At the same time, a growing number of hedge funds are exerting influence at companies they see as undervalued.
Source:.....to read more....http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/22/news/companies/proxyseason/index.htm
When Bankers Fear to Act …….Where is the next J. P. Morgan?
J. P. Morgan organized bankers to stem the panic of 1907.
In times of market crisis, the safest course for any one market participant may be the riskiest course for the entire market. If everyone wants to sell, prices can go in only one direction.
In past financial crises, it has fallen to someone — regulators, investment banks or even a single banker — to organize collective action and avert disaster.
Such moves involved persuading people to take steps that seemed to go against their own private interests. Buy stocks when everyone wants to sell? Lend money to a bank in danger of failing, when your own bank might need the money tomorrow? Join with others to buy securities from a desperate seller, rather than try to maximize your own profits from his precarious position? It goes against the basic principle of markets, that your job is to look out for yourself.
But all those things have happened in the past. Unfortunately, nothing like them is happening in the current crisis.
In 1907, Morgan demanded that presidents of New York trust companies — then a type of second-class bank — act together to save one of their own, the Trust Company of America, from a bank run.
The presidents, wrote Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr in their book, “The Panic of 1907,” were “convinced that it was their primary responsibility to conserve their assets in order to survive the financial storm that was swirling around them.” Morgan said that would simply assure that all would fail, one by one.
Morgan, then the dominant figure in American finance, called the presidents to a Saturday meeting in his library — and locked the door. Not until dawn Sunday did he let them out, after they had committed the needed cash.
In 1987, on Tuesday, Oct. 20, it appeared that the crash of the previous day was going to get worse. Market makers had little capital and less appetite to risk it, and one by one trading in the shares of major companies was halted because there were no buyers. In Chicago, the futures market was talking about halting trading in stock index futures because there were not enough stocks trading to know what the futures were worth.
That changed when two major brokerage firms — Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers — sent word to the New York Stock Exchange floor that they would buy any stock in the Standard & Poor's 500 if their orders were needed to keep the shares trading. Just after that word was sent, the market turned around.
In 1998, when a possible hedge fund failure seemed to threaten the financial system, it was the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that called in all the major financial institutions and organized a bailout.
But efforts to organize concerted action this time have been limited. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has sought to get agreements in two areas — renegotiating mortgages and putting together a fund to deal with one of the early manifestations of the problem, the threatened collapse of odd financial instruments called structured investment vehicles — but there has been no visible effort to deal with the underlying problem.
In part, that may reflect the slow realization of what is at stake. For many months, we called it the subprime mortgage crisis, because that was where the problem first became apparent. But that label is far too narrow, and serves to obscure what is at stake.
“Rather ominously, borrowing costs for even the most creditworthy of firms have started to rise,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist with Capital Economics in London. Homeowners who can still get mortgages have seen rates rise in recent weeks, and banks say they are tightening their standards for both credit cards and commercial real estate loans.
“The principal cause for concern today is the paralysis of the credit markets,” Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist and an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, wrote in The Wall Street Journal this week. “The collapse of confidence in credit markets is now preventing that necessary extension of credit. The decline of credit creation includes not only the banks but also the bond markets, hedge funds, insurance companies and mutual funds. Securitization, leveraged buyouts and credit insurance have also atrophied.”
The latest area of crisis is one that Morgan would have recognized in 1907. The major Wall Street houses — from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to Citigroup and Merrill Lynch — have refused to commit capital to the auction-rate market, a market that was supposed to allow investors to sell each week, via an auction that set interest rates.
Now many auctions are failing. That has left customers unable to sell securities that were supposed to have virtually guaranteed liquidity, and it has left the issuers — who paid fees to the banks to conduct the auctions — paying ridiculously high interest rates. It's not easy to get both borrowers and lenders feeling angry and abandoned, but Wall Street has managed the feat.
When the crisis storms gathered in late 2007, much of the problem was with complicated securities — collateralized debt obligations, for example — that were extremely difficult to analyze. The failure of buyers to step up may have been rational. But that is not true with some of the auction-rate securities. They represent loans to borrowers that by any standard should be deemed good credits.
But the big banks were unable or unwilling to either buy the securities or find customers to buy them. That lack of action has damaged the reputation of each of the houses, in ways that would have been unthinkable a few months ago. But the bosses are scared. They no longer are sure just how adequate their capital is, and they are afraid to commit it while the financial crisis swirls around them. Some got their jobs because their predecessors were too willing to take risks.
It is not clear what the Fed or the Treasury could, or should, do now. The players can no longer be gathered into a single room, and they are regulated in different countries around the world, if they are regulated at all. Things are far more difficult because many of these markets are unregulated, making it difficult to gauge who is at risk and for how much.
But it is hard to see this ending until something is done to, in Mr. Feldstein’s words, assure “that necessary extension of credit.” Lowering interest rates will not, by itself, do that so long as the banks and investors are too scared to lend money at any rate.
In their book on the Panic of 1907, published last year before the crisis began, Mr. Bruner and Mr. Carr hailed Morgan’s actions, as well as the Fed’s 1998 move to salvage the hedge fund. But they warned, presciently as it turned out, that the current environment might hamper similar efforts in a new crisis.
“In a globally complex financial system, will such collective action be possible if the crisis is triggered beyond the reach of any of today’s regulators?” they asked.
So far, it appears the answer is no.
By FLOYD NORRIS, Published: February 22, 2008
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/business/22norris.html
TOTAL CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY [T.C.R.]
This paper written by Frank Dixon, Managing Director of Innovest: Strategic Value Advisors and is a "must read".
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15 FRAUDS and SCAMS to AVOID.
To read.......Click here!
International Corporate Governance;
At a time when major organizations around the world are taking a closer look at corporate governance issues, the United Nations today launched its own initiative to mainstream ethics and integrity throughout its family of agencies and funds.To match its efforts at the forefront of the battle against fraud and corruption around the world, the United Nations announced its "Organizational Integrity Initiative," which will allow the world body to apply internally the emerging approaches on corruption control and to build organizational integrity.
http://www.ethics.org.au/things_to_read/ethics_in_the_news/news_03_05_06.shtm
BENEFITS OF DIVIDEND REINVESTMENT PLANS........
AND SHAREHOLDER INVESTMENT PLANS FOR SHAREHOLDERS, REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS AND THE ECONOMY.
An interesting article........Click here!
The Investors in People Standard.... Refreshing its Focus
Investors in People has been extremely successful with over 56,000 organisations currently involved with the Standard, representing 36% of the (UK) workforce.Th read the article (pdf format)......Click here!
U.N.E.P Press Release
Institutional Investors' Legal Responsibilities on Environmental, Social and Governance Issues under Spotlight
Institutional investors have a far greater opportunity - and in some cases a legal obligation - to incorporate environmental, social and governance issues into their investment decision-making than is traditionally believed.
This is the conclusion of a new study, done on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).
The study finds that the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into investment analysis, so as to more reliably predict financial performance, is clearly permissible and is arguably required in all jurisdictions.
The study, launched today at United Nations headquarters, has been compiled by leading international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
The 150-page report, which focuses on the largest capital markets jurisdictions - Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, also considers the likely evolution of the interpretation of the law with respect to investors and ESG issues. The study is entitled: "A legal framework for the integration of environmental, social and governance issues into institutional investment".
Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, commenting on the study, said: "This is groundbreaking work that will accelerate the integration of ESG issues into the mainstream investment community worldwide. What was once considered a niche area is set to become mainstream as institutions with trillions of dollars under management embed ESG thinking into their investment approach."
He added: "As the world's largest pension schemes, government funds, insurance reserves and foundations adjust, this will set in train a new dynamic along the investment chain. When these large institutional investors move on ESG issues the broader markets will listen and react."
Source: http://www.unepfi.org/events/2005/roundtable/press/index.html
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