Off Topic Political Debate

I do not follow that argument. You are confusing economics with a basic human right not to be tied to a square acre of soil that they were born on. You for example emigrated to NZ - you chose to leve the rhubarb patch. I am sure all things need to have an economic justification - but I f I wsant something and am prepared to pay the price who is the dictator who tells me I cannot have it? I do not see my wants as irrelevant - except to the extent I might not be able to afford it.

 

Leo, it is also a basic human right that future generations have a World fit to live in. All consumer choices affect the environment in some way and when I buy a product which has been flown in from Ecuador, or wherever, then I am responsible for the carbon emissions involved. My freedoms end when those of others are either restricted or destroyed by my actions.

 

Is it better for a tea picker in Ceylon to get some money from their work and have a chance of feeding their family, or for the UK to say we will not import it, despite not being able to grow it in the country?

 

Acceptable from the supplier's point of view.

 

But does it not have to also acceptable from the consumers point of view as well? Too high a profit and the cost makes it too expensive and no one buys it

 

Yes, of course. A supplier will only supply the good if they make a level of profit that is acceptable to them. If they charge too much and the consumer does not buy it they will not make any profit. The producer then has a choice, either lower the cost as long as that still maintains an acceptable level of profit, or attempt to persuade the consumer that they really should pay a higher price. As far as the producer is concerned the second choice is preferable providing that the cost of persuasion is lower than the additional profit made.

Choice only comes into the equation when another producer believes that it can make an acceptable level of profit should it decide to move into the market. The cost of entering the market may be too high to make this viable- it will depend on the product. Choice is not the goal of producers, though it may be a consequence of what producers decide.

 

I believe the former but I haven't developed the system in which we live. Tea merchants are concerned with the level of profit they make. Any welfare benefits that accrue to the workers on a tea plantation are only of concern to them if it improves their profit margins.

 

The expansion of the British Empire was in line with normal political activity of it's day. Right or wrong it is how peoples behaved from the Persians and Greeks through the Romans and Mongols to the 20th Century. It is fairly sterile to debate whether any tract of land would have belonged to others - if you do that try starting with Britain as goodness knows who had first claim here.

Now, on this, I am far closer to agreement. As a pacifist I loathe how we glorify war in this country. I am always a lone voice on 11th November because although I have no problem with honouring the dead and admire the courage of those who mostly were forced to give their lives I see Poppy Day as institutional glorification of a beligerent nation. If the state and state directed media do not whip up jingoism and ensure we all honour "our boys", "our heroes" some of us might stop and question the awful decisions behind the majority of conflicts in which we send able bodied brave young men to be maimed and killed mostly in pursuit of making our armaments industry thrive. (I concede that I struggle to see how else Hitler could have been stopped but that is the exception). We are basically a nasty minded war loving nation who poke our noses in where they do not b elong and create more trouble than we solve.

One child per family for the next 100 years or more would create a world where we could put real and better ways of living in place - it will never happen. I have been an advocate of this for over 40 years. At University in my Economics thesis I wrote a paper on the Economics of a declining population much to the amazement of my tutors who all queried why I would be interested in that in a world of surging population increase. The economics I assure you are very difficult as perhaps the Scots may find if they vote for independence.
Perhaps it is not a new definition of democracy that is needed as it is essentailly simply rule by the people. That can have an endless number of meanings - at one stage it excluded 95% of the population including of course all women.
I do not agree that all ideas come from political parties at all - they get picked up by party politicians from popular demand - often what the Sun or Mail tells us we demand !!!! At some other point I will argue against what I think is your (no offence intended) very naive view of an economic model in today's world based on cooperatives.

I know this and the Independence threads bore the pants of a lot of people but I find these subjects fascinating.

 

I don't think we are going to agree on the British Empire theme Leo - I don't know how to post a link on here but it's worth reading the Guardian article by George Monbiot entitled 'Deny the British empire's crimes ? No, we ignore them' for an overview of how Britain glosses over its history.

The theme of population growth is an interesting one because both Germany and Japan have sinking populations. Problems associated with this are naturally less tax income, but also that the working population make up an ever smaller share of an overall population which is getting older. If present demographic trends continue then both France and the UK are expected to overtake Germany's population by 2050. So maybe Germany will be compelled to find new ways of working and producing. It also implies that countries can reach a stage of development where population growth goes into reverse. In Germany's case it's through sinking natural birth rates (it's more expensive to bring up kids here) also Germany has as many emigrants as immigrants.

 

As usual Cologne I think we are not as far apart as it appears. I will read the article if I can. However it is not that I deny the "crimes" it is that I put them in a different context. You have to judge each era by the "norms" of that time. Look at Victorian workhouses - how could anyone have believed they were for the social good - yet they did believe that.

A major part of my thesis (as far as I remember it) was on the aging problem associated with a declining population. If you have or if you plan for a reduction in population you have to manage the demographics massively - which of course means increasing the "working age" population as far as you can - at both young and old ages. What state aid is available, how that state aid is directed, what families have to do (more extended families of course) with grandparents replacing parents as the "bringers up" of children. It is a very complicated issue and unless managed can be disastrous. However the rewards for a world of only 1 billion people would be stupendous. Try selling the idea though to Catholics - or for that matter most others.

 

On the subject of cooperatives there is quite a good example of how they can, or cannot work, here in France.

There was a Breton pig farmer named Alexis Gourvennec who set up the Societe d'Interet Collectif Agricole to try and pull the farmers together and bring pressure on the government to develop the region. Being stuck out on a limb in the north west, he and others felt that they had been ignored, but set up pressure groups to get some action from Paris. They demanded that there should be a modern road system between them and Paris, better telecommunications, better education at the university in Brest, more and better industrial units in Brest and a deep water port in Roscoff. In 1968 the government agreed and started work on them. Clearly these could not be financed from the region, it had to come from national level.

Having got their deep water port they then found that no ferry company would make the sailings they wanted into the UK. There had always been a surplus of vegetables from the rich agricultural land in the region that they wanted to get into the UK market. With other companies saying that the trade was too seasonal, it would not be economic to run between Roscoff and Plymouth which is what the co-op wanted.

Alexis Gourvennec with some farming friends set up their own ferry company with the intention of transporting 150,000 tonnes of cauliflowers and artichokes, some onions and some livestock. Unfortunately they only moved 17,000 tonnes and realised that they had got their figures wrong and it would not work. They then turned their attention to transporting cars for tourists who would want to visit the region, but the vessel they had was unsuitable, so they chartered a second ship.

This was how Brittany Ferries started. Since those days it has been in financial trouble several times. Events such as fuel price increases, recession of European economies have all put the business in serious trouble, but once again they have been able to call on the government for help.

Today their largest area of trade is between Spain and the UK transporting car parts and spares. A far cry from selling your surplus cauliflowers.

 

Without going fully into this issue I would say the key part above is what I have highlighted. The cooperative still needed national support - if everything became regional / cooperative based where would that finance come from?

 

On the subject of cooperatives it is easy to find examples which didn't work - mainly because they were often born out of emergency situations. As a balance I can point to Spain - the 10th largest business in Spain is the Mondragon Corporation which employs 85,000 people Worldwide and, despite its size, is still committed to solidarity and to democratic methods of organisation and management. The right to benefit from profits being open to all employees after an initial 6 month period. The Basque Coop Confederation represents over 800 Coops (Including Athletic Bilbao) and Catalonia has over 5,000 of them - check out on how FC.Barcelona is owned. Altogether there are about 18,000 cooperatives in Spain, employing 300,000 people. Recent data suggests that cooperatives provided 19,000 new jobs in Spain in the last quarter of last year (at a time when other forms of business are destroying them en masse).

 

Without really wishing to belittle coops, the figures you give above are not that impressive. 18,000 coops with 300,000 employees is an average of 15-16 employees and 1 new job created. Don't forget that in the UK one company John Lewis Partnership employs around 91,000 and they all own the company and share in the profits.

There can be many variations on what is or is not a coop, but even when you get sufficient members, it will not pay for infrastructure projects such as roads, ports telecoms etc. FC Barcelona might be owned by their fans, but it doesn't stop them having to go in search of monies when they get it wrong. "Barca admitted cashflow difficulties and were forced to seek a 150-million-euro bank loan to address "liquidity problems"." Why didn't they ask their members/fans to pay up?

 

I'm not saying that my figures are particularly impressive Frenchie - but what is impressive is that this is the only part of the Spanish economy which is actually expanding at the moment. As I understand it the John Lewis partnership is the largest employee owned company in the UK., with 69,000 permanent employees. I am not sure what model of co-ownership they have - but altogether mutual or employer ownership schemes contribute about 2% of Britain's GDP at the moment - and their productivity is growing.

 

I was not trying to show how coops can fail Cologne, I am all in favour of having mixed economies. I was simply trying to point out by example how a coop finds itself forced into the mainstream of a countries economy as events worldwide change. Let those who can make a living locally do so, but do not say it is the only way. I am very pragmatic about trying to make sense about all that is going on around the world, but do see that at the end of the day I cannot prevent change taking place for good or evil. One day maybe everyone will dislike barriers as much as I do, because it sets people against each other. As I see things Scotland is simply putting up a barrier, that because of the desire to do things their way takes no account of how they will get on with their neighbours.
I am fairly certain now that where you live does have an influence on your views. There is a huge difference between my remote area of the country and the city dweller in say Paris, Lyon or London. We have different things to face and many things that make little sense to the others. By all means believe in what one believes, but to suggest that this is the best and only way is wrong. If you need government help and it seems to be falling on deaf ears, keep on complaining to them through the right channels until you are noticed.

 

Another reason to stay out of EU.

http://www.mbl.is/frettir/english/2014/09/15/demarche_against_whaling_by_iceland/

The EU, its 28 Mem­ber States and the gov­ern­ments of the United States, Aus­tralia, Brazil, Is­rael, Mex­ico, Monaco and New-Zealand, de­clare their op­po­si­tion to the fact that the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment still per­mits com­mer­cial whal­ing, in par­tic­u­lar the hunt­ing of fin whales and the sub­se­quent trad­ing of fin whale prod­ucts.

The EU's Am­bas­sador to Ice­land, Matthias Brinkmann, along with the diplo­matic rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the United States, France, Ger­many and the UK de­liv­ered a de­marche to this ef­fect to the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment this morn­ing.

The Am­bas­sador also pointed out that pub­lic opin­ion in the coun­tries that are Ice­land's main trad­ing part­ners is very much against the prac­tise of whal­ing.

This is ev­i­denced by the pub­lic pres­sure put on com­pa­nies around the world to boy­cott Ice­landic goods, not to men­tion the pres­sure that vot­ers and var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions put on their politi­cians, en­cour­ag­ing them to send Ice­land an in­creas­in­gly stronger mes­sage. JOINT DE­MARCHE BY THE EU­RO­PEAN UNION, ITS MEM­BER STATES AND THE GOV­ERN­MENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMER­ICA, AUS­TRALIA, BRAZIL, IS­RAEL, MEX­ICO AND NEW ZEALAND

"We, the Eu­ro­pean Union and its Mem­ber States and the Gov­ern­ment of the United States of Amer­ica, Aus­tralia, Brazil, Is­rael, Mex­ico and New Zealand, wish to ex­press our strong op­po­si­tion to Ice­land's con­tin­u­ing and in­creased com­mer­cial har­vest of whales, par­tic­u­larly fin whales, and to its on­go­ing in­ter­na­tional trade in whale prod­ucts.

Ice­land is well known for its re­spon­si­ble ma­rine re­source man­age­ment prac­tices; how­ever, we are deeply dis­ap­pointed with the Ice­landic Gov­ern­men­t’s con­tin­ued au­tho­riza­tion of the hunt­ing of fin and minke whales.
The au­tho­riza­tions have been put in place with­out pre­sen­ta­tion to the In­ter­na­tional Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC) and with­out re­gard for the long term in­ter­ests of cetacean con­ser­va­tion. We are es­pe­cially trou­bled by Ice­land's har­vest of 125 fin whales in 2009, 148 fin whales in 2010, and 134 fin whales in 2013, all of which are a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease from the seven fin whales har­vested over the 20 years prior to 2009.

The cur­rent 5 year quota of 770 fin whales is con­sid­ered un­sus­tain­able un­der IWC stock as­sess­ment meth­ods.

We en­cour­age the Gov­ern­ment of Ice­land to ad­here to the in­ter­na­tion­ally agreed mora­to­rium on com­mer­cial whal­ing and to re-ex­am­ine the de­ci­sion to con­tinue to is­sue fin and minke whale quo­tas.

We also ob­ject to Ice­land's in­ter­na­tional trade in whale prod­ucts. Fin whales and minke whales are listed un­der the Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tional Trade in En­dan­gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and we re­main ex­tremely con­cerned with Ice­land’s reser­va­tion, en­tered in 2000, for these and other cetacean species.

We urge Ice­land to with­draw this reser­va­tion and safe­guard these species from in­ter­na­tional com­mer­cial trade. We are not con­vinced that Ice­land's har­vest and sub­se­quent trade of fin whales meets any do­mes­tic mar­ket de­mand or need; it also un­der­mines ef­fec­tive in­ter­na­tional cetacean con­ser­va­tion ef­forts.

We rec­og­nize the con­ser­va­tion ef­forts made by Ice­land un­der other in­ter­na­tional agree­ments and hope the Ice­landic Gov­ern­ment will be able to ex­tend this stance to fully sup­port global ef­forts for cetacean con­ser­va­tion. Fur­ther­more, we would like to draw at­ten­tion to the con­sid­er­able eco­nomic, so­cial and ed­u­ca­tional ben­e­fits of Ice­land’s grow­ing whale watch­ing in­dus­try as a pos­si­ble al­ter­na­tive to com­mer­cial whal­ing.

We hope the Ice­landic Gov­ern­ment will se­ri­ously con­sider the ben­e­fits of elim­i­nat­ing com­mer­cial whal­ing and re­turn to its pre­vi­ous po­si­tion of ac­cep­tance of the mora­to­rium on com­mer­cial whal­ing that was put in place by the In­ter­na­tional Whal­ing Com­mis­sion in 1986.

In sum­mary, we once again call upon Ice­land to re­spect the IW­C’s global mora­to­rium and end its com­mer­cial whal­ing and in­ter­na­tional trade in whale prod­ucts."

 

AK- it seems Iceland are out of step with the World on this - not with just the EU

 

Apart from Japan!

 

Perhaps a Japanese-Icelandic Union then