“…two failed American car companies plus one  close to bankruptcy. Then there’s one nearly insolvent insurance company, the world’s biggest as well as assorted banks large and small with an amazing range of toxic assets on their books. We have two failed wars on offer at discounted rates and a health system that is terminal.

As well, we are offering a national debt that is larger than the value of all the world’s gold and an unregulated financial system that is the envy of many an entrepreneur. We also have a potential holiday resort in Cuba going cheap and we’re willing to offload a well-armed Mediterranean country which is costing us a fortune to prop up plus a choice of many A1 military bases spread around the world!

Come on, folks. Dig deep. If you don’t bid generously, we’ll bring the whole world down or, alternatively, we’ll start WW3 using some of our obsolete nukes.”

Friends, I would urge you to look closely at the photograph. It shows a man in a red shirt who is holding a club and this club, one of many different shapes and sizes that are at his disposal, is used to try to put a small, white ball into a hole in the ground.

The man is surrounded by a group of well-dressed people who are watching the ball the man in the red shirt hit as if their lives depended on it. They have paid big money to gain entrance to the golf course so they can follow the progress of a group of men or women who are trying to put their golf balls into 18 similar holes.

And the television crews are there as well and the heroic efforts of the group of contestants are shown around the world and are watched by millions. Advertisers pay millions to advertise their products while the clubs are swinging and balls are going into sand traps and lakes and long grass and glades of trees.

And the man or women who gets around the course with the lowest number of club swings can earn millions of dollars in prize money plus untold amounts of money in product endorsements and all this for putting a white ball into a hole in the ground which must rank as the most asinine activity that any human could engage in!

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“Mummy, why is that black baby’s tummy so fat?”

Friends, on Thursday, the G20 will meet. Their leaders represent 90% of the world’s trade and nearly 70% of the world’s people.

Some countries attending, who are acting purely out of self-interest, will try to give mouth-to-mouth to unregulated CAPITALISM which, hopefully, is in its death throes. Those countries are America, Australia and Britain, the Three Amigos who have shared many wars together.

Many people and some leaders from more enlightened countries argue that the world, which is in financial and economic crisis, which is severely damaged by global warming, and which is full of starving people and wars and inequality, should change direction.

They believe that we should no longer view infinite greed and militarism and killing as virtues and that there must be a better way for humans to live their lives than living in fear, chasing a buck and walking around with a mobile phone that takes photographs glued to their ears. I’m one of those people.

Will you stand against capitalism and the wealthy Robber Barons who enslave and exploit us? Do you want to be truly free and live in a world where there is equality for all?

Join the protests. Denounce capitalism.

It is a scourge!

Friends, it may have come to your attention that there is going to be another talk fest in Britain beginning next Thursday. Yes, the heads of Government and, earlier in the week, all their finance ministers, are going to get together and discuss how to fix the current economic and financial crisis which is upsetting our world by lowering real estate values and share markets and causing a large rise in unemployment and a lack of credit.

Ahead of the Summit, on Saturday, there is a protest being planned by those who are unhappy with the current situation whereby taxpayers’ money is being used to bail out the crooks that have brought the world into crisis. According to Reuters, police are expecting crowds in excess of 40,000 in London and have advised banksters to keep a low profile. Many banks will stay closed throughout the Summit week and employees who come to work are advised not to wear uniforms or carry bank advertising.

On show at the Summit will be the two opposing forces: the Europeans led by France and Germany who want to tighten up regulations to stop banksters and finance companies and hedge funds and people like Stanton and Madoff, etc, from engaging in dubious frauds and risky speculation and the U.S. model which wants a bit more regulation but, ideologically, prefers completely free markets with little or no government regulation in spite of the current disaster which their greed-based ideology helped to create.

China makes a third string to the bow and it is calling for the U.S. dollars to be pushed off its pedestal as the world’s major currency and a new world currency created, one that is not related to the foibles of the carpetbaggers and militarists who run America.

It seems that Britain and Australia are supporting the U.S. position so it will make for an interesting summit as the various groups wheel and deal and try to come up with a compromise that is unlikely to please anyone or that will solve the huge problems that currently exist.

Of course, the solution is simple and obvious. We need to set up a world economy, one run by a powerful Central Authority rather than a gaggle of competing sovereign nations all espousing cooperation while putting their own self-interest first. Some are even involved in hegemony!

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Friends, all of us have probably played with bubbles when we were children. These children are no exception.

There is something magic about bubbles, the way they float, the colors that slide around their shiny surface, the pop each one makes when it is caught.

Then there is something magic about children playing too. They are so innocent, so full of joy and fun and laughter. Yet somehow they change.

They seem to enter a dark, invisible corridor and when they emerge as young adults they are changed. Dramatically.

And this change continues and the gap between childhood and adulthood widens and suddenly childhood is lost, vanishes, as if it had never been.

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Last weekend, in the Sydney Domestic Air Terminal, two rival bikie gangs had a confrontation. The result was that one man was bashed to death while many members of the public who witnessed the battle, were traumatized. Once the incident was over several of the participants took taxis and left the scene.

Thus far, strangely, video cameras don’t seem to have captured the brawl. Of course, the fact that this occurred in a major transport hub highlights the poorness of airport security which must be good news for terrorists who might be looking for a target.

The airport incident is not an isolated one. There have been quite a few deaths recently of gang members in various states via drive-by shootings and shoot-outs. It highlights the power that gangs have, gangs called Hell’s Angels and The Bandidos and Gypsy Jokers.

Gang members typically look rather confronting and unintelligent. These gangs, which are found in most Australian capital cities and in New Zealand, are heavily involved with drugs and prostitution and money laundering. They operate from strongly-protected ‘headquarters’. They are a blight on society.

Then, on the other side of the world, we have the Mexican equivalent, the drug cartels, where the Mexican Government is using the army to try to stop the carnage (in the thousands) between the various cartels.

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Friends, in these uncertain, troubled times, a smile can be worth a lot. This made me laugh. I hope it does the same for you.

Of course the Amish are people who, except for the religious dimension, have a lot of good ideas.

P.S. Why not have a nice day by blocking out the world! Call a few of your friends, have a lunchtime BBQ or go to a restaurant, open a bottle of wine or two!

Geithner, Obama and Bernanke discuss strategies to revive

the nightmare of Wall Street!

Friends, Wall Street went up nearly 500 points last night (my time). It comes as a reaction to the moves by Geithner to sweep the toxic assets owned by the banks under the carpet using both taxpayers’ money and borrowed money. Once they’re under the carpet then the world can pretend they’re not there.

It seems ironic that the capitalist system, the one that is supposedly based upon markets deciding who rises and who falls, is being propped up by Governments who are taking on the failed, largely worthless investments so that the banks will start lending to each other and the whole credit-based system where people purchase things they can’t afford will get back into overdrive again until another greed-crazed crisis appears.

What happened to all the new finance and banking regulations that were promised, the ones that were supposed to prevent insane speculation and cons like the Ponzi schemes? Regulation? That’s a dirty word in boardrooms. The Robber Barons don’t want to be regulated and their Political Pawns will make sure they’re not. They want freedom to do whatever they like as long as there’s a dollar in it and to hell with consequences like global warming.

In other words, despite the crisis, nothing much has changed. Capitalism won’t die even though it should and the rich are licking their lips at the prospect of making more billions from the continuance of an unsustainable, corrupt, divisive, unfair economic and financial system.

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Friends, credit has dried up. The capitalist world as we know it is in jeopardy. The wealthy have been struck by waves of heavy losses. Some of them have been put in jail!

We, the people who have contributed to the emergence of countless millionaires and billionaires over the last few decades must assume some responsibility for the plight of the rich as they try to cope with falling real estate and share values. Imagine if you’d become rich, then lost it all. How would you feel?

Alright, so you don’t really know. Don’t be selfish. Just because you’ve never lived the life of the idle rich is no excuse. Use your imagination. Put yourself in their Italian shoes, try to imagine eating lobster for breakfast, dining at the Ritz, drinking Grange as a mouthwash.

Once you feel some empathy, what you are required to do is as follows:

1. Tomorrow, go out and get as many credit cards as possible.

2. Next, avail yourself of the low interest rates that have spread around the world like blowflies in summer.  Buy a mansion. You may be able to get a 3% variable mortgage loan with no deposit. Of course, if inflation kicks in, this loan may soon go up to 20% but them’s the breaks! You can’t cry over spilt milk.

3. If the Government is offering first home buyer’s grants and you’ve never owned any real estate, go out and buy three or four properties using different names. Try to use names like John Smith and Bob Brown rather than Dimetri Osckcapopolous. The reason is obvious. Don’t be daunted by the debt. Imagine being a big-time property owner and screwing your very own tenants for a change. What fun you’ll have.

4. Buy a new car immediately. Something foreign and red. Someone will arrange a loan, you know, something like $50 down and terms spread over twenty years. Insist upon getting a sport pack, something that  goes with your new image.

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