There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Men often act knowingly against their interest.
David Hume
Man is a money making animal, which propensity too often interferes with
his benevolence.
Herman Melville (1819-1891) US author
If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich,
you will never get all you want. It is useless.
GNB Ecclesiastes 5:10
If you lend money to any of my people who are poor, do not act like a moneylender and require him to pay interest.
GNB Exodus 22:25
For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil...
GNB 1 Tim 6:10
How can you have a sane society made up of competative, self-interested
individuals all trying to get as rich as possible?
Anon
The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of
adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy,
more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who question their
methods or throw light upon their crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in
front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.
Abraham Lincoln
I am still looking for the modern day equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses,
made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently, worked hard,
spent honestly, saved honestly, gave honest value for money, put back more than they took out
and told no lies. This business creed, sadly, seems forgotten.
Anita Roddick
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We Are Fighting Back!
Synopsis: Australia has one of the greatest percentages of foreign ownership in the
developed world. Our federal government allegedly gives preferred treatment to foreign
owned companies! Is it in the national interest to have so much of our
economy under foreign control? Do we need to buy back the farm?
The Australian Owned Companies Association argues that if everyone did their shopping
giving a preference to products made by Australian owned companies it would create
jobs for our children because the profits would stay in Australia.
The Ausbuy Guide (v44) is now available (March 2016) from Supermarkets' Checkouts - $2.95 (incl GST).
Green paper updated Aug 2003
Links:
- Ausbuy - Australian Owned Companies Association
- Supporting Australian owned business and keeping our dollars at home. The
home manager can be an activist in the local supermarket.
http://www.ausbuy.com.au/
- Corporate Socialism
- How multi-national corporations (in Australia usually foreign owned) are
manipulating capitalism and avoiding accountability to the disadvantage of "small business"
(usually locally owned). - American source
http://www.essentialinformation.org/
- How the Corporates Profit at your expense!
- How corporations have usurped the rights and identitiy of individuals in the US
and infiltrated all levels of government to the disadvantage of the individual. Small business and individuals cannot
match the big dollars that have bought policy makers in government. One commentator says, "if we are to restore democracy
to our American republic, we must first get corporations out of government, so our politicians can once again become statesmen."
- ditto Australia. Now read more . . .
http://www.commondreams.org/
- The Human Spirit in a Global Economy
-
Frances Milne speaks out on the coming economic disaster we are in already. Written in 1995 it is frighteningly current!
Read on . . .
http://users.picknowl.com.au/~eranet/humspirt.htm
- and now for something more recent . . .
- . . . in the Kingdom of Banks
- David James on Eureka Street demonstrates that "banks are, if not the most malign organisations on the planet, then certainly among
the most dangerous." Read more . . .
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=47209
- Neoliberalism - the ideology at the root of all our problems or The Zombie Doctrine
-
George Monbiot, author of "How did we get into this mess?" Verso Books 2016, explains exactly that from an economic perspective,
which impinges on everything else: health, climate change, education.... Read on . . .
http://www.monbiot.com/2016/04/15/the-zombie-doctrine/
Mugged!
Synopsis: Australian farmers have been battling the sytem of world trade for many years. The so
called "level playing field" has never been level. Conned by the free marketeers we have been sold a pup
by our mates in the US and Europe. Our future however lies with the fortunes of our brothers and sisters
in the third world who are really doing it tough. Tell this to our governments. Our people are still
cushioned by a good social security system (for the moment - wait 'til it gets privatised!) so we
don't feel the full effects. While our public education, health etc gets less and less money and
teeters on privatisation, many in the third world see what education and health system they had
disappear altogether. Why are we silent?
Green paper - coming
Links:
- Make Trade Fair
- Oxfam is proposing an identification system so shoppers will be able to choose
supermarket produce that is "fairly traded" as a way Australians can respond to the coffee
grower's crisis. The free market system depresses the income of Australian farmers as much as it
does people in Africa or South America. How can trade be made fair?
Oxfam attempts an answer.
http://www.maketradefair.com/
- How did we get into this mess?
- Thomas Frank describes the onslaught of free market economics and managerialism,
the new God that bestrides the world.
Almighty and growing more powerful he is insatiable, and he sucks!
http://www.thebaffler.com/gts.html
cache
- GATS
- What is GATS and why should we be concerned? Read this in the light of what is happening
to Telstra and the bush. Not only are our farmers doing it tough, but other services in the bush are disappearing
behind our backs. We have been mugged and this explains why. And when our governments roll over we should get real mad!
http://www.challengeglobalization.org/html/tools/GATS_privatization_agenda.shtml
- Do As We Say, Not As We Do
- George Monbiot argues there are two rules, one for rich countries (US and Europe) and the other for the poor.
Australia as a resources producer is caught in the middle. But we rather see ourselves with the rich guys.
http://www.georgemonbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=542
- How the IMF steals nations'economies and why it doesn't worry about Australia
- George Monbiot relates how the IMF medicine effectively removes the control of economy from governments. After
reading this reflect on Australia's economy and ask the question why it doesn't need to happen here?
http://www.monbiot.com/2003/08/19/stealing-nations/
- AFTINET - Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network
- Keep up to date with the issues on GATS and other WTO campaigns and the Australian Free Trade
Agreement (AUSFTA) being negotiated with the US.
http://www.aftinet.org.au/
- The Big Picture: Keating and Howard got it horribly wrong!
- In Economics for Boomers Paul Hellyer succinctly explains how current economic thinking has
proved to be a disaster and more nasty things are likely to happen unless we change quickly! It makes a lie to the Liberals
claim to be good economic managers. The question is for whom when the gap between rich and poor is widening and real unemployment
figures are hidden by the politicians playing statistical coverup.? (Source:
Economic Reform Australia) See also
COMER The Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform.
Click here
- The Corporate Begging Bowl
- George Monbiot (December 2005 Guardian) relates how taxpayers in the UK and US subsidise business which actively campaigns
for cuts to welfare, health and social services. Mean while these subsidied giants put our un-subsidized workers on the dole!
Wake up Australia!
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/dec/13/eu.freedomofinformation
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