World War Three

China understands what's going on, most of South East Asia and Eastern Europe does as well. We've been at war for decades and the war's been fought and won. There's only some mopping up left to do.

The wealthy won, by the way. They don't like to crow so you may not have heard, but the 1% gained total victory and they never had to fire a shot.

Some countries who came in late or who had strong government protection in place, through a fortunate twist of world economic history, found themselves able to regulate and control the invaders and protect their state and preserve themselves as a player. Other countries - especially America and Japan - have been left with their pants down. And the saddest part is their pants have been lowered by their own citizens working to gain personal power with a total disregard for the welfare of their people or their country.

The war is economic. It's a corporate war. Corporations versus everyone else; countries, people, resources - everything and everyone that can be mined for a profit has been. There is no patriotism left outside the quest for a dollar.

Right now in India a battle is being fought between the local people and their own government that sums this war up perfectly.

In India, tens of millions of people run small stores. Many are in markets on the side of the road or in an open area, where they throw up tarpaulins, tents, umbrellas - whatever they can find to give cover to the goods they source fresh and sell everyday to those who know the market and come to get what they need at the lowest haggled price.

The politicians have tried and failed on more than one occasion to allow the foreign behemoth companies, the world's largest in retail, to be given free entry to India's markets. The people protested on these occasions and won. Now the politicians are trying again. They are clearly going against the will of the majority. They are likely to rename the bill, to re-brand the legislation - maybe it will be called the 'good for everyone' bill out of pure desperation to get what they want against the wishes of their own people. The legislation is designed to allow open competition and development in what is a move that is clearly not wanted by the majority of the populous. Here is the crucial moment that every country and every person has or will face in their entry into this economic war - trusting that the powers that be are not working to vested interests.

Those with power want the corporations to be allowed to expand without government restrictions because it's good for them. The money coming in will go to the powerful. Many will end up working for or consulting to these companies and walking away with a share of the prize on offer. Many will become franchise owners or share holders in the companies. They understand just how much wealth these huge companies create and they are in the perfect position to make sure their snout is in the trough when the money starts flowing. The legislation will directly or indirectly make the rich and powerful more so.

The average citizen will be hurt by such monopolies being allowed to enter and instantly become 80% of the local market. Entrepreneurship will be reduced to new products, new markets or trying to compete directly against the juggernaut companies.

We have yet to find a solution to this. The Russian's came close. When their economy converted from state owned to capitalist they disallowed foreign investment. This meant any Russian citizen with cash could buy shares in companies or buy entire companies for kopeks on the rouble. This was inventive and incredibly smart in that it ensured Russia would stay in Russian hands. What they didn't foresee was the vast fortunes some would make and effectively thrust Russia and it's federated states and satellite states into the hands of a few oligarchs who now effectively rule as a government by proxy.  

If India allows Carafour, Tescos, Walmart and others to enter their market, their huge warehouse styled supermarket multi stores and sourced goods from anywhere in the world at the very cheapest prices will kill the livelihood of the emerging classes and confine them to the lowest hourly wage possible.

When this happens the politicians and companies will sight the thousands of newly employed by these stores as proof of new jobs being created. They tout the goods being sold as meeting higher standards of production and quality and the companies set about making even more money for the shareholders of their companies as the ridiculous amounts of profit being made get funnelled back to glorify the company accounts as increased profit.

There is no mention of the millions of people who had been sharing in the profit before, as small businesses selling goods. They don't mention the huge buying power allows the companies to 'negotiate' down the lowest prices with suppliers.

In India and many other emerging economic countries many of these suppliers are going to be little more than share croppers working a small piece of land for their own survival. These farmers will now be held ransom by the large company who will quickly become their only buyer.

Corporations become so big they control governments and the people through ways that range from incredibly subtle to incredibly obvious. There is no giant conspiracy. There are no clandestine meetings keeping the agenda on track, it is the market forces at work and the theories of Milton Friedman that have sadly trounced the checks and balances provided under a Keynesian economic policy and allows the wealthy to grow their personal fortunes and undermine their own country and their fellow citizens in the ultimate demonstration of man's one true great failing - Greed.

Greed brought down every great empire in the past and it will do it again. Maybe not for another thousand years but eventually someone is going to lose their head because the majority of the population, who dutifully play their roles as consumers and are rewarded with just enough wealth to keep them wanting and buying, but never enough to be free of economics pressures, will finally snap and demand a bigger slice of the very rich pie.

It's also fascinating that the people who shout the loudest about being patriots are the same ones who allow their country to bear the economic debt by manipulating and demanding ever more favourable conditions to make higher and higher personal profits. Their insistence that they are vital players in the provision of welfare due to the trickle down economic theory, that if they are allowed to be become billionaires there will be money spilling down to those below them, is one of three things -

1/ Dishonest - in that they know they are at the top of the pyramid scheme and willing to say and do anything in order to stay there. It is true that money will trickle down from them as they spend and enjoy life, but it is certainly never going to trickle down far enough to help those who genuinely need assistance.

2/ Blindly Ignorant - Once again arguing that all a person needs to do is work hard to achieve success and financial freedom. This argument makes a person at best economically autistic in that they cannot empathise or understand the subtleties of what it means to be a coherent, caring society. A family who has a special needs child, an elderly person needing care or someone hurt in an accident, along with literally a million other cases where a person, family or community cannot cope without assistance, all call out for the need to tax everyone equally and redistribute the wealth both personally and towards community infrastructure to make lives not simply better, but in many cases manageable.

The fact that someone earning one million dollars a year can argue they pay more than their share of tax when they only pay ten percent is ludicrous. Yes, $100,000 is a lot to pay in tax - but if everyone pays 30% then you're $200,000 short on what you owe. Screaming that you already paid $100,000 is a smokescreen to hide the fact you're stealing $200,000 from the mouth of a citizen who needs support. You need to make a decision to live in the community you earn a profit from or declare your hand and live off the community you earn a living from. You cannot have it both ways.

3/ Stupid. You do not have to have a high IQ to make it in business these days. In fact, in many ways, having a little stupidity about you will make some of the tough decisions that hurt others less difficult because being stupid will mean a person genuinely cannot see how their decisions hurt or disadvantage others. This is why political leaders should be vetted. Not because we want to know if they believe in God or if they once inhaled at a college party - but because we need to know a person once elected won't press the red button thinking it's a doorbell to the world of Narnia.

I can't see any way to end this economic war  apart from total surrender. The corporations are already too big and too powerful to be stopped. In America and almost every other modern democracy they have already shown they are willing to cripple a country financially, to force legislation that hurts many but benefits them, to fight judicially to absolve themselves of responsibility for land abuse, people's health and a general disregard for communities in their quest for profits.

They spend trillions on lobbyist to fight for them and gain an unfair advantage, against not just the average person seeking justice, but also governments and they spend money to cynically spruik how much good they do, making them sound like all their infrastructure and hard work is undertaken for altruistic purposes and not at all for profit. It took these international conglomerates forty years to gain the power they now have and they did it with a smile and a lot of money spent to convince us along the way they were our best friends and only doing what they do to help us and make our lives better.

Anyone still believe their existence is making our lives better? No - but you can but a plastic container for $1. That's got to count for something? It may only last a short time - but who cares - you can buy another one for just $1. Ka-ching!

It's fascinating to do a search for world debt and discover almost all figures are expressed as a percentage of GDP (The total worth of all goods and services produced in a country over a year). This percentage ratio makes it clear that a country's wealth is dependant on tax being paid on money earned from goods and services - and yet, the undermining of countries is coming from those determined to escape paying their fair tax on money earned, making this ratio yet another falsehood of statistics thrown up by the wealthy to stop the general public realising the problem until its irrecoverable.

 

The sad truth is the Global Financial crisis was the best opportunity for countries to take back the ownership of their country for their people. The huge trillion dollar bailouts that occurred all over the world suddenly argued for tax payers dollars to be handed over to big businesses, banks, insurance companies and industry, to insure the financial system and its institutions didn't collapse. The argument being that if they did collapse, again via trickle down economic fantasies, if the big businesses collapsed everyone below them would be hit even harder.

I've never heard a reasonable explanation as to why the government's money, our money as taxpayers, why that wasn't spent to simply buy the companies involved. Almost everyone was given enough in 'free' money to exact a far purchase price at the time. If not buy outright, then they should have negotiated to buy 75% or 50% and then, when those big businesses came good because of the large injection of cash, the government and we the people, would then own a large percentage of the profitable business and we could recoup the money or continue to reap the profits as the company grew. But somehow the big business financiers and lobbyists convinced the leaders, who had themselves been the previous leaders of these big companies, just to hand over the money with no strings attached.

The result as everyone now knows is that the financial sector is back on its feet. In fact the DOW is currently back to levels that make the GFC seem all but forgotten, while the rest of us in the larger economy wonder why there's no one spending and no investment in jobs or infrastructure. Well played again big business - you even managed to label the 99% protesters as lefty crackpots intent on harming economic recovery.

Here's to the executives who lunch--
Everybody laugh.
Lounging in their pinstripes
And planning a brunch
On their own behalf.
Off to the gym,
Then to a fitting,
Claiming they're fat.
And looking grim,
'Cause they've been sitting
Choosing a hat.
Does anyone still wear a hat?
I'll drink to that.

So here's to the CEO on the go--
Everybody tries.
Look into their eyes,
And you'll see what they know:
A company never dies.
A toast to that invincible bunch,
The dinosaurs surviving the crunch.
Let's hear it for the fat cats who lunch--
Everybody rise!
Rise!
Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise!
Rise!

Scott Norton Taylor - Inner City - Ebook for Kindle, Epub Sony, Palm or online!

Reviews: From Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read May 27, 2013

By Anna Brouillard

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book was so intriguing I hardly put it down. Wonderfully written it does not linger on any 

one event nor does it speed through scenes making it a poor read. The characters were well 

thought out and the inner turmoils they all face are far from dull.

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular April 5, 2013

By Jack

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book was simply amazing it had action romance and just enough drama to make me happy 

one of the best books I have ever read

From Barnes and Noble - Nook Books:

Posted December 1, 2012

 Great read.

A story filled with with love, hate, violence, peace and so much more. 538 pages of wondering what will happen 

next. A FULL story from start to finish. Thanks to the author for sharing a great work with the readers.

Posted July 8, 2012

 Couldn't put it down...

For this to have been a free book, it was wonderful. The author keeps you on the edge of your seat. I couldn't 

put this down. I think this would make a great movie!

Posted April 20, 2012

 Amazing

Perfectly written with great detail it was thought provoking and asked the fundemental question of would you 

stick up for what you believed was right even if you would be killed for doing so.

Posted April 5, 2012

 This book is AWESOME! it keeps you wanting to read the entire ti

This book is AWESOME! it keeps you wanting to read the entire time. It tells of 2 worlds, and both are 

extremely unique. One of the best books I've ever read!

READ IT YOURSELF - INNER CITY

Avoiding Responsibility - The CEO's Creed.

In large companies, those in charge ask two questions; can we make it cheaper? Can we make it generate more profit?

These are the questions being worked to, never asked out loud, but always behind every decision being made.

All the bonuses that big companies pay their executives are paid for performance. Performance is judged on money. Full stop. Some performance criteria will sound like they're about finishing a project on time, but that's only code. The result of hitting that completion date will be a financial gain to the company - so even performance criteria leads back to money.

Greed is really the one thing the human race cannot conquer. And bonuses for performance is all about greed and greed makes people cut corners and break laws. With this system in place, it is inevitable that once a company becomes big enough the 'brain' of the corporation is so removed from the resulting decisions made and the impact of those decisions on individuals that there's no guilt involved.

Maybe the parent company hires another company to oversee production of item X. And that contract goes to the lowest bidder or their own subsidiary. 20 years on, after billions have been made, the news of the illegal, dangerous or immoral practises come to light and the parent company turns around, hands in the air and says we didn't know. That company over there did all the bad things - not us.

A six year old is not allowed to get away with this as an argument against doing the wrong thing, but time and time again we let the most powerful in our communities do exactly this.

The worst thing about corporate life are the endless post mortem meetings to try and uncover why something has gone wrong. When the reason something in a large corporation goes wrong is almost always blindingly obvious why. The company, in a system set up to push and promote managers down the line to cut corners and push limits, turned a blind eye as the profits rose, never asking how, until finally the illegal, immoral or dangerous practises are uncovered by the public.

Recently we've had Rupert and James Murdoch arguing they knew nothing of the phone tapping that went on in the UK newspaper business. Now we have Barclays bank who have clearly got greedy and broken laws and once again the executives all claim it was a misinterpretation of memos that caused the problem and no-one on the top floor had any idea of what was being done in the rank and file.

There's a great quote from a security guard at a store who once said - "I cannot tell you how many customers have told me they weren't thinking and simply forgot to pay for something, but I've never met anyone who was so confused they paid for something twice."

And so it goes in the corporate world. When was the last time a commission found a company broke the law in a way that made them less profit?

Rupert and James didn't fall on their swords because they owned the company. But the Barclay boys of Del Missier and Diamond seemed to do the right thing and accept what they deserved - instant dismissal.

 - and then I read this...

"Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier quit hours after CEO Bob Diamond's resignation. Chairman Marcus Agius resigned on Monday, but in the wake of Diamond's resignation, Agius returned as chief executive on Tuesday."


Seriously? The guy at the very top is giving himself the CEO's job 1 day after resigning in disgrace.

How to become the 1%

It's not that I want to be ridiculously wealthy, it's just that I like their toys. If those big wealthy kids would just let me play with them every now and again I'd be happy. But of course, like all selfish kids they don't let anyone else near them. They have the new philanthropist mentality - "I want to help everyone who is less fortunate than myself - but I'd rather not have to socialise with them."

I'm not bashing the new wave of billionaire who are giving like none of the 1% have ever given before... I'm just saying, a billionaire giving 10% of their yearly income is an enormous gesture - but is it equal to a person on 40,000 who donates $4,000? I would argue it's less impressive because it's easier to live on 9 million, down from 10 million a year, than it is to live on 36,000 down from 40.

But I digress - the question is how do you and I get into that tax bracket where we can squabble about whether or not our deductible contribution is more likely to change the world than our lifestyle.

You can read all the books, make all the bold investment choices and pay thousands of dollars for advice and for 99 out of a hundred people I guarantee nothing will change. You need to invent, create and then patent a unique and needed idea or thing. You need to pick the one stock in one thousand that goes from a penny dreadful to a dollar+ stock, you need to win the lottery and then invest wisely growing that base by over 10% per year.

In ten thousand people, expect 4 millionaires and about 0.005% billionaires.

But there is a way to guarantee your family will one day make it and it involves time. If one person per generation, or two for every ten were to donate their entire wealth when they pass away to a trust fund that gained a high interest rate above inflation, an interest income that compounded and everyone also made regular minimal contributions, as little as 2% of income per month made by every working family member, over time, your family would be sitting on its own fortune. At that time a more profitable investment could be looked at and entered - remembering of course, each critical decision along the way could bring your generations of hard work undone. But - instead of it being a 4 in ten thousand chance of getting rich, the chance of investing with Bernie Maddoff or buying a profitable company that quickly sucks your money dry and goes belly up would be almost the reverse percentile chance - maybe 4% risk.

Place strict controls on the fund, allowing future generations to get a start from the money pool and you've made it into the ranks of the elite within a hundred years.

A HUNDRED YEARS! Why didn't you tell me it would be a hundred years at the start and I could have skipped this idiot article?

A hundred years seems like an awfully long time when you're a teenager, it's a long time when you're in your twenties, a good slab of time once you hit forty and not nearly as daunting when you celebrate a grandparent, or great grandparent's hundredth birthday and that person was someone you knew or have known for years.

That's when you realise one hundred years isn't a ridiculous time to wait for your family - the children of your children and their children to be living without economic fear because your legacy was one that recognised that simple fact.

And it's not like there aren't immediate benefits along the way. My Will stipulates an amount equal to the cheapest four door sedan on the market to be withdrawn from the fund when any child of our family's direct line turns 18. A further 10% of the fund to go to that child at age 30 to be spent on the down payment of a property. That's all they get.

Now, as with Bernie Maddoff's investment strategy, someone along the line could end up living in the 'City Edge' trailer park and having 16 kids in an effort to get rich off their own reality show, only to discover all their neighbours also have 16 or more kids. And those kids at 10% each would wipe the fund clean. C'est la Vie.

My Nephew Charlie isn't worried!

Ideally, with the ethos of this fund adopted, protected, contributed to and respected rather than rorted over time, it should not just grow but exponentially flourish. By the time you are a great grandparent you can reasonably expect more than 3 of your line coming into this world. By the time a great grandparent, close to ten based on an average 2-3 child union.

Remembering that the fund should become a family legacy, something the entire family controls and contributes to - if it's respected, the more who draw from it, the more who should contribute to it and so on.

You can put in whatever other safeguards you want, for instance, the board of the trust fund can be those reaching 40 years of age to give the direction of the fund some mature heads to guide it. You could also put in decisions for old age, although most make allowances for this in their own lives in our family. But this fund is yours to dictate to at the outset and its done so your legacy to your family will be more than a vague memory of you for a few older members and a few pictures that get looked at 3 or 4 times a year, maybe even hung on a wall in the hall to the upstairs toilet. Whatever the case, this is a family trust fund that can allow you to make a positive contribution to the future generations and let them know that even from the distant past, you knew you had a responsibility to them and for them and you did what you could to fulfil those obligations.

Wave if you know your uncle's got your future covered.

Also - general rule that covers everything...

You're never too young to appreciate sports!

Corporations are People - Sociopathic People.

Corporations are immoral. They have no conscience or consideration of right and wrong of or for the individual. They only care about their financial bottom line and growth and because of this they only care about the masses.

The masses can alter their fate, an individual is powerless.

One vote, one customer, one injured party in a sea of millions doesn't warrant a sideways glance. No-one fears a snowflake, only the avalanche gets attention.

The masses are not ten, not one hundred; not even one thousand. 

A thousand like grievances joined together as one will be noticed and hushed, but not for their complaint. They will be dealt with and hidden as quickly and as inexpensively as possible because they are the first carcinogenic cell that could multiply to threaten the corporate life.

Alone an individual is a single voice shouting into a canyon. It takes a chorus of tens of thousands, or a sympathetic media to amplify that song of complaint so it is loud enough to be heard.

The media commands public opinion, it informs and guides, like a brain with the body of a billion thoughtless cells that follow and submit to suggestions and thoughts formed and sent from above.

Thank God for the new social medias of Twitter and Facebook because the old media platforms have become themselves corporately corrupted and molded by financial objectives. This old media has lobotomized itself in a quest to offend no-one and gain ratings at any cost.

How sad that for so long we abstained from personal responsibility and allowed the corporate voice of network manipulation and greed to guide us down a path that is paved with gold only for them.

How sad that an industry that had the power to do so much good has slunk to its belly and settled on making arbitrary decisions born from the pen of accountants, rather than forging a brave new world in a forward backward path that the artist should have led.

How sad that we allowed them to become so powerful before we took a stand.

But it is not simply the old media that has caught this corporate tunnel vision of purpose. Ring any multinational company and press their automated buttons spruiked by their recorded voice menu. Time the difference it takes to get a response to a request for anything compared to the time it takes that same company to respond to a call to pay money or give them new business.

Corporations are people. But they have been poorly raised and are now spoilt children who only know how to take graciously. When it comes time to give they can only throw tantrums and elicit an age old immature doctrine: if can’t get what I want, no-one will.

Despite social media’s desperate attempt to allow a single voice to be heard, that single voice is only sounding a final shuddering death rattle. The individual is dead. A single person no longer matters to the one percent.

We are in the age of spin and insincerity. We are in an age where only the fewest of the few are, in the long run, treated fairly by large corporations. As customers we are bled and fed just enough to keep our blood flowing into their wealthy coffers. As workers we are pushed and stressed and cruelly convinced loyalty and long service is valued and rewarded. There is nothing worse than seeing the crushed spirit of a worker who discovers their life’s work and effort has been rewarded with a pink slip that ends a career without even a name behind the decision.

It’s easy to steer a ship in calm weather. But the narrow minded and selfish spirit of these new ‘people’ never learn that in calm weather it’s important to bond a crew who have the skills, courage and loyalty to save the ship when the next storm blows from the far horizon.

Corporations are now legally people of the United States of America according to that country’s Supreme Court. But until those newly born corporate souls grow up and gain the maturity that allows them to think and feel like a person, with choices swayed and prayed for with a conscience and an empathetic soul, they will continue to be the modern scourge and we should all beware.

There could be no poorer teachers for future generations than the corporate giants that have been brought up to scream for everything and are prepared to give nothing back unless there’s a bigger upside in doing so.

Multinationals may be people, but they are at best sociopaths who should be evaluated, diagnosed and treated for their personality disorders quickly before they deliver a final fatal blow and we all suffer at their hands.