Archive for December, 2009

Is War Necessary to Create Peace?

December 18th, 2009 | post a comment

The following is an except from the speech by President Barak Obama when he received the Nobel Prize for Peace:

“So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. “Let us focus,” he said, “on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions. A gradual evolution of human institutions.”

What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps beAs I have read and re-read this speech, I found my reaction went from anger to despair to resolution.For those of you who haven’t either read or heard the entirety of this speech, I encourage you to do so by checking out the links for it on our website.

It seemed offensive to me for President Obama to reference Martin Luther King, Jr and Mohatmas Ghandi and then say they are wrong minded because its not possible to use non-violence to change the actions of a despot or groups acting with disdain for other’s human rights. He said that the only way for countries to defend themselves was with the use of force. He did give an eloquent rationalization for this point of view.

Its felt that the President has taken a pill since he was candidate Obama and his perspectives about war and peace had been altered. There has been a large cry of outrage from many who backed his run for President who now feel betrayed.

That may be true, and I believe that the President missed a golden opportunity to expose and begin a dialogue to truthfully bring about an end to war and an emergence of a sustainable peace not only between nations but within nations.

On the December 18th Business Matters program, we talk about the role of capitalism in reducing war between nations. Its not good business to fight each other. OK, but let’s take that all the way.

We have a huge war machine in the US. For example, in the fiscal 2010 US Government budget, $1 Trillion is allocated to either defense or national security spending. That accounts for ½ of all the money spent in the world these areas. Imagine – all the countries in the world combined, including Russia, China and India combined spend what we alone spend

This enormous machine has links into over 100,00 businesses of the US alone. These businesses that involved in war are naturally going to fight to keep the existing system alive. For many of them it feels like a battle for survival.

So without a transitionary plan to redirect the work of these businesses and others like them in other parts of the world to peace oriented production, wars will be waged in some manner or form.

If we continue to spend at this level, there will not be adequate resources for the fundamentals of peace like food security, education and the environment. Its time for national governments to start having the hard conversations about redirection of resources. After WWII, there was an unpredicted restructuring of the war machine to peaceful applications. The time is now for such a commitment.

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The Business of Peace

December 18th, 2009 | 1 comment

“A just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.” - President Obama (quoting FDR) as he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace. You can watch and read the full speech here.

The above is a perfect opening for today’s show on the Business of Peace. If peace must, as Obama says, encompass economic security and opportunity, how do we get there? Today on Business Matters we’ll look at strategies, (especially economic strategies) for getting us closer to the goal of peace on earth.

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Nicholas Kristof
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Nicholas D. Kristof co-authored the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn. Find out more about the book and how to get involved here .

Kristof has been a columnist for The New York Times since 2001. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week in the Times. Mr. Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and then studied law at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduating with first class honors. He later studied Arabic in Cairo and Chinese in Taipei. While working in France after high school, he caught the travel bug and began backpacking around Africa and Asia during his student years, writing articles to cover his expenses. Mr. Kristof has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to more than 140 countries, plus all 50 states, every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. (from the New York Times)

Erik Gartzke
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Erik Gartze is Associate Profesor of Political Science at the University of California in Santa Barbara. His primary area of study involves the impact of information and institutions on war and peace. His research has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Reivew, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Politics, World Politics, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book on how prosperity and free markets create the basis for amicable politics within (i.e. democracy) and between nations (interstate peace).

Georgia Kelly
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Georgia Kelly is the Founder and Director of Praxis Peace Institute. She recently helped to organize the Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California. She has produced several conferences on peace-building themes in the U.S. and in Europe. She teaches Conflict Resolution, has been active in many political campaigns, and has published several articles on peace related themes. She is also a harpist, composer, and recording artist.

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The Cronie Capitalism Show

December 11th, 2009 | 3 comments

In the week that the UK announced it will tax bank bonuses, and Goldman Sachs has been bullied into changing their policy on bonuses, we at Business Matters, will add our voice to the chorus of anti-big-bank-shouting. This week on the show, we’ll explore the clandestine relationship between bankers and the government, and ask we haven’t learned our lessons from the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 80’s and 90’s.

If you were old enough to be reading newspapers in the late 80’s, you may remember the Keating Five. If not, then let us give you a quick refresher. The Keating Five were five senators (including John McCain) who were accused of helping to facilitate the fraud being committed by Charles Keating, the then-president of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. Why would they do this? Because congress people have huge financial incentive (in the form of campaign contributions) to let banks do as they please. Why did it matter? Because it was this type of unregulated fraud that caused the Savings and Loan (or S&L) crisis, and cost the tax payers billions of dollars. Unfortunately, not much has changed since then. Deregulation still rules and our government is still in bed with the banks. We’ll talk about all of that and get your business questions answered in our new advice segment on this week’s Business Matters.

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Bill Black
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Bill Black is an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. He is also author of the book, The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is To Own One. You can watch the Bill Moyers interview that Black references in his interview with Business Matters here.

Paul Craig Roberts
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Paul Craig Roberts is an economist and nationally syndicated columnist. You can read many of his articles here. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was also Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and he’s the author of many books. Most recently, he is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

Ask Rieva, with Rieva Lesonsky
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We’re proud to introduce a brand new segment this week: Ask Rieva! And what are people asking? This week: Does a husband/wife business qualify as woman-owned? Is it wise to take out an home equity loan to buy a laundramat? And more… To learn more about Rieva, and ask your business questions go to our Ask Rieva page.

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Business Matters host, Thomas White asks: Why aren’t we learning our economic lessons?

When Will We Ever Learn

December 11th, 2009 | post a comment

I was wondering this morning about what it takes to learn life’s lessons. We hold ourselves out to be the most advanced species on the planet. Yet our behaviors just don’t seem to uphold this point of view.

Think of it this way, a zebra is walking along the edge of the jungle when he looks up through the brush and sees a lioness racing after one of his cousins. The lioness, far swifter and more powerful than the zebra, pounces on her prey and voila – lunch. Do you think that the zebra watching all this unfold will be as careless as his cousin? I doubt it. Animals learn from what they observe or they die.

On the December 11th Business Matters program, we talked about the S&L crisis of the late 80s and early 90s. A bit of refresher on the consequences of that national dilemma. Over 700 institutions were shuttered and the U.S. Government shelled out $125 Billion to make sure that none of these Samp;L depositors were left holding the bag. The year after the depth of this terrible crisis, the number of new homes built was the lowest since WWII.

As the situation unfolded there were the usual congressional investigations and industry self-examinations. As Bill Black ,a key regulator during this time, pointed out, the root cause of situation was well- understood and provided the basis for new laws and regulatory oversight such as the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. Even the S&L industry group, The US League of Savings Institutions concluded that this crisis was caused by many of the same issues that are at the bottom of the current financial crisis.

Yet we find ourselves in an even worse situation. The Big Banks have been bailed out and the vast majority of Americans have seen a dramatic decline in their net worth, income and job possibilities.

We have been unwilling to correct the real cause of the problem. Its not that we don’t know how to regulate complex systems. We learned from this program’s interviews that’s not true.

We are unwilling to confront an underlying premise that our financial and political systems is founded upon – greed, which is a human condition, will be managed by a free market system. Seems that that’s just not so.

For example, the US political system is fueled by monied interests rather than serving its electorate.. Large financial institutions and very wealthy individuals use their financial position to fund the campaign machine needed for officials to be elected. They use fear to maintain control of the game. Just like Henry Paulson telling congress if they didn’t give him $700 B without any rules or accountability there would be rioting in the streets.

I don’t know, maybe rioting in the streets is a good thing. Maybe we need to have the voice of those who are not being served by our congressional and government leaders heard so that they realize the system can’t continue. Here we are in the third year of the financial crisis and NO NEW LEGISLATION HAS BEEN PASSED TO REGULATE WHAT IS CLEARLY NOT WORKING.

Its clear that the current structure serves very few at the expense of many. Reforming this structure requires mature and honest controls that recognizes the power of greed and puts in place consequences for the abuse of financial or political power. This change is not easy and calls for extreme courage and determination. The benefit is the end of the dramatic cycles of boom and bust that lay hidden in fraud and deception. It also send a message to those who abuse power that there are real consequences for their actions.

Think about having your voice heard in the halls of congress. Our politicians will respond when the voice of the electorate is loud. Write or call your congressional delegations and let them know what matters to you.

Let’s show we are the smartest species on the planet. Let’s make sure we learn from the past and don’t become some predator’s lunch.

Fighting Back Against Consumerism

December 4th, 2009 | post a comment

This holiday season we’re meeting people who are creating powerful counter-messages to the onslaught of pro-consumption propaganda that we’re all bombarded with every year around this time.

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Kalle Lasn – Founder, Adbusters kalle
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-Buy Nothing Day
-Digital Detox Week

Sarah Haskins – Writer, Infomania
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-Infomania: Target Women
-Sarah Haskins on Twitter

Reverend Billy – Anti-consumerism Evangelist
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-The Church of Life After Shopping
-Music from the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir

For Your Consideration for the week of 12-4-09
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December 4, 2009 – Activism

December 4th, 2009 | post a comment

As we were putting together the Business Matters program on consumerism, I was reminded of the long history of activism here in the US. I think of activism as doing something intentionally to bring about social, political, economic or environmental change.

Over 200 years ago, people just like you and I felt that the system of government that was in place in the British colonies was one they could not support. Coming together in small towns and cities, they acted with courage and a level of determination that was uncommon. At the heart of this birth of the American system was vigorous public debate, an orientation for building consensus, and a commitment to strong action to bring about needed change.

Activism has many forms including civil disobedience, boycotts, culture jamming, peace marches, propaganda and strikes. Activism knows no boundaries of age or ethnicity or cultural orientation or economic condition. Activism often brings to its participants a sense of aliveness that they don’t feel at other times in their lives. It feels good to be committed to a cause that I believe in and have a sense that MY actions will make a difference.”

Kalle Lasn, one of our guests today and the founder of AdBusters, has been an activist for over 20 years. He challenges the impact that consumerism has on the economic, political and environmental sustainability of our plant. I asked him if the actions that are underway would alter the course of climate change and economic decline. He said he didn’t know. Maybe we will experience our worst fears and yet, there will be a future of some sort. What he was certain of is that the actions of activists today shape that future. This lesson is good to remember particularly for those of us who were involved in the 2008 Presidential campaign. Hope for a future with a new form of governance called forth activism in so many. As this promise seems elusive, a sense of despair is being felt. Yet, maybe these actions are what Kalle Lasn was referring to, maybe they are the seeds of our future..

I have considered for the whole tenure of this program what our role is. As I speak to you today, I am certain for perhaps the first time. Business Matters is about activism. Activism is a personal choice. It means that I am willing to speak out and act when I feel the need for change, without concern for the short-term impact these actions have on my income or comfort. Our activism is telling the stories of people, who through a passion for change, commitment to a purpose and deep courage, are doing something they believe will change systems that are not working.

One important aspect of activism is often overlooked. Best spoken by one of history’s great activists, Mohatmas Ghandi, ‘ Be the change you wish to see in the world.” For instance, if I feel that its important to reform the financial system and a great way to do this is to support community banks, do I put my money in these smaller institutions? If I feel that its vital to reversing climate-change by reducing greenhouse gases, do I consider the distance that my food travels when I purchase it? The examples are plentiful, you get the idea. I sometimes find myself in the category of well intentioned folks who either contribute money to a worthy cause or lend support to an organization involved in change, yet I don’t take time to make sure that all my actions are supportive of the change I am advocating.

In closing, I invite you to consider what you can do to improve your local community. It is often said that all politics is local. That is also true for activism. Find a place to start being involved. It doesn’t have to be huge or “earth changing”. Just have it be something that really matters to you. The experience may both surprise you and change your life along with the lives of others.

We will make a difference.

Thomas

Archive for December, 2009

Is War Necessary to Create Peace?

The Business of Peace

The Cronie Capitalism Show

When Will We Ever Learn

Fighting Back Against Consumerism

December 4, 2009 – Activism

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