President Obama suggests that all economists agree that the best way to dig the economy out of its giant hole is to dig that hole faster and harder. Too much debt? Pile on more. Consumers not “buying enough”? Tax and borrow more to spend more to subsidize more buying.
I don’t get it. Were I Robinson Crusoe on a desert island I sure would want to consume. Berries and bananas, fish, maybe deer.
But I’d also want to produce. I’d make tools to help me to gather and hunt, and to prepare and store food. Desiring shelter, I’d realize that I can’t live in a hut unless I first build the hut.
On Crusoe’s island, there would be no politicians around to tax me to death before I could finish the hut. But here in our mixed economy, there sure is.
The Cato Institute, a D.C.-based think tank, has been spreading the word that not all economists believe that the best way to improve the economy is to nuke taxpayers and producers. At Cato.org I’ve heard economists insist that bailouts have NEVER worked to stimulate the economy. Further, Cato has taken out a full-page ad in major newspapers, like the Washington Post and the New York Times, disputing the notion that the solution to the recession is a massive government spending spree.
The Cato statement is signed by hundreds of economists. Many more signed it after the ad was published.
Will it help? I have the audacity to hope.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
9 replies on “A Cato Alert”
Good one Paul.
I grew up on an Oklahoma ranch. If my horse pulled up lame, the first thing I would do is to get off of the horse — not load it down more. Our socialist Congress tells us that extinguishing business with higher taxes and loading my grandchildren with unpayable debt will bring us prosperity. Welcome to the Marxist open gulag: we now have economic leg irons instead of razor wire. Either way, we are no longer a free country! I think 233 years is far too long a time between revolutions! I think our political and economic salvation may lie with the Second Amendment rather a Congress run amok! The Second Amendment was built in by our founding fathers to protect us from ourselves (not from foreign invasion) should it come to that.
Paul,
I agree with you. Cutting taxes and spending more is nuts. This bailout stuff needs to STOP! Using tax dollars to “stimulate” the economy is like “blood letting” to heal someone back in the stongage. If they survived they attributed the healing it to the “Blood Letting” or in this case their “stimulation package”. Crazy.
What this country needs is jobs. People who work pay taxes. People who do not work burden the system.
Sincerely,
Timothy James Maki
Congress has just handed “WE the People” the evidence we need to prosecute them for their failure to protect America and the American citizen.
It is up to “We the People” to bring suit against our elected officials for violating their oath of office pledge to uphole the Constitution.
They failed to stop the Illegal Alien invasion, for the benefit of their contributors. They failed to close the border to stop illegal drugs.
They failed to listen to the people and voted for TARP and the Stimulus pacakges that benefit the greedy rich.
They failed to account for their actions and the spending.
THE CONSTITUTION WAS AND IS FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN.
THE DEMOCRATS, HAVE APPARENTLY OVERTHROWN THE “SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENT OF AMERICA” WHICH IS “WE THE PEOPLE” AND HAVE PROVED BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT THAT THEY WORK FOR FOREIGNERS, BUSINESS’S, AND THEMSELVES.
THEY STOLE FROM THE TAXPAYING SOVEREING GOVERNMENT BILLIONS, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR UNKNOWN FRIENDS AND ETC.
NOW, IT IS TIME TO SUE CONGRESS AND THEIR STAFFS.
First, unless Congress meddles too much, which I think they are w/ this & other packages, the
“recession” would be over by the time most of these “stimulus” efforts got underway. There is a lifetime time-line for downturns, no matter how harsh they may be. History shows that when the government intercedes, that time-line extends significantly. FDR extended the Great Depression.
Our recession would have lasted until about the first quarter of 2010, if that long. Many said it would have ended, by the end of this year!
Many will say no to that, but the economic facts tell the real story. Only the World War saved FDR’s bacon.
Democrats are counting of being able to spend to their hearts content, & the economic recovery happening anyway, so they can take credit for what will really be a market action.
But Democrats may have over-reached. The spending is beyond reason & it may cause an exodus of investment capital that no Congressional action can fix until they introduce true economy friendly actions like serious tax relief for investors & business. As it stands right now, much capital is being held by investors & business until they see how things will go. If things darken, they will move their money to foreign shores faster than any movement we have ever seen in history. Many European nations are already courting that money & some are having real success based on their investor friendly tax situations.
Think Ireland & the Czech Republic.
I find it ironic that the Czech Republic is now a free market competitor warning us of too much socialist intervention in our economy. We also have Mexico warning us about the level of our national debt. MEXICO for crying out loud!!
The economists who do not agree w/ Obama are getting little press time & when they do, they face an adversarial press who mock their positions & counter with all sorts of disconnected data to convolute what those economists are saying.
Distraction through distortion is a leftist tactic as others try to focus on facts related to the actual situation.
This same “all agree” tactic is used by Al Gore to peddle his Climate Change agenda. Yet the past three to four years, Arctic sea ice is increasing at historic rates, sea level rise has stopped, AND, temperatures have fallen enough to make up for more than any of the increase that has been used to create this hysteria.
In short, each time we are confronted by someone pushing hysterical crisis interventionist tactics, we should throw rocks at them because historically their predictions have proven to be totally false!
We should be listening to the economists who are saying Obama & the Democrats are full of it. Then we could avoid much of this debt spending our future generations will be saddled with!
I couldn’t agree with you more. As a retired attorney, may I suggest that it would not be far-fetched to consider a challenge of a piece of legislation which has been voted on in the affirmative by members of Congress who have not read the Act and, therefore, cannot be familiar with the content thereof. It would seem to me that a court would recognize that all members of Congress are duty-bound to be totally familiar with the content of legislation for which they cast their ballot on behalf of their constituents. This seems to be self-evident. If not, well, we’re in deep, deep trouble. Then again, maybe I’m too doctrinaire.
THE STIMULUS PACAKGAES —
THE HIDDEN THREATS
Dr. Raju M. Mathew
Following the American lead, almost all governments, including China, India, Kuwait, the UAE, have either introduced or on the process of introducing stimulus packages to make an easy recovery from the global economic crisis, that they prefer to call as ‘Recession’. But they are forced to admit that it is more severe than the Great Depression of 1929. Then it must be the Great Depression II of 2009. A series of global summits are under way.
Basic Assumptions
However, almost all packages are based on the following assumptions:
1. The present crisis is a recession to disappear within one year or at the maximum two years, as it is only a short term phenomenon.
2. It is basically a problem of credit crunch.
3. The market is flooded with unsold industrial and consumer products.
4. Speedy recovery could be made by injecting more funds either by debt or deficit.
5. By ensuring easy credit and supporting banks and one or two major industries, the crisis could be averted and recovery could be made.
Over Simplification
The present Global Economic Crisis has been over simplified or presented as a mere financial meltdown or recession and it could be dealt by making available more funds to the consumers so as to create new demand for all the unsold items and thereby revive the market and ultimately bring back the boom. The required fund could be raised by either deficit financing or public debt, besides borrowing from other sources that could form the basis of further credit.
Wrong Diagnosis
But the very assumptions of all these recovery packages are conceived without the backing of any sound theory and strategy or even history. Both the experts and rulers ignore the truth that the basic problem is not of the credit but of income and earning of the people to create a sustained demand and ensure reasonable saving and investment. If the newly created funds are flooded to the market, of course, most of the unsold items will be sold out and after that people may not have any more money or credit with them to make further purchases. That leads to another great catastrophe to appear more rigorously.
Boom: Real or Illusion?
It is high time to re-examine the very truth and basis of the so called boom that the global economy had undergone with the unbelievable availability of free credit for all. Almost all banks had offered unlimited credit, ten or twenty times over their liquidity or reasonable limit, that too without bothering the repayment capacities of the borrowers. For amassing very huge amounts as bonus, the bank men had prepared inflated or fabricated statements about their assets, liquidity and profit without any basis by cleverly manipulating the e‑banking, e‑credit and e‑commerce. On the strength of the easily available credit cards and e‑money, consumers had rushed into the market, without bothering much about their real income and repayment capacity. That had made an illusionary boom, without the backing of real earning and actual purchasing power.
Simple Economic Truth
No economy can survive long with mere credit based purchases without the backing of the real income and earning besides adequate saving and investments. Income and earning are very much related to resource allocation efficiency, over all productivity and competitiveness. Profitability depends upon demand and cost of production as savings depend upon thrift, earning and cost of living. Without a reasonable savings, no investment could be made.
It is equally important for a healthy economy to keep its cost of production and cost of living at the bottom. Further, there must be inter-sector balance with regard to growth and earning between various sectors, as all the sectors are equally important for the healthy survival of the global economy. The very reason for the present global crisis that has grown to the extent of the Great Depression II is the deliberate denial or rejection of the basic economic truth committed by all the economic and business players, including governments and international agencies.
The Hidden Threats
The stimulus packages so far announced are based on wrong or improper assumptions without taking into account the simple economic truth. Credit and banking have no existence or future if the whole economy is weak and sick. No stimulus package is effective or successful by rejecting the basic economic truth. The package must be aimed at improving the very foundation and health of the economy. Other wise, the packages with shorter objectives of selling out the unsold items in the market that too based on credit, will be self-defeating and bring out further crisis more rigorously, making the entire world suffer more and making future generations more debtors.
Global Strategy
There is no short cut to solve the crisis other than putting the economy on a sound basis by improving the income and earning of the people besides their productivity and efficiency. In other words, the actual purchasing power of the people, even without the backing of credit, must be improved tremendously along with cutting the cost of production and cost of living, so as to ensure sustainable saving and investment. Inter-sector and inter-regional imbalances must be rectified. Since the problems are global in nature, their solutions too must be global. No country or people should be left in the efforts for a speedy recovery of the global economy.
It is high time to adopt a mature and balanced approach towards consumerism, marketing, credit, e‑banking and e‑commerce besides minimizing oil or energy consumption, development based on tour and travel and automobile. The world has more cars than it actually needs; we are burning more oil than our environment could afford and people are traveling more than what is needed for the wrong or mistaken logistics of their stay and work. Because of aggressive consumerism and marketing, just 8 % of the world population spend and consume as much as the rest of the world.
The wage and salary structure, including bonuses must be restructured so as to ensure some reasonable balance between agricultural, industrial and service sectors and between industries and services. Unreasonably high salary, bonuses and profits in some sectors or firms lead to greed, extravagance and the associated crimes that would affect their own very efficiency and survival.
UN and other intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies must come together to chalk out global strategies and policies to deal with the Great Depression II. The major religions of the world must play a pro-active role in minimizing the sufferings of the world population rather than spreading hate and revenge leading to terrorism.
(Note: This is the fifth series of work on the present global economic crisis under ‘Great Depression II’ by the same author).
About the Author
Dr. Raju M. Mathew is a strategist and theoretician with strong background in Economics, Cybernetics, Education and Information Science & Technology with long years of experience in teaching and research, including directing a major research project and supervising ten doctoral works. Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published jointly by the FID and the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1985 in the work, ‘Theoretical Problems of Informatics’. Now these theories are known in his name and have become the field for doctoral research.
In 2005, Prof. Mathew proposed Knowmatics and Knowledge Technology as the two Post-Information Technology disciplines for processing and handling knowledge so as to develop knowledge industries. He is the founder president of the International Forum for Knowmatics & Knowledge Technology (IFKT). Some of his works are available in the site: http://www.ifkt.net
Dr. Mathew is on a mission of making the world aware of the impacts and intensities of the present crisis, the Great Depression II of 2009 and persuading the governments and international agencies to formulate correct strategies and policies and implement them urgently to deal with it and make an early recovery from it, so as to save the lives of millions, especially the young. Dr. Raju M. Mathew can be contacted by e‑mail: rajoocyber@yahoo.com.
DEATH OF ECONOMICS AND GREAT DSEPRESSION II:
ROLE OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS IN AGGRAVTING
THE GLOBAL CRISIS*
DR. RAJU M. MATHEW
The Present Global Crisis
The world is under a great financial and economic crisis. To almost all finance and management experts it is just a financial meltdown or a credit crisis or at the maximum a recession. But for the economists with strong backgrounds in Economic Theory, Policy and History, who are very limited in numbers, it is the Great Depression II, far more severe than the Great Depression of 1929.
CEOs and MDs
Economics has been denigrated into oblivion in the onslaught of the glittering courses of the Modern Business Schools and their high salaried and bonus earning graduates as CEOs and MDs or top managers, during the time of the just receded Boom, However, the present crisis brings back Economics into the forefront for drafting strategies and policies for making a speedy recovery. In the height of the crisis, as almost all the products of the Business Schools, including Harvard turned like ostrich dipping their heads in the sands. Now they are accused the prime culprits of the present crisis. Now they are treated as dirty as pick-pockets and street pimps for their greed and immorality.
Breach of Trust and Mismanagement
Almost all products of the B- Schools who are elevated to CEOs or MDs of big corporations in the banking, insurance and financial sectors are charged with breach of trust and mismanagement besides eating away the big bonuses and committing money laundry, presenting false and fabricated statements, for their greed and fraud .In their passion for glamour and glitter, they violated the basic principles of management due to their ignorance of the fundamentals of Political Economy, as their knowledge, more correctly information, is in capsule form without any deep understanding of theory, history and strategies.
Political Economy
Political Economy or Economics is as old as the origin of the human societies and also of the nations. Kaudialya, the Indian strategic thinker, in his ‘Arthasatra’ and Machiavelli, the Italian strategist, in his ‘The Prince’ had dealt with Political Economy . The Pharaohs of Egypt had applied basic economic principles in constructing dams and pyramids while employing the Israelites as slaves, besides successfully managing the economy for a very long time. Learning from the Pharaoh, Moses too had applied basic economic principles in levying taxes, waging wars and sharing the loots, including women.
However, Economics as a branch of Science emerged with the publication of Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ that paved the way for the emergence of Capitalism, especially the industrialized western economies. It was J. M. Keynes, a well known British economist, with his General Theory, saved Capitalism from eternal peril during the Great Depression of 1939. F.A. Hayek became the first Nobel laureate in Economics.
The Great Depression
Almost all industrialized economies have been undergone with the phenomena of ‘business cycles’, characterized by high growth, stagnation and recession. Innovative entrepreneurs could make new strides in the growth of Capitalism. However, the Great Depression of 1929 had challenged the very foundation of Capitalism as supply had not created its own demand. It was J. K. Keynes who prescribed the medicine of public spending and deficit financing besides championing the cause of establishing the IMF and the World Bank, gave new foundation for Capitalism.. However, the over dosage of the Keynesian remedies, especially deficit financing and public borrowing, designed for emergencies, have become a regular practice for almost all governments. As a result, they have getting ineffective, just like the regular and over-dosed use of anti-biotic.
New Corporate Culture
After the Second World War, especially during the Cold War period, most of the military technologies, including internet, had been put into civilian applications that gave new impetus to industrialization, networking, globalization and trade-in-services. The Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have emerged with grater influence over almost all governments and their budgets exceeded far ahead of the governments of smaller countries. Information Technology has become the most powerful tool in the hands of the MNCs to control and manage their operations, spreading across several countries.
They have entered in all major services like, banking, finance, insurance, networking and communications, management and consultancy, marketing, retail trade and real estate to have a virtual control over the entire economy and to make quick profit in terms of billions and trillions. A new type of corporate culture has emerged with the motto of making quick profit, high salary and bonuses at any cost. It has created greedy and jealousy CEOs and other corporate heads and managers who thrive with fraud and corruptions besides false and manipulated accounts and statements to deceive the government and the general public.
The Service Sector has started to dictate or dominate all the other sectors, side tracking both Agriculture and Industrial Sectors and thereby upsetting the very basis and balance of an economy. Information Technology has penetrated in all the domains of the service sector, reducing everything into bits and bytes. In the over-emphasis of Information, the worth of Knowledge and Wisdom has withered away.
Death of Economics
Almost all B‑Schools rivaled each other for creating and supplying greedy, jealous, manipulating and unscrupulous, high salaried managers and business executives in the age of corporate culture. They challenged the very foundation and wisdoms of Political Economy. In the new age of Information Technology, a new breed of economists with mathematical and statistical tools and computing techniques have dominated the scene and they have denigrated Economics with a set of formulas and equations., that have reduced economics, a minor branch of Mathematics ort Statistics. Economics has been reduced into mere data and information without the backing of any wisdom and knowledge. Thus Economics has lost its purpose and foundation besides its human face and social commitments towards the weak and the poor. As a result, Economics, basically concerned with ‘wealth of nations’, ‘social well being’ ‚‘income and employment’ and ‘constitution of liberty’, resource allocation efficiency and optimality’ has become unfashionable in the age of highly fashionable ‘Business Management or Administration’.
Do We Need Business Schools?
The actual contribution of the Business Schools and their graduates in the healthy development of the national as well as the global economy and in the promotion of global trade is a disputed or questionable one. Of course, they have squeezed the entire economy for their own greed and added the misery of the millions, especially of the poor for promoting consumerism, aggressive marketing and credit based purchase of consumer items. They ruined the financial stability of the millions of families, turning them into debtors and wiped out thrift and saving mentality from the society. With their lavish funding, they have even corrupted all the major religions that have become more and more materialistic by promoting consumerism at the cost of spirituality and compassion. It must be highlighted that almost all major business and industrial establishments are built by the real entrepreneurs without qualifications from any of the B‑Schools. Now the basic question is do we need the immoral, unethical and greed and fraud- promoting Business Schools and their short and long courses and academic programs.
Re-Inventing Economics
It is high time to make Economics free from the narrow boundaries of a set of mathematical formulas and equations besides the computer generated data and information. It is a crime to reduce economics within the narrow framework of data and information, ignoring Knowledge and Wisdom. Wisdom and Knowledge are our real wealth and they alone save us at the time of crisis and perils. The world needs the visions, wisdom and knowledge of the Political Economists for a fair and ethical global order and society.
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Universities must come forward to give re-emphasis to the study of Political Economy by attracting the best students and professors so as to develop a holistic view of the working of an economy, inter-dependence of its various sectors and units besides the diverse economies of the world and finally of the global economy.
It is time to critically examine the social value and worth of the mushrooming Business Schools with their long and short term academic programs, including M.B.A and several other gilt-edged diploma courses without any strong basis in Economics. The present global crisis made the world realized that management is not mere making profit and earning high salary and bonus, by exploiting both the workers and customers and cheating the share holders and the governments.
Managers must be made socially committed for the creation of wealth, income and employment and thereby attaining social well being both at national and global levels. They have to plan, organize and getting things done for attaining the set objectives of their firms and also the broader social goals of making a sound and healthy economy. They must be made to follow a set of well defined business ethics and fair practices. Other wise, they become criminals to brake the very foundations of families, enterprises, nations and the entire global economy.
(* This is the sixth series of work by the author on The Great Depression II – the Present Global Crisis. All his other works can be found if a search is made in the internet under ‘Dr. Raju M. Mathew’. )
About the Author
Dr. Raju M. Mathew is an economist, a strategist and theoretician with strong background in Cybernetics, Education and Information Technology with long years of experience in teaching and research, including directing a major research project and supervising ten doctoral works. Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published in 1985 and appeared in several languages. Now these theories are known in his name and have become an area for doctoral research.
In 2005, Prof. Mathew proposed Knowmatics and Knowledge Technology as the two Post-Information Technology disciplines for processing and handling knowledge so as to develop knowledge industries. He is the founder president of the International Forum for Knowmatics & Knowledge Technology (IFKT). Some of his works are available in the site: http://www.ifkt.net. Now he is working with the Al Ain University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Mathew is on a mission of making the world aware of the impacts and intensities of the present crisis, the Great Depression II of 2009 and persuading the governments and international agencies to formulate correct strategies and policies and implement them urgently to deal with it and make an early recovery from it, so as to save the lives of millions, especially the young and the poor. Dr. Raju M. Mathew can be contacted by e‑mail: rajoocyber@yahoo.com.
OIL, CARS AND CONSUMERISM
AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS:
DISCUSSION ON THE GREAT DEPRESSION II
DR. RAJU M. MATHEW
Global Economic Crisis
The world is under a great economic crisis. For the conventional economists it is only a Recession and not a Depression at all, for their partial analytical techniques, over-simplified models with unrealistic assumptions and over emphasis on data. It may take at least five years for them to realize that it would be a Great Depression and by that time it may be over. When Cybernetics is employed for the study of the working of the global economy as a whole with multi-sector approaches on the basis of the deeper understanding of Political Economy, we are forced to admit that this is not a simple Recession, but a Great Depression that requires not only economic stimulus but Ethical or Spiritual and Political Stimulus also to recover.
Dreadful Consumerism
Not only the capitalist or developed countries but also the Socialist or Islamist or Less Developed Countries too are brought under the Great Depression II. It is not only Islam or Christianity but also Communism could not save the world from Consumerism and the unethical or immoral business practices that are hundred times deadlier than Materialism or even Atheism. Consumerism has emerged as the greatest threat to the very existence of Capitalism for it drained away saving and investment, that constitute Capital without which there is no Capitalism.
The corporate culture has corrupted almost all religions and communist movements and made them the victims of Consumerism. The corporate culture made everything expensive and unaffordable for the majority for it aims only ‘the chosen few’. It has speeded up the process of the demise of spirituality and moral values. Eroding of the basic spiritual values has paved the way for greed, fraud and corruptions at all level. The present crisis is the result of the total ethical and moral failures besides the economic and technical failures.
Spirituality and Human Values
In the demise of spirituality and basic human values, religions turn towards rigorous and harsh customs, practices, devotions, prolonged prayers and fasting without any element of love, mercy and forgiveness. All these factors acted as catalysts for religious fundamentalism. A big vacuum in spirituality of religions paved the way for terrorism. The youth, especially the poor, are indoctrinated and getting believed that the greatest virtue is become martyrs and to die and kill for their religions for they are rewarded with all the luxuries and pleasures of a ‘seven star hotel’ besides the service of seven virgins in the Paradise after their martyrdom. Sex, drugs and money are administered to them as the immediate rewards.
Islam and Christianity
Islam and Christianity, the two major world religions have miserably failed, in practice, to imbibe the basic moral, spiritual and ethical values to the humanity. After embracing the corporate culture, they have been rivaling each other in spreading across nations and adhering to the rigorous religious practices. Their champions or leaders have become as materialistic as the ancient Epicureans.
Because of their warring or quarreling factions and their quench for pomp and acquiring more and more material wealth, almost all religions miserably failed to lead the world in the realm of spirituality and to inculcate minimum ethical and human values to the society. Most of the sects or cults in Hinduism and Buddhism also assumed the role of big multinational corporations with assets in terms of trillions.
Oil and Cars
Industrialization started with steam powered locomotives and nurtured by the automobile industry that speeded up the processes of urbanization and fast life style besides giving predominance to oil industry. Oil producers and automobile industry started to dictate the entire economies of the world, especially of the western industrialized economies. OPEC has squeezed oil importing nations by charging exorbitant price for oil and amassed the wealth of nations.
The corporate world has effectively employed Information Technology to have a virtual control over the entire globe by e‑money, e‑banking and e‑commerce and spread the corporate culture of greed, fraud and consumerism. Oil, cars and consumerism, originally acted as the catalyst of boom have turned the catalysis of Doom or the Great Depression II. They have drained away the saving and investment habits of the middle class and made everybody debtors and upset not only the balance of economies but also of the Nature.
New Awareness
People are getting aware that for the wrong logistics of their places of stay, work, shopping and entertainment, they have to travel a lot and burn out a lot of oil unnecessarily. . They could have avoided over 60 per cent of their journeys, especially in the age of advanced communication technologies. By a proper development of public transportation system and its effective use, many could have avoided owning cars or traveling in cars. A good majority of business trips are unnecessary or unproductive. All these make a very dark future for the oil, automobile and hospitality sectors. Consuming lesser and lesser oil for the recovery of the economy and for the health of the environment would emerge as a major slogan in almost all countries.
Natural Death
It is time for the Multinational Corporations to have a natural death for their crimes committed against the humanity, especially against the poor nations and peoples. Championing the cause of consumerism, they have even turned a malignant cancer of Capitalism and Globalization besides corrupting Islam and Christianity and other religions. They destroyed the economic foundations of millions of families and virtually wiped out the middle class not only in the west but also in emerging economies with their aggressive marketing strategies. Selling dreams and fantasies, they pushed everyone into illusions. They have hidden or invisible link with almost all terrorist organizations. They are involved in money laundry, corruptions and fabrication of wrong accounts or documents and cheating the shareholders and the general public.
The Stimulus Packages
It is fact that, none of the stimulus packages, though in terms of several trillions, could save the world from the impending peril and miseries of the millions unless the world saves itself from the dirty hands of consumerism and controls the growth of automobile industry besides reducing oil consumption to the extent of 30 to 40 per cent. This is the time for fair business practices and code of ethics for all economic activities besides regulating marketing and advertisements for which a global summit must be held soon. Ensuring sustainable income along with reasonable saving and investment is the only means for recovery on a long time basis. Otherwise, all the stimulus packages and recovery efforts would vanish within three to six months after making some symptoms of recovery and then aggravate and prolong the crisis to the extent of ten years.
Survival Strategy
The present global crisis taught the basic lesson that humanity and its various socio-economic systems or organizations could not survive without the basic moral and ethical values and some element of spirituality and upsetting the balance of the Nature. It is high time in burying down Consumerism and Corporate Culture besides adopting slow and simple life styles and turning towards spirituality and setting right the imbalances between urban and rural sectors and also between agriculture, industry and service sectors and the different regions of the world for the very survival of humanity. Humanity could not afford to pay so much high salary and bonus in terms of several millions to the CEOs and Managers and to allow the traders and business people to make such a huge profit within a short span of time.
It is a great crime against Humanity and the Nature to burn out so much oil and generating so much heat and sound from the speeding millions of cars and driving away the millions from farms and rural life to the cities. It is high time to redefine the very meaning of development and urbanization especially when the entire humanity is under threat and peril.
The people of OPEC or OECD Countries must shed away the deadly and inhuman ideology as they are the chosen people of God, an ideology originated at the time of Abraham and aggressively implemented during the time of Moses to dominate or exterminate other tribes or races. For the Just and Loving God, all men are chosen and everybody has an equal right for a decent life just like the people of the OPEC or OECD countries and everybody must observe spiritual and ethical values. Nobody has any right to dominate or dictate over other people. If Islam and Christianity fail to bridge the gap between the rich and poor, among their followers, and upheld basic spiritual and human values, their very worth and relevance will be questioned in the age of crisis and globalization of religious faiths.
About the Author
Dr. Raju M. Mathew is an economist, a strategist and theoretician with strong background in Cybernetics, Education and Information Technology with long years of experience in teaching and research. He has so far supervised ten doctoral works, including the basic approaches of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam towards knowledge, economy and spirituality.
Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published in 1985 and appeared in several languages. Now these theories are known in his name and have become an area for doctoral research. In 2005, Prof. Mathew proposed Knowmatics and Knowledge Technology as the two Post-Information Technology disciplines for processing and handling knowledge so as to develop knowledge industries.
He is the founder president of the International Forum for Knowmatics & Knowledge Technology (IFKT). Some of his works are available in the site: http://www.ifkt.net. Now he is working with the Al Ain University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Mathew is on a mission of making the world aware of the impacts and intensities of the present crisis, the Great Depression II of 2009 and persuading the governments and international agencies to formulate correct strategies and policies and implement them urgently to deal with it and make an early recovery from it, so as to save the lives of millions, especially the young and the poor. Dr. Raju M. Mathew can be contacted by e‑mail: rajoocyber@yahoo.com.