Tuesday 26 October 2010

Governments thick and fast in eradicating poverty. Exterminate poor people. Problem solved.

Governments around the world are near to the solution of eradicating poverty. World rejoice. Exterminate poor people what best way there is, in Britain, in Europe, in USA all have laid out their illustrious plans, budget cuts name it and along with governments, myriad entrepreneurs scrutinize elaborate schemes, steadfast on the tracks of making poverty history. Constantly checking up in their records the rate of success, the poor extermination rate and on the other side what goes hand-in-hand with, their record on their success of making money. Their annual returns of revenue match step-by-step with how many individuals have sent to an early grave. Eradicating poverty? Problem solved.

From the front-runners micro-lending, their reach worldwide. What its inventor has started, was taken up to new heights. Its creator Muhammand Yunus, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, unaware of what he has unleashed upon this earth, the weapon to feed the unquenched voracious appetite of the making more-and-more money accolytes that would drive deeper and deeper into despair individuals around the globe till they can not take any more, they could not stretch their boundaries any further and will bounce back with such a force, a tsunami that would lead to their demise.

The new heights of entreprneurship WONGA in Britain. It charges a typical 2689% APR, and though they are explaining, the reason for charging such an exorbitant APR, reveal the inner workings of societies engrossed in the path that leads to devoted on-the-know practioners, shrewd entrepreneurs in ammassing unreal fortunes.

They are taking compounding of interest to its extremes, every service offered in annualised rate of charge, compounded by the hour or even at increments smaller than an hour, there are barely any limits, to yield astronomical returns when annualised! All for the sake of a constant pursuit of making more and more money.

As the loan period gets shorter, the more times you have to multiply and compound interest to make it into a theoretical annual figure what reveals the underlying scam, what is responsible for the plight of countries worldwide, the crisis they are in, what makes the world a haven for lawnsharks, whether these are small-time WONGA lawn sharks or big-time sovereign lenders, compounding interest.

That is what is quoted in wikipedia, regarding the history of compound interest.

"Compound interest was once regarded as the worst kind of usury, and was severely condemned by Roman law, as well as the common laws of many other countries. [2]

The Qur'an explicitly mentions compound interest as a great sin. Usury (oppressive interest), known in Arabic as "riba", is considered wrong:
“ O ye who believe! Devour not usury, doubling and quadrupling (the sum lent). Observe your duty to Allah, that ye may be successful. ”

— Qur'an 3:130

In one passage, the Bible addresses the charging of interest in the following manner:
“ Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you. You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. ”

— Leviticus 25:36-37"

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Businesses embracing creativity?

I read the post "Innovate or Die: Why creativity is economic priority number one"

let my chaotic mind create ... What is create? Is it, all there is to be of creativity, the creativity that is worth for individuals, only in the field of big-dollar economy? That it worths more than any other manifestation that creativity can assume.

Certainly not. Mark Mcguiness, the author of the article, I am reading now, points out one more aspect of creativity. As he mentions that

"Did all those hard-nosed business people suddenly decide there was more to life than capitalism and give up chasing dollars so they could express their artistic soul?"

... another aspect of creativity, the 'artistic soul'. Which by the way, it doesn't look that the author thinks, that 'hard-nosed business people' appreciate creativity that much, as they will not give up the chase of the dollars for the sake of creativity.

The chase of the dollars, and in its altar creativity is sacrificed, a crime perpetrated, the abuse of creativity. A drive towards taking advantage of creativity and with that the creators, to squeeze every dollar possible out of innovations, and once it is done, creativity and creators become a burden, a refuse material which can be discarded at will.

Creativity, its very use, lasts, as far as dollars are made. Tainted creativity, more likely, deeply seated in the monstrosity they call economy? Economy is about people, lives of individuals and not the dollars, that hard-nosed business people, will make.

What kind of creativity is that, which is forced, single-minded, streamlined to the all-consuming priority, to make more dollars for the hard-nosed business-people. What kind of products and services would such creativity sustains?

The priority being not how would better people, how would people enjoy the products and services the hard-nosed business people offer, but how many dollars the hard-nosed business people will make out of it.

Creativity thus employed where its goal is to make big business people more dollars, will fail as it will constantly ignore and go against the aspect of products and services, people are interested in as such a perspective is not included by the providers.

The so-called creativity to be used to dupe and manipulate people, to disguise the products and services on offer, all in the name of the gain of even more dollars. A respite, that forces people to spit out and reject the products and services thus provided.

I should paraphrase the example of the new land of creative opportunity being the tip of the very large economic iceberg. The economic iceberg which its bulk made out of people and their lives that the big-dollar economy at the tip takes advantage of, using creativity as the means to ammass enormous profits, forgetfull of the fact of what makes, what sustains the tip, is the people that without them there would be no iceberg at all.

Economy is, and it has always been about people, that make up the bulk of icebergs, and without them, there would be no hard-nose business people, either.