Tuesday, March 26th, 2019
Author: Rex Weyler
Source: Greenpeace
Publication Date: 17 March 2019
Link: Failed Economics
Stephan: Rex Weyler is one of the founders of Greenpeace, and a very thoughtful and insightful writer. This essay makes the assessment that I think is the correct one. Neoliberal economics is destroying every society in which it is practiced and nowhere more than the United States, and we are at the social equivalent of 4th stage cancer. Weyler makes the case very well, and makes the crucial addition, which SR readers know, of adding the environment, so often overlooked or ignored, into the calculation.
This willful ignorance, which Weyler has corrected, arises because the economic posture of profit as the only priority and value to be considered, has linked with the Abrahamic dominionist world view that we have dominion over the earth and all its creatures, and can do with them as we like without consequences. The preceding two stories make it clear that is a lie.
“The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer,” is an ancient maxim that dates back thousands of years. In our era, we must add: “And wild nature gets trampled.”
A recently cleared area inside PT Damai Agro Sejahtera concession oil palm concession, part of the Bumitama group, in Muara Kayong hamlet, Nanga Tayap sub-district, Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan.
At the end of 2018, Credit Suisse published its updated report on global wealth. Forty-two-million millionaires and billionaires comprise the richest 0.5% of the world’s population. That translates to 0.8% of adults in the report, possessing 44.8% of the world’s economic wealth. A decade ago, researchers commonly reported that the wealthy 15% of humanity owned 85% of the resources. Today, 6.2% (9.5% of adults) now claim 85% of the wealth. The rich got richer.
The super-elites, the 2,208 billionaires — those who attend Global Economic Summits, own banks, buy off governments, pollute with impunity, and hold political influence in virtually every nation in the world — comprise not the “1%” but only 28-millionths of […]
Excellent commentary, Stephan. I urge you and the readers here to view this US doc below. Burned: Are Trees the New Coal?
https://www.linktv.org/shows/burned-are-trees-the-new-coal/episodes/burned-are-trees-the-new-coal