Do You Know?

John Darvill

1995

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 1st quarter 1995, No. 338

.... What is correct procedure? What constitutes good economic policy? What programs should be cut or added? In other words, what is considered good government depends on the politician or politicians you are listening to. This further depends on whether they are in or out of office; whether they are due for re-election; who they are attempting to curry favour with; plus any other consideration that will affect their chances of re-election. The recent elections in the U.S.A. resulted in a sweep toward the Republicans, who are said to represent good conservative fiscal responsibility in government with the efficient use of money that will curb the monetary excesses. Those words are said to be the hallmark of the Democrats, but Orange County, California, is a bastion of conservatism, a bulwark of Republicans and all that is supposed to stand for. It is interesting that they have now become the largest local U.S. government to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. This county of 2.6 million residents Southeast of Los Angeles, home of the Nixon presidential library and Disneyland, was borrowing money short-term to buy longer-term bonds, but they were caught when interest rates soared this year. Their investment portfolio tumbled when a group of investment bankers demanded repayment of $1.2 billion in short-term loans which was more than the fund could raise without selling depressed securities -- hence the bankruptcy protection. Sound conservative fiscal management? Is this what was voted for last November? We wonder if this is what we can expect from their Federal counterparts?

.... In the days of deep seam coal mining, miners once carried caged canaries into the mines to warn them of a dangerous build-up of dangerous gas. Birds are excellent indicators of environmental change. The world's 9,600 plus bird species live in all regions; they respond quickly to environmental change and are among the easiest creatures to track and study. Therefore, any drop in the world's bird species is an indication of environmental dangers that threaten us all. Some seventy percent, about 6,600 of the world's bird species are declining, including 1,000 that are in imminent danger of extinction. The reasons for this decline are numerous, but all those reasons threaten, not only birds, but the world's number one predator -- us. We would do well to study what is depleting the bird population before it seriously affects our chances of survival.

.... In most countries, the largest cause of violent death, aside from war, is traffic fatalities. In the European union, traffic fatalities kill four times as many people as homicides do; in North America it is twice as many. Car accidents took nearly as many lives in the U.S., in 1993 alone, as the Vietnam war did in over a decade. Still we persist in relying heavily on the automobile as a means of transportation and in operating our society in a manner which makes it's use mandatory. We should realize that an efficient mass transportation system, coupled with a system of housing that would cut daily travel to a minimum, would not only result in a tremendous saving of resources -- but almost eliminate this appalling loss of life. However, in a Price System, monetary expedience is the rule of the game; only the introduction of a functional government with a distribution system, based on energy accounting, would be able to introduce the necessary changes.

.... The world grain harvest of 1,682 million tons, in 1993, was 86 million tons below the harvest of 1992. With 86 million tons of grain less than in the previous year, there were 90 million more people to be fed. The world's population is rising rapidly; can food production keep pace? Looking at just these figures, it is extremely doubtful. Just keeping up with the world population growth for one day, requires an additional 83,000 tons of grain. Couple the increase in population with a declining resource base, a declining food supply and decline in potable water and there is the potential for world wide hostilities on a massive scale -- dwarfing the present level of hostilities which is causing so much misery and death.

.... The day is long past when we can administer our social operation with a system which effects its distribution on a medium of exchange based on debt tokens (or money). Such a system is based on short-term monetary expediency and is no longer applicable in an age of high-speed technology. In an age when, here in North America, in excess of 98% of everything we produce is done by means of extraneous energy -- that is energy outside of the human body. Any attempt to measure the health of an economy by the number of person-hours employed, is ludicrous and self-defeating. The attempt to keep this antiquated system operating is at the root of most of our present problems. Only the replacement of this archaic system with one of function -- with a method of distribution based on energy accounting, can we hope to arrest our serious decline. We can start to build a future in which we can all share in the high standard of life that modern technology can supply without any of the waste and destruction so evident in the world of today.