Day 176: Will the Elite Manipulate the Public to Push for Privatization in EMC?

For context, please read:

Strike to hit SAA on eve of Afcon
http://www.iol.co.za/business/business-news/strike-to-hit-saa-on-eve-of-afcon-1.1454062#.UPmk0PJBmSo

(SAA = South African Airways)
(Afcon = African Cup of Nations - Soccer)

The Problem

"The company dismissed claims that it was planning retrenchments, saying these statements were merely meant to cause harm.

SAA tried to avert the strike last week by reaching an interim agreement with the union, even though it recognised only Satawu as a majority union. When SAA acting chief executive Vuyisile Kona met NTM on January 11, he promised to resolve the dispute.

However, SAA backtracked on this commitment and the acting chairwoman, Lindi Nkosi-Thomas, said Kona had acted outside his mandate.

The union said this conflicting communication from SAA showed that the board chairwoman was “undermining her chief executive”.

Two weeks ago the government rescued SAA with a R550 million emergency loan to cover fuel costs, averting the grounding of its planes. Last year the National Treasury and the Department of Public Enterprises signed off a R5 billion guarantee to help the company with its financial troubles.

SAA has undergone drastic leadership changes in the past few months. Siza Mzimela bailed out as chief executive in October last year and several executives followed her. The board was also overhauled. This occurred while SAA was in the middle of exploring new aircraft deals to replace its ageing fleet and modifying its routes to focus more on Africa."

What is busy happening here is an example of how the elite is manipulating the public to ask for privatization. The Public Image is being destroyed through ineffective management. You can watch the documentary 'Catastroika' and 'La lluvia tambien' to see how the same techniques have been used in other countries. The idea is to prove that the public sector will always be inefficient and therefore as many companies as possible require to be privatized. Once the privatization happens, prices sky-rocket and the services and goods that were once agreed to belong to the public, will now be reserved to a much smaller group of people who can afford to pay the higher prices.

The Solution

Goods and Services that are a Basic Human Right cannot be put up for auction where only the highest bidders can access them. Within EMC - basic human rights will be provided to each one and will be provided by government, funded by taxes. The inefficiency of public companies is firstly often orchestrated to get the public to demand privatization, having the population play right into the hands of the elite - and, secondly, corruption plays a major role. Within EMC - privatization of basic human rights will not be permissible by law as it violates the Constitutional Principle of Equality. In terms of corruption, politics within EMC will be far more transparent than what it is now and politicians will have a much smaller role to play. You can read up on these points at www.equalmoney.org/wiki/Politics.

The Rewards

Obviously - everyone benefits from having their basic human rights met. When we have money, we don't realize or consider what it means to live in lack of the simple commodities and services such as having a decent house, having good healthcare, receiving proper education, clean water and so on. The simple truth is that without these things life is not worth living; it becomes a struggle - and I'm sure everyone would agree that life as a struggle is not what one would wish for oneself. Consider the changes this simple guarantee would bring about:
No more stress about having an unstable income and not being able to make ends meet
No more feeling guilty for not being able to afford proper education for your child
No more prostitution as a means of survival
No more vultures trying to take away what belongs to you

Related articles

• Strike to hit SAA on eve of Afcon
• Day 167: Harmony and Equilibrium within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 170: Companies and Industries in EMC
• Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit
• The Future of Integrity with Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy
• Day 166: Corporate Social Responsibility in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 169: Equal Living within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism

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Day 141: Even the Rain: Water Politics - Catastroika

This blog is in line with:
Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy
Day 139: The Time is Ripe for Water Privatization - Catastroika

In line with the documentaries I've been watching like Catastroika, I now watched the movie 'Even the Rain' (También la lluvia). The movie follows a film crew that are busy making a movie on Colombus' conquest. The filming of the movie takes place in Bolivia, where they are also hiring Bolivians from native decent to play within the movie. As the movie shows you how they are making a movie, another storyline emerges on the side of the Bolivians, who are faced with the privatization of water.

The movie is very well done, showing actual scenes of the Colombus movie they are making, and how the natives were exploited for profit -- while at the same time, the story is repeating itself in the present, where the Bolivians are fighting a struggle of exploitation against major corporations (like Suez - side branch of the World Bank, which was also mentioned in the Catrastroika documentary). The law even prohibited peasants from constructing collection tanks to gather water from the rain (hence "Even the Rain"). Water rates under privatization become really high for the sake of profit, and in a poverty stricken land like Bolivia: the people cannot afford it.

People have to survive on about 2 dollars a day, while they have to pay $450 annually, for water -- how the hell are they supposed to manage that?

Everybody needs water to survive -- privatizing natural resource of a country in an attempt to alleviate an unjust debt-burden is just complete insanity.


A famous slogan of the World Bank, is "Our dream, a world free of poverty." Yet the World Bank keeps imposing policies on countries which are supposed to be democratic, but yet have no say on an important matter such as the privatization of water.

It is clear that currently in our world, Money gets valued over Life.
Our whole Banking System is a Criminal System, and because of its inherent dysfunctional nature, real people have to give up life sustaining resources for a system that is made-up of illusions (Suggest to read: Day 71: The Money Supply - Part 1, Day 94: How is Money Created, and the educational film: Money as Debt - to gain a better understanding on the illusionary nature of Money and Banking within this world. This is a very important subject to understand, as this is one of the points laying at the foundation of our broken system, responsible for major suffering and dismay).

I mean, how brainwashed must we be, to accept this type of outrageous policy making and perceive it to be 'normal'.

It is not okay for some own resources while others have to pay with it with their Life. Earth was here long before the people that are alive today and those that are hogging the Earth's resources as a very profitable business venture. What authority, granted some the right to have while others are excluded?

At some point in the 'Even the Rain Movie', a scene is being filmed, where the character playing Padre Antonia Montesions says: "Are these not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them as yourselves?’"
As the character is saying the words, the camera moves around to the poor natives helping out with the movie, and the message is clear: Why are we still not treating everybody as Equals?

This is the ONE point, the ONE point that creates so much suffering, the egomaniacal idea that one person's life is worth more than another's.

We need to set this world straight, because what we are doing is plainly disgusting. Throughout history, we have heard many promote the message of Equality, but we have never applied it. Without Equality, Life on Earth is a disgrace.

Visit the Equal Money Website, and see how we can create a system that supports All LIFE.

Related articles

• Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy
• 106: Structural Adjustment
• Day 200: What Is Our Planet Worth?
• Day 141 - My Daily Sacrifice
• Day 143: Electricity is a Basic Human Right - Why then are 1.5 Billion people without electricity?
• Day 137: What are Natural Disasters Teaching us?

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Day 139: The Time is Ripe for Water Privatization - Catastroika

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/19-3

Professionals in the water industry, representing privately owned businesses and public utilities have published a survey indicating that now would be a good time to start privatizing on water – as water is getting scares, more capitalizing can be done!

Our system knows no scruples – hand it water scarcity and all it sees is $$$MONEY$$$.

The Earth provides resources for free: there’s water, there’s air, there’s land – it’s all just here, and we’re all here – why should it belong to some and not to others?

If Capitalism is all about “working hard for your money” and “being rewarded for your hard work and talent” – isn’t taking money from the Earth’s resources, that the EARTH produced: cheating?

Where’s Earth’s share in all of this? Earth provided all of these resources, she did all the work – wouldn’t it then make sense that we give something back for all her hard work? Where’s Earth’s share of all the profits in the world? Without Earth – there would be no profit.

Water is a basic necessity for all life forms – you can’t just privatize it and restrict its access and within that decide who gets to access a life sustaining matter and who doesn’t – that’s short for murder. If water is getting scarce, we shouldn’t privatize and ‘ride the wave’ for the sake of profit – only psychopaths would take such a route -- it’s in essence a move to ‘privatize life’. We should rather look at why water is scarce and what we can do to resolve this problem.

As we can see in the documentary Catastroika, water privatization does not work – it only works for those owning the companies who can capitalize on the water until the whole project goes to ruin and then gets handed back to the public who are left with repairing and upgrading to make it work for the people.

Privatizing on water is an infringement on the Right to Life

Support Life, visit: www.equalmoney.org

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Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy

Today I watched an interesting documentary, called ‘Catastroika’ [see bottom for embedded video].

It was made in response to the financial crisis which has been taking place in Greece, and investigates the effects of Privatization.

It walks you through several countries, starting with Russia after the collapse of the Soviets – which had been used as a ‘neo-liberal laboratory’, where liberalists wanted to test mass privatization. It takes a look at France, where in Paris where big companies (along with EU authorities) wanted to privatize the water – were successful in this until the new mayorship took it back. During the time that the water was privatized, the quality of service went down while the consumers experienced massive price increases (260%) – without any form of justification (economic or technological), it was just a price rise thus, in the name of profit.

When the total privatization in Paris failed, the big guys turned their focus to Italy.

Here, again, the point of privatization was pushed. A referendum was held (a referendum is a vote by the public where they indicate their stance towards a particular policy issue – everyone has to vote and the results are binding, this is the best method currently to find out what public opinion is on a particular point) – and it turned out that 97% of the people, were against privatisation of the water.

When it was inquired whether the water was going to be privatised, the government said it couldn’t – as per the referendum.

So you’d think “Game Over” right? Nope – they simply put people in place like some executive guy or ex-banker (can’t remember the specifics, you’ll just have to watch the documentary lol), who then completes the point, against popular vote.

Where does this leave democracy? I mean, that was like a completely unconstitutional move.

Another example that is walked through, was the privatization of the Railways in England, and yes you can guess it: catastrophic. And even though the past, as the UKs history with the privatization with the Railways was disastrous, the point was still pushed within Greece.

This time, instead of putting people in place to just ‘make it happen’ – another approach was taken: media manipulation. Within the media, the public railway system was severely slandered and degraded, over and over – so that the public would agree, that maybe privatization could be an answer.

This documentary is very interesting to watch. Often, when there is talk about ‘virtual democracies’ – where ‘everything on the outside looks like it’s democratic’ but on the inside the very opposite happens – everyone’s attention goes to Third World countries elsewhere, like Africa – “out there” and criticise the people’s conduct their for their failure of democratic consolidation.

In the meanwhile, corruption and anti-democratic actions are taken the whole time, in the West, in Europe, in Greece: the very cradle of democracy.

It definitely proves one point: democracy is dead.

Private interests as the big multinational companies have taken precedence of what the majority of the people want – and it’s happening everywhere, all the time. (Little in between rant: It's funny because, in economics, the point of 'the private must be protected from the public' is emphasised ALL THE TIME, where if you allow the public to take over, they will infringe on YOUR freedoms, and you will not be able to 'realise yourself' and 'pursue your own personal good as you see fit'. I mean, that's just so much BULLSHIT -- and just plain propaganda to justify where the corporate world can take over and make insane profits at the expense of the majority, in the name of "Freedom" and "Self-Realization" -- because somehow, if that gets taken away it also imposes SERIOUS problems on your own personal freedom -- I mean, Really???)

Several economists were interviewed (some professors at universities such as London), and states that private enterprises do not necessarily do better than public ones – and that they can perform at the same level. Liberal economics would NOT agree with this, so it’s cool that this is coming to the fore.

Just in Greece with the financial crisis going on now for 2 years, the suicide rate has gone up by 20%.
The situation we’re in, worldwide – is seriously fucked up.

Though, it is not too late. The documentary also points out, that most of these problems are Political in nature, and that thus through participating within Politics, we can reverse this type of destructive policies which serve no-one but the few at the top of the private companies.

This is a crucial point, because the whole thing of ‘Let’s revolt’ and ‘Let’s demonstrate’ like the Occupy movement, are really pointless. You have to change the system, from the inside out, through popular support – not by attacking it.

Investigate Equal Money – we can change this.

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Day 83: Nationalisation and Privatisation

Nationalisation

Nationalisation refers to the transfer of ownership of an industry/sector/company to the government. It then becomes publicly owned. Most 'conservative' economists have a consus that nationalisation most of the time works as a synonym for 'economic failure'. The reasons why will become clearer as we look at the point of Privatisation.

Privatisation

Privatisation refers to the opposite of nationalisation, where the transfer of ownership moves from the publict sector to the private sector.

There are several points economists usually refer to in support of privatisation:

1. Selling off public enterprises to the private sector will give the government an influx of money which they can use towards financing their expenditure or any debts/deficits they may have. This way for instance, instead of using tax money, they could use this 'new money' to finance their expenditure and lower tax rates.

2. The second point refers to the well known 'government is inefficient' opinion, whereby economists always see the private sector as more efficient than the government. Accordingly, it is thought that the government should only involve in those industries where there's little to no profit involved and let the private sector handle the rest.

3. The third point refers to the idea that since government owned enterprises are inefficient, that they run losses and that these losses are an important source of budget deficits and other fiscal related issues.

4. As part of 'government inefficiency' state-owned enterprises are seen as bureaucratic, ineffective, not meeting consumer wishes and a burden to the taxpayer. Due to lack of competition they are also seen as lacking creativity, bad investment decisions, poor financial management, low levels of productivity and a lack of accountability to the public.

5. Since private enterprises are more profit motivated, they will attract foreign direct investment and consequently increase the country's foreign exchange reserves. Additionally, due to increased investment, privately owned enterpises will be more easily able to adapt to the ever rapid changing economic/business environment.

6. Since public enterprises are state-owned, they do not pay any tax. So another reason which gets put forward is that the government can increase its income throught selling off its enterprises as they than become part of the tax base.

7. The money the government receives can be used towards increased spending on hoising, education, health, transport and so on.

There are also some cons which are considered:

1. Enterprises which have been privatised are not necessarily going to find themselves in a more 'competitive' environment, and thus not become more 'efficient'

2. Publicly owned firms usually have to take into account possible external costs or benefits (since they are working with a bigger sphere than just 'the one company' that they own). Privately owned firms won't do this since their 'sphere' is quite limited.

3. Publicly owned firms will usually be more 'public' driven than 'profit' driven -- so they will for instance make sure that there are particular infrastructures in place in poor areas, even though these areas aren't "productive" in the sense that the people who live there have little money to offer. Privately owned firms would not make such 'bad business decisions' and will go where the money is. Since they are 'profit' driven instead of 'people' driven, they will work within those areas where there is money and where people can pay for their services. So either privately owned companies will 'move away' from those areas or 'up the prices' -- both which will affect those with little money in a negative way.

4. Trade unionists are generally against privatization. This is because within the whole 'government is inefficient', how the government employs people is also seen as inefficient. Privately owned enterprises want to 'squeeze the most' out of everyting and so they will try to have the least amount of people employed to do the same amount of work (as this results in higher profits since less wages need to be paid out). As such, when enterprises get privatised, one of the first things that happens is massive job cuts.

Privatization often forms part of one of the basic components of Structural Adjustment Programs. This will be further expanded on in blogs to come.  

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