Morpheal's Commentary - July 11th, 2009 - G8 On Climate, Exploring Space, Education and Values, Children and Learning, Banking Responsibility, Eritrea's Example, Obama And Gaddafi as Brothers
“No Fee Degree” Plan in UK Seriously Flawed: There is a serious flaw in the "no fee degree" plan. In a different society where value and dollar cost is not as conflated in terms of their influence on the average person's respect and effort, the plan could be good. As society stands it is wrong and will greatly decrease quality. A better program would be forgiveness of debt based on five years of military or civilian service to society on graduation, with the penalty of paying the whole cost on opting out or due to dismissal for cause. Too many people nowadays fail to adequately value what they do not have to pay for, in terms of something in trade, or dollars. Removing the emphasis on dollars and replacing it with trade, measured in terms of working effort, restores a more egalitarian value free of the effects of relative wealth where the same is of greatly reduced or trivial value to the wealthy while extremely costly to those who are poor. Work is a currency that is equal for everyone and thus the value of what is gained is more equal for everyone. Similarly their efforts are impacted by that system of value. People tend to put more effort into what they are made to value more highly, as to the price they pay for what they gain in it. That too becomes freed from the impact of disparity of relative levels of fiscal wealth. Banking Reform - Insufficient Progress Towards Sane and Sensible Banking: There is need for emphasis on the most fundamental criterion for sound, responsible, banking and lending. That is lack of provision in law for requirements of adequate collateral to secure borrowing. Interest rates should be set by law to reflect magnitude of loans and their risk levels, with collateral secured loans benefitting significantly. Savings would be encouraged as a means of reducing borrowing rates. Many persons do act wholly irresponsibly and banking must become more paternalistic. On the other hand that means that bankers must become more responsible and would be more liable to be penalized for giving wrong or bad advice. A much needed change in the currently steadily deteriorating system and its bankruptcy as to its social and professional ethics. Eritrea’s Contributions to Peace and Security in Africa: Eritrea emphasizes need for a legal mechanism to enable action against a political body charged with acting in contravention of principles of international law, and human rights. The evidence needs to be heard, and those politically responsible need to be removed from power and dealt with in the same manner as any war criminals, stripped of any legitimacy of rank and power. Until the world community establishes an effective mechanism for that purpose costly strife will tend to escalate. A mechanism is needed for enforcing international laws where the breaking of those laws endangers and damages other nations in terms of their reasonable security and peace. G8 Greenhouse Gases Targets - The Real Problem with Government Today: The basic realization appears to be lacking, that targets that are being set can only be achieved by a basic change of government thinking, towards centralized planning and control. Entire cities would need to be rebuilt. Traditional designs, long utilized for a multitude of purposes, would need to be abandoned, replaced by radically new designs and engineering. Urban planning would need to change. Funding for smokestack industries totally revised to enable what cost accounting forbids. Reduction of greenhouse gases 50% by 2050 requires urban renewal and renovation in countries such as the USA that would consume the nation's entire manpower long before achieving the necessary improvements. Taking the example of heating systems, which are only a small part of the problem, the largest percentage of ALL heating systems in the United States would have to be replaced, along with nearly every water heater in the entire country. A very large percentage of windows and doors similarly would have to be replaced to meet the targets. Can it be done ? It's a boom time no one can even begin to imagine. Keep in mind that the needs and situation in many other nations is worse than that in the USA, and we have not even begun to address the more complex issues of power generation, large engines, air and sea transportation, and a multitude of other lagging technologies in need of new solutions. Yes, everything can be replanned, rebuilt, redesigned, and money (those printed pieces of paper that are the most fundamental constraint as to progress) can be created for good use, but it cannot be done within the existing “free enterprise” system when that system is as chaotic on fundamental issues, as it has been and has become in recent decades. UK School Lunches And Dinners Fail to Address the Real Problems: The increasing failure of more and more parents to instill values, promote ideals, properly nourish minds and bodies, and discipline to positive routines, marks a turning point. Badly needed is a return to the boarding school concept, with 24 hour supervision, education and discipline. Not only for the privileged few, but to remedy the increasing failings of society,as to crime, addiction, violence, vagrancy, and meaninglessness. The future of society cannot tolerate the society we now suffer. Many homes do not provide an adequate and supportive learning environment. Many do not even provide for the basic needs necessary for effective learning. Barack Obama And Africa: Mohamar Gaddafi had the vision, long ago, that desired to make the deserts of Africa into fertile land. With the USA as an ally, that dream can become reality and Africa can become a source of sustenance and prosperity, rather than a burden to the world community and shamefully dependent on its charity. Barack Obama can make a difference. An effective preventative or cure for HIV can be developed. Deserts can be made into arable land. People can be educated. Populartion growth can be stopped. The United States of America has the technology, the ingenuity, and potentially the wealth, to become a partner with Africa, and it has the ability to make real reparations for the slave trade and the oppression of black people, of African descent, who have suffered for a very long time, in mental and physical slavery, as they still continue to suffer. Barack Obama can break those shackles, if he chooses to do so. Two men, from nations that once looked to each other as mortal enemies of each other, now share a similar dream. Can these two brothers, with their shared African roots, change the course of human history in a way that would be as significant as the making of first tools, in the cradle of human evolution. The Meaning of Human Life in the Infinite Universe: The meaning of life is that the universe, and its supreme being, do not care what happens to the human species. It could become extinct at any instant. The universe would record the fact, without emotion or concern. For humans it means the challenge of their own species and cultural survival. To do that they must solve the basic problem of getting off the less than a dust speck in infinity, they call "Earth". What this implies is that insufficient means are being created and applied by governments to that fundamental question, inclusive of developing practical means for interstellar propulsion. (Five dimensional cosmological physics theory provides indications that it is possible. See "Cosmology Group" U of Waterloo.) I believe that the setting of a target, of within the next decade, for the fundamental design, building and testing of a new means of propulsion, suitable for future journeys to the distant stars, is a necessity. It is as at least as significant a step as was the design, building and testing of the atomic bomb, and it needs more concerted stimulus and support than that hurried technical evolution that marked the dawning of the nuclear age, beginning in the 1940s. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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