Day 247: Only in a Broken System does Misery equal Profit

Growing up and living in a First World Country where your Basic Human Rights are actually ‘met’ (albeit through considerable compromises) – you are made sure to be reminded of the many places and many people who are not in the same fortunate position as you’re in. “Empty your plate, don’t you know there’s starving children in Africa who don’t have anything to eat?”, “You should be happy going to school, in country XYZ they don’t get even get to go to school because there aren’t any”, “Stop whining, in country SomethingSomething you’d be living on the street by now”.

The message that gets ingrained is “Don’t complain, you should be happy – out there it is HELL”. So not only is one molded into an obedient citizen, made sure to ‘not bite the hand that feeds it’, we also get imprinted with immense guilt for having the niceties we have – knowing fully that if we had been born somewhere else, things would look a whole lot different.

So, what do we law-abiding-guilt-bearing-citizens do? Once in a while, as we get some ‘time-off’ from being a wage-slave – we want to go and do some ‘good’ in the world. We sign up to take care of the poor people, the less fortunate, the parentless, the hopeless, the marginalized and abused ones ‘out there’. We grab together our hard-worked savings and pay some travelling company to go work somewhere for free.

We are getting our holiday, we’re helping those poor people – it’s a Win-Win situation, right?
Is this ‘voluntourism’ phenomenon an expression of our altruism and good hearts? Or is it just another way devised by a crooked system to make money out of whatever will tickle our fancy?

In fact, 'voluntourism', as it's been dubbed, is the fastest growing travel sector, worth an estimated £1.3 billion globally.

Let us have a look at how the market responds to our demand for Guilt-Relief and Exotic Holidays:

'I thought, even if I can make a jot of difference, it's got to be worth it. So I started looking on the internet. Eventually, I came across an orphanage called the Dream House on the borders of Thailand and Burma, which rescued children at risk of being trafficked. There were videos on the website and it all looked amazing.'

A Thai charity, Starfish, was offering two-week voluntary placements at the orphanage for £400, with basic accommodation included.
Caroline paid in advance, and in January this year she travelled to Thailand. On arrival, she met other volunteers, many of them teenagers on their gap years, all signed up to help at the orphanage.
But within days of starting the placement, Caroline sensed that something was seriously wrong. 'I was pretty shocked at the conditions,' she says. 'The children slept on the floor - although there wasn't even a floor, just carpet underlay - with no beds or blankets. The youngest was only two years old.
'At dinner, they had one chicken between 29 children and a few vegetables. All the volunteers were coming in and giving £200 a week. So where was all the money going?'

Ah… the ways of Supply and Demand: you wish to relieve your guilt – and so we shall provide you with the opportunity to do so. The ways of the free market are cold; the market does not look at your intentions, the market does not care about the repercussions of serving demands – all it does is reek money and provide the quickest and best way to cash it in.

We end up with fake orphanage centers with children trained to act according to our idea of what ‘poor orphans on the other side of the world’ act like – because that is the experience we desire, and our money bring to life such an attraction.

The shocking revelation has been that volunteers, who have intentions to give some love back to children in real need, are tragically and inadvertently having the opposite effect.'

Not only are we maintaining the atrocities we would like to see eradicated within the world, we are in effect enhancing them and not in any way whatsoever addressing the very system, the very design which is responsible for them in the first place. After all, what this ‘voluntourism’ point illustrates, is that we cannot address the symptoms of a broken system through utilizing the same broken system as medium towards a solution.

'One volunteer I heard of turned up to teach at a school, and wondered why he didn't get a very warm reaction. Towards the end of his time there he discovered the local teacher had been fired because a Westerner was coming in to teach for free.'

In a world driven and moved by profit only, we cannot expect to alleviate poverty or alleviate the hardship of people through a profit-driven medium, as it is the very profit starting point, the worshipping of profit/money over Life/People – that lies at the heart of the problem, that pumps and thrusts its poison all throughout the body, leaving no area untouched.

While we see the hardship of remote places on our television screen, we want to travel to those distant places in the belief that the problem and solution lie in the same place. There is actually little that can be done by travelling to the other side of the world for a few weeks / a year and trying to alleviate the symptoms of a much darker dis-ease. It’s not by coincidence or genuine will to ‘work hard’ that we’ve created a Safe First World Bubble for ourselves. We need only to flip through history to see that we’ve acquired our wealth and security through the exploitation of others. In the past in direct forms, through conquest, through colonization – and today indirectly through economic ties whose nature and flow had already been determined, shaped and solidified within the previous Era of exploitation, now merely extending the same relationship in a different form – but really, nothing has changed.

Unless we change the values and principles of the system at home that we live by, we are not going to be able to bring about change ‘out there’. We are the power-center that maintains the problem, if we want to bring about change – we are right where we need to be.

The first step towards a global effect is to put into place the values and principles we want to live by and that we want to see others live by. A good place to start, would be the enforcement and safeguarding of Human Rights which can practically be employed through the implementation of a Living Income Guaranteed. Since the Right to Life has been historically linked to the ownership of money, making sure that everyone has enough money/funds available to live a dignified life is an absolute must.

To find out more about the Living Income Guaranteed, please visit:
http://livingincome.me and http://livingincomguaranteed.wordpress.com

All quotes from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2418074/Fake-orphanages-Bogus-animal-sanctuaries-And-crooks-growing-rich-Western-gullibility--gooding-gap-year-holidays-horrifyingly-callous-con.html

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Day 209: Health Care or Disease Care?

Please watch the following documentary for additional information:
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare

In the US 75% of healthcare costs go towards patients suffering from preventable diseases. Instead of focussing on prevention within educating people on lifestyle and what consequences come along with what lifestyle – the healthcare system only bothers with dealing with the aftermath.

A person suffering from diabetes, who as a result has heart problems – will be filled with stents each time there’s a heart problem. Only symptoms are alleviated and the problem remains. This method of treatment is of course very good for the pockets of the medical industry. The patient is not getting better, he’s also not really dying and he keeps on coming back. The very point that the cause and origin of so many people’s preventable chronic disease is not even discussed is questionable to say the least. This clearly shows a lack of integrity and care as it becomes obvious that an actual solution is not was is being sought after – but merely the management of the disease.

In Equal Money Capitalism, we reverse everything. Instead of tending to Consequence we focus on Prevention. Education will have a primary role within Health Care, within making people aware of how they can best support themselves and their bodies so each one can live at optimum capacity. People who pursue a career in medicine will be those who truly have a passion for the practice and really want to take care of people (read Day 188: Simple Solutions in Equal Money Capitalism on how this is made possible).

Changing our approach to health care will not only save us tremendous costs in monetary terms – but will also save on a lot of harm as the result of overtreatment and limited symptomatic relief. Consider also that a lot of patients only go to the doctor and are on prescribed drugs because they are overworked and cannot cope with the pressure of the demanding system that we have today. In such cases – medicine is not the solution, but a change in lifestyle – which is exactly what Equal Money Capitalism is all about.

Related articles

• Day 202: Nightmare Bacteria on the Rise
• Day 335: Democracy and Capitalism are the Redistribution of Wealth - (Part One)
• Day 206: Will Equal Money Bring about a Utopia?
• Day 285: Alcohol, Drugs and Demon Possession (Part Two)
• Day 196: Market Mechanisms and Equal Money
• Day 204: Bring your Own Cup and Help Save the Planet!

Day 204: Food Monopoly and Equal Money Capitalism

For full article, please read:
GMOs, again…
http://www.b-fair.net/?p=5605

1. No health safety testing

Genetically engineered (GE) foods have never been safety tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), thanks to a 20-year-old policy that says it’s up to the biotech companies to determine the safety of genetically engineered (GE) foods. So while all other developed countries require safety testing for GE plants, the government agency in charge of protecting U.S. citizens lets biotech companies, who stand to make billions in profits from GE foods, conduct their own “voluntary safety consultations.”

2. No labeling

If the FDA isn’t going to test GE foods for safety, the least it could do is require labeling, so people can choose to avoid GMOs if they want. But so far, the FDA has rejected labeling under the controversial argument that GE foods are “substantially equivalent” to their non-genetically engineered counterparts.

 The U.S. and Canada stand alone as the only two industrialized countries yet to provide citizens the fundamental, democratic right to know what’s in the food they eat and feed their children.

The FDA’s refusal to support this basic right stands in direct defiance of the overwhelming will of the American people. The FDA has received over a million petitions from concerned citizens demanding that GMOs be labeled – the most received on any issue in the Agency’s history. The most recent poll shows that the overwhelming majority – 82 percent – of Americans want mandatory labeling laws. But our calls for transparency continue to fall on deaf ears.

Failure to label GMOs forces consumers to serve as test subjects for a massive GMO experiment, and makes it nearly impossible to trace health issues back to their source. It also prevents small farmers, the organics industry, and truly natural food producers from competing on an equal playing field.

5. Privatizing seeds

The FDA’s love affair with Monsanto has led to the privatization, and patenting, of the very source of life: seeds. Monsanto is allowed to sell its patented genetically engineered (GE) “Roundup Ready” soybean seeds, and other patented seeds, to farmers under a contract that prohibits the farmers from saving the next-generation seeds and replanting them. Farmers who buy Monsanto’s GE seeds are required to buy new seeds every year. Monsanto then sells the same farmers its proprietary pesticides, like Roundup, that can be sprayed in huge amounts on Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready crops, killing everything except the GE plants.

It’s a win-win for Monsanto. But everybody else loses.

In an Equal Money System, Food will be a Basic Human Right. Food will no longer be detrimentally linked to money, where money decides the availability and quality of food and transparency of information. Food will no longer be tool for Profit but a Source of Life.

Within being put central to Life -- the development and growth of food will be in a such a way to support one's Human Body and support the Equilibrium of Life on Earth.

Different ways will have to be considered in terms of what additional tools can be used as to minimize harmful effects of agriculture on the land, air and ocean -- a holistic view will have to be applied.

Foodstuffs such as seeds, will not be able to be owned by anyone other than the Earth. It comes from the Earth – it makes no sense to claim it as one’s own and to create a monopoly around it. As such, seeds will simply be available.

Food labeling will be transparent and clear - so everyone will know exactly what it is they are getting and what went into the production of the specific food.

Food security will be guaranteed. Food will fulfil its role as Life Support and will be able to be enjoyed to its fullest potential. Starvation and Famine will be eradicated and all people will have access to their specific nutritional requirements to live their life to its utmost potential.

 

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• Day 293: Predictable Futures and Markets Forced
• Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 181: Applied Equality in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 203: The Mockery of Democracy Continues - Dead People Voting in Zimbabwe
• Day 289: Alcohol is the Corporate Psychologist
• Day 195: Moneyless Societies and Equal Money Capitalism

Day 202: Nightmare Bacteria on the Rise

For further context read and full article read:
CDC: 'Nightmare bacteria' spreading
Why 'nightmare bacteria' on the rise

Hospitals need to take action against the spread of a deadly, antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria kill up to half of patients who are infected.

The bacteria, called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or CRE, have increased over the past decade and grown resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics, according to the CDC. In the first half of 2012, 200 health care facilities treated patients infected with CRE.

"CRE are nightmare bacteria," CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement. "Our strongest antibiotics don't work and patients are left with potentially untreatable infections. Doctors, hospital leaders and public health must work together now to implement CDC's 'detect and protect' strategy and stop these infections from spreading."

Why are we using antibiotics so widely when the consequences are problematic?
One of the ways we consume antibiotics is through the meat we eat. Currently, the meat industry consumes 4/5th of the supply of antibiotics.Cattle and other livestock are being fed diets which counter their very design. Because it is more expensive to feed them a proper diet in order to 'meaten them up' -- cheaper and more harmful diets are fed to the animals. Obviously, since they are not designed to eat this food, like corn,  -- where the designs of these two points are not compatible -- harmful consequences emerge. One of the ways to get around the health problems that pop up their head when cattle are fed corn, is to give them antibiotics to ease their tummies. And then, if that's not bad enough -- we'll give them some more antibiotics for the sake of 'growth promotion'. Since you are what you eat -- the meat that is derived from the animals is tainted with antibiotics -- which we eat, and then become.

It's funny though how 'anti-biotics' in terms of its Latin roots literally means 'anti life'. It's also kind of how we humans act. We don't care about the life of the animals and we don't care about the lives of our fellow human beings -- all we care about is money. We want lots of it and we want it now. So we'll use antibiotics and threaten the future of humanity and the animal kingdom, but at least we'll get a good buck out of it.

I mean, hospitals are supposed to be places where you can go to 'get better'. Hospitals have become places where you now risk your life either by going into massive debt for treatments or where you get caught in death traps as all the nightmare bacteria and super bugs are coming to bite us in the ass.

And who is really the 'nightmare' in all of this? From the human's perspective its the bugs and viruses -- they are out to kill us: they have to go. Though from Mother Nature's perspective -- we're the ones destroying the environment and all Life on this planet, and we're the bad guys that have to go -- and it looks like she's currently one step ahead of us. No matter how hard we try to come up with something better to beat the bugs, they come beating us right back. And they don't have the technology and intelligence that we praise ourselves for so much. I mean, it's just a bug -- you can't even see it with your bare eyes -- what POSSIBLE significance could it have? Yet here are the bugs and they are winning this race.

In an Equal Money System, money and profit will no longer be the driving force of the Health Care System. Health, Life will drive the Health Care System. We won't just disregard treatments which are actually effective and prevent harm from being done just because it's not profitable -- that's losing the whole point of what Health Care is supposed to be about! We will respect nature, we will respect life and restore balance on Earth.

Not only will this vastly improve the quality of our lives and make health care accessible to everyone -- we will also no longer be a threat to our environment within acting within the principle of Prevention is the Best Cure.

Related articles

• Day 200: Collapse of Global Civilization Inevitable?
• Day 298: The Power of Intent
• CDC: 'Nightmare bacteria' spreading
• 'Nightmare Bacteria' Dealing Death in Hospitals, CDC Warns
• CDC Warns Of Spread Of Deadly Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Day 191: Entertainment and Equal Money Capitalism

This blog post is in relation to a comment placed on one of our previous blog-posts.

“I think I read somewhere that entertainment is not a business in EMC, so it's not handled by corporations? I suppose all people who currently work (and are possibly educated in) in entertainment need to re-educate themselves then. Entertainment as a product or service that needs material resources of any kind is such a boring subject and so far from the priority of providing necessities and basic human rights (with a new definition) for all, that I wouldn't even include it in EMC - not in the system itself. If people want to have fun, they can play with sticks and stones. As long as they won't begin to whack each other with them. There was no need for entertainment
industry in Eden. on Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism”

There will still be space for Entertainment within Equal Money Capitalism. In terms of Entertainment not being a ‘corporate’ point anymore – this is laid out within Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism. Entertainment will form part of the greater field of expression and whoever has a passion in writing, filming, acting, music, dancing, performance, etc. – will still be able to do so within the framework of a Cultural Centre which will provide the resources and support to make such things happen.

A lot of people are into entertainment and music at this stage because they all try and become famous and all try to become rich. That’s the real reason they’re all trying it – they hope to hit it big, which is just like gambling. So, at the moment we can’t even really speak about an ‘entertainment industry’ it’s actually just a casino. Everyone is trying to get rich, hoping for the big one. That’s not authentic. That’s why we don’t really have any Music or Movies developing in the world now that is actual Self-Expression

So within Equal Money Capitalism, the whole face of entertainment within this will obviously change once the profit-motive has been removed – and real Self-Expression will finally be able to emerge and be explored.

Related articles

• Day 167: Harmony and Equilibrium within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit
• Day 259: Give Happiness, Get Happiness
• Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 188: Simple Solutions in Equal Money Capitalism
• The Future of Integrity with Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 190: Fairness in the Work Place and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 169: Equal Living within Equal Money Capitalism

Day 189: Will your Level of Education Determine your Income in EMC?

This blog post is in relation to a comment placed on one of our previous blog-posts - you can check out the full comment at http://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/02/day-188-simple-solutions-in-equal-money.html

~ Since I am the one who made the comment, I will rebuttal your response also.
First you are comparing green apples to red and saying they are worth the same at the register, which I tend to agree with. But, my comment was based more on someone that had 4 yrs of college or previous experience to someone who dropped out of high school.

We can not dismiss the expense of a higher education, or the value of years of previous experience, by paying say a gas station attendant of fast food server the same as the doctor or technician you spoke of. Indeed a doctor or technician, and even a plumber, electrician, or carpenter are needed just as much in today’s society.

Understand that within Equal Money Capitalism – education will no longer be a point of ‘investment’ from which you are expecting ‘returns’. This is one’s approach currently as the result of our environment which promotes competition and profit for the sake of self-interest where it’s ‘each one on his own’ – and is in essence an approach based within survivalism. There’s not enough jobs for everyone to go around with, and so people chose an education and career according to the prospect of money linked to that education/career. This is not a real decision/choice made within the consideration of one’s passions and interest – but based on a fear of not making it within this world and ending up with nothing. People who’ve currently  gone through a process of education and spent a lot of money and work getting there experience a sense of entitlement towards ‘getting a good pay’ – but only because they have experienced the process they went through as being an unpleasant one. If it wasn’t for the reward as ‘a good pay’ – these people wouldn’t have made the same education and career choices. Studying and working for an extended period of time to do a job you love and care about will be the reward itself. Within that, you are not going to be comparing yourself with what other people are doing and what process they went through – because what you are doing and the decisions you have made are merely the common sense outflows/results of your passion and what it is you like to do within Life. So, you’re not going to receive extra compensation for your perceived suffering, because you will not be going through a process of suffering. One’s approach towards education and careers will thus change completely.

In terms of financial investment, education is a basic human right, and thus will be provided by the government through tax-monies. In other words – you won’t have to pay for it specifically, because it is part of the ‘package’ you receive as part of your basic rights within developing yourself to your utmost potential. So – here, again, you will not be spending more money on an education for a doctor or any other type of education – so, here, again – there will not be a sense of ‘deserving’ a higher pay because one spent more money on study fees or study loans.

But there again we can very well pay someone who just started in the trade and has little knowledge or skills, the same as someone who as invested several years into learning and refining their trade. There are different values to ones experience within their chosen specialty, A company cannot afford to pay the unskilled as much because they aren’t capable of doing the job themselves.

Within Equal Money Capitalism the only value worth valuing is Life. It’s not about who can do what job or who went through what process of Education – it’s merely a point of you are here, you are alive and thus you will be supported to remain Life. The idea that a company cannot afford to pay the unskilled is merely the outflow of having polarized wages. Where those who are considered having a ‘special position’ receive way larger sums of income than those who are considered to be within an ‘average’ work position. Once this polarization is out of the way – there will be enough money to go around to reach everyone. Realise also that within the context of an Equal Money Capitalistic System – there will be no such thing as ‘an unskilled worker’.  Once one has completed one’s primary education,  a person will be multi-skilled and capable of a multitude of tasks due to the broad spectrum of education that will be in place.

If you start demanding that all employees and people are paid the same, then what happens is the less experienced workers begin to loose there jobs and their job opportunities as employers begin to limit their hiring to only skilled and experienced candidates. This creating a less people with experience because they can’t get any, and higher demands on the fortunate few who are working. Not to mention higher costs and shorter supplies of said products.

This will not be the case because in terms of equalizing wages – you will still end up with the same amount of costs in terms of paying out wages (if not less) – and as such there should be no reason why one would hire someone whose “overqualified” so to speak to do a job that someone who is less skilled can do at the same level of effectiveness. In addition, the labour market will not operate according to supply and demand. Providing employment forms part of a company’s social corporate responsibility. And decision-making such as you’ve outlined above would be considered unethical. Whenever a person no longer requires to perform a particular job within a company, the company is responsible to provide it with a different task. For companies to just take away a person’s income, which is a person’s lifeline is unacceptable. With such principles in place, it will be in the company’s best interest to ensure that each worker is trained to the best of their ability and to make appropriate matches between a person’s skill-set and their role in the company.