AVAAZ: The people vs recession

I just copy and paste the E- Mail for you to read

Dear friends,  The global recession has already plunged over 100 million people back into poverty and unemployment -- but this week, we could turn the tide of economic destruction. Right now, French President Sarkozy, the new chair of the G20 group of the world's largest economies, is deciding the group's agenda. Over 300 top economists have urged the G20 to launch a coordinated global investment plan that saves millions from grinding hardship. But governments are doing the opposite - going it alone, slashing spending, and blaming each other. President Sarkozy often seizes opportunities for dramatic popular action -- a massive outcry to him this week can persuade him to lead. Former UK PM Gordon Brown has urgently appealed to Avaaz to act - click below to watch his appeal, forward this email, and sign the petition for a Jobs and Justice plan, to be personally delivered to Sarkozy when we reach 500,000 voices: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economy_gb_video_2/?vl The global recession has already put 34 million people out of work and thrown 60 million people back into poverty, but governments across the world are doing exactly the wrong thing: proposing deep cuts to public services, implementing protectionist policies and reducing global development assistance – plans that destroy still more livelihoods and threaten our social fabric. This is a familiar story: in the 1930s, amidst the Great Depression, governments sought to "reassure the markets" by slashing services and balancing budgets. But this backfired entirely: the cuts shut more and more of their citizens out of the economy, which only made the economic crisis worse. It's precisely when the markets are failing that governments must step in together to fill the gap. We have already lost a great deal of ground, but it's not too late. The discredited economists who spurred the old bubble economy are giving way to a new wave of fresh thinkers -- including, surprisingly, the powerful International Monetary Fund, which is finally questioning its past insistence that countries in crisis cut their budgets. Brown and other prominent figures are making the rounds to world leaders to encourage this global plan. But they are the first to say that they need a mass movement to make it happen. Let's raise our voices now for leadership to create jobs and protect citizens from poverty: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economy_gb_video_2/?vl Economic collapses can threaten everything we care about. When countries turn inwards, they abandon cooperation on issues like climate change, fighting global poverty and nuclear disarmament. They blame each other and groups of their own citizens -- leading to xenophobia, conflict and, as in the 1930s, the rise of awful political movements like fascism. But cooperation can build success upon success: as we recognize that our destinies are interlinked, a joint recovery can pave the way to the world we all believe in. Let's seize this moment to raise a cry for that greater vision -- of an economy that lifts us all towards a brighter future. With hope, Ben, Stephanie, Ricken, Alex, Paula, Maria Paz, Alice and the rest of the Avaaz team P.S. Winning a global economic revival will take time. But this moment, when the G20 is deciding its priorities, is a pivotal chance to make a difference. Join the call for a global jobs recovery here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economy_gb_video_2/?vl More information: The Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion - Joint ILO-IMF Conference in Cooperation with the Office of the Prime Minister of Norway: http://www.osloconference2010.org/conference Analysis: Sarkozy to press currencies role for G20: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6850VN20100906 G20 urged to implement commitment to jobs, social protection: http://finchannel.com/Main_News/Jobs/75493_G20_urged_to_implement_commitment_to_jobs,_ The wrong cure. What experts say: http://falseeconomy.org.uk/cure/what-do-the-experts-say The Economy: Why They Failed http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/09/economy-why-they-failed/?pagination=false

They send a video as well where the former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown sends an urgent message, recorded in Bhalswa slum in Delhi, India. At this moment  85.067 have signed. The goal is to get to 100.000

With over 100 million thrown back into poverty and unemployment, experts agree we urgently need a global jobs plan to stop the recession. Gordon Brown has appealed to Avaaz for a massive outcry to persuade the G20 group of nations to act -

This is the petition:

To President Nicolas Sarkozy and the leaders of G20 nations:

We call upon you to cooperate on a bold plan for global sustainable economic recovery, focusing on green job creation and investment in the future. Cooperative global leadership is necessary to prevent a downward economic spiral and lift tens of millions of people out of poverty.

Book: „The Soros Lectures at the Central European University" by George Soros

SOROS WOULD MAKE IT HARDER FOR PEOPLE LIKE HIM TO MAKE BILLIONS

By Mark Memmott

The man who famously "broke the Bank of England" in the early '90s by playing within the regulatory system of the time to make $1 billion as the pound sterling crumbled, continues to make the case for better regulations that would make it much harder for people like him to make so much money.

Billionaire George Soros has been advocating for, as he wrote recently at TheMotleyFool, regulations that are "international in scope."

In a conversation earlier today with Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep, readily admitted that "it would have denied me some opportunities for making money" if rules and regulations had been tighter over the years.
Soros has just published a new book, The Soros Lectures, which spells out his thinking on "finance, capitalism and open society." 

This video offers a taste of what those lectures were like: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1125995047?bctid=49755285001

Sources: 

1.  http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/03/soros_would_make_it_harder_for.html

2. http://www.georgesoros.com/books/detail/the_soros_lectures_at_the_central_european_university/

here you can load the second lecture as well  which is named  "Financial Markets". This book  is published in 2010.

Recession spurs ‘lipstick entrepreneurs’- Financial Times

REVIEW
Category:	Other

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

The recession is accelerating growth of a generation of “lipstick entrepreneurs” who will reshape society and change the way people work, according to a report published on Tuesday.

http://link.ft.com/r/ZE9K33/E7YIS/DX7V7/BM5BXF/1T8HV/VU/h

Very interesting article about new tendences at work's world

Foto from Domenicosavioboy a member from MPY as well.

THEORY OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC MISBEHAVIOR // Die Spiel Theorie und die wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Verhaltensauffälligkeiten

Charles II had the right idea. He trusted (and endowed) the small group of oddballs who were forming the Royal Society, and put a stop on the Exchequer. If he had rescued the bankers, and ignored William Petty's band of Natural Philosophers, where would we be now?

THEORY OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC MISBEHAVIOR    [7.27.09]
By George Dyson
An Edge Original Essay

Is the economy really as bad as it seems? Is the bad economy as real as we think? Expanding upon last year's essay Economic Dis-Equilibrium, George Dyson takes another look back at how we got into the state we're in — and how to find our way out. Essay

— JB 

GEORGE DYSON, a historian among futurists, is the author of Baidarka; Project Orion; and Darwin Among the Machines.
George Dyson's Edge Bio page
George Dyson on Edge: Turing's Cathedral; The Universal Library; Economic Dis-Equilibrium;Darwin Among The Machines; Or, The Origins Of [Artificial] Life

His explication about what happend last years is brilliant, only a few lines of it:

“The unlimited replication of information is generally a public good (however strongly music publishers, software developers, and other pockets of resistance disagree). The problem starts, as the current crisis demonstrates, when unregulated replication is applied to money itself. Highly complex computer-generated financial instruments (known as derivatives) are being produced, not from natural factors of production or other goods, but purely from other financial instruments.”

Source: 
EDGE    = http://www.edge.org/

Italien: Banken akzeptieren Parmesan als Kredit-Sicherheit // Italia: los bancos aceptan el Parmesano como garantía crediticia.

Wer in Italien weder Schmuck noch Immobilien als Sicherheit für einen Kredit zu bieten hat, kann bei ein paar Banken im Norden des Landes auch Parmesan-Käse beleihen. In der Emilia Romagna akzeptieren vier Geldinstitute den beliebten Hartkäse als Sicherheit. Allein das Bankhaus Credito Emiliano hat nach eigenen Angaben 400.000 Parmesan-Laibe ihrer Kunden eingelagert. Die jeweils 40 Kilogramm schweren Käseräder werden demnach mit je 300 Euro bewertet.

Die Bank betreibt für den Käse ein eigenes Lagerhaus, den zweijährigen Reifeprozess überwacht für das Geldhaus William Bizzarri. Zahlt ein Kunde seinen Kredit nicht zurück, werde dessen Parmesan verkauft, erzählt Bizzarri. Die Bank geht dabei kein Risiko ein: Sollten die Parmesan-Preise gefallen sein, fordert sie die Differenz vom Kreditnehmer zurück. Diese kann mit Geld beglichen werden oder mit Parmesan. Das Finanzierungssystem geht auf die 50er Jahre zurück. Es hilft den Käseherstellern, während der zweijährigen Reifezeit des Parmesan finanzielle Engpässe zu überbrücken.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Quien en Italia no tenga ni joyas ni patrimonio immobiliario para ofrecer como garantía de un crédito bancario, puede en el norte del país ofrecer queso Parmesano. En Emilia Romagna hay cuatro bancos que aceptan el apreciado queso como seguridad crediticia.

Según propias referencias solamente el Banco de Crédito Emiliano tiene 400.000 quesos parmesanos almacenados. Cada queso, que pesa unos 40 kilos, está valorado en 300 €.

El banco tiene un almacén propio, el proceso de maduración está a cargo de William Bizarri. Cuando el cliente no paga se vende su parmesano cuenta Bizarri. El banco no corre ningún riesgo ya que si el precio del Parmesano baja, el banco exige la diferencia resultante al tomador del crédito. Esta se puede abonar con dinero o con Parmesano. Este sistema financiero tiene su orígen en los años 50 y ayuda a los fabricantes del queso durante los dos años de maduración del mismo en fases de escasez financiera. 

Quelle: 
http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20090814/tts-italien-banken-akzeptieren-parmesan-c1b2fc3.html

Traducido del Alemán al Español por mi.

BRANDS TAPS INTO OLD AND NEW VALUES

REVIEW
Category:	Other

By Jenny Wiggins
Published: February 24 2009 22:42 | Last updated: February 24 2009 22:42



Women who eat McDonald’s hamburgers are groovy: they skateboard, play electric guitars and wear thick blue eyeshadow. Men who drink Chivas whisky are chivalrous: they carry women across muddy fields in the rain, and push-start broken-down cars. And teenagers who drink Coca-Cola are cheerfully content, as they chance upon their soulmates in the library.

©Lee Woods,  Ferryman on ther Mosel / Acrylic on board

Or so the consumer goods companies behind these brands would like you to think. Once preoccupied with encouraging people to show off through lavish consumption, they are now depicting people engaged in activities that reveal them to be rich in a personal life as well as in material goods.

One advertisement from the “This is the Chivas Life” campaign that began in 2003 showed men drinking whisky with their pals while fishing off an iceberg. In contrast, the television advertisement for the new Chivas campaign, “Live With Chivalry,” which started in China in October and will be run globally, opens with a picture of a sad-looking, black-suited man being jostled by crowds as he walks along a grey city street. “Millions of people, everyone out for themselves. Can this really be the only way?” the advertisement asks. “No,” viewers are told as they are shown pictures of men jumping out of aeroplanes and riding horses along beaches. “Here’s to honour, and to gallantry, long may it live. Here’s to doing the right thing, to giving a damn.”

The chivalry campaign is about “the good guys who give something back”, explains Martin Riley, chief marketing officer at Pernod Ricard, the French group that owns Chivas.

‘Putting things in perspective is one of the things our brand can do. We can’t start talking about something new right now ... people are looking for familiarity’

When the drinks group researched the chivalry idea, it hit a nerve, he adds: “People are questioning a certain level of values that have taken the world to where it is right now...the individual getting ahead at any price.”

Other companies say consumers are expressing similar sentiments.

In France, McDonald’s has begun a new marketing campaign called “Venez comme vous êtes” (“Come as you are”) amid concerns that the company’s global “I’m lovin’ it” slogan is considered arrogant.

Grégoire Champetier, who runs marketing communications for France and southern Europe, says the chain is trying to return to the image it promoted when it opened its first restaurant in France, in Strasbourg 30 years ago.

At that time, casual restaurants where people could eat with their fingers and let their kids run around were rare, and the chain had a campaign called “Ça se passe comme ça, chez McDonald’s” (“This is the way it is”).

Now the French are familiar with McDonald’s, he wants to remind them that as well as somewhere to eat cheaply it is a place to be informal with other people. “This campaign is not an answer to the [economic] crisis, but came at the right time,” Mr Champetier says.

McDonald’s is running four commercials on French television, each showing someone expressing different aspects of their personality. If successful, it will extend the campaign to other countries in Europe.

Coca-Cola is also revisiting past campaigns that accented being positive and optimistic, in an attempt to connect with consumers, some of whom it has lost in recent years as people ditched its fizzy drinks for less sugary alternatives. The soft drinks giant, which ran a campaign called “The Pause That Refreshes” during the Great Depression, and another called “Have a Coke and Have a Smile” during a period of high inflation in the late 1970s, is now going with one called “Open Happiness”.

Shay Drohan, global vice-president of Coca-Cola’s sparkling brands, argues that the company is in a good position to “comfort” people because its brand is well-established. “Putting things in perspective is one of the things our brand can do,” he says. “We can’t start talking about something new right now...people are looking for familiarity.”

Another brand capitalising on its longevity and familiarity is Guinness, the Irish stout. In Ireland, where it is celebrating its 250th anniversary, it is rerunning television advertisements from the 1950s and 1970s, including one showing a sea lion balancing a pint of Guinness on its nose. “People are searching for security and trust,” says Brian Duffy, the global brand director for Guinness. “I don’t think you can invent a warm and attractive past – you’ve got to have one.”

Younger brands are taking a more modern approach, but sticking to the same theme. Absolut Vodka, conceived as a brand in its current form in 1979, this month placed an advertisement called “Hugs” during the music industry’s Grammy Awards. The advertisement, which shows strangers hugging and kissing in offices, buses and fish shops to the sound of Louis Armstrong’s “A Kiss To Build A Dream On”, has already received more than 1.2m views on YouTube.

The campaign with the most ambitious goals is PepsiCo’s “Refresh Everything”. Its US television commercial, which displays the phrase “It’s time for optimism” on the screen before flashing words like “joy” and “love”, is about the power of being positive, says Frank Cooper, PepsiCo’s vice-president for brands. “People that embrace optimism are able to move forward.”

Mr Cooper argues that there is a new “cultural movement” afoot. “People feel empowered and feel like it’s their right to participate in and effect change.”

This was the movement that President Barack Obama tapped into in his presidential campaign, he adds. “It’s like the 1960s...we all sense that something will be fundamentally different five years from now.”





 



SOURCES:

The Financial Times Limited 2009

FOTO: "Ferryman on ther Mosel" by Lee Woods // Acrylic on board
http://www.leewoods.com/originals.html

The Crisis & What to Do About It

REVIEW
Category:	Other

Hay un interesantísimo artículo en The New York Review of Books
Volume 55, Number 19 · December 4, 2008 Link: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22113

By George Soros

"The salient feature of the current financial crisis is that it was not caused by some external shock like OPEC raising the price of oil or a particular country or financial institution defaulting. The crisis was generated by the financial system itself. This fact—that the defect was inherent in the system —contradicts the prevailing theory, which holds that financial markets tend toward equilibrium and that deviations from the equilibrium either occur in a random manner or are caused by some sudden external event to which markets have difficulty adjusting. The severity and amplitude of the crisis provides convincing evidence that there is something fundamentally wrong with this prevailing theory and with the approach to market regulation that has gone with it. To understand what has happened, and what should be done to avoid such a catastrophic crisis in the future, will require a new way of thinking about how markets work."


Foto: Tunez  ©M.B. de A.