What the true wealth is? The monetary illusion

Most people think that money is the true wealth. The reason is very simple: because so far you can buy the majority of goods with money.
Too few things you can not acquire with money: the live, health neither true love. The problem is that those are the most important values of the life. You can not avoid the death. The billionaires die the same than the poor’s. There are illnesses that can not be treated with success. The true love is the other vital situation that the money can not buy.
Until now, in the developed nations, you can buy water, food, energy and other material elements if you have money. In the underdeveloped countries is different. There are regions where you can have money but that is not enough for getting the basic goods for live.
The first warning about the natural resources vulnerability was given by the Arab nations in the year 1974, when they decided to impose a petroleum seizure against the United States and Europe, because of the support of those countries to Israel during the Six Days War.
With the exception of that period of time, the developed nations, United States, Japan and the Western nations of Europe has enjoyed of the most natural resources in abundance. Some underdeveloped nations has not had the same luck. The African continent, some regions of Asia, Latin America and Oceania has been affected by the lack of resources, and this provoked the hunger of millions of people in those areas.

An important change in the economics concepts

The traditional economy has assured that oxygen and water are abundant goods; for that reason the first has not had a specific price and the price of the second has been reduced. But that trend started to change and already the oxygen is being appreciated in other dimension and the water price has reached an important increase in many countries.
In the 21st century the perception of the natural resources abundance is changing. Today are scarce the abundant goods of the recent past. Scarce goods are now oxygen, water, food and petroleum; all they are forms of energy. Without those goods the live is not possible. We can say that the modern evolution has affected the quantity and the quality of the energy sources.
The pattern of production and consumption followed until now and the pollution has become abundant resources in scarce resources. Vital goods are running out and this represents a deep change in the economic paradigm.

Wealth and happiness

There is a difference between wealth and happiness. Wealth is material abundance. In change, happiness is knowledge, health, love, employment and material satisfaction. You can be rich but unhappy.
A people or a country may be rich because possesses a great amount of material resources, but unhappy and underdeveloped, because do not have the most important things of the life: knowledge, health nor true love. The development is a combination of these values.
The knowledge is not only privilege of the scientists, the techniques nor the humanists. The modest people have a great knowledge. The farmers, the fishermen, the highlanders have a deep knowledge; they are in touch with nature and that contact give to them a special sensibility and vision of the life. It is the wisdom of the simple things. They know when the time of to sow, to sever and to harvest is. They know the essence of the trees, the behavior of the tides, the weather changes.

The first causes

The most advanced stage of the knowledge is tied to the comprehension of the first causes. Man only discovers the reality of nature. For example, the atomic energy has existed ever; but man discovered and employed it in the 20th century; not before. It is sure that other knowledge’s exists in nature that man still has not discovered but it is very likely that realize it in the future. The comprehension of a part of the true reality of the space and the time, the domain of the illnesses, for example, might be possible in the coming years.

The energy sources use

The Industrial Revolution may be considered as the Revolution of the Energy. Since the beginning of the civilization until the First Industrial Revolution (1769) ---when James Watt created the machine of vapor--- the world used the wood as the principal source of energy. But with the creation of the machine of vapor ---fed by coal--- the situation changed and a new scale of production was developed; this helped to the transformation of the handcraft scale into industrial production, one of the most important advances of the humankind.
The discovery of petroleum in the year 1869 and their later use as new source of energy for the most activities generated a modern scientist and technological development.
Man has overexploited the sources of energy; first he razed the forests for obtaining wood; the whales for getting oil; after it overexploited the coal and the petroleum and in the last decades of the 20th and 21st centuries began again to raze de forests that still survive in the planet.
But the most danger for humanity is the growing employment of atomic energy. In the last decades some nations has appealed to this form of energy because of the restrictions in the availability of other sources as the petroleum and the hydroelectricity. The construction of new atomics plants represents a peril for mankind. The effects of Chernobyl are still present and it constitutes a clear example of the things that human beings must avoid.
Still the science has not been able of creating a massive substitute for the fossil energy; this is one of the major challenges in the world future.
The issue is that none other element has the energetic intensity of the petroleum; for example, the energetic power of a liter of gasoline can not be compared with none other source.
The coal is the other form used in many countries. China has important reserves. The great problem is that coal is the most contaminant element.
Meanwhile, the climatic change, the global warming, is everyday more intense. The glaciers lose the snow worldwide, the oceans level grow and the forests disappear in many regions, specially in the Amazonia, the last natural reserve that still survive in the planet.
That is the reality, a fact linked to a basic conception: that the true wealth is money and other things do not matter. For that reason the countries has not made a real effort for preserving the environment.
The production is oriented to producing money and not to the satisfaction of the human beings necessities. The financial economy is in the first place and the real economy after.
In the year 2008 the bailout was for the financial economy and only a little part for the industry and the citizens that would loose its homes.
If the world does not change this manner of to see the life, the collapse will be unavoidable. In too few time the financial system will fall again; that is a cyclical process derivate of the system nature. The system receives money and spend money for to increase everyday the richness of their owners; very simple.

Monetary illusion

The monetary economy born as consequence of a necessity; the bartering was not able of responding to the increase of the volume of commercial transactions. For that reason, essentially, appeared the monetary economy.
In the money man found a manner of representing the value of the things, in the same form that in the writing he found a way for expressing its thoughts.
But money created a distortion: man think that the accumulation of money constitutes the real wealth of people and nations; and that is a mistake, a great lie.
In the current reality money is only paper and coins without a true value. In the past, when money was developed of gold and silver, the situation was different because the money had a proper value: the value of the gold and silver.
But now money is a simple instrument that let to change that paper or coin by goods or, sometimes, by other currencies more accepted in the market.
The unique base or support of money is the credibility that people have in the money as instrument of change.
So far, the currency for international commerce has been the dollar of the United Sates of America. The majority of the international transactions are realized in this currency. With the born of the Euro a part of those transactions began to be made in the new currency.
Some countries have begun to criticize the use of dollar as instrument of international exchange. In that sense, the news agencies has informed that Iran, Russia and China has considered the use of their national currencies for the petroleum transactions.
This reveals that nothing is definitive. The change is permanent. What will happen in the future? What do you think?

The new economic paradigm

The traditional economy has been supported in the idea of the abundance of natural resources and the scarcity of the resources of capital. But now, in the 21st century the situation is different. Now the scarce factor of production is the natural resources. The signs of water and petroleum shortage already are evident. The impact of these facts on the global production, consumption and the inflation will be more intense.
The value of money will be each day minor as consequence of inflation and the reduction of the natural resources availability. This process will put in evidence that money is really an illusion and that the most important is the knowledge, the environment, the natural resources and the material production.
God bless the world.

The ecological employments, an useful proposal for the Copenhagen’s Summit

The mankind has not options. If this generation does not adopt the measures for preserving the environment in too few years the majority of the world will be a desert. The climate change, the garbage, the destruction of the water sources, the industrial pollution, is a true threat for the present and the future.
In Copenhagen still there is a hope. The development of a Global Program of Ecological Employments, through the reforestation, is an effective road for diminishing the global warming, protecting the nature and to attack the poverty.
Sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank, and with the cooperation of the governments worldwide, this program might be a hope for millions of people in the entire planet. The decision is in the hands of the leaders that in this moment are in Copenhagen. God bless the world.

The natural resources future

In the developed world, North America, Western Europe and Japan, for the majority of the people are not yet perceivable, at first, the signs of a natural resources crisis, but it is a latent process, a developing process that very soon will be felt globally.

An inhabitant of New York, Washington, London or Paris, possibly does not know what not having water for one or two days per week or for a long period of time is. Probably he doesn’t know what electricity restrictions are like; but in other regions of the world these types of limitations are something common or frequent.
Nevertheless, the situation in the developed countries has begun to change and already it exist regions and states in the United States where has been declared the water emergency supply and where also there are problems with the electricity supply.

You, the reader of this essay, perhaps have a doubt and ask yourself if really there is a worldwide crisis of natural resources.

The answer is yes.

Which resources?

There is a crisis of oil, water, food and electricity.

How may be it demonstrated?

The best prove of the natural resources crisis is the price increase of these commodities.

The price of a good reflects its abundance or its scarcity.
In the years 2007 and 2008, the evidence of the natural resources crisis was clearer than in other years:

- The oil price surpassed US$ 90 in October 2007 and two month later, on February Tuesday 19 2008, the West Intermediate Texas reached US $ 100.10 in the New York market; on March Monday 3 the price touched US$ 103.95, passing the barrier of April 1980, that adjusted by inflation was for March 2008 US$ 103.76. The race of prices continued on March 2008 and on Monday 13 the West Texas Intermediate went to US$ 107.
On Friday May 16 2008, the Light Sweet Crude for June delivery reached US $ 126.20 in the New York Market Exchange. In July 2008 reached their maximum level, over $140. As a consequence of the financial crisis and the recession the oil price dropped during the first months of the year 2009 but already has begun to increase over $70 in the last months of the year 2009.

- The wheat price and the price of other cereals reached a record;
- The food price in general grew in an important percentage;
- “Over the past five years, municipal water rates have increased an average of 27% in the United States, 32% in the United Kingdom, 45% in Australia, 50% in South Africa and 58% in Canada.” - (1)
The electricity price registered the same trend; between the year 1990 and the year 2000 the electricity rates in the United States increased in an average of 5.23%but between the year 2000 and 2005 the enhance average was 26.25%, five hundred per cent more. (2)

Until now, first decade of the 21st century, the crisis due to water shortage has been limited to specific regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia and has not had a sufficiently important impact to have the attention of the big world-wide mass media nor of the governments of the developed countries. The same has happened with the oil crises, which only have generated increases in the prices of crude and its derivates but without affecting the availability or the supply of these products, except in the 1973 crisis, when the Arab countries decided to suspend their exports towards the United States and other nations of the West.

We can say then, that in spite of the oil crises which have lifted the prices, the inhabitants of the developed nations have always had abundance of derivatives of petroleum, gasoline, diesel, oil, lubricants and other products and this fact has contributed to create the illusion of the existence of infinite reserves, but this is not true.

But the situation of apparent abundance will change very soon as a result of two facts: the over-exploitation of the natural resources and the contamination. Water will be the most appreciated good and in second place will be petroleum, since these two resources are every day scarcer, as it can be verified when considering the evolution of the contamination processes, deforestation and blighting at world-wide level and analyzing the behavior of the oil reserves. The pollution increased by the emissions of carbon dioxide and other elements that contribute to the global warming, the extinction of numerous species, the contamination of waters of the seas, rivers and lagoons and the nuclear tests, among other elements, constitute a serious threat to life.

The aggression to the environment will have an immediate effect and it will be reflected in the reduction of natural resources availability and also in the diminishment of the food supply. At the same time it will also cause an increase of the conflicts among the countries and within the nations.

The intense fight for the natural resources hence will be the main characteristic of the international policy in the next years to come and this will not only generate important geo strategic and geopolitical changes, but also it will be a determinant factor for the War or the Peace in the 21st Century.

Other important nations, like China and India, the most populated countries in the world, have in front of them the perspective of a great burden due to the water crisis, while the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Norway, among others countries, will see their petroleum reserves reduced drastically.

That, in general, is the international situation in the first decade of the 21st century. The territorial problems related to the problems of shortage of natural resources, constitute the main cause of the conflicts.

(1)Earth Policy Institute, March 7, 2007. “Water Prices Rising Worldwide,” by Edwin H. Clark II http://www.earth-policy.org/updates/2007/updated 64.htm
(2)Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Review 2006 table 8.10 page 257.

The natural resources will be the cause of the peace or the war in the 21st century

The most important politics and economic issue of the 21st century is the problem of the natural resources availability. This will be the cause of the peace or the war, the cause of the economic progress or of the recession in the coming years.

In the last years the world has seen diverse politics and economics problems in the first place of the scenario but in the heart of those problems the natural resources were the main cause.

The weakness of the dollar front the Euro and other currencies, the real state crisis in the United States, the financial fallout and the recession in the United States, the confrontation between Iran and the western countries, the agreement between North Korea and its neighbours on the nuclear program, the civil war in Iraq, the confrontation between the United States and Russia by the missiles base in Yugoslavia, the climatic change and the global warming, they are different situations but with a common origin: the natural resources crisis.

The weakness of the dollar front the Euro and other currencies born in the balance of payment deficit of the United States as consequence, among other causes, of the growing imports of oil. The recession in the US was a consequence too of two important facts: a) the banker’s avarice and b) the oil price rise in the year 2008, vital commodity that impacts the rest of the prices in the productive chain.

The confrontation between the Western countries and Iran is also an energetic confrontation because Iran is the owner of one of the most important petroleum reserves and everyday move away from the western countries. This fact put in danger the oil supply to the rest of the world. On October 17 2007, the President of The United States, George Bush, declared that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon the humanity will face the Third World War.

The North Korea nuclear threat had as main cause the lack of petroleum and food in that country and the cessation of hostilities between the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and North Korea, were supported in an agreement signed on February 2007 for given petroleum and food to this last country.

The civil war in Iraq was a consequence too of a problem of natural resources. The United States invaded Iraq for to assure the petroleum reserves of this country. That is the true.

The confrontation between Russia and the United States by the missiles base in Yugoslavia had as principal cause the struggle by the influence in the Middle East, and since the practice point of view this mean the influence over the oil sources of the region. Russia is diminishing in an accelerated form their petroleum.

The other international key issues, the climatic change and the global warming, is too a problem of natural resources, because of the effects of these phenomenon on the global environment and the global production of goods and services.

The essence of Capitalism might change, political economy theory

The financial system is the core of the Capitalism. Money is the God of the system.

The wealth is the money and not the material resources that stay in second place. This is the cause of the crisis and also the cause of the solution of the crisis.

The Capitalism fixes all its problems through a formula: the creation of money. With money you can buy anything. Everybody accepts money. But ---the evolution of the facts during the last years--- are demonstrating that perhaps those concepts ---that are the essence of Capitalism--- might change at mid term because of a new reality: the natural resources crisis.

Water, food and petroleum have begun to be scarce goods and during the year 2008 signs that confirmed those trends emerged.

By the year 2008 the price of those vital goods reached unbelievable averages and this contributed to accelerate the global recession. There is, then, a direct relation between the commodities price increase and the recession as was demonstrated during 2008.

The availability or the scarcity of natural resources will have an expression in their prices. Nevertheless, a moment might arrive when the money would not be enough for buying the scarce goods. In history there have been moments like these before. For example, during the Second World War, for people in Europe a small amount of salt, a potato, or a piece of bread had no price. Money had no value. True wealth was the food and the peasant was the richest. I know it because I had the testimony of European persons that lived that reality.

Will these situations repeat again?

If the financial system continues their failure and the economies continue their disdain for the real economy, the radicalization of the economic crisis might be a reality in the future, changing the essence of the capitalism.

The capitalism will survive, because its leaders resort to socialism measures when the system is in peril. The best examples are the policies applied by the governments of the United States and Western Europe to attack the financial crisis of the years 2008 and 2009.

But, it is possible that in the future the consequences for the capitalist regime would be different: the participation of the State in the rescued companies perhaps will remain ---creating a new form of Capitalism of State--- and a more effective system of the benefit distributions.

The crisis of 2008-2009 has demonstrated a new reality: that at long term, the private sector can not survive alone without the help of the State.
Other important lesson is that the State has the duty of exert a severe control over the private sector, especially over the financial system.

In the future a free capitalism without the participation and control of the State will not be possible. This fact will represent a total change of the political and economic concepts that have survived until now.

So far, the lovers of the free market can not explain and justify their thesis.
The reality ---the economic failures of the 20 century and the 21st century--- has proven that the free market has an insurmountable difficulty: the human being avidity for wealth; and that the participation and control of the State is necessary for guarantee the economic development of the society.

In practice, the financial system of the main developed countries is in the hands of the States that have given the necessary money for their survival. This reveals once more the failure of the free market policy.

Many leaders do not want recognize that failure and insist in maintaining the free market policy. But the reality is above all wishes and the truth is evident: the free market concepts can not be sustained without the support and the help of the States.

The free market is utopian. Even Adam Smith recognized that from a meeting of merchandisers can not result anything different than a conspiracy to enhance the prices.

The avarice does not have limits. The avarice is in contradiction with the global wellbeing of the society. For this reason the capitalism system must be reformed and must establish limits to the unlimited accumulation of wealth of some few groups in detrimental of the majority.

The leaders of the twenty most developed countries have recognized this reality and in the Summit of April 2, 2009 they expressed the necessity of adopting measures to exert a most severe control over the financial system in their countries, among other actions.

Why the Communism did not survive, political economy theory

Capitalism survived because it was able of adopting radical measures taken from its ideological antagonism: Socialism; a contradiction itself.

It can not be denied that the New Deal of President Franklyn D. Roosevelt during the thirties and forties years of the twentieth century was a combination of liberal and socialism measures that promoted the intervention of the state in the most important social and economic activities of North America. This intervention of the state made possible for Capitalism to survive in this country. If you analyze each one of the policies of the New Deal you will verify that most of them were interventionist policies.

The intervention of the state was the vaccine that saved the Capitalism in the thirties and in the other crisis that this system has suffered since then. And what is a vaccine?

A vaccine is a product obtained from the same virus which eventually destroys.
Well, the Capitalism obtained the vaccine that saved itself from the virus of the Socialism, applying Socialist measures in the economy and in the society.

Orthodox Soviets leaders were not able to understand this reality and for that reason the Soviet Union collapsed in the eighties. If the Soviet leaders would had applied the same principle and had used Capitalism measures, perhaps the Soviet Union would had survived. But, on the contrary, they radicalized the Communism and the system could not resist. Chinese leaders understood this reality many years ago, and after Mao Tse Tung die in the seventies they applied a new method to guarantee the survival of their communist system. The Chinese leaders have applied the contradictory method that their Soviet colleagues were not able to accomplish. China is formally a Communist country but with liberal economic institutions open to the global economy and this has preserved the Chinese regime. How is this contradiction possible?

Theoretically it is not possible but in the reality it works. This demonstrates that sometimes there is a great difference between the theory and the reality.
The effect of this contradiction that occurs in the reality deserves to be deeply studied by politicians and economists worldwide.

Effects of the economic crisis on the world stability

The link between politics and economy is beyond doubt. There is a relation of causality between both. In the history of humanity this relation is clearly visible. In periods of economic crisis and extreme unemployment the trend to the violence increases and vice verse, in times of prosperity the trend to peace increases. For example, the two great confrontations of the 20th century, the First World War 1914-1918 and the Second World War 1938-1945 was preceded by a period of severe economic crisis and it may be assured that the two phenomenon’s were essentially a consequence of the economic situation.
The economic ruin fed the animosity feelings of the countries and created radical leaders as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler that incited to the war.
Other local conflicts of the 20 century had the same origin: the poverty, the unemployment and the struggle for the resources.
The 21st century is not an exception and the rule of the history might repeat again.
For that reason the comprehension of the economic reality is something very important, because it let us anticipate what would happen in the world political scenario.
Two decisive facts dominate the global economic situation: the financial collapse and the natural resources crisis. Both phenomena are closely joined and will determine the political future of the humanity, especially the war and the peace between the nations.

This information of Reuters on February 12 2009 is a clear explanation of the situation:

“World economic crisis is top security threat: U.S. Intelligence
By Randall Mikkelsen– 1 hr 41 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, sowing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported on Thursday.
"The financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging market nations over the next year," said the report. A wave of "destructive protectionism" was possible as countries find they cannot export their way out of the slump.
"Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," the report said.
The report represents the findings of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and serves as a leading security reference for policymakers and Congress. Besides reviewing adversaries, it also considered this year the security impact of issues including climate change and the economy.
It said a quarter of countries have already experienced at least "low-level" instability, such as government changes, linked to the economy.
There have been anti-government protests in Europe and the former Soviet Union, and growing economic strains in Africa and Latin America, the national intelligence director, Adm. Dennis Blair, told Congress in delivering the report.
"Instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing countries have on law and order, which can spill out in dangerous ways to the international community," Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Steps such as devaluations, tariffs and export subsidies were possible from countries desperate to boost economies.”
The report is enough illustrative and do not require more explanations.

Since its birth, capitalism created big crisis

The financial capitalism has dominated the world economy since the last decade of 19th century until the first decade of the 21st century, approximately 120 years. During that time, the financial capitalism accumulated a huge amount of money to build the modern world but it has generated, as well major crisis and losses for millions of people and thousands of businesses around the world who have lost their heritage as a result of its speculative practices. For example, “during the period following the First World War the U.S. banks showed a tendency to abandon the field of real banking business and becoming agents of financial speculation. Instead of extending loans, commercial banks used their short-term deposits to buy long period bonds recommended by the major banks and to buy or sell securities to the public willing to invest their money." (1)
(1) Harry Elmer Barnes. Historia de la Economía del Mundo Occidental.. Unión Editorial Hispanoamericana. México. 1973. Pages 622-623.

Through the so-called "controlled companies" financial capitalism appropriated full productive sectors from where all its actions were executed.
In the twenties led by the voracious American financial capitalism even lowered the wages of the workers to obtain more benefits that, among other errors, destroyed the purchasing power of workers and pushed the country towards the Great Depression.
"From 1920 to 1932 approximately 11,000 banks closed in United States before the "total closure" which occurred in early March 1933. Only 18,800 banks remained open. There is a contrast between the 11,000 banks which broke in the United States which the occurred in the same period in Canada, where only one bank was broken, the Home Bank, that closed their doors in 1932. While in United States by 1920 there were about 30,000 banks, Canada only had 10 banks with about 3,970 branches.”
As it can be seen in the quotations above, the financial capitalism led Capitalism system to its first big trial.(2)
(2) Idem,page 624.

How the American society overcame the Great Depression of 1929
Theoretically one could say that the 1929 crisis was caused in United States for two main reasons: a) the greed of bankers and b) the indifference, the “leisser faire” by the government, which created the conditions for the collapse of the economy. It was a misunderstood economic freedom that put the capitalist system near its end. Through a political action by the government of President Franklyn D. Roosevelt, the United States was able to overcome its most serious economic disruption.
These actions were not only economic but also a political concept known as “The New Deal” in which the state intervention was the main issue. The first thing President Roosevelt did to address the crisis was ---under strict control of the government--- to reopen the financial system—which had closed their doors in March 1933. Through a stringent law stopped the speculation in the stock market, established limits on the excesses of the electricity industry, which had been associated with the predatory practices of financial capitalism; enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act to encourage industry, reorganized the transportation, created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to provide direct employment to the unemployed, created the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation in October 1933 to provide food, clothing and fuel to the unemployed, began a comprehensive public works program to provide direct employment to workers, revalued the dollar; and through the Home Owners Refinancing Act of June 1933, prevented the seizure of million people who could not pay their mortgages, among other important actions.
History repeats itself. And in the years 2008 and 2009, President Barack Obama took a set of measures similar to those adopted by President Franklyn Roosevelt in the thirties of the twentieth century.

Origin of the Global economic failure 2008

In the decade of the eighties in the 20th century appeared again in the horizon a new crisis that affected the most important industrial countries. In those years the mistakes of the global financial system began to be appreciated; in the precedent decade ---the seventies--- the financial international system gave loans of billions of dollars to the undeveloped countries at usury rates of interest.
The global crisis began when in the eighties the undeveloped countries could not pay their debts. In that moment the financial system employed their power and influence over the governments of the richest countries to impose a new method for recovering the loans and to avoid the bankruptcy.
The method was a new system of political economy that was named Globalization. Globalization is a system based in the principles of the Neo liberalism. The main objective of the new economic system was to impede the banks bankruptcy and to improve their benefits.
Bankers were aware that the debt was not recoverable but they created a formula for maintaining the debt as healthy assets. The formula was very simple: the refinancing of the debts at perpetuity, changing papers by other papers when these expire. Another formula employed by the financial system has been to issue billons of shares and bonds ---the most without real value--- to be negotiated in the Stocks Market of the world. The majority of these shares and bonds are a great risk because are surcharged or do not have any value, because do not have any support.
This has been the procedure used by the financial system and the cause of the main crisis of the 20th century, as the Great Depression of the thirties and the economic disaster of the first years of the 21st century.
In the eighties, the Globalization and the Neo liberalism was adopted as an official policy by the government of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States, and it was imposed to the rest of the world through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The mechanism was simple: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund dictated a series of conditions to the undeveloped countries: a) adoption of the free market policies b) none intervention of the States in the economy of the countries c) privatization of the more profitable public companies to be sold to the international capitals.
These conditions were imposed to the undeveloped countries under a threat. The country that did not accept the conditions would not receive new loans of the international financial system and their debts would not be refinanced.
Of course, all the undeveloped countries accepted because they had no other option.

Political consequences of the Globalization

The results of the Globalization were not the best. The Globalization process was a failure. As a consequence of its imposition, the political panorama of many regions of the world changed.
In many countries the governments that adopted the Globalization model fell. In other countries leftist governments emerged. Latin America is perhaps the best example. Since the decade of the eighties, 10 Latin American countries have leftist governments.
The establishment of leftist governments in Latin America is a direct consequence of the Globalization and the Neo liberalism policies.
In the first decade of the 21st century the countries with left-wing governments are: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dominica Island, Cuba, Uruguay, Honduras and Nicaragua. In Honduras the situation changed in the year 2009 and a new government of right wing won the elections of November 2009.
The situation of Mexico must be considered in an especial manner, where a leftist candidate ---Andrés Manuel López Obrador--- lost the election in 2006 by very few votes and where there is a strong leftist movement with an important parliamentary force. This means that ---at medium term--- Mexico might fall in the hands of the left-wing. The same is happening in another country of Central America, El Salvador, where the Political arm of the former guerrilla, the “Frente Farabundo Martí”, in January 2009 won the parliamentary elections. In March 2009, the former guerrilla won the Presidency of that country, through Mauricio Funes. In Perú, other leftist, Ollanta Humala participated in the elections of the year 2006 and obtained an important voting.
It is necessary to highlight that Brazil and Mexico are between the major’s economies of the world. The Globalization and the Neo liberalism ---and especially the financial speculation that is the origin of the poverty of millions of persons worldwide--- also leaded these countries towards the left.

A way for promoting the democracy

The best road for promoting and strength the democracy is through the economic success. It is possible to create millions of new employments, to recover the economy and preserving the environment. Only it is necessary the political decision. For example, the creation of a Global Program of Reforestation ---ecological employments--- would be an effective form for combating the jobless and helping the conservation of the nature.
It is necessary to give the appropriate place to the real economy and to understand that the true wealth is not the money but the material production, especially the food, the water, the natural resources.
It is necessary a new ---holistic--- approach of political economy that highlight the supremacy of the real economy.

The Political Economy in the 21st century, Theory of the Political Supremacy

To get the human beings happiness must be the purpose of the economics.

Objective of the essay
The goal of this essay is to demonstrate the necessity of building a new approach of political economy that helps to create a best world.

Historic vision
The development of the economic thought practically began in the 16th century. Previously, some philosophers, Thucydides (455-4009), Xenophon (430-355), Plato (384-322) and Aristotle (384-322) made some contributions to the economics. In fact, the term economy comes from the Ancient Greek and was Aristotle who made a first approach to the Theory of Value. In his book Politics, he distinguished between the value of use and the value of change and realized also some considerations regarding the Quantity Theory of Money.
In the Roman Empire we find the contribution of the Emperor Diocletian; he established the first control of prices in the economy and appears too the work of Varron (116-27) on agricultural economics.
After, in the Middle Age (centuries V to XV), highlight the Summa Theological of Saint Thomas of Aquino (1225-1274), who exposed the value of the just price, the just salary and condemned the usury.
Some years after appear the work of Nicholas Oresme (1340-1382), who criticized the reduction of the value of the money made by kings. The work of Oresme was the inspiration of Thomas Gresham (1519-1579) who demonstrated ---some years after--- how the less valued currencies displace the most valued currencies.

The Mercantilism
Gresham inaugurated the Mercantilist thought in the 16th century. The Mercantilism defended the thesis of the state intervention in the economy. The mercantilists sustained that the wealth of nations was represented by their stocks of gold and silver and by a positive balance of payments; this means, by the promotion of the exports and the restrictions to the imports.
Among the principal mercantilists authors must be mentioned the names of Juan Botero (1540-1617) and his book Reason of State; Antoine Montchretien ( 1575-1621), who employed for first time the term political economy; Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683); William Petty (1623-1687), with his book Political Arithmetic, considered, moreover, founder of the economics and Richard Cantillion (1680-1734) considered too founder of the economics.

The Physiocrats
Between the years 1760 and 1770 emerge in France a new economic vision. It was the thought of the Physiocrats, who’s sustained a different idea regarding the causes of the wealth of nations.
The Physiocrats thought that the agriculture was the base of the wealth and not the bullion (gold and silver), neither the advantages in the foreign commerce as had assured the Mercantilist theory until that moment. They believed in a natural order and were opposed to the state intervention in the economy. This represents the opposite thesis to the Mercantilism.
The principal exponent of the Physiocracy was Francoise Quesnay (1694-1774), who created the Tableu Economique in 1758, a model of economic analysis where he demonstrated the flows of the economy. This work was the base of the modern econometrics years after.

Classic Economy
In the year 1776 occur a fact that would change the economic history. It was the publication of the book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, of the philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790). This book is considered the main economic work of all the times.
Smith contradicted the appreciations of his predecessors and argued that the industrial production is the most important cause of the wealth of nations increase and made a severe opposition to the intervention of the state in the economy.
Smith inaugurated the period of the Classic Economy, which other principal figures were Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834); Jean Baptiste Say (1767-1832); David Ricardo (1772-1823); John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and the main critic of the Classical Economy, Karl Marx (1818-1883).
This broad period of time, since the 16th century until the 18th century was characterized by a fact: the consideration of the economic phenomenon as a whole discipline: the political economy.
I think that the political economy was a method of analysis that took in account not only the economic conditions but the society as a whole. This method was used the same by the Mercantilists, Physiocrats and the Classic Economy.

The modern economics
In 1890 with the publication of his book Principles of Economics, Alfred Marshall founded the modern economics.
In the three previous centuries 16th, 17th and 18th, the economics was considered a subject of the Moral Sciences, a branch of the politics, and for that cause and methodological reasons it was called political economy. The founders of the economics were aware of the paper of the state in the economic behavior of the society.
Marshall developed the microeconomics. John Maynard Keynes called him “the founder of the diagrammatic economics…”
In 1903, thirteen years after the publication of his Principles, Marshall gets to create the Cambridge School of Economics and to separate the economics studies of the Moral Sciences and the politics. Since that moment the economics and the economists began a new road. They leaved the political economy and centered its efforts in concrete problems, in the microeconomics and in the new mathematical economics.
In the 46 years between 1890 ---with the publication of the Principles of Marshall--- and 1936 when appear the thesis of John Maynard Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, the Marginalist and mathematic trend dominated the scenario.
In that historic period emerged important figures that would tackle specific economic affairs. Francis Edgeworth (1845-1926) with is Mathematical Physics and his Theory of Distribution; Wilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) and his Manuale di Economia Politica; John B. Clark (1847-1938) Distribution and Wealth; Eugene Böhm-Bawerk (1851-1914) Positive Theory of Capital; Frank Taussing (1859-1940) Tariff History of the United States; Werner Sombart (1864-1920) DES Moderne Kapitalismus; Gustav Casel (1866-1945) the Nature and Necessity of Interest; Arthur C. Pigou (1877-1959) Wealth and Welfare and Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) the Theory of Money and Credit, among other economists.
In the already 46 years mentioned ---between 1890 and 1936--- the economic crisis acquired a new and intense dimension. The Communism obtained the power in Russia in 1917 and the radicalism found a fertile field in the impoverished European population. The inflation and the unemployment reached unbelievable figures in those years. This let the promotion of men as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler and was the main cause of the First and Second World War. In the United States the Great Depression of 1929 threatened the real bases and the intellectual support of the North American capitalism.
The economic crisis discredited the economics and the economists: the old political economy and the new modern economics of Marshall and his pupils.

The paper of Keynes
John Maynard Keynes rescued the prestige of the economics. With his General Theory, he demonstrated that the control of the inflation and the unemployment were possible. He evidenced that the holistic method of the political economy was indispensable for resolving the economics problems. He tackled the crisis with an integral vision and proved that the control of the state and their investments are essentials for the economic progress.
The Keynes’s theory was a practice success and was applied in the United States, in Europe an in the rest of the world since the decade of the forty years.
“Keynes was the most important economic thinker of the 20th century. His influence was of such magnitude that the thirty years of the world economy success between the years 1945 and 1975 were called the Age of Keynes.
But as none remedy to the economics problems is permanent, the years of the Keynes success began to experiment problems and the crisis reappeared again. The increase of the oil prices since 1970 was one of the causes of the new global situation.
The monetary system established in Breton Woods in 1945 started to present problems at the end of the fifty years, when some European countries doubted of the dollar strength as instrument of international reserves, generating the prelude of a new world economic crisis.
In the seventy years appeared a new trend that hardly criticized the Keynesian model. It was the famous School of Chicago, which principal figure was the professor Milton Friedman, who revived the Quantitative Theory of Money. He asserted that the inflation is a monetary problem and that reducing the amount of money and adopting a policy of freedom to establish prices, wages and interests rates the inflation may be dominated…”
(1) Pablo Rafael González. Apreciación Crítica de la Política Monetaria, el bolívar oro. Monte Ávila Editores Latinoamericana, 2007. Pages 33 and 34.

Effects of the Neo liberalism
The intellectual position of the professor Friedman and the School of Chicago ---Neo liberalism--- was adopted by the government of Margaret Thatcher in England since 1979 and by the government of Ronald Regan in the United States. This policy was assumed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in those years and imposed to the rest of the world through the globalization.
The outcome of the globalization has been the enhance of the poverty and the environmental damage, the privatization of many of the public institutions of the undeveloped countries, the increase of the public services tariffs, the inflation and the augment of problems of balance of payments of the developed and underdeveloped countries.
For the industrial nations, one of the principal effects of the Neo liberalism and the globalization has been the financial crisis of the year 2008. The model affected and weakened the mechanisms of controls of the governments on the financial institutions.
The other great error of the model has been giving preeminence to the financial capitalism and to put the real economy in second place. These facts caused the explosion of the current crisis.

Conclusion
I think that the political economy is a method of analysis that take in account, holistically, the paper of the economics in the society. The political economy is not a doctrine but a system of thought for the global comprehension of the economics, politics, environmental and social relations.
The sin of the modern economy has been their partial approach, the micro vision of the economics. The modern economics has worked deep in the trees but has loosed the perspective of the forest.
The mistakes of the politicians and economists explain why does more of the three fourth parts of the world population remain in the poverty and the half live with less of $2 per day.
New challenges have arisen, among them the natural resources crisis as consequence of the overexploitation of the resources and the pollution. These phenomenons have created a new paradigm for the economy.
In the 21st century it is necessary to recover the method of analysis of the political economy and to build a new political conception for attacking the poverty, managing the problem of the natural resources and preserving the environment. With willpower it is possible to reach both objectives; God save the next generations.

Theory of the political supremacy, on the economics subordination

The state is the main economic actor. It does not matter the economic model: in the capitalism of free market, in the moderate socialism and, obviously, in the communist regimes.
This reflection is very important because it let to be aware of the true reality. The free market is an illusion. It does not exist. The states adopt the principal economic decisions still in the most advanced capitalist societies.
The free market is an appearance. Who determine the economic model? Who determine the fiscal, the financial and the monetary policy? Who decide the commercial policy, the regime of imports and exports? Who decide the policy of prices, the minimum wage and the policy of employment? Who decide the agricultural, industrial and environment policy?
You know the answer. And this confirms the economics subordination thesis. The politicians have in his hands the most important economical decisions in all the countries.
The politicians are the lawmakers and the laws define the organization and the functioning of the society.
The entrepreneurs and the workers are essentials for the economic development but its actions are conditioned by the state; their freedom is relative and limited. One entrepreneur needs the permissions and the licenses of the state for developing its business. Without those permissions and licenses none entrepreneur can realize its activities.
The business climate is determined by the big official’s policies. The state must exert their authority, however, sometimes adopt an attitude of indifference toward the other actors of the economic process; when this happen the consequence is the economical disaster. The recent financial crisis is a good example of that indifference.
But when the state exerts their role of supervision and control of the economic activities the situation is different and the society receives the correspondent benefits.
The great mistake of the last years has been the lack of control on vital sectors as the financial system. The balance between control and freedom is the key of the economic development.

Ecological reflection, the water crisis in the world

The world water resources are under pressure because of the high population growth, the climatic change and the pollution. Already it can be observed that the world run quickly toward the global water crisis.
The earth’s hydrological cycle is being modified by the climatic change. The consequences are the reduction of the surface water availability and the groundwater recharge.
The precipitations patterns are the main victims of the climatic change causing severe droughts, floods and hurricanes worldwide. About 40 per cent of the precipitation that falls on land comes from ocean-derived vapour. The remaining 60 per cent come from land-based sources.1 The global warming is changing the oceans temperatures transforming the weather. By mean of the hydrological cycle the oceans transfers water to the ground and to the plants and since them to the atmosphere. The problem is that this natural process is everyday affected because of the temperature increase.
Only 2.5 per cent of the world water is integrated by freshwater. This means that 97.5 per cent of the world’s water belongs to the seas and oceans. 68.7 per cent of the freshwater is located in the glaciers and 30.1 per cent in the groundwater. The surface and atmospheric water –that include freshwater lakes, soil moisture, atmosphere, wetlands, plants and animals-- represents 0.4 per cent of the total water but it provide 80 per cent of the annually renewable surface and groundwater.
By effect of the global warming, the main glaciers of the world –including the poles—are melting. The Himalaya Glaciers are a clear example; they nurture five of the most important rivers of Asia. The same happen in the Alps Glaciers that feed the regional European rivers. The Italy south and the south-eastern Europe territories are already affected by the water stress. The glaciers of the Andes regions in South America are also threatened and the evidence is clearly appreciated in Bolivia and Peru. As a consequence of this fact it does not exist water in some regions of those countries and the situation will be worse when the melting of the Andes Glaciers increase.
Thursday 27 of March 2008, the world was surprised by news disclosed by the international agencies: the information said that an enormous ice block with a surface four times superior to the city of Paris detached from the Antarctica.
The gigantic ice block was 41 kilometers of length and 2.5 kilometers of width and separated from the Antarctica Isthmus and continues moving. This ice block was part of the Wilkins platform, which is a floating ice mass of 16,000 square kilometers, that is to say, as large as Northern Ireland.
Scientists have expressed concern because they have discovered that the permanently frozen layer of ice on the colder regions, and including Canada, Alaska, Russia, Northern Europe and Antarctica has begun to thaw. This layer of ice, known as permafrost, contains a large amount of CO2 and methane, two of the worst gas greenhouse gas emissions (green house). To thaw the permafrost, these gases are released into the atmosphere accelerating global warming. So the situation is truly alarming.
The Centre for Defence Information, one of the most qualified international agencies in this matter explains the consequences of the global warming in the following terms:
“Led by CDI Senior Advisor Philip Coyle, our new project on the international security implications of global climate change aims to study and expand awareness of the many security concerns global warming will create in the near future. For example, if sea levels rise just six meters -- this will happen if the Greenland glaciers melt but nothing more -- 93 million Chinese will be displaced. Massive population displacements due to loss of land mass would be expected elsewhere around the world in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Other impacts would include the availability of fresh water, changing growing seasons, and the reach and geographical range of infectious disease. Over the course of the next year, CDI analysts will uncover the many aspects to this issue: including the direct impact on nations; the economic and agricultural impacts; the effect on the U.S. military at home and overseas, and the effects on fuel consumption by the military; as well as mitigation and adaptation options.2
In the first years of the 21st century, the signs of water scarcity have appeared in diverse countries and regions, include in the most developed countries as the United States. A very important part of the United States territory --the west, south-west and south-east—is impacted by the water stress and emblematic rivers as the Colorado River is suffering the consequences of the overexploitation of their waters. Some signs reveal the magnitude of the problem. For example, in Georgia, in the year 2007, was declared the water emergency and the water price for the consumers increased 150%. Other states of the US southeast as Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina are in the same situation. In the west coast, in California, the water crisis leads to severe restrictions and also the states of the southwest are seriously affected.
Too few countries have increased their water resources available as may be appreciated in the following tables. For example, between the most important developed countries only Russia enhanced their water availability. The United States and Australia was the most affected in the period 2000-2005.

The water crisis in the most populated nations, China and India, is already a reality and, as a consequence of this fact, the food production is in danger in those countries. China diminished their water resources availability in -5.27 and India in -6.91 between the year 2000 and the year 2005.
The situation in other countries of the Middle East and Asia is very difficult. Saudi Arabia, the most important petroleum producer of the world have a crisis of water and in the same situation are the other petroleum countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The situation in the Palestinian Territories of Gaza and Israel are also complex. as may be verified in the next table.
Table 2
Water Availability Information. TARWR* Selected Countries of the Middle East and Asia

“Our water resources, irregularly distributed in space and time, are under pressure due to major population change and increased demand. Climate change is having a significant impact on weather patterns, precipitation and the hydrological cycle, affecting surface water availability, as well as soil moisture and groundwater recharge. The growing uncertainty of surface water availability and increasing levels of water pollution and water diversions threaten to disrupt social and economic development in many areas as the health of ecosystems.” 3
The situation is not different in America where may be appreciated that the most of the countries suffered an important reduction of their water availability as show the following table. In Caracas, the Venezuela’s capital, a severe program of water restrictions began since the first days of November 2009.

The forests raze worldwide reinforce the drought trend. The most important forest reserve that still survive, the Amazon region, everyday is devastated by miners and lumberjacks. There are regions in Asia and Africa where already do not exist forests because of the same cause.
“World Resources Institute WRI has estimated that 41 percent of the world's population, or 2.3 billion people, live in river basins under 'water stress,' meaning that per capita water supply is less than 1,700 m³/year (Revenga 2000). Water scarcity is partly due to the uneven geographic distribution of water, as determined by the Earth's climate system.
Water scarcity, whether due to physical, social, or infrastructural reasons, poses significant challenges. The 1.1 billion people without safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people who lack sanitation are particularly at risk for poor health. Globally, nearly 6000 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhoea-related diseases (UNICEF/WHO). Water scarcity issues also have relevance for food production, business, and livelihoods; globally, 70 percent of all water withdrawals are for agricultural purposes and 20 percent are for industrial purposes” 4
There are other facts that confirm the water crisis that affects the world: Egypt and Ethiopia, for example, are very close to have war conflicts because Egypt has increased its dependency of waters of the Nile River, whereas Ethiopia reduces the river’s volume.
The waters of the Panama Canal are losing depth and this puts in danger navigation.
The water-bearings of the border between the United States and Mexico are drying quickly, meanwhile the Ogallala, the most important aquifer of the United States, located between Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas is too suffering a quickly depletion.
The water-bearings of the western zone of Israel also undergo an intense and constant deterioration and this is one of the main sources of conflict with the Arab population ---the Palestinians--- that lives in those territories.
The water availability of freshwater is threatened by other circumstance: the pollution that contaminates the surface water, the rivers, the lakes and also the groundwater. The discharges of any kind of pollutants elements on the surface water reduce the drinking water availability. These contaminants elements pass to the groundwater and damage the aquifers. This phenomenon is common in the entire world. The contamination of the waters comes from the fertilizers and pesticides in the agriculture and from the industrial developments especially.
The facts presented reveal a trend: the diminishment of the water resources and their contamination worldwide. Without water the live is not possible. Man depends of water for drinking, for the agricultural and industrial use, for environment and sanitation proposals. The evidence show that every day there is less available water and the great challenge of the human being in the next years is what to do to survive in a world where the water and other essential natural resources every day are scarcer.
Meanwhile, the great military powers of the world prepare their strategies for scenarios of confrontation because of the water crisis.
1 AQUASTAT FAO 2005 2nd UN World Water Development Report 2006, “Water a shared responsibility”, page 123.
2 Centre for Defence Information, Washington, http://www.cdi.org/program/index.cfm?programid=1
3 2nd UN World Water Development Report 2006, “Water a shared responsibility,” page 120.
4 World Resources Institute. Earth Trends August 2006 Monthly Update: Water Scarcity. http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/73 By Tom Damassa. Friday September 1 2006.

The politics dominate the economy, elements of a different theory of the power, Theory of the Political Supremacy

Aerial view of the Capitol Hill [1]
The economics is not an autonomous discipline. It is subordinated to the politics. The most important economic decisions ---in all the countries--- are adopted by the politicians, this means, by the governments and not by the economists neither the economic sectors.
For example, the basic economic decision, that is the type of economic model that each society choose ---Free Market, Mixed Economy, Socialism or Communism--- is decided by the political factors of the countries. Obviously, they are influenced by the economic factors but these do not determine the definitive course of the economic policy.
The political factors ---governments and political parties-- represent the most powerful sectors of each society; they are the first power followed by the armed forces, the economic sectors, the mass media and the workers. Those are the real power of the society. They determine the composition of the formal powers.
After the political factors, the military power is the most important in all the societies: in the democratic advanced countries and in the rest of the political systems. It is hypocrisy to say other thing. In a first impression this seems not be true but in the reality that is the true. The following example illustrates very well this appreciation.
I remember to have read how ---in the days before the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941--- Washington warned to the Pacific Ocean Fleet about the imminence of the war. In the final days of November of that year the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, said to the Secretary of War, Stimson that he had abandoned the negotiations with Japan and that since that moment the situation would be in the hands of the military forces. [2]
What means this? This means that Hull recognized that the time of the politics and the diplomacy had ended and the time of war was beginning.
In the democratic societies normally the armed forces do not participate in the politics. But an opinion of the armed forces in regard to any important affair is something that the structure of power can not disdain.
How the politics dominate the economy?
The laws of the economy are intellectual abstractions because in the reality the politics determines all the economic behavior in all the types of economic regimes.
The politicians, it means, the political parties and governments, are who decide the big economic policies; those are:
- The monetary policy (the value of the currency and the amount of liquidity in the economy)
- The financial policy (rates of interest)
- The fiscal policy (taxes, exemptions, including the bailouts to the banks)
- The commercial policy (regime of imports and exports)
- Wages Policy (minimum salary)
- Policy of prices (control or not)
- Agricultural policy
- Industrial policy
- Energetic policy
- Environment policy
The question is: what does really decide the private economy?
All the laws and rules that determine the economic behavior are decided by the governments. In consequence, the economy is a dependent discipline which laws and action in last instance depends of the politics factors.
Conclusion: these concepts might be the elements of a different theory of the power: the Theory of the Political Supremacy.
[1] Photo source: Commons.wikimedia.org/Wiki/file:aerial_view_o…
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms ofTitle 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.

[2] Daniel Yergin. La Historia del Petróleo. Page 428. Javier Vergara Editor. Buenos Aires 1992.

Difference between underdevelopment and poverty, how the mass media can promote the development

This is a common scene in the undeveloped countries. You can observe the different kind of cars; it reveals that that is not a poor community.

The poverty is the material scarcity; essentially, the lack of money, infrastructure, employment and natural resources.

The underdevelopment is other thing. The underdevelopment is the lack of basic education, but not of scholarly or academic education, no. It is the absence of the education that come from the family, the moral and the religion; the ignorance of the basic norms of life.

The development is an attitude toward the life. A poor nation is not necessarily an undeveloped nation. The poverty does not mean underdevelopment. There are poor but developed nations. In change, there are rich ---in terms of money-- but undeveloped countries. The difference between both is the concepts previously expressed.

In all the nations coexists developed and undeveloped sectors of the population. But in the undeveloped countries the last one is the majority. I would like to illustrate with some concrete examples the difference between one and other.

The main characteristic of the undeveloped societies is the ignorance or disdain for the basic rules of life.

For example, they do not respect the environment. It is common to see how the people walk and lead its dogs by the streets without chains, muzzles and the worse is that they do not pick up the excrement of its pets. You can appreciate this type of situations in many streets in many undeveloped nations.

Neither, they do not know or do not respect the essentials norms of health. It is also often to observe how the people sneeze or cough and do not cover its mouth; spite in any place; do not wash its hands with regularity, do not maintain the restrooms clean and do not follow the rules of food hygiene. The consequence is a high level o infectious illness.

The aggression to the environment is ever present. For example, in the undeveloped societies the peasants cut down the trees and burn the agricultural lands because they think that in this form they can obtain best harvests. The outcome is the contrary.

In the cities the controls regarding the autos and trucks contamination are very weak and the authorities do not make serious efforts to impose it.

The garbage is the other great problem. Usually you can appreciate it in the streets because the people throw the waste and, moreover, the systems of recollection are not effective. The garbage is not selected in plastics, glass or organic.

The industries throw their pollutants to the atmosphere or direct to the rivers, lakes and seas.

The deforestation is something ordinary and the people cut the trees without restrictions.

These situations happen exclusively not only in the undeveloped nations. Some of them also occur in the developed countries. For example, the industrial countries are the main generators of the dioxide of carbon emissions, principal cause of the climatic change. Other nations as China have the world record of the waters contamination.

The concepts previously mentioned reveals two aspects:

a) That the underdevelopment is not only an economic problem but essentially a cultural and educative challenge.

b) That for tackle the underdevelopment problem it is necessary to carry out a deep process of change in some negative custom that survive in the countries population. The mass media, and especially the radio and television, are the adequate channels for reaching the objectives of the development. They may be used for promoting a new culture of respect to the environment and in the promotion of habits of health, among other priorities. This is a form of creating a best world.

The responsibility in the creation of this kind of projects is essentially of the international agencies of development, as United Nations and the World Bank. Of course the governments of the countries has too a responsibility but it is necessary that an international institution assume the responsibility of coordinating the initiative.

In the next article I will explain what type of campaigns might be realized through the world mass media for promoting the development, protect the environment and create new habits of health.

Economic dimension of the ecological employments, a way for fighting against the poverty and the climate change

The creative capacity, the imagination, is the most important. Through the imagination, man has conceived all the changes for building the modern society. A clear example of the creative capacity effects is the science and technology advance.
So far, in spite of the great progress reached in the science and the technology, man has been not able of achieving two important goals for the world population welfare: eradicate the poverty and preserving the environment.
The world population majority lives with less of $2 per day. The water is draining in many regions of the world; the petroleum too. The climate change has become a real threat. While everyday a portion of the forests are destroyed.
What to do?
The problem is that any program of economic expansion requires two scarce elements: money and natural resources. The additional problem is that the economic expansion requires a major use of energy and this imply an augment of the contamination.
Man can resolve the scarcity of financial resources. But he can not resolve the natural resources scarcity. He has to work with the existents resources. But ---with imagination--- man can diminish the contamination.
How?
The ecological employments are a way; it can resolve a good part of the unemployment problem without increase the pollution. And, on the contrary, to create an effective solution to weaken the climate change.
The creation of al Global Program of Ecological Employments divided in stages is a solution. In the first stage might be developed a Global Program of Reforestation. In the second, a Global Program of Preservation of the Water Resources.
Those initiatives would generate millions of new ecological employments worldwide. The main benefits will be for the poor population of the different world countries. The programs will give a salary and will increase the purchase capacity of millions of people. In consequence, it will produce an economic expansion phenomenon that will help the global economy recovery.
The financial resources for carry out the programs might come from the World Bank and the most developed countries. The rich countries will receive too a benefit because of the international commercial expansion that the mass of financial resources invested will cause.
Compared with other forms of jobs creation, the ecological employments are the cheapest. The investments for the creation of a job in other economic activities surpass several times the cost of an environment job creation.
The other great advantage is that these programs do not require an important increase of the fossil energy use.
In synthesis we can say that the programs would promote the global economy recovery, would create millions of new ecological jobs, increase the welfare of millions of families and contribute to diminish the global warming and the natural resources preservation.

The Ban Ki Moon and Robert Zoellick main challenges are combating the world poverty and preserving the environment

They are the leaders of the two most important political and development institutions, United Nations and the World Bank. And the mission of both is helping to build a best World.

The poverty and the destruction of the environment are the two great threats for the humanity.

I think that there is an effective form for helping the world to diminish the poverty and advancing in the preservation of the environment. The creation of a Global Program of Ecological Employments is a way. The first activity of that initiative should be to create a Global Program of Reforestation.

Which will be the benefits?

a) The creation of millions of new ecological employments that will help to millions of poor people worldwide and

b) The conservation of the environment, because of the positive effects of the reforestation on the climate change.

There are other alternatives for creating jobs. But the majority of them require a great amount of energy use, petroleum and/or coal. The effects of the use of fossil energy are well known.

In change, the reforestation does not need to employ great amounts of energy sources to be developed; that is one of its great advantages.

The reforestation is an efficient ecological way for combating the poverty and preserving the planet.

In the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009, Mr. Ban Ki Moon and Mr. Robert Zoellick, have the possibility of developing concretes actions for helping the humanity. The Global Program of Reforestation is one opportunity for the world.

The ecological employments are an effective road for combating the world poverty

The environment crisis because of the contamination and the overexploitation of the natural resources is a reality. The extreme poverty of the world population majority is the other sad situation.
The environment crisis and the poverty are closely tied. A solution for both situations might be possible. The unique manner of resolving the poverty is by mean of the employment. Without employment and just salaries the welfare is not possible.
But the creation of new jobs require three conditions: a) financial support b) natural resources and c) know how (technology). The modern world has scarcity of the two first mentioned resources and a concentration of the third (know how) in the most developed countries.
Which might be the solution?
I think that the creation of millions of green, ecological new jobs is possible in the world. (In this point it is necessary highlight that for achieving this goal we do not need more petroleum.)
How?
First of all it would be necessary to create a Global Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment. This kind of program only can be developed by the international agencies, the United Nations, World Bank and the IMF.
The first action of a program like this must be:
a) To create and to carry out ---with the support of the national governments--- a Global Program of Reforestation. The benefits for humanity of this activity in terms of employment and protection of nature it does not have limits. The creation of millions of new jobs and a great advance in the control of the global warming would be, among other, the results.
b) In a second stage, the Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment might develop other activities, as the developing of new jobs for protecting the water resources and managing the garbage.

The mentioned programs would generate millions of new jobs worldwide; protect the environment and diminishing the world poverty.
I would like that this idea might be considered as a contribution to the next Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009.

How the United Kingdom and Norway has exhausted its petroleum

To hide the true does not change the reality. And the true is that the petroleum of the United Kingdom and Norway is in its final stage. The words do not matter; the figures are the most important. And these are the official figures. Make your own conclusion.
As may be appreciated in the table, the oil reserves of the United Kingdom diminished in almost 20% between the year 2000 and the year 2005, confirming the trend of the previous years.
You can see also the important reduction of the Norway oil reserves, -26.3% between the year 2000 and the year 2005. This means that very soon the North Sea will exhaust its petroleum.

Mathematical demonstration of the petroleum depletion

The figures speak by themselves. The oil crisis is very near. The mentioned countries are consuming the end of their reserves. How much time will be necessary for to build the substitute infrastructure of the oil? Will be it possible at medium term?
The book Running Out: How Global Shortages Change the Economic Paradigm (Algora Publishing, New York, 2008) presents a complete vision of the natural resources situation.

How the beaches disappear

The photo belongs to the beach of El Tirano in the Margarita Island (Venezuela) at the Eastern Caribbean. This was a spacious beach but progressively the sea has reduced it extension. The local press assures that it is a consequence of the sedimentation.
Is it an effect of the Climate Change, of the global warming? I do not know which the cause is really but the true is that the beach is disappearing. The phenomenon is happening in other beautiful beaches of the Island; especially in one of the world most famous places for windsurf: El Yaque. This kind of facts should call the attention of all the people involved in the environment protection.
Those are specific cases but it is sure that something similar is happening in other places of the world. The scientists have warned that the global warming will increase the oceans level in an important amount and that this fact will affect the low coastal regions. Is this the Margarita situation? The scientists must give its opinions…The destruction of the trees; the construction of big buildings, artificial fences and harbors are other important causes of the coast depredation.
Preserving the coasts and the seas resources is a priority.

While millions suffer hunger other spend trillions in weapons and luxury

Dr. Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the United Nations Food Program, has announced that the Agency has only one third of the resources that need for attending 108 millions of persons this year worldwide.
This means that millions of people will not have the minimum food for surviving. While this happen, the world spend trillions of dollars in weapons and luxury.
The problem of hunger is a shame for the humanity. All the citizens of the world have the right of receiving the necessary food for living. The governments have the main responsibility in the creation of the economic conditions: jobs and income for the population.
Dr. Sheeran said that the Food Program needs only $ 6.7 billion for the next year. This amount is something insignificant compared with the money used for saving the banks during the recent financial crisis.
The world leaders should reflect on this theme. Only it is necessary to make a review of the priorities. The peace and the human beings welfare deserve more attention than the war and the tastes, the preferences, of rich bankers.
I read recently that as a consequence of the financial crisis of the UN Food Program, only in Guatemala 100,000 children will not receive the food help. The figures in other countries as Bangladesh are unbelievable: 5 millions of affected people.
The food production is a priority. And this means that it is necessary to adopt measures to guarantee the environment protection. At the rhythm of pollution followed until now, in too few years the planet will confront serious problems for providing the food that the global population will need.
The scarcity and the lack of water is one of the principal threats. And one of the causes of this phenomenon is the climate change.
In Copenhagen, in December, the world leaders have the opportunity of to adopt the necessary policies to preserve the nature and the life of millions of persons.

Climate Change affects the food production

I would like to write good news ever. But when you analyze the human behavior sometimes this is not possible; specially, when you consider the human being attitude regarding the natural resources conservation.
Man is a depredator of nature. He has a trend to destroy the wealth given by God to humanity.
Two hundred ten years ago, in 1798, a brilliant priest and economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, (1766-1834), in his Essay on the Principle of Population said that “the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”
Malthus could not imagine that two centuries after the Climate Change would confirm his theory. Malthus did not know the Climate Change. The Pre Industrial civilization ---the Second Industrial Revolution began at the middle of the XIX century--- was a green and not contaminated world.
But now, almost 210 years after, the facts are confirming that the possibility of producing food for feeding the growing world population is every day less. The Global Warming is affecting the sources of water worldwide. Without water the agriculture development is not possible and the true is that every day the availability of this resource is diminishing in the world.
The World Bank in its World Development Report 2010, Development and Climate Change, warns that “the developing countries would be the most vulnerable by the Climate Change, with permanent reductions in GDP of 4 to 5 per cent for Africa and South Asia.” In the Foreword of the same Report, the President of the Bank, Robert Zoellick assures that “it is crucial that countries reach a Climate Agreement in December in Copenhagen that integrates development needs with climate actions.”
To adopt the measures for resolve the problem of the Climate Change and its consequences is something essential to guarantee the world surviving especially, the future of our sons, grandsons and the next generations.

Diminishing the CO2 emissions is the great challenge

If the humanity is not able of reducing the dioxide of carbon emissions in too few years a good part of the Earth will become a desert.
The scientists has enough explained the negative effects of the fossil energies use. One of the most important is the glaciers melting worldwide. Already we know the disastrous effects caused by the global warming in the Arctic, in the Antarctic and in the Himalaya Glaciers that nurture the principal rivers of Asia. The same happen in the Andes Glaciers in Latin America.
Practically an important part of those glaciers are quickly disappearing. As consequence of that process, already cities as La Paz, the Bolivia’s capital, is seriously threatened by the lack of water. A similar phenomenon is happening in other regions of the Andes.
Other consequence is the level of the seas augment. The coastal regions worldwide are too threatened by the global warming.
Moreover of the fossil fuel emissions, humanity is affected by other great problem: the forests fire. The last week of August 2009 ---through the international news agencies--we could appreciate the destruction caused in Greece and in California in the United States. But there are too many similar situations ---not reported by the news agencies---in other regions of the world, especially in the Amazonia Region, in Africa and Asia. The struggle against the forests fire should be other important objective of the national governments policies and of the international institutions as United Nations.
The other political necessary measure are the development of new sources of clean energy, to preserve the forests that still survive, to develop a global campaign of reforestation and to save the sources of water, avoiding their contamination.
Pablorafael_gonzalez@yahoo.com