Its strange that we seem to feel better brandishing our disapproval of something, someone, instead of looking for the good, the commonality we share rather than the difference.
When you watch politicians braying at each other it does remind one of donkeys, donkeys who's main influence is to out bray the other in a noisy display of self centred mindless noise.
Outside Parliament, listening to debates there can be a common thread, an aim to achieve a goal that will improve the current situation. The methods may be different but the aim is common since with few exceptions mankind has much in common, where ever they are on the globe. We all seek much the same sort of things for ourselves and our families but ideology, power and greed get in the way.
Imagine a government with a benign wish to listen and coalesce, to incubate ideas and act by common consent.
Another form of warfare and one with a power for far greater and wider destruction, is the currency war that is being fought right at this moment with damaging results across the world.
Since mankind developed an alternative measure of exchange, from the days of the barter system, money has been the value of a transaction, as well as our measure of judgement in the analysis of how well we have done vis a vis someone else. Money reflected the value of the assets we hold.
Today, money is no longer is tied to assets, in fact the money in circulation is many times the the numerical value of all the assets held in the world. Up to Bretton Woods the money supply was tied to gold which acted as a measure of value vis a vis printed currencies. If you devalued your currency you devalued it against gold and whilst it improved your competitive position by making your exports less expensive and therefore more attractive, it was also a token of your national value as seen in the international community and weighed against you in so far as institutions who held you currency were now short changed. After Bretton Woods the major holder of gold was the USA and when in 1971 under Nixon, the USA came off the gold standard, the currency wars could begin in earnest.
The old financial structure required a great deal of discipline and highlighted each nations financial health, from now on, currency's could float and the movements were not seen as a national disgrace.
Old concepts of probity and self discipline became "old school". So much in the financial world became a matter of evermore complex instruments to trade money. Money became a commodity in its self.
The mountain of debt that was traded across the world had a monetary value which bore no relation the actual value of anything that could be tied to anything.
Without money being tied to anything or any sort international discipline the time was ripe for massive manipulation, enter "quantitative easing". Every time the Americans print money, holders of dollars loose the peg to their own currency and in effect the tied currency is revalued upwards, causing inflation, with the toll that inflation brings on the financial stability within a country.
Across Africa,Europe,Asia the effect depends on the strength of the individual country but, as is always the case, the poorer nations and the populations in those countries can be devastated. Witness the inexhaustible increase in food prices across the world and the misery it brings,
Does Mr Bernanke take any of this into his calculation when he decides to start up the printing presses. I doubt it ?
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