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Gefira 52: What has gone wrong with our society?

Gefira 52 concerns itself with the question of what has gone wrong with our society. Things that at least superficially are generally regarded as beneficial have turned or are being turned into their opposite. The dream about a society where differences are based on merit and merit alone and where law is the same for everyone has degenerated into a fantasy about not merely equality of chances but equity of outcomes! The farther we progress as humankind, the more numerous calamities afflict us. It is not only racism, xeno- or homophobia; these have been supplemented with such alleged ills as objectivity, paternalism, ableism, ageism, mentalism, perfectionism, power hoarding, individualism, microaggressions, and so on, and so forth, the list has no end. Some of the items enumerated above (ableism, ageism, mentalism) are words that you will have difficulties finding in a thick dictionary; the use of others, those positive words that we are all familiar with (objectivity, paternalism, perfectionism, individualism), inverted in their meaning and applied to describe social drawbacks, perplex us in their new overtones and render us dumbfounded. All these phenomena very often ending in ism are said to be ubiquitous, pervade all human activities not excepting state or social institutions, from school to government, from family to community. We all are believed to be psychologically flawed in one way or another without having the slightest awareness of it. Especially white people are a sitting duck for all manner of attackers and their detractors. White people are held to be responsible for all vileness, malevolence, iniquity and baseness of social life. Conversely, people of colour are without blemish: the eternal victims of white racism, vehicles of moral high ground. People of colour are to be elevated and placed on plinths and apologised to, genuflected to and adored. Conversely, traces of white people’s grandeour are systematically obliterated.

Non-governmental organisations, too, once conceived as auxiliary organs which would step in where governments proved to be absent or ineffective have been taken over by the world’s movers and shakers. Now NGOs are implementing and amplifying the agenda of the powers that be and, indeed, at times so brazenly and unashamedly, that state authorities are beginning to see things through and bridle or ban these organisations.

Why are social ills piling up and multiplying? Why, despite so much effort to the contrary, all the isms that we have listed above (and many more!) allegedly persist and metastasize? Are these isms natural phenomena or instruments with which a group of powerful individuals are attaining their goals through creating manageable chaos? Are the people who commit themselves to the combat against all those isms (and many that have not yet been invented!) in their right senses? Are they useful idiots, misty-eyed individuals, well-meaning trendsetters or cynical careerists? What has gone wrong?

 

Gefira Financial Bulletin #52 is available now

  • What has gone wrong with our society?
  • Racism, Racism Everywhere, White Supremacy Never Shrinks
  • NGOs and Foundations
  • Why Google is harmful or why you should invest in artificial intelligence

The University of Amsterdam wants to get rid of a research report on the cost of immigration

When social peace is based on people’s ability to believe in something they don’t actually believe in, paradoxical thinking prevails. In 2006, above an article in the Financial Times, the following curious headline read: “The troubled cosmopolitan: how migrants enrich an increasingly concerned host.” While there is high unemployment among non-Western immigrants in Western countries, Western intellectuals still believe that overall non Western immigration is economically beneficial to white European countries. Probably it was because of this conviction that the University of Amsterdam agreed to contribute to an extensive research on the cost or benefits of immigration.

After 3 years of extensive data analysis the researchers published their results in a report called: “Boundless Welfare State”. The report examined the public cost, like social security and public income such as taxes collected from immigrants. It turned out that especially non-Western immigration is a huge burden for Dutch society. Immigrants have cost the Dutch people 400 billion euro over the last few decades. If the Dutch state continues to accept more immigrants, the expenditure will only go up further. The report not only estimated the enormous burden of mass-immigration for the Dutch population, it also did away with the belief that education could elevate poor immigrants from Africa and Central Asia.

It came as no surprise that the academic community of Amsterdam was unhappy with the outcome. Facts are only facts whether or not they are in line with the current political and religious convictions. That was as much the case in Galileo’s day as it is now. The report was produced with the full cooperation of the University of Amsterdam, which demanded that the researchers remove the university’s name and logo from the report and all references to the sponsor of the survey.
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The future of the immigration debate

Over the last decades the immigration debate has focused on the clash of civilizations. Christian Europe, versus the Islamic migrants from the Middle-East. Algerians in France, Pakistanis in the United Kingdom, and Turks in Germany. The major groups that disturbed that demographics of Western Europe have all had in common that they are Islamic. The anti-immigration political parties have embraced this, and have portrayed Islam, rather than immigration, as being the problem. Most immigration challenges focus around religion and the barrier it forms to successful integration. Right-wing parties have been able to use this as a defense against claims of racism. Islam, clearly, is not a race, it is an ideology. This becomes apparent when we look at one of the quotes from the Dutch Party for Freedom’s leader Geert Wilders, “Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands, today, there are about 1 million. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it.” Wilders does not talk about falling birth rates or the percentage of the population that is foreign half as much as he talks about the problem of Islam. 

We are nevertheless experiencing a shift. The Middle East and North Africa have a relatively small population, countries like Libya and Lebanon have under seven million inhabitants each. The most populous country in that group is Egypt, but that is not the country where immigrants are coming from. A country like Syria only has seventeen million inhabitants. We shouldn’t jump to the wrong conclusion that immigrants will continue to arrive in Europe from these areas. There is a bigger source. Yes, we’re talking about Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa. 
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Eternal tilting at windmills

On February 18, UN Secretary General António Guterres graced the world with another of his many uplifting speeches. Of the limited range of topics that are routinely broached – climate change, discrimination, the pandemic and racism – he chose to focus on the last of the mentioned. It went something like this: Ladies and gentlemen, in case you have not noticed, (which is even absurd to assume but never mind) racism plagues our world. Then António Guterres – in the Alfred Hitchcock style: first an earthquake, then the tension rises – hyporbelised this breathtaking gambit with the usual adjectives to the tune of “abhorrent”, “ugly”, and the noun “repudiation”. Racism – despite decades of reeducating the humanity and despite the Charter of the United Nations – is !everywhere! and so it will take a long time to combat it. The top representative of humanity went on to appealing to his worldwide audience that it must – without reservation, without hesitation, without qualification – reject and condemn racism which still permeates institutions, social structures and everyday life. Furthermore, António Guterres said that although racism, a repudiation of our common humanity, is deeply entrenched in centuries of colonialism and slavery and is a complex cultural phenomenon, especially because our world is letting go of the primacy of reason, tolerance and mutual respect, leaving place for – yes, of course – growing anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred (some undefined minority Christian groups have also been thrown in), intolerance and – yes, again an easy guess – xenophobia, which, again is everywhere, around the world. António Guterres coupled the above mentioned phenomena with the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed the inequalities, systematic prejudice and discrimination against marginalized, racial and ethnic groups, against – surprise, surprise – gender, age, class, caste, religion, disability, sexual orientation as if we all did not know this string of adjectives by heart by now.

The solution? There you have it. António Guterres says that we must build a better world (since the dawn of history we are nothing but engaged in building a better world), forge a new social contract (is António Guterres another embodiment of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?) based on – now the usual fashionable buzz words – inclusivity and sustainability; we must invest in social cohesion (obviously by) making societies more and more diverse, more and more multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural. People must be made to see the benefits of diversity rather than perceiving it as a threat.
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Gefira 51: Financial and Ideological Foundations of the World

Precious metals have given rise to money as we know it. It all began with pieces of silver, copper and gold, later normalised in the form of coins of various sizes, with effigies of mighty men and various legend on the obverse and the reverse. Right from the start, the economic pressure made rulers – monarchs or democratic leaders alike – tamper with the gold or silver content of the coins in circulation, which gradually prompted financiers to divorce money from precious metals. Eventually, money could be multiplied in infinite amounts. Present-day technology makes it even easier: you can create new money by clicking the computer mouse! Precious metals have apparently lost in meaning, or have they?

Financial matters are but one of the pillars supporting our civilisation; ideology is the other. Its impact cannot be overestimated. It shapes the collective mind with which it controls human behaviour. Recently three spheres of life have become targets of this unrivalled ideological attack: the planet earth, sex or gender and race. We may not be fully aware of the changes that the world has undergone and is undergoing, but we have simple means with which to investigate this enormous societal, moral and political transformation. Everyone can afford it on an individual basis and draw a comparison. The current issue of Gefira reveals how and gathers the vocabulary which shows the profound and startling though not yet complete transformation of the collective psyche that has taken place.

 

Gefira Financial Bulletin #51 is available now

  • Financial and Ideological Foundations of the World
  • Money glut in America, precious metals and uranium on the rise
  • The Profound Change in Collective Mentality
  • What makes the gold and silver markets tick?

The euro failed during the pandemic

Responsible entrepreneurship by Central and Eastern European companies protected the countries of this part of Europe during the pandemic. Eurozone countries did much worse and are recovering more slowly. What or who is responsible for this?

Polish economy recovered from the misery of the previous year in such a way that 97.2% of the state of the economy before the pandemic was reached again. President of the Polish Stock Exchange Marek Dietl said it was thanks to the unique adaptability of Polish entrepreneurs. According to Dietl, the entrepreneurs knew how to make clever use of state aid, among other things. Industrial production in Poland in December 2020 actually rose by 11.2% compared to the previous year.The fact is: Poland’s export surplus is increasing. Fact is: the Czech Republic has the lowest unemployment in the EU at the moment. Fact is: the country’s own currency limits potential trade deficits. During the same period, the Eurozone economy, which is 10 times larger than Poland’s, only recovered to 93.2% of its pre-Covid state (after all, judging by the figures, you would never guess how much larger the Eurozone is than Poland).
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Can David win against Goliath? – The Storm on Wall Street

After the storming of the Capitol, there is now a big commotion on Wall Street. This time it is not the supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement who are trying to storm the fortress of the financial world. It is small investors who are hurling a stone at the big funds.

Hedge funds – that’s what we’re talking about – are actively managed funds whose goal is to achieve the highest possible return regardless of market developments. This is achieved by hedging (hence their name) their shares, bonds, their investments in commodities, foreign exchange and other assets. Most of the time, funds hedge by buying what are called shorts on their investments. It works like this: they buy, for example, shares of a company within a longer period for a total of 1 billion dollars, usually when they are undervalued, which raises the price of those shares, which in turn attracts small investors. At this point the funds get rid of their shares and take a short position by borrowing the shares from an institutional investor like a pension fund and selling them on the market pushing the price down. To return the shares to the pension fund, they repurchase them at a lower price.

Because the price falls, the small investors lose their money and the funds in turn collect money because it sold the shares at a high price and recollect them at a lower price. Sometimes, however, they act the other way around, when they have “missed” an interesting “asset” that is largely owned by small investors. In such cases they start to sell borrowed stocks so that these small fish panic and get rid of their shares and the big sharks can take them over at lower prices. Not only pension funds but also other assets kept at broker accounts are borrowed to hedge funds without the knowledge of the owner, the pensioner or the retail investor. The whole mechanism is against the interest of the stock owner or pensioner, but generates some extra profit, in the form of a lending fee, for the custodian of the stocks.

The hedge funds have huge sums of money and so they can actually manipulate the price at will. What makes hedge funds risky is that they have little equity, and function largely through leverage (mostly from large investors or banks) on credit. In addition, hedge funds are often operated as offshore funds and are located in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda i.e. places where the financial sector is less regulated by law than elsewhere.
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