2 responses to “NEDERLAND 2, “Brandpunt”, Sunday 3d July 10:15 p.m.”

1. I did manage to see the program, obviously I agree, for the bigger part, with the contents.

   Regrettably, I find, that the time given for this interview was too short to give the full picture, I think the greed in the financial world and it’s effect on the social economic circumstances should have come forward even more. (The comparison to cancer cells, for instance IS brilliant!)
   The fact is, WE know what is in our minds, but not everybody has been or is as closely involved in the actual workings of the system as Mr. Jorion and the undersigned.

   I, for one, have started to think about the problems the then new (too) liberal economical mind lead to, in the mid nineties, when in my line of business the production lines of one factory were moved from country to lower paid country, to even lower paid country within Europe and finally ended up in China, killing thousands of workplaces in every country until the last one. And since then, of course things went worse and worse.

   Which of the CURRENT luxury goods we now import have EVER been produced here (Europe, US…Japan)? They never even started their lives here, so these goods did not need to be included in the statistics of “outsourcing”…

   The consequence of supply side economy in a boundarylessness environment under the umbrella of a liberalized financial system, leads in my opinion to ….slavery…..(too much downward pressure on the income and chances of the -real- working people, the devaluation of the factor labor…Marx’ game with the tampered dice.)

   At the time, March ’94, I read an article in the NRC, of which the final paragraph really tells it all:

   Quote……The world sails as a ship in the night to her (JB: economical, thus social) decline. Parties being held on all decks without break, while drowning the undefined voices from the holds. But, those, who dare place themselves on the gangways of the ship, will find that the lifeboats (JB intelligent economical policy, CONTROL….) have disappeared. All alternatives for neo-liberal capitalism have been destroyed. What, then, is the meaning of voting? Yes, a nice picture before the election that can be done! However, interfere with the party on the upper decks, give a bit of fresh air to the people in the holds….turn the ship around…who can do that?….unquote

   I agree with the conclusion in the program that the party is now (ought to be ) over.
   In this respect…. the current situation and the rising of populist movements everywhere, people are getting more and more afraid of what the future holds and look for answers.

   In one thing I disagree, I am of the opinion that given the right incentives a well negotiated balancing act between the old industrialized nations (continents) and the upcoming nations (tanks to the enormous amount of reserve currencies the latter countries hold) could lead to positive results , i.e room to grow for everybody…there is SO much work to be done and, really, so much money to be invested. It must be invested wisely, see projects like Desertec…in Holland…Plan Lievense

   Of course I fully agree with the statement that, contrary to the –apparently? – common vision, the countries in Europe should stride for much more unity, we need that to survive in the (in social-economic sense) reduced size of this wonderful planet…let’s try to keep it.

   But I do feel that in order to help us all out the devaluation of factor labor must be stopped, the bottoms in the communicating vessels must be levelled out (compensated). In other words gambling and the race to the bottom should be halted.

   Finally on Greece, everything seemed to be organized and again S&P adds its disturbing voice to the market, (trying to even out Euro short positions at low cost?) how come that countries are now dependent on banks, who wanted THAT! I do understand the frustration of the Greek people.

   First we export their jobs, then we make it very cheap for them to borrow money (within the EU) then the financial world creates a crisis and now the people have to bleed?

   • There was a good match between the two interviewees (the program here walks in the steps of two articles by Caroline de Gruyter in NRC Handelsblad) but the concern of making beautiful pictures is allowed to interfere a bit too much with the contents of what one is trying to say.