The life expectancy gap between rich and poor people in England is widening, despite years of government and NHS action, a hard-hitting National Audit Office report reveals today.

Extensive efforts have failed to reduce the wide differential, which can still be 10 years or more depending on socio-economic background, says the public spending watchdog. While life expectancy has risen generally, it is increasing at a slower rate for England’s poorest citizens.

In Blackpool, for example, men live for an average of 73.6 years, which is 10.7 fewer than men in Kensington and Chelsea in central London, who reach 84.3 years. Similarly, women in the Lancashire town typically die at 78.8 years – 10.1 years earlier than those in the London borough, who reach an average 89.9.

The gap in life expectancy between government-designated areas of high deprivation and the national average has continued to widen, so Labour’s aim of reducing it by 10% will not be met, the NAO concludes. The failure to meet the target has cost an estimated 3,300 lives.

The report criticises the Department of Health and the NHS for making too little progress to tackle this key barometer of inequality. Although the DoH set a target in 2000 to reduce health inequalities and published a strategy in 2003, real NHS action did not begin until 2006, it says.

“The Department of Health has made a concerted effort to tackle a very difficult and long-standing problem,” said Amyas Morse, head of the NAO.

“However, it was slow to take action and health inequalities were not a top priority for the NHS until 2006.”

The service was also slow to apply three key policies, including giving more poor people drugs to reduce their blood pressure or cholesterol level. “These have yet to be adopted on the scale required to close the inequalities gap,” the NAO said.

The report also highlights a continuing lack of GPs in poor areas with high health need, despite shortages having been identified as a problem in 2000. It is also unclear whether an extra £230 a head spent in some areas to improve health outcomes has had any real impact.

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said the disparities showed the inequality of English society. “If we see ourselves as a civilised society, these gaps are an indication of unfairness, which shouldn’t be there, and is an unfairness which costs lives, damages people’s health and will eventually be a huge burden on the NHS if they aren’t tackled,” he said.

But the NAO report did contain good news about improvements in the health of England’s poorest citizens, he added. “The health of the people in the poorest areas is going in the right direction – that’s good news. We shouldn’t regard that as a failure. But the bulk of the population are improving their health at a faster rate.” He urged ministers to resist any temptation to cut spending on health inequalities in the tough financial climate.

Anne Milton, the public health minister, emphasised the government’s belief in health equality. “Everyone should have the same opportunities to lead a healthy life no matter where they live. We want the public’s health to be at the very heart of all we do, not just in the NHS but across government,” she said.

“This report shows that efforts have been made to address health inequalities but that more needs to be done to tackle the deep-rooted social problems that cause ill-health. I want to see the NHS, doctors and local government acting at the right time to improve the health of those who need it most.”

The NHS Confederation, which represents most health service organisations, admitted that more progress was needed. Jo Webber, its deputy policy director, said: “The NHS and its partners, especially in local government, have a responsibility to help stop people falling into and continuing in ill-health rather than picking up the pieces when it may be too late. Encouraging improved health requires a focus on all aspects of society, including economic inequality, and quality of life in early years.”

Tammy Boyce, of the King’s Fund health thinktank, said the NHS could only achieve so much. “Tackling health inequalities is not a task for the NHS alone. It requires a co-ordinated, long-term commitment across government to address the wider causes of ill health such as poverty and poor housing,” she said.

“The first test of whether the coalition government is likely to succeed where the previous government failed will come in this autumn’s spending review. It is vital that cross-cutting issues like health inequalities are not overlooked in the scramble to deliver spending cuts on a department-by-department basis.”

Michelle Mitchell, charity director at Age UK, said the big gap in life expectancy had to be tackled in the light of the government’s intention to increase the age at which people can draw the state pension. “With a 13-year disparity in life expectancy between different areas of the country, it’s shocking that primary care trusts are still failing to use simple and effective treatments to help tackle the problem.

“This report follows the government’s announcement last week to raise the state pension age further and faster, which will hit those with a shorter life expectancy in the poorest areas of Britain hardest,” she said. “In this context, tackling health inequalities is more urgent than ever and the government must set ambitious targets to close the yawning life expectancy divide.”

Also see – Taxed To Death our film special on this issue

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/02/poor-in-uk-dying-10-years-earlier-than-rich

]]> http://renegadeeconomist.com/blog/telegraphpoor-uk-dying-10-years-earlier-rich-years-government-action.html/feed 0 http://renegadeeconomist.com/blog/coalition-government-prospects-lvt.html http://renegadeeconomist.com/blog/coalition-government-prospects-lvt.html#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 16:08:10 +0000 admin http://renegadeeconomist.com/?p=914

If the claims of David Cameron and Nick Clegg are to be taken at face value, here in the UK we now live under a radical transforming government unprecedented in its progressive ambition.  Of course, there is nothing in the coalition agreement to justify the hyperbole, but there may be a glimmer of  hope. For the first time since long before the last coalition was dissolved in 1945, the cabinet now boasts three members who are on record as supporting the principle of land value taxation (LVT), a radical and potentially transforming policy if ever there was one.

Between the SEC charges and the congressional panels, the government is finally doing its job going after Goldman Sachs, right?  And this last week in April ends with the Justice Department picking up the baton, which puts Goldman under threat of criminal prosecution.  Things have suddenly gotten serious.

Two weeks ago on a radio interview, I suggested the SEC investigation will either be a chump charge to pacify the masses or it might potentially be the beginning of the sacrifice of Goldman Sachs for reasons explained below.  The Justice Department referral makes the latter more probable.

Criminal prosecution is indeed appropriate.  Goldman deserves to be broken up.  In fact, all banks of that size need to be broken up so that power is passed down to state and local economies, and countries are no longer held hostage by the mega firms.  Is that what is happening here?  Are we being saved from the financial parasites that have destroyed our economy?

Childlike Perspective:  Left vs. Right

The left thinks so.  The major media establishment is suddenly, as if by script, trumpeting the idea that government is cracking down on boogie man Goldman Sachs.  This view says, “Yey! Our good government servants that have our best interests at heart are fixing those greedy Wall Street parasites.”  That’s the entire purpose of the congressional panels—a stageshow for the Wall-Street-funded media to promote this narrative. But those very same government officials were the ones who did what Goldman Sachs representatives and the real powers behind Wall Street told them for the last 20+ years.  They still get all of their money from Wall Street.  Have they suddenly turned on the very people who feed them?  Of course not.

The right thinks this crackdown is bad because Wall Street and Goldman represent a benevolent free market.  This view goes beyond childlikeness and approaches insanity, like Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein thinking of himself as an angel from God.  Wall Street, the Fed cartel, is a government creation.  There is nothing “free market” about it.  It is the most powerful monopolized cartel in the history of the world.  Conservative media mouthpieces who trumpet Wall Street do not have a clue about our monetary system.  They have never looked beyond the false religion of neoclassical economics, which conveniently ignores the issue of money.

Conclusion: rule out the simplistic view of the left and right.  The Washington DC government has served Wall Street and big business for decades.  There is no divide between big government and big business.  They go hand in hand.  Neither could exist without the other.

Adolescent Perspective:  “They’re All Criminals”

Another group of people, far more accurate than the left vs. right disciples, think that Wall Street is just a predatory bunch.  Bringing down Goldman Sachs would therefore be a good thing in their view.  But they think DC government is a predatory bunch as well.  They see through the salesmanship and PR pumped through the corporate media.  They understand that frat boy behavior creates a self-serving clique whether on Wall Street or in Washington DC.  In fact, they understand how the boys in both groups get their power from working together.  It is all one club.

Conclusion: as correct as this view is, it leaves us paralyzed.  Adolescents are brilliant at seeing through adult facades, but they may fail to see the higher level picture.

The Godfather:  Who the Criminals Work For

The key to what is really happening is to understand that the suits we see on television are not in charge.  A bunch of random self-serving people would not be able to pull off strategic, coordinated plans—the adolescent view is only half correct.  There are people far above the pay grade of a senator like Chris Dodd or a wage servant like Lloyd Blankfein.  He may be the top operating officer at Goldman, but by definition that means he is a servant of the ownership class—the Anglo mafia—that controls all money in the system.  The fact that he earns a wage and gets a W2 at the end of the year means he and his firm are not in charge.

Goldman Sachs is effectively a capo regime.  It is a powerful player in a game of controlled chaos.  It was given a territory and was then expected to deliver the goods.  And Goldman delivered better than all the other capos in the system.  It reaped the rewards.  Goldman’s officers were paid better than any other regime throughout the last several decades.  Its hit men were the most productive. The most loyal—Rubin, Paulson, etc—have been inducted into the upper level circle around the Godfather and removed from the stressful street jobs that bring public scrutiny.  Those guys made their hundreds of millions and no longer care whether Goldman exists or not.  And from the Godfather’s perspective, there comes a time when capos have served their purpose.  At that point, their life is in danger.

“The Game of the Century:”  Bobby Fischer and the Queen Sacrifice

But capos typically are not sacrificed unless doing so would serve a Machiavellian purpose.  So what would be the purpose of sacrificing Goldman?  Well, in one of the more famous games in chess history, 13-year-old Bobby Fischer brilliantly pounced on his opponent and guaranteed victory by boldly sacrificing his queen on move 17.  The queen is the most powerful chess piece.  Average people would narrowly play a game defensively protecting their queen and assuming any chance to take your queen would lead to victory.  But that elementary view would be precisely the weakness upon which a true chess mind, a Godfather, would prey.  Beware of the bait being laid in front of you.

Goldman Sachs is very much analogous to a queen in the chess game being played by the ownership class—the richest pools of private capital controlled by multi-generational wealthy families that hover above countries via the central banking system.  It has been one of the most potent pieces on the board for many years, its most recent attack being on the entire nation of Greece.  But as the endgame comes into view, perhaps the most brilliant play to reach checkmate is now the queen sacrifice.  Goldman employees had better be sending their resumes to JP Morgan Chase—a critical chess piece in the endgame that will be protected at all costs.

The Great Global Restructuring

What is the end game?  The ownership class is attempting to restructure the world under a new financial system.  We have had a global currency for a long time—the US dollar—but it has run its course.  Wall Street has leveraged up the dollar as far as possible.  The dollar now holds most nations hostage thanks to the power of the bond market, the central banking system.  The ownership class needs a new debt-based currency and banking structure to maintain control as they pump the capital engine through the 21st century.  This is why the G20 is working feverishly to build up the IMF, BIS, and new global financial rules.  This time the production center will be China rather than the US, which is why China and Japan are the most asset-rich countries in the world while the western world is the most indebted.  The west is on track for decades of slow decline while Asia is on the verge of seeing “the rising sun.”

So unfortunately the government vs. Goldman Sachs story has nothing to do with reforming Wall Street in the interest of average Americans. Rather, it is a strategic move to further the endgame of consolidating Wall Street power, focusing public rage on Goldman to protect JP Morgan Chase, fueling new regulations to clamp down on the smaller banks that we so desperately need, and creating a global structure even bigger than the already “too big to fail” banking system.  This may be setting up one of the biggest, most successful queen sacrifices in history.  We should take the queen by all means—Goldman is a predator.  But heed the lesson from 13-year-old Bobby Fischer.  Be wary of checkmate.

Source Link:  Canada Free Press

By Damon Vrabel  Saturday, May 1, 2010

None of the parties have spelled out how they would cut the deficit. Since their various proposals will scarcely dent it, whoever wins the election will have to implement further tax rises and spending cuts.

Is raising NICs a good first step, though? Hardly. With unemployment high and incomes squeezed, it is staggering that Labour wants to raise taxes on labour. Hitting ordinary voters’ main source of income is hardly progressive. Worse, it will harm the recovery by raising the cost of labour and penalising effort. That will crimp pay, cost jobs and discourage working – limiting the tax take and raising benefit spending.

NICs and income tax inflate the cost of employing the average worker by half, according to the OECD, while a single person on two-thirds of average wages faces a marginal tax rate of more than 40 per cent. Hiking taxes on hard work is perverse.

While the Conservatives are right to oppose a “tax on jobs”, Labour and the Lib Dems are right to question George Osborne’s scarcely credible claim that nebulous “efficiency savings” will cover the revenue shortfall. But that does not make rescinding the NIC rise “unaffordable”. It just means the parties need to find better ways to raise extra revenue. Here are three.

First, tax harmful things, such as carbon emissions. A levy of little more than £10 a tonne could fill the £5.6bn gap left by the Tories’ rescinding of Labour’s 1 per cent NIC rise. Raising the rate as emissions fell would ensure a steady stream of revenue. It would also stimulate clean-tech industries and the green jobs of the future, without picking winners.

Second, bring forward reforms to encourage people to retire later. As the first baby boomers reach 65 this year, they should bear some of the burden of adjustment, while working longer would also replenish savings crushed by the crisis. Raising the retirement age by three months a year for the next 20 years and removing incentives for early retirement and obstacles to working longer would reduce pension outlays, raise tax revenues and boost growth.

Third, introduce a tax on land values. Whereas taxing work is wasteful – less is produced and no tax is raised on the lost output – land is in fixed supply so a tax on it is less harmful (and impossible to avoid). Shifting the tax burden from labour to land would therefore boost economic growth, according to an OECD study.

Taxing land values could also limit property bubbles, which divert funds from productive investment in booms and then cause terrible busts – without discouraging development (unlike property taxes), mobility (unlike stamp duty) or investment (unlike interest rate rises).

It would also be fair. Whatever the merits of capitalism, there is nothing intrinsically desirable about the initial distribution of property rights. Britain’s history is such that land is distributed more unequally than in Brazil. There, 1 per cent of the population owns 49 per cent of the land; here, 0.3 per cent owns 69 per cent.

Land appreciates not through landowners’ striving, but that of others. As talented and industrious people have flocked to London, the value of the 300 acres of fields – now Mayfair and Belgravia – passed down to successive Dukes of Westminster over three centuries, has sky-rocketed to an estimated £6.5bn. Better, surely, to tax that windfall rather than the work of those who generated it? A land tax would also pay for much-needed infrastructure investments that raise surrounding land values.

Replenishing Britain’s public finances will involve painful choices. But it is also a chance to make tax fairer and less harmful to growth. Wise politicians should seize it.

The author is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute. His new book, ‘Aftershock: Reshaping the World Economy After the Crisis’, is out on May 6

“In the US and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview overnight in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

Stiglitz’s views echo those of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who has advised President Barack Obama’s administration to curtail the size of banks, and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, who suggested last month that governments may want to discourage financial institutions from growing “excessively.”

A year after the demise of Lehman forced the Treasury Department to spend billions to shore up the financial system, Bank of America’s assets have grown and Citigroup remains intact.

In the UK, Lloyds Banking Group, 43 per cent owned by the government, has taken over the activities of HBOS, and in France BNP Paribas now owns the Belgian and Luxembourg banking assets of insurer Fortis.

While Obama wants to name some banks as “systemically important” and subject them to stricter oversight, his plan wouldn’t force them to shrink or simplify their structure.

Stiglitz said the US government is wary of challenging the financial industry because it is politically difficult, and that he hopes the Group of 20 leaders will cajole the US into tougher action.

G-20 steps

“We aren’t doing anything significant so far, and the banks are pushing back,” he said. “The leaders of the G-20 will make some small steps forward, given the power of the banks” and “any step forward is a move in the right direction.”

G-20 leaders gather next week in Pittsburgh and will consider ways of improving regulation of financial markets and in particular how to set tighter limits on remuneration for market operators.

Under pressure from France and Germany, G-20 finance ministers last week reached a preliminary accord that included proposals to claw-back cash awards and linking compensation more closely to long-term performance.

“It’s an outrage,” especially “in the US where we poured so much money into the banks,” Stiglitz said. “The administration seems very reluctant to do what is necessary. Yes they’ll do something, the question is: Will they do as much as required?”

Global economy

Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank and member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the world economy is “far from being out of the woods” even if it has pulled back from the precipice it teetered on after the collapse of Lehman.

“We’re going into an extended period of weak economy, of economic malaise,” Stiglitz said. The US will “grow but not enough to offset the increase in the population,” he said, adding that “if workers do not have income, it’s very hard to see how the US will generate the demand that the world economy needs.”

The Federal Reserve faces a “quandary” in ending its monetary stimulus programs because doing so may drive up the cost of borrowing for the US government, he said.

“The question then is who is going to finance the US government,” Stiglitz said.

Sydney Morning Herald

According to the World Bank, world-wide wealth to the tune of $34 trillion has now been wiped out in the latest phase of destruction. This means that, if you believe its chief economist, Justin Lin, we have some way to go before the orgy ends.

Twelve months ago, in the summer of 2008, in a Renegade Economist documentary – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nttuh8oHYw&feature=channel_page – We forecast that the wipeout of wealth would reach $45 trillion.

Carry on Crushing

According to Lin, the World Bank’s first Chinese official to serve as chief economist, the West should accelerate the destruction of its capital base.

 ”Excess capacity has built up and unless this issue is addressed, we will face a deflationary spiral,” he warns. The West, apparently, should demolish more factories, adjusting the industrial base to accommodate economic reality.

But here’s the problem: if China continues to invest in capital formation (which it is doing), and if China’s labour costs remain lower than the wages paid to western workers, the trade balance between East and West will continue to be lopsided in favour of Mr Lin’s homeland. So how do we stop the downward spiral?

China has an advantage over the West: its command control in Beijing is determined to boost growth even as the West continues its toboggan ride into depression. At the last count, China was growing at an annual rate of 7.9%, and rising.

Eastern Promise

What if the West accepts Mr Lin’s advice, and demolishes more of its manufacturing capacity? Disgruntled French workers apparently find this strategy appealing, as a negotiating tactic: workforces are now rigging factories with gas canisters, to blow up the capital equipment if they do not receive improved redundancy pay-offs.

But if we carry on crushing the West’s industrial base, the ratio between the West and the East’s capacity would have to be adjusted on a continuous basis, until everything that we consumed was Made in China.

Do we have to allow the Chinese to specify the terms for the next business cycle? No! The appropriate tax reform would reduce western labour costs (without reducing living standards), while raising incentives to invest in the innovative firms that could lead the West out of depression. Instead, conventional economic wisdom urges us to accelerate the destruction of capital. It seems that our forecast – the wipeout of $45 trillion worth of wealth – will be realised in 2010.

 Was that a laugh, I heard, as I last strolled past Marx’s mausoleum in Hampstead?

Monetary policy, the regulatory agencies concede, is insufficient to prevent asset price bubbles. So a second tool is needed. But what should that be? Don’t ask the Treasury, because they don’t know. If they did, we wouldn’t be enduring the worst economic crisis since the Depression of the 1930s.

How About an Inquest?

 Following the massacre in the markets, the bodies are strewn all around as evidence that something went terribly wrong. Economists failed to alert governments of the impending collapse in the financial sector. And yet, curiously, there has been no forensic examination of the tools employed by forecasters to explain their failure.

In the US, 13,000 people apparently earn their living “doing” economics. That’s according to Professor Robert Samuelson, son of the Nobel prize winner Paul A. Samuelson. He finds it “intriguing” that most economists failed to predict the financial crisis. There is no compelling explanation for this failure, writes Samuelson in The Washington Post (July 6). Because “economists have not engaged in rigorous self criticism to explain their lapse”.

There is nothing mysterious about the unwillingness to scrutinise their failure. The answer is simple. Economics is not practiced as a science. Rather, it is a pretentious way to covertly promote political prejudices. The last thing that economists need is an inquest. But that leaves the UK Treasury mute about the “macro-prudential” tools needed to prevent the next property boom/bust.

They Protest Too Much

Economists love shouting about the failures of others to disguise what they don’t know. Take the case of Paul Krugman, whose competence is such as to apparently warrant a Nobel prize. In a New York Times column (July 3) he admonishes the Obama administration for an inadequate fiscal stimulus programme to cope with a shortfall in jobs of about 8.5m.

Krugman does confess that “as an economist, I’d add that many members of my profession are playing a distinctly unhelpful role. It has been a rude shock to see so many economists with good reputations recycling old fallacies”.

But can we trust Krugman to add up simple numbers? He takes exception to the manipulation of employment figures, but his over-priced textbook on economics claims that the rent of land in the US is just 1% of national income.  Since it’s probably more like 33%, we need to treat the pronouncements of people like Krugman with a pinch of salt.

Camouflaging the Root Cause

No government in the world has shown the slightest inclination to highlight the root cause of the financial crisis. The incentives to create credit on a reckless scale are located in the land market. Ever since the early 17^th century, governments have held enquiries into financial crises following savage bouts of land speculation . Despite all the agonising, however, not once did they remove the rewards to prevent such episodes recurring.

This time, the rush over the financial precipice started in the US. There, bankers had found yet another way to milk the land market. They targeted low income black neighbourhoods with  high-cost/high-risk mortgages, knowing (so clever were they) that they would not bear the risk. Those risks would be sold to mugs like pensioners whose funds would buy the securitised mortgages.

Twisting and turning the bank regulations after this last episode will not prevent the bankers inventing new ways to milk the land market towards the end of the next business cycle that begins in 2010. That’s why the UK’s White Paper on financial regulation isn’t worth the paper on which it is written.

According to Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s financial stability director, there remain many “unanswered questions”. That’s the clever economist’s way of distracting us from the fact that the coroner has yet to ask the right questions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/21/business-confidence-survey-kpmg

A survey of UK business leaders advised The Guardian they see signs the recession is leveling off if not any time soon coming to an end. The Guardian reports that one in three firms are experiencing financial difficulties. Many are likely to fail if global and domestic demand continues to fall, and demand will fall unless employment increases.

The survey reported that “one in four businesses have seen their banking relationship worsen”. Bankers have had to tighten credit criteria, increase reserves for loan losses and deal with continuing increases in defaults and foreclosures.

Recently, the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) reported that the UK economy resumed growth in April and May. And,  Martin Weale, director of NIESR, reported that GDP figures should indicate the downturn has ended “or that it is close to over”.

One problem with government forecasts based on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is that what goes into the GDP figure has little to do with measurement of real economic growth. Virtually every amount spent by the government goes into the GDP calculation, regardless of what the money is spent or whether raised by taxation, borrowing or monetary expansion.

Here is the spreadsheet for the 2007/8 claims –  interesting reading.

No-one at Renegade Economist HQ realised that it was so expensive to live in Falkirk – Scotland.

The power really has shifted – we the public now understand that politicians are a colossal distraction.

We must to take up the agenda – that’s within the rules.

Download the file here and give us your thoughts.

By understanding the pattern that individuals follow, the progress of a culture or a nation becomes predictable, and the stage that they have reached is identifiable by certain known characteristics. Those who study the evolutionary consciousness of humanity all over the world, have developed countless maps and models of the evolutionary journey, from simple easy to understand three stage models to complex ones of 15 or more stages. When they are superimposed over one another, they show a consistent sequential pattern.

One of these models, a four stage one devised by Kohlberg and Gilligan, labels Egocentric as the lowest level, followed by Ethnocentric, then Worldcentric and finally Kosmocentric. The other more complex models provide more detail, but I am intentionally keeping it simple here. This model can be described as showing the size of the person’s consciousness or what the person includes in his or her field of care. A recent study suggested that some 77% of the world population is currently Ethnocentric or below.

This Ethnocentric stage is characterised by tribal orientation, nationalism, rivalries, adolescent behaviours, and the like. Let us consider now the responses made by the bankers and the politicians to media and public criticism. They were very similar.

• The claim that “Everything I did was within the rules.”
• An inability to recognise that what they did was ethically or morally wrong.
• The excuse that “I made a mistake”, but the mistakes were all to their own benefit.
• An almost pathological inability to take responsibility, and to say “I am sorry”.

 Anyone who has a teenage son will recognize these adolescent traits; however, when one is under 25 such behaviour is to be expected as an acceptable phase in growing up. Above 30 or so, and especially if one is a banker or a politician with power over many, such behaviours are not only unattractive, unacceptable, and inexcusable, they are positively dangerous. Why have the media not picked this up and pointed it out?

Introducing tighter regulations for bankers or politicians does not raise their level of maturity, morality or their ethics, it just limits what they can get away with. No, it is the type of people, the Ethnocentrics themselves, that have to go. Worldcentric people by definition and by their nature would not have abused the old regulations, let alone need new ones. Anyone below Worldcentric on the “chart” should not be selected or elected into positions of leadership in politics or big corporations, not just banks. Fewer people would fit the bill and that would limit our choice, and so it should.

The second of the two issues was the failure of commentators to seriously question the capitalist economic system that has proved to be so fragile and unjust. It has brought wealth to half the world while the rest starve; it thrives on excess consumption and the inevitable emissions, and it seriously retards the evolutionary development of individuals and cultures. Bankers and politicians alike strive to prop up the old failing system which they abused, because they know no better.

It did not occur to them that this was a golden opportunity to start to create a viable, sustainable economic system in line with the requirements of emerging Worldcentric human consciousness stage. Putting off the inevitable only makes the next economic crisis bigger and sooner. Worldcentric observers are amazed, distraught by the primitive ethnocentric thinking of our politicians and bankers, but they are up against the power that they still exercise.  

However there is also a groundswell of more conscious or ‘worldcentric’ people who will no longer tolerate the old order and they will become ever more vociferous until the ethnocentric majority of politicians are discredited, ousted and replaced. Some commentators will reread if not resurrect Karl Marx, but the way is forward not backwards. A new economic order is essential, one that puts people and planet before profit.

So why have these two core issues been bypassed? Because few can contemplate the demise of capitalism and so they retreat into a state of denial, and few so called leaders can face the fact that despite their profile and in some cases their cleverness, their behaviour is adolescent. They have no knowledge of the evolutionary imperative that determines our future and ultimately our survival, let alone any understanding of it, or are guided by it. Why not? Because our schooling has tragically failed many generations now by ducking evolution, in simple terms, it omits the development of emotional intelligence followed by wisdom. Instead schools have been obliged to promote quantitative technowledge to meet commercial goals. The result is a gross excess of designed obsolescent material gadgets, goods, guns and emissions, and an absence of the wisdom to use our innovative ability responsibly for the collective benefit of mankind.

Are Worldcentric politicians and bankers too much to ask for? Many conscious people are waiting in the wings for this adolescent lot to get out or grow up. Worldcentric people are described as having “a greater expansion of self to embrace all people regardless of race, gender, class, or creed; social activism, moral relativism, rationality that questions rigid belief systems and transcends traditional rules and roles”, and so on. Kosmocentric ones would be better still. They “identify with all life and consciousness, human or otherwise, have a deeply felt responsibility for the evolutionary process as a whole, and have an innate universal morality”, amongst other things. This is, after all, what we need if we are to overcome further economic crises and the even greater environmental and social justice crises that are on the way.