Melt Down

Film Introduction From Open Culture:
Doc Zone, a documentary series produced by CBC Television, is now airing a four part investigation into the great financial meltdown of 2008. Along the way, the CBC’s Terence McKenna takes viewers “behind the headlines and into the backrooms at the highest levels of world governments and banking institutions, revealing the astonishing level of backstabbing and tension behind the scenes as the world came dangerously close to another Great Depression.”

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Tok Piksa presents the 4 part series here, with background information taken from Al Jazeera’s English site, which also hosts the four-part series.


PART 1:
The men who crashed the world

In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.

The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929.

But how did it all go so wrong?

Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place.

Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced 'light touch regulation' - giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace.

All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world's biggest financial collapse.

PART 2:
A Global Financial Tsunami

In the second episode of Meltdown, we look at how the financial tsunami swept the world. We hear about a renegade executive who nearly destroyed the global financial system and the US treasury secretary who bailed out his friends.

Henry 'Hank' Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and later an economic advisor to the US government; refused to bail out global financial services firm - the Lehman Brothers. Paulson said it was not the role of government to save private businesses.

Lehman's failure had repercussions around the world. Millions of people lost their life savings. Pension plans were decimated.

Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister at the time and a close friend of Paulson's, publicly described Paulson's decision on Lehman "horrendous".

Markets from London and Paris to Shanghai fell. An epidemic of fear caused the world's major banks to stop lending, ending the year in protests and industrial action.

PART 3:

Paying the Price

The third episode of Meltdown looks at how the victims of the 2008 financial crash fight back. A protesting singer in Iceland brings down the government; in France a union leader oversees the kidnapping of his bosses; and thousands of families are made homeless in California.

Hordur Torfason, an Icelandic singer, leads the way in holding protests over the country's economy, calling for the resignation of the government and new elections.

Geir Haarde, the prime minister of Iceland, was surrounded and pelted by the protestors. Haarde soon resigned and the country's government collapsed.

In France, workers fought back to claim their rights. The Continental Tire factory announced its plant would close by 2010, meaning job losses for its 1,120 employees. Workers occupied offices and trashed the place in protest. Protests spread right across France and Europe.

As the grim toll of the financial crisis continues to mount around the world, many governments are looking for the true causes of the meltdown. In many cases, what they are discovering amounts to a crime.

PART 4:
After the Fall

In the final episode of Meltdown, we hear about the sheikh who says the crash never happened; a Wall Street king charged with fraud; a congresswoman who wants to jail the bankers; and the world leaders who want a re-think of capitalism.

The financial crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing over 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the brink of insolvency.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum calls himself Dubai's CEO. He claims to run his government according to strict business principles, but now many are quietly questioning his judgement and his leadership.

In depth coverage of US financial crisis protests

In the years before the meltdown, Dubai had the biggest real-estate bonanza in the world. During the crash, the market tumbled, losing 50 per cent of its value, leaving Dubai virtually insolvent. But this did not deter the sheikh.

In January 2010, Sheikh Mohammed threw a massive party to mark the opening of the world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa - using PR strategies to suggest that the real estate crash was a good thing for the emirate.

As one world leader handles the crisis through denial, other leaders try to re-think capitalism. Even though the causes of the 2008 meltdown are now clear, there is no magic formula to stop it from happening again.

The world has to start planning for the next crisis, even as we recognise that this one is not over yet.

Text Transcription Source: Aljazeera

"MELT DOWN"
Writen and Directed by TERENCE MCKENNA
Series Producers: MICHELLE GAGNON and TERENCE MCKENNA

Dark Side of Free Trade Agreements - Part 1

Introduction

This week, I started a new Faceboook Group called
"Visa Free Pacific". 

Some people have criticised the intentions of the group, offering their worse case scenarios if countries of the Pacific would create a Visa Free Zone.

Interestingly enough, the fears that have been raised so far include, the fear of growing transnational criminal activities, including terrorism. No one mentioned the Trans National Corporations who cross international borders rather too freely, causing a great many human catastrophes, destroying local businesses and atrociously exploiting the local labour force.

People seem more willing to mistrust fellow citizens, and pay no mind to the larger crimes. Why is that?

As you read through this blog post, and without me actually writing it you will work that out for yourself. Because it is part of the way the system works on earth at the present moment.

What is a Pacific Visa Free Zone?

A Visa Free Zone in the South Pacific would mean that people from the South Pacific Island Countries of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia could travel in and out of their countries without the requirement of a visa on their passports. Australia and New  Zealand could also be invited to be part of this diplomatic arrangement. 

Why explore the idea of a Visa Free Pacific?

On the surface, the reasoning would be about granting the facility of international travel to Pacific Island citizens within the Pacific Visa Free Zone itself, thus allowing them greater human freedom of movement and making it part of their basic and legitimate civil rights.

But there is a more profound and urgent reason for the desire to create this free zone of business and travel for Pacific Islanders.

It is a measure against unjust corporate exploitation of human labour. 

As difficult as it may be to believe at first, this proposal is actually a crucial part of a strategy to under-mind and defeat corporate exploitation and its stranglehold on the lives and livelihood of ordinary citizens and workers.

How does that make sense?

The first thing to understand and accept is that the unjust corporate exploitation of human labour works and survives best because of several reasons:

• Multinational corporations with the help of a powerful media machinery work to create an extreme division between people on the basis of class, background, race, religion and even age division where through television and film, they also seek to divide families into various classes of opinion and consumption taste;

• Corporate Practice facilitates the ignorance of the masses through misinformation, filling up crucial airtime with the beating up of media events, not reporting properly about war zones and the reasons for war, a great lack of attention to events crucial to human survival, knowledge and awareness;

• Multinational corporations survive due to the ignorance of the majority of international citizens about unfair and unjust corporate practice, and the multitude of different means they employ to bleed citizens in order to acquire and further their profit;

• The suffering of millions of exploited workers goes unnoticed and unchecked by the public because there is a great lack of information, awareness and understanding about the plight of humans caught in cycles of poverty and how they have become dependent on very low paying jobs;

• The ordinary people and the working classes of citizens are unable to cross borders to escape the shackles of modern day slavery because they severely lack the means of mobility owing to their own poverty and the laws that the companies have helped governments to legislate. As a result, they are trapped into conditions of injustice perpetrated by corporate industry. Within very limited bounds they are then fated to adjust to inhuman conditions of existence.

• Multinational Corporations in the worst case of predatory capitalism, must seek to destroy local industry and business in order to have the monopoly of the market and the creation and access to the cheapest human labour possible.

It is partly the immobility of people which plays into, and feeds the corporate machinery of unjust exploitation because it works best, when it can lock people into set and confined areas where they have no other opportunity to save themselves except through their labour until they show signs that they lack the energy to meet their production quota in the fields and factories.

Giving mobility to citizens robs the multinational corporations of the convenience of citizens and workers held captive through local policy and legislation. This coupled with regional diligence in the protection of regional and local businesses gives citizens and workers alternative forms of taking part in the international economy at a comfortable and human level of existence.

"Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to America"  

Those are the oft-quoted sentiments of the late Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.

The Mexican-American relationship is perhaps the worst example of cross border relationships and maybe the worst people fear, when they think about visa free zones.

But the rise of the human exploitation industries in the Mexican case is a separate injustice altogether. It is a glaring case of the nature of Predatory Capitalism.

It is not a visa issue. Here is why:



The misery of Mexican workers has many layers, rooted in the basic nature of predatory capitalism, which is the exploitation of human labour for greater profit.

It is part of a long story with many accumulating causes which are compounded and interconnected:



• The dismantling of the labour unions especially in the UK and in America through the "Thatcherism" and "Reaganism"



• The creation of "sweatshops" in poor countries - as part of the movement by multinational corporations to break the back of the Labour Unions in the first world and to increase their own profit by spending less on salaries and wages. Amongst the American companies that set up "sweatshops" in Mexico are: General Electric, Nike, Motorolla.

• 

The Rise of the "Maquiladoras" industry in Mexico. These are the tycoons that run the sweat shops.

The biggest contributer to human exploitation along the US/Mexican border is the rise of these "Maquiladoras". They comprise factories built on the Mexican side of the border employing over a million Mexicans. 

Please google "Maquiladoras". 

"Maquiladoras" are all over Latin America so it is not a visa issue. It is a case of factories hunting down poor workers.



The rise of the Maquiladora industry started in 1964, when a migrant worker programme called the "Bracero Program", which allowed Mexican agricultural workers to work legally in the US on a seasonal basis, came to an end.



This is an important point to remember. Because government stopped overseeing the fate of workers and left humans at the mercy of corporate practice.



Then came an international treaty of 1994 called The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ). This treaty impacted on the growth of the Maquiladora industry because it gave some legal grounds to the sweat shops. 



In 1994 the Maquiladoras mushroomed in Mexico. Many of these factories are US owned.



The "Wonderful World" of NAFTA

A short cartoon documentary on NAFTA, illustrating the cross border relationship between the two countries, done a few years back by Paul Rodenburg. (Twitter)

Part 1:

Part 2:

A Photo Essay from a Maquiladoras tour of the Mexican border town of Tijuana.

This essay shows the harsh effects of cross border exploitation by Transnational Corporations (TNCs).

To fight the ongoing injustice and unfair corporate exploitation of humans and their labour, we have to create international transparency not only on corrupt politicians, that is but the tip of the ice berg, they are just on the salary roll of bigger corporate giants.

The Bangladesh Sweat Shops

We now come closer to our part of the Pacific to witness the fate of fellow humans caught in the capitalist trap with scarcely any means of becoming free.  

Hidden Face of Globalization Part 1

Hidden Face of Globalization Part 2

Hidden Face of Globalization Part 3

Are you watching the wrong enemy?

In the Pacific we have to strengthen our workers Unions in all the countries including in Asia so that cheap Asian labour is not used by the Multinational Corporations to throw our own people out of jobs or deny workers employment on the basis that they are not qualified. Companies should start investing in training programmes to create the right manpower for their economic ventures. This must become mandatory and conditional upon their licence to operate in any country.

On the other hand, we must make all our Pacific people mobile so that we can all see and be witness to how all our people are treated by the Corporate Giants that live under the umbrella of big Pacific countries like Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Fight for a Visa Free Zone for the Pacific. It is part of an overall strategy. In following posts I'll list other parts of the strategy to defeat predatory capitalism.

Globalisation Timeline 1940 - 2011

Traditional symbol of infinity, origins and destinations
from the Gazelle Peninsular, Papua New Guinea.

1 9 4 0 

• FCC  rules  limit  media  ownership  concentration  in  radio  and  TV - Historical Perspective, Sequels, Disputes and on going Discussions

1 9 4 4 

• Bretton  Woods  Agreements  create  World  Bank  and  Monetary  Fund  General Agreement  on  Tariffs  and  Trade  (GATT)  established  to  negotiate  rules  for trade  in  goods - Roots of WTO

1 9 4 5 

• United  Nations  Charter  signed
• Dismantling of colonial empires creates independent  states in Asia and Africa and neocolonial economic relationships 

1 9 4 7

• Cold  War  begins  pitting  capitalism  against  communism 

1 9 4 8 

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafted 
• World Council of Churches founded

1 9 5 8 

• UN Conference on the Law of the Sea discusses resource  exploitation of outer continental shelf - UN Convention on Laws of the Sea

1 9 7 1 

• Computer chip invented

1 9 7 0 s   

• Global  Assembly  lines  (enabled  by  dramatically  expanded  communications due  to  computers),  largely  using  women’s  labor,  increasingly  dominate patterns  of  production  of  clothing  and  manufactured  goods
• Surplus petrodollars fuel wise and unwise  spending/borrowing spree in developing countries

1 9 7 5 

• Advances in computers, fiber optics, satellites, and  miniaturized  electronics radically alter production and distribution of goods and  services and patterns of global investment

1 9 8 0 

• Reagan and Thatcher usher in fundamentalist free market  government and free market global economic strategies 
• President Reagan breaks the air controllers strike, opening an era  of diminishing power of unions

1 9 8 2 

• Mexico tells creditors it is unable to pay its debts and the Third World Debt Crisis begins all around the globe as nations are unable  to pay escalating debts incurred during the 1970s

1 9 8 5 

• During the UN Third World Conference on Women, women  activists from developing countries detail how neoliberal economic  policies exploit and hurt women

1 9 8 6 

• World  Bank  and  International  Monetary  Fund  initiate  structural  adjustment policies  in  developing  countries  that  promote  trade  liberalization

1 9 8 7 

• Canadian groups organize opposition to proposed free trade  agreement 
• Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Canada and U.S. 
• D.C. District Court eliminates the “fairness doctrine” which outlined the responsibilities of radio and TV owners as public  trustees

1 9 8 8

• Free  Trade  Agreement  (FTA)  signed  between  the  U.S.  and  Canada

1 9 8 9 

• Fall of the Berlin Wall ends Cold War leaving capitalism as single dominant economic system; Transnational Corporations  (TNCs) enter former Soviet bloc countries in a push toward privatization

1 9 9 0 s 

• As the cold war ends, Yugoslavia becomes unnecessary for the Transnational Corporations push into the former Soviet bloc. A series  of  events in the Balkans begins with the breaking up of Yugoslavia - to the Balkan crisis and the ensuing genocides.

1 9 9 0 s 

• Series of United Nations World Conferences dramatically expand the voice of non -governmental organizations in  global  political, economic, and environmental debates and equality for women
• Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements multiply around the world 

1 9 9 1 

• Worldwide Web created, enabling instant communications around the globe

1 9 9 2 

• North  America  Free  Trade  Agreement  (NAFTA)  between  U.S.,  Canada,  and Mexico  signed  with  side  agreements  on  labor  and  the  environment,  and  in the  face  of  intense  resistance  from  labor,  women,  environmental,  and  church groups  in  all  three  countries 
• Maastricht  Treaty  creates  the  European  Union  solidifying  economic  and political  ties  between,  and  expanding  number  of,  European  nations  west and  east

1 9 9 4

• Free Trade  Area of the Americas (FTAA) proposal launched by the U.S. to seek a free trade agreement for all of North, Central, and South America except Cuba

1 9 9 5 

• World Trade Organization GATT adds services, investment and  intellectual property rights, and government procurement to trade concerns 
• UN Fourth World Conference on Women adopts the Beijing Platform for Action outlining governments’ responsibilities toward women in the economic, political, communications, and other spheres

1 9 9 6 

• Telecommunications Act engenders further deregulation of media policy

1 9 9 7 

• Hemispheric Social Alliance formed by citizen groups throughout the hemisphere concerned about the FTAA 
• $1.5 trillion per day of foreign exchange is traded worldwide 
• Asian financial crisis triggers a global financial crisis when nervous investors rush to withdraw funds from Asian markets; financial speculation becomes a major concern

1 9 9 9 

• 50,000 activists in Seattle protest WTO policies in the first of an ongoing series of activist protests of WTO policies at WTO meetings
• U.S. TNCs use illegal accounting techniques to prop up failing profits; Enron, WorldCom, and others collapse in scandal 

1 9 9 0s - (new trends manifested from the end of the 90s onwards) 

• Beginning of the rise of China and India as big players on the Global Scene.
• Revival of the international division of labour
• Rapid expansion of international trade is accompanied by a revival of inter-industry trade 
• modifications of the industry structure of manufacturing 

2 0 0 0 

• Churches, NGOs, activists mobilize around the world on the 50th  anniversary of the World Bank and IMF to call for a “Jubilee” cancellation of Third World debts
• Wealthy  countries  agree  to  partial  debt  relief  with  terms  of  more  privatization and free trade
• World leaders gather for UN Millennium Summit, committing to the eradication of extreme poverty and other global social goals by 2015
• 
  

2 0 0 1 

• WTO Doha Declaration affirms the right of governments to violate trade rule in order to protect the public health of its citizens, while continuing to press for trade liberalization
• World Conference Against Racism; some Third World nations and activists link colonialism, poverty, racism, and globalization

2 0 0 2 

• Argentina’s economic collapse and default on debts; people rebel against economic austerity policies

2 0 0 3 

• World governments and Globalization activists force shut down of WTO deliberation in Mexico 

2 0 0 5 

• NGOs and activists around the world join a “Global Call Against Poverty” to urge governments to make trade fair, cancel debts, and address the roots of poverty 
• Central American Free Trade Agreement passed by U.S. Congress expanding the U.S. free trade zone to countries in Central America but not Cuba

2 0 0 6 

• Iraq Conflict Timeline 2006 - From Iraqi elections to a growing insurgency. Estimated Cost, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

• US Supreme Court Decisions

Rulings on Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law • Wetlands ProtectionWhistleblowers • Warrantless Searches • Guantanamo Military Tribunals

• Significant Armed Conflicts

Darfur • Afghanistan • Iraq • Sri Lanka

• Recently Suspended Armed Conflicts The war in Lebanon began and ended in 2006

• Coups In 2006, coups took place in Thailand and Fiji
• Oaxaca, Rebellions begin in Mexico - Teachers Protest Against Economic Conditions in the state of Oaxaca

2 0 0 7 

• Iraq Conflict Timeline 2007 - From the surge of U.S. troops into Baghdad to the shooting of civilians by Blackwater guards. Estimated Cost, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
• US Supreme Court Decisions  - Rulings on using race to maintain school diversity • Partial birth abortion • Regulation of automobile emissions • Students’ right to free speech
• Significant Armed Conflicts -Darfur • Afghanistan • Iraq • Sri Lanka
• Recently Suspended Armed Conflicts

2 0 0 8 

• China begins to consider bailing out Western financial institutions. Starting a domino effect of a struggle in Western Institutions to maintain their financial profits by exploring the illegal acquisition of public domains of various nations. They first try this experiment in Iceland, but the bid is defeated in Parliament twice. 

2 0 0 9 

• The US government bails out the Bank of America 
• The 2000s Financial Crisis festers to a point where it has to be unequivocally admitted. In Australia, Kevin Rudd calls it "one of the greatest assaults on global economic stability to have occurred in three-quarters of a century".

2 0 10 

• Deutsche Bank, deeply involved in the American real estate crisis faces a U.S. mortgage securities law suit.
• The 2000s Financial Crisis becomes announced
• After the failure in trying to acquire the public domains of Iceland, international financial institutions look at other scapegoat countries whose public domains can be legally acquired and rented back to citizens. Spain, Portugal and Greece become the next targets of "Austerity Measures".

2 0 11 

• Europe tries a final rally against the rise of new economic powers from Asia on the Global Economic scene.
• Following the failure of the Deutsche Bank in America, and the bailout of US and European banks by the US Federal Bank, Europe is forced to clamp down on Greece in an attempt to make citizens work off or pay off, the debts of the major banks.
• Deepening of privatisation policies culminate in the event of the Greek citizens becoming the first people to lose their public domain to the financial elite and their banks.  

What are we on about?
Global Political, Economic, and Social Facts. 

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This Globalisation Timeline is a work in progress and is incomplete, lacking many crucial pieces of the puzzle of contradictions, inconsistencies and the overall mismanagement of the planet. It also still lacks details that can clearly show the numerous counter measures that socially conscientious organisations and governments have tried to implement in attempts to stem the tide of the destruction of the planet's various independent systems of human survival.


We shall be seeking to gather other crucial elements of the total picture of what is now recognised as predatory capitalism and also to remove links that are proven to be "off the mark" with regard to this pursuit.


The effort here is to try to build a picture of international diplomatic and bilateral policies and counter policies that are concerned with the prevention of or the gradual loss of the public domain by citizens of the earth.


I hope that presenting a timeline in this manner, may help ordinary observers in Papua New Guinea like myself, to be able to form a close to informed perspective on the nature and main movement of the beast we call "predatory capitalism" - thus forming a common basis for observing international trends together where we may be  able to take care of the plight of our region in a concerted manner.


The compiler of this timeline is neither an historian nor an economist.


The skeleton timeline was taken from the website of the Western North Carolina Conference of United Methodist Women.

I accepted 1940 as the starting point for the timeline for practical reasons, so that we would not have to consider for instance Columbus in South America, and the whole and often painful, colonial histories that the third world has endured due to its inferior technology at the time of the first contact meetings. Those events have taken place and we live in a world which is the by-product of a combination and culmination of those events and their long lasting philosophies and effects.

This timeline is being reworked towards becoming customised for Papua New Guinean awareness and approaches to addressing local and global issues.

Thanks for your patience and suggestions on areas of the timeline that we need to work on.