Category Archives: Manifesto

Party policy

As Europe counts down to Friday, global temperatures set to rise further and further

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Today we heard the greenhouse gas emissions had risen by 5.9% in 2010. The world is on track for an 11 degree F rise in temperature and this came from the normally conservative Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency. He had quite recently stated “We need to leave oil before it leaves us.” Something will have to happen quickly or else it will become completely irreversible.

Meanwhile our Treasury has of course stated that it has to revise the preelection forecast for economic growth, which, as I pointed out before, was predicated on three inaccurate assumptions. As I was gardening today I wondered how they managed to get it SO WRONG. Anyone with a brain who was following the developments in the Eurogeddon crisis could see there would be no smooth resolution of the debt crisis there. You can’t solve debt with more debt, it just puts off the day of reckoning.  And they assumed the price of West Texas oil would not go beyond $93 a barrel by 2016. Well I looked at the trend of that and it has already been beyond $93 but has dropped back. It is the lowest of the three types of oil quoted in our paper every day. On 2 Dec it was $100 a barrel and Dubai, which is the oil we rely on, was $106. As for growth of our trading partners, forget it. I don’t know why we pay these Treasury officials so highly if they are so stupid.

This week five people from Transition Town Lower Hutt put out a warning on the Euro crisis and suggested planning for a crisis by having a store of food, money and water. Sensible people all of them. Robin Westenra does a wonderful blog.

But good news. Today we heard from two people in Nelson who want to start our first branch there so we put them in touch with each other! And some really good people have now joined including a well respected environmental economist.

I received a letter back from the Minister of Defence last Friday saying no they had not received any information on the security implications if ur oil supply is disrupted.  He referred me to the Defence White Paper 2010  on www.defence.govt.nz. I haven’t had time to read it all, but once again I despair if our Minister of Defence and his officials don’t read the military reports put out in Germany and in US on the implications of oil supply for defence. Maybe there is a frustrated official somewhere in the Ministry of Defence. A job for someone?

So we await the Merkosy solution to the Europe debt issue

 

 

Money system transfers wealth from poor to rich

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Here is a letter Laurence sent to the Dominion Post on 18 Nov, 2011

Dear Sir,

Congratulations on your initiative to research the gap between rich and poor in New Zealand. The fact that the richest 5% own more than double the bottom 50% comes as no surprise because we have a money system which systematically transfers wealth from the poor (who are net borrowers) to the rich (who are net lenders).

When credit is created by banks as interest-bearing debt one of the many horrible consequences is that the gap widens. The principle is created but the interest isn’t. So there is never enough money in the system at one time for everyone to pay off their debts, and the losers must borrow again. It’s like a game of musical chairs ­– with each new round there is a loser. And overall debt continually increases.

Equality will never arrive in the Age of Usury. Our party advocates benign multiple currencies, a means of exchange created interest-free as a public utility.

Laurence Boomert
Candidate for Wellington Central
New Economics Party
https://neweconomics.net.nz

Europeans should consult permaculturists not bankers

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Every educated and concerned individual on the planet appears to be puzzling over the web of debt problem in Europe.  Many instinctively know that because of our interconectedness the austerity package in Greece and the riots in Rome will be coming to a city near them soon unless this dilemma is solved. The grotesque web of debt graphic published on the BBC News website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15748696 is authoritative and clear. It shows that Greece owes to France, US, UK, Germany, Portugal and Italy and does this for each country.

We first need to understand that bailout packages aren’t bailouts really  – they are just further loans. But anyone will know you can’t solve debt with more debt.  Sooner or later the crisis is going to come back and each round it gets worse. And it is rather like the poor having to borrow from loan sharks to pay their interest on their complicated hire-purchase obligations – the further they get into debt the more interest they pay.

How come so many owe so much to so many? Companies, governments and individuals have been borrowing across borders for years. Why couldn’t they rely on their own country instead?  Are there no boundaries between countries any more? Is capital to roam free across the globe in search of the best returns? Oh yes, in the current system it is. Borders mean little these days when it comes to capital flow.

So what to do? Put bankers and economists in to run Italy and Greece?

Einstein said you won’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it. I have just read an article by a permaculture teacher on energy flows between living organisms. Instead of inviting bankers to their conference to solve the Eurozone debt dilemma, European leaders should have invited permaculturists. They would have learnt that all living systems have semi-permeable borders to control the material and energy flowing in and out. If too much energy (money) flows in the system expands and implodes. If too much energy flows out the system winds down and collapses. This is the principle of reciprocity.

There are other principles but the only one I will touch on here is the idea of holarchies. This, in contrast to hierarchies, means that in Nature there are wholes within wholes within wholes. Each whole-part has its integrity and each is constantly in negotiation with other whole-parts in a dynamic dance to maintain system balance. You can read more about holarchies at http://www.jaredbhobbs.com/holarchy-the-nested-hierarchy-of-holons/  and about the principles of living systems  at http://www.lindaboothsweeney.net/thinking/principles

We will put aside the issue of the gigantic derivatives market for the moment.  Suffice to say Merkel and Sarkosy in their proposal for a financial transaction tax are on the right path.

Now if we apply the holarchical organisational structure to currencies, we need currencies for small areas, currencies for larger areas and currencies for the whole globe. In an ideal system (and private corporations are still I am afraid still in charge of the issuing and controlling a country’s money supply), to ensure there is always the right amount of money the public body issuing each currency will be in a constant state of negotiation with the others. It brings complexity and resilience to a system.

So all this talk of “leaving the Euro” or “joining the Euro” might have to be replaced by other thinking. If we were to imitate Nature we would have a holarchical system. We would have currencies within currencies within currencies. So the Euro would co-exist with the drachma and the mark and the franc. Now, that will take some thinking out, but it is Nature’s model and we are part of Nature aren’t we?

There are many other critical questions like the ridiculous and unfair system where the global currency is effectively still the US dollar and the as yet unquestioned usurious money creation system that allowed all this compounding interest to take place. But let’s leave that for another time.  Just get in the permaculturists!

Change the Money System to combat climate change

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Tuesday, 15 November 11

The New Economics Party candidate for Wellington Central, Laurence Boomert, said that along with other policies, redesigning the money system would be a powerful way of combating climate change.

Reacting to a recent International Energy Agency report which said ‘on planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change’, he said that all international climate change conferences had broken up because governments were scared economic growth would falter.

“So we need an economic system which doesn’t require incessant growth on a finite planet. It is time we asked the right question. The force that requires us to gobble up more and more of the planet and turn it into goods is a structurally unsound money system and it needs to change”, he said.

“We design our money as interest bearing debt money. This type of money requires economic growth or the whole house of cards will collapse, as it is doing in Europe right now”, he said.

The IEA report said emissions globally jumped 5.3% in 2010 he said and on current path we are all committing mass suicide.

He said the New Economics Party would introduce a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas at source and not wait till it is burnt into the atmosphere. “The potential buyers of Solid Energy would have to be frightened if our party was in power.”

 “We would limit expansion of airports, impose an aviation fuel tax, and reduce our oil country’s imports by 4-6% a year. Motorway building would cease overnight and we would only focus on improving our current roads and the coal would remain in the hole.”

 

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807

 

 

 

 

Kim Hill interview with Raf Manji

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You can listen to this excellent fifteen minute interview on the money system here.

This is a very clear exposition of the monetary system and fractional reserve banking.
He also touches on timebanking and other form of alternative currencies as well as the Occupy movement
Raf Manji is a former London investment banker who moved to Christchurch and founded the independent policy development space, the Sustento Institute .

The Sky is really Falling, says candidate

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Media Statement

11 November 11

The Sky is Really Falling, says candidate

The sky is falling and nobody is planning for what New Zealand would do in the case of a full economic meltdown, said Laurence Boomert, Wellington Central candidate for the New Economics Party.

“Here we have Italy now in deep trouble, and the New Zealand politicians are blithely promising bright and happy days”, he said. “There isn’t a country in the world that will be untouched by this debt crisis. Next it will be Spain, France and USA. Because we are all tightly linked, what happens overseas is very much our election issue,” he said.

“It is time to think outside the square and work to invent an economic system not dependent on  growth. If it wants to create jobs, Government needs to focus on supporting small and medium sized businesses that want to introduce healthy innovations. Small and medium sized businesses create most of the jobs not the Telecoms of the world”, he said.

Boomert said it is time to work on alternative complementary currencies that work at all levels including at a national level. When small businesses join barter networks, Government should allow their GST and income tax to be paid in their currency.

He said government should be actively involved to support our business sector in designing and implementing business-to-business currencies such as ones operating in Uruguay, Switzerland and Austria.

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807

 

European debt crisis and oil affordability

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Well it looks as though it wouldn’t be much fun being the next Prime Minister of either Greece or Italy right now. It is a poisoned chalice. Who wants to introduce austerity measures and remain electable? Any concerned citizen can see what is coming for New Zealand when our trading partners are in this sort of trouble.

Richard Douthwaite, the green economist from Ireland, has written the most amazing chapter in FEASTA’s book Fleeing Vesuvius. He explains the connection between declining oil supplies and the trend of rich countries to run deficits. Taking Ireland as an example, he lists the cost of mineral fuel imports, the value of exports and then works out the fuel cost as a percentage of export earnings. It rose from 2.4% in 2001 to 7.6% in 2008. Exports are the only means by which the country can earn the money it needs to pay the interest on its overseas borrowings.

He explains that a country that runs a deficit on its trade in goods and services for several years will find that its firms and people get heavily in debt because a dense web of debt has to be created within that country to get the purchasing power, lost as a result of the deficit, back into everyone’s hands.

After a careful explanation, one of his conclusions is that it is dangerous and destabilising for any country, firm or individual to borrow overseas and net capital movements between countries should be prohibited. This is rather startling, but when you think about it foreign capital creates problems when it enters a country and when it leaves the country. When it comes in it boosts the exchange rate, thus hurting firms producing for the home market by making imports cheaper. It also hurts the exporters, reducing their overseas earnings when they convert them into national currency. As a result, when the loan has to be repaid, the country is in a weaker position to do so than it was when it took the loan on.  And managing borders obeys one of the laws of Nature.

The late Rod Donald, former co-leader of the Greens, used to go on and on about the balance of payments in New Zealand and I can see why. Both the National Party and the Labour Party seem to be taking our country into more and more debt. We have borrowed around $40 billion in the last three years.

Someone should work out our trend over the last few years. We need to find a list of the fuel cost as a percentage of export earnings and the ratio of total external debt to exports.