Orange Parades; what is the solution?

O dear. They're still rioting in Northern Ireland.

Police chiefs in Northern Ireland today called for a long term solution to the annual parading disputes after another 12th of July was marred by rioting.

Years ago - so many years that I cannot find the letter on this computer, I proposed a long term solution to the annual parades.

The problem is that the Protestant Christians wish to march through Republican Christians' streets. The Republican Christians object to this.

The solution is that the Protestant Christians should pay rent to the Republican Christians for the use of their streets. Since it would take many centuries for the Protestant Christians to agree to pay the rent directly, the local authority should pay on their behalf. The rent would be sufficiently generous for its effect to be visible each year - for instance, in terms of a community hall, or a swimming bath, or a children's play area. Receipt of the rent would be conditional on absence of violence as their guests march by, wearing the Sash, past signs saying New Community Hall, thanks to the Generosity of our Protestant Friends. (Mooning would not be classified as violence).

As a psychiatrist, I can opine that after a couple of years of realising that their marches were benefiting the Republicans, the Protestants would swiftly discover that the authentic traditional route in fact did not pass through Republican areas at all.

I did propose this to the ?Parades Commission, charged with actively seeking solutions to the annual ritual of violence, but they were only interested in that which was hammered out on their own anvil, and did not reply.

Caroline Lucas on Question Time

Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party, was given a tough time on Question Time last night, and did us proud. She was up against five phat male speakers: David Dimbleby, Charles Clarke, Eric Pickles, Michael Winner and a LibDem man.

Michael Winner was a complete waste of TV licence payers' money. He is enormously pleased with himself, and takes a nihilistic view on everything, a position that has no place on a TV programme that is supposed to be a serious political discussion, since politics is about trying to make the world a better place, and Winner had absolutely nothing to offer here. Apparently he is some kind of London celebrity.

Eric Pickles, a Tory MP with an eating disorder, came pleasingly unstuck when he admitted that he was claiming expenses on a house to save himself a 36 mile commute. It was interesting to see his 100% self confident stance progressively come unbuttoned, under attack from everyone else in the assembled company. In the end he held up his hands and admitted that he "had not made a good case" - the nearest to an apology that the world can expect from a pachydermatitic politician. The full truth is that he did not have a good case at all. There is an evolutionary drive for politicians to develop thick skins, and to disregard and deny all criticism, right up to the very last moment. More self critical people, like Estelle Morris, tend to drop out of power, although their judgments may be as good as if not better than the pachyderms. This is not a good way for things to be run.

When the economic question came up (on the current rift between Lord King of Ovis Mortua Secundum and the Lord Gord, Supreme Leader in Word Not Deed) Dimbleby interrupted Caroline as she began her answer (inadvertently, we can be sure), then interrupted again (justifiably) when she said that new money should go into the real economy rather than be used to "keep the banks solvent".
DD: "So the Green Party would let the banks go hang then?"
Caroline: "No, we would nationalise them". This got a spontaneous round of applause, and Caroline went on to set out the Green New Deal. DD tolerated this uninterrupted, to his credit, but moved swiftly on as soon as she finished.

This was a good recovery by Caroline, and shows the sound political qualities of our spokeswoman, but it also shows a weakness in our economic policy. Nationalisation of the foolish, debt laden mega-banks, (but not the wise virgins like Triodos and the Co-op, who should be rewarded for their wisdom in resisting the call of the casino) is a sensible step that will surely happen as the economic tragi-comedy unfolds, but the banks need to be purged of toxns first. It is no good taking possession of banks whose account books contain unknown debts of astronomical dimensions. Financial policy needs first to ring-fence the real part of the banks (ordinary deposits and loans), to protect the real world from the psychotic excesses of the casino economy, the mega-debts, the toxic assets lurking in the shadows.

The financial policy we passed at Conference criticizes "Complex and opaque financial instruments, which managers of financial institutions and regulators themselves do not understand"; but it does not go into how their malign influence can be kept from infecting the bloodstream of the real economy.

These are the steps that can be taken:

1. Pass a law to require all derivatives holdings to be registered at a central agency.
2. Examine all holdings for signs of fraud (using the characteristics of the Madoff and Stanford frauds as indicators)
3. Examine all holdings for signs of Ponzi schemes that only work if the market is expanding. Invalidate all Ponzi debts
4. Find how much of the Toxics can legally be ascribed to negligent decisions of the chief executives of companies. Make said CEOs responsible for their mistakes, by bringing the debts back to the executives who decided to buy them. Said executives go bankrupt, and the toxic assets are neutralised by their bankruptcy.

If any readers do not like this plan, (and remember, in a room containing two economists, there will be at least three opinions as to what should be done) then please come up with a better way of neutralising the Toxic Assets, bearing in mind that their "value" is about 10 times greater than the global GDP of the whole planet.

The problem for the Green Party is that it would take at least 6 months, and possibly as long as two years, for us to make this official Green Party policy. Clearly we need a more realistic way of helping Caroline to have robust, logically coherent and up-to-date policy advice. We have a Policy Committee, and also a shadowy Political Committee responsible to the Party Executive, so by setting up a decision pathway, and ensuring that the committees' decisions are transparent and accountable to Conference, we could get give Caroline the support she deserves.

PONZI SCHEME DIAGRAM

I tried to make a Ponzi scheme bitmap diagram, but it ended up just a confusing mess (just like the real thing), and in the end it is more informative to set it out in the simple list form below.

Here's how to make a Ponzi scheme:

1 Scammer asks scammees to lend him money, promising big returns.
2 10 Scammees give say 100 each = 1000.
3 Scammer gives each 10 at end of year, and keeps 900 for his lifestyle.
4 Scammees are pleased with their 10 (believing it to be in addition to the 100 they gave, which is not now the case, as it has gone to support the scammers lifestyle). Scammees are encouraged to recruit further scammees, who repeat 2,3,4, until no further scammees are recruited, or until the original scammees request their money back.
5 The scam works while it is growing. Just like the "growth economy". When growth stops, the scam collapses. Just like the "growth economy", which has to keep growing in order to work.

Which is insane, because it is impossible to expand forever in a finite space.
This shows what happens if a hamster does not stop growing.


Bernie Madoff has been sent down for the rest of his natural life for his Ponzi scheme.

Hyman Minsky was an economist, one of the rare ones who predicted the Credit Crunch. We should therefore listen to him. He said some derivatives were Ponzi schemes.

So the whole orthodox economy, the one we live in, is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. (More here).

Greens have been criticising the doctrine of everlasting growth for 30 years, and for having the temerity to assert that it is impossible to expand forever in a finite space. We have been ridiculed and sidelined as a result. 'Twas ever thus.

The orthodox economy is in fact nothing but a dys-economy. Economics must be based on ecology to be valid.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum, and it is the task of our generation to reinstate ecological wisdom in the place of casino capitalism.

Now that you're here, click on the "Ponzi", or "Solving the financial crisis" labels below, to find how Green economics approaches the triple whammy of problems the world is facing up to in our time: Recession, Peak Oil, and Climate Change.

There's loads of other stuff here that you won't get anywhere else. Make yourself at home. All comments get answered.

Don't believe it is possible to stop economic growth? Read Herman Daly on the Opportunity Cost of growth.

Contraction and Convergence Makes Poverty History

Over on openDemocracy (see link to the right) Steve is worried that tackling climate change will give developed countries an advantage over poor countries.

With Contraction and Convergence, the opposite of Steve's account is true.

With C&C, a target for a safe level of global CO2 is set, countries are allocated CO2 on a per capita basis, and trading of the quota is allowed. The US will have to buy CO2 quotas from poor African countries, so there is an intrinsic tendency to economic convergence in the system.

Also, with the transfer of solar technology to developing countries, they will become energy rich, and Somalia may find itself exporting hydrogen to Europe. Given help with water conservation and management, green economics can really help to make poverty history.