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This page updated 8 June 2009

www.danbyrnes.com.au

"The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way round." Gaylord Nelson.

This table is a new feature for this domain. The webmaster and several of his friends are convinced that lifestyles are going to change in the foreseeable future, whether we like it or not. Some changes to how we live can be guided by choice, other likely changes are going to be imposed by nature and circumstances. Some valued old notions are going to have to be discarded, but which ones?

Here is a good theme. It's from an environmental activist. Barbara Finch (via Gaylord Nelson, January 2009), of Armidale NSW Australia - where this website lives - "The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way round, and we can't put the environmental crisis on the back burner." Barbara Finch (via Gaylord Nelson).

So what happens when we put concern about environmental issues on the front-burner? (Remarks here are by the Editor unless otherwise indicated)

AAA

Africa: A continent where grown men had better behave like grown men who know useful things, otherwise there'll be revolutions, as the continent has had since World War II, which hardly looks like an enjoyable future.

Africa: Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is Another Way for Africa. Allen Lane, 2009. The author is an economist with work experience at World Bank and Goldman Sachs who grew up in Lusaka, Zambia. Her book by April 2009 has already been reprinted twice. A polemical attack on the "glamour aid" for Africa recommended by pop stars Bono and Sir Bob Geldof, and the reasons that enliven them, regarding Africans receiving aid. Starting with the fact that some African countries have been receiving aid for 60 years. Yet Africa seems to be poorer now than when decolonisation set in as a movement after WWII. Leaders in Africa have avoided being held accountable, relying on aid and not on taxation systems (which render them accountable to voters). This problem may only be fixable by African nations seeking only privately sourced capital for which they will be held accountable. (Which is a dubious proposition, this website thinks.) Except with the Bangledeshi banking model for provding micro-credit, which often as it happens goes to women. Africa continues to go backwards despite being given aid, Moyo insists. It is claimed that despite some US$2.3 trillion spent in Africa on anti-malaria measures, "the Western World" still can't get a US$4 malaria net to many poorer families. Moyo for her part has been criticised for being over-optimistic about the benign nature of market forces, and failing to criticise arms dealers and multinationals fostering corruption via bribery. So the jury on Africa would still appear to be out. But just look at Zimbabwe! Look at Southern Sudan!

DDD

>: See Harry S. Dent Jnr, The Great Depression Ahead. Schwartz Media, 2009, 376pp.

EEE

Economics, as irrational: George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Princeton University Press, 2009, 230pp.

FFF

Future forecasts: George Friedman, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast of the 21st Century. Black Inc, 2009, 253pp. (George Friedman is head of Stratfor, a private intelligence agency based in Texas. His first book, 2004, was America's Secret War. Prognostication: USA will continue as the paramount world power.)

GGG

Globalisation: research on: Friends of this website have lately recommended a useful website on issues of globalisation. The website is produced in Canada and is sceptical about globalisation, to say the least. See: http://globalresearch.ca

HHH

Hollywood, again: It's about time, Hollywod by early 2009 is making movies about surrealist painter Salvador Dali. (Even if someone crass thinks it's amusing to make a story that Dali and Walt Disney once worked on a pornographic cartoon. The movies are Little Ashes, about Dalis' early years. Dali, directed by the UK's Simon West. Dali and I: The Surreal Story. ) It's good that Hollywood has already made movies about Van Gogh and Gaugin (starring Anthony Quinn), and Michaelangelo (starring Charlton Heston), but what about the rest of the world's painters? US artist Jackson Pollock? Various of the noted US C19th painters (magnificent scenery!). A few famous portrait painters of the world (so that the viewer gets to meet the sitters for the portraits)? Manet in France? Monet in France? Constable in England? Renaissance artists such as Raphael? Never let Hollywood's tendency to self-congratulation and over-hyped product-promotion blind you to the fact that the place has lately become mostly bankrupt of creative ideas. When you think art, think, "what Hollywood ignores". We leave the netsurfer to make their own list of famous sculptors Hollywood has so far ignored, although French sculptor Rodin springs quickly to mind.

III

Investment: Given the fallout of 2008 around the world, is there any point in reminding people that there used to be an old rule about investment, recognising that investment always has been risky, and always will be. "Never invest more than you can afford to lose or let go of".

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