Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urges an end an era of “extreme capitalism” and rejects the notion that “greed is good” by suggesting a new world order of global financial regulation. In attacking the excessive executive salaries of the modern era, Mr Rudd has sought to place the global financial crisis within a values framework, warning that “the disease” of short-termism has infected governments and financial markets. Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, discusses Rudd’s stance with David Gibbons from InFocus.

John McCain has been harassing, and pointing fingers at Barack Obama even after it has become evident that voters were running to the polls to vote for the change America has needed. McCain has continued to push non-issues about contributors, past supporters, and alluding to registration fraud, in hopes that no one will notice he knows “jack” about economical issues Americans are struggling with. I guess he figures he can change some independent voters by claiming there’s something scary about this the thoughtful, calm, intelligent man, we know as Obama. For those of you, who are still buying into McCain’s rhetoric, let me enlighten you. Prior to this 2008 election, I was a non-affiliated voter who made a decision the moment Obama announced his candidacy for President to register as a Democrat.  I’m an Obama contributor. I’m probably not the kind of contributor John McCain is used to. I didn’t go to an exclusive fundraising event and write a check for the maximum amount.  I’m not a CEO who pressures his or her employees to contribute, nor am I one of the financial criminals whose greed has stolen nearly a trillion dollars from our Country.   I am a single mother of a special needs child, living on a fixed, low-income; most importantly I am an American. I have been an upstanding citizen, who has never been arrested, nor have I been an addict, nor have I associated with any questionable people other than many years ago when I was a professional counselor doing my job. I am like so many other American women who have experienced working in environments which have been paid up 25% less than a man when I was more qualified, more educated, or had more seniority over those men. I am struggling just as most Americans are, and I am just tired of how McCain keeps using rhetoric in which he believes me, and probably every other American, are stupid. We are all intelligent Americans, who want and need a great change in our Country. We are suffering in so many ways that McCain has never been able to connect with because he has NEVER been in our shoes, not even in “Jane and Joe Plumbers” shoes.   The reality is I’m just a woman who just turned fifty, who as a voter is making wise, informed decisions. It is because, and for all the reasons stated, I support Obama as President of Our United States of America. I am one of a million Obama contributors who give a meager five dollars here or there, spending hours volunteering, canvassing, and registering new voters or reregistering those who have moved since their last registration; no matter their affiliation. I do all of this without compensation from the campaign. It is for the first time in eight years, I have hope for my son, my other children, my grandchildren, and their children who will inherit a better America; an America that believes in supporting peace, that is prosperous, that reaches out to assist Countries outside our borders in their times of need; and an America that will once again be respected by other Countries from around the world.   Our posterity is counting on this time, this year, this NOW, to be the history in their textbooks that they read how their ancestors changed their lives, by going to the polls in the largest turnout ever; knowing that their vote, every single vote mattered. It mattered to all Americans to be sure that Barack Obama was elected because Americans wanted change and to move the Country, even in the worst of time, in a new direction, it mattered that democracy prevailed and that their lives were better because of it. Obama/Biden 2008-2024

The Political Economy of Social Justice Dr.R.Murali Head, Department of Philosophy & Centre for Philosophical Research The Madura College (Autonomous), Madurai -625011.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”- Margaret Mead

I Social justice refers to conceptions of justice applied to an entire society. It is based on the idea of a just society, which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the benefits of society. Hence, Ethics has many spheres to operate. Economics is one of the major spheres of ethics. According to Aristotle, Economics is a practical expression of ethics- a basic virtue rooted in justice. This concept of justice has been variously described as distributive justice or a fair share for all. In other words, the concept of social justice was accepted as being rooted in an ethical base or simply common sense and economics cannot be divorced from this. Similarly economics and politics are inseparable. Social justice is both a philosophical problem and an important issue in political economy. It can be argued that everyone wishes to live in a just society, but different political ideologies have different conceptions of what a ‘just society’ actually is. The term “social justice” itself tends to be used by those ideologies who believe that present day society is highly unjust – and these are usually left wing ideologies, advocating a more extensive use of democracy and income redistribution, a more egalitarian society and either a mixed economy or a non-market-based economic model. The right wing has its own conception of social justice, but generally believes that it is best achieved through embracing meritocracy, the operation of a free market , and the promotion of philoanthropy and charity. Both right and left tend to agree on the importance of rule of law human rights, and some form of a welfare safety net (though the left supports this to a greater extent than the right). Social justice is also a concept that some use to describe the movement towards a socially just world. In this context, social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality. So a very broad definition of social justice is that “social justice reflects the way in which human rights are manifested in the everyday lives of people at every level of society”. It can be further defined as working towards the realization of a world where all members of a society, regardless of background, have basic human rights and an equal oppurtunity  to access the benefits of their society. Many philosophers like Aquinas, Locke, Bentham , Mill, Kant and others have discussed the problem of social justice in their works. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the concept of Social Justice has largely been associated with the political philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) who draws on the utilitarian insights of Bentham and Mill, the social contract ideas of Locke, and the categorical imperative ideas of Kant. His first statement of principle was made in A Theory of Justice (1971) where he proposed that, “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others”, a deontological proposition that echoes Kant in framing the moral good of justice in absolutist terms. His views are definitively restated in Political Liberalism (1993), where society is seen, “as a fair system of co-operation over time, from one generation to the next.” (at p.14). Along with these philosophers some others hold that social justice is nothing but the redistribution of wealth, power and status for the individual, community and societal good. Some others hold that it is government’s (or those who hold significant power) responsibility to ensure a basic quality of life for all its citizens. Hence, it’s very clear that economic policies of the society are very much connected with social justice. It is also true that all around in the world today many advocates of social justice are in some state of despair. Some of them fear that social justice is a lost cause in a global economy. II Liberalism: Social Justice as Economic Freedom

Liberal capitalism, the super economic, all pervasive model which is promoted and practiced all over the globe today has been subject to severe critical examination by economists, not only due to economic recession but also mainly for destabilizing value systems in countries and becomes responsible for social injustice across the globe. Friedrich Hayek, Nobel laureate in Economics and a principal twentieth century defender of liberal capitalism, once stated that “…nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.” We do not have to spend a great deal of time on his jaundiced reading of the history of struggles for social justice. What is, however, worth noting is his unequivocal presumption that social justice and the freedoms we have under modern capitalism are not only distinct from each other, but mutually antagonistic. Sam Gindin in his article on ‘Anti-Capitalism and the Terrain of Social Justice’ severely criticizes Hayek’s position. He says that what so many others have obscured and what Hayek to his credit confronts directly, is that inequality is not an unfortunate aberration under capitalism, but an inescapable outcome and an essential condition of its successful economic functioning. Capitalism is—and this is surely as clear today as it ever was—a social system based on class and competition. Such a society guarantees not just inequality of result, but insofar as the results of inequality are passed on through the institution of the family and the spatial divisions of uneven capitalist development, the inequality is reproduced inter-generationally and inter-regionally. This leads to a decisive inequality of opportunity. It is not surprising therefore that the most clear-minded defenders of capitalism consequently seek to displace the terrain of debate over the legitimacy of capitalism from distributive or equal-opportunity notions of social justice, to notions of individual freedom and especially market freedoms. Gindin observes that the individual is placed at the center of a world in which the concept of the community or the collective is confined to the state—liberalism’s old nemesis. Liberalism then seeks to limit the power of the state not only by the rule of law, freedom of expression and association, and elected legislatures, but also and especially by the rights of property, the inviolability of contract in market exchanges, and the protection of private-family spaces to enjoy the fruits of property and labor. There is no denying the powerful practical appeal of this structure. Both civil and political rights and the historically unprecedented economic dynamism and possibility of rising standards of living rested on it. Yet the reality of class inequality behind this structure could not so easily be set aside. The contradictions of liberal justice rest on the fact that a market economy creates a market society, and that private property is not and never was a relationship between people and things, but a relationship between people. Historically, the creation of markets and private property were not, as liberal mythology tends to present it, a matter of getting the state to stand aside so natural human propensities could unfold. Private property in particular emerged with the support of an absolutist state controlled by landed interests who asserted unconditional rights over property which had previously been constrained by traditional obligations. Those interests, backed by the state, forcibly expropriated the commons—lands formerly accessible to the community—for their exclusively private use. The need to reproduce these kinds of private property rights and the privileges they imply necessitated a permanently strong, active, and class-biased state. Today, the drive to deepen and expand such rights takes the form of neo liberal globalization. Capitalism’s inequalities, it is crucial to emphasize, are not simply about some getting more and others less, but rather that the economic freedom capitalism embodies involves guaranteeing different kinds of freedoms for different people. For a minority, economic freedom revolves around the power to organize production and accumulate; for the rest, freedom to sell one’s productive potential in a labor market and, on the basis of that, to exercise some personal choice in consumer markets. What the minority is accumulating as part of its freedom includes power over the labor of others and therefore over their “individuality.” The freedom/power to sell one’s productive potential and to exercise some choice in consumer markets, in contrast, is founded on a dependency on those who provide the jobs and the commodities available for consumption. The neo liberal response set out to undo the historically-acquired social limits that had redefined liberalism in practice in the postwar era. Neo liberalism named a strategy that sought to place capitalism clearly back on the track of its still incomplete development by accelerating the drive to commodify, and therefore open every aspect of life to profits and the social discipline imposed by profits. This was not just a matter of the extension of markets spatially (“globalization”), but of deepening the domestic penetration of markets into any social, personal, or cultural space that had previously managed to escape subordination to a capitalistic calculus. Since democracy tends to recreate protections against the anti-social logic of markets, the implementation of neo liberalism also necessitated a decline, one way or the other, in effective democracy. It is relevant to take note of certain important criticisms against neo liberalism by its own supporters. Joseph Stiglitz former economist in the World Bank and the Noble Prize winner in Economics in 2001, who is the staunch supporter of the Globalization himself, declares that “Globalization today is not working for many of the world’s poor. It is not working for much of the environment. It is not working for stability of the global economy”. He writes on the basis of this close observation: “what I saw radically changed my view of both globalization and development… I saw first hand the devastating effect that globalization can have on developing countries”. Stiglitz accuses that the West “acting through the IMF and the WTO – has seriously mismanaged the process of privatization, liberalization and stabilization, and that by following its advice Third World countries and former Communist states are actually worse off than before. George Soros, another architect of Globalization observes that ‘we have global markets but we cannot build a global society without taking into account moral considerations’ He says that US is the major obstacle to international cooperation today. It is resolutely opposed to any international arrangement that would infringe on its sovereignty. The list is long including the International Criminal Court, the Landmines Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, many of the ILO conventions and many more arcane conventions like the Law of Sea Convention and convention of Biological Diversity. Hence he says that the pursuit of hegemony comes into direct conflict with the vision of a global open society. United States wants to be an unmoved mover. So it is not simply eliminating poverty but rather reducing inequality. The first is impossible to resolve without solving the second. The real problem, again, is not absolute resources but the social distance and different degrees of control over one’s own resources. And this holds true in every society. In this context, Habermas’s view adds a socio-cultural dimension to the political economy. Habermas does tie economic globalization and global terrorism, but does not believe that the latter is ultimately a manifestation of a clash of cultures. Instead Habermas regards global terrorism as an economically based reaction to the gross inequities perpetrated by globalization. Accordingly, Habermas regards global terrorism as arising from a breakdown of communication and as only amounting to an external threat to modernism. This gives the liberal sociologist Richard Munch reason to fear that we will be faced with the depletion of non-renewable resources, cultural alienation on a mass scale, and social explosions unless we succeed in politically fencing-in markets which are, as it were, running away from enfeebled and overburdened nation-states. As Habermas wrote in 1997, globalization ‘threatens to dissolve the social glue that holds together already fragmented national societies.’ In Germany, questions of nation, national identity and culture, along with the search for a binding ‘social glue’, have arisen just as globalization challenges the possibility of the national unification process. Anti-globalization there, as elsewhere, seeks to protect local identity, economies and culture from both the European Union and the more powerful American ‘empire’. For Amartya Sen, the central issue of contention is not globalization itself, nor is it the use of the market as an institution, but the inequity in the overall balance of institutional arrangements–which produces very unequal sharing of the benefits of globalization. He says that the question is not just whether the poor, too, gain something from globalization, but whether they get a fair share and a fair opportunity. There is an urgent need for reforming institutional arrangements–in addition to national ones–in order to overcome both the errors of omission and those of commission that tend to give the poor across the world such limited opportunities. Globalization deserves a reasoned defense, but it also needs reform. III Globalization : Road to injustice Globalization has not only affected all aspects of human life but also influenced the social institutions to a great extent. It operates in an uneven and unequal manner. The neo-liberal economy, i.e., liberalization, privatization and globalization, has further compounded the unevenness and inequality in society. The small minority of world’s population holds maximum resources and majority of people are grappled in poverty. Before the melt down, there were 1.3 billion desperately poor people in the world who survived on less than $1 per day. There were an additional 1.5 billion very poor who lived on $2 each day. This means that 2.8 billion, almost half of the global family were living on $2 a day or less (Sider, 2002). But today things would have gone even worse. Many do not have access to safe water (1 bil.) and they do not have access to improved sanitation (2 bil.). These poor public health conditions cause approximately 34,000 children to die every day of diarrhea and other easily preventable diseases (Sider, 2002). In answer to the question “What is globalization?” Susan George, president of the Observatory on Globalization in Paris, associate director of the Transnational Institute of Amsterdam, and author of nine books, stated that there is already a world government – which is not democratic; one set of people can change the future of others who are not involved in decision-making. Its objective is to put all human activity in the market, including education, culture, and health. Globalization is responsible for pushing wealth upward both between countries and within countries. Since 1980 every country has experienced increasing inequalities. 85% of people live in countries where inequalities are increasing and this includes China, Russia, E. Europe and West Europe and the US, and at the same time inequalities are increasing between North and South. She gave the illustration of the upturned champagne glass, showing the top 20% of humanity capturing 82% of the wealth, while the bottom 80% of the graph must get along with 1.3% of the world’s wealth. These inequalities are becoming more extreme. There are now 485 billionaires in the world, who control the equivalent of the wealth of half the world. And only three of those billionaires control wealth equaling the national production of 48 countries. These inequalities have drastic consequences. The recently series of financial crises was caused by the institutional investors of the world. The ‘electronic herd’ all act at the same time e.g. someone says Thailand is not doing very well or Mexico and all run for the door at the same time. Then the financial crisis occurs and the IF steps in to say what the country must do. She emphasized  “the rules that the IF sets KILL ordinary people”. For example in Mexico after the 1995 financial crisis 28,000 small firms failed because they could not keep up with the interest rates imposed upon them. Half of Mexico is now living below the poverty line. In Indonesia, after the financial crisis, 20 million people who thought they were becoming middle class were pushed violently into poverty. In Russia 4% of people used to be classed as really poor, but now because there are no rules as the ‘market’ is supposed to do everything 50% are living in poverty. Everywhere health, social and educational structures have been cut because of structural adjustments. Now there is only one ideology left in the world after the collapse of communism. Who are the managers of the global system? The power behind the throne is the large multinational corporations. They do not want to govern directly so they do so through the WB, IMF and WTO. These corporations support even the UN. Kofi Annan has signed the Global Contract with 50 multinationals, many of whom have terrible human rights and environmental damage records. The system works well for the top 10% of the world’s population, but not for anyone else. The central political question of our time is changing. It used to be one of hierarchy, where you are on the hierarchical ladder – a king or a beggar; that was the main organizing principle of politics. For the past 100 years or so the central political question has been – Who is going to get the biggest piece of the pie? Elements of both of these – hierarchy and share of the pie – remain today. But the new question is ‘Who has a right to survive?’ and ‘Who has not?’ Now there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who do not contribute to the market as producers or consumers. Do they have the right to survive? The first thing people have to understand is that the present system is not the only choice. God never said to Moses that globalization must dominate the world. There are many possibilities. IV Melt down: Lessons The sudden set back in the economic scenario of the world shook every one. It is mind boggling that till the other day, country after whether hailing from North America or Europe or Africa or Asia was celebrating its perpetual increased economic growth rate, enhanced access to information technology and rising amongst its population suddenly getting traumatized by the possibility of getting swept away under the current of regression and depression deeper than 1930s brought out in and by the financial melt down initially in the US and Europe. “The global financial system is in deep and unprecedented crisis. Central Banks and governments the world over are facing several complex and compelling challenges. There have been serious disruptions in money markets. Stock markets across the world have been in a free fall and there has been extreme risk aversion in all financial markets. Policy makers across the globe are responding with aggressive, radical and unconventional measures to restore confidence and impart stability to the system”. (The Hindu October 27,2008 Editorial). One major impact of this financial crisis in Krugman’s assessment is that advanced countries are likely to hit near zero growth next year with the world economy expanding only 3 percent. He fears that this down turn will be deep and prolonged as it was during 1930s. As the financial turmoil continues to batter economies across the globe, the bailout packages from different governments globally is nearing the US dollar 3 trillion mark- about three times the size of the Indian economy. The UK administration in the first week of October came up with a mammoth 500 billion pounds bailout package primarily to shore up the fortunes of the nation’s banking sector. Russia too has approved a host measures estimated to be worth US dollars 86 billion to salvage the country’s banks hit by the credit squeeze. European Union pumped in 1.7 trillion Euros for underwriting of banks. Besides, a handful of European countries have also, already announced packages worth a similar amount in efforts to have their troubled financial institutions. In fact most of the world central banks moved to flood the system with money lest there should no occur total collapse. Describing the situation Krugman observed: “all signs point to an economic slump that will be nasty, brutish and long”. Japan’s Prime Minister Tar also announced as 27 trillion Yen stimulus package on October 30 for the world’s second largest economy including credits and loans to help small businesses, a reduction in highway tolls and cash pay back to households. He said that the financial outlook is severe and that he global financial crisis is almost certain to affect Japan’s real economy. The burdens and impact of this so called financial tsunami is not only cutting across the globe but more significantly it is cutting across every aspect of life and in particular of poor and depressed sections of society in all most every part of the world that includes even richer nations like US and Europe. According to Director General of International Labour Organisation(ILO),Juan Somavia in an article he wrote for Times of India (October 25,2008)” the impact of the crisis on the lives, working conditions and hopes of millions of people will be strong and systemic. Arresting the crisis would require reaching beyond the financial system. This is not simply a crisis on Wall Street; it is a crisis on all streets”. While talking of burdens, let us note the findings of a recent estimate of the impact made by the ILO. In its estimate the world unemployment could increase by 20 million marks of global unemployed for the first time. People working in such sectors as construction, automotive, tourism, finance, services and real estate will be hit hardest first. What is more disturbing that according to this ILO estimate as quoted by Juan Somavia, the number of working poor living on less than a dollar a day could rise by some 40 million and those living on tow dollars could rise by more than 100 million. It may be of crucial importance to note that job cuts are happening not only in towns, industry or elite services alone rather shocks from Wall Street are traveling even to rural India and even to small scale cottage and handloom industries and other small occupations. According to reports (Times of India Oct 24, 2008) thousands of skilled workers in two small towns, 100000 in Moradabad( UP) and 25000 in Panipat (Haryana) have been laid off after orders from their global markets mostly from the US and Europe dried up this month. In Moradabad, artisan adept at centuries- old art of crafting brassware of European and American show rooms are pulling cycle rickshaws and selling fruits. Panipat, from where rugs, bed sheets and other textiles wind up in US stores like Wal-Mart has weavers migrating or working at jobs that now pay 1/18th what they did. According to K. Subrahmanyam in The times of India 0ctober 28, 2008 a large number of workers in toys factories in China have not only been thrown out of the jobs but have been denied payment of arrears because of economic slow down in the West. Again according to various estimates including byu the US government’s own agency the job cuts and increase in unemployment level has aroused great sense of insecurity amongst common Americans. Thus the voice is loud and clear that the crisis is not simply financial or one country centric, it is global as well as one that has the potential to devastate life and livelihood of even an average member of humankind in many parts of globe. Today a global food crisis coexists with unprecedented financial collapse and a recession which may well turn into a depression. Utsa Patnaik says,” The domination of finance over industry and the pursuit of economic policies favouring finance capital, at the expense of growth of the real economy particularly the out put of basic necessities required by the masses. The domination of finance in the modern world and its ideology known as neo liberalism and has been evident since 1970s. We might as well call it neo- deflationism, for the ideology of finance capital always involves policies deflating the level of mass demand”.(People’s Democracy-03 November 2008) · Whether it is development or the economic recession, common people of the world are being terribly affected by globalization. · When Capitalisms in crisis, it immediately seek for Social Intervention by the state. eg. Bail out packages that are in vogue now in US, UK, Germany and other places. Whereas when it is on the monstrous growth based on social injustice, it insists the state to keep away from its control and interference. Crisis-control measures are taken to suit the seekers of the supernormal profits in this high capitalist set up. From the foregoing it becomes clear that the process of globalization that was initiated by the US and its likes since the beginning of 1990 or may be little earlier is a misnomer. The process has failed to make globe as one. It remains divided between developed, rich , powerful and haves on one side and have-nots on the other with US and its allies representing the unipolarity and monopoly of economic power, trade, commerce and market. THE idea that process of globalization would ensure global prosperity, progress, peace and security leading to a global family or what we during our ancient period termed as ‘vasudeva kutumbakam’ is missing. The process of globalization has no doubt yielded into global oneness but only oneness of the kind and one kind only namely ‘a global economy’- a economy whose centre of gravity of fulcrum- its controlling mechanism and draining out its fruits resides only at one place. It is this kind of global economy with its global interconnectivity largely founded on fundamental capitalist ideas and absolute free market that resulted into financial meltdown in one place and that is place of monopoly over global market, namely the US which ultimately and due to its interconnectivity encircled almost every nation. This no doubt affected the richer nations but it brought with it tremendous potential to pierce even the livelihoods of poor nations and also of poor even in richer societies. It is too late at this hour of the day to reverse the cycle of globalization. But equally the kind of globalization and free market philosophy practiced and professed could prove dangerous not only for the poor nations but also for the super power itself. The anger and civil unrest kind of situation prevailing in US resulting from meltdown is the testimony to it. The kind of globalization followed today that for some time brought deceptive prosperity is largely the outcome of culture of consumerism, egotism, excessivism, greed, lust and total loss of ethics and values – it is not simple failure of financial policy. Fighting these menaces of currently practiced globalization and turning it to serve the cause of humanity and human welfare is a complex and multi dimensional agenda. It requires substituting voice of monopoly, isolating and subjugating other with global consensus, global co-operation and global concerns for humanity. Of course, it would demand devising new kinds of regulatory framework monitoring mechanism, institutional structures ensuring that they represent collective wisdom and collective consensus, unlike the Bretton Woods Institutions* (IMF, WB, etc.)Of today which can be manipulated of arm twisted. We are reminded of what Dr.Manmohan sigh while addressing the ASEM said, “the sad truth is that in this age of globalization we have a global economy of sorts, but it is not supported by a global polity to provide effective government”. Speaking in the same vein European Commission President Jose Barroso said,’ we are in a moment where we need global team work, we either stick together or sink together”. Thus in short, what we are pleading is a case for global co-operation for an International economic order inspired by global consensus that works on the principles of equity, fairness and distributive justice and serves the cause of bringing welfare, peace and security to every single member of the global community. V What to do? The state, as an institution, supposes to guarantee social welfare and social justice to the marginalized groups. Globalization has not only threatened it but also made it weak. State has now retreated back from its welfare role. In the contemporary context, social justice agenda is taken over by non-state organizations that are critical. The older theories of social justice, which are either inadequate or inapplicable, today cannot cover the new developments that have taken place in the era of globalization and therefore they have to be reviewed. Whether or not you see globalization as a positive or negative trend, it has given rise to increased interdependence of world economic markets leading to increasing economic disparities between the rich and the poor of all nations. While the wealthy develop more wealth at an increasingly rapid pace, the desperate poor are barely surviving. Evolving global consensus as to the nature of process of globalization desiring and effective regulatory mechanism, evolving an institutional structure which is transparent and democratic unlike the present Bretton Woods Institutions where the decision making remains opaque and controlled by few powerful nations and thus ensuring that market behave responsible to society is so simple. It is a complex affair requiring engagement not only of states alone of course which is most fundamental essential , but in addition it also demands engagement of political experiences, social and economic expectations of different societies; and evolving a sensitive and reflective opinion of public and citizenry at global as well as local level. In short evolving such consensus would demand building common understanding and a common approach to new International economy order amongst every stake holder. In fact it is this kind of engagement right from political leadership to professionals, universities and voluntary groups that ultimately resulted into institutionalization of EU which initially did not look like a reality. In fact it is through this kind of engagement that the consensuses on matters like: common currency, common passport, common market, common human rights adjudicating mechanism could be arrived at. No doubt it would demand new base of knowledge; different kind of professional approach to dealing with issues political, social, legal and economic in nature, and evolving more vibrant and sensitive public opinion at global as well as local level. Some proposals to safeguard social justice: · Equal and fair commerce and not free trade · Education, medical care, social welfare must not be in the market. · We need to make transnational companies responsible for their actions all over the world. · It is very much required to cancel 3rd World Debt, and reduce the power of the WB and IMF. · Already there have been substantial victories defeating multilateral agreement on investments. The value of Monsanto’s agricultural division has been reduced to zero dollars, because people won’t accept genetically modified foods and products. National coalitions are growing. · The economic and political spheres of society are to be subordinated human development. · The consumption patterns and the life styles of the people must be changed towards the sane consumption. This cannot happen overnight or by decree, but will require a slow educational process, and in this the government must play an important role. The function of the state is to establish norms for healthy consumption as against pathological and indifferent consumption. There fore we need a humanistic science of Man as the basis for the applied science and Art of Social Reconstruction. · The production shall be directed for the sake of sane production. · A concerted effort to stimulate the appetite for sane consumption is likely to change the pattern of consumption. · Production for use instead for profit must be slogan of the Government. · Militant consumer movement that will use the threat of consumer strikes as a weapon. 20% of consumers can do wonders. The great advantage of consumer strike is that they do not require government action. Realization of their power is essential. It could be a manifestation of genuine democracy. · Bureaucratic control that would forcibly block consumption would only make people all the more consumption hungry. · The value of other commodities and services can be determined by panel of psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, theologians, and representatives of various social and consumer groups. · Industrial democracy implies that each member of a large industrial or other organization plays an active role and participates in decision making. · The Government can greatly facilitate the educational process by subsidizing the production of desirable commodities and services, until these can be profitably produced. A large educational campaign in favour of same consumption would have to accompany these efforts. · Passive spectator democracy must be changed into active participatory democracy. Political life requires maximum decentralization through out industry and politics. · Active and responsible participation further requires that humanistic management replace bureaucratic management. The realization of the new society and new man is possible only if old motivations of profit and power are replaced by new ones. Being, sharing, understanding; if the marketing character is replaced by the productive, loving character; If cybernetic religion is replaced by anew radical humanistic spirit. · All brain washing methods in industrial and political advertising must be prohibited. · There is an urgent need for reforming institutional arrangements–in addition to national ones–in order to overcome both the errors of omission and those of commission that tend to give the poor across the world such limited opportunities. VI How to do? Strong political movements that must be built upon the process of class struggle should take place in each country. As Hugo Chavez said, “it cannot be mere movement of protest and celebration like Woodstock.. It is an enormous struggle, an endeavor in which organization and coordination are keys”. This is the challenge to international intellects and activists. References: Amartya Sen, “How to Judge Globalism,” The American Prospect, Vol. 13 no. 1, January 14, 2002. Erich Fromm, (1981) ‘To have or To be’, Bantham Books, New York. Friedrich Hayek, Economic Freedom and Representative Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). George Soros “ On Globalization” Public Affairs, New York,2002. Giddens, A. (1990) ‘The Consequences of Modernity’. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Habermas, (2001) ‘The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays’, translated and edited by Max Pensky. MIT Press. Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) ‘Global Transformations – politics, economics and culture’, Cambridge: Polity Press. Joseph E.Stiglitz.(2003) Globalization and its Discontents, W.W. Norton Company,New York,. _______________. (2007) Making Globalization Work, W.W. Norton Company,New York,2007. Klein, N. (2001) ‘No Logo’, London: Flamingo. Kellner, D. (1997) ‘Globalization and the Postmodern Turn’, UCLA , http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/dk/GLOBPM.htm Sam Gindin, ‘Anti-Capitalism and the Terrain of Social Justice’ Monthly Review, Feb 2002. Smith, M. K. and Smith, M. (2002) ‘Globalization: The Encyclopedia of Informal Education’, www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm. Strange, Susan. (1996) ‘The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy’, Cambridge University Press. · The Bretton Woods Institutions are the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They were set up at a meeting of 43 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA in July 1944. Their aims were to help rebuild the shattered postwar economy and to promote international economic cooperation. The original Bretton Woods agreement also included plans for an International Trade Organisation (ITO) but these lay dormant until the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created in the early 1990s.

One of the best kept secrets in Washington is the working of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Does it get the job done? Not even close. Typically, Wall Street is awash in insider trading, accounting games, and let’s not forget campaign contributions — and SEC lawyers are outgunned and outmaneuvered. All this was known before the Bernard Madoff scandal put the SEC to shame and dozens of kiss-and-tell best sellers were published by ex-financiers who, having stashed away enough for themselves and their dynasty of future children, came forward with sordid tales of pocket stuffing. The agency may have been weak thorughout the Bush years, but it’s not just the way, it’s the will. Back in ’93, in Clintontimes, Mary Schapiro told an audience in Switzerland that “a more flexible regulatory paradigm” would benefit the financial world. And she wasn’t alone: over at the White House, chief economist Bob Rubin was saying the same. Rubin, who cashed out of Goldman Sachs with hundreds of millions of dollars, and his lieutenant, Larry Summers, who made millions at a hedge fund, went on to run the Treasury Department. There, this dynamic duo unleashed the forces not of regulation — but its reverse — laying the foundation for the awful mess we are familiar with — speculation upon speculation and leverage upon leverage — producing profits galore but few jobs. Even the best intentioned SEC, under the the reformed and revitalized Mary Schapiro, can put but a dent in a system so …

Bruce Pounder is President of Leveraged Logic™, a leader in the development and delivery of educational products and services for financial professionals. His areas of expertise include corporate financial reporting, the global convergence of financial reporting standards, and ethics in the accounting profession. Since founding Leveraged Logic in 1988, Bruce has presented accounting and finance seminars to thousands of professionals around the world. His seminar participants have come from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), each of the ten largest US accounting firms, and many “Global 500″ companies. Prior to founding his firm, Bruce worked for several global companies including Eastman Kodak, IBM, Pennzoil, and Exxon. Currently, he hosts “This Week in Accounting,” an online seminar series conducted live in the CPEanywhere™ Virtual Classroom. Bruce is the author of the 2010 US Master GAAP Guide (CCH) and the Convergence Guidebook for Corporate Financial Reporting (Wiley). He also writes the “IFRS in Perspective” blog, the monthly “Financial Reporting” column for Strategic Finance magazine, and other articles that regularly appear online and in print publications reaching hundreds of thousands of accounting and finance professionals.

Our friends on Wall Street deserve every penny of their bonus money…
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… and I do mean “our friends”. A friend in the truest sense of the word, will take on the hard stuff. When you are doing something wrong or acting inappropriately, a true friend will let you know. If your life is spinning out of control and your actions are endangering your life and affecting your family and people who care about you, a true friend will step up their game to help you. You will fight them all the way, but a true friend will endure because that’s what true friends do.
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Wall Street has been a true friend to not only us (the average Joe in the United States of America), but the entire world. Wall Street stepped up their game to help us all. They weren’t deterred by the anger and hate that they knew would be coming. The world was on a destructive road and they, being true friends, did what had to be done and the rest, as they say, is history.
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The events on Wall Street made the world painfully aware of the power and influence a handful of greedy people can have over the rest of us. They also brought to light that what we do in the United States of America can have and does have a profound effect on the rest of the world. For this we owe Wall Street a tremendous debt and those bonuses would just be a small down payment. You see, in the future, when we look back, we will realize that Wall Street may have saved our lives – all of our lives. Will we ever be able to repay them for that?
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The first decade of the 21st Century has been a decade of crisis: 911, Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Detroit, terrorism, swine flu, Health Care, droughts, floods, forest fires, tsunamis, earthquakes; and the meltdown of our financial institutions. These will all look pale in comparison to the catastrophe we are creating. The factors that led to the collapse of Wall Street are the same as the ones which will forever change the planet we live on. Unchecked power & influence combined with the greed and a blatant disregard for anyone else or what is right. The consequences of what happened on Wall Street, although devastating, will be minor in comparison to what is awaiting us.
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If you are guessing that it’s Global Warming you are wrong. The debate and argument are engineered diversions. They are a smokescreen, a magician’s trick to keep your eye away from the truth. Whether it’s real or not the effects of Global Warming are only part of a much bigger problem. The “truth” is not controversial. The average person on Main Street knows it. There is not a scientific difference of opinion (not that there is a valid one concerning Global Warming). What has and is happening is that most of us are not aware of the extent of the problem or the short amount of time we have left to act.
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The problem, and I repeat, there is absolutely no difference of scientific opinion, is the condition of our various ecosystems. Our Planets’ immune system, the one that makes it possible for us to live “outside” is failing. Every single natural mechanism responsible for maintaining our health and well-being is in a state of rapid decline. EVERY SINGLE ONE! We must also realize that the only thing we have to pay Mother Earth for keeping us “healthy” is respect. So far that has been a price we have not been willing to pay. If we had to pay for the services that the Earth does for free, it would cost around $40,000,000,000,000 per year.
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We have serious National Security issues today, largely due to the lifestyle and opportunities we have been blessed with in this country. If you have concerns now, what do you think it will be like when gas and water are both selling for $20 a gallon and are in short supply?
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During the short span of the Industrial Age, we have polluted our rivers and oceans by our indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilizers. We have manufactured massive dead zones where rivers run to our seas. We have destroyed our rain forests and old growth forests. Fish now come with mercury warnings from 49 of our 50 states and on any predatory fish taken from our oceans. Our throw away society has developed a floating plastic island the size of Texas that is breaking down chemically and is adversely affecting every living thing around it, further degrading our food supply. Instances of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and asthma have all increased dramatically and continue to rise at alarming rates.
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Your Doctor tells you that you are in the advanced stages of diabetes or heart disease. You have lung cancer or breast cancer. Do you cut out the tumor? Do you change the way you have lived your life? Anyone who wants to stay alive will do whatever it takes to have more time here on earth to be with family and loved ones. Those who choose not to change leave the people who know them wondering why.
I am wondering why. We, collectively, have been informed that our lifestyle is slowing killing us and making us unhealthy. We, collectively, have ignored the warnings. We have been told that the planet we live on has a number of fatal diseases, her lungs are failing, her blood has been poisoned and her immune system will soon cease to function. As dire as this prognosis is, we have also been told that if we change the way we live our lives, we could all live long healthy lives.
So let us all thank our good friends on Wall Street for making us aware of how much control we have given to a handful of greedy people. We have also given that same control to industries that have become responsible for the fate of the quality of life for all life on our planet, for us, the generations to come – our sons & daughters, their grandchildren and all who follow. Unfortunately none have taken their responsibilities, to us, future generations or Mother Earth; very seriously. If we continue on our chosen path, we won’t have to travel to the Moon or Mars to build “space stations”. We will be able to build and test them right here at home. We are creating an environment which “we can take a trip and never leave the farm”.
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The road we have chosen will create a lifestyle which future generations will inherit. It will be far different from what all of us have been blessed with. We have made this choice by our past actions and inactions. We can choose to create new industries and jobs manufacturing enclosed, self contained habitats where our descendants will live, work, play and grow their food or we can choose a more sensible path.
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We have a tremendous opportunity if we all get involved and use just a small amount of common sense. Does it make sense to destroy a $40 trillion a year industry? If we are to pass this planet to our sons and daughters shouldn’t it, at the very least, be in the same condition as we got it? We must start factoring in the long term impact of industries and how they will affect all of us – present and future. Who would have thought a handful of bankers could cause so much pain? We can no longer run from the true cost of things. That was tried by the previous administration by not including, in their annual budgets, the billions of dollars spent each month on two wars. How much do you think that approach has helped?
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If you like the neighborhood you are living in, love the climate, don’t want to move but your house is starting to fall apart; you rebuild it. You finance your remodeling project for 25-30 years not 4 years. In this country almost everything is falling apart. We have lost or are losing whole industries: steel, textile, furniture and computer. Our infrastructure is decaying and in some cases has become so dangerous that it has been responsible for the needless loss of life. We teach our kids that more is better, that what we use up just goes away, and how our planet works has no place in their curriculum,
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If we had an effective educational system most of the problems we are faced with today wouldn’t be happening. We would know and our children would know that there is a balance to things. There is an essential part of our existence that has nothing to do with texting, tweeting, Google, the Internet, HD TV, cars, video games and fashion. Yet how many of us know that our lifestyle is the reason that 50,000 species are sentenced to extinction each year and that we are working very hard to increase those numbers.
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We have many options. One is to support industries that work in balance with nature. We could put every man and woman to work by supporting and building industries that would expand instead of contract: high speed rail, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro electric power, electric & hydrogen powered vehicles, quality education, weatherizing homes and commercial buildings, responsible farming methods, new bridges, a new National Security System, and hydrogen & “smart” highways; are only a few. The way we did things a 100 years ago no longer make sense today. Technologies and methods that didn’t make sense 50 years ago are actually some of the best choices we have today. Not only are they better from an environmental perspective but they make more sense from a capitalist’s perspective as well. We don’t have to give up our big SUVs or our HD TVs. We just need to change the way we power them.
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The one option we don’t have is time. We are truly in the 11th hour of holding on to the way we have lived on this planet. We don’t have ten or twenty years to change the way we do things. If you have not already seen it, I urge you watch “The 11th Hour”. It is a documentary about some of the issues I have mentioned here. It was produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio who does an excellent job of conveying what is the most important message pertaining to the most important issue of our time.
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Many of us, who have been aware of the issue, have felt powerless to fight the Special Interests that have been in control. But the power of the internet has leveled the battlefield a bit. Big corporations can no longer silence the common voice. The ability to convey accurate information quickly, to many and at no cost, has given us a vehicle which can be used to expose the actions of greedy corporations and expose some of our elected politicians that have been bought and paid for by Big Money. As stewards of this planet, we have an obligation to a higher power. What we don’t do today will echo badly through eternity.
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Our forefathers were a renegade band of gifted and smart individuals. They framed our Constitution in such a way that it could adjust with time based on world conditions. They knew it would have to in order to live on, as an effective Democracy, implementing the will of the people. It has been modified and it still lives on but it’s the will of large corporations that is being implemented. The two party system made sense at the beginning and it still makes sense, unfortunately it is not working today. The process has been hijacked by Special Interests. Do you think the latest Supreme Court ruling dealing with Campaign Finance will affect the influence Big Money already has? Ask yourself one question. When was the last time a truly forward thinking “project” has been passed by our Congress?
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I offer one suggestion that was attempted a while ago but didn’t catch on. “Throw the bastards out!” We pay our members of Congress six figure incomes, provide them with their choice of superior Health Insurance programs (with no mention of pre-existing conditions) and give them excellent retirement benefits. The individuals we elected as Democrats and Republicans (most) have banned together to ensure their re-elections rather than doing the work we are paying them to do. The Filibuster is a fairly new tactic (last 20 years). It is the reason many things that should have happened – haven’t. It’s time for US to filibuster the “filibustors”.
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In all of our upcoming elections we only vote for Independent Candidates. Incumbents could denounce their party affiliations and if vetted (not having a history of supporting Special Interests), could become an election pick. We can setup “local” websites for candidates to get their message out without the cost of a large campaign. This structure could be used for City, County, State and National elections. This would break the strangle hold Big Money has had on our election process. It would make it possible to elect people for their ideas not their wallets. The billions of dollars saved could be used for much better causes.
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I think the sleeping giant is beginning to wake. We can thank Wall Street for giving him the first shake. We have a number of problems that can wait 10-20 years to be addressed by a functioning government. But we do not have 20 years for this one. We don’t even have 10 years to start solving the most critical issue man has ever faced. If we are to preserve our way of life for future generations, the giant must wake now and get involved. Remember what he did the last time someone woke him up?
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It’s time to “Re-power the People.”

A new daily feature on Countdown with Keith Olbermann: The most outrageous or false statement made by John Mccain, Sarah Palin, or on behalf of their campaign. — Senator McCain, Governor Palin and assorted surrogates are delusional and breathtakingly corrupt. They disgrace themselves and their country as they lie, smear, slur and write it off as political manner. Yet the creeping truth must frighten them late at night: there is no currency left to buy the big lies. There is no more money left to loan or borrow the big lies or to sell them. No more money left to pay off the debt, the wreckage in the wake. The orgy of excess has drained every bottle, smashed the furniture and left the cupboards bare. All that’s left is derivative debts — bets between liars and lies. Trillions of dollars. Turned capitalism into a Ponzi scheme for trading worthless paper. No real value anywhere. No matter how much money Ben Bernanke prints. We are asked to stand over the abyss and experience our own destruction as another political game show — just another surreal horse race. We watch millionaires and paid Republican hacks appear on television yelling “Socialist!” at Obama as if the Bolsheviks are coming to rape our daughters. These are the same people who oversaw the greatest upward redistribution of wealth in the history of this country. The same people who, through general lawlessness and a privatization frenzy, succeeded in shredding the Constitution, turning war, illegal domestic …

Apparently when Joseph Heller (Catch- 22 fame), at a party,was told that a certain fund manager had made more that day than Heller had made from all his books combined – Joseph Heller said – “Ah then I have something he can never have. I have enough.”Preposterous!What a strange concept in today’s N American world. The concept of enough.Because what we learn and we see demonstrated by all around is – More.You must have More.There is always More.If your company is at 15% growth – you need More.If you have just hit 10 million in sales -  you need More.If this CEO earned 200 million – you can earn More.We need to extract More resources this year.We need to capture More markets this quarter.We need More returns.And we can see how that is exported so well to other countries. Especially dictatorships or emerging “democracies’. The leader needs More. More aid, More taxes, More resources. More power.MoreWe export the concept of More very well. Because it plays so well into our greed and pride.Is there a concept of Enough?Companies need growth, markets need growth.Growth is More!But Personal growth does not require hoarding and grasping, in fact it requires the opposite.Corporations seem to display our worst traits.Their growth is always about their own financial feeding.No other criteria need apply.Charitable or giving done grudgingly and only if there is some income or tax return involved.A human psyche that demands constant feeding is a damaged psyche.The constant need for More in a human psyche is a sign of madness…I draw no conclusions…Benjamin Franklin apparently considered the possibility of EnoughAdam Smith considered the possibility of EnoughAmerican Eighteenth Century thought was that a business would succeed until it had enough for itself and then succeed and grow forward from thereby giving into the society .(well some Eighteenth Century Thought , thought that).The difference perhaps between an entrepreneur and a Capitalist perhaps… A capitalist can not have enough – they must have more. In fact Benjamin Franklin was told if he hadn’t spent so much time ‘inventing’ things and printing pamphlets of information – he could have spent more time making money. A real man makes More.Franklin was the one who said ‘Knowledge is not personal property – it should be used in the service of others”. As we benefit from their inventions – “we should allow FREELY and GLADLY other to benefit from ours”.Such heresy in this day and age of lawyers and grasping at every chance to extract every cent from all and sundry.Franklin founded a library, an academy, a college, a hospital and a learned society – not for his enrichment – but as a benefit to the community.(fool!)Today a college may be founded, or a library built, but with a corporate logo attached – never let a chance for advertising pass by.WE need More exposure.In “The Theory of Economic Development” it was suggested that the prime motivator of the entrepreneur – is: – “the joy of creating, exercising ones energy and ingenuity” and ” the will of succeed, not for the material fruits of success, but for success itself” (crazy!)What if there was a concept of we get enough and then we GIVE More (Socialism you cry! – Socialism is where the state gets it all, and then doles out what it doesnt need)What if the entrepreneur – the business community – allowed themselves to be led by ‘an invisible hand’ which promotes not just their own interest, but the interests of their community, the society at large. (Adam Smith) Adam Smith also mentioned “It is reason, principle, conscience – that is the great arbiter of our conduct”(exactly you say – the Trickle down theory – the ‘free market’ -the great being that if  left to its own devices – is perfect – Ah but we dont leave it, do we? We manipulate it to our own ends and call that freedom of markets)Ok. Enough…Now how do we ‘spin’ that so we get More.Enough? Enough you cry – I havent got mine yet – how can we call enough?Well what is enough?We seem to have enough hate, enough greed, enough lies dressed up as policies – all the easy stuff.Its the hard stuff we don’t seem to have enough of. Charity, conscience, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance – laughter. We dont have enough joy – do we?How can we have joy? We don’t have Enough Time for such frivolities – we need More.Work More.Spend More.Pitch More…

Will Fill LATER _____________________ NAFTA WTO IMF USA America Mexico Canada Mexicans Immigrations Immigrants Free Market Trade Subsidies Subsidy EU Common Agricultural Policy Farming Farms Corporate Greed Population Control Reduction Depopulation

419 Scams originated in the early 1980s from Nigeria as their oil-based economy declined. Several unemployed university students first used this scam as a means of manipulating business visitors interested in shady deals in the Nigerian oil and payment sector within its procurement before targeting businessmen in the west, and later the wider global shylock population hungry for a piece of the African dream of easy riches. Opulence demonstrated by their friends and nationals working or doing business in Africa the land of milk and honey saturated with god given minerals asset of over 23 of the 33 precious minerals. With hindsight looking into the mirrors of the past, Africa was invaded and exploited because of its vast minerals deposits i.e. South Africa by the Dutch and British, Congo by the Belgians and French, Ghana and Sierra Leone by the British. All in the name of mineral assets including gold, diamonds, copper, iron ore, oil, coltan and titanium paying very little or next to virtually pittance for its extraction. These very vital minerals has contributed to wars, misery, slavery, violation of human rights and other indignation to the African people than the development, benefits, happiness and hope expected. This was then scamming in the early century going by its definition in today’s jargon. Scammers in the early-to-mid 1990s targeted companies, sending scam messages via letter, fax, or Telex. The Internet has helped transform a local form of fraud into one of Africa’s biggest problem which has contaminated every sector even its political, local, security and the executive arm of governance falling victim in one hand and becoming facilitators on the other by its agents and system collaborating with perpetrators in most cases because of saboteur, greed, domestic problems and the like. The spread of email and easy access to email and low cost of sending scam letters through the Internet and to wider recipients aided and facilitated by ICT globalisation village effect, has spiral from locations in Africa to Asia and Eastern Europe. An advance fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain. An example was the scenario in Ghana, in which a company offered a 1 billion dollar loan to the government for a minimum fee of mobilisation cost for a project. It was proven by the investigative branch of the government at the end to be bogus and the company address as stated in the documents presented to the ministry of finance was an address in the UK belonging to a hair dressing shop. As far back 1992 when the NPRC government took over through a coup detat, the young head of state then in Africa (26yrs of age) Capt. Valentine E Strasser was flown out of Sierra Leone in a private jet by a diamond magnet to Belgium with a very large consignment of diamonds to the tune of millions of dollars for which little was realised by himself Strasser, the people of Sierra Leone or government then. There are many variations on this type of scam to governments and leadership in Africa examples very evident in the history of leaders like Mobutu of Zaire now DRC, Abacha of Nigeria and many others who deposited large sums of money into international bank accounts which has only benefited the banks and their syndicates using different breeds of approaches. Today many African governments is experiencing its own perspective of 419 and its effect on the economy in its evolution. This development is not new and did not start only yesterday. It has been a canker in other governments manifesting in different shapes and forms within the economical structure of the country. It is like a virus that germinates in the wickest parts of ones physiological and corporeal faculty. “Crave for easy wealth breeds in this analogy the vices of society; decay and greed within the economy are the culprits turning a nation into an animal kingdom”. 419 scams starts with a letter e-mail sent to many target recipients making an offer that will ultimately result in a large payoff for the intended victim. The stories behind the offers vary, but the standard plot is that a person or government entity is in possession of a large amount of money, oil quotas, diamonds or gold. This person, for myriad reasons, either cannot access the wealth directly or is no longer in need of it. Such people, who are either real but impersonated people or fictional characters played by the scammer, could include the wife of a deposed African leader or top officials, a dictator, a terminally ill wealthy person, a wealthy foreigner who had deposited money in the bank just before dying in a plane crash leaving no will or known next of kin, a U.S. soldier who has stumbled upon a hidden cache of gold in Iraq, a business being audited by the government, a disgruntled worker or corrupt government official who has embezzled funds, a refugee and similar characters. The money could be in the form of gold bullion, gold dust, money in a bank account, diamonds, a series of cheque’s or bank drafts, and so forth. The sums involved are usually in the millions of dollars, and the investor is promised a large share, often forty percent or more, if they will assist the scam character in retrieving the money from holding and/or dispense of it. The proposed deal is often presented as a harmless white-collar crime, in order to dissuade participants from later contacting the authorities. Whilst most recipients do not respond to these emails, scammers are able to gain victims through sheer greed. Victims who attempt to check the background of the offer will often find that all pieces fit perfectly into place. Such scammers can often lure wealthy investors, investment groups, or other business entities into scams resulting in multi-million dollar losses. However, many scammers are part of less organized gangs or are operating independently; such scammers have reduced access to the above connections and thus have little success with wealthier investors or business entities, but are still convincing to middle-class individuals and small businesses, and can exploit and milk hundreds of thousands of dollars from such victims. A 419 scammer will introduce a delay or monetary hurdle that prevents the deal from occurring as planned, such as “in order to transmit the money, we need to bribe a government or bank official. Could you help us with some money or a loan?” or “In order for you to be allowed to be a party to the transaction, you need to have holdings at a local bank of $50,000 or more” or similar. More delays and more additional costs are added, always keeping the promise of an imminent large transfer alive, convincing the victim that the money they are currently paying will be covered several times over by the payoff. Sometimes psychological pressure is added by claiming that the other side, in order to pay certain fees, had to sell all belongings and borrow money on their house pointing out the different salary scale and living conditions in Africa compared to the West. Much of the time, the needed psychological pressure is self-applied; once the victims have put money in toward the payoff, they feel they have a vested interest in seeing the “deal” through. Some victims of greed intentions believe that they can cheat the 419 scammer. The essential fact in all advance fee fraud operations is that the promised money transfer never happens because the money or gold does not exist or if it does, it is fake. The perpetrators rely on the fact that, by the time the victim realizes this (often only after being confronted by a third party who has noticed the transactions or conversation and recognized the scam), the victim may have sent thousands of dollars of their own money, and sometimes thousands or millions more that has been borrowed or stolen to the scammer via an untraceable and/or irreversible means such as wire transfers or banks with collaborators in connection with the deal. The spam e-mails perpetrating these scams are often sent from Internet cafés equipped with satellite Internet very difficult to trace its IP address. Recipient addresses and email content are copied and pasted into a web mail interface using a standalone storage medium such as a memory card. Many African countries Internet providers (ISP’s) contain many shady cyber cafés that serve scammers. During the courses of many schemes, scammers ask victims to supply bank account information. Usually this is bait devised by the scammer to gauge the victim’s gullibility. Scammers often request that payments be made using a wire transfer service like Western Union and Money gram. The reason given by the scammer will usually relate to the speed at which the payment can be received and processed allowing quick release of the supposed payoff. The real reason is that wire transfers and similar methods of payment are irreversible, untraceable and because identification beyond knowledge of the details of the transaction is often not required, completely anonymous. Telephone numbers used by scammers tend to come from mobile phones. A scammer may purchase an inexpensive mobile phone and a pre-paid SIM card without submitting subscriber information. If the 419 scammers believed they are being traced, they throw their mobile phones into wastebaskets and purchase new mobile phones. Some crime syndicates in Africa employ the services of fraudsters in Europe, Asia and the United States who conclude deals for them or threaten victims who try to leave deals. It has become a double edge sword. Removing political formalities and bottle necks will invite more business investments making things flexible, transparent and easier for government to concentrate on local issues exonerating it from negative actions and stigmas caused by fly by night businessmen. Its must empower trade and business citizens both local and in the Diaspora of international experience, clout and recognition knowledge base in their activities to work with embassies in the trade and business sectors, setting standards, gathering information of potential business investors, scrutinizing and building dossier for onward transmission to the various areas of governance before arrival to the country of the so called investors for meetings and dialogue with government officials arm with the information about their supposed client businessman investor. Must categories and classified investors by their status verified, areas of interests and capitalisation so that they can enjoy privileges and benefits as an incentive for their potentiality of wanting to do business in the country observing all legitimate and proper channels and conduit of doing business in Africa. Genuine businessmen will go through intelligence reports available on the Internet or check source proposal on country of interest which is not a secret in today’s ICT globalise open information society before starting negotiations or transactions in any capacity or business dealings for the fear of compromising integrity. Those who become victims are aware of the risk they are taking by the red flag and alerts given by Embassies and other organizations warning visitors and businessmen and women to various countries about 419 scammers. This is the main reason embassies do not intervene in such situation in fear of embarrassments with their hosts. Who is victim or beneficiary in 419 scamming? , the one who is aware of his actions wanting to buy gold costing today over a 1000 dollars an ounce for $200 outside the government controlled GGDO?, diamonds at rock bottom prices out witting the royalties and taxation regime, or $250.000.00 invested to gain a so called deposit of 1 billion of late Gen Sani Abacha`s hidden booty? Countries in West Africa with red flag and warnings cited by state department country reports are found in yahoo and Google include Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Togo, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. Countries outside of West Africa with 419 warnings cited include South Africa, Spain, and The Netherlands. Growing at rapid rate is the Asia continent with China and India becoming notorious. Who is guilty of an offence and under which crime to be prosecuted, when the funds brought into the country by so called victims are not deposited or declared through the normal business proposed channels or central banks according to regulations, and if so, source of the income declared because of the quantum amounts usually involved from the so called victims cases are tantamount to scrutiny for money laundering by existing standards and benchmark for doing business globally. Is this episode scamming on the African side? And money laundering on the victim’s side? Two wrongs do not make anybody right. I am not holding brief for anyone here but merely playing the devils advocate and let’s call a spade a spade and what is good for the gander is good for the geese. This awareness will help stop illegal transactions  involving or bringing countries image into disrepute by so called greedy and shylock businessmen roaming, invading and exploiting African economies to its detriments because of the greed of a few so called businessmen and women from bigger economies. Give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser and unto the Lord what is the Lord’s- But who is Ceaser and who is the Lord here in a 419 scenario?!!!!!!!