Skip to main content

Imperative 08: A major part of 1st World funds should finance clean and green mega co-op projects in the 3rd World!

    Since 1800s, scientists had been warning humanity about the dangers of global warming.  It was however only in 1992 when representatives of 170 governments and corporate leaders met and agreed on world-scale coordinated action thru the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol.  The Protocol required signatory countries to limit their  greenhouse  gas emissions according to agreed upon tonnage levels.  Tonnages were based on a world target: 1.5 deg.C rise above pre-industrial rate.  Large pollution-emitting industries were allowed certain volumes of greenhouse gas emissions.  Their excess emissions were to be neutralized thru their purchase of carbon credit certificates issued by businesses which managed to reduce their emissions to less than their required levels.  
    Concurrently, the Protocol encouraged companies in less-developed countries to create carbon-absorbing forests, set up biogas power plants, wind farms, hydropower facilities and other carbon-reducing projects, and then sell their 'prevented' tons of CO2 as carbon credits to Protocol industries that were unable to meet their mitigation targets.  Additionally, various governments, world funds, corporations and NGOs set up Green Funds that totaled several billion dollars.  By 2005,  pledges made by 196 nations to the UNFCC came up to $100 billion, of which $10 billion were credited up front.  The funds were mostly for lending on soft terms.
    Unfortunately, the success rate has not been very impressive so far.  The carbon credit market, which elicited billions of dollars in deals the past 25 years has so far sequestered just 12 or so billion tons of CO2 versus the estimated 700+ billion tons of the gas still blanketing planet Earth.  Reason: very few companies participated in the carbon credit market because credits were viewed as costs with no prospect of monetary returns.  Certain companies also manufactured pollutants and sold credits to the market 'to stop production', discouraging potential buyers when the racket leaked out.
    How may our mega co-op Movement 'positivize' the issue?  We must persuade holders of Green funds to channel carbon credit and lending funds towards investment in 3rd World clean and green projects on joint venture or build-operate-transfer basis with 1st World mega co-ops and their joint venture companies.  Reason: poor countries' governments and companies cannot afford borrowing for 'questionable' (according to critics) CO2 mitigation projects even on soft terms.  The solution?  1) Build-operate-transfer agreements whereby 1st World investors' fund the entire project (largely thru loans) and then run the project and recover investments while earning international-rate profit, with near-zero cash from locals.  Upon recovery of investments, ownership transfers to mega coops to help address the scandalously wide wealth gaps in 3rd world societies.  Such agreements should build infrastructure projects that the 3rd World cannot afford; 2) Joint venture agreements between mega co-ops and 1st World companies towards setup of clean and green agro-forests and related factories and rural metals-based industries. 
    Why should 1st World states, funds and companies invest?  Fundamentally, all governments and banks create money out of thin air by simply printing currencies or electronically debiting borrowers' loan amounts.  Banks create the most money by attracting billions of public deposits at up to 90% or so of bank assets (which means capitalists' investments form a mere 10% or less of assets).  Banks' managers then lend most such deposits to trusted companies and individuals at high interest.  The loans are based on collateral value, which range from 50% to 80% of mortgaged assets' market value.  Long-time borrowers with excellent repayment records may be granted 'rollover' loans on clean or unsecured basis.  Sadly, profit dividends from the perpetual exercises are routinely awarded only to said banks' capitalists, ignoring their employees' major roles in creation of credit worthiness and profits.  Concurrently, the banks' constantly expanding deposits, operational loans and interest income raise their capital shares' values in the stock market, thereby bloating investors' wealth further.  Banks are hence perpetually operating wealth gap-creating machines which employee masses must copy thru mega co-op owned banks as democratizing tactic.
    Governments for their part create money out of thin air for both economic and political purposes by simply selling bonds (long-term loans) to companies and the public local and foreign.  Additionally, states' Central banks simply print currency as part of State loans. All such created loans are hence backed up by nothing but State fiat or command to accept the loans as currency. Creation of bond  volumes are limited only by responsible politicians and Central Banks' desire to maintain inflation rates at 2% or less, since excessive money in public hands raise prices of goods and services.
    These times, humanity and planet Earth both face the ultimate crises: extinction and ruin caused by uncontrolled global warming. Governments, banks and capital companies worldwide should therefore fully utilize their money-creating powers to address the issue.  The target: invest created currencies in joint venture and build-operate-transfer projects tropics-wide until all the tropics' denuded lands get transformed into agro-forests with supporting industries and infrastructures set up, all based on clean technologies.  The activities must not cease until average world temperatures have been reduced to pre-industrial levels.
    What's the monetary benefit for 1st World investors?  Investing trillions of dollars in the 3rd World on routine basis will create over six billion new employees which will form quadrillion-dollar markets for all world businesses.  Currently, major 1st World governments are drowning in debt by as much as 120% to 250% of gross domestic production, soliciting worries from financial and economic observers as to the stability of such governments.  
    Why the excessive 1st World debts?  The major cause is excessive stock market speculation (sophisticated gambling) which hover in the $73 trillion to $1.2 quadrillion range for stock and derivative plays, and some $5 trillion each day for currency buy/sell transactions.  Comparatively, less than 10% of all currencies created by the 1st World get invested in companies that actually produce goods and services.   Reason: 1st world markets are all saturated, meaning new businesses will find few buyers.  It is also easier for capital companies to bet in billion-dollar worth of stock bets, commodity prices, interest rates, home mortgages, real estate prices, short term loans to developing countries, derivatives, currencies, etc.  Losses can amount to billions of dollars but the few lucky bettors can become billionaires within a few years by risking the money of thousands of investors.  In most cases, investors remember only the occasional winnings, and small investors engage in herd behavior (follow the winners) so the betting goes on forever.  Startup businesses that will produce goods and services and employ people get an infinitesimal part of world funds.
    All the plays have also created economic crises every eight to ten years since the 1800s onward, with no end in sight.  Many of the crises have spread to various economies worldwide, creating massive corporate bankruptcies in the developing world, millions of their long built-up middle classes reverting to poverty.  Reason: 1st World capital companies and banks grant mainly short-term loans to less-developed economies.  Furthermore, their capital investments in such 'risky' economies largely come in portfolio (stock shares) form, not as job-creating  factories and industries.  Portfolio investments and short-term loans are easily withdrawn at the slightest whiff of trouble, bankrupting affected companies that usually roll over short term loans to address long-term funding needs. 
    What's the misery-avoiding remedy?  The best tactic is for the 1st World to address its market-saturation issue by setting up millions of joint venture and build-operate-transfer business arrangements in the 3rd World, all based on clean and green technologies.  A mere 10% of 1st World 'gambling money' each year will channel trillions of dollars towards 3rd World clean industries for all humanity's benefit.  Corporate 1st World investors should hence re-channel a good part of their current stock market investments towards said 3rd World industries. The rise of some six billion new 3rd World buyers consequent to such 1st World investments should greatly expand such investors' business and profits.  In the process, said investors will earn good dividends on 'century' basis, and enjoy rises in their joint venture stock shares' market and collateral values.  Concurrently, all resultant businesses will help debt-ridden 1st World governments to repay their trillion-dollar loans, hence allay fears of instability advanced by economic and financial observers.  Currently, only 32 countries belong to the 1st World, while 163 countries harbor some six billion poor.  The former enriching the latter thru democratic clean and green business should create happiness for all while obviating the grave dangers posed by global warming!
    (Read other posts: Press Up arrow, click 3 bars at top of page, click Labels, click your choice of topic)
       
    

Popular posts from this blog

Imperative 47: I-Congress laws for State/Business synergy and Judicial efficiency

    The Philippines' current $4,000 or so per citizen gross domestic yearly production  is far short of 1st World equivalents at $10,000-up.  Two major causes apart from the past factors discussed in previous posts help explain such stumbling block against mass progress.  One is the near-total separation of State and private sector economic activities.  Another is Justice System inefficiency and corruption.  To address the said issues, two additional I-Congress laws have to be passed and implemented:      1.0  Century Business Planning Law: Trillions of pesos in State tax proceeds as well as billions of dollars in foreign exchange receipts and loans are currently managed by State thru yearly budgeting by Congress, the Executive branch and local governments. From Philippine independence year 1946 to present, the leaderships of such State components have been dominated by lawyers.  As everyone knows, lawyers' training and nature of work focus on regulation of business and citiz

Imperative 46: I-Congress laws versus high inflation, State profligacy and nationwide over-borrowing

    To further help in ending mass poverty, laws that enforce pro-people monetary management by State need to be passed and promulgated by the Philippine I-Congress as follows:     1.0  State Spending Limit Law:   Yearly State budget increases must not exceed 5 years' average inflation-adjusted gross domestic production rate increases. Such provision will prevent old-style politicians' excessive expansions of money and credits ostensibly for development but are instead used for unproductive vote-attracting projects with 40-50% arrangers' commission 'on the side'.  Economic logic and history consistently point out that unproductive State expenditures lead to unbridled price increases of goods and services (which hurt the masses most), but such history just keeps on repeating itself in the Philippines.  Hence our State Spending Limit Law together with other related laws should address the following targets:      1.1  End Philippine politicians' tendency to alloc

Imperative 19: 1st vision: 2K-hectares Philippine mega co-op agroforest farms

    Since end-1980s, the Philippines' Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources had been offering 25-year (renewable once) forest land development joint ventures at thousand-hectare levels to local co-ops and associations.  Per DENR terms, 90% of joint venture area is to be reforested and 10% converted to farms and ranches for daily income.  20% of timber harvests go to State.       As of 1990s, several thousand rural multi-purpose co-ops and associations mostly led by NGOs had availed of the scheme. In many cases, foreign NGOs took care of funding for operations.  Land areas granted came up to a thousand to 10,000 hectares per joint venture, the total occupying over ten million out of 18 million hectares of mostly uplands.   Unfortunately, most of the co-ops floundered or tanked due to lack of sufficient funding, ultra low production for 'daily bread', expensive distances to markets, zero exports, rebel/army clashes and intrigues, unprofessional management, and NGO wit