Oz and the Orchestra
Platinum Member
An incredible year that I think most of us could never imagine could happen.
Mother nature hit back at our flaws in globalization. The 'global village' that economists could only see as a good thing with no downsides left humanity exposed and despite the fact, governments had made plans to deal with a pandemic (The UK in 2016) should one ever come, when it did it was as if we had never given it a thought of how to respond.
The pandemic has though brought a few benefits. Cleaner air around our cities and less carbon pumped into the atmosphere. Much more time for many of us in lockdown to do things we normally never get time to. We tend to forget that during the Great Plague in London in the 17th centuary much of the city was locked down. Theatres were closed and it was during this period Shakespeare wrote three of his greatest plays. It's all about turning a negative into a positive.
So going into the New Year – a time for resolutions, what should be humanities new goals and objectives? Or do we just go back to the old ways of doing things that, and let's face it never looked like bringing universal happiness and prosperity.
We have a chance to reset and aim at a completely different future to the path we were on if only we are brave, ambitious, and determined enough.
Globalization is here to stay, as is Capitalism and Socialism, the latter two at least for the foreseeable future.
We need to start downplaying the emphasis on the Nation-State and have far more international cooperation between governments. Create a truly free and fair trading international playing field ending protectionism. Free movement of workers, goods, and services without tariffs or restrictions.
We have recognised that the Corona vaccine must be rolled out across the world as it is the only way we can all be safe. We in the wealthy nations will have to pay for it That should be our attitude over a myriad of problems and injustices. We need an international 'Marshal' type plan for the whole world to bring all nations out of poverty, develop them quickly with massive investment to bring them up to a level that they can trade successfully as fully developed partners.
To achieve this we need to drop this age-old suspicion of countries like China, Russia, and Iran. We need to bring them fully into the fold with a new partnership based on mutual trust and include them in everything, sharing information.
People only flee their own countries when desperate. By investing in third world countries, by bringing them up to our level, they won't want to leave Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala to enter the US. Nor will they flee Syria, Morocco, Senegal to risk crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
We also need changes that will barely affect the 'have's' to finance the 'have not's'.
A 0.01% tax on all Stock Market transactions would create enough capital to cancel out every nation in the worlds deficits within a year,
Of course this is not a new idea and it would require an international agreement, but whenever it has been raised in the past a few nations have blocked the proposal led by the US.
So 2021 could be a year when mankind finally got its priorities right and the 'Great Corona Pandemic' as it will become known would be the catalyst that brought it about.
Do you think we should simply revert back to our old ways once the pandemic is over, or in what ways should we change?
Mother nature hit back at our flaws in globalization. The 'global village' that economists could only see as a good thing with no downsides left humanity exposed and despite the fact, governments had made plans to deal with a pandemic (The UK in 2016) should one ever come, when it did it was as if we had never given it a thought of how to respond.
The pandemic has though brought a few benefits. Cleaner air around our cities and less carbon pumped into the atmosphere. Much more time for many of us in lockdown to do things we normally never get time to. We tend to forget that during the Great Plague in London in the 17th centuary much of the city was locked down. Theatres were closed and it was during this period Shakespeare wrote three of his greatest plays. It's all about turning a negative into a positive.
So going into the New Year – a time for resolutions, what should be humanities new goals and objectives? Or do we just go back to the old ways of doing things that, and let's face it never looked like bringing universal happiness and prosperity.
We have a chance to reset and aim at a completely different future to the path we were on if only we are brave, ambitious, and determined enough.
Globalization is here to stay, as is Capitalism and Socialism, the latter two at least for the foreseeable future.
We need to start downplaying the emphasis on the Nation-State and have far more international cooperation between governments. Create a truly free and fair trading international playing field ending protectionism. Free movement of workers, goods, and services without tariffs or restrictions.
We have recognised that the Corona vaccine must be rolled out across the world as it is the only way we can all be safe. We in the wealthy nations will have to pay for it That should be our attitude over a myriad of problems and injustices. We need an international 'Marshal' type plan for the whole world to bring all nations out of poverty, develop them quickly with massive investment to bring them up to a level that they can trade successfully as fully developed partners.
To achieve this we need to drop this age-old suspicion of countries like China, Russia, and Iran. We need to bring them fully into the fold with a new partnership based on mutual trust and include them in everything, sharing information.
People only flee their own countries when desperate. By investing in third world countries, by bringing them up to our level, they won't want to leave Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala to enter the US. Nor will they flee Syria, Morocco, Senegal to risk crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
We also need changes that will barely affect the 'have's' to finance the 'have not's'.
A 0.01% tax on all Stock Market transactions would create enough capital to cancel out every nation in the worlds deficits within a year,
Of course this is not a new idea and it would require an international agreement, but whenever it has been raised in the past a few nations have blocked the proposal led by the US.
So 2021 could be a year when mankind finally got its priorities right and the 'Great Corona Pandemic' as it will become known would be the catalyst that brought it about.
Do you think we should simply revert back to our old ways once the pandemic is over, or in what ways should we change?
