YES, Even Dead Fish Goes With the Flow

By Mwarang'ethe

In his latest piece, Chris has written this: “how long do you think we will be able to flout our cash around even as our fellow countrymen starve and struggle to survive”? The implied meaning in this statement is that, the yawning gap in wealth between the few rich and majority dirty poor will be reduced or eliminated by the “new constitution.” As we have stated previously, a constitution is an economic document. As such, a constitution drafted without clear understanding of economics, i.e. natural laws of wealth creation and distribution is rubbish. We shall demonstrate with real examples.

Let us first note two crucial, but, little known facts. In the “classical age” politics and economics were studied under the rubric of political economy as the science of wealth. Science in this manner meant the systematical classification and arrangement of the natural laws of social prosperity. However, so as to produce one dimensional idiot who cannot see the whole picture, this subject was divided into political science and economics. The reason given by Neo Classical economists was that, economics had now become a science like physics and astronomy. However, the main aim was to fool mankind for the benefit of few.

About a hundred years ago, a group of socialists established a society called Fabian Society. Taking their name and strategy from Quintus Fabius, the Roman general who advocated a war of attrition against Hannibal of Carthage, they sought to impose socialism on mankind by stealth. To do so, they founded the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1895 (by the way, isn’t Kibaki and many other economists not graduates of this prestigious school?). For those of us who are awake in these dangerous times, we can see their dream of socialism is close to realization all over the world. Yes, we hear the right to food, decent housing and everything else to be provided by the government. The masses completely ignorant of long historical plans are deceived by this monkey language. In this collective ignorance, we hear them say hallelujah. We say woe unto you for we are on the road to serfdom worse than any other in the human history. While at it, remember this. It is socialism for the rich and free markets for the poor. If you doubt the definition of socialism, please tell us what you make of this.

This year Citigroup just announced that its profits for just the first three months of this year totalled an incredible $4.4 billion, Goldman Sachs' haul was $3.5 billion, JPMorgan Chase grabbed $3.3 billion, and Bank of America took $3.2 billion. How did these geniuses make this fortune? It is this. The Fed has deliberately held short-term interest rates to historic lows -- less than one half of a percent. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is paying almost 4 percent interests on longer-term loans that banks make to the government. This might sound complicated. However, it's really a very simple transfer of public wealth to the giant banks owned by a few thousand people out of 6 billion people. The Fed loans, let's say, a billion dollars (public money) to a bank at a half-percent interest. The bank then turns right around and loans that billion dollars to the Treasury Department, collecting 4 percent interest. In short, the banks take citizen’s money and loan it back to them for a sweet 3.5 percent profit. Apart from loaning the citizens back their own money at interest, they are using the same funds to short including naked short selling shares and government bonds in Greece, Europe and globally. To prevent the collapse of land values, shares and government bonds and currencies (which is a futile exercise where we are now), governments must come up with money bailout (more public debts on the shoulders of the poor) and the game goes on and on. Sheer genius!

Question for YES people
Have we entrenched such a system in your wonderful constitution? And, if yes, can we be educated how such a piratical monetary arrangement will help in bridging the wealth gap you talk about when we know as a matter of fact, that, it is a means of transferring wealth from the poor to the super rich, i.e. the rentier class?
In a recent article on this blog we stated something like this. “The productive activities that can make a nation wealthy must meet two tests. (a) Such activities should lead to production of valuable tangible/intangible stuff. (b) Such activities should be surplus generating economic activities that can be made available for future re- investment. Ignoring the distribution aspect of this surplus for the moment, we can say that, since our economic activities do not meet test (b), in other words, we specialise in unproductive economic activities (special EPZ's and coffee growing - Malthusian activities) we are going NOWHERE. “

We added this. “Furthermore, even if there is some little surplus revenue for re- investment we also have a major problem of its distribution. Under the private land ownership (absolute title to land), land absorbs almost all of the surplus revenue in form of rent. In addition to this, we have piratical monetary system that also extracts a very large portion of the surplus revenue from our economy. This extraction of wealth by the idle class is at the expense of the class that create real wealth. This class is composed of the labour and the real economy/industrial/agriculture economy. Once the industrialist/farmer who creates commodities we need and exchange with each other is starved of revenue for future investments, it follows that, there are no jobs for the labour. And even if there are jobs, so as to meet the unjust demands of land owners and the financial capitalists, the wages must be low as we see in the EPZ’s. Low wages cannot create an environment for industrialists to invest.”

Question for YES people
So, if this is the condition of our economy and the “new constitution” has not fixed it, how do you meet the economic and social rights as well as devolution demands?
More so, there is something else we seem not to understand. It is the real meaning of “free trade” under which we are operating. This is a simple analysis. The imperial nations export capital to our nations for two reasons. These are the development of low cost sources of food (coffee, tea, fruits) and raw materials required by developed nation’s factories (copper, oil etc). By exporting capital to us, these nations can keep wages for their labour a bit low because basics/food is cheap. This ensures that, their profits for future investments are not squeezed too much. If free trade for the rich is meant to preserve their profits, what do we seek to preserve on our part? We answer debt, poverty and ignorance and conflicts over shrinking cake.

Question for YES people
To what extent does this wonderful constitution come even close to appreciating this reality, and therefore, come up with innovative means of escaping these arrangements? And, since it has not done so, can we be taught how prosperity of the poor will come about when wages must be kept low such that, we lack purchasing power and the profits for future investments?

We seek to write as little as possible, but, we are attempted to say more. In Article 41 (3) of the proposed constitution, we read this: “Every employer has the right – to form and join an employer’s organisation, and to participate in the activities and programmes of an employer organisation.” May God save Kenya. In the USA, we hear that, lobbyists make it impossible to make the necessary reforms. However, here we are, seeking to entrench such rights in our “new constitution.”
Let us see what Adam Smith said about employers and let the reader judge whether the drafters of this document and the Kenyans in general know anything they are talking about. He wrote this:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices... The interest of dealers ... in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”

In the end, it seems as if one thinker who also a journalist was right. He argued that, people, including journalists were more interested in believing the pictures in their heads (housing for all, wealth distribution etc) rather than come to judgment by critical thinking. He added that, the function of journalists and news in this sense is only to signalize an even while the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts and thereby, set them in relation with each other so as to make a picture of reality upon which men can act. The news is that, we have a new constitution. The truth is that, it is the same old wine in new wine skins. In this case, news and truth are not synonymous. Even worse, he noted that, even if journalists could be effective in educating the public about important issues, the masses are never interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigations. Thus, like a dead fish, they go with the flow.

In conclusion, no, we are not motivated by fear, but, the truth. However, we are aware that, today, there is little regard for the truth, little access to it and even little ability to recognise it. Truth is unwelcome entity. It is very disturbing. Truth is an inconvenience for governments and the interest groups who benefit from so called governments. Even worse, those, whose goal was once discovery of the truth about just wealth creation and just distribution thereof, are now paid very well to hide it. In other words, truth has fallen to the gods of mammon.