Marcus Cake

DRAFT! (This draft is publicly available to obtain feedback from third parties)
Related articles: Online network business model (generic) ; Peak leadership: is the demand for leadership outstripping supply? ; Peak food: Are we going to run out of food? ; Will Peak Oil cause a depression from 2010? ; Peak leadership: the demand for leadership is growing rapidly and supply is declining ; The transition to online networks may take six months or 50 years ; Phase in online networks … Phase out intellectual property ; The rise of online political networks ; US insolvency and the decline of the US dollar should hasten the evolution to global markets ; We need five online networks to solve the worlds problems by 2012 or we decline into conflict for generations

Humanity can be classified into two extremes - those that seek to control or build relationships, those that destroy or create, those controlled by ego or enlightened by awareness, unconscious or conscious, those that pursue win-win solutions or those that can only see one win and another lose. This polarisation can be described in many different ways by religion or intellectual disciplines. The effects of this polarisation are profound. One offers life. The other offers death.

The individual’s battle beyond ego is translated onto the global stage. We are only just starting to see these impacts. The effectiveness of global institutions, our ability to govern for the future and humanity’s survival is at stake. Destructive weather makes the impact of climate change real every year. However, the impact of individual ego and beliefs are more pervasive.

The primary ego on the world stage today is the US - its excessive consumption, insolvency, military aggression and use of 60% of the world’s savings make it the world’s most gluttonous consumer and aggressive. Its military acquisition of the worlds oil reserves may be the greatest strategic move in history. It provides resources to pay back unserviceable debts and “leverage” other countries on the global stage. Most countries have 60 days of oil stocks. If the oil stops flowing, any country will grind to a halt. Unbridled ego by the US may win the resource wars, but the destruction of global relationships in the process sacrifice the opportunity for a sustainable future.

I just read Powerful Stocks Bull Market As US Hyper Power Prepares for Global Hegemony . It provides a strategic summary of the the impact of a US choice to control the world’s resources rather than share and proactively manage dwindling resources amongst competing needs and relationships. The article ties together many of the points that I have made in my other articles. It is concise, but long, and worth reading in full. As you read the article, I ask you this. Are these events the result of one individual ego political leadership, or the result of collective ego of a country.

Powerful Stocks Bull Market As US Hyper Power Prepares for Global Hegemony, Clive Maund, Marketoracle.co.uk, 28th April 2008

Extract:

• Back in the late 20th century there were predictions that the 21st century would be characterized by “resource wars” where fighting breaks out between countries and aligned groups of countries, as they scramble to secure increasingly scarce commodities for themselves, principally oil and water.
• We have all heard about “Peak Oil”, which is oil production peaking and then tailing off gradually, due to finite supplies dwindling and remaining reserves being increasingly difficult and costly to both find and extract. The timing of the peak depends on who you listen to but is supposed to occur anytime between a couple of years ago and about 2020 - 2030, but in any event we are historically speaking close to it, and now, with the world population continuing to expand and booming demand from up-and-coming economies with massive populations like China and India, steadily increasing demand for oil is colliding with relatively fixed or even declining supply.
• The United States, more than any other country, is an economy dependant on an abundant supply of cheap oil. The per capita use of oil in the US vastly outstrips that of most countries in the world, the two principal reasons for this being that the infrastructure of the country has been developed on the assumption that cheap oil will continue indefinitely, and the other reason is that taxes on gasoline are held are much lower levels than in many other nations for political reasons ….. Once you grasp the implications of this you will immediately comprehend why the United States is particularly aggressive about access to oil supplies and will stop at nothing to secure them. The United States is structured geared to the profligate consumption of oil and would collapse without it.
• The oil and gas reserves of the planet, which took millions of years to form, have been and are being plundered and burned up recklessly in the space of a mere one to two hundred years. Like greedy children cramming a sudden bonanza of chocolates and sweets into their faces until they have nothing left, individuals - and corporations and governments - have selfishly and thoughtlessly squandered this precious resource without any regard for the needs of future generations.
• Once the energy that took millions of years to form and only two hundred years or so to burn up is gone, it’s gone. The day of reckoning will be upon us and human beings who have bred like flies on the back of this bonanza will face starvation by the hundreds of millions or billions if substantive measures are not taken in time to make good the energy shortfall by means of other fuels.
• As we entered this unique century, the greatest economic and military power in the world, the United States, still basking in the glory of facing down and defeating the Soviet Union, had the choice of getting together with the other nations of the world and arriving at a common and equitable agreement regarding how to apportion and parcel out the world’s dwindling fossil fuel energy supplies in the coming decades. Instead of taking this enlightened route it has decided instead to adopt the primitive “me first” approach and has embarked on an old-fashioned campaign of colonial conquest …
• Perhaps the greatest irony is that the typical suburban commuter in the US who was all for the war a few years back “to smoke out and kill those goddamned terrorists” is now against it because of the enormous cost and the material damage suffered by the army, not least the dead and injured soldiers. Yet, if you were to sit down and calmly explain to these average folk that the invasion of Iraq has secured such vast oil reserves for the United States, that they will be able to continue their long commute for many years to come and quite possibly continue their profligate lifestyle, their faces would suddenly light up and they would exclaim that the invasion probably wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
• We know that the US “defense” budget, already enormous as the century started, has ballooned to gargantuan levels, exceeding the military budgets of every other country in the world combined. The reasons for this are not just the resource wars already underway, but the massive increases are also a preparation for squaring up to China and Russia with the intention of forcing them into submission at some point in the future.
• The major resource war currently underway involves the United States and its acolytes forcibly invading and taking control of those countries in the Mid-East that are not already client states, which the aim of completely controlling the Mid-Eastern oilfields.
• According to their logic the US elites have good reason to feel pleased with themselves following the successful takeover of Iraq, even if the general public in the United States is unable at this stage to grasp what a “glorious achievement” it is. Iraq is known to have over 100 billion barrels of oil reserves. In addition to this the country is still relatively unexplored and there are an estimated 200 to 300 billion barrels more waiting to be discovered. Given that this is largely light crude, the most valuable type of oil, it doesn’t take much effort of the imagination to figure that US forces have seized control of one of the world’s greatest treasures, whose value dwarfs the cost of the invasion.
• Complete control of the Mid-East, which the United States and the major oil companies are now close to having achieved, of course confers massive power over the rest of world, in particular over rising economic powers such as China and India and the immense leverage that this will in time afford can be used to steer these countries in whatever direction is desired. The US is believed to be involved in a strategic race against time to corner the bulk of the world’s remaining oil reserves, the control of which can then be used to dissuade countries like China from resorting to the wholesale dumping of dollars or US Treasuries, along the lines of “Try it and we’ll cut off your oil supply”, which one would expect to be couched in more diplomatic language. Because of its gargantuan levels of debt the US is acutely vulnerable now, but with time it plans to tip the scales back in its favor partly by sales of its recently acquired plunder.
• The United States is desperately sick economically, with an economy lamed by gargantuan debt, outsourcing and rampant speculation, and yet somehow it manages to spend more on its military machine than every other country in the world combined. This is only possible because the dollar has been, up until now, the world currency, and because the US is living on the rest of the world’s savings. The supreme irony is that the rest of the world is financing the US takeover of the Mid-East, and in a few years countries which have had, and have right now, the power to stop the US in its tracks by dumping dollars and Treasuries, but can’t face the dire consequences of doing so, will have to kow-tow to the US for oil. Once that time arrives they won’t dare dump US paper and face the retribution of having their oil supply cut off and their economies shut down.
  
• At present the US is only militarily the greatest power on earth, but in a few years it looks set to assume comprehensive hegemony of the planet, as the massive oil revenues from the spoils of the Mid-East campaigns flow in and correct the careening deficits. China will then comply with US demands or the oil tap will be swiveled in the off direction. Russia, currently blessed by an abundant supply of oil and other natural resources, should do well, but will be surrounded and eventually forced into compliance as its resources dwindle and it becomes increasingly isolated. Britain, as the 1st officer of the US in its wars of acquisition, will enjoy a privileged place at the table in an increasingly resource starved world. Israel will look on with quiet satisfaction at all of this.
  
• the United States is widely perceived as an economic basket case on account of its astronomic debts and weakened domestic economy, but it is in the process of seizing control of the world’s most important remaining oil reserves and bringing them on line. Once it has achieved this it will not just be the greatest military power on earth but will assume center stage as the greatest economic power on earth as well and be completely unassailable. By that time no other country will dare to, or perhaps even want to, dump dollars or US Treasuries.

I strongly recommend you read the original. It is long, but provides an insight.

The global community is confronted with many challenges. Unrelenting ego and diminishing resources will cause war and destroy the planet. In some of my other articles, I offer some hope by suggesting an online network that harnesses the collective intellect and energy of a global community could solve these problems. They probably could if they had the time, but their may not be the opportunity if humanity can not move beyond ego to awareness, from materialism to a community, relationships and solutions (see We need five online networks to solve the worlds problems by 2012 or we decline into conflict for generations ). This shift to awareness (or conciousness) may simply be to much to expect from humanity. It is unlikely that an online network could create the shift by encouraging ego to be different.

An intellectual solution may be elusive, but hope is not. The answer may lie in prayer or meditation or collective energy (depending on what you believe). The book “The Divine Matrix” by Gregg Braden suggests that only 8,000 people are required to spark a change in the conciousness of 6 billion people. He points to numerous scientific studies of a small group meditating and reducing crime, conflict during this period. The online network may still be useful. It would coordinate the people in the community to focus at the same point in time on the same outcome. It would be a collective conscious network. Perhaps, I should add this to my group of five online networks required by 2012.