Hi Squeers,

Yes, Chuck is a pretty extraordinary man. Wish there were more like him. He has a close affiliation with Australia through a close friendship he had with the Australian tennis player, Ken Fletcher, and so apparently spends 2mths in Brisbane each year. He is Australia's biggest philanthropist and has recently donated $10 million to Australia's premiere HIV research institute, the Kirby Institute - that is named after the barrister, Michael Kirby. How's that for humility, he didn't call it after himself.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3182173.htm

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Dear Constance and Squeers,

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Thanks for your link, Constance. I immediately recognized that watch on Feeney's wrist. It's a Casio like mine. And he's right: it does keep excellent time. But it also has a lot of gadgets I never use.

In the interview, the reporter says: "Chuck Feeney met on Sunday with the Prime Minister and a group of entrepreneurs to discuss ways Australia could build a culture of philanthropy."

Why should they meet with the Prime Minister to talk about that?

Probably because the Prime Minister is chairman of the PMCBP (Prime Minister's Community-Business Partnership) set up by John Howard in 1999 to: "encourage greater corporate and personal philanthropy in Australia".

That little effort (establishment and administration of the PMCBP) cost taxpayers $13 million at the time.

So they probably talked about tax incentives and also cooperation between the public and private sectors in providing services both to the public and also to each other.

There was an excellent article published on this subject in The Economist of 9th June 2012 entitled "Sweetened charity":

http://www.economist.com/node/21556570

In my humble opinion, public and private services should be allowed to coexist and cooperate with each other harmoniously. Certainly, funds are not unlimited, so there is necessarily a degree of competition between the two but they are also very much complementary.

The public sector tends, far too often, to be a monumental gas works, lacking in reactivity and efficiency. It tends to crush rather than caress and is rarely a model of sympathy and humanity.

It also has a high rate of "friction" compared to the private sector. Whatever is put into the mouth of the "beast" comes out, a long time later, in small quantities and several stages, totally digested, transformed, depleted and unrecognizable.

The private sector, of course, has the inconvenience of serving a particular type of problem or group of people rather than all the problems for everybody.

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Dear Poirot,

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The vegetables sound great. It seems you are almost self-sufficient. What about the fruit? Do you grow them too?

I can't imagine what I could exchange with you. I only have a bamboo tree and a few pot plants on the 9m2 triangular shaped balcony of my Paris apartment which slightly north of center, at the foot of Montmartre (where the expressionist painters used to hang out). It is what we Parisians call "les quartiers populaires" (which means, basically, where the plebs live).

But now that I think of it, I do have a few aromatic herbs in some of those pots. I'll take a look tomorrow morning to see how they are getting on. Last time I saw them they were covered in snow. I wouldn't count too heavily on them if I were you.

Never mind, there are many other advantages living in Paris. Life here just steps over death and carries on without batting an eyelid.

Tomorrow is another day.

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Banjo Paterson,
I don't buy lottery tickets either.
Of course "friction" is also absolutely necessary in the capitalist order. If surplus value (capital) were merely abstracted the whole would grind to a halt. That's why there's no stability left, the system has to constantly renew itself and manufacture novelty. What semblance of cultural persistence we have tends to be institutional and ideological, rather than tangible. And these only persist thanks to globalism. It's globalisation that perpetuates the fundamental contradiction of capital--which would destroy it in a more closed system. That is, it is capital coming in from exports and foreign investment that funds the constant development and growth/materialistic-transcendence the system must have. "Friction" on its own can't do it because new capital is always needed. It can't be generated in a closed system that's reached its limits, let alone one where the surplus is abstracted. Australians are such a provincial lot enmasse, enjoying the illusion that it's all sustainable, thanks to the concept of national borders; they conceive that Australia really is removed from the rest of the world--its own private and secure interest, rofl, inverting common sense by "thinking locally and acting globally". Capitalism must continually exceed-outgrow-renew-itself to fulfil its fundamental function: distil profit. Consider; "profit", "abstracted"--not stored or husbanded, which is anathema to capitalism, but converted into capital, an abstract byproduct. Re-invested yes, but only to realise more capital--a perpetual-motion machine. Capital is not invested unless it's calculated to realise profit, and only perpetual growth (demand), on or/and off-shore, can deliver it. "Friction" is lifeblood but subject to "entropy". On that "economic" subject (which Pericles denies), the system isn't merely closed, vulnerable, resentful, its resources irregular; only a relatively small "portion", sporadically distributed, is "free"; even less, much less, is "sustainably available" in a balanced state of biological equilibrium. It's not a matter of "how much raw material is there and available? It's how much can the system spare without incurring fatal entropy? We are literally consuming our own future.

You're thinking from within the mad logic of "economic reality", Banjo, not the real, living world.

Banjo Paterson,

I'm not as self-sufficient as I seem. However, the things that I grow do serve to let me in on the value of exchanging produce as gifts. It's a nice feeling.

And you should know that I'm a tad jealous of your own environment. I, of course, would love to paint/draw Montmarte - I'm a bit short of impressive architecture in south-west WA. I'm a huge fan of the Impressionists. It's the art movement of which I'm most knowledgeable (not so knowledgeable on the Expressionists). France also holds allure in general.

The exchange of anything in kind is a fundamental joy. I think, for the most part, we've lost the human art of growing, forging, shaping and creating, and the satisfaction of "passing it on" without payment - yet intuiting the implicit promise of the gift returning in kind.

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Dear Squeers,

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"You're thinking from within the mad logic of "economic reality", Banjo, not the real, living world"

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The term "economy" derives from the Greek "oikonomia", domestic management.

I do not see economic activity as being divorced from "the real, living world". On the contrary, I see it as being very much a part of it. Most people spend a good deal of their time and energy on economic activity. It has always been the principal activity of mankind and probably will continue to be so for some time.

On the subject of "capital" and "capitalism", we need to make a finer analysis of the question before making any conclusions.

I compare "capital" and "capitalism" to cholesterol. According to the American Heart Association, cholesterol can't dissolve in the blood. It has to be transported to and from the cells by carriers called lipoproteins. Low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, is known as "bad" cholesterol. High-density lipoprotein, or HDL, is known as "good" cholesterol.

Short term, liquid capital is "bad", non-productive, capital ... and long term, invested capital is "good", productive capital.

There is "good" and "bad" capitalism.

An even closer scrutiny reveals that many capitalists cumulate and/or alternate both "good" and "bad" modes of functioning.

In periods of slow economic growth, prudence dictates that investors remain "liquid" and avoid tying up their money in long term investments of which the issue is uncertain (due to what economists call "lack of visibility").

The problem is that there are just as many "heart specialists" as there are national "patients". They all basically agree on the diagnosis but not all patients are at the same stage of development of the illness, some are more resistant than others, what works for one does not work for others, etc.

There is no, simple, universal solution for an economic problem with global repercussions. An intelligent coordinated approach is probably the best we can do. There are multiple variables to be considered, among which the most important, naturally, is the effect on ordinary people.

For more on "friction", I recommend this article:

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/how-much-of-the-economy-is-friction/2011/11/11

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