Where have you been Rainer old son?We have not crossed swords for months.Tell me ,what have you been up to?

Arjay you talk a lot about the dangers of short term thinking. You can blame the old economic rationalists and their dogma for that.

Yes Arjay, the discussion on Bill Henson is shaping up to be one of the most prolific yet. Weird isn’t it.

I’ve mentioned things like socialism being better than democracy and China overtaking us before, on threads where I know there are a lot of readers and potential respondents. Very few people are interested in these really big issues…. although there are quite a few of contributors to debates on population growth and sustainability. Strange.

ARJAY... it was that same short term money/profit centred thinking which hunted my Scottish Highland ancestors from their homes to make way for English absentee landlords sheep.

The Scottish nobility sold out the common man.. for short term gain, and our "nobility" will sell us down the toilet yet again re China...and increasingly Saudi Arabia.

In the next 10 yrs, Saudi Arabia will hold 'most' of the worlds Oil reserves, they currently have around 40%, with the nearby nations holding about 10% (based on a news report a few days ago)

Saudi Arabia just has to 'limit' the supply until "They" still have loads, and the rest have run out. Then.. 2 things will happen.

CHINA will be their biggest customer.
SAUDI Arabia will use it's oil clout to 'massage' many aspects of our social policy.. 'slight' tweaking of education, 'mild' relaxing of immigration, 'minor' tightening of freedom of speech....'more tolerance' of religious schools of a particular leaning....

and so it will go on.. all they have to do is dangle the 'oil' card in front of our short sighted 'nobility' and it's all a done deal.

Our nobility are not strongly tied to this nation, they are tied to lifestyle and wealth, which they can enjoy anywhere..

Thought provoking Arjay, good one!

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we are developing. I think it is 'us' (as individuals that are to blame), not so much our politicians (we put them there).

The collective philosophy of the individual is reflected in societal values and goals. What we are reaping is what we have sowed. I think maybe we are impotent, not our government.