• Netherlands

149

Als corona ons iets duidelijk heeft gemaakt, is het wel onze afhankelijkheid van IT infrastructuur en applicaties. Het vele thuiswerken was niet mogelijk geweest zonder Zoom en email. Boodschappen doen werd moeilijk of voor sommigen zelfs onmogelijk dus zonder IT hadden we niet kunnen web-shoppen. Onze uitgeholde sociale contacten hadden we niet kunnen compenseren met Facebook, Instagram en TikTok. We hadden niet kunnen genieten van de tijdelijke gratis films van Ziggo of voor een paar euro Netflix en Prime. Onderwijs op afstand was niet mogelijk geweest en de ontwikkeling van onze kinderen had langdurig stil gelegen.

De harde cijfers liegen er niet om. Anno 2020 is al bijna 80% van het internet verkeer gaming en video, dus hoofdzakelijk puur amusement. Daarmee is cybercrime voorlopig ruimschoots ingehaald maar binnen het restant 20% gonzen 300 milljard emails per dag de wereld rond waarvan 55-60% nutteloze spam. En dan is er nog "gewone" cyber-criime en massieve "fake-news and alternative facts" voor manipulatie van kiezers en consumenten. Dat betekent dat slechts 5-10% van de mind-blowing 3 Zettabytes (3.000.000.000.000.000.000.000) die de inmiddels bijna 5 miljard gebruikers jaarlijks op internet met elkaar delen wordt benut voor serieuze dienstverlening en informatie-uitwisseling.

Read more: RijksDataStaat (1)

• Trump
• US
• UK
• Europe

61

With Brexit and Trump as the US president, countries like the UK and US have obviously chosen to go their own way. They don't want the consequences of globalization: free movement of goods, capital, services and people and most importantly like in case of the US, commit to global agreements like the Paris Accord. Instead, they want to make their "countries great again" whatever the consequences are for the rest of the world. Well, they believe that their greatness is automatically beneficial for the rest of the world.

At this very moment, the "rest of the world" does not agree. Leadership of Theresa May and Donald Trump in- and outside of their own countries is challenged by "the rest of the world" with awesome examples of Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel. May and Trump have shred the prime leadership positions of their countries in just a few months after hundreds of years of dominance and they will never get it back in this new world order with a strengthening EU, China, India and a few others. How foolish can anyone be? 

Democracy is a high good. People from a country can vote for a leader or in a referendum demand a certain policy. The rest of the world can't vote for it which is OK by itself. After all, the people of the said countries build their own environments and therefore their own democracies. It would be a mess when people from all over can vote anywhere.

However, those people (from the rest of the world) would still have to live with these globalization-fobic countries. Fortunately there is a simple solution: if you can't vote in a booth, you can still vote with your wallet. It's exactly the same as the sanctions countries punish other countries with. Only on a personal scale. The concept of "Buy American" can be easily reversed. 

Personally I already had a shortlist of countries I tried to avoid. Not going on vacation to them, avoid buying their goods or services, avoid advertising their qualities. On my list far far away countries like North Korea, Syria and South Sudan do not do much harm, either way. I would not know any product I would like to buy from them and I certainly would not go there anyway. Russia and Suriname are already a bit more difficult. Should I not buy Russian vodka anymore? Start to ignore my friends and colleagues from Suriname?

Now the UK and the US not only are moving away from my personal "good world" vision but more explicitly, ruining my pension savings severely, ruining the ecological future for the planet, ruining the ideals i've been standing for all my life,  it gets more nasty. Maybe it's time to stop admiring Apple iPhones, using Amazon and Google services, watching BBC and Netflix, shopping in London or New York, playing golf in Scotland, buying Levi's, Coca Cola, Ford, Jaguar or even fuel from Exxon for my car. Instead of a blacklist I at least can have a whitelist of countries where I would spend my money preferably: Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France, India, China, Japan and a few more. Not that they are perfect but at least they don't insult my ideals that much or harm me personally.

I was wondering by myself, is this disappointment, bitterness, revenge? Not really. Brexit and Trump just opened my eyes that this world obviously still is too complex too have equal multi-lateral cooperation between large economic and military powers with too big ego's. Although I do believe that we should never stop putting in energy in multi-lateral unity, for the time being "focus" is the key-word. Focus on simplicity, strength and growth. Smaller countries (say smaller than 250 MIO people or a GDP less than 2.000 B$) are irrelevant in this game and better unite with others. It's like the old G5, G7, G10, G20 or whatever Gxx from the "old ages" still try to show their leadership and willingness to cooperate. Unfortunately these G's are all history because they hang on to the old "world leadership positions" instead of what is actual today. 

I suggest a maximum of 10 conglomerates in which every country has its place. Those who do not want to join one of the 10 conglomerates, give up their votes in the global play. This new BIG-10 replaces the security council too. If there are changes in power (= volume in GDP), the BIG-10 changes too accordingly. No more fuzz with smaller countries without significant power. "Participation" is the key-word for them as focus was for the conglomerates. It will hurt the smaller ego's a bit but that's the price for "great together" as opposed to "small alone". 

So to the EU  I would say: Stop the hassle and let's make Europe (finally) great (again). Forget NATO, TTIP and more. Go your own way, create a "Make and Buy European" culture (which does not mean to close down all other business relationships), invest in security in all levels and stop relying on the UN/US/UK, create a strong if not avoidable even federal coalition. Borders in Europe have changed in the last 200 years frequently and more often than anywhere in the world! So what's the point? Unite, invest, protect, forget the differences and focus on the strengths. (and try to avoid the bureaucracy a bit).

By the way, above advice is alike for any to build conglomerate, whether that's in Africa, South America or Asia.  

And for the people who still have to vote for their own future this year: Happy voting :))) 

(many thanks to Martin Sutovec and Ingram Pinn for their awesome cartoons)

• Brexit
• UK

119

And the winner is . . .

I assume that Prime Minister Theresa May will have big regrets about her snap elections. She almost desperately wanted a large majority in the House of Commons to show extensive public support and obtain a strong mandate for her Brexit strategy. After counting the votes, the dreamed majority was vaporized and the Tories are still the largest but without the overall desired power in the House.

Labour won but not enough to become the largest party so is still doomed to play the opposition role. Jeremy Corbyn was hailed as the man who brought Labour back on track but despite the strong campaign, his starting position was to weak to really be able to challenge the Conservatives for their leadership. Labour with Corbyn still hangs to much onto classic ideals. The party has been lucky that younger voters did not have an alternative. The Greens and LibDems are way too small to have serious impact so they only could not vote at all or choose strategically for Labour. 

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), also overplayed her hand and saw to her stunning surprise that the Scots lost appetite to separate themselves from a Brexited-UK and  voters ran towards both the Tories and Labour. Although the last referendum was just a narrow "stay" victory, it was in the light of England still a member of the EU. Scotland would have gained more independent power in the EU but would still be close friends to its EU-neighbour England. Now the UK leaves the EU, the Scots obviously prefer a stay in the UK instead of a standalone position in the EU.

The LibDems lost severely and their leader, Nick Clegg, former deputy Prime Minister, even lost his seat in the House. They knew they had to pay the price for joining the Tories in a coalition government, but this slaughter was a bit unexpected. 

The TKIP, the anti-EU loudmouths of former leader Nigel Farage who as a tiny tiny minority was able to mobilize Brexit, was shred into pieces, zero seats in the House, and will most likely not overcome this loss ever again.

Every party will count their blessings and no doubt many arguments will pop up to explain the shallow outcome of a hung parliament. Of course the awful terrorist attacks are pointed to as the major disturbance in these elections and to some extent they are. However, lets be honest, terrorists are unfortunately getting too common to ignore them in a political arena. Additionally the whole meaning of Brexit was to close the UK borders in an attempt to minimize terrorist attacks and economic impact of a steady flow of immigration. The attacks, performed by people of which half of them have a British passport, proved that current immigration is only part of the problem. It's the "handling" of a multi-cultural society which  will never go away anymore. This world has become too small for that.

So, there we are. This 2017 UK general election delivered no real winners at all. It showed painfully that the current UK government is on its own. Internally with a damaged PM Theresa May and scattered political landscape with no real majorities. And internationally because May's Brexit strategy obviously did not gather supporting power from the people and leaves May with a weak negotiation position.

But as history shows, Brits will not easily admit wrong decisions so Brexit will continue, whatever the costs.

Rule, Britannia!

(thanks to Marian Kamensky for the awesome cartoon)

• Trump
• US
• UK
• Europe

83

Some people might wonder why I target Trump so much as I am not even American. Well, to some extend I have surprised myself with it too. I guess the main reason is that the direct and personal influence of the biggest economic and military nation on this planet now hits me too hard in a bad way. The turmoil in the US (and UK) directly affects my savings and investments and furthermore it disturbs the political landscape I felt reasonable safe in with topics like climate, NATO, ICC, UN, Russia, Iran, North Korea and a few more.

So after some long thoughts and digging deep into myself, something popped up I thought a had stashed away thoroughly but obviously not. I am just scared. I got more scared about my life and my future because I thought there was a trutsworthy and unbreakable bond between the old allies US, UK and (the rest of the) EU. Obviously not. I know, in any relationship some sacrifices have to be made but today I only hear the US and UK talk about their own priorities. On top of that, any decency and respect seem to be lost. When I hear Donald Trump or Boris Johnson talking, recently quite a few American senators, the speech of Brett Kavanaugh and of course in Europe Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and Recep Tayyip Erdogan I believe humanity has taken quite a few steps backwards.

Read more: I am scared