"What I appreciate about India is that it is a democracy with a transparent legal system." "If you buy a plot of land, you can be sure it is yours." "Nobody will take it from you tomorrow by demanding new taxes or trying to confiscate it otherwise." "These are the remnants of the colonial era." "This legal system is very important for me." "It's an important investment criterion." "We are very satisfied with it." "My name is Mirko Kovats, I am Austrian." "I built up one of the biggest Austrian industrial groups over the past ten years." "Nobody is calling for the state here." "You have to take care of yourself." "I am always astonished to hear discussions at home about the problems we think we have." "They never stop discussing how to take things away from people by taxing them." "All that does not count here." "The only thing that counts here is the economy." "My name is Sujatha Raaju." "I have completed commerce studies from the Madras University." "We are here in Chennai, one of the biggest cities in India." "It was formally known as Madras." "It is populated with 8 million people." "One third of the population lead a life like this." "That is, they live on the banks of the rivers." "Some of them live even a much poorer life, living on the pavements." "ln Europe students are interested in sociology." "Everybody wants to become a teacher." "Here they are studying engineering." "I ask myself who will be where in 10 or 20 years." "Will they be richer?" "Will we be poorer?" "I hope not." "The people who finance the company are" " as always if you have a company quoted on the stock market - investors from London, who manage the money in pension funds and insurances." "The factory is already too small." "We think about moving and enlarging it to the fourfold size." "Competition forces us to take measures all very unpleasant." "But we are under pressure from globalization." "We have to compete with people who get very small wages, but have to earn their living." "Of course, working hours will become longer." "I am sure that this overtime will not be paid." "It is quite simple, we have to work more." "We have no choice." "Very tidy." "Was this difficult to achieve?" "I had to put a lot of effort into it." "But it works, as we see." "I am really astonished." "Are you having any discussions with labour unions?" "Fortunately not, up to now." "I try to take into account our employees' social situation." "How much does a welder earn?" "The equivalent of 200 euros a month on average." "That's what he earns?" "Or what he costs?" "That is what he earns." "He costs us about 25% more." "250." "What about an engineer?" "Around 8-10 times more." "That makes 2500." "That is far below Europe, but not cheap any more." "You have to consider the booming markets in India." "The price increase will not only be 3-5% , but 10-15% in the next years." "That's something to take into account in future." "That means we have to be efficient." "We can't afford to be generous." "The costs will increase." "I worked in order to minimize the processes and to reduce the additional costs." "We invested in half automated production in order to reduce the costs or keep them low." "We have to buy it at any price." "It will only become more expensive." "The prices won't fall." "Indians pay their taxes." "Taxes are collected by the government in form of sales tax, revenue tax, water tax, electricity tax, property tax and so many other taxes, that are collected by the government." "But this revenue is given to foreign investors in the form of grants." "And the government lacks the money to take care of the social welfare of the people." "Environmental and social standards will not change for a long time." "The costs to raise these standards cannot be paid by countries like India or China." "This is reality - like it or not." "The majority of people are poor." "And they will stay poor for a long time." "They have to stay competitive at any price." "Therefore, I think that, except for soft declarations of good will things won't change much over the next decades because people can't afford it." "Flourishing economic growth has nothing to do with the people or the society." "Economic growth is only for the politician, for the investor and for the middleman who plays between them." "10 years ago, in a middleclass family, if the income of the family was around 10 000, they were able to save at least 2000 to 3000 rupees." "But those days are gone." "Today, even if they earn 20 000, they are not able to save a single penny." "There is a lot of foreign culture in India and people are getting accustomed to it, following all the ways to imitate the Western culture." "But poverty has not been eradicated." "There are still poor people." "This can be eradicated only, if there is a good political system in India." "My name is Kalaiselvan." "I am in the 7th class, I am 1 2 years old." "I have been living in the slum Gandhinagar since I was born." "When I am grown up, I want to be a lawyer, and I want to fight against corruption." "My name is Gerhard Schwarz." "For 1 4 years, I have been chief editor of the economic section of Neue Zuricher Zeitung." "I also teach at the University of Zurich." "Besides, I am President of the Friedrich August Hayek-Society." "Friedrich August von Hayek was certainly the most important liberal economist of the 20th century." "He was born in Austria and worked in England, America and Germany." "We are on our way from vevey on Lake Geneva to Mont Pèlerin." "Meaning "Pilgrim's Mount"." "It is a little village with some big hotels." "ln 1947 some of the most important" "European and American thinkers met here to reflect upon the future of the Western World." "The Mont Pèlerin Society was founded in this "Hôtel du Parc"." "The founders'goal was to organize an intellectual network." "They did not want to make politics, but wanted to influence politics with their ideas." "The Mont Pèlerin Society became famous in the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan." "ln his government and in his advisory team, there was a great number of members of the Mont Pèlerin Society." "Sometimes 20 or even more members." "Approximately at the same time Margaret Thatcher drew on Hayek's ideas and the ideas of British members of the Mont Pèlerin Society." "Here we are at the entrance of the Sahel." "All the soils are ruined." "There is total erosion, even ravines." "This is the result of the cotton monoculture." "The cotton is gone, the money for the cotton is gone." "The only thing left is this soil, where you can't cultivate anything." "I am called Yves Delisle." "I am an agronomist by profession." "I studied Development Studies in Geneva." "I have been working directly with farmers for about 20 years." "20 years is quite a long time." "But up to now, I have the impression that the situation has not improved." "These people earn not even 50 euros a year." "We are anxious!" "We are fed up." "Our children cultivate cotton, but they don't get anything for it." "What shall we do?" "We are reduced to doing nothing." "We hope for your help." "To improve our lives." "Go and tell those who buy the cotton to help us to buy the cotton at a fair price." "So that Burkina and we get more money." "Old women like me work the whole day long under the sun." "For nothing." "But what can we do?" "Try to understand us." "We beg you." "You see how tiring the work is." "If we managed to pay back our loans, we would be glad." "The quality of cotton is the best in the world." "The production costs are the lowest." "The cotton is clean, because all is done by hand." "Nevertheless, the price is very low on the world market." "Every year, the USA subsidize their cotton producers with $3 billion." "If the Americans are liberal, so be it!" "But why do they subsidize their cotton producers?" "This isn't liberalism!" "ln reality, they practise protectionism, and impose liberalism on us." "They apply two different standards!" "It is like if you have a football field and two teams." "Team A has the best shoes and can also use their hands." "Team B - and these are the Africans, and small countries like us - have to play without shoes or hands." "Do you consider this to be normal?" "In the 1980s the World Bank imposed restructuring programmes on Burkina Faso." "What does this mean for the country?" "Raw materials are exported, cotton in the form of raw cotton without added value." "All the World Bank and the investors are interested in is sucking raw materials out of the country." "Cotton, timber, coffee, cacao, gold, and so on." "In the past, the colonialists forced us to cultivate a certain product." "Now the World Bank puts us under pressure with money to plant cotton." "How can you buy medicine?" "You need foreign currency." "The cotton can bring us this foreign currency." "I told you that cotton makes the living of two million people - directly." "But if you calculate that in Africa every person supports another 15 people," " multiply by 2 million - and you quickly realize that the whole population lives off cotton." "If the USA did not subsidize their cotton," "Burkina Faso would make profits of at least 80 billion CFA a year." "(1 22 million euros)" "The bilateral aid, the credits from the EU," "USA and Japan represent altogether only 20 billion CFA.(30 million euros)" "You see, we would not need to get into debt to develop our country!" "The work of the farmers alone would permit us to construct schools and roads in order to give a better future to our children." "This is the dilemma we are facing with the cotton production today." "Here you see women sweeping the soil." "They sell the soil or pebbles in order to earn a little bit of money." "According to the UN development program, there are only 3 poorer countries." "62% of the population has less than 1 dollar per day to live on." "Among these 62% , a large part is living in destitution." "That is even worse than poverty." "40% of the children don't go to school." "Out of those who begin to go to school, only 1-2% reach university." "Life expectancy here is 42 years." "Speaking about misery, you have to notice that the most destitute social group are women and children." "Some women go to the quarries." "In that way they can earn about 50 euro cents per day." "We have many debts." "Every Burkinan born today is already deeply in debt." "Even those who are born in 25 years already debts." "If we don't produce cotton every African living in Burkina but also those living in Mali, Benin and other countries, will emigrate to Europe." "We will have no choice but to go." "We will invade you, sure enough." "But if the West doesn't stop subsidizing their cotton, we will be forced to go." "If we go, they can construct walls 10 meters high, we will nevertheless come to Europe." "All liberals in the world think that frontiers should be open for goods, money and services." "It becomes more complicated if people are concerned." "You have to think about introducing membership fees, as you demand membership fees in a club." "If you become a member of a tennis club you have to pay membership fees, not only monthly or annual fees like taxes." "This is because the predecessors built the club house and prepared the place." "Otherwise the newcomer would profit from something he did not contribute to." "20 years ago, the financial groups, banks and investors" "began to make a grab for public goods." "Goods actually belonging to the state and to the citizens, who have to regularly pay their rent, water rates, etc." "That is the whole point of privatization." "We are sitting in a public transport tram in Vienna." "Every citizen assumes that the trams belong to the City of Vienna." "But this is not the case." "This tram belongs to an American investor." "Some years ago, the City Council of Vienna decided to sell its trams to American investors." "They got a lot of money for them, more than $1 billion." "But the City of Vienna never received that money." "Instead, the money was transferred to banks in England and elsewhere." "They took the money and for years to come will pay periodic leasing instalments to the American investor, so that the City of Vienna has the right to use the trams." "Can you imagine that?" "The state is the community of all people living in that state." "We are the state." "This applies at least to a democracy." "In order to organize a functioning society, the state needs public goods.:" "Schools, universities, public transport, etc." "In this context, it is interesting to see what is going on with privatization." "" Privatization" originates from the Latin word " privare"" "which means "to deprive" ." "ln the process of privatization, public goods are bought" "by private investors." "Sometimes they even receive them as a present." "This is nothing else than depriving society of public goods." "You could sum it up as follows:" "Society is deprived of a certain good that the private investor is interested in for reasons of profit." "This strange system called "cross-border-leasing"" "has been widely applied, not only in the case of the viennese trams." "The Austrian Federal Railways sold their trains to American investors." "The City of Innsbruck sold its public utilities." "Since we live in the era of globalization, this didn't only take place in Austria, but also in Germany, the Netherlands and everywhere in Europe." "The fact that politicians sanction a cross-border-system is sometimes due to ignorance." "Those who understand, care only about the very short period of their career." "They are not interested in what happens after them." "This short-term attitude, the lack of a will to take responsibility for the long term" " knowing it will be up to others to resolve the problems later - is characteristic of the neo-liberal era." "ln the neo-liberal era, everything is reduced" "to making the highest profits immediately." "And this at any price." "Over the past 10-1 5 years, a dramatic change in the distribution of incomes took place due to globalization." "Millions of blue and white collar workers had their earnings under pressure." "They no longer got the wages they demanded." "Globalization made them work for less." "That led to a considerable shift of incomes in favour of capital." "This huge quantity of money had to be invested." "That led to a dramatic abortive development." "A new industry emerged.:" "financial services,:" "investment bankers,:" "private equity funds,:" "hedge funds." "This new industry is a phenomenon.:" "It earns piles of money, not by staking its own money, but by staking foreign money." "For each dollar and euro that is invested, they get a commission." "Cologne is in a privileged situation on the Rhine." "My name is Anton Schneider." "I am partner in a small private equity fund." "That means we collect our investors' capital." "We invest it together with our money in enterprises we restructure and sell afterwards." "The private equity industry is at the centre of attention, because normally we buy enterprises with rather low equity capital." "The purchase price is mainly financed by debts." "These debts are merged with the enterprise." "That way, the enterprises which have been bought, have to service huge debts." "They do not have much money left for investments." "That works as long as the economy is good, as long as there are high profits." "As long as there is no economic downturn." "As long as the enterprises have made enough previous investments." "But in many cases, it does not work out." "The purchase prices have increased incredibly." "They were financed with a huge amount of outside capital." "The risk is that the enterprises cannot pay back their debts." "ln that case, the banks must write off the credits." "The enterprises are fleeced of their money for years." "So they can't do what they are supposed to do:" "Develop products, invest, create new jobs." "That is why they are called "Locusts"." "Unfortunately, I think this is precisely the right term." "The whole financial system increased in importance." "And that happened for 2 reasons:" "First, those who possess the capital become ever greedier." "Second, the managers of the capital get commissions." "The riskier the investment forms are, the more they profit from the operation." "Hello." "Welcome to the El Algarrobico Hotel." "We are in Spain, in Andalusia, in Almeria, in the village of Carboneras." "The hotel is situated in the National Park of Cabo de Gata beginning in the west over there." "This is an important marine and terrestrial reserve." "We are fighting for the preservation of the biosphere, of the climate and fresh air, and for the preservation of the species living on land and in the sea." "This hotel is an important project." "This hotel is the first of seven hotels foreseen for this region." "In addition to this, we want to build a golf-course and a limited number of flats." "ln the first phase, we will construct 500 flats." "Later there will be 1500 flats and houses." "My name is Miguel Angel Torres." "I am a public servant and cartographer." "For 1 8 years I have been observing the construction of buildings on the "Costa del Sol"." "This is the "Parque Victoria" ." "They are constructing 4000 flats." "Mostly, they are built as capital investments." "That way the real estate societies, enterprises and European banks can reckon with an annual profit of about 20% ." "A traditional investment in a bank or at the stock exchange brings a profit of only 5-6% ." "Therefore the buildings here and on the Spanish coast are not built for living in, not even during the holidays." "They are just built in order to launch an investment chain." "After the whole process, we will have thousands of empty flats which profited people we don't know and who don't even live here." "If you have a pension fund at a European bank, it is likely that the money is invested in one of these housing estates in Spain." "These flats, which are already sold, are empty the whole year long." "Young Spanish people can't buy these flats." "The cost of these apartments are much higher than anything they can afford." "The upkeep of these buildings, which are of very poor quality, the water and the utilities are paid by the Spanish state." "We have no advantage whatsoever from the 800 000 flats built every year in Spain." "Spain is one of the countries in the world, where the bubble in the real estate market became most apparent over the past five years." "A real storm of urbanization, a "cement-tsunami" is ruining the Spanish coasts and islands." "Here we can see one of the housing estates, all of them are connected to golf courses." "There are hundreds of such estates in Spain, a country where only very few people play golf, a tiny minority." "How is this possible?" "This is due to the big foreign investments in products of this type." "The value of these real estate buildings is higher, if they are located beside a golf course." "This is absolutely artificial." "We are creating a green space in the midst of the desert." "To do so, we need a huge quantity of water." "A golf course of this type consumes the same quantity of water as a town of 20 000 inhabitants." "7 of the 1 1 most important construction companies in the world are Spanish." "Some of them are linked to big soccer clubs." "The biggest Spanish construction company ACS is directed by the former president of Real Madrid." "The extent of construction has reached its limits." "Of the first kilometre of the whole Spanish coastline 80% is covered with buildings." "They are beginning to occupy the last natural spaces." "At the moment, the construction works are temporarily halted, because our activities have been reported to the authorities by an ecological group claiming that we don't have the necessary permits." "I hope and I wish that the judge, after having confirmed the legality of the construction, will soon allow us to finish building this hotel, for which we already have reservations from all over Europe." "The building sector recruits its workers mainly among immigrants." "The people coming from Africa or South America work for the lowest wages." "This way, the people in the construction sector spend their black money on paying their construction workers." "Why doesn't anybody do something about this abortive development of the financial system?" "This question is difficult to answer, since many are suffering from it, including the national economy, because there is the risk of a new global economic crisis." "Despite of all this, nothing is happening." "Even now, one year after the financial crisis, there aren't any new regulations." "That way, these financial excesses are permitted." "On the contrary, they allocated public money from the bank of issue to the system, so that the system won't collapse." "That means they use ordinary people's money to cover the bets." "ln order to provide a basis for the gamblers, who bleed the system," "so that their institutes don't go bankrupt." "It seems that time after time catastrophes overtake humanity." "After each catastrophe, the rules are newly defined in order to avoid such catastrophes." "After the world economic crisis, completely new rules for banks were introduced." "The whole banking system was highly regulated, to avoid something like the world economic crisis." "Over the past years, a new attitude has become established, purporting that we don't need to regulate anything, because that the market regulates everything." "So the public control authorities have tolerated that for the financial system regulations no longer exist." "Everything has been completely liberalised." "The sort of financial industry we have today is completely senseless and directed against people." "It's the media that choose today's leaders." "They give thumbs up or down." "So people are eager to please the media - they try to be in the limelight." "They are elected less and less due to serious political concepts." "This capacity to please the media has become a crucial criterion for a political leader, although it is the exact opposite of the qualities you need to be a good political leader." "So we have more and more dummies, who take crucial political decisions" "and who very quickly become compliant puppets of developments determined by other people." "Our opinion in Switzerland is that it is of the utmost importance to protect a person's privacy." "This protection is part of a liberal economy." "This protection may only be suspended in the case of major legal infractions." "Tax avoidance is considered an infraction, but not serious enough to suspend privacy." "Neither that of our own citizens, nor that of foreign citizens." "Switzerland would never exclusively protect its own citizens from tax authorities, but on the slightest suspicion of tax evasion or tax avoidance suspend foreign citizens'privacy." "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates.:" ""All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."" "If we want to stick to this humanitarian principle, the distribution of wealth has to be different." "Distribution should be in favour of our whole society, and not in favour of a few individuals." "Only then can you preserve the humanitarian principle." "If we do not change the system, there will be new selection mechanisms:" "selection mechanisms between states, between races, between religions, between people entitled to use resources and those not entitled, between valuable people and those who are not valuable." "ln this case, the monetary value of a human being will prevail, and a new barbarian era will begin." "This is ineluctable." "In the end, the average citizen will pay for it." "The so-called " little man" ." "Or the "little women" - people who have no influence whatsoever on the process, unless they get organized," "unless they find someone to represent their interests, strong enough to stop this process." "We are now at the Reichstag, the seat of the German Parliament." "Here we see traces of World War II, which ended with the capture of the Reichstag by Russian soldiers, who wrote their greetings to their homeland." "This should remind us of the fact that without a new form of distribution of wealth," "without a solution for the question of the environment by using renewable instead of non-renewable resources, which will not be sufficient for all of us, all things that ended here with World War II will repeat themselves in a different form."