There was once a girl. Born with defects, she should have died at birth. However the mother was unable to make a sound decision and insisted on saving her no matter the cost despite doctors’ advice against it. On the surface it certainly looked like the greatness of motherly love, and perhaps the mother thought that of herself as well. The baby was finally saved, with a defect that would slowly cause her to lose her motor skills with age. Soon after another healthy baby boy was born, and the defective girl who would gradually need more care over time was cast away to the grandmother. Naturally the grandmother died before the grand-daughter, and the mother had to resume care for the now adult defective girl. The family relocated. The defective girl was kept at home because it would be shameful to be seen outside. An obvious lack of care was given to the daughter who swiftly lost the ability to take care of herself due to firstly the natural progression of the illness, secondly the home which served as a prison she could never physically get out from, thirdly from the psychological isolation due to tight controls from communication with the outside world and perhaps lastly from the mental torture from the very people who were supposed to care for her. It would be a murder punishable by death if her death was directly brought about by someone. But it would just be a pity if the defective lady just lost will to live and died on her own.
Death to some, is freedom. Although she probably cursed her birth, her own parents, the society and ultimately God as she died from despair. I would do that if I am in her shoes.
Recent posts have been dark as I talked about what is happening around us. It has been some time since I have gone back to ‘the ground’ and talk about things that directly impact us financially. This is the last post of the current series, and I will keep the theme and writing style for this article. On or around Valentine’s Day I will release one heartwarming post before going back once again to the things that concerns us. The overall mood and theme will also be different.
Societies are made up of individual humans, and so are countries which are larger societies demarcated by geographical locations. Hence the way countries behave are simply a more complex version of a human, for ultimately it is humans who rule and govern the individual countries. Their ‘humanity’ is also reflected in the policies and decision-making.
人分三六九等。This means that humans are categorised into different levels. Some are the ruling class and the elites, some are the commoners while others are the lowest lifeforms. The lowest lifeforms are given very limited opportunities to progress, for slaves and dogs are needed. The middle classes are kept that way for they served the function of continually feeding the elites with their hard work and money.
It is the same for countries.
There are countries that people look up to, such as the US. There are some countries people naturally look down on, despite using them for all sorts of purpose such as cheap goods and sex (I am not talking about China). Each country has a place in the global system, and each country is segregated and assigned a function based on the needs of the ruling class. Whether you are the slave or the middle class, the ruling class has a large say on it.
Of course I am oversimplifying it.
The lowest class are always kept poor and full of survival issues so that they will not think too much but focus on each day’s food for survival. Iran for example, have been sanctioned internationally and even basic medicine which could save many of its people are banned from being sold to Iran. Civil wars are never ending in Africa, where ‘there is no peace but only a temporary absence of war’ (in their own words). One common feature of these countries are that they are resource rich. Just like the slaves who contributed by their natural born energy or body, be it male or female, weaker countries ‘born’ with the natural resources are constantly fighting for survival while having their resources extracted from them over time, until they are fully spent and cast away. Just like a prostitute on drugs. Of course, the only different thing is that the countries are all trying to survive as best as they can.
There is also the middle class, whose resources may or may not be abundant, but are good at earning money. Just like the middle class of society who never benefited from welfare but paid the highest amount of taxes, such countries also need to contribute ‘taxes’ to the global system. For example, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has lost huge amounts of money every now and then. We take a look at the following pictures. First it was reported that there was heavy losses due to war and volatile markets, which though might make Norwegians unhappy, is certainly a valid and understandable reason.
We dig deeper and get the exact statistics regarding their portfolio from their sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management‘s website, where we can download their portfolio as of 31 December 2022. We get an Excel sheet containing 9229 rows of data. With that data I created the graph below:
We ask ourselves one question. The most noob (basic) of all traders and investors know that we should diversify and not put all our eggs in one basket. While NBIM certainly has many baskets, but most of the eggs are concentrated in a few countries – the top 3 being US, Japan (puppet of US), UK (ally of US). Any decent investor who see this graph would immediately flag this up as a red flag. This is certainly not diversification. Of course, there are certainly other sovereign wealth funds I know of who has dubious decision-making skills but I will not be listing them one by one here.
With a team of top professionals managing the country’s funds, it is unthinkable that such a low-level mistake could be made, which could only mean one thing: It is not a mistake. Sometimes, countries have no choice but to pay protection money. Iraq refused to do pay the US and was bombed over laundry powder. Libya refused to pay both US and Europe and was invaded by NATO. Protection money at the global level is not cheap, but not paying it will have worse consequences.
But as said earlier, one cannot just commit evil consistently and expect others to follow. That is why the human behaviour I talked about in the last 2 articles come in. First, we segregate the victims from the bystanders. As long as the bystanders are not impacted, the victims could suffer and die for all they care. Does anyone care about the war in Libya, or the atrocities done in Iraq, or the evil done in Syria? Palestine children dying? African women raped and murdered? Next, provide justification for what was done. Plastering the wars over the news under the justification of liberation allows people to come into contact with what is happening yet slowly accept it as a legitimate course of action. Over time, people are conditioned to accept it.
Whether it is the story of the defective girl above or of countries, one must always remain of value to others. The day you have lost your value is the day you are doomed. There is no fairness, nor is there justice, not in the family, not in society, not in the global stage. Indeed, there are times when unfortunate things happen beyond our control. There are times people cause our suffering and acted as if they are the victims.
North Korea is one perfect example of the defective country trying to survive. Crippled by sanctions, its lack of oil doomed its country not to be able to progress to the industrial era. Labelled as evil and a burden to the global community, it is just like the defective girl who cannot be murdered outright yet isolated till the day it gives up and die on its own.
Whether it be the individual, the society or the country, everything comes right down to whether you have value or not. If you have value, you will survive. But even a chained woman and a drugged prostitute also have their value, so the next thing is to ensure your value to others is maximised when you are alive and well. If you are reading this, chances are you have a sound mind, healthy body (maybe) and education. Make yourself useful, even if you are old and retired. Because you will realise that many times, blood is not thicker than water. Anybody cruising along with work and life today will only have nothing but regrets in the future.
Having resources extracted out of you is painful. Nobody pays taxes willingly. But choose your own sacrifice, so that you may live the other parts of your life with dignity and freedom. And hopefully we will not die in despair with regrets, frustrations and endless unfulfilled dreams. Be free, even in death.
