Banking, insurance, financial services and professional services are good businesses to be in – providing the jobs are well managed. This requires good ethical standards, good regulation, good education, freedom from monopolies and, if things go seriously wrong, a good prospect of the businesses going bust and the managers losing their money and/or going to jail. When the UK banks went bust it emerged that none of the CEOs were trained bankers. I do not think there was much criminality behind the late-2000s financial crisis but all the other problems were present in the UK: low ethical standards from bankers, too many banks were ‘too big to fail’, too few bankers lost money and many of them made fortunes from government bail-outs. I have been trying to extend the old bankers’ adage that ‘in good times we do well and in bad times we do better’. Maybe it is OK as it stands or should we add that ‘and in terrible times we milk taxpayers‘?

I would like to know more about the balance which the world’s largest company (Apple) runs with East Asia. Most Apple products are manufactured in Asia but (1) the manufacturer only makes a small margin on each item (2) Apple makes a a fabulous margin on each item eg 60% on the iPhone (3) Apple makes a great deal of money by selling products in Asian markets. So who is doing best from the deals? It must be Apple. So the west needs more orchards – and there should be a lot work for good gardeners!

It seems that the fundamentals of the economy become out of balance, and in this instance the Financial Crisis is global property bust rather than local bust! The stockmarket crisis has followed on the banking crisis.

What is needed of course is a solution to the global economic crisis in the developed world that is productivity based (as it is in the developing world and Germany – ie engineering), rather than resource based (ie in Australia) or service sector based (ie in the UK).

Given that the developed world has largely outsourced its production to the developing world and is then spending to import the products from the developed world the source of the credit imbalance is easy to locate.

So what sort of production should the developed world now target to underpin economic growth?

All cultures have a social system. So inherently if there is a valid distinction between vocational and academically oriented students then these distinctions ought to be uniform across cultures or exhibit culture specific patterns.

So the answer is generally no. Excepting the response to policing strategies which are said to be heavy handed in both communities (and perhaps resulting in alienation of young people from law enforcement officers). And also a lack of police accountability when deaths occur.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_deaths_in_custody ]

High incarceration rates are most probably the symptom of a socio-cultural problem rather than a reflection of a greater cultural propensity to criminality.

It is difficult when a society allows incarceration to become the norm within communities so that internally it is not stigmatised as a phenomenon.

Perhaps civics education and engagement in positive civics programs would be helpful within the Nigerian community? Would the housing estates be appropriate places to introduce sport based programs and civics programs so that ease of access and community ownership is fostered?

The Allafrica website comments that: ‘Nigerians living in London have blamed African leaders for the riots that has rocked the United Kingdom since last Saturday. According to them, the riots which were allegedly led by 99 percent blacks, was a reaction to years of poor leadership in Africa and the harsh economic realities in the United Kingdom also. British austerity measures have hit low-income areas like Tottenham hard.’

I think of ‘religion’ as a western concept, involving rigid rules and a separation from other aspects of life. And I think of ‘spiritual’ primarily as a contrast to ‘material’. ‘Spiritual’ is difficult to define and ‘material’ is easy to define, so the contrast is easy. But for everyone, including Adolf Hitler, there are material and spiritual components to their motivation.

The question of earning a living and supporting a family is perhaps central here.