The world according to Géraudel

The world afterwards remains very unlikely, the third revolution is waiting, the wall is closing in at a rapid pace and yet nothing changes.

It would seem, today, that the political class, dependent on the financial class, is not aware of the ecological and financial urgency and even less of the demographic explosion to come.

Faced with this triple disaster to come, we cannot be content to limit the damage by timid adjustments that prove to be very insufficient in relation to the objectives set by Cop 21 and the impressive degradation of the financial system.

We must take advantage of the "covid 19" crisis and the general economic downturn to imagine a totally disruptive new world if we want to ensure the survival of the human species.

The greatest utopia would be to believe that everything can continue as before, with the only hope: the ambition to return to the world before and to growth.

One utopia being worth another, why not give ourselves the means to create a world governance that would carry out the 4 following reforms:

1 - Allocate a negotiable CO2 quota to each individual.

2 - Reduce social and environmental inequalities.

3 - Establish an invariable and universal monetary standard.

4 - Stop the demographic explosion.

1 - Allocate an individual CO2 quota

As part of the fight against global warming, the global reductions in greenhouse gases decided at the COPs have been a failure since 1995, when the first COP was held in Berlin 25 years ago.

The gains made in terms of global greenhouse gas emissions are systematically lower than the increase in CO2 emissions generated by the race for growth.

The objective today would be to reduce these emissions very quickly by acting now on individual consumption of goods and services.

So why not move towards a fair and progressive sharing of CO2 emissions?

Each individual would receive the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions annually from his or her "carbon account".

The current "carbon tax", the destination of which is often questioned, would be replaced by a fair and negotiable "carbon quota" between individuals.

Example: If scientists conclude that the earth is capable of absorbing 8 billion tons of CO2 in 2022, each of the 8 billion human beings will receive a quota of:

1 ton of CO2 per year.

- 1 ton of carbon is a return flight from Paris to New York.

- 140 g of carbon is a baguette.

- 250 g of carbon is one kilometer in a diesel car.

A global marketplace will directly negotiate the available carbon quotas between buyers who exceed their quotas and sellers who do not use all of theirs.

Thus a European who emits on average 8 tons of carbon per year will be obliged to buy 7 tons.

The price of each additional ton will be progressive or even dissuasive according to a scale (table attached) to be adjusted each year.

This is a purely indicative example for demonstration purposes:

The 2nd ton = 37€, the 8th ton = 226€, the 16th ton = 870€, the 20th ton = 1360€.

The 8 tons of the European will then cost him 828 € or 2.27€ /day.

The 16 tons of the American will then cost him 5.240 € or 14,36/day.

The 20 tons of the Kuwaiti will then cost him 9.910€ or 27.15€ /day.

On the other hand, people in great precariousness, from developing countries, will see their purchasing power increase significantly.

Their ton of carbon will indeed be divided into 20 lots of 50 kg which will be put on the market according to 20 decreasing prices going from 1.360 € per ton for the 20th lot to 37 € for the 2nd.

Ex: the sale of their 10 most expensive lots will bring them in this example 1.28€ per day, that of 18 lots: 1.35€ per day.

These sums are not negligible if we remember that 780 million human beings live on less than 1.71€ per day.

The contribution of less than 100 million Europeans alone will therefore be enough to bring this extra €1.35 to the 780 million disadvantaged.

The biggest "polluters" will thus learn, at their own expense, how to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Manufacturers will be obliged to reduce their CO2 emissions for each item produced in order to remain competitive in terms of both CO2 emissions and price.

Each carbon account will be managed like a bank account.

Transactions will be recorded in € and in grams of CO2 emitted.

Ex: 1 baguette of bread = 1€ = 140 g of CO2.

This virtuous circle will therefore gradually lead to a reduction in social and environmental inequalities, which will logically lead to improvements in terms of standard of living, access to education, birth rate, public health, migration, famine, epidemics, ecosystem, etc.

In the long term, we can hope that if the capacity to absorb carbon remains constant, the population explosion is controlled and ecological efforts continue, our ecosystem will begin to regenerate.

At the same time, it seems essential to encourage development through substantial "carbon premiums":

- energy savings.

- of the circular economy.

- renewable energies.

- responsible agriculture.

- Birth control in developing countries.

TRADING SCALE FOR A TONNE OF CO2

2 - The reduction of social inequalities.

We saw earlier that carbon redistribution and the use of a universal currency could quickly contribute to a reduction in social and environmental inequalities.

But it seems that this is still insufficient and that the following phenomena must also be taken into consideration:

In 2015 the hedge fund manager, Jims Simons, earned 550,000 times more than an Indian smicard.

In 2017 the football player Lionel Messi earned 6,944 times more than a "French smicard".

In 2018 the director of a CAC 40 company earned 1708 times more than a "French smicard".

How much longer will these dizzying gaps, brought to the forefront by the media and social networks, be sustained?

Isn't there a growing risk of seeing more and more social tensions and popular discontent that are difficult to control: demonstrations such as yellow vests, the rise of populism, political instability in developing countries, radicalization, economic migration, climate change, looting, unemployment, rising violence, the rise of extremes, attacks, etc.?

Various personalities, such as Mélenchon or Obama, have mentioned gaps of between 20 and 30 times the minimum wage.

Ex: 25 times the minimum wage 2019 = 25 x 1203 = 30.000€ net/month seems acceptable.

(1% of the French earn more than 8.700€ / month and 0.1% more than 22.500€)

As you can see, we are still a long way off but very close to increasingly violent insurgent movements.

3 - Creation of global monetary governance.

We are witnessing an unprecedented acceleration in the disruption of world finance:

negative rates, quantitative-easing, currency helicopter, eternal credits, overheating of the money market, financial bubbles, over-indebtedness of countries, municipalities, companies, households, students, fragility of banks, uncontrolled globalization, anarchic taxation, unfair competition, tax havens, tax dumping, devaluations, inflations, speculation, etc..

Faced with such an inventory and the urgency to act, it is difficult not to think of a global and radical solution that could be the adoption of a new universal monetary standard:

1 Unit = 1 hour's work of an unqualified person.

It will be fairly simple to establish a pay scale based on the skills of each individual:

1 hour of minimum pay (labourer) = 1 Unit

1 hour of auto mechanic = 4 to 8 Units

1 hour of chartered accountant = 15 to 22 Units

1 hour maximum compensation (actor, CEO) = 30 Units

This currency would be coupled with a crypto currency controlled and issued exclusively by a global governance.

- 1 baguette of bread = 0.10 Unit

- 1 hour of handling in Geneva in 2030 = 1 Unit.

will give the same purchasing power as

- 1 hour of handling in Madagascar in 2020 = 1 Unit.

This new and real currency, will have the following advantages:

- Universal, because it can be used and understood by everyone.

- Stable, because always equal to 60 minutes of work.

- Invariable, because it is decorated with all currencies.

- Scalable, because the number of working hours is unlimited.

- Secured, permanent store of value backed by a cryptocurrency.

- Fair: equal pay for equal work (to stop social dumping).

- Fair: equal pay - equal purchasing power.

The transition to this new currency can only be made gradually and voluntarily.

It is indeed important to let international finance continue its "Monopoly" game with its current currencies, its current rules and to assume alone the crises to come.

We will not deprive man of the ambition to become the richest man in the world like that of a sportsman to reach the highest step of the podium.

The 16 advantages of this new currency are presented in detail on the lewat.fr website and concern improvements in :

competitiveness, social dumping, relocation, competition, globalisation, inflation, devaluation, speculation, economic and climatic migration, tax dumping, etc.

In order not to transpose the excesses of the current monetary system into the new system, the conversion of currencies into new units will be framed and capped; reverse conversion into currencies will be impossible in order to avoid any speculation on exchange rate differences.

This new unit should smooth out social inequalities, restore competitiveness to each country and allow rapid relocation of industries, taking into account the equality of labour costs between countries and the cost of transport and its carbon footprint in the event of relocation.

4 - Birth control at the global level.

With 7.7 billion human beings, 10% of whom already live below the poverty line (<2$/day), we are powerless to :

1) the depletion of our planet's natural resources:

- drinking water.

- Fossil fuels: oil, coal, gas etc.

- minerals, copper, lithium, uranium, rare earths etc.

- agricultural land, concreteization, impoverishment, desertification.

- forests: deforestation, arson or not.

- Fish: overfishing, depletion of reserves, absorption of toxins.

- fauna: disappearance of thousands of species in less than 40 years.

- Flora: endangered ecosystems, depletion of pollinators, etc.

2) pollution of our natural environment :

- the air by the emission of greenhouse gases: CO2, methane, etc.

- freshwater by the pollution of rivers and aquifers.

- the seas by domestic and industrial discharges.

- Soil through the massive use of chemical treatments.

- the subsoil through the burial of waste.

- Biodiversity through its degradation.

We are at a critical juncture where the world must choose between:

- depopulation of 2 to 3 billion to live together decently while respecting the resources of our planet.

- plunge humanity into an ecological disaster with 10 billion people in 2050, a ruined ecosystem and millions of deaths due to pandemics, famines, cataclysms, wars, rising seas, migrations etc.

Shouldn't birth control or even sterilisation of women after the birth of the first child be better envisaged now in countries where regulation is difficult? (5 children/woman in sub-Saharan Africa).

It is certain today that this denial of the demographic explosion is maintained by the lack of political courage and this cult of growth skilfully maintained by too many lobbies. What will it be like for future generations.

It is likely that the West will find it very difficult to impose changes in the face of a financial system that is resilient and that is only working towards a rapid return to the pre-crisis situation.

The financial sphere, aware of its fragility, is counting on China to do the dirty work. Won't it be too late?

Will we have to wait for a financial tsunami and a huge ecological disaster to call itself into question?

Is it her greatest utopia to believe that:

- everything can go on as before?

- everything has to change quickly?

Are we ready for these great renunciations or will we continue, selfishly, to pass on these challenges to future generations?

CONCEPTION & REALISATION

Philippe Géraudel.

Multi-entrepreneurs.

ESSEC, Boston Consulting Group.

geraudel@hotmail.com