"Dr. Kamran Mofid is a visionary activist committed to the evolutionary transformation of social, ecological and spiritual values. His is a vision of a healing world, in which justice and peace are increased – rather than diminished – by the process of globalisation." -- Common Ground
http://www.cg.org/news_list.aspx
Alma and Clifford Pearson Distinguished Speakers Series
Location: Samuelson Chapel - California Lutheran University
"Kamran Mofid is founder of the Globalization for the Common Good Initiative and co-founder/editor of the Journal of Globalization for the Common Good. Born in Tehran, Iran, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Windsor, Ontario, and his doctorate in economics from the University of Birmingham, U.K. In 2001 he received a Certificate in Education in Pastoral Studies at Plater College, Oxford..." http://www.callutheran.edu/calendar/event/1787
To listen to the lecture please click here: http://www.callutheran.edu/CLV/
"Outside ideas of right doing And wrong doing, There is a field I’ll meet you there." -- Rumi
Organizing For America
Sign up to host an Economic Recovery House Meeting the weekend of Friday, February 6th.
As many Americans plan to host or attend an Economic Recovery House Meeting and while we continue to struggle with the economic crisis please consider additional opportunities to expand the dialogue, examples are provided below.
California Lutheran University
Admission is free. Visit the CLU web site for more information:
http://www.callutheran.edu/calendar/event/1787
Dr. Mofid will be visiting Common Ground on Tuesday, March 3, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Dr. Mofid will give the third in the 2008-2009 Common Ground Chair Lecture Series.
Dr. Mofid will also be giving a public lecture at Lake Forest College on Monday, March 2. (Details will be available on the CG site.) The LFC presentation is sponsored by the Department of Religions and the Islamic World Studies Program.
Common Ground is a center for inquiry, study, and dialogue. The primary concern of which is the human quest for understanding and the human pursuit of significance.
"Dr. Kamran Mofid is a visionary activist committed to the evolutionary transformation of social, ecological and spiritual values. His is a vision of a healing world, in which justice and peace are increased – rather than diminished – by the process of globalisation."
-- Common Ground
Common Ground, 815 Rosemary Terrace, Deerfield, IL 60015.
http://www.cg.org/News_View.aspx?Articleid=48
Globalisation For the Common Good Initiative
"Globalization:
The Challenge to America"
May 31 – June 4, 2009
Loyola University • Chicago, Illinois, USA
http://www.gcgchicago2009.info/
.........................................Kamran Mofid PhD (ECON)Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiativewww.globalisationforthecommongood.infoCo-editor, Journal of Globalisation for the Common Goodwww.commongoodjournal.comGlobalisation for the Common Good, Chicago 2009http://www.gcgchicago2009.info/
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. -- Mahatma Gandhi
The Current Financial Crisis: Dishonesty fuelled by Greed
"Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama. In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend. But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time." www.barackobama.com
Dr. Kamran Mofid, Economist.
On 10/6/08 Dr. Mofid, an internationally renowned economist, and founder of the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative, in a letter to his subscribers, wrote the following on the current economic crisis:
In the last couple of weeks, 100s of billions of Dollars, Pounds and Euros of tax payers money have been poured down the drain to bail out a non-functioning, unregulated, unaccountable financial system. The money that we were told was not there to pay for improvements in health, education, housing, transportation, pension, child care,..to name but a few. Moreover, no body has been charged yet: one law for them and another one for the tax payers! The profits were privatised when the going was good and the costs have been socialised, now that the going got tough, heaven on earth for them and hell for the tax payers!
Where are the market forces now, you might ask? Where are all those neo-liberal economists now, singing the praises of the market, deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation, free tade, share/property-owning democracy,..? Where are they now, telling us how to maximise our profits and income, how to minimise our costs and how to exploit the natural resources, all for the sake of maximum economic growth, and then tell us how to externalise the costs and consequences to the tax payer or to the people of Bangladesh for example, when they get flooded.
Where have they gone now? Why are they so quiet now, not sharing their wisdom on the wonders of the market and competition and scarcity with us all! I wonder if all these billions that tax-payers have given will work in rescuing the economy where mammon has taken over? My answer is: it will not, as long as the so-called experts/economists do not admit that without humanity, ethics and justice, economics and business are house of cards built on shifting sands.
Many millions of words have been written on this meltdown, on what went wrong, but not much on why it went wrong. The overwhelming majority agree on the role of one vital element: dishonesty fuelled by greed. We forget at our own peril that honesty and greed are essentially spiritual and moral issues.In the last few weeks the greed of Wall Street and the City (London financial district) has been under the spotlight. The Archbishop of York recently- and in my view correctly- called some of the traders bank robbers. "We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland", the Archbishop remarked. The Archbishop of Canterbury has also criticized "trading of the debts of others without accountability" and compared unfettered belief in the market with fundamentalism. This last word "fundamentalism" used by the Archbishop means a lot to me. It is the fundamentalism of economics, its teaching and MBA programmes that is, in my view, the shifting sand upon which we have built this house of cards, called economic globalisation, which has now come home to roost.
The Chicago Boys school of economic thought has proven to be an Emporer with no clothes! As long as this curse persists, there will be no possibility of reaching the Promised Land: where we can have justice, peace, happiness and contentment.
The 8th Globalisation for the Common Good Annual International Conference will take place in June 2009 and will be supported by and hosted at Loyola Univeristy, Chicago, IL.
http://www.globalisationforthecommongood.info/
The 7th Annual International Conference for 2008 will be held in Melbourne, Australia:
"From the Middle East to Asia Pacific: Arc of Conflict or Dialogue of Cultures and Religions?"
Trinity College, University of Melbourne, Australia -- June 30 - July 4, 2008 http://www.gcgmelbourne2008.info
Past conferences: Oxford, 2002; St. Petersburg, 2003; Dubai, 2004; Kenya, 2005; Hawaii, 2006, and Istanbul, 2007.
Please visit the GCG web site for updates and other excellent information. I hope President Obama will be able to attend this unique and extremely important conference.
Now is the time for a "surge in diplomacy" and for working together to "bend the arc toward justice" ...for the common good.
