Stock Market Lessons

Lessons for the Future (’Leçons pour lavenir’): Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Antwerp, the age of printing (1500-1560)

“…becomes the main place for trading in goods from Northern Europe…. traded against products from the Orient…. bourse becomes Europe’s main financial centre… for insurance, betting + lotteries… banking network helped finance foreign trade… essential element(s) in mercantile power…

“…first user of… innovation… in printing…. paves the way for freedom of expression, advances in individualism + reason…. and propagation of the Judaic(?) ideal…. destroys the (rule of) the Vatican + holy Roman empire… to unite Europe around the Latin language + the Catholic Church…”

“Foreigners come flocking in, accenting progress + boosting the city’s energy + vitality…”

“The wars of religion (destroy) the sea routes …cut Antwerp off from its sources of trade… the city no longer has the means… at the mercy of even the smallest financial crisis… hit by… stock market speculation…”

So the early communications technology of printed books + papers, etc, transformed society just as the internet is doing today – and freeing people from the agendas of politics, doctrines of hegemonic empires and constructed dogmas of religions – if we will but tear ourselves away from the hypnotic television ‘entertainment’ industry designed to keep us all more or less permanently asleep, uhh. Only the Catholic Church then as media corporations are now, tended to take advantage to ruthlessly capture their own market and feed them their diet of dressed-up lies, meaningless platitudes and half-truths as a cover for their own lack of spirituality whilst ever maintaining control through fear, ignorance + prejudice.

But the physical presence of people with ideas from other countries is also as significant today as no one country has a monopoly on intelligence. Thus the destructive + regressive effect of “wars of religion” today (the West is still wantonly fighting the un-Christian Crudases of 1,000 years ago) as a means of feeding the USA’s military-industrial complex instead of its relying on trade for its wealth any more. Sadly, the state of Belgium had little use for African people in its dark colonial empire days, though. “Heart of Darkness” was written about the viciousness of the 1800’s Belgian colonial regime in the Congo. So much for European ‘civilization’ and their much-touted Christianity.

Interesting contemporary comparison – “Britain has become a “brittle” society where even the smallest effect on resources risks bringing the country to its knees…” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5172557/Britain-has-become-brittle-society-says-think-tank.html

Lesson for the Future: “A new communications technology prooves merciless towards existing powers”

Chapters 1 – 15 of Lessons for the Future (’Leçons pour lavenir’) are presented by Jacques Attali http://www.france24.com/en/category/tags-emissions/lessons-future

Also see Antwerp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp and Holy Roman Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

Note: (.flv) download links R freely available via the RSS feed for this topic on France vingt-quatre. BTW, I am only uploading selected chapters I wish to comment on so pls feel free to upload the rest yourself, OK. Tks, DD

Duration : 0:2:52

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