The PNG Futurist - shaping the next 50 years

THE COMING APOCALYPSE The world has witnessed the largest creation of wealth ever in history since the industrial revolution. Especially in modern times, we have witnessed huge wealth being created by such great organisations as ExxonMobil, General Motors. There were only a handful of billionaires in the early 20 th century, now there are approximately 1,210 billionaires in the world. As an indication, the world’s largest asset manager is BlackRock Inc. with $3.65 trillion in assets under management. This huge growth has been funded by debt. Governments borrow to build infrastructure and fund social programs with the intent to pay back the borrowings from the future tax revenue streams. Consumers borrow to pay for homes (mortgage), house hold items (retail credit) and miscellaneous luxuries (credit card). This then feeds a vicious cycle whereby the investments from the borrowed funds creates more demand and although in the short term, this will be see as robust economic gro...

K6 billion in trust funds have been reduced to K600 million kina. Billions have gone out the door without anyone knowing who has taken it, where it has gone? We have just passed K6 billion budget for 2011 which is a record for PNG’s history. Meanwhile development in POM is booming and consumption of luxuries has increased which is reflected in the SP Brewery expansion project showing the demand for alcohol etc. Luxury cars with a lot of property being purchased in Australia. Meanwhile, outside of Port Moresby, women are dying in childbirth. People are dying from preventable diseases. Schools with no school books or buildings. Impassable roads. No electricity. No government presence. Development funds used to fund personal bank accounts for politicians and their cronies. Given the fragmentation of society driven by the geographical features of PNG, it can result in many individual developments where people in an area will get together and contribute and build an aid post. Then they will...