Opinion: (Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, is former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission): “European leaders are working feverishly to create what German Chancellor Angela Merkel is calling a ‘fiscal union’ to restore private investor confidence in Europe and rekindle growth. Unfortunately, what she advocates will thrust Europe into a deeper economic crisis and leave European leaders without the fiscal and monetary policy tools necessary to combat recessions.”

My Comment: But no one knows how to solve these problems, or everyone acts as if they do know. In any case, we need more time to become aware that our egoism, envy, and pride are elements of our evil nature and to realize the necessity to unite for the sake of our survival.
[65670]

Related Material:
How To Avoid The “Zombification” Of Europe
2012: A Decisive Year For Europe
Bleak Prospects For 2012

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - No Comments →

Question: I told my mother-in-law about the wisdom of Kabbalah, about the fact that the whole world is one big family and that we are all interconnected with one another. She doesn’t study the wisdom of Kabbalah, but she understood everything. It turns out that when she was young she was part of the hippie movement and supported their ideas. Then she asked: “Does that mean that we will all be like the hippies?”

Answer: I was also young at that time and I remember these movements. Indeed the urge to be cut off from the ego, from materialism and competition, from the endless chase of material things was very strong then among young people. It isn’t by chance. They felt the emptiness in all these things very strongly then.

In those years, the Club of Rome started talking about the futility of individualistic development based on trade and technology. Many agreed with that, but eventually the “mainstream” representatives managed to somehow cover up this problem. They liquidated the connection between gold and paper money and began inflating the financial bubble.

As a result the world underwent great changes. In general, a lie is a tool to make great profit. Only today do we begin to realize what it led to and what an explosion we are facing.

So in the hippies’ times people began to ask about the meaning of life, but the question was formed gradually. They arrived at it from different directions, and so they found many answers. Some turned their eyes to India and others started devoting their time to art.

On the whole, when it comes to the masses, your mother-in-law is right. We are talking about questions that are very similar to the questions that troubled her when she was young. In our days, however, the situation is completely different. In those days, the wave that the young generation felt was broken by the achievements of technological progress that promised endless growth. Today this is impossible.

After this whole “cycle” the world has reached a general crisis, and now we will be able to continue to exist only if we tie money to real things. In other worlds, we must tie a person’s exertion to something that has a real value and not to “papers” that can be printed limitlessly or that can be duplicated “virtually.”  [Read more →]

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Economy, Egoism, Free Will, Q&A, Society - 1 Comment →

There was a time when money was equivalent to effort. A farmer sold eggs or milk, a shoemaker sold shoes. And their labor determined the value of things.

In contrast, today you simply need to print money and declare its purchasing power. These pieces of paper haven’t had the actual backing of their supposed value for a long time now.

At the same time, money must always be proportionate to human effort, and this is true of capitalism as well. Only nowadays those in power don’t know how to get back to this system, and some of them simply don’t want to.

One way or another, we’ll need to do this. Otherwise all things will devalue and the ensuing imbalance will destroy the global economy. Our present economic relations don’t even abide by healthy egoism, to say nothing of altruistic correction.

We’re talking about a society that follows the elementary rule, “Go and profit from one another.” Indeed, in reality we trade goods, whereas money is merely their equivalent. And that means the first thing we must do is to ensure the equivalent properly reflects the actual state of affairs. Otherwise we will plunge into chaos.

Today millions in a bank account may have a far greater real-world value. We have inflated the system with a myriad zeroes that carry no weight whatsoever.

A corrected society must be united in equality and reciprocity without rich or poor. Indeed, the eventual face of social justice entails the same standard of living for everyone regardless of any other factors. The first thing we must do is make sure everyone receives all that they need for a decent life, wanting for nothing as far as their basic needs.

In contrast, the business people of today do the exact opposite and thereby destroy whole continents for the sake of phantom profit, which they cannot even spend….
[65523]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
Money Is A Covering For Desire
Why Do We Need Money?
The World Of Fake Money

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Economy, Society - 2 Comments →

Opinion: (George Magnus, senior economic adviser at UBS): “The main problem is that European leaders have misdiagnosed the underlying causes of the crisis, ending up with a flawed agenda and inappropriate policies. They attribute the crisis to fiscal profligacy and the lack of adequate institutional fiscal mechanisms, rather than to the large external and competitiveness imbalances between member states. So, instead of coming up with an economic and debt adjustment strategy that distributes reform responsibilities symmetrically between debtors and creditors, leaders continue single-mindedly to pledge institutionalized fiscal discipline as the solution to the crisis. They have, in effect, sealed a pro-cyclical austerity zone.

“But such ECB actions will only gain traction if political leaders are willing to go beyond their austerity-depression pact to prevent zombie economies.”

My Comment: For the time being, I don’t see the correct diagnosis of the crisis and, consequently, the right means to correct it.
[65551]

Related Material:
2012: A Decisive Year For Europe
The Confusion Of Specialists
Global Economy: Is Anybody In Control?

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - 1 Comment →

Opinion: (Stella Dawson, Reuters): “Dysfunctional politics threatens to deliver a protracted period of slow global growth, possibly lasting well beyond 2012, which will only deepen the political and economic problems for the West.

“Niall Ferguson, a prominent economic historian now at Harvard, calls this an historic power shift.

“’For the better part of 500 years, it was Westerners on both sides of the Atlantic who could say that they had the best economic system, that they developed the best political system and so forth. And those claims have sounded increasingly hollow in our time,’ Ferguson said in an interview.

“The breakdown in public confidence caused by the financial crisis has revealed a deeper problem. ‘What we’re seeing in government is part of a wider crisis of Western institutions,’ he said.

“Heather Conley, a former U.S. Under Secretary of State for European Affairs, now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said this near political paralysis seen in the United States and Europe is common when governments are at an inflection point.

“’Without decisive direction and leadership, we march in place or attempt to muddle through, uncertain of which path to take. The West is at such a moment,’ she said.

“’Only an external shock I fear will force us to take the uncertain (new) path. Or we will become so frustrated that the West will choose leaders who will take us in a radically new direction.’”
[65472]

Reated Material:
How To Avoid The “Zombification” Of Europe
Global Economy: Is Anybody In Control?
Shifting To The Economy Of The Future

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - No Comments →

Opinion: (Joshua Muldavin, professor of human geography at Sarah Lawrence College): “Like China’s leadership, the world should continue to play close attention to Wukan and to the tens of thousands of incidents of rural unrest that occur each year in China, the vast majority resulting from land grabs. Why? Because what happens to China’s peasants is crucial to our collective future.

“The Wukan incident reveals the shaky foundation of China’s rise to economic super power. It is built upon an unresolved land struggle with hundreds of millions of lives in the balance. Anything that negatively alters the quality of life of China’s rural majority has the potential to impact the already fragile global economy, sending ripples across the world.

“The result is the complete loss of land for approximately 75 million peasants who join the over 200 million rural residents migrating around China daily in search of work.

“Land loss leaves many rural families — still the majority of China’s population — without access to enough land to produce their food. …Their rising anger and desperation is seen in other rural areas nationwide.

“Land grabs are part and parcel of growing social inequality in China. …China today rivals the most unequal countries in the world. The 400 million Chinese at the bottom face continual threats to their livelihoods through land loss.

“Beijing’s success in quelling daily unrest around the country, mainly through the use of local officials as scapegoats, fails to address the fundamental problem: a development path built on an eroding foundation of unjust land grabs, environmental destruction, social polarization and the resulting vulnerability of the country’s poorest and most marginal people. Until these structural issues are addressed, the Wukan incident will only be a harbinger of things to come.”

My Comment: In this case, too, we see that only the gradual creation of correct social relations of mutual guarantee will be able to bring peace and prosperity to this fragile society.
[65553]

Related Material:
The Food Inflation Nightmare Is About To Hit 40% Of The World’s Population
China: Between Money And Force
China’s Recession Has Begun

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - No Comments →

Question: An important part of the course on integral upbringing pertains to reasonable economics, or economics of rational consumption. What is that, and what is it based on?

Answer: We already spoke about the fact that in an integral society there is no coercion or limitations. That is, there exist certain social boundaries, and from within them you select what you like and what you want. This pertains to food, home, clothes, safety, medical services, education, and so on. The only exception is upbringing, which is required for everyone.

In this regard there is a very clear pressure on everyone, I might even say coercion, though not from the side of human society, but from the side of nature. We simply take these parameters and implement them for our comfortable existence.

When it comes to all the minor needs, then in accordance with our collective development, we will need to arrange debates among ourselves regarding what we consider as necessary and not. By the way, here we have something to learn from the kibbutzim: They had a very interesting way of doing that. Does a person really not need anything of his own, or conversely, does he require his own personal wardrobe?

Naturally, each selects a specific assortment of products that are most suitable and healthiest for him and correspond to his or her tastes. Nobody is going to force anyone to eat the same food, although in principle, all of these things: clothes, objects, apartments, and so on are pretty standardized.

If a person is engaged in intensive inner development, his interest in all the necessary bodily, physical needs is essentially reduced, and he doesn’t seek in that an additional fulfillment, satiation, and some particular flavors or shades. All that becomes absolutely uninteresting and unimportant to him just like for a scientist who is deeply absorbed in his research and can just walk around in a tattered suit because to him it doesn’t hold any significance. He grabs a bite to eat somewhere and that’s good enough—the important thing is that now he can go back to work.

In other words, society will constantly conduct research to determine an optimal level of income, which would be neither excessive nor deficient for any person. In an integral society each person will take all that is necessary for himself either from warehouses, or perhaps a large delivery, distribution, and supply system will be put in place for that purpose.
[64857]
From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/12/11

Related Material:
The Formula For The Distribution Of Means
A Knowledge Kit For The Society Of The Future
A Course On Harmonious Education

Filed under: Economy, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Opinion (Avery B. Goodman, a licensed attorney, a member of the roster of neutral arbitrators of the National Futures Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority): “Bloomberg reports that Bank of America has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.

“Even if we net out the notional value of the derivatives involved, down to the net potential obligation, the amount is so large that the United States could not hope to pay it off without a major dollar devaluation… But, if such an event ever occurs, Bank of America’s derivatives counter-parties will, as usual, be made whole, while the American people suffer. This all has the blessing of the Federal Reserve, which approved the transfer of derivatives from Merrill Lynch to the insured retail unit of BAC before it was done.”

My Comment: Naturally, whoever has the money and power uses the power to save money. It’s not only the American people that will pay for the devaluation of the dollar, but the whole world. Obviously, this is the plan: All shall not perish, but generally lose. No wonder, the FDIC is busy….
[65350]

Related Material:
The World Is Ruled By Those Who Have The Power To Create Money
The Financial Industry: Living In A Lie
The Influence Of A Committed Minority

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - No Comments →

In the News (from Finmarket.ru): “The 1 % of the richest in the West dominates political decisions. Income inequality has become increasingly important in political and economic life in the U.S. and Europe.

“The main question is how to tax the 1 % of the richest (​​those whose annual income exceeds half a million dollars). A tax on super profits has become one the reasons for discord between Democrats and Republicans. The ratio between the income of the richest and the poor is 14:1 in the U.S., and 6:1 in the EU.”

My Comment: Everything is measured relative to the rich and the poor, and that is why the question arises: What should the ratio between them be to produce protest actions like “the Arab spring” in the U.S. and Europe?
[65459]

Related Material:
How Unequal We Are!
One Super-Corporation Runs The World
A Time Of Change

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - No Comments →

In the News: “China and Japan have unveiled plans to promote direct exchange of their currencies in a bid to cut costs for companies and boost bilateral trade. The deal will allow firms to convert the Chinese and Japanese currencies directly into each other. Currently businesses in both countries need to buy US dollars before converting them into the desired currency adding extra costs.

“‘Given the huge size of the trade volume between Asia’s two biggest economies, this agreement is much more significant than any other pacts China has signed with other nations,’ Ren Xianfang of IHS Global Insight was quoted as saying by the Bloomberg news agency.” (Source: BBC News)

“In contrast, the EU shows helplessness in general politics against speculation, wars in Africa and Asia. It is useless to demand for Germany to create the United States of Europe so that the ECB acts as the Federal Reserve in the U.S. because the Germans and the British do not want to lose their sovereignty unlike the people of southern Europe.” (Source: L’Occidentale)

My Comment: For the time being this also shows the lack of a common firm decision. Due to its absence, the Asian market only tries to isolate itself from the rest of the world in hopes of reducing their losses. But the future will show that without uniting all world economies into one single system, the crisis cannot be overcome.
[65347]

Related Material:
China: Between Money And Force
Gordon Brown: The World Is Drifting
A Global “World-Country”

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, World - No Comments →