In the News (From The Financial Times): “Strains in the eurozone short-term lending markets have jumped sharply this week amid worries that the sovereign debt crisis will deepen, threatening the ability of banks to fund themselves.

“Nick Matthews, senior European economist at RBS, said: ‘We are at a key moment in the eurozone debt crisis. There are tensions in the financial system with still many banks having difficulties accessing the private markets for loans. These banks have to rely on the ECB as a backstop. But this is not a long-term sustainable solution.’”

My Comment: What our brains do not do, time does. In other words, whatever we do not do for advancing ourselves correctly in similarity to nature is done by nature itself, which will force us to reach the same state of unity through crises and suffering.
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Opinion (O. Poddymnikov, director of Investment Management, Lanta-Bank, from finam.ru): “The Americans are persistently trying to solve new problems by using old methods: increasing infrastructure spending and open market operations. The former helped Roosevelt take the U.S. out of the Great Depression. The latter …would have let the country avoid it altogether. But will these methods help this time?

“Globalization has led to cardinal changes in the economic structure of the the U.S. Since the beginning of 2008 too many individuals and corporations have lost too much money. There are negative expectations concerning short- and mid-term perspective and absence of faith that the government can deal with this. Because of this, the money that is made is either used towards compensation for losses, or as savings. The rate of maximum tendency towards savings is rising, and it is inversely proportional to the government spending multiplier, which is what the U.S. government is hoping for. Consequentially, the return from investment into the economy is low.”

My Comment: The only thing that can help the U.S. is to stop violating anyone in the world, stop trying to shift their problems onto others, threatening others, putting pressure on the EU, and disturbing the Middle East. The change in their attitude towards Israel opens up problems which they won’t be able to overcome. The U.S. has to look two steps ahead. It shouldn’t go against nature, but rather study the tendency of its development and follow it. Humankind has reached the homestretch to the purpose of creation.
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Opinion: (Tim Jackson, professor, director of research project Resolve, author of Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet): “Every society clings to a myth by which it lives.

“Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades, the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate it will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.

“This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity is without historical precedent. It is totally at odds with the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival.

“Most of the time, we avoid the stark reality of these numbers. Growth must go on, we insist.

“The reasons for this collective blindness are easy enough to find.

“Western capitalism is structurally reliant on growth for its stability. When growth falters – as it has done recently – politicians panic. Businesses struggle to survive. People lose their jobs and sometimes their homes.

“Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists, and revolutionaries.

“Yet question it we must. The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed the two billion people who still live on less than $2 a day. It has failed the fragile ecological systems on which we depend for survival.

“But economic crisis presents us with a unique opportunity to invest in change. To sweep away the short-term thinking that has plagued society for decades. To engage, for instance, in a radical overhaul of dysfunctional capital markets.

“Untrammelled speculation in commodities and financial derivatives brought the financial world to the brink of collapse just three years ago. It needs to be replaced by a longer, slower sense of capital.

“Fixing the economy is only part of the battle. We also have to confront the convoluted logic of consumerism. The days of spending money we do not have on things we do not need to impress people we do not care about are over.

“Living well is about good nutrition, decent homes, access to good quality services, stable communities, satisfying employment.

“Prosperity, in any meaningful sense of the word, transcends material concerns. It resides in our love for our families, the support of our friends, the strength of our communities, our ability to participate fully in the life of society, a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives.”

My Comment: Some don’t see the future of society in unity and fair consumption, and some do see such a society in the future. But actually, material equality in a society of reasonable consumption can exist by giving more fulfillment to every person rather than by following one’s egoistic demands to be better, higher, stronger, richer, and smarter than others.

And that is possible only by spiritual fulfillment, which a person can receive by revealing the next level of existence, that of “Human” (Adam). And this needs to be explained to a person in advance even if he or she is not willing to perceive it yet. This is because life will gradually show a person that it leads him or her exactly to that.
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The economic system is a sort of egoistic imprint of the calculation we make in the “body” of the soul when we prepare it for spiritual action. In economics we aim for maximum profit with minimum investment and risk. These are practical, egoistic calculations where everything is clear.

Even if egoism is repressed formally, it is only because we cannot characterize it qualitatively since it belongs to feelings, to familial connections, to the interests of a country, a nation, and so on. In reality everything can be enumerated and if we were able to do that, we would find ourselves in a precise system, analogous to the one operating in the spiritual world.

Except there, the calculations are made in the “body” of a Partzuf, in the aspiration for bestowal. When you are on the path leading to bestowal, you make a precise calculation, like in an ideal economy: How much do I have to extract from every desire, from every situation, from every factor in this action or maneuver in order to receive the maximum benefit? But obviously, that benefit is selfless.

Here we count on receiving, whereas there—on bestowing, yet the calculation remains. The only question is how to shift from one mode to another. Explaining the final state is also not simple, yet it is characterized by mathematical precision. The current economic disasters are essentially revealing the traits of our egoism which we lacked to conduct the most precise of calculations.

“I love this person. I hate that one. This one is repulsive to me. This one is far from me. This one is close to me. This one is more important in the general system. This one is less important….” How can we take all of these parameters into consideration? And how will every person act individually according to them, renewing his calculations at every second? This will be the real economy which we will have to uphold. In other words, we will have to get to know the correct, healthy system in which egoism works correctly, using two forces.

Today our economic complex is based on just one egoistic component and therefore, without knowing the second half, we cannot manage it. However, when the forces of bestowal join the forces of reception, we will start to interact with the people around us differently, balancing out bestowal and reception in conformity with our own level and the level of society. This will be the real calculation.

We will have to measure and consider our interconnections, which we are unable to do today. We will have to consider all the possible threads extending between us in thoughts and feelings, levels of our closeness and the “bestowal coefficient,” bringing all of this into the economic calculation that will have a purely mathematical character.

If we add the qualitative variables to its parameters, which reflect feelings and the states of humanity as a whole, we will receive a reliable and indisputable result. The same calculation is made in the head of the Partzuf: I consider the inner and surrounding Light, the Reshimot, TANTOT, my inner and outer desires, and methods of working with them…. Precisely this is economics.

Only spiritual calculations are made in the desire and therefore all numbers are precise and authentic. In the desire I can classify factors and give them values, extracting TANTOT from them. In essence, books of Kabbalists are the economics of the universe. Lights are “money,” meaning life, while vessels, desires, and screens allow us to acquire fulfillment, profit. Inner profit is inner Light, and future profit is the surrounding Light. We make mutual loans: For example, the upper one loans to the lower one in the first type of Gadlut. And in the second type of Gadlut the lower one receives Light from the upper one in order to pass it on….

It’s not accidental that the main blow of the crisis affected none other than the economy because it is the most important thing to us. It wasn’t the destruction of the family unit, a collapse of upbringing, or the ecology, but precisely economic problems that have forced us to seriously talk about the crisis. And this corresponds to the spiritual processes.

With time we will begin running a healthy economy, will begin deducing it according to the spiritual system and feeling out the transition to it. This transition will become possible only on the condition that we bring the mutual guarantee component into the calculation, if we measure it, weigh it, and designate it numerically. We will consider it when making calculations on the stock market because otherwise it is impossible. Tomorrow’s success depends on how much the mutual guarantee component grows in our economic formula.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/11, Shamati

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Opinion: (Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Treasury Secretary): “Geithner said the United States must strengthen employment, Europe must act more forcefully to quell its debt crisis and China and other emerging markets should strengthen domestic demand and allow their currencies to rise more rapidly.

“‘The imperative remains to strengthen economic growth. Fiscal policy everywhere has to be guided by the imperatives of growth.’…

“‘In early 2009, the world showed remarkable unity and deployed remarkable financial force in rescuing the global economy,’ Geithner wrote. ‘The challenges now are different and cannot realistically be confronted by a repeat of that coordinated global response of financial stabilization and fiscal and monetary stimulus.’”

My Comment: Unfortunately, he is dead serious about this! Meanwhile, we feel the crisis namely because we are applying these old methods of our connections to the new mutual ties that manifest now. The old economy did not take into account reciprocity, but only personal gain, and that is why it does not work in the new network of connections.

To put efforts into the application of old methods means to accelerate the crisis. Possibly, this is good since it helps to hit bottom sooner, analyze the reasons, and find the way out, but it is the path of suffering rather than correction.
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Opinion: (Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Berggruen, from The Guardian): “The eurozone’s crisis is dragging down the entire global economy – real economic and political union is now urgent.

“After many months of muddling through – but not getting at the systemic roots of the economic, fiscal and financial crisis – Europe is at the tipping point. If it continues any longer with the status quo of dithering instead of decisiveness, the eurozone will break up and its national economies will weaken. Only by moving forward towards full integration – now – can Europe save itself.

“Along with persistent partisan gridlock and the clear slippage of the recovery in the US, Europe’s crisis of governance is dragging down the entire global economy.

“Action to restore credibility is necessary.

“Additionally, in pursuing the necessary fiscal austerity and structural reforms, we must be careful not to undermine any fragile recovery in the short run.

“To compete in the globalised world, Europe needs to implement an ambitious agenda for growth and employment to boost competitiveness and long-term productivity. …Without growth, the temptation for economic nationalism will arise.

“Further political integration and union can only be built hand in hand, step by step, through a broad and deep engagement of the public.

“That is why more European integration, not less, is the only solution.”

My Comment: We won’t be able to develop further; everything will be reduced until it reaches the condition of reasonable production and consumption, rather than overproduction and overconsumption for the sake of overaccumulation. Nature will force us to become its integral part, meaning to receive and give in a reasonable way.

We will come to this economy, and namely integration, trust, and unity will let us create this harmonious union. There will be neither rich nor poor—nature will not allow it. A person will be rewarded for his or her investment in development in the form of respect, recognition, creativity, and the feeling of the next level of harmony, higher than this life….
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Opinion: (Alessio Rastani, trader): “Goldman Sachs rules the world, and the Euro zone is poised to crash, according to trader Alessio Rastani.

“‘This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out,’ Rastani said on an interview with BBC on Monday morning. ‘The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.’

“‘The savings of millions of people are going to vanish’ in less than a year, he said.

“‘This economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just like a cancer it’s going to grow and it’s going to be too late,’ he continued.

“Fear over the fragility of the European economy has become pronounced in recent weeks.

“But the crash will be good news for traders, Rastani told the stunned BBC anchors.

“‘For most traders we don’t really care about having a fixed economy, having a fixed situation, our job is to make money from it,’ he said. ‘Personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession.’

“Rastani said traders aren’t the only ones who can benefit from the crisis.

“‘When the market crashes… if you know what to do, if you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this.'”
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In the News (from The New York Times): “Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

“Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

“They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

“‘Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,’ said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. ‘We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.’

“Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes that, in London and Athens, erupted into violence.

“Increasingly, citizens of all ages, but particularly the young, are rejecting conventional structures like parties and trade unions in favor of a less hierarchical, more participatory system modeled in many ways on the culture of the Web.

“Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite.

“In many European countries the disappointment is twofold: in heavily indebted federal governments pulling back from social spending and in a European Union viewed as distant and undemocratic. Europeans leaders have dictated harsh austerity measures in the name of stability for the euro, the region’s common currency, rubber-stamped by captive and corrupt national politicians, protesters say.”

My Comment: The disappointment with the elite should give way to the disappointment with our nature—egoism, so that we begin to transcend it. Redistribution of wealth without a moral awakening of the masses will yield no positive results. All the solutions are partial, that is, no one has the real solution to the problem, and what Kabbalah proposes is not considered because it is perceived as new communism, which has completely “exhausted” itself.

Economists are reluctant to acknowledge that nature puts before us the condition of complete unification into a single mechanism. It is time to create an economic model of reasonable consumption, mutual altruistic relations, and the benefit of bestowal. Having this vision of the near inevitable future that awaits us as the result of our development (evolution), we must educate everybody about the entrance into a new world.
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Question: Today the crisis has reached all corners of the world and no one sees a solution to it. Why don’t we examine the economic system analogously to our system of upbringing, and offer it to the world?

Answer: We can provide a wonderful description of the economy in the period of the final correction: a balanced society, consumption within the boundaries of reasonable necessity, conservation of nature and man, the sole development of projects that save time and energy and benefit people’s health…. All of this is logical and is easy to put in writing if you are not writing about egoistic gratification, but basic necessity, the harmony between us and nature.

But how can we transition to this stage? How can we explain it to the modern tycoons who are essentially the ones to decide the fate of the world? They manipulate governments which in turn manipulate people. So how can we present this final goal to them? How can we tell them about the phases on the path to it? They will ask: “What will be left for us?” And what will we tell them in response?

“You will receive exactly the same amount as a regular housewife, and your billions will be returned to nature’s needs in order to fix the mess you have made by proliferating excessive consumption in the world. And beyond that you will enjoy internally, spiritually. You will no longer be ‘the top roosters in the pen,’ proudly parading around the perches. You will mature and this will cease giving you pleasure.” You will be fulfilled by the attainment of a higher level.” On the contrary, it will evoke scorn.

Will you be able to explain all of that to a tycoon so he will be enticed by the idea of eternal, perfect life, so he will want to enter the eternity of nature itself, join it, and reveal a higher level of existence in it?… “You will live there like a respectable tycoon. Even when your animate body dies, it is not really you at all. After all, you will become Human in the true, spiritual sense….”

This works only for refined individuals, yet others just might understand it right away. That is why today we are disseminating the force of mutual guarantee to the whole world, and we are not addressing the tycoons, but the people. “It’s worthwhile for us to get closer to one another so life gets better.” And in the meantime, with a view to the future, we inject Light into people, the force of unity. Once they are filled by this force, they begin to understand more and to agree with us, seeing real benefit in the mutual guarantee. That is how they advance.

The path to the heart is not through the mind. You can’t get your mind around this because the mind’s level corresponds to the level of the desire it serves. The mind can never rise above the desire. Deceived by illusions, we might look down on our animate being, but the mind seems like the pinnacle of creation to us. Yet in reality our mind is even lower than the animate desire, being a mere servant of it.

Therefore, the only opportunity we have is to change people’s desires, which can change only under the influence of the Light. This is what we have to provide for them. Your logical conclusions alone won’t help. People will not understand you and will think that you are simply an idiot or a mystic, or in the best case, a great guy dreaming about peace and love on the planet.

There is only one solution: to unite among ourselves and to give people the force of unity. Only this will raise them to a new level of understanding, perception, and agreement with us. Moreover, later, once they agree, they will see that it’s worthwhile for them to follow us because they can’t understand our message fully. By acquiring the force of unity, they will rise to a level where it will become clear that they have to hold on to us, as it is written in the Torah: They will “grab onto your clothes,” meaning the garment, the external vessels, and will say, “Take us there!”

Obviously, you are right in that we do have to talk a little about the economy, upbringing, and the world of the future so as not to push people away at the initial stage. But the most important thing is to transmit the force of unity to them. This is dissemination. In the Introduction to Panim Meirot UMasbirot, Baal HaSulam writes that when the sons of Israel become filled with this force of unity, it will spill from them to everyone else. We have to be ready to receive this force and then it really will spill over to people, who will be receptive to the influence of the Light of Hassadim, giving themselves over to it wholeheartedly.
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From the lesson on 10/24/11

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In the News (From The Financial Times): “The European Union should appoint a new budget tsar with powers to dictate taxes and spending in eurozone countries and who could ultimately adjudicate whether countries should be kicked out of the euro.

“Writing in the Financial Times, Mark Rutte and his government’s finance minister, Jan Kees de Jager, said the new ‘commissioner for budgetary discipline’ should be given the authority to impose a gradually more painful series of penalties on profligate eurozone countries, including the withholding of EU development funds.

“But if a country continues to flout EU demands for spending restraint, Mr. Rutte’s plan would force eurozone countries to submit their budgets to the commissioner, who could veto it before it is presented to parliament.

“‘Countries that do not want to submit to this regime can choose to leave the eurozone,’ Mr. Rutte and Mr. de Jager write. ‘In the future, the ultimate sanction can be to force countries to leave the euro.’”

My Comment: Is not it better to choose the Creator—Nature as the Tsar, to study it and observe its laws?
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