Opinion: (Christine Lagarde, the IMF Chief): “The new head of the IMF on Saturday urged global policymakers to pursue urgent coordinated action, including the mandatory recapitalization of European banks, or risk descent into renewed world recession.

“‘Developments this summer have indicated we are in a dangerous new phase,’ International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday at an annual gathering of policymakers from around the world hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank.

“‘The stakes are clear; we risk seeing the fragile recovery derailed. So we must act now,’ she said.

“Two years after the end of the worst of the financial crisis, growth in both the United States and Europe is sputtering, and debt crises and indecision on both sides of the Atlantic have shaken public confidence in a global recovery.”

My Comment: Lately, everyone begins to blame everybody else for negative impacts. Such impacts do take place, but they always have. It’s just that now we reveal that everyone is connected with everybody else in a single network of relationships, and thus, the sensitivity to actions increases. Unless we take measures towards mutual understanding (mutual guarantee), these relationships will quickly lead to war.
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Opinion: (Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice-chancellor from 1998 to 2005): “Slowly, word is getting round—even in Germany—that the financial crisis could destroy the European unification project in its entirety because it demonstrates, quite relentlessly, the weaknesses of the eurozone and its construction. Those weaknesses are less financial or economic than political.

“The Maastricht Treaty established a monetary union, but the political union that is an indispensable precondition for the common currency’s success remained a mere promise. The euro, and the countries that adopted it, are now paying the price. The eurozone now rests on the shaky basis of a confederation of states that are committed both to a monetary union and to retaining their fiscal sovereignty. At a time of crisis, that cannot work.

“Europe has three choices. Muddling through as before would only escalate and prolong the crisis. Ending the monetary union would end the European project itself and wreak unmanageable havoc. Finally, Europe could move forward to real economic and political integration—a step that today’s leaders lack the confidence to take because they don’t believe that they have the necessary public support at home.”

My Comment: Either way you look at the current situation, it’s obvious that without the preliminary education of the population, it will be impossible to make a correct conclusion and action. To enlist the support of the people in promoting unity, we must first explain to them not only a local and individual, but also a general need to unite as it is the challenge from nature, the challenge that we cannot escape and that is higher than us. This in particular obliges us not only to create a united market (bazaar), but to unite truly for the sake of survival.
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Opinion: (Alan Greenspan, a former Chairman of the U.S. Fed): “’The euro is breaking down and the process of its breaking down is creating very considerable difficulties in the European banking system,’ Greenspan said today, according to Bloomberg.

“He told attendees at the Innovation Nation Forum today that European leaders must reassess the feasibility of a monetary union between 17 countries with very different ideas of government and monetary policy.” (Source: businessinsider.com)

“Casting serious doubt over the continued survival of the Euro, Greenspan said the cultural and economic differences between northern and southern Europe are just too big. While countries in the north–such as Germany, France, and Finland–have a lot in common, they are very different to countries in the south, such as Greece.

“Southern European states tend to have current account deficits, meaning they consume more than they produce, so they end up having to borrow from countries in the north. ‘That cannot go on,’ said Greenspan…”

“The Euro-zone crisis matters, Greenspan said, because the world economy is extremely integrated and because about 20% of U.S. exports go to Europe. Though the odds of a new recession in the US have risen, the former Fed chief said he doesn’t expect that to happen–at least for now.” (Source: en.mercopress.com)

My Comment: But the world is interconnected, and the recession will be traveling around the world until people understand the true cause of their troubles: our lack of correspondence to global, integral nature, the quality of bestowal, mutual guarantee. We cannot separate humanity from the entire universe, if the world is global. We must seek solution in the violation of the world’s globality, in its unity.
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In the News (From guardian.co.uk): “The Libyan conflict has been a war about oil if not for’ oil. The country’s economy is almost totally dependent on hydrocarbons and a key objective for the transitional government will be to get the wells up and running again as soon as possible.

“The British and French, meanwhile, are worried about future energy supplies. They are already pushing and shoving over who should get what of the energy proceeds before the political dust has even settled in Tripoli (just as BP and Shell are once again sitting pretty in Iraq following western military intervention there).

“The UK government has been working hand in glove with parts of the oil industry to bring about regime change in Libya.

“Foreign minister Alain Juppé was trying to bury a story run in Liberation that suggested that Paris had tied up an agreement to be given 35% of all the country’s oil in future in return for military help.

“An executive from the rebel oil company, Agoco, has already said the interests of Britain, France, and Italy will all be treated favorably compared with those who equivocated, such as Russia and China.

“It was a war around oil in Libya – but the new interim government in Tripoli could yet win that, too.”

My Comment: Of course, politicians and the army usually carry out the objectives of economists. But it is interesting how the results will manifest in a new, globally connected world. Everything that happens in the world now is only in order to force all nations to rise above differences and create a new global network of mutual guarantee relationships.

Thus, we will be able to turn the global crisis into a correct global relationship and to create a new humanity. Our disagreement with the plan of nature (human evolution) evokes more severe forces that will “enforce peace” on us.
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In the News (From BBC News): “The US is planning to sue more than a dozen major banks for misrepresenting the quality of mortgages they sold during the housing bubble…

“Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs are to face action…

“The Federal Housing Finance Agency… blames the banks for failing to perform adequate checks on the quality of mortgage securities they sold on to investors before the financial crisis in 2008.

“Some executives say the losses were made because of the wider economic downturn.

“Others fear further litigation against banks could damage America’s fragile recovery…”

My Comment: Banks are stronger than the state, but the government needs to be re-elected, and the banks, of course, will admit their mistakes and pay fines—for the benefit of the voters!
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Question: We see that humanity is currently trying to fix and improve the world’s economic systems. But is there any point in changing anything just to become convinced that this doesn’t work and that first of all, we need inner changes?

Answer: We are already revealing the fact that our economic system is flawed. But we are still trying to correct it using the old instruments, and by doing that we only ruin it even more. Gradually it will become clear to people that they are powerless here and that the old way of thinking is no longer effective. The only problem is that we still don’t understand where to get a new mind.

And on their part, Kabbalists still do not know how to get through to humanity and how to transmit this new way of thinking to them in order for everyone to work together to create new systems. The economy is the foundation of our material life, of production and trade, and the provision of all goods. In the material realm there is nothing more important than the economy because this is the program of connection between us, which worked entirely egoistically until today, based on reception of the optimal benefit in every regard.

This is the simple economics formula that has to be realized in every place. Clearly, people are still trying to steal here and there if they can, but this approach no longer accords with the formula. In the ideal form, economics tells us about how to organize relationships in society so everyone would receive the optimal, maximum benefit. This is the economists’ dream.

However, now we need a completely different formula. We have to keep redefining the meaning of “the necessary living standard for a worthy life” and taking care to provide it for everyone. We have to educate people so every person will aspire to attain this level, with some people rising to it from below (meaning, those who are beneath this level) and others—descending to it from above.

This necessary level is not the minimal poverty line, but much higher, one that supposes a normal life. Some people rise to it, while others come down to it, but they do it by their own desire, which has to be achieved by upbringing. All of the remaining excesses should be distributed to the general needs of the government, which can include defense or anything else.

However, if we are talking about the world that is entirely moving toward correction and does not need to spend money on defense, then we can enormously reduce production. According to our similarity with nature, we have to reach the state where we exist like organs of a human body in which every person receives only to the degree it is necessary to live for the sake of bestowal to others. Therefore, we will approach life where production and trade will gradually become more and more restricted until reaching a level where everyone ends up on the level we decide on, and won’t grow from there anymore.

Thus, we will help nature restore itself and will not be sucking its last remaining resources. We will leave something to our children and grandchildren. We will use the natural resources in a way that lets us always be in balance, harmony, and circulation with nature.

This is our responsibility, and if we do not achieve this, nature will teach us by very harsh methods. There won’t be water or oil left around us, not any other resources. In a few decades we will be left with nil. Then, everything we have built will become useless and all production will come to a halt because it won’t have anything to work on. There won’t be lighting, heating, or refrigeration—nothing. That’s because we will have wasted all of the resources on ourselves, on unnecessary things that are beyond the necessities. And there will be no one to blame besides yourself for the fact that your children don’t have anything to exist by.

However, for now we are still trying to snatch as much as we can and suck as much as we can out of the earth. We are even starting to mine in the middle of the ocean in order to extract oil. We will exhaust everything, even reaching the North and South poles. But at some point these resources will have an end, and then we will finally understand….

However, I hope that we will nevertheless manage to develop new a formula of economics whose objective is not immediate egoistic gratification, but the attainment of balance. We have to discern what the new economy has to be within a nation that exists among other nations that have not corrected themselves yet. And then this formula will spread to the whole world.

I think it will be much easier to implement this formula than what is happening today because in essence, we have to simplify everything, achieve balance, and restore the normal circulation.
[53818]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/11, “The Nation”

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It is extraordinarily difficult for us to change the ideas we have formed over the course of our entire lives until now. In fact, it’s simply impossible. One way or another, we remain with our old perception, even though it seems as if we are already changing. In fact, nothing is moving. However, now we have to change our old perspective to a new one, and this change has to happen in the whole world. So where can we get this new perception, an integral view?

Suppose that tomorrow the whole world wanted to turn into an integrally connected network where every person devotes his full energy to work for the sake of society (even though today no one wants this and no one feels this way, but let’s be dreamers for a moment). How will we find out how to build this system, how we should be connected and interact with one another?

How can we build such a government and society, production and trade, since all of this must exist as long as we live in the material bodies? Therefore, we are obligated to organize the entire system of relationships that ensures our life on earth in order to satisfy the needs of our animate bodies.

To do this we need many systems, but how can be build them by the laws of bestowal where every person is free and freely acts to maximally bestow to others, where every person knows what he should be doing in this ideally organized machine, in which all the cogwheels are spinning in harmony? This seems like a utopia, so how is it possible to actually make this transition?

It’s possible to write a novel about this, but how can we rationally envision an economic system that is necessary in such a society, the government and judicial structure, this entire mechanism, from the large elements to the tiniest bolts, including the supply of goods, care for the elderly, families, children, construction, and culture? The organization of all of this is very complex because everything has to operate in “perpetual motion” without the fuel that we are used to!

Everything has to work upon a different source of energy—love for the neighbor. But where will it come from? If I simply receive it from above, the way I now feel love for my own children, then I will be working automatically again, like a machine. So what’s the difference? Instead of egoistic love, I will be driven by love for the neighbor, so what will change?

Therefore, we have to build one thing upon the other so it would work upon resistance, ascent, the sensation of ourselves between two worlds or two desires where every person constantly rises above his egoism, which pulls him back toward the earth.
[53827]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/11, “The Nation”

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Opinion: (Prof. Ruslan Grinberg, Director, Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences, from itar-tass.com): “Financial markets are in a very volatile state. Financiers are in panic, not knowing what to do. The risks are high. But in my opinion, …this points to the crisis in the financial sphere. I think it will not spread to the real sector.

“Our global economy is hostage to the dollar as the world’s currency. Of course, it is unfair that a national currency has become global. In this case, gold was a fairer choice because gold is independent from the place where it is mined… To go back to gold today, as many people erroneously suggest, is unwise in my opinion. I cannot envision the replacement of the dollar… [as world’s reserve currency].”

My Comment: There is no substitute for the dollar because it is the equivalent of modern world egoism, and that is why it will remain the only accepted currency. But at the same time, its volatility will demonstrate the egoistic state of the world.
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What economists, politicians, sociologists, and political scientists call today a “crisis,” actually is not. The real crisis arrives when a person must find an answer or he will die. Kabbalists wrote that this condition will transpire, and then we will have to reveal the method of unity and mutual guarantee and carry it to the world. This is the destiny of the people of Israel.

That is why the whole world blames the Jews for their problems. We will need to explain first of all to the Jewish people that we have to achieve mutual guarantee, that without this we will not solve a single problem. We cannot exist in any rational form; this is possible only above nature, in mutual guarantee. This is what the current situation pushes us towards, and people are beginning to sense this.

The wave of protests, which is not over yet, are people’s inner reaction to the necessity to do something with themselves. People demand social justice, housing, higher wages, all kinds of benefits, but in reality, it is not so. It is no coincidence that the head of the commission of social change writes that these demands contain the desire of internal compensation, but not money. A person lacks something inside, and he doesn’t usually complain about material problems. At the end, as the commission head concluded, people lack love and unity.

And this is true. Observing the laws of nature, we will see that this is what is required of us. The current crisis is global and integral. In other words, we discover that we are connected with each other, depend on each other, and are linked by countless technological, virtual, trade, and other ties, so strongly that it is impossible to break them. Our interdependence has become truly total.

We are fused with each other, hate each other, feel insecure and helpless in the seven-billion-people mass, who demand from each other, lay claims, and show cruelty. There is no end to it. Every moment, Nature “compresses” us more and more, and we do not know where to escape from this, like a married couple who started to hate each other, but meanwhile cannot get a divorce and argue within four walls.

This is how we feel the reality today. Kabbalists wrote that this is a wonderful state, that the need to find some solution to the problem will manifest itself finally in the nation and in the world. First of all, it will be the economic solution, on which our material life depends. Nature starts with the basics and pushes us towards unity. As a result, we will have to unite just to save ourselves, as in ancient times the sons of Israel had to flee from famine to Egypt. Literally, the same process takes place in our times.
[53395]
From Lesson 1, the Achziv Convention 9/1/2011

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In the News: “The global economic crisis is leading to a possible ‘developed economy’ recession in the U.S. and Europe, which may be hard to alleviate, according to Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross. …Strife between rich and poor in the U.S. is sending Treasury yields lower, Gross wrote.” (Source: Bloomberg.com)

“Italy’s highly-paid footballers are threatening to strike over new taxes being brought in on those earning more than 150,000 euros. …The proposals have sparked a storm of criticism in Italy as the country attempts to clean up its public finances to avoid becoming the next victim of the debt crisis.” (Source: Dailymail.co.uk)

“Spain’s Socialist government is considering an increase in capital-gains tax as a result of the economic crisis but will not raise tax rates on earned income, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister, said on Monday.

“’If a crisis comes and you then have to develop your social policies, it seems reasonable that an important part of society should make a small effort to help those in difficulties,’ Mr Zapatero said.” (Source: The Financial Times)

“On August 30th, at the meeting on socio-economic issues, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko…said that private businesses should prop up the state and share their super profits with it which resulted from soaring prices.” (Source: caspionet.kz)

“Now, as both France and Spain consider introducing a wealth tax, a group of 50 rich Germans have joined the ‘tax me harder’ movement by renewing their open call to Angela Merkel to ‘stop the gap between rich and poor getting even bigger.’

“In Italy too, one of the country’s richest citizens has come forward to offer to pay more tax….

“Luca di Montezemolo, the multimillionaire Ferrari chairman, made his offer in an interview with the centre-left daily La Repubblica earlier this month.

“In Spain, the Socialist government is reported to be considering the reintroduction of a wealth tax scrapped just three years ago.” (Source: Guardian.co.uk)

My Comment: No transfer of money between various parts of society will help. Undoubtedly, it is necessary to eradicate beggary, poverty, to bring everybody to the level of normal existence. But beyond that, the problem cannot be solved by monetary injections! People do not realize exactly what they want.

Everybody feels the problem of existence in the world that has become unmanageable. But no one sees how to solve this problem because its solution is not at the level of our egoistic desires and thoughts, where we used to solve our life problems. Rather, it is in the ascent above them to the sphere of altruistic relationships.

People still cannot accept the fact that we deal with nature that develops us according to its plan. They consider themselves above it, although everything that is in us has been created by nature, and it is above us.

The reason for this attitude towards nature is that the upper forces of nature are hidden from man, hidden namely because of their perfection, but it seems to man that they simply do not exist, and he is the only master in the world. That is why he has become accustomed throughout history to do whatever he pleased in the world: Everything is permissible, there is no responsibility, and no one demands accountability.

But this time has passed like a carefree childhood. Adult life begins, obliging us to pay for everything, even for the unrealized desires and thoughts. Nature takes into account people’s desires and thoughts. The egoistic ones, to the detriment of others, cause negative consequences, and vice versa, the good ones bring positive results.

Sure, this looks like mysticism and religion, but we will have to think, scrutinize, and discover that we are surrounded by the force of nature, which we have to consider and try to be in balance with as we are familiar with and take into account its particular forces of gravity, electricity, or magnetism. A violation of the laws of nature brings the violator suffering.

As we develop, we are obliged to observe, as growing people, more and more laws. Today, we are required to fulfill the law of balance with nature, not by each of us, but by society as a whole so that the entire humanity takes the form of a unified whole in its mutual connection (mutual guarantee) and thus becomes equal to the general law of nature—to maintain harmony in all parts of this single organism.

Solution: The rich should set aside funds for the education of society in mutual guarantee and the explanation of the new laws of the world,  global and integral ones. This will provide an opportunity to redistribute wealth and excess so as to achieve material balance and spiritual harmony.
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