Opinion (Michael Schuman, correspondent for TIME, author of The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth):“Asia in the latter decades of the 20^th century witnessed perhaps the most remarkable record of poverty alleviation in human history — all thanks to the very capitalist tools of trade, entrepreneurship and foreign investment. … Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes.

“A growing dossier of evidence suggests that he may have been right. It is sadly all too easy to find statistics that show the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. … But the consequence of this widening inequality is just what Marx had predicted: class struggle is back. Workers of the world are growing angrier and demanding their fair share of the global economy. From the floor of the U.S. Congress to the streets of Athens to the assembly lines of southern China, political and economic events are being shaped by escalating tensions between capital and labor to a degree unseen since the communist revolutions of the 20^th century. …

“So far, though, Marx’s revolution has yet to materialize. Workers may have common problems, but they aren’t banding together to resolve them. … Protesters, says Jacques Rancière, an expert in Marxism at the University of Paris, aren’t aiming to replace capitalism, as Marx had forecast, but merely to reform it. ‘We’re not seeing protesting classes call for an overthrow or destruction of socioeconomic systems in place,’ he explains. ‘What class conflict is producing today are calls to fix systems so they become more viable and sustainable for the long run by redistributing the wealth created.’

“Despite such calls, however, current economic policy continues to fuel class tensions. … That leaves open a scary possibility: that Marx not only diagnosed capitalism’s flaws but also the outcome of those flaws.”

My Comment: Egoism will grow to such a size that the force to rise above it —people will feel themselves in it, like in the Egyptian bondage, and will be obliged to get out of it —to switch to a life in the property of mutual bestowal, care, equality, and then to “love thy neighbor as yourself.” Nature leaves us nothing else! The question is only in the transition to a new level of existence—through awareness (integral education and upbringing) or through hard struggles.
[104142]

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Question: I don’t believe that it is possible to connect because everyone worries only about himself. For example, my car broke down so now I can’t get to work and make a living. If you call for unity, why don’t you collect the money I need to fix the car? Why doesn’t this happen?

Answer: This indicates that it is impossible to fulfill the connection in our world by certain individual actions. If I am in a shattered state, I cannot discover any corrected parts there. This is clear, so what else do you want? You will not find any signs of connecting for the benefit of others in this world.

It isn’t just a connection that is good for my ego, when I connect with someone else to profit at his expense. It is about a totally different connection that doesn’t exist in this world. So your complaints are invalid. It is true that our world is opposite to unity and that everything in it exists according to the laws of give and take, according to capitalistic principles. Modern democracy means that everyone is allowed to take care of his or her own welfare.

Democracy was limited in socialist Russia; there were limits to how much a person was allowed to think about himself, because he was otherwise obliged to think about the society. Capitalist democracy offers a person the freedom to do as he wishes and to profit in any way he feels like. If you aren’t directly harming society, then it is fine; this is democracy.

The first step towards the correction of the world is through the education of the people. Education should precede everything; otherwise, we will not be able to fix the system. Education should correct people so that they will want to change the social priorities by themselves to bring about social balance, a more or less equal standard of living, and to gradually organize everything. Changes should be according to the desire and development of the majority, and should meet the general agreement; this is called true democracy.

Without social changes you cannot change people and society. After all, in today’s corrupt society, if you are don’t have a car that you need in order to make a living, you will die of hunger. This is the world you are living in. if you want to start changing it, please start studying integral education. I am offering you a process of correction, but you cannot come complaining to me about the flaws of this world and demand that I correct them for you.

Besides, you don’t even want to correct them—you want to go on living with these defects—but only to steal for yourself from the united society that I am offering you, to take from it to your world with your shattered society. This of course will lead to nothing. This is precisely the case when the impurity (Klipa) wants to adhere to Holiness and exploit it.
[117476]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Opinion (Enrico Letta, Prime Minister of Italy): “It is becoming increasingly clear that if Europe is to overcome its crisis, business as usual will not suffice. …

“The European Commission’s recent decision to grant member states some flexibility for productive public investment linked to EU structural funds is a welcome step in this direction. … The second issue is the need to take further steps toward closer integration within the eurozone. …

“But, to do so, we will need to make EU institutions more efficient, with better regulation and a lower administrative burden. Common institutions are needed to ensure that all EU countries’ interests are protected, and to act as a bridge between eurozone and non-eurozone member states.

“Frankly, the functioning of the EU and its institutions during the crisis has been a part of the problem. For many people, EU decision-making is opaque, inefficient, and removed from democratic control.

“Most worrying, the crisis has challenged the very idea of European integration. … There is nothing worse than letting people believe that European integration is something that proceeds by stealth, a journey driven by invisible and uncontrollable forces. The EU cannot last unless it is built on its citizens’ explicit commitment.

“Today, we have a chance to remodel Europe. …The choice is clear, and it will have to be made sooner rather than later.”

My Comment: Nothing good will come from Euro-constructors; they will only deepen the crisis by directing it to the path of suffering instead of correction—the correction of human nature; only it must be corrected so that everything in the world becomes balanced, kind, positive… And they are still trying to deal with the crisis by external means, applying patches, which even before being attached fall apart and new patches are required.
[114406]

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In the News (from The Washington Post): “The five-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy is this weekend, and the Treasury Department—where the response to the crisis that failure spurred unfolded—has issued a document that amounts to its take on what has happened since then. It includes some terrific graphs that add up to a visual history of the world’s financial palpitations over the last several years.

“On a number of measures of how the economy has done since then, there is considerable progress—but many key measures, like unemployment, commercial lending, and household wealth, are not back to where they were pre-crisis.

“Now, for a little economic perspective, we’ll add a couple of graphs of our own. First, here’s the employment-to-population ratio. As the graph in the upper right quadrant above shows, the unemployment rate has been coming down steadily since roughly the start of 2010. But a large portion of that is due to people dropping out of the labor force. If you look at the actual number of people with jobs, relative to the whole population, a different pattern emerges: It plummeted during the recession, and has rebounded hardly at all since then.”

My Comment: We have been evolving egoistically over thousands of years and have reached a matured society; social relations are in confrontation with the unified nature. Our egoism has reached the limit and has begun to degenerate. We treat the planet on which we exist thoughtlessly. And we believe this situation can continue and evolve, that is, society, the environment, etc. to worsen.

But our opposition to nature is like the private attitude of nature toward the person. When a person reaches the limit of his egoistic growth, he experiences emptiness, causing feelings of depression, even despair. A large part of humanity is already in this state, although we do not want to admit this.

Many people are in a subconscious sense of the meaninglessness of existence. Very few have a desire to find the meaning of life, caused by the “point in the heart.” We who have found the cause of the crisis and the path that nature shows us are required to disclose it to everyone.
[116826]

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Opinion (Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former International Monetary Fund chief): “Offshore zones exert the most destructive influence on the global financial system, former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in an interview with Itar-Tass and Rossiya 24 TV channel.

“He expressed an opinion that these zones had not been eradicated over the lack of political will. ‘Offshore zones affect the global financial system, they are its cancer cells,’ he said. ‘It is well known that big enterprises find the loopholes to escape paying taxes that are absolutely legal with the use of offshore zones. At the same time, offshore zones are used not only by rich people, enterprises and the financial system. Offshore zones are advantageous to governments, therefore they exist until today.’

“Focusing on the fight against offshore zones that had been repeatedly declared by many world leaders, Strauss-Kahn noted that these statements contradicted real practice of many countries that use offshore zones in their interests.

“Strauss-Kahn said he kept an eye on world leaders’ statements on this issue, but these words had not been justified by deeds so far. ‘In reality nothing or practically nothing has happened,’ he said. ‘The problem of offshore zones – economic system’s cancer cells – lies not in the shortage of technical means, but in the lack of political will that can eradicate this phenomenon.’”

My Comment: Egoism obscures an objective vision of the truth. They will not be able to overcome it themselves since, as it is said, “the kings’ hearts are in the Creator’s hands.” And He will not let them go, will not set them free from egoism. That’s why the hopes of the masses that their leaders will change for the better are to no avail.

They will change only if the masses stop demanding change from them, but rather change themselves. This is the only way they will force their rulers to change, through the Creator, by getting closer to Him themselves.

Therefore, although we urge authorities to implement integral education, it will spread and be realized specifically from the bottom up. This does not apply to school systems; there we should try to go from the top down because the crisis is felt at all the levels of the education system.
[116477]

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The Torah, “Exodus,” (Mishpatim), 22:24: If you lend money to one of my people, the poor of your people, it should not be like a business deal for him, don’t impose usury upon him.

A person doesn’t need to profit at the expense of others. Everything must be measured and weighed precisely according to the amount that each one is prepared to give to someone and to take from him, for ultimately all need absolutely to reach mutual connection and wholeness.

Therefore, all the laws that speak about relationships between people are based on the connection to one, complete spiritual matter, which means, a mutual harmonious whole. Suppose that you are working for me as a gardener and I work for you as a carpenter, there must be absolutely equal compensation. And it was said precisely, “Go and make a living from each other,” that is mutual. Therefore, all of us were created with different characteristics.

Thus, I cannot profit from you and you cannot profit from me. Rather, we can only exchange our production. From this are derived all the rest of the main laws that we will get in the future, we and all humanity. These are laws of absolute equality, equal allocation and wages, an equal standard of living where there are no differences between people—rich or poor, lucky or unlucky, and so forth.

Question: However, the sentence, “If you lend money to one of my people,” is liable to arouse a negative attitude about Jews.

Answer: This is speaking about spiritual concepts, about spiritual laws.

The Torah doesn’t talk about relationships among people in our world, rather only about the manner in which people yearn for equivalence of form with the Creator through the link between them, creating a general mutual characteristic similar to the characteristic of bestowal of the Creator and discovering Him within this internal characteristic. Therefore, it says, “my people,” meaning every person who yearns for this goal without any connection to his origin.
[114866]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/27/13

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In the News (from Bloomberg): “Imagine yourself betting on the long-term survival of two types of people. One is the classic egoist, focused and ruthless. The other is more selfless, willing to help fellow humans without any evident gain. Who will be more successful?

“For anyone steeped in the prevailing thinking of our era, the obvious winner is the egoist. Darwinian evolution and the lore of modern capitalism tell us that only fierce competitors survive. Altruists, the game theorists teach us, are mathematically incapable of achieving dominance. Acts of cooperation are either errors born of ignorance or purely selfish strategic moves aimed at getting something of greater value.

“The idea that biological competition favors the greedy, creating the ultrarational and incentive-driven Homo economicus, remains at the core of the models economists use to understand the world.

“Problem is, the ‘hard-headed,’ supposedly scientific take on human behavior bears little relation to reality. An overwhelming body of research demonstrates that helping behaviors (or, as economists like to say, ‘other-regarding preferences’) are the norm in human interactions around the globe. This raises the question: If it really does pay to be greedy, why do humans act differently?

“So far, there’s no definitive answer. But there is some evidence that rational self-interest isn’t always the best strategy. In conditions of harsh competition, Homo economicus might not prevail.

“In many simulations, the nice species ended up doing better than Homo economicus. How? The cooperative types tended to cluster and interact with one another preferentially, thereby benefiting from each other’s selfless behavior. The researchers called the winning species Homo socialis — quite rightly, as it isn’t blind to the potential of social interactions to enhance well-being.

“The take-home point is that Homo economicus is an oversimplified caricature who, in many situations, fails to benefit from real possibilities. Greed isn’t good, as Gordon Gekko famously said in the film “Wall Street.” In many cases, it’s not even very smart.”

My Comment: Studies, though far from complete, are right. The question is how to bring these 7 billion egoists to reason? The method of integral education offers a means of correcting human nature. Undoubtedly, sooner or later, meaning after having suffered, we all will begin to see the need of its realization.
[115779]

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In the News (from CNNMoney): “The U.S. has more than 2 million missing households, thanks largely to 18 to 34-year-olds stuck living with the parentals.

“The share of 18 to 34-year-olds living with their parents rose from about 27.6% before the Great Recession in 2007 to above 31%, where it remains today, according to an analysis by Trulia, a real-estate website. Millennials have contributed to the sharp decline in household formation, which likely will take a while to return to normal.

“Until recently, hedge funds and private equity firms drove the U.S. housing market’s recovery, buying a shrinking pool of foreclosed and distressed homes to rent. It seemed like a lucrative investment, given that rents were rising while homeownership fell to record lows.

“But as big investors turn into landlords, it’s worth asking if any considered how long it could take before junior finally gets a place of his own.

“Rents for single-family homes have now risen slower than property prices. This comes as investors flood the market with homes for lease, but it also comes as fewer young adults — generally a key market for rentals – create homes of their own.”

My Comment: The crisis will force us to live a rational life in everything. For the meantime, we do not feel it yet, we are still consuming past supplies….
[115950]

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In the news (from Casey Research): “The contrast between mainstream academic economics and “real world economics” has always been stark, but today the disconnect is so enormous that it seems the two have nothing at all in common. If you were to ask Paul Krugman and Doug Casey how to fix what ails our economy, you’d get two diametrically opposed answers. …

“Mainstream economics relies heavily on mathematics, whereas real-world economics shuns it.

“In the hard sciences like physics or chemistry, fields based on immutable natural laws, focusing on math produces the best results. Economics, on the other hand, is a social science and attempts to explain human behavior—arguably the most fickle of actions, and no more mathematically quantifiable than the exact degree of mortification when throwing up on the dress of your 12^th-grade crush at a high school reunion. Which, of course, has never happened to anyone we know.

“In the hallowed halls of academia, you need not be correct to be useful. In the world of business, if you’re wrong more often than you’re right, you won’t stay in business for long. In contrast, academic economists can and have made very successful careers out of being apologists for the regime. No matter that they’ve been dead wrong in virtually every forecast they’ve ever made: as long as their forecasts align with their peers’, they can collectively claim, for example, that no one could have ever seen the financial crisis coming. …

“My guess is that academics are bitter about this fact, and believe that because the free market doesn’t adequately reward them, there must be something wrong with it. They correctly understand that oftentimes, the only way for them to obtain a lot of money is to steal it via the government; and because that principle applies to their line of work, it must apply to all others too. …

“Mainstream economists believe that aggregate demand—the total demand for goods and services in the economy at a given time and price level—is the wellspring from which all prosperity emerges, and so anything that increases aggregate demand must be positive, even otherwise wasteful government spending. Economists also use these as an excuse to make laughably rosy forecasts.”

My Comment: There is the elite above economists who dictates to them what to do. It could be said as was once said by the Soviet elite about cybernetics: “Economics is the whore of imperialism.”
[115650]

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Question: It has happened since ancient times that money lenders were mostly Jewish. It is believed that they specifically started the matter of collecting exorbitant interest.

Answer: It isn’t high interest or compound interest, the essence of which is now well understood by economists. Today it exists in any bank, in any business. The Jews began to collect interest because they knew how to correctly calculate the debt. Let’s suppose that I give you 100 dollars and you need to return the same amount to me the next day, but you return it to me after 20 days. So then, how much do you need to return? If you had immediately returned the money to me, then I could have invested it in a business and could have profited from it tomorrow, the next day, and so on, according to the cumulative calculation.

Thus, you need to compensate me for the amount that I lose because of you. The interest is not like the bank interest. If this amount wasn’t invested in circulation, then you wouldn’t owe me anything. But since I take it away from the circulating money, then you simply need to compensate me on what I lost.

Let’s suppose that with the same 100 dollars that I loaned you, I could have opened a line to manufacture cups and instead of $100, I would earn $200 a month. This means that you need to return $200 and there is no interest here. If you don’t return the money in time, but only after 2 months, then you need to return to me what I could have earned during those months with that same $100.

It’s the right move. There is no interest here! If the banks charge interest in addition, it’s because they exist on the account of interest, and it’s a totally different issue. One must differentiate between the two.
[114862]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/27/13

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