Opinion (Lars Seier Christensen, co-chief executive officer of Saxo Bank): “There’s a lot of political capital invested in the euro. It is very much a political project rather than an economic project. But at the end of the day, I believe that the challenges are so great that something has to give. And unfortunately, reality has a way in the end of reinforcing itself over policies, and I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen here.”

“’… The euro’s recent rally is illusory and the shared currency is set to fail because the continent hasn’t supported it with a fiscal union.

“‘The whole thing is doomed,’ Christensen said in an interview at the bank’s Dubai office. ‘Right now we’re in one of those fake solutions where people think that the problem is contained or being addressed, which it isn’t at all’” (Source: Bloomberg).

My Comment: I don’t feel like gloating with respect to this issue, but feel only pain when just 20 years ago, on a trip to the French Atlantic coast, I saw big campaign trucks everywhere that had cards and literature about the importance and profitability of the European Union. And I was saying to my companions how impossible it all was because the economy is the CONNECTION between us, and if it is between egoists, then it would not lead to anything good. That is, a human being has to be corrected first. Today, we have come to this result.
[103518]

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Hundreds of years ago the Kabbalists already spoke about the general impending crisis of humanity that is appearing today in Europe in a particularly acute form. At the beginning of the 20^th century Baal Hasulam wrote that at the end of the century, more precisely from the year 1995, a completely new stage would begin, a real stage in the development of humanity. Basically, this period was even born in those days, but it always takes time until a process reaches its realization among the masses of people.

On the other hand, these changes are similar to those changes that take place in a group. And so from the organization of small groups, we can learn what will happen in large blocks like these, like that of the entire European continent.

From the learning material, we know that the moment that people strive to unite, they immediately discover a new level of egoism. Why does this happen? Because when we are found in some stage of development and need to rise to the next level, we can do this only if we overcome our ego.

The next level of development is a greater connection between people. If we connect between us, suppose with the power of 10 kilograms, and then in continuation, suppose, we need to be connected with the power of 100 kilograms. So how is it possible for us to be connected between us with an intensity like this to organize a stronger and more consolidated society in which the upper Light, the force that acts upon us and influences us externally (the Surrounding Light), will be revealed?

For this we need to become egoists between us on our present level, so that all of this ego will be found among us. Then in opposition to it, we will connect with each other, which is to say that we will make a screen above us, so that all of the Light that reaches us will not enter each of us in an egoistic form, but will remain outside, above us, in the form of a community, in the form of a covenant. And then we will feel the collective Light with a collective desire that will connect us. This will be our first spiritual Light, which we call by the name “Nefesh” (“the Light of Nefesh”).

The ego rends and pushes us from within, but in opposition to that, specifically working above it, we compel ourselves to connect. Even though we are all egoists, in spite of this, we unite.

Our unified state is composed of two opposing forces: the egoistic force that separates us causing repulsion, hatred, lack of understanding; and above this, we rise to connection between us.

When these two opposing forces, the negative force on the one hand and the positive force on the other hand, reach a particular tension between them, then in one moment, in the form of a leap, the upper force, the Light, is revealed there. It gives us a feeling of cooperation, a feeling of connection, and together with this, a feeling of existence in an absolutely different space, in another state, called “the upper world.” We begin to feel ourselves beyond space, beyond time, beyond substance, beyond movement, within a world of the forces that run this material world. We need to go out together to a level like this. To rise to it today is our mission.

In a group we see that at the moment we begin to connect with a general common desire, at that particular moment, we get hit. Suddenly a feeling of separation, cooling off, lack of meaning appears: “We don’t need all this…” Many of our friends leave; others, having survived this process of cooling off and rejection, again awaken afterward and a desire for connection is attained.

Together with you, we need to pass through many stages like these in this ascent. We cannot overcome it and pass through it all at once. Suppose we require 150 stages (just an arbitrary number) until we reach that point in which our potential will equal to the Light of Nefesh.

And so we discover within us these two potentials, the negative and the positive; here in this kind of difference between them, the Light is discovered.

This matter is known to us from electronics, from physics, and from other sciences. For example, a lamp comes on when there is enough power for it. If there exists a potential difference (℧), then the Light is revealed, the Light of Nefesh. This is what we must desire in a group.

The same thing happens today for the whole continent, and after that it will spread throughout the world.

In Europe, according to a sign from above, in accord with the program of creation, they have begun to unite. Certainly, all the peoples suppose that this will be useful for them from an economic standpoint; otherwise, it would be impossible to attract people to this in any way. We also enter a group because some future fulfillment attracts us towards it. It is also the same thing here: People feel that they can be together, can be stronger, that this will be more worthwhile for them, and so they begin to unite. But in the process of unification, they suddenly discover that there are numerous hidden obstacles and problems. All of Europe is now found in this state.

Naturally, if the peoples of Europe were conscious of what is truly happening to them, that specifically now they need to desire to unite and to connect, they would do what we are trying to do as a group, meaning, in spite of the circumstances, they would strive to unite somehow. Likewise, they already see that they cannot divide and separate from each other.

With the group a slightly different process takes place, we are divided and again connected. New people come, we go, we come and so forth, or we simply leave for a number of days or weeks (a state exists like this), or are even found within it, but as if we are not found, to the point that we descend alone.

But in Europe, the people who manage the financial and economic connections see that this is impossible, that it is impossible to separate further. We see this in the example of Cyprus, and before then, we saw the example of Greece. And this will continue. There is no escape. It will be necessary to transform, to connect more and more.

But problems await them here, because without understanding what needs to be done, this will be a blind search.

And in general, according to the analogy with a group, it is simply necessary to make an effort at mutual incorporation, mutual unification, mutual connection. Then just as in the group, the entire continent would also find a way out, followed by the whole world rising to the level of the upper world. Nothing special is happening here, this is truly a process of consolidation and connection.
[103447]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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Opinion (Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the MIT Sloan School of Management, author of Enterprise 2.0 and Race Against the Machine (with Erik Brynjolfsson): “As it turns out, when tens of millions of people are unemployed or underemployed, there’s a fair amount of interest in what technology might be doing to the labor force. And as I look at the conversation, it strikes me that it’s focused on exactly the right topic, and at the same time, it’s missing the point entirely. The topic that it’s focused on, the question is whether or not all these digital technologies are affecting people’s ability to earn a living, or, to say it a little bit different way, are the droids taking our jobs? And there’s some evidence that they are. …

“Corporate profits are quite high. In fact, if you include bank profits, they’re higher than they’ve ever been. And business investment in gear, in equipment and hardware and software is at an all-time high. So the businesses are getting out their checkbooks. …

“So, in short, yeah, the droids are coming for our jobs. In the short term, we can stimulate job growth by encouraging entrepreneurship and by investing in infrastructure, because the robots today still aren’t very good at fixing bridges. But in the not-too-long-term, I think within the lifetimes of most of the people in this room, we’re going to transition into an economy that is very productive but that just doesn’t need a lot of human workers, and managing that transition is going to be the greatest challenge that our society faces. Voltaire summarized why. He said, ‘Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.’”

My Comment: If we exclude people’s revolt against machines and technological progress in general, then the only thing that remains is for us to occupy the unemployed—the most reliable and necessary for this—is integral education in which people begin to understand the essence of the era and of the necessary changes that should occur in them and in society.
[103456]

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Question: 10 -12 years ago, when we started dealing with the wisdom of Kabbalah, there were very few groups, and there were very few problems in the world. Now there are many groups and many more problems. Are they interconnected? Or is it because we are uniting that we destroy the global economy?

Answer: No, we are not destroying the global economy. The point is that the economy is being destroyed specifically because the world doesn’t know how to act, and we see it now.

We see how people who have studied so much, who know so much about our world, about the economy, about finances, who control everything, have simply raised their hands and do nothing. They cannot do anything because the system has changed! The world is moving on to another network of connections and the previous network in which they knew which strings to pull and what to do doesn’t work anymore.

They don’t know what to do next so everything remains the way it is. No one is fighting the crisis! Everything goes on the way it has been. If we need to print money, we print it. We have a debt of 15 billion euro, let it be 30 or 100 billion. So what? There is nowhere to run to. Now the rate of unemployment is 10%, it will be 50%. How will we feed the unemployed? Never mind, we will feed them because it is easy to feed the whole world today. This is how everything is solved.

Why? Because no one has any solution to the problems. The family is falling apart, let it be destroyed, what can we do? The number of senior citizens is growing more rapidly than the number of people who work, so what, never mind. This means that everything is neglected, and no one is fighting anything. The fact that different leaders appear before us is simply a game, a theater. In any case, everyone knows that we don’t know what to do, and so we sit idly, not even intending to do anything! This is the best possible solution.

So we are not destroying the economy. On the contrary, we have to show the world that we have to connect, but not economically. Economically we are also connected in a terrible way. See what is happening is Cyprus now! This is only a small example of how mutually connected we are.

We have to show the world how to start our mutual cooperation correctly. It is not on the economic level, but only on the level of the integral education and nothing more than that! So let’s get started.
[103394]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 1

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Opinion (Lars Seier Christensen, CEO of the SAXO Bank): “It is difficult to describe the weekend bailout package to Cyprus in any other way. The confiscation of 6.75 percent of small depositors’ money and 9.9 percent of big depositors’ funds is without precedence that I can think of in a supposedly civilised and democratic society. But maybe the European Union (EU) is no longer a civilised democracy? …

“Depositors in other prospective bailout countries must be running scared – is it safe to keep money in an Italian, Spanish or Greek bank any more? I don’t know, must be the answer. …

“This is a major, MAJOR game changer and the fallout will be with us for a long time to come. I believe it could be the beginning of the end for the Eurozone as this is an unbelievable blow to the already challenged trust that might be left among investors. Talk about a possible own goal.

“Market reaction? it must be very good for gold – and for safe-haven countries like Switzerland, Singapore and economically more healthy non-Euro countries in, for example, Scandinavia. I would think the EURO and associated markets will be undermined by increasing lack of confidence when the full implications become clear for investors.

“This is full-blown socialism and I still cannot believe this really happened.

“Be careful out there…”

My Comment: We are being forced to change all the rules, then the game itself, and then the players, that is, it will force people to correct their nature because they will become convinced that there is no other way out.
[103181]

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Opinion (Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a leading scholar of globalization and economic development): “Nothing endangers globalization more than the yawning governance gap – the dangerous disparity between the national scope of political accountability and the global nature of markets for goods, capital, and many services – that has opened up in recent decades. When markets transcend national regulation, as with today’s globalization of finance, market failure, instability, and crisis is the result. But pushing rule-making onto supranational bureaucracies, such as the World Trade Organization or the European Commission, can result in a democratic deficit and a loss of legitimacy.

“How can this governance gap be closed? One option is to re-establish national democratic control over global markets. This is difficult and smacks of protectionism, but it is neither impossible nor necessarily inimical to healthy globalization. As I argue in my book The Globalization Paradox, expanding the scope for national governments to maintain regulatory diversity and rebuild frayed social bargains would enhance the functioning of the global economy. …

“But the trouble is not just that these global institutions remain weak. It is also that they are inter-governmental bodies – a collection of member states rather than agents of global citizens. Because their accountability to national electorates is indirect and uncertain, they do not generate the political allegiance – and hence legitimacy – that truly representative institutions require. Indeed, the travails of the European Union have revealed the limits of transnational political community-building, even among a comparatively limited and similar set of countries.

“Ultimately, the buck stops with national parliaments and executives. During the financial crisis, it was national governments that bailed out banks and firms, recapitalized the financial system, guaranteed debts, eased liquidity, primed the fiscal pump, and paid the unemployment and welfare checks – and took the blame for everything that went wrong. In the memorable words of outgoing Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, global banks are ‘international in life, but national in death.’

“But perhaps there is another path, one that accepts the authority of national governments, but aims to reorient national interests in a more global direction. Progress along such a path requires ‘national’ citizens to begin viewing themselves increasingly as ‘global citizens,’ with interests that extend beyond their state’s borders.”

My Comment: Since national governments depend on their citizens, integral education will lead to an understanding of global connection and responsibility, causing pressure on national governments.
[102967]

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The global crisis leaves more and more people unemployed. This is not just for economic reasons. The consequences of over consumerism are becoming evident: How many more new products can appear on the market? How much more do we need to buy? There is an end to everything, including consumerism. The desires are changing and people don’t want all that any more.

In the next phase of our evolution, humanity will move on to spiritual work. Everything that we need corporeally will be easily provided by modern technology, scientists, engineers, and a small amount of service people who, by their nature, will be happy to deal with such things. But most people will have to make inner efforts and this will become their “occupation” on the next level of humanity. On the next spiritual level people will connect, be incorporated in one another, and our fictitious world will gradually “evaporate” and disappear, like a cloud on a clear day, until we will be left in a reality of true feelings. This is our evolution and there is nothing we can do about it.

So the world will have to be reorganized. We mustn’t ignore the unemployed. There are already quite a few studies that show how dangerous it is when a person has nothing to do. It leads to conflicts in the family and to divorce; we lose our humanity, and we lose the incentives and the commitments for things that need to be done. When a person doesn’t have to make any efforts, he becomes less than an animal.

Animals are busy doing something from morning to night: looking for food, for a mate, for a place to dwell, and taking care of their offspring. They use the “recreation time” for useful games by which they establish the right connections in the flock, the herd, etc. Have you ever seen an ant doing nothing like a football fan lying on the couch with a bottle of beer and a cigarette?

Today a person has to move to massive spiritual work, to establish the general mutual connection, and to reorganize society, and yet, in the meantime, we do nothing, preferring idle contemplations.

This terrible fall will cost us dearly. It will bring a heavy feeling of bitterness and a person will lose his mind and go wild. The lack of obligations prevents him from acting and leaves him empty, poisoning his consciousness. Besides, he loses his professional skills and the skills to communicate with other people. It’s as if everything in him sinks, disappears, and he turns into a “ghost,” a “zombie,” and not a human being.

This is what will happen to people who would remain idle if we don’t start dealing with them in an organized manner. The modern world believes in democracy and free elections, but what can we expect of the voters? Can they be rational and see things correctly in this situation? Eventually it will force the governments to make changes…
[102783]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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In the News (from Euronews): “It has been a day of industrial action all over Europe.

“In Belgium, hundreds of steel workers blocked border crossings to and from neighbouring countries, furious at plans by the steel giant Arcelor Mittal to slash production threatening more than a thousand jobs.

“In France, PSA Peugeot-Citroen workers occupied the offices of a steel industry managers’ organization as part of an ongoing protest against the planned closure of a car factory in Aulnay near Paris. The plant has been paralysed for eight weeks by a strike.

“Travelers using the airport serving Bonn and Cologne in Germany had delays and cancellations as security staff walked out. It’s part of a long running dispute over contract terms and pay. Dozens of flights were cancelled. Passengers using Berlin’s Tegel airport were also affected.

“There was disruption too at Madrid’s main international airport. About 2,000 workers protested against pay cuts and massive lay-offs at Spain’s national carrier Iberia.

“And tourists hoping for some ancient Greek culture found all public archaeological sites strike bound – including the Parthenon temple at the Acropolis. Workers are angry about a planned restructuring of the Culture Ministry.”

My Comment: The crisis is not in overproduction of goods and services, but in the over-production of people. We are moving into the world where everything will be done by machines, printers, and almost all the people will be unemployed. It will happen gradually, but steadily. There is a crisis of an abundance of goods and people.

Kabbalah described this state of the world a long time ago and offers the following: reduce all the production and services except those necessary for living, free all people who are not needed for the necessary production and services from working, provide mandatory education at open universities of integral education, pay stipends at the places of studies (like a salary adjusting for absenteeism), teach integral interaction, the structure of the world and its development, writing, drawing, singing, etc., and have workshops.
[102319]

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In the News (from Los Angeles Times): “With decades ahead of them in the job market, more than half of millennials stay awake at night chewing over all manner of worries, according to a study.

“Those 18- to 33-year-olds actually stress out more than older generations, the American Psychological Assn. concluded in its new study. Slightly more than 50% said that overwhelming worries disrupted their sleep in the past month.

“A dour economy is top of mind for young people, with work and job stability sending their stress levels soaring. And no wonder — their unemployment rate is 13.1%, well above the overall nation’s 7.8%. …

“Nearly 40% of millennials said their stress shot up in the last year, compared with 33% of baby boomers and 29% of those 67 and older.

“Perhaps reflecting their relative inexperience with the working world, the study found young people were more likely to react to stress with anger or annoyance.”

My Comment: This is only the beginning of another great American problem: a big disappointment in capitalism and in the society of great and equal opportunities, and the collapse of the American dream. There is an urgent need to include the entire population in the “process” of correcting themselves by fostering a correct perception of the new world and society. Otherwise, all the energy of the masses will be aimed at destruction.

Society cannot be left unattended; it needs to be taken care of as if caring for a child; the country must bring everybody to study the behavior in the conditions of the new world: the environment (climate), our nature (the laws of society), and the required change in man’s attitude towards the environment (personal correction).
[102445]

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Question: Lately the price of shares on the stock market are sky high again, the Dow Jones has set a new record high. This of course has an impact on Europe and Japan. How can it be that a certain part in the general system is still getting richer while the others suffer from the crisis?

Answer: The stock market has been on the rise for a long time. The brokers have decided that the crisis that started in 2008 has come to an end. “Indeed, how much longer can we wait if it’s already 2013? Enough, it’s time to raise the new digits on the counter…”

Generally speaking, all the “bubbles” are false and unnatural. The whole modern economy is basically false. It has many indices and indicators, but it’s basically the same: First, the brokers lay the false foundation, and then they build their houses on it until the earth swallows them. After all, today’s economy is not a science; it’s not part of nature.

The real economy is the relationships between people based on the principle of “give and take.” As it says, “Go and make a living from one another.” If we were to establish the correct, true economy, then, in the connection with others, in bestowing upon them and receiving from them, I would discover the Creator, the upper world.

In that sense, the wisdom of Kabbalah can also be called “the economy,” since it explains how to receive correctly, how to make a great profit and fill the vessels, the desires to receive, and to bestow in the best way possible, to safely avoid all the damages, the loss of connection and filling, and in general of everything. To sum up, the optimal economics is the wisdom of Kabbalah.

At the same time, the brokers have no idea about nature and its plans, about how the human desires develop and about the relations between people. They have simply decided to create a certain mechanism and to force it upon others so that they will work and the brokers will get rich. Suppose I manufacture pens, and I don’t care if anyone needs them; by using different tricks, I convince people to buy them and by that bring myself pleasure in terms of money.

The traders don’t take into account the major factors; after all, people’s desires change, the conditions change, and the consumers are fed up. In addition to that, no matter how hard you try to curb the natural development of technology, you will not be able to stop it. Today those at the top want it both ways: They want to automate production, but this leaves people jobless and moneyless, so they cannot buy these products. They have to make a decision: If they want people to go on buying, they should give them money. But you cannot give them money since you are laying them off when you replace them with machines.

As a result of lacking the understanding of these processes and lacking a global vision, we come to the recognition of evil. So today, we have to understand the system that connects us all. Only if we are able to provide for one another correctly and safely, will everyone feel good. After all, what a person needs is pleasure.

So, the question is whether the mechanisms we have built can provide us with pleasure. After all, everything about these mechanisms is artificial and false. The highly lauded figures of the stock market have no basis. It’s all one big game of market players. They can also intentionally cause economic crises.

But there are phenomena that market players haven’t planned. Because they are so confused and have no coordination between them, different things are happening all at once, revealing the flaws in the system. It’s not even about being divorced from reality; this whole business had no real basis to begin with since it was never in conformity with nature. It’s impossible to call it capitalism anymore.

Question: It’s as if they have created a kind of virtual reality in which can impose artificial optimism interspersed with a bit of pessimism so that it will appear more real. As a result, the indexes are rising without having any real basis; optimism itself is enough…

Answer: That’s right; it’s a game that they are running according to their interests. It’s the same in every area, including politics: Those at the top pull the strings, and they are operated by the Creator.

Question: It seems that today the ego has become so sophisticated that it can take advantage of every situation. It is equally effective in taking advantage of the market rises and falls and the crises. Will it end?

Answer: It will come to an end when we are able to teach people the method of mutual guarantee and when they understand that they have no choice. Then the hopelessness will be revealed.

Even today it’s already clear that the stock market figures don’t mean a thing. What is worse is if we take into account the economic situation and the rise in unemployment, the stock market “bubble” can lead to an explosion that the real economy cannot create. After all, people are jobless and it’s a very dangerous situation…

The current rise of the stock market can be prolonged for a while. What’s more, from a spiritual perspective, I see it as a positive thing: Let them carry on since it helps us advance towards correction at our own pace.

On the whole, everything that happens means only one thing: We must hurry. We were given some more time to prepare the dissemination of the method of the true correction of the world. We have to try and be ready as soon as possible. Things are moving so that we will be able to advance and prepare ourselves, but the window of opportunity can suddenly close.
[102103]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/13, ”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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