Entries in the 'Economy' Category

“80% Of The Gold The World Owns Doesn’t Exist”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Wealth Wire): “Chris Powell, Secretary and Treasurer of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee told Bernie Lo on CNBC Asia overnight that central banks are continuing to manipulate the gold market as they are interested in supporting government bonds and the dollar and keeping interest rates low. Powell warns about ‘paper gold’ and says that we ‘try to persuade investors that if they are purchasing gold, they had better get real gold – metal.

“’They should not get ‘paper gold’ and keep it within the banking system.’ He says that ‘there is huge naked short position in gold’ and estimates that perhaps ‘75% to 80% of the gold that the world thinks it owns does not exist and is just a claim on a bullion bank that is underwritten basically by the central banks.’

“With regard to price Powell said that he does not make predictions but he wonders ‘what the value or the price of gold will be if the world ever discovers that 80% of the gold that it thinks it owns – does not exist.’

“’There may not be enough zeros in the world to put behind the gold price then.’

“Powell said that buyers should own gold in ‘your hand’ or in allocated format outside of the banking system.”

My Comment: That’s when people will die for metal! There are plenty of bubbles around us, and there is only one opportunity to blow them away: to introduce integral education and upbringing. It will create in people the correct attitude towards oneself and the world, will allow us to re-establish our relationships and our attitude to the values: personal (food, sex, and family) and social (wealth, power, and knowledge). Their correct combination in each of us will create a possibility for our unity as cogwheels in one integral mechanism, one community in which everyone will feel fulfilled and not deprived by others.
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United Europe Turns To Fascism

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Yuri Gavrilechko, Strategic Culture Foundation): “The fifth year of the global financial crisis reveals the inability of existing institutions to overcome the crisis on the basis of the dominant neo-liberal ideology. Capitalism, as it turned out, is also unable to cope with the problems, generated by it, as once feudalism or socialism of the Soviet kind. As a result, in the near future, we will be able to observe a combination of the old ideological concepts and possibly the birth of new forms and patterns of social organization.

“The failure of multiculturalism in Europe and the strengthening of the crisis have already led to an increase in support for nationalism and socialism. … Because as opposed to socialism, professing internationalism and brotherhood of nations, Fascism and National Socialism was based on the idea of exclusive supremacy of one race over another; it is more logical that they would lay the basis for a pan-European identity. …

“The peculiarity of pan-European fascism might be a symbiosis with the leftists and even the radical left-wing tendencies. … The situation in Germany in 1933 was largely similar to the one that has developed now in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and will very soon become a reality for most EU countries…. Another factor contributing to the popularity of fascism will be the growth of left sentiments in society and the possible reincarnation of communist slogans.”

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, if humanity doesn’t head towards its correction along the good path, it will come to it through the path of suffering that will bring us fascist regimes and global nuclear war that they would start from the powerlessness to overcome the crisis.
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The End Of The Game

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (John Mauldin, President of Millennium Wave Securities): “The reality is they’ve got a massive trade imbalance in Europe. The Southern countries want the Germans to finance it. The Germans want a fiscal Union with control over the budgets. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, they don’t either, but it is coming to an end.

“What we’re seeing is the real end game. We’re coming to the end of government’s ability to borrow money to fund current spending that’s beyond the growth of their economy.

“I actually find that massively bullish because that government funding misallocates capital. So governments are going to have to live within their means. Not just in European countries, not just in Britain, not just in Japan which has its own problems that will be coming to us next year, not just in France which will be the headline in 2 years, but also in the US. …

“Debt has been renegotiated, it’s been printed, defaulted upon, restructured. There are all sorts of ‘re’ words we talk about, but it’s default by another name. It’s what happens if you as an individual have more debt and you have more than you can possibly pay, you have to restructure something or file bankruptcy.

“That’s where Western governments are. They’ve run out of the ability to borrow money to finance their current consumption. This is a good thing that it’s coming to an end. I don’t see this as negative in the longer-term. It’s still going to be a bumpy ride for the markets. It’s certainly going to be (an interesting) ride for the business as usual crowd.”

My Comment: The solution seems simple, proven, but it is not so; we are dealing with the restructuring of society; nature will try us until we recognize the bankruptcy of our egoistic attitude towards the world and the need to change it. We will have to pay not by cutting budgets, but by changing ourselves.
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America Is No Longer The Land Of Opportunity

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist): “U.S. inequality is at its highest point for nearly a century. Those at the top – no matter how you slice it – are enjoying a larger share of the national pie; the number below the poverty level is growing. The gap between those with the median income and those at the top is growing, too. The U.S. used to think of itself as a middle-class country – but this is no longer true. …

“Textbooks teach us that we can have a more egalitarian society only if we give up growth or efficiency. However, closer analysis shows that we are paying a high price for inequality: it contributes to social, economic and political instability, and to lower growth. Western countries with the healthiest economies (for example those in Scandinavia) are also the countries with the highest degree of equality. …

“America used to be thought of as the land of opportunity. Today, a child’s life chances are more dependent on the income of his or her parents than in Europe, or any other of the advanced industrial countries for which there are data. The U.S. worked hard to create the American dream of opportunity. But today, that dream is a myth.”

My Comment: While egoism reigned, America was a country of great (egoistic) opportunities, but since egoism ceased its development and became a crisis, the US has entered the crisis (of egoism), and to get out of it means to correct the egoism of the individual and society to integral relationship (love and bestowal). As soon as we get down to this, we will immediately find out that we have made the only right choice.
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Raise Taxes On The Wealthy Instead Of Cutting Public Expenditure

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)): “There is growing concern that the restrictive approaches of budget consolidation currently pursued in many European countries may not reach their objectives, but risk further exacerbating the crisis. Austerity measures applied across Europe are viewed increasingly critically by international experts and organisations as they can undermine democratic and social rights, in particular for the most vulnerable categories of the population.

“The Parliamentary Assembly should send out a strong signal by calling for a profound reorientation of austerity programmes, ending their quasi-exclusive focus on expenditure cuts in social areas such as pensions, health services or family benefits. Future national action should also include measures aimed at increasing public revenues by taxing higher income categories and property wealth more strongly, by shoring up the tax base and by enhancing tax collection, the efficiency of the tax administration and the fight against tax fraud, tax evasion and tax havens, corruption and the underground economy.

“Current budget consolidation programmes should be further supplemented with measures fostering sustainable economic growth, including the creation of new quality employment and special support to be given to the young generation in the transitional period between education and employment.”

My Comment: The nature of egoistic society is such that if we check the implementation of these good intentions, we will find out that in the end, the wealthy become wealthier and pay less, while the poor become poorer and pay more. This occurs everywhere in all countries and at all times. Not the calls of the authorities, not the direct instructions from the government, not the wishes of the rich themselves will change this trend.

Only the change of the basis of the egoistic society through education can transform it to a more equal one. After all, the development of society on the egoistic foundation is obliged to bring about, involuntarily through sufferings, or consciously and willingly, the change of human nature.
[81623]

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Towards Single Financial Management? It Is Not Too Late

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Christine Lagarde, director of the IMF): “At a meeting with eurozone finance ministers, the director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, spells out plans for more centralised economic control in the 17 countries using the single currency. She says the IMF’s preference is for recapitalisation of banks to be done directly from European bailout funds, rather than via states.”

My Comment: Our egoism closes our eyes and blunts us so much that it did not even let us realize that it is impossible to create a single EU state without centralized control. But it will not work without unifying the entire EU control in one hand, treating all members of the EU as one nation and people.
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“Russia’s Former Finance Chief Sees Full-Blown Crisis in Europe”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Alexei Kudrin, Russia’s former finance minister): “A full-blown economic and financial crisis in the euro zone is inevitable and will develop within a year, Alexei Kudrin, Russia’s former finance minister, said Thursday, adding that a possible way out may be a partial write-off of Spain’s and Italy’s debt, but the political will for that is lacking.

“‘Greece will not be able to fulfill its obligations (towards lenders),’ Mr. Kudrin, who described himself as a pessimist, said at a conference.

“‘A serious financial and economic crisis will hit Europe within a year … with Spain being its next victim, and then possibly Italy,’ he added. ‘The time (for avoiding it) has already past.’”

My Comment: A wise man sees the problems in advance; ordinary people don’t hear that problems are approaching before they are affected physically. In this, they, like children or animals, are underdeveloped.

But the wise ones, even if they see a problem, don’t see its true cause because it is happening in a sublayer, and they see only the external symptoms, like a narrow-minded doctor who diagnoses only by them, and although they constantly make mistakes and blame some special reasons, changing circumstances, etc., it is still at the level of their understanding of the world; there are no other solutions. So, we are drowning.
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“A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (John Perkins, Chief Economist at a major international consulting firm, advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man): “My job as an economic hit man during the 1970s was to enslave nations that had resources our corporations coveted by burdening them with debts they could never repay. We then demanded that they sell those resources cheap, without social or environmental regulations, to our corporations.

“It was an incredibly successful strategy. In essence it created the world’s first truly global empire and the first one that was not built primarily through military occupations. It also transformed geo-politics. The power of elected officials was usurped by those who sit at the top of the multinational corporations (the ‘corporatocracy’).

“This success led to the realization that similar strategies could be applied in the United States in order to emasculate a population that was exerting its democratic rights in ways that threatened the corporatocracy… .

“By 1980, the Reagan administration understood that its most effective weapon to protect corporations against labor movements was debt. Borrowers were deceived into believing that they were paying low interest rates when in fact balloon payments, adjustable rate mortgages, and other technically complex packages resulted in higher overall rates that made it increasingly difficult to break the shackles of debt. …

“We have finally realized that we are serfs of a system that reflects the feudal Middle Ages. Modern-day lords of the castle, the corporatocracy had convinced us – we who live outside the walls and supply all the food and conveniences for them – that if we didn’t pay our “debts” and service their every desire we would be raped and pillaged by soldiers from neighboring castles. But we are no longer buying their lies.

“Across this planet, we have marched into the courtyards of those castles with the message that we are no longer blind. We will not be hoodwinked by their false promises or by their fear tactics. The Occupy movement spans seven continents. Participation expands at seemingly exponential rates, online as well as at the front lines. …

“The corporatoctacy are striking back. They are writing new laws forbidding us to assemble in places like Wall Street. They are attempting to censor the Internet (as they did in Egypt). They will come up with schemes we can’t even imagine.

“Each time they do this we must utilize their energy to inspire and empower us further. Coming from a place where we know we are right, we will employ the aikido of love, compassion, and cooperation to keep expanding our energy, our resolve, and our creative responses.”

My Comment: The method of enslavement will vary, but it will not disappear until human egoistic nature is corrected. That is why all the occupy movements will yield nothing and fade. Salvation is in the education of people, in their correction through the hidden force of nature: It created egoism and it can also correct it.

Enslavement comes from its historic and spiritual source: the Pharaoh who had Jews as slaves. The Pharaoh represents the entire universal egoism, that is why it wanted to beat even death through mummification. Thus a person is a slave of his egoism and remains its slave until he begins to correct himself through the method of integral upbringing.

So today, the current crisis is the time of freeing oneself from the Pharaoh-egoism with the whole world.
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“Hormone Hangovers Spell Financial Doom”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from NewScientist): “The financial crisis of 2007-2008 was a perfect storm of greed and stupidity – and raging hormones may have been at its root. As neuroscientist John Coates argues in The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, hormones such as testosterone affect bankers’ behaviour in ways that mean that financial boom and bust is almost unavoidable.

“Turning to neuroscience after years as a trader with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, Coates has run experiments on the trading floor, documenting how traders’ testosterone levels soar in winning times. Testosterone boosts aggression and self-confidence, aiding males in violent competition. But it also tempts traders and banking executives ‘puffed up with self-importance’ to take ridiculous risks. Boom turns to bust.

Then it is time for hormonal hangover, as testosterone’s cousin, cortisol, fills bankers with anxiety and a sense of imminent danger. After a crisis, Coates suggests, the financial industry becomes a ‘clinical population’ of the psychologically battered, who shun even safe trades.

“If Coates is right – and the evidence he presents is compelling – then the financial crises that so frequently plague capitalism find their roots in human biology, which amplifies both the euphoria of bubbles and the depression of their aftermath. What follows is a simple conclusion – less testosterone would make for stabler markets.

“Time to castrate the bankers? The idea would probably receive widespread support, but Coates suggests another way – encourage more women and older men, and fewer young males, into the financial industry.”

My Comment: The basis for the development of all parts of nature is its purpose: to bring all its components into balance. This striving for balance causes our evolution, and that is why our development is inevitable.

It is possible to change its nature only through realizing the character of our development and its purpose; in this case, we find the force that develops us and understand how we can influence it and not try to interfere in the direction of development (for example, to reverse rivers), but only to join the movement consciously, to experience it as the path of the Light, pleasant and necessary, but not as the path of suffering, bitter and meaningless.
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The Crisis Turns Greeks Mad

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Rueters): “Behind every suicide in crisis-stricken countries such as Greece there are up to 20 more people desperate enough to have tried to end their own lives.

“And behind those attempted suicides, experts say there are thousands of hidden cases of mental illness, like depression, alcohol abuse and anxiety disorder, that never make the news, but have large and potentially long-lasting human costs. …

“In Greece, suicide rates are already rising rapidly, albeit from a low starting point. Suicides rose by 17 percent between 2007 and 2009, and by 40 percent in the first half of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010, according to a report in the Lancet medical journal last year. …

“The risk, according to some public health experts, is that if and when Greece’s economic woes are over, a legacy of mental illness could remain in a generation of young people damaged by too many years of life without hope.

“’Austerity can turn a crisis into an epidemic,’ said David Stuckler, a sociologist at Britain’s Cambridge University who has been studying the health impacts of biting budget cuts in Europe as the euro crisis lurches on. …

“Youth unemployment in Greece is more than 50 percent and evidence of peoples’ disaffection is becoming more visible. …

“According to a paper prepared for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2011, the economic consequences of mental health problems – mainly in the form of lost productivity – are estimated to average between 3 and 4 percent of gross national product in European Union countries.

And because mental disorders often start in young adulthood, the loss of productivity can be long-lasting, experts say.”

My Comment: There are no suicides in Africa although people die from hunger there; however, Scandinavia has the highest suicide rate. This suggests that employment or income cannot explain depression: It comes from inner emptiness, from the new level of revealed desires that cannot be satisfied in our world. They can be satisfied only by corresponding fulfillment—the feeling of the next level of existence. Humanity is in search of Kabbalistic knowledge, knowledge about the true picture of the world in which we live that gives us an answer about the meaning of life, and no income can shut up that void. And poverty is just a catalyst.
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