Opinion: (David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff): “Rosenberg says the US economy is in a modern day depression similar to what Japan has suffered from for the last 20 years.

“Rosenberg says that we’re just 4 years into a depression that will likely last 7-10 years. He says the economy is likely to begin contracting again in 2012 and that the employment situation is going to deteriorate further.”

My Comment: It is an incorrect comparison. If Japan was going through an individual depression, we are experiencing a global one. It’s global not only in scope, breadth, and depth, but also because it affects all aspects of our life, which requires a restructuring of social relations, that is, a transition to a different social system. It is unrealistic to expect that we will come out of the crisis, and it is unreasonable to think that we will return to the former way of life and governance.
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In the News: “Two-thirds of the young people in court [charged over the August riots in England] were classed as having some form of special educational need, compared to 21% for the national average.

“More than a third of young people who were involved in the riots had been excluded from school during 2009-10 – this compares with Department for Education records showing 6% exclusions for all Year…” (Source: BBC)

“The situation in the U.S. is not better. The consequences of saving on education are already being felt. The latest crisis proves that those who stop investing in education may lose everything.” (Source: mk.ru)

My Comment: It is necessary to teach everybody regardless of their age, gender, and occupation about the new world, new social conditions, and the need for mutual guarantee. Otherwise, we really can lose everything!
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Question: I receive the same question from many places in the world when our friends who disseminate our material about the new forms of the future society, they are being asked whether they are actually ready to build such small model settlements themselves?

Answer: No, because we are a scientific, educational organization. Our goal is to teach and educate the public through materials about mutual guarantee, unification, and a society of mutual balance. We only want one thing: to create a virtual, international basis for education and upbringing, a university that prepares educators and lecturers.
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Question: Do you think that the current crisis is economic or financial?

Answer: In general, I think there is a big difference between economists and financiers who only think where to invest the capital in order to profit the most.

Economics studies the interaction between the producers, distributors, and consumers of different economic sectors, the connection between consumers and manufacturers, and describes the supply and demand. Because it’s a reflection of the egoistic connections between us, economics (as a result of its development and understanding of the new integral interaction between all producers and consumers) has to describe the new structure of their mutual relationships.

It has to characterize this new system in the form of a balanced system of relationships, the middle line, a society of reasonable consumption that produces all that’s necessary for a comfortable existence of every individual, according to their specific needs, but not more than that, and that reaches and maintains the balance between each person’s bestowal to society and his or her consumption (reception).
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In the News (from MSNBC): “The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America’s unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

“Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America’s 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

“Congress is expected to decide by year’s end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

“The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

“Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They’ve had no job for more than 99 weeks. They’re no longer eligible for benefits.

“Their options include food stamps or other social programs. Nearly 46 million people received food stamps in August, a record total. That figure could grow as more people lose unemployment benefits.

“Government unemployment benefits weren’t designed to sustain people for long stretches without work. They usually don’t have to. In the recoveries from the previous three recessions, the longest average duration of unemployment was 21 weeks, in July 1983.

“But the economy has remained so weak that an analysis of long-term unemployment data suggests that about 2 million people have used up 99 weeks of checks and still can’t find work.

“Congress has extended the program nine times. But it might balk at the $45 billion cost. It will be the first time the Republican-led House of Representatives will vote on the issue.”

My Comment: Turning the unemployed into students who take courses on Integral Society will prevent discontent, raise their awareness of what is happening, encourage them to participate actively in creative processes, and bring them to the point when they won’t rebel, but build. The program exists and was proven in action.
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Opinion: (Mark Buchanan, from Bloomberg): “The European nations are linked in a network of debts, as Bill Marsh recently illustrated in the New York Times with a beautiful piece of graphic art. Greece and Italy are prominent; Ireland, Portugal and Spain lurk ominously nearby. France and Germany seem exposed, too, as does the U.S.

“The image is like a complex wiring diagram for a ticking debt bomb. Yet what it shows may be less important than what it leaves out: a largely invisible network of ties among institutions around the world, which could ultimately cause global financial chaos.

“But these undisclosed ties matter a lot. They were the primary reason the U.S. government needed to intervene in 2008 to prevent the collapse of insurance giant American International Group Inc.

“The AIG case illustrates an important paradox that looms again in today’s European debt crisis.

“…when the connectivity is relatively low, if one bank suddenly goes bankrupt, the repercussions aren’t so serious; the failure causes problems for a few other institutions but doesn’t generally propagate too far.

“However, with rising connectivity… things change dramatically. Beyond a certain connectivity threshold, attempts to share risk actually increase the likelihood that a bank will go under.

“So many pathways are created along which trouble can spread that system-wide collapse becomes more likely. The web of risk-sharing connections within which an institution operates only gives an illusion of security.

“What reduces risk for individual institutions in small quantities spells trouble for the larger banking system when pushed too far. This is especially worrying when you consider that the number of CDS contracts outstanding on European sovereign debt has doubled in only the past three years, even after the AIG catastrophe.

“The explosion of unregulated and largely hidden CDS contracts was made possible by financial deregulation in 2000, and it has made the financial system more risky. Their unrestrained use – especially with little knowledge of who is doing what – looks like a recipe for disaster.”

My Comment: The Angel of Death appears before a person with a drop of poison on the tip of the knife blade. He offers it to the person—and it appears so sweet that the person can think of nothing else and is forced to open his mouth. He swallows the drop of poison and dies, not being able to resist illusory pleasure.…
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Opinion (Michael Khazin, an economist, from marker.ru): “Russia’s economy is dependent on the world’s. And if the global crisis continues to grow and oil prices keep falling, the result will be a greater financial ‘hole.’ We do not have a self-sustaining industrial core and are not food self-sufficient.

“If high inflation begins in the U.S. and Europe, then due to fixed oil pricing, if oil prices do not fall, the food prices will increase dramatically. That is, the income of some segments of the population will drop. This sounds like the story of Egypt and Tunisia, where the revolution took place because a greater part of the population spent 80 percent of income on food.

“Now, any actions provoke a negative situation. Nothing depends on Russia. For Russia, the increasing role of imports is a disaster because the entire industry, including food and consumer goods, is imported. Prices are rising, but the state cannot do anything.

“It will become much more difficult for domestic producers because the pressure of imports will be higher. And Russia has nothing to export.”
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In the News (from The Bob Tuskin Radio Show): “Global Depression grips world economies. Destructive polices fueled today’s crisis. Conditions are fast coming to a head.

“Throwing good money after bad delays decision day at the price of far greater trouble on arrival. D-Day will shake world economies. It may, in fact, be months away, perhaps in 2012.

“Perhaps Greece is the canary in the coal mine. The country’s bankrupt. Only its obituary isn’t written. Its citizens are being impoverished. Anger rages in Athens. Revolutionary sentiment may explode any time, sending shock waves across Europe.

“Others in troubled countries aren’t far behind, including in America where growing thousands rage against a system destroying their livelihoods and futures.

“On October 16, the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin (GEAB) headlined its latest economic assessment, ‘Global systemic crisis – First half of 2012: Decimation of the Western Banks,’ saying: Second half of 2011 has global economies heading for ‘unstoppable….geopolitical dislocation(s), characterized by the convergence of monetary, financial, economic, social, political and strategic crises.’

“As a result, expect profit ‘freefall, balance sheets in disarray, with the disappearance of trillions of (dollar) assets,’ compounded by growing public anger, so now ‘the scaffold has been erected’ to eliminate 10 – 20% of Western banks.

“Progressive Radio News Hour contributor Bob Chapman calls debt problems ‘endemic worldwide. We are in a major financial crisis.’ Out-of-control debt is the problem. Much of it can’t be repaid. More of it makes things worse. Serious trouble looms.

“Daily rumors suggest plans to save Eurozone countries from crisis. ‘All are bogus to keep stock and bond markets from collapsing. There is no way out for Europe nor for the entire financial system.’ No one will admit the system is broken.

“In his article headlined, ‘The End of History,’ Paul Craig Roberts wonders how Washington will finance its growing empire given enormous budget deficit constraints. Only money printing provides it. Inflation inevitably results.

“Based on how calculated decades earlier, economist John Williams has it at 11.5%.

“In the new millennium, political Washington destroyed rule of law standards, public accountability, and ‘every moral principle to achieve (global) hegemony.…’

“At the same time, it showered Wall Street and other corporate favorites with trillions of handout dollars, wrecking America’s economy in the process.

“Has it also ended America’s chance to rule the world, or will it engineer a last hurrah global war to try? With lunatics running the asylum, don’t bet they won’t, at the risk of destroying humanity entirely.”

My Comment: Nature puts pressure on us from every side, showing that we cannot come out from this state by means of our mind and experience. The only way is upward: We have to correct ourselves, and from there, once we understand the situation, we have to correct social relationships, and then political, economic, and family connections in society. It is possible to build, and not to destroy, namely on the basis of understanding what is happening.
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In the News (from RIA Novosti): “The experts of the Innovation in Economic Education Center are trying to understand the causes and consequences of the modern global financial crisis. According to the participants of the project, the development of the crisis will be determined by the destruction of the old economic structures and the emergence of the new ones.

“As a result, the current financial, economic, and political institutions will either be restructured in accordance with the requirements of the growth of new industrial and technological systems or cease to exist. The crisis will have a different impact on different countries, depending on the combination of the state of scientific and technological capacity and effectiveness of economic policy. It can be disastrous for some countries and regions and manageable for others.”

My Comment: Undoubtedly, all state and social institutions will change in the near future: Either they will break down or we will cleverly change them into global ones and make them unite us.
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Question: As Baal HaSulam writes in his article “Mutual Guarantee,” I have to take care of all the needs of another as take care of my own. I cannot satisfy even my own needs. How can I deal with someone else’s?

Answer: Starting to really care about each other, we naturally let go of “excesses.” After all, if I aspire to bestow to the other, how much do I need for myself? I need just enough to be able to act for bestowal. Basic necessities are enough for me, while I have an inexhaustible source of energy. The Light, not its tiny spark, supports me, and thus all kinds of problems vanish.

The Light provides everything in the corrected system. We think about how to build new relationships, how to calculate everyone’s needs, how to heal the agonizing economy, and so on. And in reality, we first of all need correction. According to Baal HaSulam, a new society should consist mostly of corrected people.

If you are in such a society, if you hold this course, if the upper Light raises you from one degree to another, then you know how to arrange everything. Moreover, everything is arranged by itself. You will not have to carry the world on your shoulders: The upper Light will do everything necessary. It is doing this even now, only without your knowledge, against you. There is no other force but the Light. Just open the door, and everything will be settled.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarante)”

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