The protests in London, in anticipation of the G20’s meetings and presentations, are an appeal to the G20 to unite. It was a severe warning to all the governments of the world that the crisis must be solved within the framework of “One Nature, One Country, One World,” at least for their own safety.
In the News (from CNN): “Bankers: Take your TARP money back” There’s a growing sense among some bankers that Troubled Asset Relief Program [$800 Billion] known as “TARP” has become toxic. As a result, they want to bail out of the bank bailout program. “It should be called ‘TRAP,’ not TARP,” said Brian Garrett, chief executive of Bank of the Bay in San Francisco, who is trying to return bailout funding.
They’re especially concerned about the limits on executive compensation – imposed in February, four months after the Treasury started sending out checks. All ‘mega-banks’ that the government forced to take bailout money say they want to return taxpayer funds “as soon as practical.”
In the News (from Bloomberg): “Goldman Sachs Said to Be in Talks to Repay TARP Funds” Bank executives are chafing under increased scrutiny that accompanied the bailout money, as public outrage over bonuses and executive perks intensifies.
My Comment: The highest priority task is to limit the banks’ leeway when it comes to their salaries, bonuses, and fake indexes. Next, they have to be made transparent to society and placed under complete societal and governmental control. Otherwise they will wreck the world with their blind greed.
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In the News (from The Financial Times): “UN panel calls for council to replace G20” The Group of 20 should be replaced by a new Global Economic Council, an advisory panel of senior international economists has said. Under the panel’s proposals, the council, which would be a United Nations body, would become the main forum for setting the agenda for worldwide economic and financial policy.
My Comment: The problem is that under the UN aegis, everything gets politicized and pocketed. Hence, it is doomed to fail. The organization is in dire need of dissolution and replacement.
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A question I received: I don’t feel the crisis in any way. Maybe I’m just lucky?
My Answer: Maybe the crisis is still not felt in some states of the USA, but it will reach these places too! Besides, there have always been people in different areas of the world who did not feel that they were living in this world.
I visited a village in Ireland once which had a few roads leading to different places. I asked someone how to get to the city, and he told me, “I believe it’s down this road.” I said I was surprised because he sounded unsure, so he explained that he’s never been there. It was astounding to see a normal man of about fifty, living in the world today, who has never been outside of his village.
There are some people who don’t know anything about what goes on in the world. They have their bottle of beer and they don’t need anything else. But the crisis won’t go unnoticed even for them, because they won’t have their bottle of beer any longer! Therefore, even they will be forced to unite with others.
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A question I received: Why is the Creator leading the world to an irrevocable state that it cannot cope with?
My Answer: The recognition of evil has to come precisely from this state. Man will not be able to leave his present state and will consider it normal until he starts receiving “blows” that he can no longer cope with inside his egoism. He will then realize this and cry out, “Enough!”
You see how people keep throwing their money into the furnace of banks and funds, as if they’re not thinking at all. The money keeps disappearing, but the charade keeps going on and on.
So, nothing will help except the correction of society itself. But exactly should be corrected? We have to correct the global connection between us, and this connection must include all of humanity. Unless we do this, no other means will be effective.
There may occasionally be moments of respite, and minor fluctuations when things will get better or worse. At some point it may even appear as if the crisis is over. These alternating processes are necessary for people to become more aware, since man is a creature of inertia. Therefore, we may even experience a period of tranquility for a year or two, when everything will settle down as though the crisis has passed.
However, the trend will remain the same, because we’ve already entered a global state where the whole world is globally interconnected. Therefore, the blows will keep coming because of our incorrect relationships with each other.
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In the News (from BBC News): The Group of 20 of the world’s most powerful countries meets in London for a one-day summit on April 2nd. The G20 aims to boost confidence that global leaders are united in tackling the world economic crisis. But even with these so-called “automatic stabilizers,” IMF figures suggest that by 2010, there will only be a weak global stimulus. The world’s poorest countries are likely to be hard-hit by the downturn. At least $50bn more is needed for sub-Saharan Africa to escape the worst effects of the crisis.
In the News (from Reuters): “Who wants what from the G20?”
China – Demands more IMF voting rights and firmer international financial regulation; last week it floated the idea of a new global reserve currency based on IMF special drawing rights, but this drew a cool response.
Mexico – Wants the G20 to strengthen international financial organizations and bolster their support for emerging economies, and to coordinate fiscal measures against the global crisis.
Russia – Wants reform of IMF and World Bank; more say – and more voting power – for emerging economies.
Basic infrastructure is collapsing in Africa and from the entire African continent, only the Republic of South Africa was invited to the G20.
My comment: If only they would:
1. Create a single anti-crisis center, responsible for the global distribution of goods and services necessary for existence
2. Have this center manage all of the world’s monetary, human, natural, and commercial resources
3. Make every country in the world stop blaming one another
4. Force countries to stop the arms race and begin the abolition of the weapons industry
5. Immediately begin a global education using all the media channels
6. Stop any kind of direct or indirect propaganda and coercion in the mass media
7. Give the wide masses a clear explanation of the acceptable, mutual methods for coming out of the crisis
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In the News (from The Bundespraesident):“Berlin Address by Federal President Horst Köhler 24 March 2009” The crisis is now teaching us that destruction lies at the core of freedom that knows no constraints. But the market must have rules and a sense of ethics. That is why it is precisely the crisis that confirms the value of the social market economy. It is more than an economic system. It is a system of values.
My Comment: All the leaders and economists are speaking about a new social regulator – the connection between people, even though they still don’t quite realize what the necessary changes are. Still, what’s important is that the trend has begun; everything else is a matter of time.
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We have revealed an illness, but it still isn’t quite clear what the treatment for it is, so we keep searching. Until we find the treatment, we will continue to feel ill – to experience a crisis. Yet the treatment is gradually being revealed. We know that if humanity reveals a problem or illness, then people will spend decades or even centuries looking for the remedy. In the Middle Ages, the epidemics that broke out in Europe were so great that they killed half the population. But eventually, people found the remedies.
Suffering pushes humanity to look for and find the remedy. It makes people more refined, sensitive, searching, and understanding. One’s desire opens the doors to Nature, and then one finds what he is looking for. There is an answer to everything.
It is the same in our case. As a result of suffering, we will find the remedy to the crisis. This is difficult because the problem is happening in one’s inner world, one’s desire and psyche, and this is something we don’t know how to treat. Lately we see that all the misfortunes happening to humanity are taking place on the psychological level – whether it is divorce, drugs, depression, the relationships between parents and children, the crisis in upbringing, the crisis in science, the crisis in a person’s attitude to the world, or our neglect toward nature. All of this occurs on the level of psychology.
We are quite weak when it comes to overcoming our psychological problems, since a problem can only be solved when one is situated above it. One can then examine it from above and understand it. One’s mind is then able to grasp the problem from all possible angles, and the problem is “grasped” by the consciousness, so to speak. A person studies it, performs an analysis and a synthesis.
However, psychological problems occur on the same level that we are on – the human level. This is why we have a difficult time solving them. If we wish to solve these problems, we will have to rise to a higher level. And we can find out how to do this instinctively as well as consciously, if only we will desire to rise above ourselves. Otherwise, as it says in “The Scroll of Esther,” “That generation will be convicted to death.” Certainly, we won’t agree to this, and therefore we will be forced to solve this problem.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “One Precept,” on 03.05.2009)
A question I received: Gordon Brown recently gave a speech before the United States Congress where he spoke for forty minutes about the need for a global world and a global economy. He said the new economy should be built by the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.” What else should he have said from the tribune?
My Answer: He should have said that he has teachers: the Bnei Baruch group, which can teach all of humanity how to implement this. What does he have besides beautiful words? He has the money and the influence to carry out practical actions, but he lacks content. He only senses the problem, but has no way of dealing with it.
Does he have anything practical to recommend? No. He is like a doctor who’s good at diagnosing the disease. He does an x-ray, blood and urine tests, examines you, and gives you a long list of illnesses that you have. You ask, “Doctor, so what should I do now?” And the doctor replies, “God will help.”
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A question I received: Many people are fearful of the crisis. Could we soon be facing wars, conflicts, and violence?
My Answer: This is a possibility in every country. We see different manifestations of this, various disturbances and troubles in different places. People who don’t have a place to live or food on their table are unable to control themselves – after all, they have nothing to lose. They are capable of doing anything, and when these people unite and fuel one another, they cause a national outbreak.
What can we do about it? This isn’t an enemy we can fight with weapons. Just imagine: you may have thousands of women and children marching down the street, and there is no police force that will be able to stop them.
The situation in America probably isn’t this bad yet. Americans have always been guarded individuals: when individuals have things – everything is good, when they don’t – things aren’t good. But no one complains. They still have money, goods, and food to hand out to the poor and the unemployed.
But soon they will run out of these reserves. People are already asking: where have Obama’s thousands of billions of dollars gone? People don’t feel like the money was well spent.
In Japan the government gave every citizen around $100 so people would revive the market by spending the money. But people immediately hid the money, thinking that they’ll need it later. Nobody went out to shop, as people were afraid to spend money on anything but food.
You see, we don’t have the levers to control the world. Today the government is no longer in control of anything. In the past it was able to regulate these processes through the economy, but today this mechanism no longer works.
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