News Report (translated from Scepsis.ru): The recent years, dubbed the “era of globalization,” will not go down in history as years of prosperity. They will be studied (if there will be someone left to study them) as a time of bloody regional wars, the growing poverty of the Third World, and the crisis of the Western middle class; a time when technological progress and financial speculation brought outrageous profit to tens of thousands, while casting hundreds of millions to the bottom of the social ladder.

The current crisis will be no exception: as we speak, some are already making plans to ensure that the losses suffered by the financial speculators will be reimbursed at the expense of regular citizens and debtors from poor countries.

My Comment: It all depends on how you view the crisis. Kabbalah views it as the beginning of goodness – as the revelation of the evil that is our egoism, the revelation that egoism is the one and only source of evil in our lives. It is the reason why we only perceive a tiny, negligible fraction of our eternal existence. This revelation, that egoism is evil, will be followed by a renunciation of it, and then by the correction of human egoism to bestowal and love.

We will then feel our existence as eternal harmony, called the Upper World or Paradise. And we will feel it both during the life of our physical body and after it dies. So let us accelerate this process by studying the method of our correction.

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I had two conversations that were recorded for the TV show, The Butterfly Effect. The topics discussed were, “Changing Our Direction” and “The New Global Order.” Speaking with me was Zalman Shuval, one of the owners of the Bank of Jerusalem and former Israeli ambassador to the USA.

Related News Story (from Financial Times): “Turmoil needs more effective solutions” Huge bank rescue plans co-ordinated three months ago by many governments were meant to let confidence recover. But governments and banks have had to respond to a renewed outbreak of fear. Anglo Irish Bank, nationalized on Thursday, and Commerzbank, given €10bn by Germany’s government last week, are among the institutions all but overwhelmed as measures once seen as dramatic have proved insufficient.

My Comment: For now nobody yet understands the fact that we are now in a different “coordinate system,” where everything operates in an integrated manner. Now, the only things that will work are those aimed at bestowal and the good of everyone. The rest is doomed to fail, maybe not immediately, but in the near future. We can’t do it all at once, but gradually we must learn about the new world we now find ourselves in! However, for now, people don’t believe me.

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News Report (from The Times): “A tidal wave of discontent threatens China” The Chinese Government announced yesterday that exports had fallen at their fastest rate in a decade. China’s exporters are collapsing, pulling down other businesses with them. According to some serious statisticians, the unemployment rate may have already passed 20 per cent. This makes the severity of the economic crisis in China much sharper than in the US and Europe.

Following in the footsteps of the US Government, the Chinese Government in November announced a four trillion yuan ($600 billion) public spending package to get the country out of the slump. But this won’t work in China. If the Chinese Government does not take a New Deal approach, it risks the Chinese people revolting and overthrowing those in power. Across the country there is mounting evidence of popular discontent turning to violence.

My Comment: The crisis is unfolding completely differently in free countries and in totalitarian countries. The closer a country’s structure is to free development, the calmer the unfolding of the crisis will be, and the quicker its people will realize the cause of the crisis and how to come out of it: through free correction of every person and all of us together.

In the free countries, a person is used to taking care of himself, and therefore he perceives the need to change differently. He takes it as his personal concern, rather than transferring the responsibility for the needed changes to the government. Because the people in the free world have this psychological preparation, they have an advantage over the people who grew up in countries with restricted freedom (responsibility).

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News Report (from the International Herald Tribune): “The chance for a new world order” by Henry A. Kissinger The very unsettled nature of the international system generates a unique opportunity for creative diplomacy. … Every country will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being.

My Comment: Compatibility is being imposed on us by the very nature of the crisis. We have to stop picking fights with each other, like little kids. We must realize that we are faced with the question of mankind’s survival.

There is just one answer: for everyone to unite in one system, on equal terms; to be as one body or one family in order to attain balance with nature. This is the only priority, and we shouldn’t try to invent any other. Learn from nature!

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News Report (translated from InoPressa): An Internet store is selling stale products for a third of the price. This is legal in Great Britain, and the number of people willing to consume expired goods just to save money is growing at an enormous rate.

My Comment: Why eat food that has expired!? We have to produce the exact amount of goods necessary, so we won’t have to destroy them. The crisis will teach us the best way to treat nature, life, and the integral system of nature and society. It will teach us to produce and consume only what is necessary for the body, and to direct all the “extra” energy toward bringing all of humanity to one level of bestowal and love, both physically and spiritually.

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News Report (from Reuters): “UK advertising budgets cut at record rates” British marketing budgets were revised sharply lower in the fourth quarter… The Bellwether Report said companies had cut back on spending after seeing their financial prospects deteriorate at a record pace. Hardest hit in the fourth quarter were main media advertising.

My Comment: Consumption will continue to decrease; there’s no going back to the rampant pursuit of excess. Besides, the essential goods don’t need any advertising.

What we do need to advertise is the correct global behavior and the explanation of the new interconnected world. In other words, we need educational advertising. This is what people will need, and therefore advertising will develop in this direction.

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News Report (translated from Utro.ru): Just as everywhere else in the world, one of the consequences of the financial crisis in Russia is the rise of unemployment rates. During the days of the holiday vacation, unemployment in Moscow increased by 100%. Moreover, experts from the Social Opinion fund report that the actual number of Russians who have recently lost their jobs exceeds official data by 5-6 times.

My Comment: The same thing is happening all over the world. We must produce only what is necessary for a normal existence, and distribute the work among many people. As for our free time, it must be filled with education: we must all learn how to live in balance with nature. This is something we have to learn, just as a small child has to be taught how to live in our world. Similarly, all of us – the entire humanity, must get down to studying. This is what the crisis is pushing us toward.

We have found ourselves on a different planet, one with different external qualities. On this planet, the only thoughts, decisions, desires and actions that will prove successful are those aimed at the common good!

Therefore, the television should create and broadcast educational programs or “classes” that everyone will have to take. And then everyone will have to take exams, just like when we were in school. The whole world must “take their seats in the classroom.” We must use all means of communication to teach people how to live in the new natural (altruistic) conditions. The sooner society begins to understand and actualize this, the sooner we will begin to feel that we are living in a world that’s bountiful, safe and comfortable. Kabbalah offers you the wisdom of how to exist in the new world.

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News Report (from BBC): “Mafia ‘boosted’ by credit crisis”
The Italian mafia, the country’s organized crime network, is making a profit out of the global economic downturn. …the mafia has a combined turnover of some 130bn euro ($173 billion) a year.

My Comment: While the government and banks are scared of lending, the mafia isn’t because people fear it, and this fear acts as their guarantee. However, under the conditions of decreased consumption, the economy won’t be helped by shady lending, and hence this kind of lending will eventually die out.

The solution: The entire economy must be reconstructed from being an economy of consumption to an ecologically correct economy – an economy of sensible consumption.

The words “Economy” and “Ecology” both come from the Greek word “Ecos,” meaning “household.” In other words, Ecology is the science about how to arrange our household on the planet Earth, and Economy sets forth the rules by which this household should operate. Therefore, we shouldn’t separate ecology from economy.

Economy and ecology both have their own natural laws. And if we’re building an artificial economy, one that’s based on our own invented rules instead of the rules embedded in nature, then we’re leading ourselves to bankruptcy.

Nature is a massive, complex, harmoniously designed, living household. By meddling in it and violating its laws, we induce the crisis. The crisis will rid us of all excesses, mafia included.

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News Report (from Marketwire): “Global Economic Meltdown: Systemic Shock” The present economic crisis is systemic and global. Consumer optimism has dipped across the globe, leaving no region untouched… Emerging Markets – heretofore stalwart guardians of global consumer confidence – have shown a precipitous decline in optimism as well. Case in point is China, registering a 42% decline in optimism from 2007 to 2008… In response to the crisis, a super-majority of the world’s consumers have already made cuts to their family budgets.

My Comment: Because some politicians don’t understand the fact that our world has become integral (one interconnected system), they say that “the crisis is happening over there, not over here.” Indeed, the world has become a single whole, and hence, regardless of any country’s level of development (whether economic, industrial, or other), anything that transpires in any part of the world will now reverberate everywhere. In addition, we can’t even tell how powerfully this will happen in different places, because we don’t know the true structure of each country and nation in the general system of souls.

The crisis began with something that is a common, unifying factor for all of us – money. However, we will soon discover that we are completely interdependent in all other respects as well! There’s only one piece of advice to give to anyone, from governments to average citizens: don’t do anything that’s against others, lower your pride, give in, and help others. At the very least, these actions are contrary to the crisis.

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News Report (from Commodity Online): According to a new IBM national survey of 30,000 US consumers, they are changing their shopping habits to deal with shifting budgets and incomes. The study, titled ‘Shopper Advocacy: Building Consumer Trust in the New Economic Environment,’ shows that tighter budgets and lower confidence have fundamentally changed consumer behavior.

My Comment: This is why no bailouts or purchase incentives will help the financial situation. We have passed a psychological turning point. As long as society’s feeling of financial security is not restored, people will not spend a cent beyond necessity. Egoism is growing and changing, and people are no longer willing to throw around their money – the times have changed. So we shouldn’t try to bring back excessive production or luxury vacations all over the world. Instead, it’s best to engage people in something more useful for their souls and bodies – and for the ecology too!

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