In the News (from nakedcapitalism): “Over the past few years, I have written a series of articles arguing that the ageing of populations across the globe would have major adverse implications for consumption spending, asset values, and government revenues and taxation.

“I have also argued that the impacts from ageing would likely be most acute in Western Nations, although some developing countries, most notably China, would also be negatively affected.

“The problem stems primarily from the coming end of the demographic ‘sweet spot. ’That is, where there is a high proportion of working age people supporting only a small pool of dependents. Such an advantageous age structure has affected almost all of the world’s major economies and produced a population structure optimal to economic growth – that is, where the largest segments of the population were neither young nor old, but in the middle (i.e. working age). …

“The danger is not in the slower growth. Slow growth is not a bad thing. It’s still growth. The danger is in an expectations gap, in which we consider slower growth unacceptable….

“The high growth rates experienced in the decades leading-up to the global financial crisis were an anomaly and growth is likely to be far more sedate going forward as the population ages and dependency ratios worsen.”

My Comment: Growth will not happen; the world will nonetheless come to equilibrium when we produce exactly what is necessary not to enrich, but to provide everyone with the necessary goods and services and no more. Nature will destroy everything manufactured in excess of this by any means at its disposal: epidemics, natural disasters, wars. Indeed, the plan of nature is to bring all its parts, including humanity, in balance.
[117128]

Related Material:
Jobless G20
The US Works Part-Time
EU Summit To Solve Unemployment

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, News - No Comments →

In the News (from Zawya): “Global trade is likely to remain sluggish for many years, and emerging economies that have depended on exports to fuel their transformation will have to find new sources of growth, says a UN report.” (Source: inagist)

“’Developing and transition economies are likely to face sluggish import demand for their goods as a result of a protracted period of slow growth in developed countries,’ said The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in a report published September 12. ‘Thus, for policymakers in the former set of countries, reverting to the pre-crisis policy stance with its emphasis on export-oriented growth is not an option.’

“The report suggests that exports from developing and transition economies to developed economies before the global recession seemed to justify the adoption of an export-oriented growth model.

“But the expansion of the world economy, though favorable for many developing countries, was built on unsustainable global demand and financing patterns. Thus, reverting to pre-crisis growth strategies cannot be an option. Rather, in order to adjust to what now appears to be a structural shift in the world economy, many developing and transition economies are obliged to review their development strategies that have been overly dependent on exports for growth. …

“The way the crisis has affected global trade patterns also calls into question the future value of the export-oriented growth model that fuelled the emergence of China and other developing world champions over the past three decades.”

My Comment: Before us there is not a long-term decline, which is then replaced by a rise. It is necessary to find a solution to this progressive fall. But to find it, you first need to make the correct diagnosis, to discover the true cause of our deteriorating condition. Talking about the nature of the periods of crisis and repeating that the crisis is already passing is naive. They did not even want to admit it at all for many years, not until 2008. But this does not solve the problem itself.

It is proposed to create a permanent international unified forum that will accept all the explanations, sort, and publish them. Thus we will attract people’s attention to our common problem. This alone would be its partial solution, because it would unite people. Further, selecting the proposed solutions, addressing their respective authors, asking them to explain (with all this to be shown in the media, our TV, and website). And thus gradually we could select the options to work out the method of Integral Education (IE).
[117224]

Related Material:
The Global Financial Market Is Dead And Is Not Going To Rise
Don’t Be Fooled By The Rise Of The Markets
“The World On The Edge”

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, Integral Upbringing, News - No Comments →

In the News (from The Independent): “King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government in a nationally televised address: the welfare state of the 20^th century is gone.

“In its place a ‘participation society’ is emerging, in which people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the national government. …

“’The shift to a ‘participation society’ is especially visible in social security and long-term care,’ the king said, reading out to lawmakers a speech written for him by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government.

“’The classic welfare state of the second half of the 20^th century in these areas in particular brought forth arrangements that are unsustainable in their current form.’ …

“The king said Tuesday some costs for the care of the elderly, for youth services, and for job retraining after layoffs will now be pushed back to the local level, in order to make them better tailored to local circumstances. …

“Willem-Alexander said that nowadays, people expect and ‘want to make their own choices, to arrange their own lives, and take care of each other.”

My Comment: Ahead there is either savagery or development in integral education, the path of suffering or the path of Light, as predicted by Kabbalah.
[117543]

Related Material:
IMF Tells US To Sort Out Debt, Quickly
No One Has Any Chances
Europe And Demographic Decline

Filed under: Crisis, News - 1 Comment →

Opinion (Michael Schuman, correspondent for TIME, author of The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth):“Asia in the latter decades of the 20^th century witnessed perhaps the most remarkable record of poverty alleviation in human history — all thanks to the very capitalist tools of trade, entrepreneurship and foreign investment. … Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes.

“A growing dossier of evidence suggests that he may have been right. It is sadly all too easy to find statistics that show the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. … But the consequence of this widening inequality is just what Marx had predicted: class struggle is back. Workers of the world are growing angrier and demanding their fair share of the global economy. From the floor of the U.S. Congress to the streets of Athens to the assembly lines of southern China, political and economic events are being shaped by escalating tensions between capital and labor to a degree unseen since the communist revolutions of the 20^th century. …

“So far, though, Marx’s revolution has yet to materialize. Workers may have common problems, but they aren’t banding together to resolve them. … Protesters, says Jacques Rancière, an expert in Marxism at the University of Paris, aren’t aiming to replace capitalism, as Marx had forecast, but merely to reform it. ‘We’re not seeing protesting classes call for an overthrow or destruction of socioeconomic systems in place,’ he explains. ‘What class conflict is producing today are calls to fix systems so they become more viable and sustainable for the long run by redistributing the wealth created.’

“Despite such calls, however, current economic policy continues to fuel class tensions. … That leaves open a scary possibility: that Marx not only diagnosed capitalism’s flaws but also the outcome of those flaws.”

My Comment: Egoism will grow to such a size that the force to rise above it —people will feel themselves in it, like in the Egyptian bondage, and will be obliged to get out of it —to switch to a life in the property of mutual bestowal, care, equality, and then to “love thy neighbor as yourself.” Nature leaves us nothing else! The question is only in the transition to a new level of existence—through awareness (integral education and upbringing) or through hard struggles.
[104142]

Related Material:
“Inequality Is Holding Back The Recovery”
Social Inequality Is Killing Everyone
America Is No Longer The Land Of Opportunity

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, News - No Comments →

Opinion (Michael Khazin, economist): “The EU is faced with the crisis in the next 1.5 years. There are four possible scenarios: the formation of union around Germany, a union around Germany and France, the collapse of the EU in individual countries and the war between them, the blossoming of the EU with possible accession of Algeria, Ukraine, Syria and other countries. In this case, the fate of the EU is not discussed by its leadership. In crisis, the natural geo-economic clusters that exist within the EU will be merged and Europe might fall apart into two clusters: the ‘Roman Empire’ and the ‘Protesting Core.’

“The crisis processes in the EU will be accelerated, and in 1.5 to 2 years very serious problem will begin in the EU that could lead the EU towards dictatorship: not many will be able to save parliamentary democracy. Today’s gay pride parades are growing those who would be hanged on lamp posts—the elite realized that people’s anger needs to be discharged on someone.”

My Comment: Although Khazin visited me and we discussed, as an option, the adoption by the elite of integral education for the EU population, he argues in the line of suffering (Beito), but not in the line of correction (Achishena). I still hope for the best outcome; it depends on our efforts, and not on the summits …
[117406]

Related Material:
Is Europe Ready For Integration?
European Crisis Could Take Years To Solve
Where Are You, Common Europe?

Filed under: Crisis, News - No Comments →

Opinion (Alexander Dubrov, Sc.D., professor, author of Cognitive Psychophysics): “There are indisputable arguments in favor of remote mental human actions on a variety of physiological, functional, biochemical and physical processes in living and non-living systems. By studying this phenomenon, we have declared a super-weak integral mental interaction in nature – and the human ability to form a mental time-space complex.”

My Comment: Although science cannot fully disclose the nature of the relationship of all parts of nature, this is how it gradually can guess and partly reveal its presence. Kabbalah for 5773 has described this complete integral relationship. Interestingly, scientists use the same definition of “integral interaction,” which we started using in our explanations a long time ago.
[117340]

Related Material:
The Information Connection Of All Nature
The Concealed Power Of Thought
The Brain: A Secret That Is Inaccessible To Science

Filed under: Crisis, News, Science - No Comments →

In the News (from DailyLife): “If you’ve been paying attention to Australia’s tycoons, rent seekers and bubble class executives lately you may be starting to feel a rising sense of panic.

“Australia’s workplaces are being flooded with a new generation of unproductive workers. …

“’Generation Y workers have tickets on themselves, according to 300 Australian finance bosses surveyed by recruiter Robert Half. They say staff under 30 have an inflated and often delusionary perception of the value they add to an organisation.’ …

“Gen Y are a nightmare in the workplace – they never seem to do what you want, always have one foot out the door, are scheming and ambitious rather than the white collar company stalwarts that make Western economies – and more frequently now – Eastern economies, tick.”

My Comment: This is a consequence of the crisis of egoism that in the past wished success but today is “tired.” And it is felt in every age group. There is no motivation; people need new motivation for life. It can be learned from nature: It is sensed only in correctly connected relationships.

Competition, fear, pressure, etc. can no longer invigorate a person. Only the positive emotions of connection, bestowal, and love can give energy. For the time being, it is not visible, but soon it will be discovered as the only source of life.
[117276]

Related Material:
The End of The Slave Generation
At Full Speed Into A New Civilization
The New Generation Will Have A New Mind

Filed under: Crisis, News - No Comments →

Opinion (Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy): “For centuries, Europe was the most savage region in the world, torn by hideous and destructive wars. Europe developed the technology and the culture of war that enabled it to conquer the world. After a final burst of indescribable savagery, the mutual destruction ceased at the end of World War II. …

“But Europeans may also have understood that they had developed such capacities for destruction that the next time they played their favorite game, it would be the last. …

“The blurring of borders and these challenges to the legitimacy of states bring to the fore serious questions about who owns the Earth. Who owns the global atmosphere being polluted by the heat-trapping gases that have just passed an especially perilous threshold, as we learned in May?

“Or to adopt the phrase used by indigenous people throughout much of the world, Who will defend the Earth? Who will uphold the rights of nature? Who will adopt the role of steward of the commons, our collective possession?

“That the Earth now desperately needs defense from impending environmental catastrophe is surely obvious to any rational and literate person. The different reactions to the crisis are a most remarkable feature of current history.

“At the forefront of the defense of nature are those often called “primitive”: members of indigenous and tribal groups, like the First Nations in Canada or the Aborigines in Australia—the remnants of peoples who have survived the imperial onslaught. At the forefront of the assault on nature are those who call themselves the most advanced and civilized: the richest and most powerful nations.”

My Comment: Integration in the European way will lead to brutal massacres in the style of the Middle Ages. No one will protect nature. People will reach a state of complete barbarism, the expression of hate, which has never happened in history before. They will turn into cannibals and devour their children. If only they would hear about their salvation in the realization of integrated education.
[117175]

Related Material:
“Century Of Drought May Be Ahead”
The Earth Is Experiencing AnApocalypse
The Apparent Failure Of The Environmental Summit

Filed under: Crisis, News - No Comments →

In the News (from United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime): “The 2013 World Drug Report released in Vienna shows that, while the use of traditional drugs such as heroin and cocaine seems to be declining in some parts of the world, prescription drug abuse and new psychoactive substance abuse is growing. …

“Marketed as ‘legal highs’ and ‘designer drugs’, NPS are proliferating at an unprecedented rate and posing unforeseen public health challenges. The report shows that the number of NPS reported to UNODC rose from 166 at the end of 2009 to 251 by mid-2012, an increase of more than 50 per cent. For the first time, the number of NPS exceeded the total number of substances under international control (234). Since new harmful substances have been emerging with unfailing regularity on the drug scene, the international drug control system is now challenged by the speed and creativity of the NPS phenomenon.”

My Comment: I already wrote that the campaign against smoking is actually a prelude to the permission to use drugs: Drugs are cheap and calm the population.
[117165]

Related Material:
“Forced Mass Drugging of US Troops an Underreported Scandal”
The Depressed Generation
Fighting Drugs: New Challenges

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health, News - 1 Comment →

In the News (from DW.de): “Germany’s Bertelsmann foundation has compared 34 OECD and EU countries for social cohesion. …

“The study finds that social cohesion is strong in the wealthy Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, whereas it is weak in the southern European countries hardest hit by the economic crisis, with Bulgaria, Greece and Romania at the bottom of the list… .

“Solidarity (social cohesion) is important for shaping the future of a society, ” said Liz Mohn, deputy chairperson of the Bertelsmann foundation, as she presented the study in the western German city of Gütersloh on Tuesday.

“Solidarity has a positive effect on individuals in society. More solidarity means a rise in subjective well-being,” she added.

Sociologists at Jacobs Bremen University gathered relevant data from 34 countries going back 25 years.

“The countries include European Union countries, as well as other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), such as North America, Oceania and Israel.

“Germany is in 14^th place, just ahead of Great Britain and France and well ahead of the Baltic States, but below the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In small European countries such as Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg there is a strong feeling of togetherness.

“People were asked a series of questions about their social networks, whether they had friends and got along well with their neighbors. They were asked how they felt about the justice system and fairness in society. …

“They found that an even distribution of wealth, a small income gap and high education standards are conducive to a feeling of togetherness. Economic hardship, however, has the opposite effect: It leads people to fend for themselves rather than close ranks, the researchers found. …

“Immigration, however, has no measurable impact on social cohesion. The researchers found no indication that a higher number of migrants affected the answers in any way.”

My Comment: The forces and connections that emerge in the process of integral education will be able to change any society quickly and bring it to cohesion up to the feeling of brotherly dependence and love.
[116995]

Related Material:
The Power Of Unity
“Respect Matters More Than Money For Happiness In Life”
Confidence Is Revealed In Unity

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, News - No Comments →