Opinion (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in economics and professor at Columbia University): “The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos has lost some of its pre-crisis panache. After all, before the meltdown in 2008, the captains of finance and industry could trumpet the virtues of globalization, technology, and financial liberalization, which supposedly heralded a new era of relentless growth. …

“Those days are gone. But Davos remains a good place to get a sense of the global zeitgeist.
“It goes without saying that developing and emerging-market countries no longer look at the advanced countries as they once did. But a remark by one mining company executive from a developing country caught the spirit of change. In response to one development expert’s heartfelt despair that unfair trade treaties and unfulfilled promises of aid have cost the developed countries their moral authority, he retorted: ‘The West never had any moral authority.’ Colonialism, slavery, the splintering of Africa into small countries, and a long history of resource exploitation may be matters of the distant past to the perpetrators, but not so to those who suffered as a result.

“If there is a single topic that concerned the assembled leaders the most, it is economic inequality. The shift in the debate from just a year ago seems dramatic: no one even mentions the notion of trickle-down economics anymore, and few are willing to argue that there is a close congruence between social contributions and private rewards.

“While the realization that America is not the land of opportunity that it has long claimed to be is as disconcerting to others as it is to Americans, inequality of opportunity at the global scale is even greater….

“The Associated Press organized a sobering session on technology and unemployment: Can countries (particularly in the developed world) create new jobs – especially good jobs – in the face of modern technology that has replaced workers with robots and other machines in any task that can be routinized? …

“Those suffering the most are the young, whose life prospects will be badly hurt by the extended periods of unemployment that they face today. …

“… If the euro was to survive in the long run, there would have to be a fiscal and banking union, which would require more political unification than most Europeans are willing to accept. …

“In the last 25 years, we have moved from a world dominated by two superpowers to one dominated by one, and now to a leaderless, multi-polar world.”

My Comment: It may seem that the world is better and more equal without strong leaders, but in the right system, there is always a hierarchy, as in the body, the one who is more caring and responsible is higher, as in the body, the brain and other vital organs that live not for themselves, but for the entire body.
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In the News (from Popsci): “If you need an American to do something, don’t mention the common good, team work or caring for others. A new study in Psychological Science this month found that trying to get Americans to think and act interdependently failed-and may have even decreased motivation.

“After being prompted to think about either independence or interdependence, a group of Stanford students were given difficult word puzzles to solve, and later, a physical challenge (squeezing a handgrip for as long as possible).

“’Chronically independent European Americans’ fared much worse when primed to think about interdependence while completing the task. For bicultural Asian-American students exposed to both the independence-loving culture of America and a more communally based East-Asian culture, thinking about either value set was equally motivating.

“In another test, students viewed a website about a class promoting environmental sustainability. White American students said they would put less effort into the course when the description emphasized things like working together and taking other people’s views into account, rather than when it prioritized taking charge and being unique. …

“’Currently, if we want to inspire Americans to think and act interdependently, it may work best to actually emphasize their independence to motivate them to do so,’ suggests MarYam Hamedani, one of the study’s authors. ‘Tell them, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ instead of ‘We’re all in this together.'”

My Comment: Awareness of individualistic egoism will occur in the USA in an acute form. In advertising independence, freedom, competition, and individualism, the whole world will manifest the process of recognizing these trends as evil and the need to correct them and will force society to change it. A person must experience much stress and the realization of evil of his nature to begin to see the world connected in a single harmony, instead of focusing on each one separately.
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Opinion (Bill Gross, PIMCO founder and co-chief investment officer): “Bill Gross, the Pimco bond guru, said on Thursday a heavy reliance on credit has put the U.S. economy on a trajectory toward extinction, and he warned of an investor exodus from financial markets.

“The level of credit needed to spur economic growth has grown five-fold since the 1980s, said Gross, who is a founder and co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co….

“Using a supernova as a metaphor for the U.S. financial system, Gross said the universe is expanding so rapidly now that in the far future it will end in a ‘big freeze.’ Dependence on credit for growth will produce similar results, he said.

“U.S. government, corporate, household and personal debt is now $56 trillion, a monster that needs ever increasing amounts of fuel, Gross said, calling it a ‘supernova star that expands and expands, yet, in the process begins to consume itself.’…

“The end of credit markets will begin, said Gross, when assets offer too much risk and too little return, causing an investor exodus into alternatives such as cash or real assets.”

My Comment: But exit to other markets is not a cure from the capitalist approach to life; the individualistic view of the world itself should explode like a bubble and expose the only alternative–mutual responsibility, agreement, and complement.
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Opinion (from PR Newswire): “Business executives around the world believe that protectionism is on the rise in both developed and emerging markets, according to a new Economist Intelligence Unit survey and report commissioned by UK Trade & Investment. …

“Ian McCartney, UK Trade Minister responsible for UK Trade & Investment, commented: ‘World trade has been one of the principal engines of global economic growth over recent decades, and increased protectionism risks putting the brakes on that growth. Globalisation should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Protectionism leads to less trade, lower growth and therefore lower employment and more poverty.’”

My Comment: There is no solution to this without rebuilding the world, or rather the human! Only a view of the world as a single integrated whole in which humanity produces only rational necessities, equally shares everything necessary for existence, is content with integral fulfillment, and feels a single integral space will lead the world out of the crisis. We feel the labor pains of the birth of a new, not individual, but integral attitude to the world. In the end, economic protectionism will lead to world wars.
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Opinion (Gary Cohn, President of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.): “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn said Europe still faces ‘fundamental problems’ and policy makers lack plans to foster economic growth in southern European nations. Spain’s recession deepened in the last quarter of 2012 and its economy is set to shrink a second year in 2013, undermining the government’s efforts to reorder public finances amid a 26 percent unemployment rate.”

My Comment: When will financiers finally stop dreaming of new growth? Already for many years, they have been producing just to buy, throw away, and buy again. They are ready to lend for this purpose and they live in a dreamland that all this will continue. Of course, the process of establishing new (necessary, rational) needs runs consistently and gradually, but it is strongly implemented around the world by Nature.
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Opinion (Michael Khazin, economist): “The feelings of the end of 2011 were optimistic. Everyone was confident that the crises would end in 2012. … But by the end of 2012, the situation began to change dramatically. The main example of that was the report of the U.S. intelligence community about the future of the world in 2030. The report itself is not crucial, what is important is that none of the reviewed scenarios considers the option of the U.S. dominance in that period. …

“It is not just an important event, it is in some ways a radical change in the conditions of human existence in the last 2000 years. … Since then, there was always a group of people who were ready to take responsibility for the entire humanity, offering universal “rules of the game.” Originally, they were built only on the basis of the Biblical values (Christian global projects and Islam), then, from the 16^th century, there were also projects that began to limit the Biblical value system (the global capitalist project). …

“Today, we see that the elite of the “capitalist” project … is ready to hold back and give up on imposing the rules of conduct and social behavior.

“But people in all the countries and regions are not ready to write rules for themselves. This means that they will be established spontaneously and not always peacefully and safely. …

“Unless someone takes responsibility again by proposing common rules. But there will be a problem because in any case this “someone” will have to be strong enough to explain to the nervous opponents that some things should not be done. …

“I think that it was namely the refusal of the elite of the “capitalist” project to dominate globally that became the main result of the previous year. …. The crisis that we faced was not only economic; it has already reached the systemic level.”

My Comment: For those who study Kabbalah, it is clear that with the destruction of connection with the upper world 2000 years ago, religion (the religious project) prevailed in the world, which was replaced during the time of Ari (the 16^th century, the beginning of correction of the world) with the economic project. All these are the stages of development of egoism that are manifested in the form of various “projects.”

In 1995, we actively entered the latest “project”—the correction of egoism, integral humanity, ascent to the upper stages of unity, bestowal, and love—unwillingly, through suffering, or knowingly, with joy. No one but Kabbalists wants and is able to lead us forward because we know the next states of humanity.
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In the News(from DailyMail): “A strong friendship is the secret to a long-lasting romantic relationship, new research suggests.

“Researchers found that valuing your friendship with your partner helps create relationships with more commitment, more love and greater sexual satisfaction.

“People who put more emphasis on trying to satisfy their personal needs or desires through their relationship are less likely to sustain the bond in the longer term. …

The psychologists wrote that relationship failures can lead to negative emotions, feelings of insecurity and reduced physical health. But they added that friendship is a ‘defining characteristic of love’ and suggested that understanding the causes of break ups could help couples avoid that fate. …

“The results indicate that valuing the friendship aspect of a romantic relationship is important to relationship quality. It seems likely that placing greater importance on the friendship component of the relationship relative to other components (e.g. sex) may promote lasting relationships. …

“People who had scored highly for investing in the friendship aspect of their relationship were also more likely to score highly on romantic commitment, love and sexual satisfaction.”

My Comment: Kabbalah defines love not as contentment in itself, but the fulfillment of the other by me, as a mother feeding the baby receives joy from the baby’s fulfillment. Such an attitude toward a partner is called love. And other relationships are explicit or implicit use of the partner.
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Opinion (Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group): “You know, we’re in my view, what we call a G0 world, not a G7 or G20, but a G0 – a place that has an absence of global leadership and puts nobody as number one I think really does reflect the fact that there is a vacuum of power.

“Before the financial crisis, the US was really leading all of the world institutions, you certainly saw that in trade, you think about the IMF, you think about the World Bank, the UN. I mean these are all institutions created by the US with their allies, their priorities, their capital. The US is no longer leading global institutions, but this doesn’t mean there’s no leading going on. It’s just that leading hasn’t been done globally. And you will see in 2013 the US working hard to push through, for example a very big trade deal the TransPacific Partnership. If it happens, it will involve forty percent of the world’s GDP, that’s not 100 or 80 percent – that’s 40. But it’s effectively the coalition of the willing on the economic side.”

My Comment: The development of society has led us to leveling everything and everyone. True, this is a long process, but it is already underway. It could not be otherwise because the world is moving toward full integration, unification, and unity, against its will through suffering, or consciously and willingly. Moreover, these two paths, although they lead to the same goal, are different for us: the long path through war, destruction, and starvation, or the fast path, easy, happy, peaceful. Choosing the path means accepting or not accepting integral education for everyone as a means to achieve the same goal through the good path.
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In the News (from News at Princeton): “Collective intelligence is an established advantage of groups, including humans. As it’s understood, a group of individuals gain an advantage by pooling imperfect estimates with those around them, which more or less ‘averages’ single experiences into surprisingly accurate common knowledge. …

“Princeton University researchers report in the journal Science that collective intelligence is vital to certain animals’ ability to evaluate and respond to their environment. Conducted on fish, the research demonstrated that small groups and individuals become disoriented in complex, changing environments. However, as group size is increased, the fish suddenly became highly responsive to their surroundings.

“These results should prompt a close examination of how endangered group or herd animals are preserved and managed, said senior researcher Iain Couzin, a Princeton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. If wild animals depend on collective intelligence for migration, breeding and locating essential resources, they could be imperiled by any activity that diminishes or divides the group, such as overhunting and habitat loss, he explained. …

“With their work, Couzin and his coauthors uncovered an additional layer to understanding collective intelligence. The conventional view assumes that individual group members have some level of knowledge albeit incomplete. Yet the Princeton researchers found that in some cases individuals have no ability to estimate how a problem needs to be solved, while the group as a whole can find a solution through their social interactions. Moreover, they found that the more numerous the neighbors, the richer the individual — and thus group — knowledge is.

“These findings correlate with recent research showing that collective intelligence — even in humans — can rely less on the intelligence of each group member than on the effectiveness of their communal interaction, Couzin said. In humans, research suggests that such cooperation would take the form of open and equal communication among individuals regardless of their respective smarts, he said.”

My Comment: People have something to learn from animals…
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In the News (from Smithsonian): “What happens in these types of fantasy worlds also translates into real-life behavior, but in a different way: People who are given superpowers meant to save someone in virtual reality are more helpful outside of it. …

“This finding … relies on the illusion that what happens in virtual reality is real. Participants viewed the world through a head-mounted display, a helmet that provides three-dimensional stereoscopic views of a high-resolution rendered environment. An orientation sensor on the helmet tracked participants’ physical head movements and updated their rendered first-person perspective. To enhance the seeming reality of the experience, virtual sound was added to match the movement of objects and the vibration associated with action.

“In the study, each participant was placed separately in a virtual environment and either given the power of flight, a la Superman, or was a passenger in a helicopter. They were then assigned to one of two tasks. The first involved searching through a virtual city for a young, lost diabetic child in need of life-saving insulin, which they were told they held in a vial in their pocket. …

“After the virtual experience, the experimenter assisting participants ‘accidentally’ knocked over a cup of pens, allowing the participants the opportunity to help pick them up. The researchers found that regardless of the task, those who used superpowers to fly through the fantasy world were quicker to help pick up the pens compared to those who rode in the virtual helicopter. …

“How can a simulation trigger such prosocial behavior? The researchers suggest that embodying a superhuman quality in virtual reality primes people to think like superheroes, such as Superman. Researchers made no mention of the word “superhero” or the prefix “super” at any point during the experiment. But by simply possessing a superhuman ability, participants seemed to tap into what they know about the characters that have them—that they use their power for the greater good rather than personal gain. Researchers believe cognitive channels linking ‘super’ activity and its related stereotypes to heroism and helping behavior may have opened up, influencing participants’ decision to help.”

My Comment: Following your dream, you need to understand how to make it come true in reality. If the dream is correct, that is, it coincides with the reality according to the plan of Nature, then from that future reality already existing in the virtual world, you can attract a force that realizes the dream; this force is called the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif).
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