Money is Debt
In order for us to be able to fully appreciate Spiritual Economics and the Gift Economy, it is helpful to first fully understand that the present cash-credit ponzi-scheme banking system is a total scam. For readers who have not been educated in this important subject I bring a series of simple and easy to understand videos. The first set of videos explain that what we call money today is nothing but debt. Every dollar, euro, rupee, or pound that you have in your possession was loaned into existence and every person on the planet is a slave to this debt, and typically they haven't the slightest clue about it. This means that every person, yes, you too, are a slave to the money masters!! Please watch these videos. It is a series of five. The first one is here. After it finishes you will be able to select the succeeding ones from the same window. In another week or so I will post another video that tells the history of money and how the money brokers have been behind almost every war for the past 400 years. The easiest way to be free from these cursed devils who have manipulated the entire world is to stop playing their game. There is a better way to live. Other worlds are possible. Living according to Bhagavad-gita, practicing Krishna consciousness and using Spiritual Economics.
23 November 2009
21 November 2009
Global Warming is a Fraud!
The King is Dead. Long Live the King
Wow, this is interesting! Look at what happened yesterday: The Australian magazine Investigate reported that a 62 megabyte Zip file containing around 160 megabytes of emails, pdfs and other documents, was hacked from the computers and servers of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. The emails and documents were posted by the hacker on a Russian web server. More than 1000 emails and 72 documents offer evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming claim, also known as AGW, Anthropogenic Global Warming. This is definitely one of the biggest scandals in modern science. The emails suggest conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and collusion to discredit opponents of AGW. You can read more about it, including copies of the emails here, and here, and here, as well, I am sure, in many other places within several days.
But that's not the biggest news, which is this: this scandal comes on the eve of the signing of the Global Climate Treaty, set for December 20th in Copenhagen. And if you don't know about that and its immense consequences, watch this video. In fact watch this video even if you do:
We have been writing here about efforts to bring about a One World Government, and the good Lord Christopher Monckton has been traveling around the world doing what he can to raise awareness to stop it. His entire 95 minute speech can be viewed here, and the text of the treaty can be read here. Although I applaud his effort I do not think that his efforts could have stopped them. But, what are they going to do now in light of the clear evidence, now known all over the globe, that AGW is bogus science? Are they going to sign this treaty anyway? It remains to be seen how the major news media is going to treat this story and what kind of damage control they can come up with. They've got so much invested in this and so much riding on it that I can't imagine that they are just going to roll over and acknowledge the truth. Instead, expect them to use more lies to cover their lies.
You may not know it but thousands of scientists all over the world already disagree with the findings of AGW. Of course they are not given any air time because their views won't lead you to slavery in a Global Government. If you want to know more about the controversy you can find plenty online, or just check out a few books like Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming; or Global Warming False Alarm; or The Real Global Warming Disaster.
To be honest, I suspect they will push right through this and sign the treaty anyway. World government is in their grasp and I don't expect them to give it up. As we've seen before, they don't give a damn about what the people think. However, I also expect that the treaty will face immense battles on all sides, and that the treaty may well be scuttled before it become ratified. We will follow the blow-by-blow action here.
But wait! There is more....Global warming is not their only ace up the sleeve. The Big Push is on—the Big Push to install a global government, and the Big Push involves other reasons why all humanity should huddle together in fear of a common enemy. The Big Push is a 3-prong attack. Below we showed one prong—the economy. This news reveals the second prong—climate changes that were supposed to threaten us all. There is one more prong that we are being prepared for, but which will have a sudden appearance. More on that tomorrow.
Wow, this is interesting! Look at what happened yesterday: The Australian magazine Investigate reported that a 62 megabyte Zip file containing around 160 megabytes of emails, pdfs and other documents, was hacked from the computers and servers of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. The emails and documents were posted by the hacker on a Russian web server. More than 1000 emails and 72 documents offer evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming claim, also known as AGW, Anthropogenic Global Warming. This is definitely one of the biggest scandals in modern science. The emails suggest conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and collusion to discredit opponents of AGW. You can read more about it, including copies of the emails here, and here, and here, as well, I am sure, in many other places within several days.
But that's not the biggest news, which is this: this scandal comes on the eve of the signing of the Global Climate Treaty, set for December 20th in Copenhagen. And if you don't know about that and its immense consequences, watch this video. In fact watch this video even if you do:
We have been writing here about efforts to bring about a One World Government, and the good Lord Christopher Monckton has been traveling around the world doing what he can to raise awareness to stop it. His entire 95 minute speech can be viewed here, and the text of the treaty can be read here. Although I applaud his effort I do not think that his efforts could have stopped them. But, what are they going to do now in light of the clear evidence, now known all over the globe, that AGW is bogus science? Are they going to sign this treaty anyway? It remains to be seen how the major news media is going to treat this story and what kind of damage control they can come up with. They've got so much invested in this and so much riding on it that I can't imagine that they are just going to roll over and acknowledge the truth. Instead, expect them to use more lies to cover their lies.
You may not know it but thousands of scientists all over the world already disagree with the findings of AGW. Of course they are not given any air time because their views won't lead you to slavery in a Global Government. If you want to know more about the controversy you can find plenty online, or just check out a few books like Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming; or Global Warming False Alarm; or The Real Global Warming Disaster.
To be honest, I suspect they will push right through this and sign the treaty anyway. World government is in their grasp and I don't expect them to give it up. As we've seen before, they don't give a damn about what the people think. However, I also expect that the treaty will face immense battles on all sides, and that the treaty may well be scuttled before it become ratified. We will follow the blow-by-blow action here.
But wait! There is more....Global warming is not their only ace up the sleeve. The Big Push is on—the Big Push to install a global government, and the Big Push involves other reasons why all humanity should huddle together in fear of a common enemy. The Big Push is a 3-prong attack. Below we showed one prong—the economy. This news reveals the second prong—climate changes that were supposed to threaten us all. There is one more prong that we are being prepared for, but which will have a sudden appearance. More on that tomorrow.
20 November 2009
Another Blog about Spiritual Economics
Searching for my website a friend found this one: http://spiritualeconomicsnow.net, a website by Mary Croft. Of course I am not the only person who uses the expression “Spiritual Economics.” Google the term and you will find lots of them. Typically the people who write about Spiritual Economics offer conceptions of economics according to their religion. You will find a Jewish Spiritual Economics, one or more conceptions of Christian Spiritual Economics. Mary's orientation is The Course In Miracles, and of course my own is based on Bhagavad-gita and Vaishnava philosophy. The one thing that was nice to find at Mary Croft’s website is that her idea of Spiritual Economics is also one of a gift economy, just as I am presenting here. Here's a brief sampler of her writing and orientation:
Although her overall thesis is slightly different (since mine is based on Bhagavad-gita) I find Mary's writing complementary in the sense that she is approaching the economic problem from outside of it, and also concludes that love is the answer. I also think she writes in a way that is a bit more accessible for some people than mine, but you, the reader, must be the judge of that.
Another interesting feature of Croft’s website is her free downloadable e-book: “How I Clobbered Every Bureaucratic Cash-Consfiscatory Agency Known to Man.” There is valuable information in this book that can help everybody. What Mary shows is that ALL law today is contract law, or commerce. We each have the right to enter into contracts with others. What we don’t know is how we do so unconsciously when someone says “just sign here.” Did you know that when you sign your marriage license you invite the state to be a party to your union? Did you know that when you sign your child’s birth certificate you are making him/her collateral of the state to be pledged against the national debt? Well, Mary learned how the system works and has used it to her advantage, much to the dismay of “the system,” evening the score just a little. Frankly stated the system is based on fraud, because almost all of the time people have no idea what they are doing in contract, nor are they told. They are simply being suckered.
For my entire life, philosophically, and, for over thirty years, pragmatically, I have searched for a solution to “the problems of the world”. Intuitively, I knew that every single problem had to do with “money” ($) and it certainly appeared as if everything were about “money” and “not money” ($ and not $), yet, still, “money”. If the problem were not $, then the solution must be $. Because I always seemed to have enough $, one might wonder why I was so plagued by the worry of not $, but I was, so I went looking for a solution. Over the past 14 years, I have finally learned that we cannot expect to find a sane solution to an insane problem, within the insanity itself. We cannot see the entire picture, when we are seeing it from inside the frame. Think about how you can see the precise solution to everyone else’s marital problems but you can’t seem to figure out what to do about your own … it’s like that.
...Thanks to my study of A Course In Miracles, the experiences of my friend, Nick, and the work of my friend, Robert (freedomfiles.org), I was able to step outside “law and commerce” to discover “love and dominion”. Therein lies the solution to “$ and not $”.
Where there is law, there is no love and, where there is love, there is no law.
Where there is commerce, there is no dominion and, where there is dominion, there is no commerce.
Although her overall thesis is slightly different (since mine is based on Bhagavad-gita) I find Mary's writing complementary in the sense that she is approaching the economic problem from outside of it, and also concludes that love is the answer. I also think she writes in a way that is a bit more accessible for some people than mine, but you, the reader, must be the judge of that.
Another interesting feature of Croft’s website is her free downloadable e-book: “How I Clobbered Every Bureaucratic Cash-Consfiscatory Agency Known to Man.” There is valuable information in this book that can help everybody. What Mary shows is that ALL law today is contract law, or commerce. We each have the right to enter into contracts with others. What we don’t know is how we do so unconsciously when someone says “just sign here.” Did you know that when you sign your marriage license you invite the state to be a party to your union? Did you know that when you sign your child’s birth certificate you are making him/her collateral of the state to be pledged against the national debt? Well, Mary learned how the system works and has used it to her advantage, much to the dismay of “the system,” evening the score just a little. Frankly stated the system is based on fraud, because almost all of the time people have no idea what they are doing in contract, nor are they told. They are simply being suckered.
Mary is an entertaining writer and her book will make you laugh. It will also make you angry to realize how you, me and everyone else is being defrauded. But, when you realize how this system actually works you can use it to your great advantage. I suggest everyone read Mary’s website as well as Mary’s book. Get the book here. Oh, I also suggest that everyone participate in the Gift Economy. When enough of us practice the gift economy of Spiritual Economics their entire cheating system that is pillaging the planet would come to a grinding halt, and there won't be a damn thing they can do about it!
11 November 2009
The Catastrophic Results of the Economics of Atheism
The Stick - reasons to abandon the current economic system
The Catastrophic Results of the Economics of Atheism
by Dhanesvara Das
For human society, constantly thinking of how to earn money and apply it for sense gratification brings about the destruction of everyone's interests. When one becomes devoid of knowledge of devotional service, he enters into species of life like those of trees and stones. Srimad Bhagavatam 4.22.33
The economic methods of any culture are an expression of its love, which can be either material or spiritual. There is a gulf of difference between the two. Material love by its own nature cannot be extended to more than a few individuals, who are but extensions of the self, and a part of the ahankara, or false ego. Material love therefore, in the final analysis, is simply love of one’s own self. Consequently material love is myopic. In the extreme cases it prevents a person from being able to recognize, or even care about, the lives of others, or their pain, suffering or joy. Material love reflects a consciousness that is crippled to various degrees and able to function only in the very limited sense of acting for the self alone. Consequently this crippled consciousness is unable to do genuine good for others, because it wants to be unconscious of their pains and pleasures. It is like the proverbial bull in a china shop, where any movement creates trouble or disaster. The suffering that it inflicts on others is but a reflection of the pain being experienced in the darkness of the soul who has forgotten any and all connections with his own spiritual nature. Due to the pain of the loss of self, he projects out to the world his envy of others who have what he does not, and in the extreme (demonic) cases, due to that almost unlimited envy, seeks to destroy the happiness of others in order to compensate for his own unconsciously recognized loss. The demonic person thus thinks “I will enjoy and you can suffer” or even, “I will enjoy more seeing you suffer.”
This attitude is fully reflected in the economics of atheism. What began and is promulgated as an innocuous “means of exchange,” (the money system) has become the tool of choice for the demoniac’s own aggrandizement at the expense of all others. What does that have to do with me? you might ask—I didn’t create the system—I was born into it! Indeed. We are born into a culture and society that has a life of its own. A type of Frankenstein monster that is bent on destroying us, and which none of us can control. Of course our economic methods are not presented in such a way. Rather, we are acculturated to accept them as the natural order of things, perhaps an inevitable result of evolution. And to most people the economic system, however unjust it might be towards us personally, remarkably is accepted as both natural and neutral in application and consequences. We wind up with the impression that economic gains for some and losses for others are nothing more than the vagaries of “chance,” or slight imperfections in the economic science that will soon be corrected to the benefit of all. But those who understand how the system works know too well that the economic playing field has always been tipped to favor the already wealthy, as their own apologists admit. Moreover, in keeping with the nature of Kali-yuga, obfuscation is hard at work in the economic “science”, as we quoted Galbraith above. Why? Because most people would be livid with rage to know how the debt-money system operates to enslave them. As Mr. Henry Ford put it: “It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system for, if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”[1]
Bhaktivedanta Swami was a very practical man and he often made use of the expression phalena pariciyate, a thing can be judged by its results. Using his practical approach let’s look at the results of our economic system, and by that be better able to judge it. As I mentioned above our approach economics here is in terms of relationships: relationships between people, between people and the earth along with all of her other inhabitants, and between people and God. What then is our economic relationship with the earth, the sea, with the animals and our fellow human beings? Looking at that will allow us to see a very visible demonstration of the economics of atheism as well as our ideas of life. Not those that we profess to believe in, but those that we actually live. Reviewing these relationships also reveals a very clear picture as to where the economics of atheism is taking us—all of us. Seeing these results in connection with the Bhagavad-gita will also help us to more fully understand the full nature and extent of the problems we now face in this world, and thus allow us to fully understand how we might heal them.
Our Economic Relationship With the Sea
Modern man’s relationship with the sea very neatly characterizes his entire attitude toward all of nature: it’s purpose is to serve him; it is for his use and enjoyment. Is there any concept that the inhabitants of the sea exist for their own purposes beyond that which humans might assign to them? Not in the current dominant worldviews, neither the scientific, nor the Judeo-Christian, nor the purely economic way of seeing things. The seas are there to be exploited, and exploited they have been.
Once teeming with fish, the seas were thought to be inexhaustible. An endless supply of nature’s bounty simply there for the taking. In earlier times man took from the sea according to the measure of his own strength. Modern engineering however, has created fishing vessels that are beyond the seas ability to match. Britain ’s North Sea offers a good example of the contest between man and nature. The cod is a favorite target of British fishermen and is the staple of the British national dish “fish and chips”. The life expectancy for adult cod is 40 years, but oceanographers have found that just 0.5% of the cod population is more than five years old. Nine out of ten are less than two years old, suggesting that the cod’s breeding pattern cycle has collapsed from over-fishing. No fewer than 150,000 tons of the fish are required to sustain the population in the North Sea , but the current total is just 46,000 tons, down from an estimated 264,000 tons in 1970. The World Wildlife Fund therefore believes that North Sea cod could disappear in less than 15 years.
Having emptied Britain North Sea 's floor is trawled at least once a year, in some places up to six times.
A perfect example of the desecration of the deep sea is provided by the extraordinary coral growths of the Darwin Mounds, off the northwest coast of Another demonstration of the disregard for sea life is “by-catching”. Massive nets, miles long, scoop up every living thing in entire square miles. Entangled in the nets the fish quickly exhaust themselves to death. Many of them have no commercial value however, and are simply tossed back into the sea. In the shrimp industry for example, only about 15 percent of the catch is shrimp; the rest is by-catch and is discarded. This by-catch is estimated to be 60 billion pounds of squid, octopuses, turtles, rays, sharks, sea anemones, starfishes, and other sea life. So great is the loss of these innocents that these practices threaten species such as the bottlenose dolphin. The Wildlife Trusts, a network of local charities in England North Atlantic each year as by-catch.
The reaction to this devastation of the seas is calculated only in terms of human loss—the loss of an industry and the money that it generates, witnessed in the concluding remarks from which this information was obtained: “For many experts, over-fishing crystallizes the complexities between balancing economic competitiveness and the needs of nature”.[2] The fact is though that nobody is willing to be the one who favors the needs of nature over competitiveness, because whoever is not competitive loses in a competitive economy. So the competition will continue unabated until there are no more fish. And this condition applies across the board—not just for fish. Jeremy Brecher, in an article entitled “Global Village or Global Pillage”[3] writes that the practice of transnational corporations relocating their facilities around the world in effect makes all workers, communities and countries competitors for these corporations’ favor. The consequence is a “race to the bottom” in which wages as well as social conditions fall to the level of the most desperate. More about people later. First we will look at man’s economic relationship with the earth.
Our Economic Relationship With the Earth
The earth is accepted as our mother, the one who nourishes us and gives us succor. In the Vedic understanding there is a person behind everything in “nature”, and in the Vedic scriptures the personality of the earth is Bhumi Devi. This understanding has also been promulgated in Western culture since the 1970’s as the Gaia Hypothesis by James Lovelock. The Gaia Hypothesis suggests that the Earth is a living organism possessing a planetary-scale self-regulating control system that keeps the environment(s) fit for life.
But Professor Lovelock, who has been warning of the dangers of climate change since major concerns about it first surfaced nearly 20 years ago, has recently come to the conclusion that our environmental injustice has now passed the point of no return. In his 2006 book titled The Revenge of Gaia, he writes that mankind’s abuse of the environment is making that control mechanism work against us. His conclusion is that the world and human society face disaster to a worse extent, and on a faster timescale, than almost anybody realizes, that climate change is already unsolvable, and that civilization as we know it is now unlikely to survive. He writes: “Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable,” and his vision of what human society may ultimately be reduced to through climate change is “a broken rabble led by brutal warlords”.
This dire prediction is also shared by the folks at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In a study entitled The Living Planet released in 2002 they warned that the human race is plundering the planet at a pace that outstrips its capacity to support life, and suggested that Earth’s population will be forced to colonize two other planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate. Since that is obviously not an option, the only alternative we have is to reduce our levels of consumption. The report, based on scientific data from across the world, reveals that more than a third of the natural world has been destroyed by humans over the past three decades alone.
The report blames the wasteful lifestyles and consumer lifestyle of the rich nations for the exploitation and depletion of natural wealth. To sustain the average American, for example, 12.2 hectares are required per person, compared to 6.28 ha. for Western Europeans, and just 2 ha. for Ethiopians. In the effort to stem the tide, environmentalists are attempting to get the wealthy nations to make concessions, a move which both Presidents Bush have stubbornly refused to go along with, refusing for example, to sign the Kyoto Treaty on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
The other major pollutants, besides greenhouse gases, are the artificial manmade chemical compounds that are not found in nature. The chemical industry is a profit-driven enterprise that knows no limits to its endeavors, regardless of the consequences to people and the world. Let me give you a few brief examples of this.
The Chemical Industry and Its Consequences for the Environment and Our Health
Global sales of chemicals is $1.5 trillion according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Some 100,000 chemical compounds are now on the market and 1-2,000 new ones are added each year. Between 1930 and 2000 global production of man-made chemicals increased from 1 million to more than 800 million tons each year. These chemicals, of course, come from our earth planet, and they can only return to the earth planet. But we return them greatly transformed, and in toxic or lethal concentrations. Most of these are compounds are entirely foreign to nature—she doesn’t know how to deal with them. And many do not decompose into harmless constituent chemicals, but instead accumulate—in landfills, lakes, rivers, and seas, and consequently in the bodies of all species of life. Swimming around in the environment they also interact with each other in unforeseen ways creating a very strange brew of toxicity. To be fair, in some parts of the world efforts have been made to dispose of hazardous wastes properly, but as we shall see it is not nearly enough, and the majority of chemicals find their way back to the environment. Where else can they go? They have an adverse impact simply because of our ignorance, both in creating them, and in their use. We are led to think of science as a panacea that will solve all of our problems, but in fact science is making as many or more problems as they solve, and too often the problems created are far more serious than those solved.
Where Do The Chemicals Go?
Farming fertilizers and pesticides are applied almost directly to the earth and with rain seep into the earth, and each year this chemical contamination reaches the groundwater in sufficient concentrations to force the closure of thousands of water wells in our towns and villages. In Britain Britain and the United States
According to the United Nations Environment Program, each year some 100 tons of mercury, 3,800 tons of lead, 3,600 tons of phosphates, and 60,000 tons of detergents enter the Mediterranean Sea as a result of unrestricted and “normal” chemical use, placing it in crisis. But the Mediterranean is not alone. The United Nations declared 1998 the International Year of the Ocean. Worldwide, all oceans are in trouble, particularly because of pollutants.
We usually think of the arctic as a pure and pristine place, free from the effects of human activities, but our modern life does spare these seemingly remote regions. Polar Bears, an endangered species, are at the top of the food chain and therefore the effects of human activity concentrate in them. Among other things such as diminishing polar ice they must deal with flame retardants, known as polybrominated diphenyls, or PBDEs. This chemical affects the sex and thyroid glands, motor skills and brain function in laboratory mice, and likely the bears as well, since the bears, who are exceptionally good swimmers, are now being found washed up on shores. Drowned bears were practically nonexistent in the past.
Besides drowned bears scientists are also finding evidence that compounds similar to the PBDEs have contributed to a surprisingly high rate of hermaphroditism in polar bears. About one in 50 female bears on Svalbard has both male and female sex organs, and scientists link this phenomenon directly to the effects of pollution. The dangers now posed by the PBDEs are reminiscent of the crisis 30 years ago over PCBs—polychlorinated biphenyls—a highly toxic chemical used in many industries. The dumping of PCBs has been banned in the United States
Through their research scientists determined that chemicals at the most minute concentrations of 1/10th of a trillionth of a gram, an amount too small to measure with most laboratory equipment, is interfering with endocrine system leading to abnormal or disturbed sexual development in both human an animal embryos, and to behavioral and metabolic problems. That incomprehensibly small amount is all that it takes for a hormone to change how an embryo develops in the womb. Scientists have found that the females in the animal populations were transferring to their offspring, either in the egg or in the womb, chemicals that appeared to be changing the course of their development. Maybe they didn’t hatch or they weren’t born. Or if they were, they could not survive to adulthood, or if they did perhaps they weren’t able to reproduce. Documented evidence tells of trouble in dozens of species, from Florida alligators to Michigan minks, to Baltic Sea fish. Some of the effects of endocrine disruptors is reduced penis and testicle size, and feminized behavior in males, and sterility and other fertility malfunctions in females. Problems are also occurring in humans in a number of ways.
The Times of India reported on 11 November 2000 , that child genitalia abnormalities are on the rise both in frequency and in severity throughout India India
Early sexual development, also known as precocious puberty, is another effect that seems to be showing up everywhere. The natural arrangement is that humans enter the stages of sexual development after they have achieved sufficient mental and emotional maturity to be able to understand and deal with the influences of sexual desire. Not so in our modern world. Puberty is becoming a fact of life much earlier, too often for children who are not equipped to deal with it. In the USA , Australia and Britain Canada , Europe, Asia and the Caribbean . This compares with 1-in-100 just one generation ago.
A 1997 study of 17,000 girls in America
Events in Puerto Rico have helped solve the puzzle. It was discovered there that girls were developing breasts as young as two years of age. Researchers found out that most of these children were fed soy infant formulas. In 1997 a study published in Lancet showed that soy has plant-based chemicals that mimic the female sex hormone estrogen. The infants who consumed soy formulas had blood concentrations of these hormones 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than estrogen levels normally found in blood! Infant formulas are aggressively marketed in third-world countries, attempting to convince young mothers that baby formula is a healthier alternative to natural breast milk. Why? Because mother’s breast milk does not make money and soy milk does.
Precocious puberty is not unique among the girls. American and European boys also appear to be beginning puberty earlier than in past decades. A significant number of boys as young as eight had signs of genital development. In the UK
What is the cause of precocious puberty? A 20-year study found that the greater the prenatal level of the hormone disruptor polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), the heavier the girls were at age fourteen and their puberty was statistically earlier. In another significant study, the early breast development of the Puerto Rican children was linked to exposure to phthalates, a chemical found almost everywhere in our modern world—in all kinds of plastics, carpeting, furniture, household items, etc., and even added to cosmetics. Researchers found that 68% of the girls experiencing early breast development had high levels of phthalates in their blood. Other suspected chemicals that have possible effects on sexual development include the endocrine disruptors bisphenol-A and polybrominated biphenyls.
Needless to say children at such tender ages cannot be psychologically prepared to deal with the moods, sensations, and emotions that accompany puberty. Studies have found that girls who reach puberty earlier tend to have sex earlier, have an increased risk of pregnancy, experience more psychological stress, poor mental health, more behavioral problems, and are more likely to drink, smoke, have a lower IQ and commit suicide. For boys, it can mean more aggressive, violent behaviors, learning disabilities and more drug and alcohol abuse.[5] Long ago the Srimad Bhagavatam predicted this condition would occur in the age of Kali—that “women” would have children at the age of seven or eight. When I first read that I remember wondering how such a thing could possibly happen. Now I know.
In an interview with the television show Frontline, Colborn describes how PCBs and other endocrine disruptors have definitely been shown to cause problems with intelligence, behavior, and decreasing lactation periods.[6] A breakdown product of PCB—now found in everyone’s tissues—can prevent normal mental and physical development. And a recent study, published in two separate scientific papers, found PCBs and dioxins in average food and in fast foods. In some instances in the industrialized world, PCBs are at concentrations in the human body where all offspring have neurological damage—a mere 1.25 parts-per-million. At that particular concentration, as these children mature they will show short-term memory problems and a significant reduction in intelligence. The average concentration is now about 1 part-per-million across the industrialized world. At that range an infant will be born with measurable neurological damage. This indicates that a sizeable number of children being born today are affected. According to one study a full 20% of the children are in some way affected.
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including dioxins, PCBs, phenolics, phthalates, bisphenol-A, and others, can undermine neurological and behavioral development and subsequent potential of individuals. This loss of potential in humans and wildlife is expressed as behavioral and physical abnormalities. It may be expressed as reduced intellectual capacity and social adaptability, as impaired responsiveness to environmental demands, or in a variety of other ways. It goes without saying that widespread effects such as these can seriously impact the entire character of human societies. How can a physically impaired population understand, what to speak of act, in their own best interests?
So, what is the connection of all of this with economics? The connection is simple enough: these chemicals are produced because we think of scientific development of products as progress, and because they make money—it’s a 1.5 trillion dollar industry, and the business and profits of that very large industry are threatened by the truth of their actions. In science, this is called a paradigm inversion. The current paradigm is the way people are thinking and used to doing things. Now here come some information that strongly challenges what they believe to be true, or the way they want to think. Dr. Fredrick Vom Saal, Professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri
This impression that profits are the greatest obstacle to effectively recognizing and dealing with these issues is strongly supported by Colborn. When she was asked about it, she replied:
“It goes to the core of the economy. It goes right back to international commerce and trade, and we have become dependent upon these products. [To the interviewer:] You wouldn't be sitting here today because you couldn't have flown in an airplane that wasn't using some of these products. This equipment that you are filming me with, the electronics here, has all been dependent upon these chemicals that are now being indicted for causing endocrine disrupter type effects. That is why it is political.
“You have got the vested interests. Governments don't want to put restrictions on the manufacturing of the product. The minute you start talking about this, people immediately think jobs. That is what it boils down to. Net profit. It is very political because it goes to the core of our economy.”
At what point do we consider the future of our health, the environment, and the health of the entire future generations of the earth more important than immediate profits? In the United States
Our Economic Relationship With The Animal Kingdom
What can be said about our relationship with the animal kingdom? The only appropriate comment is a requiem. The only possible concept of animals in a self-centered culture focused on “I and Mine” is food. That they might have their own purposes for living beyond whatever value we may ascribe to them is beyond our comprehension. Modern society is deaf to their concerns simply because they don’t have a voice with which to protest their inhumane treatment, torture and death. If there were some modicum of sattva-guna in the dominant culture the injustice of this horrendous treatment would be plainly obvious, but, alas, as the facts speak, there is none.
The unlimited wholesale killing is mind-boggling. It’s difficult to even comprehend the numbers. The following estimates are compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and are based on reports from more than 210 countries and territories. The following is a summary of the minimum 2003 worldwide slaughter estimates, by type of animal (does not include any type of sea animal):
· 45,895 million (45.9 billion) chickens
· 2,262 million (2.3 billion) ducks
· 1,244 million (1.2 billion) pigs
· 857 million rabbits
· 691 million turkeys
· 533 million geese
· 515 million sheep
· 345 million goats
· 292 million cows and calves (for beef and veal)
· 65 million other rodents (not including rabbits)
· 63 million pigeons and other birds
· 23 million buffalo
· 4 million horses
· 3 million donkeys and mules
· 2 million camels (and other camelids)
This comes to a staggering total of 52.795 billion, which means that globally some 100,500 animals slaughtered every minute of the year, using methods of “factory farming,” a commercialized and for-profit business enterprise. Human beings pray for peace but two or three times a day sit down and eat a meal of death, oblivious to any connection between their killing in the factory and the killing on the battlefields.
But (unfortunately) there is more. The fur trade either traps or otherwise kills millions more. Canada
The WWF’s study The Living Planet mentioned above describes drastic declines in animal populations in just 32 years, between 1970 and 2002. A sampling from around the world includes the following losses: the ocean's “biodiversity” has decreased by 33%, while life in freshwater ecosystems has decreased approximately 55%. The African black rhino numbers have fallen from 65,000 in 1970 to around 3,100 now, and the numbers of African elephants have fallen from around 1.2 million in 1980 to just over half a million now (2002).
In the early 1960’s Rachel Carson began the environmental movement with her book Silent Spring, in which she suggested there might be a future time when there were no song birds due to the effects of chemical contamination of the environment. That day is just around the corner, if present trends continue, and there is no reason to think that they will not. The UK
The journal Science reported a study conducted in England several years ago that summed up the grim news: around 28% of 1,254 native plant species have significantly fallen in abundance in the past 40 years, 54% of the 201 native bird species are gone in just two decades, and 71% of 58 butterfly species over the same period. To say nothing about other insects who are faring just as poorly. Lost of habitat is the overwhelming reason for the decline of both wild animals and plants. And microwave radiation from cellular phones seems to be having an impact as well, particularly in areas near cell towers. Farming and the draining of wetlands have resulted in complete destruction of some habitats, while others have become degraded as a result of other forms of human activity, such as chemical pollutants. Regarding the report Professor Georgia Mace, director of science at the Institute of Zoology in London
The United Nations Environment Program reported in 2002 that more than 11,000 endangered animal and plant species—including more than 1,000 mammals, nearly a quarter of the world's total, face extinction within 30 years. One in eight bird species is also in danger of extinction, and more than 5,000 different plants. The report says many problems could be rectified if governments implement the treaties and conventions passed since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. These include the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the Convention on Biodiversity.
Our economic relationship with the animal kingdom can only be expressed as our benefit and profits completely at their expense. Is it at all possible that we will recognize the severity of these problems and make the necessary changes before everything is dead and gone, including human beings? The Srimad Bhagavatam predicts that such devastation and dissolution will go on until at the end of Kali when practically the only thing left to eat will be each other, a practice that will not then, unfortunately, be viewed with disgust.
If our economic relationships with the earth and animal worlds are grim, our relationships with our fellow human beings are even more so, given that they are beings with a voice, but a voice that is seldom heard it seems. Let us now turn our attention to them.
Human Economic Relationships
There are many different perspectives from which we can examine our economic relationships with each other, but I want to begin with the view from the top. That is, to look briefly into the economic practices jointly lumped together under the heading of the Global economy. This top-down view gives us some insight into the consciousness that underlies it.
A great deal of propaganda is made regarding the “hidden hand” of free markets to be the most effective regulator of supply and demand, and so much talk about world trade is pointed to that goal. We are also asked to accept that “market forces” regulate the fate of human beings, being told that this is the best for everyone in the long run. We are told that higher incomes for the rich and higher profits will lead to more investment, a better “more efficient” allocation of resources and trickle down to the common man in the form of more jobs and general prosperity. This propaganda is meant to convince a reluctant public to accept their government’s participation in the so-called global market. But after all is said and done the actual result is that imported cheap goods undermine local markets, local small producers find it difficult or impossible to compete in the global market and suffer devastating losses, and jobs are exported to countries where the currency and living wage is far less than at home. This thin veneer is only meant to assuage the ignorant masses, but the lies have all but become transparent and people march and demonstrate whenever the forces of globalization meet. The intelligent have always known better, however much they have not been able to prevent the inevitable. More than 50 years ago the scholar Karl Polanyi wrote a fierce critique of the industrial, market-based society based on his study of the same in the 19th century. He said that allowing “the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment . . . would result in the demolition of society.”[8] Prophetic indeed, as we now clearly see the truth of his words reflected after fifty years of market-based “leadership”.
If we consider, say 20% of the world’s richest people, we find that in 1960, they had 30 times the income of the poorest 20%. By 1997, thanks to gloabalization, this increased to 74 times as much.[10] But the very rich are another class altogether. In 2004 for example, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s wealth. In 1998, the world's top three billionaires totaled more assets than the combined GNP of all the least developing countries and their 600 million people. By 2001 the world’s 497 billionaires held a combined wealth of $1.54 trillion, well over the combined gross national products of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa ($929.3 billion) and even more than those of the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and North Africa ($1.34 trillion). This was also greater than the combined incomes of the poorest one-half of humanity.[11] To put it another way, if we were to display wealth by stacking up children’s wooden toy blocks, each of which represents a thousand dollars, a full one-half of the people of the world would have but a single block, the next 35% of people would be within one meter of the ground, while the stack of the wealthiest people would be higher than the Eiffel Tower.
Given our economic relationship with the earth and seas it should come as no surprise that the economic relationships with people are no different—a minute fraction of the population exploits the remainder without conscience, to the point of destitution, starvation and almost endless death. Those policies that are supposed to help the world’s struggling people actually work to exploit them. Through guile and deceit that would make the personality of Kali proud, modern treaties such as General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT ), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Asian Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), organizations such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund continue to exploit the weak, destitute and helpless, all in the name of helping them. But people are catching on, and as a result wherever the WTO meets people protest by the hundreds-of-thousands. What's the reasoning here?
First let’s understand what the WTO actually is. The WTO is an organization of some 500 highly paid professionals, mostly lawyers who make significant decisions about international trade outside of the public’s view. It has no written bylaws, makes decisions by its own internal consensus, and has never taken a public vote on any issue. It holds no public hearings, and in fact has never opened its processes to the public. Its court rulings are secret and final.[12] Under the WTO system decisions that affect people (you) are no longer going to be made by local and national governments. Instead, their existing laws already on the books, if challenged by any WTO Member nation, would be referred to a group of un-elected and unaccountable bureaucrats sitting behind closed doors in Geneva California to buy (and use) gasoline containing additives that are highly polluting in the Los Angeles
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader and co-author Lori Wallach have written that “under WTO rules, certain objectives are forbidden to all domestic legislatures, state legislatures, and local governments. These forbidden objectives include providing any significant subsidies to promote energy conservation, sustainable farming practices, or environmentally sensitive technologies. Laws with mixed goals, such as provisions of the US Clean Air Act that implement the international ozone agreement conflict with the WTO’s requirements. In those cases, and others, the WTO rescinds provisions in pre-existing international agreements, including environmental treaties that conflict with trade rules.”[13] In other words, without so much as a 10-minute discussion the WTO can undo decades of hard work that was done by thousands of concerned citizens to protect the people and the environment, results that any sane person can recognize as drastically needed, and needed now, more than ever before.
Most people, upon learning the truth behind the workings of the WTO are incredulous. They ask: How can this happen?
How Economic Globalization Works
Joseph Stiglitz was formerly the Chief Economist of the World Bank. He was fired in 1999 for criticizing the bank’s policies. He had the audacity to point out that every country the IMF/World Bank got involved in ended up with an economy in ruins, their government in shambles, and the populace rioting. He explains how the IMF and World Bank operate:
“The IMF likes to go about its business without outsiders asking too many questions. In theory, the fund supports democratic institutions in the nations it assists. In practice, it undermines the democratic process by imposing policies. Officially, of course, the IMF doesn’t “impose” anything. It “negotiates” the conditions for receiving aid. But all the power in the negotiations is on one side—the IMF’s—and the fund rarely allows sufficient time for broad consensus-building or even widespread consultations with either parliaments or civil society. Sometimes the IMF dispenses with the pretense of openness altogether and negotiates secret covenants.”[14]
The actual tactics of the IMF and the World Bank have been verified by such investigators as Greg Palast who had access to a sizeable stash of secret documents passed to him by disaffected World Bank and International Monetary Fund workers, and he also interviewed Stiglitz after his departure from the bank. This, he says, is how economic globalization actually works:[15]
· a nation applies to the IMF for a bank loan
· the loan is contingent on the nation's rulers signing secret agreements by which they will sell off the nation's key assets to whatever corporation the IMF selects (the water systems, the railways, the telephone companies, the nationalized oil companies, gas stations, etc.)
· for example, according to a secret agreement between the leaders of Argentina and Jim Wolfensen, the president of the World Bank, a pipeline that runs between Argentina and Chile
· according to that same secret agreement the water system of Buenos Aires
· the rulers must sign a secret agreement, averaging one-hundred and eleven items, whereby they will run the economy according to the dictates of the IMF; if they don't follow those steps they are cut off from all international borrowing; no nation can survive without borrowing.
· the IMF/WB pay a “commission” (usually a sizeable personal fortune) to the ruler’s Swiss bank accounts when they sign the secret agreements stripping the nation of its assets.
· the secret agreements result in nothing short of slavery for the entire population since the IMF conditions include such murderous facets as laying off huge numbers of workers and creating a general state of financial austerity
· The IMF often requires “austerity measures” that require a borrowing country to reduce benefits in health, education, and welfare to its citizens. For example, the Structural Adjustment Program in Tanzania
· five million of its people still faced hunger and starvation every day
· Indonesia
· The Indonesian currency, the rupiah, collapsed by 80%
· The Indonesian stock market collapsed by 50%
Transfer of wealth from Poor to the Rich
How can this be the results of economic aid? Perhaps because the “aid” is like the free drugs given by the schoolyard drug pusher to the hapless lads who think they are getting something for nothing. Then they wind up hooked and begin giving all of their money to that same pusher. Similarly, although countries do get some aid, they later wind up sending more money out of the country in debt service than they had originally received in help. The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants.[17]
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are living in poverty because of Third World debt and its consequences. Latin America owes 36% of its Gross National Product in debts to other countries and banks, while sub-Saharan Africa owes 83% of its total GNP. Repayments to Western Creditors takes priority over other domestic needs and ordinary people suffer in reduced education: in sub-Saharan Africa the percentage of 6-11 year olds enrolled in school has fallen from nearly 60 per cent in 1980 to less than 50 per cent in 1990; and reduced health care, in lack of employment and in limited ability to trade and provide for themselves. Africa now spends four times more on debt repayment as on healthcare.
The consequences of this debt have a staggering impact the 1.9 billion children in the developing world. They are the ones who, more than any others, are paying this debt by not having access to:
· adequate shelter: 1 of every 3, or 640 million, don’t have a proper home
· safe water: 1 of every 5, or 400 million, don’t have clean drinking water
According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to reasons associated with poverty. They die quietly in remote villages, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. These are the people who, like the animals, fish, forests, and waterways have no voice to be heard by the people who make their life and death decisions. This amounts to some 210,000 children each week, or approximately 11 million children under five years of age, in a year.[19] If this statistic included those ages 6 to 8 the numbers would of course be even much higher. In Africa an estimated 500,000 more children died from the imposed restructuring of their countries’ economies to ensure increased flows of money to external banks, while spending declined by 50% on health care and by 25% on education since the IMF’s structural adjustment programs began.[20]
Increasing poverty is a fact of life and it is going on all over the world. An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
· 3 to 1 in 1820
· 11 to 1 in 1913
· 35 to 1 in 1950
· 44 to 1 in 1973
Do you see a trend here? I thought so. The transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich impacts not only the most undeveloped societies, but goes on at all levels and in all places, including the so-called developed nations. In pre-Thatcher Britain Canada
The growing inequality that we see between nations is mirrored inside America
Why All the Poverty?
Is the problem a shortage of money? Not at all. There is plenty of money. In 1996 I did an exercise of totaling up all of the income in all countries of the world and divided it by the population. If all of the income were equally divided in this way every person would receive some $10,000 annually. Now, since nearly three billion people of the world live on less than $2 per day, or about $700 per year,[24] where then does the remainder of their $9,300 share go? Why to those who already have more than they can possibly spend, so that they can spend it on more things that they don’t need.
With even these scant few statistics it should be quite clear that the economic system is arranged to transfer wealth from the already poor (and getting poorer) to the wealthy. Why? Can the rich possibly spend what they have? How long would it take the world’s 500 billionaires to spend their presently accumulated wealth of $1.5 trillion if they each spend $1,000 per hour, 24 hours per day? . . . 342 years! So why can they possibly need more? Sri Krishna answers that when describing the demonic nature: “so much is mine today and I will get more according to my schemes”. The narcissist absorbed in the material concept of life of “I and Mine” can never have too much because such a person begins to think in terms of what he does not have, rather than what he does have.Economic Development for Who Exactly?
Let’s go back to those questions we posed at the beginning of this section. Who is it that wants their country to get involved in the Global economy? and Why?
It is patently clear that the people-at-large are not the ones demanding entrance into the WTO so that they can have more products in their stores. They are not marching in the streets and rioting to bring to their government’s attention their crying need for more “stuff”. Instead they are rioting to stay free from the economic tyranny that results from WTO participation. Who then wants their country involved? It can only be the oligarchs that will personally pocket millions of dollars from selling their countrymen into economic serfdom, as well as the transnational corporations who will extract the wealth of the countries involved, and their sycophants in the WTO, IMF and World Bank. That statement also explains why the Global Economy is promoted as the panacea for all humanity, but in the best form of Kali it disguises the final result—debt and economic slavery for the masses, profits for the few.
Because of the vast nature and the vagaries of modern economics, it is difficult to know exactly what is going on in all of the financial shenanigans, but when the results and trends are observed, and when they show decidedly consistent results all over the world, it quickly becomes clear who the winners are and who the losers are. In the economics of atheism your value in the culture is based solely on your worth in terms of what you can produce. That means you have no intrinsic value as a person, but only a value assigned to you based on what you can do for others. Only money matters to the people who control the economics of atheism. Alternative economist Susan George, who has been reporting on the economic mischief of the globalists for more than twenty years, puts the Kali-yuga imperialistic and impersonal agenda like this:
"take very seriously indeed the neo-liberal definition of the loser, to whom nothing in particular is owed. Anyone can be ejected from the system at any time—because of illness, age, pregnancy, perceived failure, or simply because economic circumstances and the relentless transfer of wealth demands it. Shareholder value is all . . . Politics used to be primarily about who ruled whom and who got what share of the pie. Aspects of both these central questions remain, of course, but the great new central question of politics is, in my view, ‘Who has a right to live and who does not’. Radical exclusion is now the order of the day; I mean this deadly seriously."[25]
"take very seriously indeed the neo-liberal definition of the loser, to whom nothing in particular is owed. Anyone can be ejected from the system at any time—because of illness, age, pregnancy, perceived failure, or simply because economic circumstances and the relentless transfer of wealth demands it. Shareholder value is all . . . Politics used to be primarily about who ruled whom and who got what share of the pie. Aspects of both these central questions remain, of course, but the great new central question of politics is, in my view, ‘Who has a right to live and who does not’. Radical exclusion is now the order of the day; I mean this deadly seriously."[25]
Perhaps now, after reviewing the results of the economics of atheism we can better appreciate the statement of the Srimad Bhagavatam cited at the beginning of this chapter:
For human society, constantly thinking of how to earn money and apply it for sense gratification brings about the destruction of everyone’s interests. (SB 4.22.33)
[1] Henry Ford, Sr. quoted in The Federal Reserve Hoax, Wickliffe B. Vennard, Sr., privately published, circa 1962.
[7] Interview conducted in February 1998 by Doug Hamilton, producer of FRONTLINE's “Fooling With Nature.”
[10] 1999 Human Development Report, United Nations Development Program; http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1999/en/
[11] John Cavanagh and Sarah Anderson, World’s Billionaires Take a Hit, But Still Soar, published in The Institute for Policy Studies</cite>, 6 March 2002 .
[13] GATT , NAFTA, and the Subversion of the Democratic Process, by Ralph Nader and Lori Wallach; Excerpted from: The Case Against the Global Economy. Edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith
[14] Joseph Stiglitz, What I learned at the world economic crisis. The Insider, The New Republic April 17, 2000
[19] Robert E. Black, Saul S Morris, Jennifer Bryce, Where and why are 10 million children dying every year?, The Lancet, Volume 361, Number 9376, 28 June 2003 .
[20] John McMurtry, Unequal Freedoms; The Global Market as an Ethical System, (Kumarian Press, 1998), p.305.
[21] 1999 Human Development Report, United Nations Development Program; http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1999/en/
[23] Ross LaRoe and John Charles Pool, using data from the Congressional Budget Office, quoted in Richard Phillips, Politics of the Rich and Poor, 1990, p. 14
[24] This figure is based on purchasing power parity, which means that prices of goods is the same in countries around the world due to floating exchange rates. This means that a dollar would buy the same amount in all countries. So if a poor person in a poor country living on a dollar a day moved to the U.S.
PovertyMap.net shows has two maps showing the concentration of people living on less than 1 and 2 dollars per day around the world.
[25] Susan George, Twenty Years of Elite Economics and Emerging Opportunities for Structural Change from Conference on Economic Sovereignty in a Globalising World, Bangkok, March 1999
05 November 2009
Remember the folk tale of the Gingerbread Man? Everybody was trying to eat him: the woman who baked him, the pig, the cow, and the horse. He challenged them all: “Run, Run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.” But when the Gingerbread Man came to a stream he thought that all was lost. Surely he would be eaten now. How could he cross the stream, he wondered. The sly fox who was nearby offered the solution: “just jump on my back and I will carry you safely across the water.” Not completely trusting the fox, but having no other choice, he accepted the offer. In the middle of the stream the fox told him that he was too heavy on his back that he had to move forward to his shoulders. Gingerbread man did as he was told. Then the fox said, still the weight was too great on his shoulders and they would sink if he stayed there, better that the Gingerbread man should ride on his long nose. Submissively the Gingerbread man again did as he was told. Just as the fox reached the other side and it appeared safety was in reach, the fox flipped up his nose tossing the Gingerbread man into the air, then catching him in his mouth and devouring him.
In an effort to escape all of the evils that have been chasing the world economy we are now hitching a ride with the fox. He promises to help us, and that everything will turn out just fine if we ride on his nose. And so far, it appears that that might be the case. We like to hope so, although things are still far from certain. However, if we look closely at what is going on, this life boat that we are all on seems to be headed for a different destination than we signed on for. This is becoming more obvious with every passing month. Have we jumped out of the economic frying pan only to land in the One World Government fire?
In case you haven’t been looking, over the past several months there have been a number of significant steps made toward establishing a defacto global government—all in the name of saving us from economic crises. Rest assured that it will not look like a government in terms of what you commonly think of in that sense. It is not an overt government that everyone can see, talk about and participate in. It is instead a covert government that controls the finances of the world, and that means that they control the entire world, and many things that will affect you directly, without your knowledge, consent, or recourse. The recent events moving us toward a global government include:
- Establishing of a global central bank and world currency
- Replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency
- The move to bring the U.S. into line with other countries as an equal player
- Economic regulation at the global level via the Financial Services Board
The steps toward global governance have been in the planning stages for decades and they are beginning to take final shape in the aftermath of recent events. This is not a conspiracy of any sort. All of the steps leading to this conclusion are openly discussed by the leaders of the world. You can read their documents and see their videos. In order to see the plan though, you have to look for it, and you have to connect the dots, because the main stream media is not going to do that for you. Some of the alternative reporters are however. One of my favorite financial writers, Joan Veon, has been pointing out for more than fifteen years that there is something very wrong with the big picture. In a recent piece[1] she cites the 1994 United Nations Development Report, containing a Special Contribution by Nobel Prize-winner Jan Tinbergen, who laid out the steps we see being enacted now. Entitled “Global Governance for the 21st Century,” Tinbergen wrote:
Mankind’s problems can no longer be solved by national governments. What is needed is a World Government. This can best be achieved by strengthening the United Nations system. In some cases, this would mean changing the role of UN agencies from advice-giving to implementation. But some of the most important new institutions would be financial—a World Treasury and a World Central Bank. Just as each nation has a system of income redistribution, so there should be a corresponding ‘World Financial Policy’ to be implemented by the World Bank and the World Central Bank.
World Bank and Global Currency
Veon explains that the UN Development Report called for changes to be made at the international level of government in order to establish the necessary powers. These included a World Central Bank whose five functions would include:
(1) Stabilizing global economic activity
(2) Acting as lender of last resort to financial institutions
(3) Calming jittery financial markets
(4) Regulating financial institutions and
(5) Creating and regulate new international liquidity.
Interesting, isn’t it, that these are exactly what we are hearing from all sides about why we need changes in the economic structure. The 1994 UN report also stated, “It will probably take some time and probably some international financial crisis before a full-scale World Central Bank can be created.”
There it is plain as day—the plan: a world central bank and a world government called for in a UN Report, even telling us that a financial crisis will help to bring about the result. Well, is that the same international financial crisis that we had starting last year? I do believe it is. Uncanny, isn’t it? Not at all. The planning has taken place over decades and many events orchestrated to create the conditions that this report calls for, and the plan is being executed before our eyes. Problem is that few are looking. Yoo-hoo, check it out! Is this where you want to go? Or is the fox taking us to his deep, dark woods?
(I will explain in detail in future posts how this entire economic debacle was deliberately created to establish these conditions. Watch for “The Economic Chernobyl of 2008”).
Dancing to this tune the world’s leaders have been calling for reform of the international monetary system, particularly China and Russia. Perhaps because the Chinese hold vast reserves of U.S. dollars and don’t want to see their wealth vanish before their eyes. Or perhaps because they are playing their part. Back in March of this year, and again last month, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the central bank of China asked for monetary restructuring. He wrote in March: “The desirable goal of reforming the international monetary system, therefore, is to create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.” And, “The costs of a dollar-dominated system to the world may have exceeded its benefits. The dollar should be replaced by a new global reserve currency.”[2] In this document Xiaochuan suggested the Special Drawing Rights the little known currency issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the best tool for the job.
Their calls are being heeded. While the G20 Meeting was in session last September Jim Rickards, director of market intelligence for scientific consulting firm Omnis, in a CNBC interview said that “the IMF is being anointed as the global central bank,” and opined that this was in fact the unannounced purpose of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh on September 24. Rickards further said that the plan is for the IMF to issue a global reserve currency that can replace the dollar.[3] That new, fiat, global reserve currency has the catchy name of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). Veon was onto this scheme more than five years ago although the banking officials that she interviewed denied any knowledge of it.
Financial writer for the London Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, wrote last April that a single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order. The articles subtitle says it all: “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” What happened was the G20 “agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” That’s bankerspeak. Evans-Pritchard explains it so that all of us can understand it: “In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money. . . In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”
Trashing the Dollar
The call to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency has come from heads of central banks and heads of state for the past two years. It will happen, but the reasons first have to be established. The best reason is the decline and instability of the dollar, which is in fact being engineered by those in charge of it. It must be “managed to a lower value.” In his interview Rickards pointed to an op-ed piece by Fed governor Kevin Warsh, published in The Wall Street Journal on the same day the G20 met. Rickards interpreted Warsh as saying: “We sort of have to trash the dollar, but we’re going to do it gradually. . . Warsh is trying to preempt an unstable decline in the dollar. What they want, of course, is a stable, steady decline.” If you go looking for it, you can easily find that there is a war on the dollar. Just a few weeks ago financial speculator Martin Weiss wrote such an article asking “Our readers are deeply concerned about the dollar’s current decline … how that decline could slash their wealth … and how it could impact their quality of life. They wonder when and how they will be able to save for their future, for their children and grandchildren. They ask: Can the United States survive the decline of its currency? Could the dollar’s decline mark the end of our nation’s greatness as a world power?” As super-investor Jim Rogers agrees that this is indeed what is going on: “It’s the … official policy of the central bank and the United States to … debase the currency.” Debasing the currency means that it’s value will decrease. Your money will not buy what it formerly did. This is a very subtle way of stealing your wealth.Based on this news it seems that the collapse of the dollar, as we have remarked about in earlier posts here, will not occur as a sudden event, but as a gradual managed process. This has also been confirmed by other investigators who project a 2-3 year decline. Americans are advised is to keep only whatever dollars you need for the next six months. For the rest the economic newsletters recommend physical gold, or to stay liquid Euros or the Chinese Renminbi.
The Game Plan Reveals Everything
If you understand that it is the plan to create a global government, you will observe world leaders calling for, or justifying the implementation changes that lead us inexorably in that direction. For example, England’s Gordon Brown recently offered justification for global coordination saying that “the cause of the problem is that banks have been insufficiently regulated at a global level, and we have got to set the standards for that for the future.”[4] The fact is that it was not necessary in the past, and is not necessary now, to have global regulation if the markets were reined in nationally. The fact is that the situation has been allowed to develop so that the excuse exists to make these changes globally.
In what is described as a “shocking attack,” very uncharacteristic for a head of state, Germany’s Angela Merkel castigated the central banks saying that they may end up doing more harm than good. She told a conference in Berlin: “What other central banks have been doing must stop now. I am very sceptical about the extent of the Fed’s actions and the way the Bank of England has carved its own little line in Europe.”[5] Why is a head of state attacking “the system?” Because if you want to change it you must have a reason.
Again, if we know the game plan this is not shocking behavior at all. What Brown and Merkel are doing is offering justification for a greater global authority. This idea is also decades in the planning. Also in 1994, The Bretton Woods Commission was convened by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. Meeting with the Chairman and Director of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, they issued a report that reinforced the 1994 UN Human Development Report and called for “greater economic convergence among countries.”
Equal Players
In order to bring about a global government the role of the United States has to be reduced so that the U.S. is just another player. President Obama has recently acquiesced to this idea leading his once great country into the ranks of the ordinary. What “leadership”, eh? In an addresses to the 64th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Obama said “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone. . . Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges. . . The time has come for the world to move in a new direction.” Obama is giving up the lead, offering to be a team player, instead of being the supreme power that the United States has been in the past, continuing “No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. . . The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise and that treaties will be enforced.” And for this he’s considered a great orator? We’d better pay closer attention to what he says instead of how he says it.
The new Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, played his role well recently during his meeting with Obama by telling the press that he wants to shift Japan’s diplomatic stance from one that is less centered on Washington’s lead. In former years that would have been considered a strong and direct insult, given that he was with the President of the United States at the time! Why didn’t Obama take it like that? Because its all part of the script.
President Obama also recently said that he is determined to go after the “reckless risk-taking” that pushed the global economy into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s (if he is, then he should arrest his own economic team), and he is also pushing for countries to promote more balanced growth going forward. He is pushing a plan that would require the United States and other countries to make sweeping changes in how they manage their deficits. Here Obama is talking about international regulation. His initiative would require chronic trade-deficit nations like the United States to boost their savings rates to consume fewer imports, and for trade-surplus countries like China to get their consumers to spend more and rely less on export-led growth.[6] Tell me please, how is Obama going to control your saving and consumption? By making sure that you don’t have enough money to go hog wild as you have been in the past. When money is flowing people think about enjoying now and paying later. But when times are tough people scrimp and save, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Is that where you want your President to lead you?
Financial Stability Board
It appears at this stage that the ‘World Financial Policy,’ called for by Tinbergen is going to be managed through a sort of group consensus coordinated by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), and everybody’s on board. The G20 leaders gave the FSB (formerly the Financial Stability Forum) a prominent role in taking forward the agenda of promoting financial stability. Their own document provides the methods that will be used (emphasis added):
Through the collective actions of its members, the FSB facilitates consistency in the development and implementation of regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies as well as cooperation in identifying and addressing vulnerabilities. The international community is committed to maintaining an open and integrated financial system. Therefore, consistency and cooperation are essential for the success of the reform agenda and the preservation of a level playing field across national financial systems.
So when Obama says that the United States is not going to solve the world’s problems alone he wasn’t kidding. Instead the U.S. will be just another voice in the crowd of the G20 nations, plus assorted additional members, all of whom are going to be participating in what will be a global planned economy. This is what the Soviets were doing, although they didn’t have a global reach. Guess what? The Communists have triumphed! They have conquered the world!!! (and without firing a shot). Oh, it is not called communism, but if it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, shouldn’t we call it a duck? And what is going on certainly squawks like communism—Soviet style.
We just cited above how Obama will cooperate with international needs. But “cooperation” with the FSB is not going to be voluntary. It is going to be mandated through “commitments” and “obligations to promote a sound, globally integrated financial system.” Globally integrated means that everybody marches to the same tune. It’s a planned economy, centrally managed, but for whose benefit? We don’t know for sure, but based on the earlier “global economy” we can guess that its not for the benefit of the common man anywhere. Again, from the FSB’s document:
With financial markets and institutions being global, efforts to promote financial stability must also be global. There are many official institutions and bodies that have some degree of responsibility for financial stability. These are largely organised along national and functional lines. The FSB brings them together to promote consistency in the development and implementation of policies across jurisdictions and sectors. . . Work is underway to expand the regulatory perimeter to ensure that all systemically relevant institutions, entities and products are subject to appropriate oversight. . . More effective arrangements are also being put in place for international coordination and cooperation in the oversight of large cross-border financial institutions.
The language of the document tells us that we are going to have global regulation by a central body. Their rhetoric makes this sound all well and good, and nobody will argue with the stated goals of financial stability. However, exactly how those goals will be accomplished, and for whose benefit, is the real issue. If somebody is going to regulate me don’t I want to know that it’s for my interest?
What’s Wrong With a World Government?
Now a world government may not be necessarily a bad thing. After all, there have been global governments in the past. The Vedic literature tells us of wonderful, global civilizations ruled by a single king. Ramachandra was one. King Yudhistira was another. Bharata Maharaja, after whom the entire world, and present day India are named, is yet another. You can read this wonderful history in the Puranas. These were benevolent dictators who followed the laws of dharma and ruled the world as a representative of God for the benefit of all citizens. And without exception they were loved by all the people.
If our present day leaders were such benevolent types who would object to their governing the entire globe? Unfortunately our memorable history doesn’t show us that, but in fact quite the opposite. Instead of being benevolent they are despotic. Instead of being concerned for the welfare of everyone they are concerned only with the welfare of a very small minority at the expense of the vast majority. Their activities are cloaked in stealth, secrecy, lies, obfuscation, manipulation, coercion, collusion, torture and death at almost every level. In every country they abuse the trust that is placed in them, making themselves objects of scorn and derision by the people they rule.
If they want a world government why don’t they just openly campaign for one? Because the people don’t want it and they know it. The people know that it does not serve their own interests, just as the global economy didn’t serve their interests. Therefore they plot and plan how to create such miserable conditions that the people, in extreme distress, will accept whatever plan is put before them. David Icke calls their modus operandi “problem, reaction, solution.” Create a problem that will cause the people to react in such a way as to call for the solution that the elite want to establish. It is the oldest trick in the book. The Reichstag fire, the sinking of the Lusitania, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and 911—all of them staged events to draw support from the people. Add the economic crisis of 2008-? to the list, which is leading us to a global government that is not a democracy by any stretch of the imagination. Instead it will be fascist despotism.
We are all Gingerbread men now riding on the nose of the sly fox. They tell us that we will soon be safe. Don’t believe them.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/king-and-brown-in-rift-over-whether-to-split-the-banks-1806805.html
[5] Merkel Lashes Out at Central Banks, Sean O’Grady, Business Week, June 3, 2009, http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2009/gb2009063_565103.htm
[6] AP – President Barack Obama speaks about the economy, Monday, Sept. 21,2009, at Hudson Valley Community College. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=8636280
20 September 2009
Understanding at the Big Picture - Part 1
Understanding at the Big Picture
In the next series of posts I am going to focus on understanding the bigger picture. The events taking place in the world are by design, not by accident, and that design has a very specific purpose: to change the way the world functions. This is another way of saying that there will be a New World Order.
Many of the world's leaders are using that specific term, along with saying that we need a New World Economic Order. For example, the UK Guardian Gordon recently posted an article titled "Gordon Brown urges EU to back new economic order" that calls for a defacto World Government. Not too long ago the Pope said the very same thing. Guess what they are preparing us for?
Well, they've made such a mess of things that it's now true -- we do need both a new world order and a new economic world order. BUT, not the one that they have in mind. We need a New SpiritualWorld Order and Spiritual Economics instead. That does not require the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.
In the coming posts I will bring you information regarding their proposed New World Order as well as taking a more intimate look at our leaders and their consciousness. As expressed in my book on Spiritual Economics the economic solutions that they develop will be determined by, and demonstrate their consciousness. It's not going to be a pretty picture. The good news is that the ugliness of this picture can be replaced by a beautiful world if we take action and do the right things. Besides looking at the bigger picture we are also going to look at the solution.
Let's begin this series of posts with the following video. Sorry, I don't know who created this video, (if you do please let me know) but from their accent they appear to be from Australia. While they did a great job of showing what's going on, their proposed solutions fall somewhat short of what is needed. We will pick up that part with more details. With that introduction, here it is:
In the next series of posts I am going to focus on understanding the bigger picture. The events taking place in the world are by design, not by accident, and that design has a very specific purpose: to change the way the world functions. This is another way of saying that there will be a New World Order.
Many of the world's leaders are using that specific term, along with saying that we need a New World Economic Order. For example, the UK Guardian Gordon recently posted an article titled "Gordon Brown urges EU to back new economic order" that calls for a defacto World Government. Not too long ago the Pope said the very same thing. Guess what they are preparing us for?
Well, they've made such a mess of things that it's now true -- we do need both a new world order and a new economic world order. BUT, not the one that they have in mind. We need a New SpiritualWorld Order and Spiritual Economics instead. That does not require the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.
In the coming posts I will bring you information regarding their proposed New World Order as well as taking a more intimate look at our leaders and their consciousness. As expressed in my book on Spiritual Economics the economic solutions that they develop will be determined by, and demonstrate their consciousness. It's not going to be a pretty picture. The good news is that the ugliness of this picture can be replaced by a beautiful world if we take action and do the right things. Besides looking at the bigger picture we are also going to look at the solution.
Let's begin this series of posts with the following video. Sorry, I don't know who created this video, (if you do please let me know) but from their accent they appear to be from Australia. While they did a great job of showing what's going on, their proposed solutions fall somewhat short of what is needed. We will pick up that part with more details. With that introduction, here it is:
25 August 2009
The Carrot & the Stick - Collapse of the Dollar is Imminent; so is the Gift Economy
Collapse of the Dollar is Imminent; so is the Gift EconomyLast year news of impending economic calamity heralded the crisis of September. In the same way this year there has been news heralding the demise of the US dollar. Likely though you only saw this if you search out the economic news that is off of the mainstream. As stated in earlier posts, the dollar is being put in the hearse, or the trash. WARNING: MOVE YOUR SAVINGS OUT OF DOLLARS AND POUND STERLING. Recommended: a one-year supply of food grains and other items of demand that can be used for barter.
If I am wrong you will eat the food, and barter whatever you have stocked. The loss will only be the transaction fee for changing currency. If I am right and you don’t act, well, the loss of whatever you have in dollars could be complete. Remember: all paper currency is ONLY PAPER! It has NO intrinsic value. It is WORTHLESS PAPER that we have been trained to believe has value. NOT.
If you want to store wealth, then store it in something that can be used and is wanted by people, such as food and other household items. Store things that you will use as if it were money in the bank, because it is, and is much, much safer.
It’s not just my idea that the dollar is doomed. Here are indications that came up over the past four months that point to the demise of the buck:
The Global European Anticipation Bulletin
Public announcement Special Summer 2009 GEAB N°36 (June 17, 2009) –
At this stage of the global systemic crisis’ process of development, contrary to the dominant political and media stance today, the LEAP/E2020 team does not foresee any economic upsurge after summer 2009 (nor in the following 12 months). On the contrary, because the origins of the crisis remain unaddressed, we estimate that the summer 2009 will be marked by the converging of three very destructive « rogue waves », illustrating the aggravation of the crisis and entailing major upheaval by September/October 2009. As always since this crisis started, each region of the world will be affected neither at the same moment, nor in the same way. However, according to our researchers, all of them will be concerned by a significant deterioration in their situation by the end of summer 2009.
Those three waves are:
1. Wave of massive unemployment: Three different dates of impact according to the countries in America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa
2. Wave of serial corporate bankruptcies: companies, banks, housing, states, counties, towns
3. Wave of terminal crisis for the US Dollar, US T-Bond and GBP, and the return of inflation
World Prepares to Dump the Dollar
July 21, 2009 | Robert Morley From theTrumpet.com
American economists think the world can’t afford to let go of the dollar’s reserve currency status. The world is about to teach them differently.
What do China, India, Brazil, Russia, France and Germany have in common? These countries most often can’t agree on anything. But they are united in one strange—and ominous—way. They blame the United States for wrecking the global economy. And they think the dollar is the wrecking ball.
One rock-solid, foundational belief underpins almost all economic theory in America: faith in the dollar’s unassailable status as the world’s reserve currency. Foreigners hold so many dollars that they can’t afford to stop buying them, the theory goes. Therefore the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is sound. But the dollar is now coming under a concentrated attack. Are American economists about to get schooled?
Angela Merkel summed up the dollar-skeptic viewpoint last year. “Excessively cheap money in the U.S. was a driver of today’s crisis,” she told the German parliament. And America’s solution—even more cheap money—was just setting the world up for another crisis, she said. It was just a matter of time.
China attacks dollar’s dominance
Published: July 9 2009
China has launched its highest-profile criticism of the dominant role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency at a meeting of the world’s biggest economies.
Dai Bingguo, Chinese state councillor, raised the issue on Thursday when he joined the leaders of four other emerging economies for talks with the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations – including US President Barack Obama – in the earthquake-damaged Italian town of L’Aquila.
Bilderberg Group orders destruction of US Dollar?
Thursday, 21 May 2009
(If you don’t know who they are you can find out about the super-secret Bilderberg Group here, and here, and here)
The shadowy Bilderberg Group, who this past week held their annual meeting in Greece, states that the West’s financial, political and corporate elite emerged from their conclave after coming to an agreement that in order to continue their drive towards a New World Order dominated by the Western Powers, the US Dollar has to be “totally” destroyed.
Even worse, a new US report on these secret Bilderberg meetings states: “Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin, whose information from inside Bilderberg has routinely proven accurate, states that the global elite’s plan to completely destroy the economy and ultimately lower global population by two-thirds has stoked fears even within Bilderberg itself that the fallout from such chaos could ultimately result in the globalists losing their control over the world.”
Russian President Medvedev has joined with China, Brazil, and other Nations, to and has put forth the Russian Ruble as one of a number of International Reserve Currencies to replace the soon to collapse American currency. [Medvedev also displayed a shiny gold coin at the G8 summit as a possible new Global currency to replace the dollar].
And back in April, economic reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote for The Telegraph:
The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency
Following the April 2009 G20 Summit, leaders issued a communiqué which set the groundwork for the creation of a global currency to replace the US dollar as the world reserve currency. The communiqué stated that, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.
So there it is. News that the next economic crunch could begin as early as next week, close to the one-year anniversary of last years debacle. And if you want to know what’s in store after that, scroll down and read my post: “Economic Chernobyl of 2008”.
Who Says An Economic Debacle Has to be Tragic?
When the dollar tanks people are going to be looking for ways to cope. If the government’s currency fails then it is possible to create a private currency to use in local areas. There are many advantages of a private currency over the government’s paper currency. The town of Wörgl Germany did this during the depression of the 1930’s, leading to a very prosperous city despite being surrounded by depression and gloom. Six neighboring villages copied the system successfully. The French Prime Minister made a visit to see the 'miracle of Wörgl'. In January 1933, the project was replicated in the neighboring city of Kirchbuhl, and in June 1933, Mayor Unterguggenburger addressed a meeting with representatives from 170 different towns and villages. Two hundred Austrian townships were interested in adopting the idea.
Unfortunately when the Austrian government learned about the success of the intelligent local leaders, did they copy it elsewhere? No. They made it illegal and condemned Worgl to the same economic malaise as the rest of the country. The Central Bank panicked, and decided to assert its monopoly rights by banning complimentary currencies. The case was brought to the Austrian Supreme Court, which upheld the Central Banks monopoly over issuing currency. It then became a criminal offence to issue “emergency currency”. Worgl quickly returned to 30% unemployment. Social unrest spread rapidly across Austria. In 1938 Hitler annexed Austria and many people welcomed Hitler as their economic and political savior.
This lesson in history proves that the governments actually want to create such problems. In this case so that Hitler would be welcomed and not scorned. Worgl wasn’t alone however, and there were more than 2,000 private currencies in circulation in the United States during the Great Depression, and there are today more than 2000 private currencies in use around the world. More recently entire cities of Argentina created their own local currencies when the government currency failed.
Economics is not such a confusing subject that well-intentioned people cannot run the economies properly. It CAN be done. But they don’t want to. If you want to understand why please download and read my book. Read Bob Chapman’s International Forecaster. Or Read Dr. J. W. Smith’s good books. Or read Joan Veon, or Ellen Brown, or Catherine Austin Fitts. All of these good people know what is going on. They know that the current economic problems are no mistake. They have been deliberately planned, and they say so.
The Ultimate Solution is the GIFT ECONOMY
Now, if the government steps in and quashes your local money, the ultimate solution is the gift economy, AND NOBODY CAN STOP IT. NOBODY.
Even in difficult economic times you can have what you need IF you are willing to give up your attachment to the concepts of “I” and “Mine” that we have been indoctrinated in from youth, and act according to the adage that God provides for everybody and everything in this world is meant to be used for the benefit of all. Not hoarded in one’s private account. It’s possible. There are many examples, here on this page and elsewhere online. Google “gift economy” and you will get more than 170,000 hits! Don’t just google it, see what other people are doing and with that inspiration, join in the fun! Who says an economic calamity has to be tragic?
12 August 2009
The Stick - The Catestrophic Results of the Economics of Atheism
The Catestrophic Results of the Economics of Atheism
Two chapters in my Spiritual Economics explain how our modern economy is based on death. Another chapter that was cut from the book, The Catestrophic Results of the Economics of Atheism, puts some facts and figures to the economics of death. Although it is not in the book you can still download it and read it. You will find it here.
Spiritual Economics IS on Lulu
Well it only took a few months (!) but the glitch on Lulu.com has been fixed by the nice people there and Spiritual Economics is now available for download from there, or rather, here. Get it now and understand what is really going on in the economic news.
The Carrot - The Gift Economy is HUGE!
The Gift Economy is HUGE!
Preparing for a lecture in Lithuania I googled the phrase "spiritual economics". I was shocked to see that more than 170,000 hits were returned!! Ten years ago when I googled the phrase there were no where near that many - several thousand at best. I haven't yet had time to investigate very many of those hits, but I will soon and let you know what I find. But we want to know: What happened? How has the idea of the gift economy become so huge?
Well, on the negative side in those ten years we had the Bush administration with all of its ill-effects, and 911. On the other hand we had a number of extremely well-researched, well-written and shocking books such as Michel Chossudovsky's "The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order" and Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". These books certainly have set people to wondering what the positive alternative could be. Catherine Ryan Hyde's book "Pay It Forward" came out in 2000, followed by a movie based on the book, and then entire movement of people who think it is a great idea to help others without being invited have followed. Check out the stories on that last link if you want to find some inspiration for positive living that changes lives. We also had the collosal economic crisis of 2008 - the Economic Chernobyl. Apparently all of this has set a lot of people thinking about how the economic problem could be solved.
My son, who was studying in Paris several years ago told me that a number of French philosophers were writing about the gift economy as the solution to all of the funny-money business. Ain't that true. NO money, and no money problem.
But besides the philosophers a lot of ordinary people can understand that the gift economy has many, many advantages with very little of the downside that the money economy has. This has shown up in many ways. One of those is the "Really Really Free Market" explained in the video below. The RRFM is going on in at least four cities in America, and we will be doing our best to establish on them in E. Europe.
One gift at a time can lead to an entire economy based on the concept of gifting. Although this may sound utopian to some, its a very practical way to live for others. And it is a much more wonderful way to live. After we get it going and the naysayers see how wonderful it is they will want to join us. Then more will join us, and more, and more. And one day teh entire world "will live as one" to quote one of my favorite singers. Check out this Really Really Free Market. Maybe you will want to start one in your town.
28 July 2009
The Stick - Economic Chernobyl 2008 - An Economic Nuclear Bomb
Economic Chernobyl - The Deadly Economic Bomb of 2008
A deadly economic bomb was set off in September 2008, and if that weren't enough there is more on the way. Suffice it to say that "you ain't seen nuthin' yet". The time will come when, as it is said in Revelations of the Bible, nobody will buy or sell unless they have the "Mark of the Beast".
When I was a college freshman my Fortran Programming instructor, a sincere Christian fellow, offered his interpretation of the chapter of Revelations after class. His analysis was that the "Beast" itself would be a fantastically powerful computer, and the "Mark of the Beast" will be some sort of code that everyone will need to have in order to participate in society. That class was back in 1966. At that time computers were very large mainframe devices that filled entire rooms, but were no more powerful than your notebook. There were no bar codes, no scanners, no RFID tags or other implantable chips. Given the state of affairs the instructor was remarkably prescient. What he predicted more than 40 years ago is coming to a neighborhood near you - and soon!
That may all sound a bit far-fetched if you haven't been doing your economic homework. Well, not to worry. I've done it for you. All you have to do is read it - here it is. And remember: you can handle the truth!
As you read this be mindful that there is a beneficial solution that will work for everyone without any "marks" or any "beasts". Its called Spiritual Economics, it heals instead of harms, is based on giving instead of getting, it leads to a world that works for everyone. And it can defeat all of their diabolical plans for global domination and exploitation!
The Economic Chernobyl of 2008 – and the New Economic World Order
Like all nuclear reactors, the nuclear plant at Chernobyl had safeguards that were engineered into the design so that in the event that cooling water was lost and temperatures became too great, the reactor would automatically shut itself down. Why did the reactor blow up? Because the safeguards were deliberately disabled by the plant engineers so that they could push it beyond its limits in an "electrical experiment". The predictable happened. The reactor “went critical”, meaning that the reaction process could not be controlled. It was quite possible that it could have exploded in a huge nuclear cloud. Instead, it melted itself into a seething amorphous incredibly radioactive mass of steel, carbon control rods and enriched uranium, sending plumes of radioactive steam high into the atmosphere above. This silent killer traveled north on the prevailing winds to destroy and maim thousands of unsuspecting people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because the safety features of the plant were disabled this event cannot technically be called an accident. It was instead, an incident.
Instead of being referred to as the “sub-prime crisis” the economic crisis of 2008 should properly be called “The Economic Chernobyl Incident.” What happened in the financial markets from the spring through the fall of 2008 was no accident. The safety features to prevent such an economic meltdown had been in place for decades, but were deliberately dismantled beginning from the 1980s. When signs of strain began to appear in the system and were made known to the authorities they were deliberately ignored. The history shows that events have been deliberately orchestrated to bring about the current result. Why? The information available shows a pattern, a motive and a goal. Even this early into the process (written in December 2008), we can understand that the stage is being set to forge dramatic changes in the operating paradigm of the world. The shift will be global in scale - we are slated to take a collective quantum leap into the economics of slavery and despair. Here's the step-by-step actions leading up to the crisis, and highly placed people telling us that we are headed for a New World Economic Order.
[Just added: A few weeks ago during the G8 meetings in July 2009 in Italy, the Pope called for a "world political authority" (that's a direct call for a one-world government!) that would "manage the global economy, and revive economies hit by the crisis, to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result." The Pope's onboard, along with Sarkozy, Brown, Putin and the rest of the NW(economic)O crowd!]
Download the entire story here.
25 July 2009
The Carrot - The Gift of Love
The Gift of Love
The gift economy is a wonderful solution to the many problems of the world. It is not a Utopia, nor something that only "pure devotees" can do. It is a culture, and everybody can learn to live that culture as the most natural thing in the world, just like we unconsciously have learned to live the culture of selfishness.
A friend recently sent me the link to the following video about "Dama", the gift economy in Mali - one of the poorest countries of the world. If these people, who have next to nothing, can gift to others, then what is preventing us, who have so much? Only our culture. And that can be changed.
It must be changed if we are to save the world. I will be posting much, much more about the gift economy and Spiritual Economics in the coming weeks.
Spiritual Economics promotes a gift economy based on the principles of the eternal religion. Everyone can take part, and everyone will benefit.
19 July 2009
The Carrot - Spiritual Economics - The Gift Economy Based on the Bhagavad-gita
An Introduction to the Principles of Spiritual Economics --
The Gift Economy Based on the Bhagavad-gita
by Dhanesvara Das
Preface
Because of the nature of wealth and what it represents to people, and perhaps because of the confusion surrounding the subject, economics is a subject matter which very few people address either fully or directly, or attempt to understand beyond their own checkbook. In that regard those who are devotees of Lord Krishna are not much different from the population in general. Some relate well to and have the ability to acquire money in large or at least sufficient sums, others get by, and others struggle with it throughout their lives. For many devotees of Krishna attempting to live a pure life there is a dichotomy surrounding money as well. While they may prefer to engage in devotional service, in these times that won't pay the rent. Thus they are pulled in two seemingly irreconcilable directions. For those with family responsibilities the rent generally prevails, causing the man or woman to associate with people he would rather not be with, doing things he or she would rather not do. This is one problem which stems from our lack of understanding Spiritual Economics.
There are of course thousands of books with advice on the subject of money and economics and everyone has their own angle on how to get ahead of the game. Money is the focus for most people's lives because it represents the ability to satisfy one's desires. Although the title contains the word "economics" this paper is not about money, or how to raise money either directly or through others. Spiritual Economics instead refers to an economic system based upon the Bhagavad-gita and as such offers an economic system for a society established in transcendence.
It is certainly not for everyone. But it certainly will have its time and will be practiced by those who are the living examples of the Bhagavad-gita. It is for those persons who have achieved the full understanding that Lord Krishna is the Supreme Proprietor or owner of everything, that He is the Supreme Enjoyer of everything, that He is our most dear friend, and that the satisfaction we seek can come only from serving Him without motivation or interruption.
In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna speaks more than thirty verses about economics. How many you may have recognized as such is more a matter of consciousness about economics than anything else, but they are nonetheless applicable to our economic activity—if we are to take the Lord's statements to be explicit in their meaning. Generally if some idea is repeated three times we understand that we should take it as very important. How important then can this message of the Lord be when he says that same thing more than thirty times? The emphasis behooves us to understand it.
It is important to understand that Spiritual Economics refers to more than an economic system, it is a state of consciousness. That state of consciousness is the consciousness of an individual who is living the full tenants of the Bhagavad-gita, and the individual's practice of Spiritual Economics is the visible hallmark of such.
Material economics promotes a consciousness of “lack” and the need to get. Spiritual Economics promotes a consciousness of completeness (om purnam idam purnam idam) and the joy of giving. Spiritual Economics also delineates the basis of Varnashrama Dharma, and establishes the place of genuinely brahminical men in society.
Part I - The Principles of Spiritual Economics
In speaking about Spiritual Economics my purpose is to distinguish it in character and application from traditional or material economics. Spiritual Economics is understood in light of spiritual knowledge, particularly the definitions and understandings of spiritual knowledge as found in Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of India, and based principally upon the Bhagavad-gita As It Is and the Srimad Bhagavatam translated by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Spiritual and material economics are to be distinguished by the same differences which characterize the qualities of matter and spirit. To wit: the spiritual element is personal, eternal, fully cognizant and blissful, complete in every respect without lack of any kind, and is eternally connected with the Supreme Fountainhead of all that be. The material element is impersonal, temporary, existing in a state of ignorance and is without happiness or bliss. It is perceived to be incomplete in itself, due to it's being separated from the Efficient or Supreme Cause.
All living beings are spiritual in nature and are complete with all spiritual qualities. However, when they are born into the material realm and identify with the material coverings of the material body and mind, that very identification causes them to assume the qualities of the material energy as described above. The material economic system presently used is so arranged as to aid those in material conscious¬ness in their development of the material conception of life.
Economics deals primarily with the production and distribution of goods and services which are required or desired by people in their daily course, and those who are under the spell of material consciousness participate in and act according to the machinations of material economics. In its extreme the grossly materialistic conscious¬ness is stated in the Bhagavad-gita: (16.11-15)
"They believe that to gratify the senses unto the end of life is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus there is no end to their anxiety. Being bound by hundreds and thousands of desires, by lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification. The demoniac person thinks: 'So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more and more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy and I have killed him, and my other enemy will also be killed. I am the lord of everything, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice.' In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance."
However, when one gets the opportunity to understand his true spiritual nature, and begins to act according the principles of devotional service, he is then acting within the realm of Spiritual Economics. The newfound difference in how a person then lives their life has vast implications as we shall later see. It is important to demonstrate the contrast between material economics and Spiritual Economics, so I will begin with a brief description of material economics as understood through the Srimad Bhagavatam.
The Beginning of Material Economics
The Beginning of Material Economics
In understanding how our present economic situation has come about we turn to the pages of the Srimad Bhagavatam, which explains that the material creation takes place for two reasons: to give the living entities the opportunity to purify their consciousness and return home back to Godhead, and to give those who choose, the opportunity to live an illusion of their own making, enjoying different types of bodies and different varieties of sense enjoyment. In the matter of creation, Lord Brahma, creator of the material universe, had to provide the necessary environment for both of these situations.
"Brahma first created the nescient engagements like self-deception, the sense of death, anger after frustration, the sense of false ownership, and the illusory bodily conception, or forget¬fulness of one's real identity." SB 3.12.2
Srila Prabhupada's comments are particularly meaningful to our discussion:
“Unless a living entity forgets his real identity, it is impossible for him to live in the material conditions of life. Therefore the first condition of material existence is forgetfulness of one's real identity. And by forgetting one's real identity, one is sure to be afraid of death, although a pure living soul is deathless and birthless. This false identification with material nature is the cause of false ownership of things which are offered by the arrangement of superior control. All material resources are offered to the living entity for his peaceful living and for the discharge of the duties of self-realization in conditioned life. But due to false identi¬fication, the conditioned soul becomes entrapped by the sense of false ownership of the property of the Supreme Lord.”
Those living entities who come to this world with the purpose of enjoying falsely take the material body as "I" and everything in connection with the body as "mine." In attempts to enjoy, history has shown that there is no limit, even to the point of conquering the heavens, as did the demon Hiranyakasipu, declaring himself to be God. Hiranyakasipu is a more notable example of this vain attempt to become the Lord, but beings everywhere in this world engage in similar attempts according to their own power and capacity. Thus there are enjoyers on every level within this world, who perceive themselves to be possessors and controllers—of countries, armies or multinational corporations, or simply their children, pets, or machines. Yet from the highest to the lowest, though the scale may be different, the endeavor is the same—identification with the body and it's possessions. This is the consciousness of “I and mine.”
Srila Prabhupada comments about the conception of “I and Mine:”
“The two misconceptions of life, namely “I” and “mine,” are verily manifested in two classes of men. In the lower state the conception of “mine” is very prominent, and in the higher state the misconception of “I” is prominent. In the animal state of life the misconception of “mine” is perceivable even in the category of cats and dogs, who fight with one another with the same misconception of “mine.” In the lower stage of human life the same misconception is also prominent in the shape of “It is my body,” “It is my house,” “It is my family,” “It is my caste,” “It is my nation,” “It is my country,” and so on. And in the higher stage of speculative knowledge, the same misconception of “mine” is transformed into “I am,” or “It is all I am,” etc. There are many classes of men comprehending the same misconception of “I” and “mine,” in different colors.”
The conception of ownership is the basis of the “mine” aspect of false ego, and ownership is a word that means different things to different people stemming mainly from differences in culture. As we have quoted Srila Prabhupada above: "there are many classes of men comprehending the same misconception of “I” and “mine,” in different colors.”
Our modern Western conceptions of ownership come to us from Roman thought which held that everything must to have an owner. The Romans didn't recognize the ownership of God. They thought that everything should have a human owner, and a very select human owner at that. Roman law eventually came to decree that it was possible for a “free” man to own and possess unlimited quantities of anything which he found the means to acquire, including animals, land and other people. These concepts gradually spread around Europe and as the spread of western civiliza¬tion gradually encompassed the globe, it has carried with it these same concep¬tions of ownership. As such, it would appear that the whole of the world commonly shares the same ideology of private ownership. While today that may be true, it was not that long ago that things were quite differ¬ent, and history affords us many examples of cultures which have held a very different concept of ownership.
Cultural Examples of “I and Mine”
Consider the kinsmen of the African tribe, the Nuer. Their culture held that they must assist one another, “and if one has a surplus of a good thing he must share it with his neighbors. Consequently, no Nuer has a surplus. No Nuer is expected to part with his cattle or household property, but were a man to possess several spears or hoes or other such objects he would inevitably lose the surplus.”
Similarly the ancient Samoans would extend communal sharing to relatives even if not to more distant individuals. From a relative one could demand food, clothing and shelter, and assistance in a feud. Refusal of such a demand brands one as stingy and lacking in human kindness, the virtue most esteemed by the Samoans.
There are many other examples although they are beyond the scope of this paper. For now I simply wish to point out that indigenous cultures around the world, more often than not, held the possession of property in common rather than individually. In their conception the holding of wealth was not so much “mine,” but “ours.” It was not localized, or isolated to a specific individual, but would include a wide range of people, be they blood relatives or not. Their conceptions of ownership were a social arrangement which went beyond individual self interest to provide a sort of social security for every individual. The general agreement to share resources, which obviously would at times result on infringement of the wealth in one's possession, also acted to insure that no individual would be without what they truly needed, especially the basic necessities of life.
In contrast, the conception of private ownership prevalent in the West also has significant implications on the social functioning of our society, but rather than insuring social security it instead promotes impersonalism and isolation (voidism). Private ownership implies a single individual who is the owner. What he earns is his, and his alone, to do with as he so chooses. In times of plenty and the individual has much to share, the isolation inherent in this social arrangement may not seem so apparent to him. Since they can provide for others people with wealth are not generally lacking for friends, and generally use their wealth in providing for those close to them. However, when times are hard and there isn't anything to share he may find himself suddenly abandoned. That it is not unusual to see marriages splitting up over the sudden loss of income or change of fortune, or the huge increase in the number of homeless people who are left to fend for themselves is sufficient proof of this.
Because under the conception of private ownership what is yours is not mine, each person is automatically set against every other to compete for limited commodities and resources. While our government has made some arrangements to give most citizens an equal footing by providing for education, job training, etc., for the most part, every individual is left to his own devices to improve his lot in life. Obviously, more capable people, or those with more education, better connections, or greater resources are going to fare better than those less well endowed.
Significantly, and unfortunately, there is no prevailing ethic within our culture which obligates anyone to help his brother. Rather, the prevailing ethic is that the government should take care of the needy, and people are further encouraged to help those less fortu¬nate by some charitable means. Now, as we approach the end of the millenium, the Clinton administration has altered the welfare laws which eliminate so-called “entitlements” for the less fortunate or able. After a maximum of two years on the dole, the government stops providing, and if the individual or family is unable to care for themselves they can then depend only upon private charity, which may not have enough to go around. Thus our “advanced” culture provides less social security for its people than the so-called primitive cultures of yore.
The Characteristics of Material Economics
The model of material economics under which our country presently operates defines each family as an economic unit who functions both as producer and consumer, and the economic success of the country as a whole is achieved when both of those functions are maximized for each individual citizen. This model uses as currency both cash and credit, commodities which are distinct from the economic unit itself. Further, it is assumed that people will be most happy or satisfied when they are able to maximize their level of consumption (which means achieving the utmost limit of sense gratification), that is natural for them to do so, and that they as individ¬uals and the society as a collective whole will both achieve maximum benefit by orienting the workings of the economy to fulfill this assumption. Those who propound this scheme consider people to be nothing more than producing/consuming machines, whose best utility is found in the same, without ascribing any type of personal or spiritual qualities to them which go beyond these functions.
Another of the fundamental assumptions of material economics is the conception that each and every individual can possess and own unlimited amounts of material goods, including the natural resources of the earth, and as proprietor may use or dispose of these resources as they alone deem proper. No consideration is made as to the source of, or responsibility to replace those same resources or to bear the costs of restoration. Indeed, every attempt is made to “externalize” these costs to others who have no interest or gain from the consumption of the resources.
The Implications of Material Economics
The implications of this economic model are several fold. First each individual must necessarily seek something which is outside of the self to find the gratification they naturally desire. This creates an orientation of “getting” within the consciousness of the individual and a conception of “lack.” Due to this conditioning people believe that they can fulfill this lack by “getting,” that getting should be the object of one's activity, and that its successful accomplishment will bring the satisfaction they seek. Thus we see the American public preoccupied with getting, racing to and from the workplace at break-neck speeds and erecting glittering tabernacles for spending which inflame their desires and artificially increase the demands of the body. Parents now spend more time shopping than they do in interaction with their children.
Because money, in the form of cash or credit, is the currency by which the objects of desire are generally obtained, and because it is inherently different from both the self, and the sense objects it promises, people in general are conditioned, indeed, hostage to, the act of getting money. And it by this very means that a small percentage of the population controls and exploits the vast majority without even their slightest understanding of the fact.
It is widely recognized that within the context of material economics a large number of people will be competing for a finite quantity of goods, and that intense competition will drive many people to crime and corruption in an attempt to attain their desire. This paradigm further leads to the exploitation not only the earth, but to people as well, as both are seen only as a means to an altogether different, and pressingly immediate, end. Further, this conception of private ownership further acts to isolate and separate us from each other as we pursue our “own” self-interest. Against this bleak background people live their lives, and it has brought us to the deplorable state the world is in today. Incredibly, it is within this same context that people are searching for solutions to the problems which this system itself creates.
Contrast this conception to that of the Samoans mentioned above. The Samoans will rarely even feel abandoned and uncared for, let alone actually becoming so. If they are hungry they have the assurance that their neighbor will provide for them. Because at least some of their wealth is shared wealth rather than private wealth (and wealth of the most basic kind at that, i.e., food, shelter and emotional support) it is clear that a member of the ancient Samoan culture would always feel sheltered and protected within his community.
How can we reconcile the nature of the economic system we are functioning under in the West with the values of Vedic culture which Srila Prabhupada has taught? It appears that the Vedic system was somewhat more like that of the Samoans than the United States in 1992, or even 1952. We learn that the householder would go to his door and call out to anyone who was hungry to come and eat before the householder would have his meal. This is Vedic culture. Are the Western Vaishnava's doing this? Few. How can we institute Vedic culture if we don't (or can't) practice it as we understand it? In my opinion we can not practice it easily in the economic context of Western culture, because the two cultures contain concepts of ownership which are diametrically opposed!
But perhaps we can practice it in a different economic context. That would mean redefining some of our basic concepts and social values. It requires that we abandon the economic system which isolates us from each other, and begin to understand and expand the economic system which Srila Prabhupada introduced to us. It requires that we redefine our relationship with the material things of this world. It requires that we seriously practice Krishna consciousness and come to the point of being able to live the Bhagavad-gita. That is what we call Spiritual Economics—an economic system for a spiritually advanced culture. Are we ready for it? Let's take a look at what that might be.
The Economics of Bhagavad-gita
Given that the nature of this material world places all of us, at least to some extent, in the context of “I and mine,” we need to understand how to correct this consciousness. In the purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 2.9.3, Srila Prabhupada points the way to resolving the false conception of “I and mine:”
“So one must also give up this misconception of “I” by practicing the way of devotional service or firmly being situated in the transcendental loving service of the Lord.....Shrimad Bhagavatam and, primarily, the Bhagavad gita are both meant for delivering a person from the misconception of “I” and “mine,” and Srila Vyasadeva transcribed them for the deliverance of the fallen souls. The living entity has to be situated in the transcendental position where there is no more influence of time nor of the material energy. ....The perfect process is to accept Lord Vasudeva as the Supreme in everything, and the best perfection in culturing knowledge is to surrender unto Him because He is the source of everything. Only in that conception can one get rid of the misconception of I and mine.”
Srila Prabhupada created his International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) for the purpose of training those interested in the way of devotional service. The centers of ISKCON are places for people to get help in making such a change of consciousness, and Srila Prabhupada arranged everything in his temples perfectly to this end. We learn from the spiritual master that Lord Krishna is the Supreme Proprietor, the Supreme Enjoyer and our most dear friend and that our real interest and happiness is to be found by engaging in His devotional service.
The spiritual master comes to this world to reclaim the fallen conditioned souls. Thus this training by the spiritual master is meant to qualify us for entry into the Vaikuntha kingdom, which is a realm available only to perfected beings. These qualifications, demonstrated by the character of the denizens of Vaikuntha, are described in the Bhagavatam:
“In the Vaikuntha planets all the residents are similar in form to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. They all engage in devo¬tional service to the Lord without desires for sense gratification.” SB 3.15.14.
Srila Prabhupada comments:
“In Vaikunthaloka there is no occupation but the service of the Lord, and this service is not rendered with a purpose. Although every service has a particular result, the devotees never aspire for the fulfillment of their own desires; their desires are fulfilled by rendering transcendental loving service to the Lord.”
Our individual endeavor in going back home, back to Godhead, thus requires that we sooner or later come to this consciousness of unmotivated and uninterrupted service. Our community with devotees should be an aid for us in this regard, and can be when we join together with this purpose in mind.
We learn from Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita how to engage in activities in such a way that they will bring us liberation instead of bondage. There, He tells us how to work (production), what kind of consciousness the work should be performed in, and what to do with the results of our work (distribution). This is in essence economics, Spiritual Economics.
The Lord states [please pay particular attention to the emphasis which I have added]:
"You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty. Be steadfast in yoga, O Arjuna. Perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure. Such evenness of mind is called yoga. Dhananjaya, rid yourself of all fruitive activities by devotional service, and surrender fully to that consciousness. Those who want to enjoy the fruits of their work are misers. A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Therefore, strive for yoga O Arjuna, which is the art of all work. The wise engaged in devotional service, take refuge in the Lord, and free themselves from the cycle of birth and death by renouncing the fruits of action in the material world. In this way they can attain that state beyond all miseries." 2:47-51
"You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty. Be steadfast in yoga, O Arjuna. Perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure. Such evenness of mind is called yoga. Dhananjaya, rid yourself of all fruitive activities by devotional service, and surrender fully to that consciousness. Those who want to enjoy the fruits of their work are misers. A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Therefore, strive for yoga O Arjuna, which is the art of all work. The wise engaged in devotional service, take refuge in the Lord, and free themselves from the cycle of birth and death by renouncing the fruits of action in the material world. In this way they can attain that state beyond all miseries." 2:47-51
"Perform your prescribed duty, for action is better than inaction. A man cannot even maintain his physical body without work. Work done as a sacrifice for Vishnu has to be performed, otherwise work binds one to this material world. Therefore, O son of Kunti, perform your prescribed duties for His satisfaction, and in that way you will always remain unattached and free from bondage." 3:8-9
"One is understood to be in full knowledge whose every act is devoid of desire for sense gratification. He is said by sages to be a worker whose fruitive action is burned up by the fire of perfect knowledge. Abandoning all attachment to the results of his activities, ever satisfied and independent, he performs no fruitive action, although engaged in all kinds of undertakings. Such a man of understanding acts with mind and intelligence perfectly controlled, gives up all sense of proprietorship over his possessions and acts only for the bare necessities of life. Thus working, he is not affected by sinful reactions." 4:19-21
"The steadily devoted soul attains unadulterated peace because he offers the result of all activities to Me; whereas a person who is not in union with the Divine, who is greedy for the fruits of his labor, becomes entangled." 5:12
"One who is beyond duality and doubt, whose mind is engaged within, who is always busy working for the welfare of all sentient beings, and who is free from all sins, achieves liberation in the Supreme." 5:25
There are many, many more similar references which may be included, but these serve our present purpose of developing an understanding of Spiritual Economics. In summary, Lord Krishna is instructing us to perform our work, whatever it may be, according to our own nature, and without being attached to the fruits, or results to offer them to the Supreme. Such work is without reaction due to the consciousness behind it which transforms it into devotional service, pure devotional activity which has no reaction. Srila Prabhupada cautions us in the preface of his Bhagavad-gita to accept it as it is; by it's literal meaning.
By taking the Lord's words in their literal meaning, an economic system jumps out of the pages of Bhagavad-gita. Let's take a close look at those instructions and the economic activity they refer to.
A Description of Spiritual Economics
Considering the verses above we note the following:
1. A person must always be engaged in some activity.
[never be attached to not doing your duty, (2.47); Perform your pre¬scribed duty, (3.8); always busy working for the welfare of all sentient beings, (5.25)]. These are instruc¬tions for production.
[never be attached to not doing your duty, (2.47); Perform your pre¬scribed duty, (3.8); always busy working for the welfare of all sentient beings, (5.25)]. These are instruc¬tions for production.
2. The results of our activity do not belong to us.
[you are not entitled to the fruits of action, (2.47); Those who want to enjoy the fruits of their work are misers, (2:49); The wise engaged in devotional service,... free themselves from the cycle of birth and death by renouncing the fruits of action in the material world, (2.51); Abandoning all attachment to the results of his activities, (4:20); gives up all sense of proprietorship over his possessions, (4.21)].
If we take this literally, it means that we give up all claim to the fruits of action as our possessions - even for the purpose of selling or trading them. Where do they go then?
[you are not entitled to the fruits of action, (2.47); Those who want to enjoy the fruits of their work are misers, (2:49); The wise engaged in devotional service,... free themselves from the cycle of birth and death by renouncing the fruits of action in the material world, (2.51); Abandoning all attachment to the results of his activities, (4:20); gives up all sense of proprietorship over his possessions, (4.21)].
If we take this literally, it means that we give up all claim to the fruits of action as our possessions - even for the purpose of selling or trading them. Where do they go then?
3. The fruits of our actions are to be given freely to others.
[One who is beyond duality and doubt...is always busy working for the welfare of all sentient beings, (5.25)] These are instructions for distribution. Just as in Iskcon's temples we offer our services without consideration as to who receives the benefit, so it is within Spiritual Economics but in a different setting. This is a gift economy.
[One who is beyond duality and doubt...is always busy working for the welfare of all sentient beings, (5.25)] These are instructions for distribution. Just as in Iskcon's temples we offer our services without consideration as to who receives the benefit, so it is within Spiritual Economics but in a different setting. This is a gift economy.
4. Our activities should be performed in the spirit of devotional service, for by working in such consciousness we will be satisfied.
[Work done as a sacrifice for Vishnu has to be performed,...perform your prescribed duties for His satisfaction, (3.9); The steadily devoted soul attains unadulterated peace because he offers the result of all activities to Me, (5.12)]. These are the instructions for the consciousness of our activity.
5. We should act only for the bare necessities of life.
[Such a man of understanding acts with mind and intelligence perfectly controlled,... acts only for the bare necessities of life. (4.21)]. These instructions regulate the consumption of a society in which life’s necessities are easily had.
[Such a man of understanding acts with mind and intelligence perfectly controlled,... acts only for the bare necessities of life. (4.21)]. These instructions regulate the consumption of a society in which life’s necessities are easily had.
All of these verses taken together describe an entire economic system which can lead to our perfection and qualify us to enter into Vaikuntha as described above. Beyond that, the characteristics of Spiritual Economics would have a wide influence over the quality of life on this planet. Let's see what that might be.
The Characteristics of Spiritual Economics
The Characteristics of Spiritual Economics
Just as material economics are based upon the material conceptions of life, Spiritual Economics is based upon spiritual conceptions of life. One of the wonderful qualities of spiritual activities is that there can be no material impediment to them, therefore, they are always available. As such in Spiritual Economics the conception of abundance replaces the concept of scarcity so there will never be problems of lack and scarcity which are so prevalent in the world today.
Under Spiritual Economics the economic unit is not a producing/consuming machine, but an individual spiritually conscious living being whose satisfaction is not derived from material sense gratification but from devotional service to the Lord. As such, consumption of earthly resources is minimized because more than the minimum is simply not desired or required by the humble Krishna conscious person as it is to fill the inflated ego and greed of the spiritually-starved materialist. Reducing the environmental impact of the human species upon the earth is thereby automatically achieved without any sense of deprivation or complex legislation or policing.
In Spiritual Economics the main feature is that everything is achieved by giving and not by getting. First of all there can be no "getting," as we understand that Krishna is the supreme proprietor. Without His consent what is our power of getting? However, every living being has something to give, which is their energy in devotional service. Giving finds its perfection in devotional service , which is reciprocated in loving relationships.
This is demonstrated by the fact that Lord Krishna first of all gives to us all that is required for our sustenance—this earth and its elements, the air, sunshine, rain, even our ability, intelligence, and so on. In devotional service we reciprocate with the Lord by giving back to Him those same things transformed, as in food, clothing for the Deity, temples for his worship, and other things created in the spirit of devotional service. This reciprocal service culminates in the highest treasure of all—pure love of God. As this unalloyed devotional service matures, Lord Krishna gives Himself to His devotee and the devotee gives himself to the Lord. This loving exchange is the eternal activity of the spiritually perfected souls who reside in the spiritual world.
Under Spiritual Economics this reciprocation goes on between the participants as well, each engaged in the service of their choice, but giving the results to others freely and accepting in return those things which they require for living.
Under Spiritual Economics this reciprocation goes on between the participants as well, each engaged in the service of their choice, but giving the results to others freely and accepting in return those things which they require for living.
Life's real pleasure is giving and not getting, but our present economic structure has made this natural pleasure so difficult to perform that we see ourselves developing into selfish people. So if we consciously reform the economic system in such a way to produce an environment which promotes the pleasure of giving, naturally this will awaken the spiritual values in the heart of men, ultimately finding fulfillment in giving to Krishna, and to all around us.
Just as material economics has a currency, so does Spiritual Economics. But the currency in Spiritual Economics is of a spiritual character. The currency is devotional service. It is not something separate from the economic unit, therefore there is no anxiety in acquiring it. Nor is it at all limited in supply. Quite the contrary it is unlimited. In fact, the more one uses spiritual currency, the more one will have, as demonstrated by Lord Chaitanya and His associates:
“Although the members of the Pancha-tattva plundered the storehouse of love of Godhead and ate and distributed its contents, there was no scarcity, for this wonderful storehouse is so complete that as the love is distributed, the supply increases hundreds of times.” Cc, Adi 7.24
The individual economic units are most happy and satisfied when they are able to maximize their level of devotional service. Free from the influence of the deluding potency, maya, it is natural to do so, and they as individuals and society as a collective whole will both achieve maximum benefit by orienting the economy toward this understanding. People can be peaceful and secure when they know that they will be taken care of, and can then focus on giving their service.
Further, since Krishna is the Supreme Proprietor of everything, in Spiritual Economics the participants do not claim proprietorship over anything. Therefore, intense competition to become the biggest enjoyer, artificially increasing lust and envy is eliminated, and all persons who participate in such an economic system can live in cooperation, free from envy, strife, class struggle and political upheaval.
Considering that the main feature of all families who live under one roof is that there is no buying and selling between them, but sharing according to the need of each, then in showing the way of devotional service which includes Spiritual Economics, Srila Prabhupada has made us all one family that can dwell peacefully in one house—a house in which the whole world can live.
In the next section we shall discuss some of the practical aspects of implementing and practicing Spiritual Economics. In conclusion of this section we present a summary of the main features and results of material and Spiritual Economics in the table below. As you look at the two columns consider on which side you want to live your life. You can help to create a functioning Spiritual Economy by giving up envy and greed, and engaging your labor in the service of others in the spirit of devotional service.
A Comparison of Material and Spiritual Economics
Material Economics
- Self, currency, and objects of desire are always separate, creating consciousness of scarcity
- Focus is on self
- People are forced to “get”
- Competition, greed, avarice, graft, crime, and corruption become desirable means for success
- Irresponsibility towards oneself, others and the earth results
- Maximum consumption is encouraged
- False sense of proprietorship develops; exploitation of the earth's resources
- Encourages exploitation and slavery of others; the strong and wealthy exploit the weak and unable
- Loss of self-respect due to irresponsible and sinful acts involved in getting or keeping money
- Creates unlimited toil and struggle in an effort to accumulate wealth
- Gives the notion that money can solve all problems; also that problems exist outside of the self
- Isolates and alienates people from each other
- Everyone can manipulate the economic system to their advantage at the expense of others; Low class men inappropriately become the false leaders of society
- Impersonal currency
Spiritual Economics
- Self, currency and objects of desire are never separated, creates feeling of wholeness
- Focus is on others
- People are free to give
- Requires and promotes cooperation with others; eliminates motive for greed, crime, avarice, etc.
- Encourages responsibility to self and others
- Minimum consumption is encouraged
- Provides no impetus for exploitation of people; Creates a strong social security system for all
- Fosters understanding of custodian/caretaker of nature; no impetus for exploitation
- Promotes self-respect through giving of self
- Work and struggle minimized to what is appropriate
- Helps to understand that problems are opportunities for spiritual growth and development
- Establishes community—creates a house in which the whole world can live
- Wealth is distributed by the desire to serve others
- Personal currency
12 July 2009
Criticism of the Dollar as Reserve Currency - A leadup to dumping the dollar
As noted in the post below, the dollar may be slated for a fall. Criticism of the dollar as the world's reserve currency is grist for the propaganda mill to prepare the public for the dollar's fall. If you know the game plan the moves to get us there are all quite transparent and even expected. This news (below) and other news, such as Medvedev's trotting out an example of a global currency, are all preparing the people of the world to accept the coming changes in the global economic system. The rulers of the world have decided that they want to change the way the world works. Therefore they are telling us that "we" need a "New World Order" and a "New Economic World Order". This is all doublespeak that means that the future is not going to be like the past. Hold onto your hat and get ready for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
On the other hand, if you don't like economic roller coasters, learn about and begin to apply Spiritual Economics in your life.
The following is an introduction to the entire article from Financial Times found here.
China Attacks Dollar’s Dominance
China has launched its highest-profile criticism of the dominant role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency at a meeting of the world’s biggest economies.
The remarks, in front of Mr Obama, caused concern among western leaders, some of whom fear that even discussion of long-term currency issues could unsettle markets and undercut economic recovery.
The Stick - New World Currency is a Prelude to a New World Government
New World Currency is a Prelude to a New World Government
Not ready for a new world government? Well, get ready because its coming to a neighborhood near you. The move is quite simple: follow the European model. Economics leads, politics follows. The European Common Market began solely to facilitate trade between two countries. Those who warned that this would lead to a political union were criticized as luddites. But now, just a generation later, there is a European flag, a "national" anthem, and of course, efforts are under way to create a European constitution if the Irish will vote "as they should" to ratify the treaty. (of course the Irish didn't want it before, and neither did any other people where the constitution was put to a popular vote. We'll see if enough sweeteners were added to the deal to get the Irish to capitulate when the vote comes up again soon).
For a world government we will of course need a world currency (such as President Medvedev is proposing at the G8 summit meeting going on now). We will also need a world tax. Joan Veon has been writing for more than ten years to inform us how the global economic system is stealthily being put into place. And after all this happens a global government is not far behind. All the better to serve you of course.
Here is how the new global money is being presented by Medvedev. For the full article please click here
In a highly symbolic moment at the G8 summit in Italy today, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled to reporters a coin representing a “united future world currency”.
However, those who have downplayed the formulation of a world currency by dismissing it as merely a progression of SDR’s (Special Drawing Rights) and not something that would physically be used by citizens in a system of world government, were contradicted when Medvedev clearly outlined that the new currency would be “used for payment” by citizens as a “united future world currency”.
“This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to settle such issues jointly,” Medvedev said.
“Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it,” reports Bloomberg.
The question of a supranational currency “concerns everyone now, even the mints,” Medvedev said. The test coin “means they’re getting ready. I think it’s a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are.”
Medvedev explained that the coin had been minted in Belgium and bears the words “unity in diversity”. An RIA Novosti report noted that the coin represented an example of a “possible global currency”.
The economic problem is not that difficult to solve. In fact it is very easy to solve locally everywhere in the world. A global currency will not solve any problems. It will only make things worse because people will lose more control over their lives. In the context of modern society Jane Jacobs taught this simple lesson more than 20 years ago in her book "Cities and the Wealth of Nations". Nothing has changed since. In the context of the absolute truth this lesson has been taught in the Vedic literatures for thousands of years. Nothing has changed since. The truth is always the truth.
The Carrot - Spiritual Economics - The Karma-Free Gift Economy!
Spiritual Economics - The Karma-Free Gift Economy!
Spiritual Economics teaches a gift economy based on the teachings of the Bhagavad-gita. Work done for the satisfaction of God is a purely spiritual activity that is free from all karmic reaction. The results of such work are offered to the Lord for His pleasure and then distributed as a gift to others with no consideration of compensation. The work itself is its own reward, and because it is completely spiritual it gives the performer genuine happiness and satisfaction that cannot be gained in any type of material activity or sense gratification.
The Vedic literature teaches us that God has created this world in such a way that we can take care of the economic problem with very little effort. If we use the world according to His design it will function with full harmony and abundance for everyone. The simple fact is the more we deviate from the Lord's arrangement the more problems we introduce. This is why the modern world is such a mess. The easy solution to all the problems of life is to abide by the order of the Lord. In doing so we will not only be prosperous, but we will be happy as well. Learn more about Spiritual Economics and the gift economy from my website and books. Om Shanti
Not so widely broadcast economic news
Not so widely broadcast economic news
"Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days."
"Another FDR-style 'bank holiday' of indefinite length, perhaps soon, to let the insiders sort out the bank mess, which (despite their rosy propaganda campaign) is getting more out of their control every day. Insiders want to impose new bank rules. Widespread nationalization could result, already underway. It could also lead to a formal U.S. dollar devaluation, as FDR did by revaluing gold (and then confiscating it)."
This news is from the Harry Schultz [economic advisory] Letter. I've heard from other sources of a coming "bank holiday". The banks close and you can't get "your" money. Some say it can come as early as September. Time for Spiritual Economics that is immune to any and all economic disasters!
24 June 2009
Spiritual Economics is available on Lulu.com (I think!)
In anticipation of publishing "Spiritual Economics" from the on-demand publisher, Lulu.com, I uploaded the pdf file there. They let you put a brief description of the book there, so here is what I wrote:
Why do we have vulture capitalism, and predator economics? Why do economists tell us that to make things better we must enact policies that actually make things worse? Recent experience tells us that the economic “science” is deeply flawed, the major flaw is it’s misunderstanding of the most crucial factor in economic affairs—human beings. Economics is not just about money. More important is the behavior of people. This book offers a monumental shift in economic theory, a paradigm shift actually, as it explains economic behavior as a function of consciousness using the spiritual principles of the Bhagavad-gita. With these easily understood, universally applicable principles, heretofore not found within the scope of Western thinking, I explain the factors underlying the economic behavior of man. Understanding the problem puts us in a position to solve it. Solving the economic problem once and for all, for everybody’s benefit, is within our reach by applying the principles explained in this book.
Next I tried to download the free ebook but had difficulty and was not able to download it. One friend who lives in America successfully downloaded it. Maybe the problem is that I am in E. Europe and the servers over here are not clear on the concept. Perhaps one of the readers of this blog to try to download Spiritual Economics from lulu.com and let me know if you are successful or not.
Why do we have vulture capitalism, and predator economics? Why do economists tell us that to make things better we must enact policies that actually make things worse? Recent experience tells us that the economic “science” is deeply flawed, the major flaw is it’s misunderstanding of the most crucial factor in economic affairs—human beings. Economics is not just about money. More important is the behavior of people. This book offers a monumental shift in economic theory, a paradigm shift actually, as it explains economic behavior as a function of consciousness using the spiritual principles of the Bhagavad-gita. With these easily understood, universally applicable principles, heretofore not found within the scope of Western thinking, I explain the factors underlying the economic behavior of man. Understanding the problem puts us in a position to solve it. Solving the economic problem once and for all, for everybody’s benefit, is within our reach by applying the principles explained in this book.
Next I tried to download the free ebook but had difficulty and was not able to download it. One friend who lives in America successfully downloaded it. Maybe the problem is that I am in E. Europe and the servers over here are not clear on the concept. Perhaps one of the readers of this blog to try to download Spiritual Economics from lulu.com and let me know if you are successful or not.
12 June 2009
Review of Spiritual Economics
An Economic Eyeopener, A Spiritual Masterpiece
A review of HG Dhanesvara Das’s “Lessons in Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita – Part 1 – Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem” by Chaitanya Charan Das.
Srila Prabhupada once told Satsvarupa Maharaja to write a book showing how all the problems of the world can be solved only by Krishna consciousness. Satsvarupa Maharaj eventually wrote an illuminating small book, The Daily News: All Things Fail Without Krishna, in which he analyzed various news stories to show how the problems therein arise from a lack of Krishna consciousness. In the foreword of that book, Maharaj stated how this instruction of Srila Prabhupada is a huge mandate, which will require enormous research and effort to fulfill.
Dhanesvara’s Spiritual Economics book fulfills Srila Prabhupada's instruction in the somewhat unlikely (from the perspective of what is ordinarily thought of as spiritual) field of economics through its comprehensive research, penetrating analysis, scriptural and unambiguously devotional call to action.
Spiritual Economics marks a historic leap forward in the scholarly preaching of Krishna consciousness. In what is probably the first time in modern world history, the concept of the three modes is applied to analyze various economic systems throughout human history as being either in goodness, passion or ignorance. This analysis, presented in chapters three, four and five, of the book, constitutes the heart of the book - and gives us an endearing glimpse into the dedicated heart of Dhanesvara.
Spiritual Economics is simultaneously enlivening and disturbing. It is immensely enlivening to see the principles of Krishna consciousness, which we are all dedicated to practicing and preaching, presented so expertly, comprehensively and cogently in a field that has not been done, or even attempted (to my knowledge), by any devotee till date. For the intellectual rigor and spiritual vigor that Dhanesvara Prabhu brings to work in this book, he deserves a place among the likes of Sadaputa Prabhu, Drutakarma Prabhu, Satyaraja Prabhu, Garuda Prabhu and Devamrita Swami, who have all brought laurels for Srila Prabhupada by their scholarly writings.
At the same time, Spiritual Economics is profoundly disturbing; it documents in scary and gory detail the extent to which the exploitative and destructive mentality, characteristic of the mode of ignorance, has gripped the whole world - especially including the economic big shots. This contemporary research powerfully demonstrates Srila Prabhupada's statement that the world is being ruled by the demonic and drives home the crying necessity to vigorously preach Krishna consciousness. Spiritual Economics concludes that the solution to the prevailing global economic (and social) mess is to raise our consciousness individually and collectively through chanting the mahamantra and building a God-centered economy.
To fully solve the economic problem we must understand Krishna’s instructions for a spiritual culture. This focuses on the unfinished second-half of Srila Prabhupada's mission -- establishing working models of varnashrama dharma, with economics in the mode of goodness. This will be elaborately explained in Part II of the work.
Being myself an author of several books, I am impressed, even astounded, by the exhaustiveness of the research that has gone into making this book. Dhanesvara has toiled for more than two decades, pouring over hundreds of books, to gift all of us - and the whole world at large – this ripe fruit of his devotional intellect. In the true spirit of the gifting economy that he advocates, he has made his book freely available to all in electronic form from here. The book should soon be available in print from www.lulu.com.
Dhanesvara deserves great credit for painstaking scrupulousness in study and unflinching faithfulness in preaching. By applying the principles of Krishna consciousness that Srila Prabhupada brought to the world and that Dhanesvara powerfully presents in this book, we can all do our respective parts, small or great, in assisting Srila Prabhupada's mission to save the world from its present suicidal course.
Spiritual Economics Book Available Online
Spiritual Economics is Available Online
The first volume of my book on Spiritual Economics -- "Lessons in Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita - Part I - Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem" is finished and available as a pdf ebook from here.
The book is written for those who are fed up with predator capitalism (or predator communism, or predator anything for that matter), who are tired of being robbed by their very own governments, have had it with the IMF, the World Bank, and all their hucksterism, and who are sick and tired of the way the modern world works and want to find a permanent solution. It explains what makes economic man tick, and with that insight explains THE solution to all economic problems. Beware: this is not an answer that most people want to hear! They think that they can have the kingdom of God without God, but sorry folks, that’s not gonna happen.
Spiritual Economics explains the varieties of man’s economic behavior according the gunas, or modes of material nature. Why does modern man engage in predator economics and vulture capitalism? Because his consciousness has become crippled by the mode of ignorance. Why does modern society encourage lust, envy and greed as though these were desirable qualities? Because of the influence of the mode of ignorance. Why does 1% of the population own 40% of the wealth in the world while 50% of the people own 2% of the wealth? Same reason.
The consciousness of modern man has become crippled by killing, intoxication, illicit sex and cheating (gambling), and the effects of these activities spill over into his economic affairs. Here’s a heads-up: LIFE IS INTEGRATED. WHAT WE DO IN ONE SPHERE OF ACTIVITY WILL AFFECT ALL OTHER SPHERES.
That being the case there is NO solution to our modern economic problems unless we clean up our consciousness. In the last chapter of the book I explain scientifically how this can be done.
Actually the book was finished almost a year ago -- last August -- then the economic crisis hit and I thought that I would add something about that. That was a bad decision. As you may recall, the crisis dragged on for months. During that time there was lots to read and muse on.
Finally in January I had written another entire chapter, more than 35 pages, but there was a problem. I couldn't use it. The conclusions were sinister and would bring a mood to the book that I didn't want. But in the process I had the opportunity to massage the the last chapter further and am much happier about it.
In the book I list this livejournal account as my blog, but there are some things that I don't like about Livejournal so I have got this blog going also. There are almost innumerable things to comment on in relationship to the ideas under the heading of Spiritual Economics, and many of these could be book length, so maybe they are not too appropriate for a blog. In that case I will get them loaded onto my website, which is www.spiritual-econ.info (soon to be spiritual-econ.com too). BTW, that is where you can look for that chapter that didn't make it. The title is "Economic Chernobyl - The Economic Crisis of 2008".
The first volume of my book on Spiritual Economics -- "Lessons in Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita - Part I - Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem" is finished and available as a pdf ebook from here.
The book is written for those who are fed up with predator capitalism (or predator communism, or predator anything for that matter), who are tired of being robbed by their very own governments, have had it with the IMF, the World Bank, and all their hucksterism, and who are sick and tired of the way the modern world works and want to find a permanent solution. It explains what makes economic man tick, and with that insight explains THE solution to all economic problems. Beware: this is not an answer that most people want to hear! They think that they can have the kingdom of God without God, but sorry folks, that’s not gonna happen.
Spiritual Economics explains the varieties of man’s economic behavior according the gunas, or modes of material nature. Why does modern man engage in predator economics and vulture capitalism? Because his consciousness has become crippled by the mode of ignorance. Why does modern society encourage lust, envy and greed as though these were desirable qualities? Because of the influence of the mode of ignorance. Why does 1% of the population own 40% of the wealth in the world while 50% of the people own 2% of the wealth? Same reason.
The consciousness of modern man has become crippled by killing, intoxication, illicit sex and cheating (gambling), and the effects of these activities spill over into his economic affairs. Here’s a heads-up: LIFE IS INTEGRATED. WHAT WE DO IN ONE SPHERE OF ACTIVITY WILL AFFECT ALL OTHER SPHERES.
That being the case there is NO solution to our modern economic problems unless we clean up our consciousness. In the last chapter of the book I explain scientifically how this can be done.
Actually the book was finished almost a year ago -- last August -- then the economic crisis hit and I thought that I would add something about that. That was a bad decision. As you may recall, the crisis dragged on for months. During that time there was lots to read and muse on.
Finally in January I had written another entire chapter, more than 35 pages, but there was a problem. I couldn't use it. The conclusions were sinister and would bring a mood to the book that I didn't want. But in the process I had the opportunity to massage the the last chapter further and am much happier about it.
In the book I list this livejournal account as my blog, but there are some things that I don't like about Livejournal so I have got this blog going also. There are almost innumerable things to comment on in relationship to the ideas under the heading of Spiritual Economics, and many of these could be book length, so maybe they are not too appropriate for a blog. In that case I will get them loaded onto my website, which is www.spiritual-econ.info (soon to be spiritual-econ.com too). BTW, that is where you can look for that chapter that didn't make it. The title is "Economic Chernobyl - The Economic Crisis of 2008".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
