Spiritual Economics

Tamasic Economics

Tamasic as in darkness and evil. Tamasic economics is the sign of the times and for now at least, indicates the trend of the present and the future. A sign that should give you plenty of concern.

In our book “Spiritual Economics” we explain the various economic behaviors as a function of human consciousness. In turn the various shades of human consciousness are determined by people’s association with the various gunas or modes of nature as Srila Prabhupada translates it, or consciousness determinants, as I have come to refer to them. In our book we used the expression “economics of ignorance” but I now prefer to use the original Sanskrit words because we tend to interpret the word “ignorance” according to its normal usage. Tamas indicates something quite different.

Tamas means darkness and all of the negative things associated with it: evil, cheating, illusion, violence, turmoil, suffering, exploitation, extortion, death, destruction and so on. These words very accurately describe not only the economic methods of our time, but the global atmosphere as well, one fostering the other.

Tamasic economics is making headlines lately in a number of rather significant ways, perhaps you have read about them. The most recent is the admission by Investment Bank J. P. Morgan that they have lost $5.8 BILLION. The company initially reported that the risky trade lost “only” $2billion but announced Friday July 13^th, that the total was $5.8billion. On a single trade!

This is not banking “business” but out and out hi-stakes gambling. And what we may surmise from this admitted loss is that such enormous stakes and rolls-of-the-dice are the daily fare. Such is the willingness to take gargantuan risks that the trader behind the loss has earned the reputation as “the London Whale.” Of course many of these bets make money, lots of money, and that is why these traders gets multi-tens-of-millions in bonuses at the end of the year. They also lose huge sums. A 28-year-old trader destroyed the hundred year old Barclays bank by losing a billion plus British pounds betting that the Japanese stock exchange would not move out of its normal trading range in a given date range. Oops! The Kobe earthquake messed up that rosy assumption.

The horrific story behind this latest Morgan scam is that we should now realize that “we the people” are covering the gamblers debts. They can’t lose. These “too-big-to-fail” banks are going to governments with their hand out like impoverished beggars, and the governments dutifully give them hundreds of billions of dollars to keep them afloat, so that they can continue to engage in this high-risk behavior! Billions of dollars are doled out to the banks without requiring that they stop gambling! That is insanity! Indeed, the government (Clinton administration) abetted this behavior by allowing the repeal of the Glass-Steagle act that was created to prevent this after the stock crash in the 1930s. Is J. P. Morgan going to go to the government again sometime begging for relief? Of course they will when and if they need to because tamo-guna knows no shame. And the people are the ones that pay. Such is tamasic economics.

You should know that all banks are gambling casinos that use their depositor’s money as their gambling capital. Of course they use the word “derivatives” to obfuscate their behavior. If they used the word “bets” instead that might rightfully shake people’s confidence in the system. The whole affair is made to be mysterious and confusing. More tamo-guna. To realize the scale of this madness please understand that the notional total value of all outstanding derivatives is some $600+ TRILLION, which is 10 TIMES the total GDP of the entire world. If you haven’t already got it, please understand that there are now two economies: the financial economy in which all of this gambling goes on, and the “real” economy that produces good and services that people use. But when money is easily made by gambling, er, trading, who now needs a real economy? Except to eat of course. You too can learn how to gamble in stocks, currencies, and the rest of it. Millions of people do daily, trying their best to get something for nothing. Don’t be surprised then when the entire affair crashes. That day is coming. We advise you invest your money in land and cows, things that can house and feed you when this cheating economy finally dies.

LIBOR

The next scandal of tamasic economics is the LIBOR fiasco. LIBOR is the interest rate that banks use to loan to each other, and it has been revealed that this significant number has been fudged by the collusion of many banks. Can you say “conspiracy?” That’s what it is—at least 16 banks conspiring together to benefit themselves and cheat the world, and this is no theory. Here’s how Paul Craig Roberts explains the cheating on his website:

“Banks are not the only beneficiaries of lower Libor rates. Debtors (and investors) whose floating or variable rate loans are pegged in some way to Libor also benefit. One could argue that by fixing the rate low, the banks were cheating themselves out of interest income, because the effect of the low Libor rate is to lower the interest rate on customer loans, such as variable rate mortgages that banks possess in their portfolios. But the banks did not fix the Libor rate with their customers in mind. Instead, the fixed Libor rate enabled them to improve their balance sheets, as well as help to perpetuate the regime of low interest rates. The last thing the banks want is a rise in interest rates that would drive down the values of their holdings and reveal large losses masked by rigged interest rates.

“Indicative of greater deceit and a larger scandal than simply borrowing from one another at lower rates, banks gained far more from the rise in the prices, or higher evaluations of floating rate financial instruments (such as CDOs), that resulted from lower Libor rates. As prices of debt instruments all tend to move in the same direction, and in the opposite direction from interest rates (low interest rates mean high bond prices, and vice versa), the effect of lower Libor rates is to prop up the prices of bonds, asset-backed financial instruments, and other “securities.” The end result is that the banks’ balance sheets look healthier than they really are.

“On the losing side of the scandal are purchasers of interest rate swaps, savers who receive less interest on their accounts, and ultimately all bond holders when the bond bubble pops and prices collapse.”

Many people are not much disturbed by the LIBOR scandal because they don’t fully understand the implications of it. But here’s a short video that will help to put things in perspective:

And finally, all of this gambling, cheating, stealing, collusion, and deception is going on because in a recent survey traders admit that they have a cheating mentality (tell us something we don’t know). In a survey of 500 senior executives in the United States and the UK, 26 percent of respondents said they had observed or had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace, while 24 percent said they believed financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal conduct to be successful. Sixteen percent said they would commit insider trading if they could get away with it, and 30 percent said their compensation plans created pressure to compromise ethical standards or violate the law. 

What can the world expect when the money system, which is very foundation of modern society, is based on cheating? Of course all of the above pales in comparison to the cheating of the debt money system itself in which trillions of dollars are siphoned out of the economy by the owners of the central banks! The fact is that the entire financial system is cheating and exploitation from beginning to end. We can safely predict where all of this is leading: to poverty, destruction, despair and suffering—which is the result of tamo-guna. How can we expect anything else?

You want a different world? You want an honest money system? The ONLY way that will be had is by reducing the tamo-guna and increasing the sattva-guna. It is sattva—goodness—that people want, but they don't know where to get it. They do not understand the cause and effect of karma. They behave in tamas and expect sattva. That is impossible. The best and easiest way to increase the sattva in this world is by taking up the yuga-dharma, the chanting of the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. That is not the statement of a religious fanatic, but a statement based on a sound understanding of how this world actually works. Learn about the gunas—the consciousness determinants from my book. The sooner that the world is educated in this reality, the sooner we might return to sanity. The entire world could live in absolute abundance, except for the fact that there is far too much tamas and not enough sattva.