Things Seem to Work the Same Everywhere These Days:

Received from my Russian friends (obviously). Everybody has their price it seems, but one wonders what kind of world we will have if everybody is paid to overlook things that should not be overlooked. 

Readers of this blog know that I very rarely repost, but here is an exceptional article about the gift economy written by Charles Eisenstein, an Op/Ed piece from Yes! Magazine. Charles gets deep into the benefits of living by gifting. The piece was gifted from here. I like Yes! Magazine, as it's creator David Korten, who wrote "When Corporations Rule the World" and several other very good books, focuses on bringing a positive alternative to our reality. 

To Build Community, an Economy of Gifts

For a multitude of reasons, we need to need each other.

by  Charles Eisenstein

 

Wherever I go and ask people what is missing from their lives, the most common answer (if they are not impoverished or seriously ill) is "community." What happened to community, and why don't we have it any more? There are many reasons—the layout of suburbia, the disappearance of public space, the automobile and the television, the high mobility of people and jobs—and, if you trace the "whys" a few levels down, they all implicate the money system.
     More directly posed: community is nearly impossible in a highly monetized society like our own. That is because community is woven from gifts, which is ultimately why poor people often have stronger communities than rich people. If you are financially independent, then you really don't depend on your neighbors—or indeed on any specific person—for anything. You can just pay someone to do it, or pay someone else to do it.
     In former times, people depended for all of life's necessities and pleasures on people they knew personally. If you alienated the local blacksmith, brewer, or doctor, there was no replacement. Your quality of life would be much lower. If you alienated your neighbors then you might not have help if you sprained your ankle during harvest season, or if your barn burnt down. Community was not an add-on to life, it was a way of life. Today, with only slight exaggeration, we could say we don't need anyone. I don't need the farmer who grew my food—I can pay someone else to do it. I don't need the mechanic who fixed my car. I don't need the trucker who brought my shoes to the store. I don't need any of the people who produced any of the things I use. I need someone to do their jobs, but not the unique individual people. They are replaceable and, by the same token, so am I.
     That is one reason for the universally recognized superficiality of most social gatherings. How authentic can it be, when the unconscious knowledge, "I don't need you," lurks under the surface? When we get together to consume—food, drink, or entertainment—do we really draw on the gifts of anyone present? Anyone can consume. Intimacy comes from co-creation, not co-consumption, as anyone in a band can tell you, and it is different from liking or disliking someone. But in a monetized society, our creativity happens in specialized domains, for money.
     To forge community then, we must do more than simply get people together. While that is a start, soon we get tired of just talking, and we want to do something, to create something. It is a very tepid community indeed, when the only need being met is the need to air opinions and feel that we are right, that we get it, and isn't it too bad that other people don't ... hey, I know! Let's collect each others' email addresses and start a listserv!
     Community is woven from gifts. Unlike today's market system, whose built-in scarcity compels competition in which more for me is less for you, in a gift economy the opposite holds. Because people in gift culture pass on their surplus rather than accumulating it, your good fortune is my good fortune: more for you is more for me. Wealth circulates, gravitating toward the greatest need. In a gift community, people know that their gifts will eventually come back to them, albeit often in a new form. Such a community might be called a "circle of the gift."
     Fortunately, the monetization of life has reached its peak in our time, and is beginning a long and permanent receding (of which economic "recession" is an aspect). Both out of desire and necessity, we are poised at a critical moment of opportunity to reclaim gift culture, and therefore to build true community. The reclamation is part of a larger shift of human consciousness, a larger reunion with nature, earth, each other, and lost parts of ourselves. Our alienation from gift culture is an aberration and our independence an illusion. We are not actually independent or "financially secure" – we are just as dependent as before, only on strangers and impersonal institutions, and, as we are likely to soon discover, these institutions are quite fragile.
     Given the circular nature of gift flow, I was excited to learn that one of the most promising social inventions that I've come across for building community is called the Gift Circle. Developed by Alpha Lo, co-author of The Open Collaboration Encyclopedia, and his friends in Marin County, California, it exemplifies the dynamics of gift systems and illuminates the broad ramifications that gift economies portend for our economy, psychology, and civilization.
     The ideal number of participants in a gift circle is 10-20. Everyone sits in a circle, and takes turns saying one or two needs they have. In the last circle I facilitated, some of the needs shared were: "a ride to the airport next week," "someone to help remove a fence," "used lumber to build a garden," "a ladder to clean my gutter," "a bike," and "office furniture for a community center." As each person shares, others in the circle can break in to offer to meet the stated need, or with suggestions of how to meet it.
     When everyone has had their turn, we go around the circle again, each person stating something he or she would like to give. Some examples last week were "Graphic design skills," "the use of my power tools," "contacts in local government to get things done," and "a bike," but it could be anything: time, skills, material things; the gift of something outright, or the gift of the use of something (borrowing). Again, as each person shares, anyone can speak up and say, "I'd like that," or "I know someone who could use one of those."
     During both these rounds, it is useful to have someone write everything down and send the notes out the next day to everyone via email, or on a web page, blog, etc. Otherwise it is quite easy to forget who needs and offers what. Also, I suggest writing down, on the spot, the name and phone number of someone who wants to give or receive something to/from you. It is essential to follow up, or the gift circle will end up feeding cynicism rather than community.
     Finally, the circle can do a third round in which people express gratitude for the things they received since the last meeting. This round is extremely important because in community, the witnessing of others' generosity inspires generosity in those who witness it. It confirms that this group is giving to each other, that gifts are recognized, and that my own gifts will be recognized, appreciated, and reciprocated as well.
It is just that simple: needs, gifts, and gratitude. But the effects can be profound.
First, gift circles (and any gift economy, in fact) can reduce our dependence on the traditional market. If people give us things we need, then we needn't buy them. I won't need to take a taxi to the airport tomorrow, and Rachel won't have to buy lumber for her garden. The less we use money, the less time we need to spend earning it, and the more time we have to contribute to the gift economy, and then receive from it. It is a virtuous circle.
     Secondly, a gift circle reduces our production of waste. It is ridiculous to pump oil, mine metal, manufacture a table and ship it across the ocean when half the people in town have old tables in their basements. It is ridiculous as well for each household on my block to own a lawnmower, which they use two hours a month, a leaf blower they use twice a year, power tools they use for an occasional project, and so on. If we shared these things, we would suffer no loss of quality of life. Our material lives would be just as rich, yet would require less money and less waste.
     In economic terms, a gift circle reduces gross domestic product, defined as the sum total of all goods and services exchanged for money. By getting a gift ride from someone instead of paying a taxi, I am reducing GDP by $20. When my friend drops off her son at my house instead of paying for day care, GDP falls by another $30. The same is true when someone borrows a bike from another person's basement instead of buying a new one. (Of course, GDP won't fall if the money saved is then spent on something else. Standard economics, drawing on a deep assumption about the infinite upward elasticity of human wants, assumes this is nearly always the case. A critique of this deeply flawed assumption is beyond the scope of the present essay.)
     Standard economic discourse views shrinking GDP as a big problem. When the economy doesn't grow, capital investment and employment shrink, reducing consumer demand and causing further drops in investment and employment. For the last seventy years, the solution to such crises has been (1) to lower interest rates to spur lending so that businesses have access to funds for capital investment and consumers have money to spend and create demand; (2) to increase government spending to replace stalled growth in consumer demand. These are known, respectively, as monetary stimulus and fiscal stimulus. In both cases, the goal is to "stimulate" the economy, to get it growing again. Government policy in the present economic crisis has been the same. Liberals and conservatives may disagree on the amount and type of stimulus required, but rarely does anyone—not Barack Obama, not even the most liberal member of Congress—question the desirability of growing the economy. That is because, in the current debt-based, interest-bearing money system, the absence of growth leads to rapid concentration of wealth and economic depression.
     Today, however, on the fringes of political and environmental movements, the recognition is growing that society and the planet can no longer sustain further growth. For growth—which in GDP terms means the expansion in the realm of monetized goods and services—ultimately comes from the conversion of nature into commodities and the conversion of social relationships into professional services. Consider again the social gathering I described. Why don't we need each other? It is because all the gift relationships upon which we once depended are now paid services. They have been converted into service work which the market converts into cash. What is there left to convert? Whether fossil fuels, topsoil, aquifers, the atmosphere's capacity to absorb waste; whether it is food, clothing, shelter, medicine, music, or our collective cultural bequest of stories and ideas, nearly all have become commodities. Unless we can find yet new realms of nature to convert into good, unless we can find even more functions of human life to commoditize, our days of economic growth are numbered. What room for growth remains—for example in today's anemic economic recovery— comes only at an increasing cost to nature and society.
     From this perspective, a third consequence of the gift circle and other forms of gift economy becomes apparent. Not only does gift-based circulation subtract from GDP, it also hastens the demise of the present economic system. Any bit of nature or human relationship that we preserve or reclaim from the commodity world is one bit less that is available to sell, or to use as the basis for new interest-bearing loans. Without constant creation of new debt, existing debt cannot be repaid. Lending opportunities only occur in a context of economic growth, in which the marginal return on capital investment exceeds the interest rate. To simplify: no growth, less lending; less lending, more transfer of assets to creditors; more transfer of assets, more concentration of wealth; more concentration of wealth, less consumer spending; less consumer spending, less growth. This is the vicious circle described by economists going back to Karl Marx. It has been deferred for two centuries by the ceaseless opening up, through technology and colonization, of new realms of nature and relationship to the market. Today, not only are these realms nearly exhausted, but a shift of consciousness motivates growing efforts to reclaim them for the commons and for the gift. Today, we direct huge efforts toward protecting the forests, whereas the most brilliant minds of two generations ago devoted themselves to their more efficient clearcutting. Similarly, so many of us today seek to limit pollution not expand production, to protect the waters not increase the fish catch, to preserve the wetlands—not build larger housing developments. These efforts, while not always successful, put a brake on economic growth beyond the natural limit the environment poses.   From the gift perspective, what is happening is that we no longer seek merely to take from the planet, but to give back as well. This corresponds to the coming of age of humanity, transitioning from a mother-child relationship to earth, to a co-creative partnership in which giving and receiving find balance.
     The same transition to the gift is underway in the social realm. Many of us no longer aspire to financial independence, the state in which we have so much money we needn't depend on anyone for anything. Today, increasingly, we yearn instead for community. We don't want to live in a commodity world, where everything we have exists for the primary goal of profit. We want things created for love and beauty, things that connect us more deeply to the people around us. We desire to be interdependent, not independent. The gift circle, and the many new forms of gift economy that are emerging on the Internet, are ways of reclaiming human relationships from the market.
     Whether natural or social, the reclamation of the gift-based commonwealth not only hastens the collapse of a growth-dependent money system, it also mitigates its severity. At the present moment, the market faces a crisis, merely one of a multiplicity of crises (ecological, social) that are converging upon us. Through the turbulent time that is upon us, the survival of humanity, and our capacity to build a new kind of civilization embodying a new relationship to earth and a new, more connected, human identity, depends on these scraps of the commonwealth that we are able to preserve or reclaim. Although we have done grievous damage to earth, vast wealth still remains. There is still richness in the soil, water, cultures and biomes of this planet. The longer we persist under the status quo, the less of that richness will remain and the more calamitous the transition will be.
     On a less tangible level, any gifts we give contribute to another kind of common wealth – a reservoir of gratitude that will see us through times of turmoil, when the conventions and stories that hold civic society together fall apart. Gifts inspire gratitude, and generosity is infectious. Increasingly, I read and hear stories of generosity, selflessness, even magnanimity that take my breath away. When I witness generosity, I want to be generous too. In the coming times, we will need the generosity, the selflessness, and the magnanimity of many people. If everyone seeks merely their own survival, then there is no hope for a new kind of civilization. We need each others' gifts as we need each others' generosity to invite us into the realm of the gift ourselves. In contrast to the age of money where we can pay for anything and need no gifts, soon it will be abundantly clear: we need each other.

We’re All Gingerbread Men Riding on the Nose of the Global Government

  

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 years 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. See my “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 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.

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 address 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 former Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, played his role well during a 2009 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 it’s 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.

---

[1] Joan Veon, Planning The Steps To World Government

[2] http://www.cfr.org/publication/18916/

[3] Ellen Brown, The IMF to Play Role of Global Central Bank?

[4] “Bank of England Governor breaks ranks over Labour policy on financial regulation”

by Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor Thursday, 22 October 2009

[5] Merkel Lashes Out at Central Banks, Sean O’Grady, Business Week, June 3, 2009,

[6] AP – President Barack Obama speaks about the economy, Monday, Sept. 21,2009, at Hudson Valley Community College …

Mitt Romney Shows His Psychopathic Nature
with Economics of Ignorance

What do you suppose this man would do for the country if elected president? Hard to imagine that he would do anything other than serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. Read below what he has done, and realize that this has been going on since the 90s with thousands of companies under the influence of tamo-guna, the "mode of ignorance."  I explain the "modes of nature" or "consciousness determinants" in my book Spiritual Economics. Without understanding the worldview of the Bhagavad-gita, including the modes of nature and the demonic nature as described there one cannot fully understand what is taking place in the world today. For that and for understanding the spiritual dimensions of life please read the Bhagavad-gita.

Here's the story from Paul Drockton:

Newt Gingrich's "Super PAC" has just released its South Carolina surprise, and its a doozy. The documentary is called "When Mitt Romney Came to Town". It interviews real people accross the United States that lost their jobs and communities to Mitt Romney, corporate raider.

The film also demonstrates how Romney bankrupted 4 relatively large companies for fun and personal profit. It seems that he really does enjoy firing people. Romney is accused of running "pump and dump" schemes whereby:

1. Bain Capital takes over a company

2. Romney drastically cuts payroll (fires employees) to raise company profits and starves production.

3. Lehman rates the company as a "strong buy" and the stock surges.

4. Romney heavily leverages the company with debt to sell his and Bain's stock in the company at a ridiculous profit.

5. Once Romney and Bain milk the company for all its worth, the stock price collapses.

6. Since Romney ran a Hedge Fund, it is more than likely that he and Bain also made a fortune in Put Options on the company's declining stock.

In one example:

"KB Toys was purchased and taken private in 2000 by the leveraged buyout firm of Bain Capital for $305 million, Bain announced the purchase on Dec. 8th, 2000. Only $18 million of the purchase money was cash, the rest was borrowed against the assets of the company. Sixteen months after the buyout, Bain Capital paid itself $85 million in dividends in early 2002. Two years later, due to... its enormous debt, on January 14, 2004, K·B Toys filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed 365 stores.

K·B closed 156 stores on November 8, 2007. The Gordon Brothers Group handled the liquidation of these stores. On February 9, 2009, K·B closed the remaining stores following the second bankruptcy filing in four years. In addition, K·B Toys' website was closed down.

The K·B Toys brand and related intangible assets were sold by Streambank LLC to Toys R Us on September 4, 2009 for a reported $2.1 Million." (Source)

This is such a good example of predatory economics--take a healthy profitable company and suck all of the money out of it that you can with dividends, likely rape the retirement funds of the employees, stiff those who held the stock by shorting it when you know it is going to collapse, and with then stiff creditors with chapter 11 proceedings. This is demonic behavior, and if the country elects this morally bankrupt scoundrel they will see him loot the entire country in the same way. 

Acts of Kindness Observed After Japan's Earthquake

The spirit of giving of oneself is the mood of Spiritual Economics. Here are some stories of acts of kindness and giving in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake. This is received from Kindness Daily -- an email that delivers featured stories from HelpOthers.org.

Love and Inspiration from Japan January 5, 2012 - Posted by Bluebell

Below are the some of the heart warming anecdotes that I've witnessed and heard from others during the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan last year...  In the supermarket, where items of all the shelves fell, people were picking up things so neatly together, and then quietly standing in line to buy food. Instead of creating panic and buying as much as needed, they bought as little as they needed.  I was proud to be a Japanese. When I was walking home, for 4 hours, there was a lady holding a sign that said, "Please use our toilet."  They were opening their house for people to go to the restroom. It was hard not to tear up, when I saw the warmth of people. At Disneyland, they were giving out candies. High school girls were taking so many so I was thinking, "What???"  But then the next minute, they ran to the children in the evacuation place and handed it to them. That was a sweet gesture. My co-worker wanted to help somehow, even if it was just to one person.  So he wrote a sign: "If you're okay with motor cycle, I will drive you to your house."  He stood in the cold with that sign. And then I saw him take one gentleman home, all the way to Tokorozawa!  I was so moved. I felt like I wanted to help others too. A high school boy was saved because he climbed up on top of the roof of a department store during the flood. The flood came so suddenly, that he just saw people below him, trying to frantically climb up the roof and being taken by the flood.  To help others, he kept filming them so their loved ones could see.  He still hasn't been able to reach his own parents but he says, "Its nobody's fault. There is no one to blame. We have to stay strong." There is a lack of gas now and many gasoline stations are either closed or have very long lines. I got worried, since I was behind 15 cars. Finally, when it was my turn, the man smiled and said, "Because of this situation, we are only giving $30 worth gas per each person. Is that alright?"  "Of course its alright.  I'm just glad that we are all able to share," I said.  His smile gave me so much relief. I saw a little boy thanking a public transit employee, saying, "Thank you so much for trying hard to run the train last night."  It brought tears to the employee's eyes, and mine. A foreign friend told me that she was shocked to see a long queue form so neatly behind one public phone. Everyone waited patiently to use the phone even though they must have been so eager to call their families. The traffic was horrible!! Only one car could move forward at a green light. But everyone was driving so calmly. During the 10 hour drive (which would only take 30 minutes normally) the only horns I heard was a horn of thank you. It was a fearful time -- but then again a time of warmth and it made me love Japan more. Last night when I was walking home (since all traffic had stopped), I saw an old lady at a bakery shop giving out free bread.  Even at times like this, people were trying to find what they can do and it made my heart warm. When I was waiting at the platform, so tired and exhausted, a homeless person came to us and gave us a cardboard to sit on.  Even though we usually ignore them in our daily life, they were ready to serve us. Suntory (a juice company) is giving out free drinks, phone companies are  creating more wi-fi spots, 1,000,000 noodles were given by a food company, and everyone is trying to help the best way they can.  We, too, have to stand up and do our best. In one area, when the electricity returned, peopel rejoiced.  And then someone yelled: "We got electricity because someone else probably conserved theirs!  Thank you so much to EVERYONE who saved electricity for us.  Thank you everyone!"    An old man at the evacuation shelter said, "What's going to happen now?"  And then a young high school boy sitting next to him said, "Don’t worry!  When we grow up, we will promise to fix it back!"  While saying this, he was rubbing the old man's back. Through all of this, I felt hope. There is a bright future, on the other side of this crisis.

Catherine Fitts' Approach Adds Sattva to the Economy

One of my favorite economic writers is Catherine Austin Fitts. She is a person who has both a very good grasp on how the economic system works, plus, a modicum of sattva-guna. The result is that she wants the economic system to work for the people. And it can. The problem is that those who presently control the economic system (as well as governments, the media, the military, universities, etc.) are not only mired in tamo-guna but are totally demonic—raksasas in the language of the Vedas, psychopaths in modern language. They care only for themselves at the expense of everyone else, which is becoming totally apparent to everyone these days, and this is the most fundamental problem the world faces today.

An excellent interview with Ms. Fitts by the Daily Bell was posted on their website the other day. In it she explains how the current system can be made to work better as well as how a shift to a gold currency, or gold-backed currency (which is touted by many these days) rather than being the panacea can actually create havoc since the available gold is held by very few people.

Below I have included some salient excerpts from the interview. If you are interested in how the economics of the world is working you will do well to read the entire interview found here. In it she repeatedly states that the necessary elements to make the system work are responsible, law-abiding people at the top. This underscores that what is needed to solve the economic problems and heal the world is sattva-guna, since the qualities she calls for are those brought by the influence of sattva-guna. The best (and only) way to increase the influence of sattva is the chanting of the Hare Krishna mahamantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. As more and more people take up the chanting of the holy names of God we will see His influence in this world and the desirable changes will be able to manifest. Remember: there will be No Solution Without a Spiritual Revolution!

...

Catherine Fitts: “I have had the opportunity to operate at high levels in Washington and Wall Street and have never met a person who did not function as if they were a prisoner of the system. Often, that ‘system’ did not permit them to function on a lawful basis [indicative of tamo-guna]. This implies highly centralized governance if this many people are functioning in an insecure, limited or unlawful way.

“The people who manage our financial system are also operating with significant double binds. This is what I try to describe with my red button story: In the summer of 2000, I asked a group of 100 people at a conference of spiritually committed people who would push a red button if it would immediately stop all narcotics trafficking in their neighborhood, city, state and country. Out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push such red button. [these are spiritually-committed people???] When surveyed, they said they did not want their mutual funds to go down if the U.S. financial system suddenly stopped attracting an estimated $500 billion - $1 trillion a year in global money laundering. They did not want their government checks jeopardized or their taxes raised because of resulting problems financing the federal government deficit. [Selfishness at the expense of others is due to the influence of tamo-guna.]

“So it is not appropriate to assume that the corruption is just at the top. Indeed, most citizens in the first world have been the economic beneficiary of what James Turk calls ‘the central banking-warfare model.’”

...

“When I look at a company, the first thing I look at is the quality, experience and networks of the people who govern, manage and own it. It is the same with the global financial system. Without high quality people who are free to govern in the best interests of all concerned or as stated by law, charter and contract [sattva-guna],  there are no solutions. Put excellent people in charge throughout society and I assure you they can run things remarkably well, even if forced to struggle with lousy currency systems.”

...

“We need to look at all these ideas through the prism of economic warfare. An eco-village can be a wonderful idea if the people who participate choose to create it and grow it well. However, that idea in the hands of the wrong people can be a design for labor camps...So be careful with monetary ideas....Otherwise interesting ideas can turn into weapons in the hands of those who do not have our best interests at heart. Again, one man's eco-village is another man's labor camp. One man's gold standard is another man's plan to reduce a population to a feudal state to his advantage.”

...

Daily Bell: Would markets be better off if they were MORE free and private watchdogs were allowed to take over from public ones?

Catherine Austin Fitts: Not necessarily. Again, we need to address the question, ‘Who is the breakaway civilization, what are their weaponry and surveillance systems and what systems will work successfully to shift their behavior in a positive manner?’ This, of course, leads to additional questions, such as, ‘What do they know that we do not know and how would we behave if we had that knowledge?’

Setting private watchdogs to regulate these guys is a bit like landing on Normandy Beach with a water pistol.

This enforcement question is one of the reasons I focus on the power of transparency combined with individual intention and action to bring positive change.

...

Daily Bell: What would be the result of more global centralization?

Catherine Austin Fitts: It would be more of the same – including increases in poverty, slavery and depopulation. Aaron Russo knew what he was talking about when he said warned us that these folks want spy chips in everyone and everything. [Aaron Russo’s revealing statements (for which he met an early death) are on YouTube, here.]

...

Daily Bell: What are some of the most important issues pertaining to free markets, in your opinion?

Catherine Austin Fitts: The most important issue is transparency. The second is integrity of contracts and agreements. [these both are the symptoms of sattva-guna. They cannot be had without sufficient sattva-guna in those who control the economic system.]

... 

Daily Bell: What are the fundamental obstacles to recovery?

Catherine Austin Fitts: We are experiencing an ongoing financial coup d'état that is centralizing power. Symptoms include an absence of transparency, deteriorating integrity of contracts and agreements, environmental deterioration, a "breakaway civilization" that appears "out of control." I would add to this the use of financial markets for warfare as opposed to facilitating the allocation of capital and trade. [all symptomatic of tamo-guna]

The ultimate codification of things like transparency and integrity of transactions is not the law; it is the culture [requiring sattva throughout the culture]. A variety of forces are systematically breaking down our physical health and our culture. That cultural corruption is the greatest obstacle. [indicative of the tamo-guna that pervades today’s culture]

Daily Bell: Is there a power elite that is trying to create one-world government? If so, is it succeeding?

Catherine Austin Fitts: Yes, there is a concerted effort to create a one-world government and evolve to a one-world currency. It has been succeeding. As the "financial coup d'état" becomes more obvious, centralization is entering a critical stage as more and more people globally react negatively to the effort and related tactics.

And finally, One reader’s comment: “Very interesting article. When one sees what has been happening and is happening today, one can only ask: Is a monstrous evil running amok in the world?”

An astute conclusion. Why yes, there is.

My comments here will be more easily understood by reading my book “Lessons in Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita - Part 1 - Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem” available from the link on the front page of my website.

New Year and a New Normal (Not)

Happy New Year! It’s 2012. I brought in the new year, as has been my long-standing habit, in bed asleep, or attempting to be so. This year in the holy city of Sri Rangam in South India. Very interestingly, Sri Rangam is the first city ever in which I have not been awakened by the loud reports of fireworks and other kinds of drunken revelry. Perhaps that is because Sri Rangam is a holy city in which many of the inhabitants wake between three and four in the morning to begin their daily worship. Or perhaps it is because I am getting into a very deep sleep!). It could be that there was no carrying-on or ka-booms because there is not much to celebrate. From my way of viewing things, 2012 is a year that will go down in infamy or be celebrated as the year that the world changed direction. Whatever it turns out to be will depend upon us and what we are going to do this year.

Given the nature of the current world situation it is a time when we will all do well not to remain in the illusion that everything is just fine, and whatever troubles there are just a temporary blip on the radar screen, and things will go back to “normal” in just a short time. The fact is that there is no normal anymore, or rather, we are going to have a new “normal,” and that is what we are going to write about this year. These are eventful times and we must recognize them and deal with them accordingly. The signs of a rising consciousness demonstrated by various manifestations of the gift economy certainly give us hope of a brighter tomorrow, and no doubt they will continue to manifest in a variety of ways. But there is a darker side to the picture that must be addressed if the future is not to be altogether most grim. This is not the time to be Pollyannas. It is my unpleasant task to call your attention to this reality and rally you to be part of the solution. I do hope that after a sentence like that you will keep reading. We have an important job to do. We have to save this world.

After the market crash and economic debacle of 2008 I made an analysis of the whys and wherefores of those events, which you can find here. If you haven’t read it let me encourage you to do so. There I report that the economic crash, far from being an unwanted play of uncontrollable market forces, was deliberately set up and the plug was very deliberately pulled. The next question I address there is why someone(s) would do such a thing and the purpose that they want to achieve by such actions. That was written now three years ago, and I am not happy to report that I was spon-on in my projections. Moreover, the agenda is being accelerated and there is no time to be wasted in dealing with this reality. When there is fire you ACT!

It is traditional to make predictions at the end of one year and beginning of the next. Very well, let us do so based on recent headlines:

• Bill for basket of essentials soars 43 per cent in ten years
• Enshrining the lies of the 1%—what chance does truth have, if Americans cannot cast off lies that directly steal money from their own pockets?
• Now migrants flood OUT of Europe in search of jobs
• Half of America In Poverty? The Facts Say It's True
• Risks Cloud Outlook for Economy in 2012
• 'Too late' to contain research into deadly bird flu strain
• IMF warns that world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump
• Obama Gives the Thumbs-Up on Detention of Domestic Terror Suspect
• Defense Bill Assures ‘descent into totalitarianism’

My predictions?

• We will see a “united” Europe in the aftermath of the economic crisis (that’s what the crisis is for after all)
• We will see Americans disenfranchised from what they thought their future was going to be (less medicare, social security, education...less everything)
• We may well see the BIG economic crunch in America, but that is unlikely in an election year where they want the incumbent to return. Look for it just after the election.
• We will see increasing job losses in America and Europe and decreasing standards of living
• We will see decreasing health for Americans due to efforts of the health agencies
• We will see increasing totalitarianism in America and American hegemony throughout the Middle East and the Pacific
• Syria will be brought to tow and Assad overthrown, with continued harassment of Iran, possible war
• As things continue to get worse people will take up the “love revolution” and make it a bigger and bigger Movement

Ok, the headlines are always dramatic to provoke us to read the newspaper, right? And perhaps I am just focusing on the more grim aspects of the news and there are certainly other things we can focus on, so why dwell on the negative? Because this is only the tip of the iceberg, and once we understand what is actually going on we will realize that there is a very sinister agenda afoot that we cannot afford to ignore. The fact is that there is a war going on, a war against the people of the world being waged by demonic forces. Star Wars is here, now. There are good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys are literally trying to destroy the good and innocent. They are doing it in broad daylight in such a way that most people are totally oblivious to the fact and they just continue on their merry way as if everything were normal. But there is a fight to be fought if the future is to be at all hopeful—a different kind of fight that will be one of violence, but of love. It will be a revolution, "Revolution" as Ron Paul’s people write it -- a spiritual revolution.

The fact is that there will be NO solution WITHOUT a Spiritual Revolution, one that we hope to ignite. We hope that you will join us and bring your friends to the fun. Every person is needed. Every person is wanted. Let's make the new year end on a happier note than it is starting by igniting the fire of Love.