The Economic Crisis as Human Growth in Conciousness As I spoke about in my last blog, the chase for more is better has been a defining characteristic of our culture for some time. One of the hallmarks of this is the resulting “ubiquitous frenzy , arising from the almost universal discomfort of being with oneself. Everyone involved in this chase has been exploiting the present moment as a stepping stone to new experiences or pleasures that will keep them from having to feel our discomfort. We have become attached to our escapes from ourselves. This has become such an expectation of our culture, that Obama and the present government administration has been trying to bail out the centralized money system in an attempt to let us keep the “American Way”. It’s failing. It was doomed to fail. And not just becuase of the economics involved. I do follow those. I have made reference before to those I trust on that front, for example Michael Hudson who wrote “The Financial War Against Iceland” and many other articles over the years of great insight and wisdom and also Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com. But the economics is not my job. My job is one of consciousness, and to bring that to our money. From my perspective, the bailout was doomed to fail because a new consciousness is necessary for the survival of the planet, and us. That means we can no longer run from our discomfort. If we had chosen a [...]
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The Answer To Our Credit Crisis
The Antidote to Greed in the Economic Downturn In my last post I talked about leaving the chase for more is better and a sense of deprivation which fueled that chase and start living in a sense of sufficiency. I also said this would take a shift in consciousness. In the November 10 Newsweek, in the Article, A Darker Future For Us, by Robert Samuelson, he talked about how Americans have been “progress junkies”. That is part of what I believe allowed us to be asleep at the wheel around the greed, miscalculation and the subsequent economic ruin of many Americans, and maybe America itself. The recession will end, but it won’t be a recovery to previous rates of growth. People are going to feel poorer, because their “sluggish income gains (will) get siphoned off into higher taxes, energy costs, and health spending.He says the we are about to begin a time of what he calls “affluent deprivation” which he says is a state of mind. I believe that we can, and need to move from a sense that without growth we will be in deprivation. It’s costly to consume out of a sense of deprivation. We get caught up in wanting more-bigger-faster stuff and then have to go back to earn the money to pay for it. And we are not really satisfied. What we really want is rest, time., money and connection. Jacob Needleman talks about how our capitalist society creates ever new desires. And the ease of [...]
Opting Out of Serfdom
Day to Day Living in the New Paradigm In my last two blogs I talked at length about predatory lending and the debt economy getting us into trouble as a nation and as individuals. We need to step out of the culture of easy money and magical thinking that allowed Ponzi schemes like Bernie Madoff- but not just him. If you look at the whole bubble created by the debt system, you could say the whole of the state of Florida was a Ponzi scheme (look at the details of their real estate bubble). You could say all hedgefunds and therefore the fund managers were a Ponzi scheme. You could say the whole country (supported by Greenspan and the Bush Administration) has been living a national Ponzi scheme. Maybe ( and I believe) the whole world economy has been a Ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff was just the starting bell in this horserace. I have an acquaintance here in Marin County who thought he was a multimillionaire. He had a thriving tax preparation business. Then he got into the investment business so his tax clients could invest in pension plans. And then he invested his own earnings in Florida real estate. The whole thing (except his tax practice- as taxes, like death, are inevitable) has fallen like a deck of cards. Now he is deeply suffering from his delusion and is having great difficulty in accepting that. There are many people who are in the same boat and they are [...]
Serfdom in the Global Economy
Obama Bailing Out the Banks In my last post, I talked about debt from the point of view of the individual getting off the wheel of bondage. Today I want to talk about debt again, but from the point of view of the Macro. Why? Because we can’t talk intelligently about our own money actions without talking about the canvass upon which these money actions are being played. Also, because we can’t really be conscious with money without this knowledge. And finally, we won’t really know what right action is. With respect to what is going on, both in our country, and in the bigger field of the world, I have run into two very powerful articles this recently. One was entitled ” Financial War Against Iceland” by Michael Hudson. Michael is a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri. He is also a Wall Street analyst and president of the Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends. So he knows what he is talking about. I have been reading his articles for years about the true effects of the US Treasury policies and the resulting inevitable current financial crisis. His is a voice of intelligence, true intelligence, not just intellectual analysis, in a sea of self- serving rhetoric. The other article was “Resist Or Become Serfs” by Chris Hedges. Both of these articles talk about the bondage of our creditor society. The real issue in this economic crisis should be overall the health of [...]
Debt is the New Bondage
Staying Out of Credit Card Debt As stated in the New Yorker in its April 13, 2009 issue, in the article I.O.U. by Jill Lepore ,”Consumer debt has been the engine of the American economy since the 1970′s and arguably longer”. I would argue not just the American economy, but the whole world consumer driven bubble economy that has just crashed because it is simply not sustainable. Many are now recognizing that the predatory lending practices of the banks and credit card companies, with the tacit approval of the government through it’s interest rate manipulation and, as Jill Lepore, says its pitching to the American people that credit is a civic responsibility , have created a such a giant hole in the economy that we wonder if it can actually be fixed. We have no appreciation for history, or geography, in this country. It was never something that was valued in our education. If we did appreciate history, we would know that the downfall of every civilization was presaged by a wider and wider split between the haves and the have -nots. Think the Fall of the Roman Empire and now perhaps what we are experiencing, the Fall of the American Empire. We don’t have to go back that far if we were interested in what happened to us with respect to debt. And if we look we will see, that we have had many rises and falls of the economy, and in all cases debt was seen as necessary [...]