Friday, November 21, 2008
Markets in free fall, bad news on bad news?
The stock markets keep falling even as experts wanted to say that we already hit the bottom. So is it the end of the world?
No, it's the beginning of a new one.
You can consider my previous rant about why I hate capitalism, which I patriotically and presciently posted on the 4th of July before the market blowouts of September. Or just consider this:
The world wide recession is a time to be hopeful, because it's a time for the realignment of values. Just because markets and market driven consumption are down, does that mean that human needs are any less? No, they're greater than ever, as world hunger and environmental degredation and local wars make people suffer. So then maybe, it means that the abilities to work and produce are diminished? No, factories and resources and labor and skills didn't just disappear. In fact people want their jobs more than ever now, and the capacities for production were at their highest levels in history to feed the demands of an overheated global economy.
So what is in recession, what has deflated and collapsed? That which has failed and failed us all, is a system of incentivizing work for the pursuit of money rather than the value of services as truly needed. We got warehouses bursting with half-assed toxic crap looking for buyers, instead of sustainable products, nutritious food, and fair housing. So it's about time a system like that collapsed, because it was killing everything on this planet. People were encouraged to do anything no matter how poisonous, take any shortcuts no matter how inhumane, as long as it made cash. Death and destruction were chalked up to progress, collateral damage that market forces could sort out later. The worst side of humanity was running amok, and we can rejoice that it stopped before we were all dead.
Now is the time for a new entrepreneurism to flourish. Think outside the box that says if it doesn't make money, don't do it, you'll die. Trust in a greater system, call it goodness or God or Gaia or whatever you like. There's a reason why everyone is where they are, with the needs and the talents and resources they have. Can you imagine that needs are not burdens but gifts? That's right, the needy are assets, golden opportunities, and not because they represent markets to be exploited, but because we are changed to serve them. Individually and collectively, we become smarter, wiser, stronger, more loving and kind - in short, more on the side of God - the more we attend to the neediest among us. "Give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven" is not old self-abandoning altruism, but new market strategy for the sustainable economy. Investing in the right motives and methods today will yield endless bounty in the world without end.
Talk about busting the old paradigm. In the old way of doing things, the less open needs you had, the more you were invulnerable and strong and positioned to accumulate wealth and power. People with too many needs were hopeless, useless, let them fade away Darwinian style. In the new way of doing things, needs are to be treasured, for in denial of them we were drifting and prone to big ego scams. Needs are compasses, pointing us and motivating us in the direction of new friends and opportunities. And most important to imagine is the guarantee that every need, from personal to global, will be fulfilled in good time when we just take our cues from honest living, step by faithful step. The patience and courage required go beyond scientific awe for nature, since even nature can be cruel. But it is the spiritual promise that can be seen in the best of natural harmonies, symbioses, and synergies.
As if we had a choice of faiths? In the old godless system, money never guaranteed anything. Some of the most twisted and insecure people in the world had more money than they knew how to spend, it did nothing for them, they could only fiddle while Rome burned. Predicating the exchange of goods and services on money alone made poor people starve, rich people crazy, and "average" people miserable as they crammed themselves into the Procrustean beds of the jobs that had paychecks attached. Talents and needs, happiness and health, security and future, all took a backseat to the pursuit of money, from where to get it fastest to the hottest latest shit it could buy.
What can you really do, what do you really need, who are you really positioned to help and be helped by? As people are forced to answer those questions in the worldwide recession, yes certainly, the sales of SUVs and trinkets and super-size me portions of crap are plunging. Thank God.
I'd say we hit bottom already, because there's nowhere to go but up. The down market isn't telling the real story, because it never has. Bailouts, deficit spending, debt forgiveness, charity and more, these will make us richer not poorer now, if our priorities are at long last redefined in the process. Retool ourselves along with the economy, consume frugally and give generously, be honest about where we were headed and where we need to go, and we'll at long last become the human beings with instrinsic, not market, value for all.
No, it's the beginning of a new one.
You can consider my previous rant about why I hate capitalism, which I patriotically and presciently posted on the 4th of July before the market blowouts of September. Or just consider this:
The world wide recession is a time to be hopeful, because it's a time for the realignment of values. Just because markets and market driven consumption are down, does that mean that human needs are any less? No, they're greater than ever, as world hunger and environmental degredation and local wars make people suffer. So then maybe, it means that the abilities to work and produce are diminished? No, factories and resources and labor and skills didn't just disappear. In fact people want their jobs more than ever now, and the capacities for production were at their highest levels in history to feed the demands of an overheated global economy.
So what is in recession, what has deflated and collapsed? That which has failed and failed us all, is a system of incentivizing work for the pursuit of money rather than the value of services as truly needed. We got warehouses bursting with half-assed toxic crap looking for buyers, instead of sustainable products, nutritious food, and fair housing. So it's about time a system like that collapsed, because it was killing everything on this planet. People were encouraged to do anything no matter how poisonous, take any shortcuts no matter how inhumane, as long as it made cash. Death and destruction were chalked up to progress, collateral damage that market forces could sort out later. The worst side of humanity was running amok, and we can rejoice that it stopped before we were all dead.
Now is the time for a new entrepreneurism to flourish. Think outside the box that says if it doesn't make money, don't do it, you'll die. Trust in a greater system, call it goodness or God or Gaia or whatever you like. There's a reason why everyone is where they are, with the needs and the talents and resources they have. Can you imagine that needs are not burdens but gifts? That's right, the needy are assets, golden opportunities, and not because they represent markets to be exploited, but because we are changed to serve them. Individually and collectively, we become smarter, wiser, stronger, more loving and kind - in short, more on the side of God - the more we attend to the neediest among us. "Give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven" is not old self-abandoning altruism, but new market strategy for the sustainable economy. Investing in the right motives and methods today will yield endless bounty in the world without end.
Talk about busting the old paradigm. In the old way of doing things, the less open needs you had, the more you were invulnerable and strong and positioned to accumulate wealth and power. People with too many needs were hopeless, useless, let them fade away Darwinian style. In the new way of doing things, needs are to be treasured, for in denial of them we were drifting and prone to big ego scams. Needs are compasses, pointing us and motivating us in the direction of new friends and opportunities. And most important to imagine is the guarantee that every need, from personal to global, will be fulfilled in good time when we just take our cues from honest living, step by faithful step. The patience and courage required go beyond scientific awe for nature, since even nature can be cruel. But it is the spiritual promise that can be seen in the best of natural harmonies, symbioses, and synergies.
As if we had a choice of faiths? In the old godless system, money never guaranteed anything. Some of the most twisted and insecure people in the world had more money than they knew how to spend, it did nothing for them, they could only fiddle while Rome burned. Predicating the exchange of goods and services on money alone made poor people starve, rich people crazy, and "average" people miserable as they crammed themselves into the Procrustean beds of the jobs that had paychecks attached. Talents and needs, happiness and health, security and future, all took a backseat to the pursuit of money, from where to get it fastest to the hottest latest shit it could buy.
What can you really do, what do you really need, who are you really positioned to help and be helped by? As people are forced to answer those questions in the worldwide recession, yes certainly, the sales of SUVs and trinkets and super-size me portions of crap are plunging. Thank God.
I'd say we hit bottom already, because there's nowhere to go but up. The down market isn't telling the real story, because it never has. Bailouts, deficit spending, debt forgiveness, charity and more, these will make us richer not poorer now, if our priorities are at long last redefined in the process. Retool ourselves along with the economy, consume frugally and give generously, be honest about where we were headed and where we need to go, and we'll at long last become the human beings with instrinsic, not market, value for all.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Making History
Happy Barack Obama day!
It's a big time for vindication and turnaround in world history. I had a dream about the gap between rich and poor, thousands in ghettos while a few whites lived in a mansion serving themselves. Today a record number of United Statians are voting, especially the young and "minorities", because it's payback time by nothing less than a bloodless coup.
I like how the universe sends important souls into the underclasses, so the most progressive groups will benefit. I think of how Albert Einstein being a Jew got him kicked out of Germany, so the Nazis' own racism would prevent them from getting the bomb. Now the Republicans are clearly outdated with the oldest candidate in history, a veritable war monger with an explosive temper like Bush. One of McCain's biggest campaign errors was picking for running mate the incompetent social conservative Sarah Palin over unconventionally Christian Mitt Romney just to please the judgmental evangelicals. If McCain had picked Romney they would have had more money and a closer race, but the judgmental only limit themselves.
As for the difficult choice the Democrats had to make between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, both of whom could have been transformative figures in their own right, I think it just goes to show that the hardest choices are between good and good (channeled entity Lazaris said that). Patience, all good things come in time, there will be a woman president as well. I think roots in Africa were important at this time on so many levels. We have to live the right sequence for history, and arguably the Bush years were themselves a painful requirement to get more people on board with just how much change was needed. Hilary will make a great Senate Majority Leader, to work on healthcare and match the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. There's even room for McCain to continue his patriotic service in the senate as well. To the Master's table, all are invited.
Right now it's the eleventh hour for so many things, including the global environment and economy. I believe Obama is the extraordinary leader who was called from birth to these extraordinary times, and the United States, with its strong political foundations in human ideals (surprisingly gleaned as much from Native American principles as classical European, see the Iroquois confederation's document called The Great Law of Peace admired by many including Benjamin Franklin), shall be a greater power for good, once again and more than ever. World respect and sentiment is already lining up to be with the US under a President Obama in a way not seen since the days of sympathy following 9/11.
For now, today is the day to feel the happiness and hope that so many of us have been expecting to feel since 2000 when the popular vote was with Al Gore.
It's a big time for vindication and turnaround in world history. I had a dream about the gap between rich and poor, thousands in ghettos while a few whites lived in a mansion serving themselves. Today a record number of United Statians are voting, especially the young and "minorities", because it's payback time by nothing less than a bloodless coup.
I like how the universe sends important souls into the underclasses, so the most progressive groups will benefit. I think of how Albert Einstein being a Jew got him kicked out of Germany, so the Nazis' own racism would prevent them from getting the bomb. Now the Republicans are clearly outdated with the oldest candidate in history, a veritable war monger with an explosive temper like Bush. One of McCain's biggest campaign errors was picking for running mate the incompetent social conservative Sarah Palin over unconventionally Christian Mitt Romney just to please the judgmental evangelicals. If McCain had picked Romney they would have had more money and a closer race, but the judgmental only limit themselves.
As for the difficult choice the Democrats had to make between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, both of whom could have been transformative figures in their own right, I think it just goes to show that the hardest choices are between good and good (channeled entity Lazaris said that). Patience, all good things come in time, there will be a woman president as well. I think roots in Africa were important at this time on so many levels. We have to live the right sequence for history, and arguably the Bush years were themselves a painful requirement to get more people on board with just how much change was needed. Hilary will make a great Senate Majority Leader, to work on healthcare and match the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. There's even room for McCain to continue his patriotic service in the senate as well. To the Master's table, all are invited.
Right now it's the eleventh hour for so many things, including the global environment and economy. I believe Obama is the extraordinary leader who was called from birth to these extraordinary times, and the United States, with its strong political foundations in human ideals (surprisingly gleaned as much from Native American principles as classical European, see the Iroquois confederation's document called The Great Law of Peace admired by many including Benjamin Franklin), shall be a greater power for good, once again and more than ever. World respect and sentiment is already lining up to be with the US under a President Obama in a way not seen since the days of sympathy following 9/11.
For now, today is the day to feel the happiness and hope that so many of us have been expecting to feel since 2000 when the popular vote was with Al Gore.
