Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Your Money or Your Life



I
watched as the POTUS gave the SOTU last night. If the acronyms don't mean anything to you, then don't worry. If you do care, it was a pretty good speech I guess.

"The challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics." "Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again."

And in all fairness the response by the "R"s was pretty civil, but the content was their usual march of the lower centers into the madness. For some weird reason, CNN carried an extra response from the T Baggers. It was particularly bizarre as Michelle Bachman stared away into another camera, making her look even more daft and hypnotized than usual.

And today, exactly on time, a new estimate of this year's deficit was announced, now that the bipartisan Xmas give away to the rich can be figured in. And the number is a whopper... 1.5 trillion....almost 10% of GNP

This explosion of debt is a frame changer. Forget about climate change, or fast trains, or protecting the weak, or other gallant enterprises. As the common metaphor goes, we've got to get our economic house in order, even if it kills us....

This country is going to be 20 trillion dollars in debt in 3 or 4 years. Each tax payer's share of our current debt is 127,000 dollars as I write.

It's a disaster.

Or is it? . The Secret of Oz presents an alternative story about a 200 year old struggle in this country... A struggle that is going to come to a head in the next few years. Even though I predicted this time in my book Lightland more than a decade ago, it never quite occured to me how simple the solution to our problem is.

First of all, the US government is not a household. Households don't print their own money. Households don't create money through the fractional banking system. The US Government increases the money supply everyday through the Federal Reserve and the banking system itself.

So, if we as a people have the ability to create our money, why do we pay interest on it?

Think about it.

Why does our banking system charge us interest for the money we create?

This is not just an academic question, it is the rock and the anvil upon which the capitalist system controls the government sector. But now, we are approaching the end game. They have soaked us to our limits.

In this end game, we will be faced with a simple choice.

Do we protect our Capital.

Or do we construct a new financial model,

and protect ourselves and our communities,

And move boldly into a future,

where our archaic ideas

are studied in History class,

not Economics.

There is an old Jack Benny Joke

where the robber comes up to Benny on the street

and says, "your money or your life"

Benny would put his hand up to his head and say,

"I'm thinking."

We should be too.


Become conscious that the whole process of thought,
at the present time, is a continual search for shelter,
for authority,
for patterns to conform to,
for systems to follow,
for methods to imitate.

Religion, politics, society are exploiting you,
and you are being conditioned by them;
you are being forced in a particular direction.

You are not human beings;
you are mere cogs in a machine.
You suffer patiently,
submitting to the cruelties of environment,
when you, individually,

have the possibilities

of changing them.

J krishnamurti

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