One last opportunity to look back at 2008 before the parties get under way, and we wake up just 3 years from the Mayan Calendar’s Armageddon.
The Fearmeisters of the Media have traded terrorism for economic meltdown, as it’s so much closer to home, and keeps people in their tenderized state; ready for control and plunder. Remember, as long as you are scared and thinking about survival, you’re not thinking about issues requiring higher consciousness.
This means that they can keep you focused on yourself, and not run the danger of community-minded thinking, banding together to help one another, or other non-consumer–oriented activities. What’s more, if you become somehow content with yourself, they can’t sell you the clothes, perfumes, cars, hair colors, or pharmaceuticals that promise to give your worthless self value.
Just remember that statistics lie. They tell lop-sided stories, half-truths, obfuscated truths, and are the fronts for artificial models of reality that avoid little things like “risk” or “how is that debt going to be paid off?”
Wanna talk fuzzy math? If I have a dollar, and I can lend it to you at 10% interest, I do not - repeat do not have $1.10. I have nothing until you pay me back. Since I have nothing until you pay me back, how in the heck can I lend $1.10 to someone else, based on the projected income from your loan? And I sure as heck can’t lend $1.21 to a third person, based on the projected income of that loan, based on the projected income of the first loan, and so forth.
Turn that into a 40 to 1 ratio, and turn that one dollar into half the country’s retirement accounts, and you might ask yourself, how the heck did anyone ever get away with any of that? Simple answer: Greed. As long as you can sell “golden eggs,” who cares if they’re painted?! Just get out of Dodge before somebody scrapes the surface (check out Cheney’s off-shore accounts. Oh sorry, they’re OFF-Shore accounts. Those billions will never find their way back into the U.S. economy.)
Yes, things are going to be very scary for a while. When “Greed is Good” philosophies run rampant, people like Milken and Madoff will continue to pillage with the assistance of “none of our business” politicians keeping the pressure off the “let the markets find their own level” predators.
So we have our work cut out for us. It’s time to band together, stop measuring our value by the designer tags hanging off our stuff, start remembering that teammates don’t compete with each other if they want to move the ball downfield, and start undoing the Mean, Mean, Angry, Fight Machine that has lost us our country and reputation in the world. When we return to looking at our value as a function of our character, not our stuff, our ability to help one another, not crush one another, and our Ideals of real freedom and liberty that aren’t bought by petro-dollar power brokering, we have a shot at making 2009 the Turnaround Year. The Year we re-discovered ourselves and what we’re capable of.
Let the coming year define our future. A future of hope, hard work, and cooperation. Happy New Year!