Times are bad; from Big Crunch to Greek Tragedy. It's a mad, mad, mad mad world...

Greed + Ego was it!

Met de kennis van nu...

"Love is blind, and greed insatiable"

Try to relax and enjoy the crisis. – Ashleigh Brilliant

I am a rich man as long as I don't pay my creditors - Plautus

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"The world is burning in the fire of desire, in greed, arrogance and excessive ego."

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. – Cicero

Wat er gebeurd is, zal weer gebeuren en wat er gedaan is, zal weer gedaan worden; er is niets nieuws onder de zon. Men zegt wel: "Kijk dat is iets nieuws." Maar dan blijkt dat het er vroeger ook al was. Niemand denkt meer aan de mensen die voor ons geleefd hebben en ook aan de mensen die na ons komen, zal later niemand meer denken. - Prediker 1:9-11

An immoderate desire of riches is a poison lodged in the mind. It contaminates and destroys everything that was good in it. It is no sooner rooted there, than all virtue, all honesty, all natural affection, fly before the face of it. - Akhenaten

"And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all those that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those that sold doves. And he said to them, It is written, 'My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves'." - Matthew 21.12-13.

"And so think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism." - Slavoj Žižek

Times are bad… What's this world coming to?

"Hoe een stuiver winst een euro verlies kan baren" - De Onrendabelen

Right now we’re not just in the middle a global financial crisis. But perhaps an even more dangerous crisis we’re actually facing, is the world’s spiritual crisis, yes an existential crisis of humanity who have no meaning to their life. So many people, who have no sense of purpose and direction at all in life with religions not in a position to provide them with the right answers. It is the crisis of a society that worships at the temples of consumption, and that has isolated and often abandoned millions of consumers now trapped on a treadmill of debt. It is the crisis of a society that values the capital gains of the haute finance more highly than the rights of people to a home, or an education or health. It is the crisis of a society that idolises money above love, community, wellbeing and the sustainability of our planet.
It is these people who without any spiritual basis for their life, those who hold no moral and ethical code of life whatsoever and who in their recklessness and blind greed, delusion, stupidity and with their anti-social and irresponsible behaviour are guilty in the current financial crisis. So that basically involves most of us! Not only the head honchos with their undeserved bonuses i.e. the financial mafia, but also we, the money lenders who bought the houses and the cars which we simply couldn’t afford. Well of course deep down we all know that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. But…
Perhaps the cosmic is teaching us a lesson here the hard way. A lesson that we urgently need and deserve in order to update our attitude and moral values.

Well now then do these funny Rosicrucians hold a cure for these ailments? Well, eh yes we do! We cure all ailments. After all we are Keepers of the Stone (lol). The Philosophers Stone i.e.

Just to give you an idea, have a look at the Positio Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (AD 2001) to find out what the R+C have to tell about our economy.

Here's just two lines: "We think that the world economic situation is completely adrift" and "We feel that the reason for this is because the economy has become too speculative and feeds markets and interest that are more virtual than real".

Now does this mean we're at a dead-end, the end of capitalism as we know it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oosq3TPgHH0

http://www.rosicrucian.org/publications/positio.pdf

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." - Ernest Hemingway

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."-Aristotle

"Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think."- Dale Carnegie

All people seek happiness. This is without exception the motive of every action of every person. However, far too many do not ever find it. This is because most of them think that it exclusively depends on material welfare. Then another minority is convinced that it is only made possible by a life that is focused exclusively on spirituality. In reality, neither ways are quite correct, because happiness is a state of perfect balance between our material needs and our spiritual aspirations. So the best way for people to achieve this condition, is follow the path of mysticism, which can be defined as the study and application of the laws that unite man and his creator.

So as far as the human existential crisis is concerned you might try and make a Voyage to the land of the Rosicrucians, join the Sufis, the Martinists, follow the path of the Dalai lama, just to mention a few… This will most definitely help you improving considerably.

And now the economy, the road to recovery ...

“There can be no economy where there is no efficiency”

“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it” - Ronald Reagan

“I find that because of modern technological evolution and our global economy, and as a result of the great increase in population, our world has greatly changed: it has become much smaller. However, our perceptions have not evolved at the same pace; we continue to cling to old national demarcations and the old feelings of 'us' and 'them'." - Dalai Lama

Crise ou Reprise?

In stead of writing a bad article myself I've taken one of the more sensible interpretations from the internet.

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer Tom Raum, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jun 20, 9:21 am ET WASHINGTON – It's a difficult balancing act.

Where some economists see "green shoots" of a recovery others see only yellow weeds of continuing recession. It's hard to know for sure whether things are getting better or worse.
President Harry S. Truman whimsically asked for a "one-handed economist." He complained that "all my economists say, `on the one hand ... on the other hand.'"
That's pretty much the dilemma that President Barack Obama and policymakers now face.
With consumer spending accounting for more than two-thirds of the economy, Obama is mindful that reviving it depends a lot on restoring confidence. So he's been trying to put the most positive spin on any signs of improvement, as have leaders in other recession-wracked countries.
"It's safe to say we have stepped back from the brink, that there is some calm that didn't exist before," Obama said recently about what already is the longest recession since World War II.
On the other hand, there's a clear danger. Sound too cheery and people lose confidence in your judgment, especially if their own eyes see a bleaker picture.
Ease up on government stimulus spending too soon and the recovery could be snuffed out. Talk by some Group of Eight finance ministers about stimulus exit strategies briefly spooked international stock markets. But keep stimulus spending going too long and you end up with huge deficits and soaring inflation.
Polls show people in the United States increasingly are concerned about the government's record levels of debt, a sour legacy for future generations.
So Obama has talked up and talked down the economy. At the same time.
"Even as we've made progress, we know that the road to prosperity remains long and it remains difficult," he told a Chicago audience this past week as he promoted his health care overhaul. It's an effort that Obama says will help the economy in the long run, but one that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says could top $1 trillion over 10 years.
The daily numbers don't help much.
On the one hand, some statistics suggest the recession's fury is easing. Not only are fewer jobs being lost, but there are signs that stability is returning to housing and manufacturing. Even with recent declines, stocks are up about 30 percent from their March lows.
On the other hand, the economy is continuing to shed tens of thousands of jobs a month and the unemployment rate may soon exceed 10 percent. Housing values still are falling. Consumers keep spending cautiously. Even though 10 top banks won Treasury Department approval to repay $68 billion of bailout money, hundreds of billions of dollars in bad debt clogs the balance sheets of many banks. Gasoline prices are rising again.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 6 million jobs.
"We are still in a recession. The risks are still to the downside. The coast isn't clear," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.
While Zandi thinks the recession probably will end this year, he sees an extended period of slow growth and continued high unemployment, as do many economists.
Sometimes the numbers give rise to competing interpretations.
For instance, the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond has inched up and now yields 3.8 percent; it was well under 3 percent three months ago. Optimists see that as an early sign of an economic rebound. Pessimists say it is a harbinger of higher mortgage rates that could throttle a housing recovery.
The Federal Reserve is buying long-term Treasuries to try to put downward pressure on rates. But some economists see this as backfiring, troubling investors, aggravating inflation worries and contributing to even higher rates.
Economists and politicians keep searching for those "green shoots," signs of an economic revival. After all, if green shoots are sprouting, can blue skies be far behind?
"Green shoots" is the colorful phrase that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke used in mid-March to describe those bits of evidence that the economy was showing tentative signs of recovery.
Since Bernanke's comments, the term has sprouted like, well, weeds. Britain's "Economist" magazine even created a "Green Shoot" index to track the number of times the phrase appeared in the news media.
Bernanke spotted those green shoots way back in March. With the official start of summer upon us, it's hard to see that any of those shoots have grown into saplings.
"We need significant more improvement to suggest that the economy is really turning the corner," said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Investments.
White House economic advisers estimated in January that if Congress passed the president's economic stimulus bill, unemployment probably would rise no higher than 8 percent this year. Congress did and unemployment now stands at 9.4 percent.
The recession "won't be over until actually we have the unemployment rate down to a more normal level, like 5 percent," Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said recently. "We're a long way from it being over."
In a "one hand ... other hand" economy, it isn't over until it's over.

September 1, 2009: Worst of slump yet to come, says economist Ann Pettifor

September 20, 2010: Economic panel says recession ended in June 2009 (AP)

Here follow some of Pettifor's great ideas:

Anglo-American finance ministers and central bankers, like little Dutch boys, try desperately to plug leaks in the bursting dyke that is the international financial system.

Pettifor thinks it is wrong that the British government has used billions of pounds of the taxpayers' money to bail out the banks without insisting on changes in behaviour. Instead, she says, this public money should be used to bail out small businesses and households facing bankruptcy, to stimulate the economy and pull us out of a depression.

The most damaging is orthodox monetary policy. This is based on the assumption that money is a commodity, and that its "price" - the rate of interest - must be set by supply and demand for money in private markets for capital - just as the price of oil is set by supply and demand for oil.

This is a nonsense. We do not dig capital out of the ground, nor does it grow on trees. Money is man-made. Interest rates are a social construct. And as such, unlike oil or soya beans, "there are no intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of capital", as Keynes argued in the General Theory. Because there is no reason for the scarcity of capital, there is no reason for the price of capital to be high.

The fact that small businesses cannot obtain loans from banks, except at high rates of interest, has nothing to do with our deposits, but with the failure of bankers to fulfil their role and meet the needs of society and the economy.

The best way out of the economic crisis is to cut interest rates, create jobs and raise incomes.

Governments robbed the people and gave the money to the bankers! Billions for the Bankers, Debt for the People...

Well done is better than well said, Mr. President!

"Tegenover de klasse van de gewone man staan thans niet meer de klassieke ondernemers of de kapitalisten, maar de klasse der beheerders of managers. Het gaat nu om de lange mars naar de harten van de burgers wier bestaan wordt verschraald door de managers aan de top, die gespeend zijn van elk moreel besef." - prof.dr. A. Heertje

“The crises of our time, it becomes increasingly clear, are the necessary impetus for the revolution now under way. And once we understand nature's transformative powers, we see that it is our powerful ally, not a force to be feared our subdued. ”
Thomas Kuhn

Wat is er over van de beloftes van „regulatie“, en „dit nooit meer“? Is de discussie blijven steken bij het probleem “bankier-bonussen” om de CDS en “debt obligations” per ongeluk te vergeten?
Er is niets, maar dan ook niets geleerd van de, verre van overgewaaide, kredietcrisis.

Epilogue:

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition…is…the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.” - Adam Smith author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

How could all those clever guys with degrees from some of the best universities, with hyper-mathematical equations coming out of their ears, have been so wrong?

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. - Thomas Jefferson 1816

Nothing is more insidious than possession. Nothing is more dangerous than desire. Nothing is more disastrous than greed. If you know when enough is enough, you will always have enough. - Lao Tzu, Tao Te King

AND THE FORECAST FOR 2013: "A PERFECT STORM"

http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl/backlight/tax-free-tour.html