The ancient cure for materialistic madness and partisan bickering

CNN lists "The Economy" as "Issue #1"

People like to blame the leaders whoever they may be. This week, Time magazine came out with a list of the top 25 people to blame for this economic disaster, with the usual suspects at the top - Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm (who would have been McCain's pick for Sec. of Treasury. He deregulated the banks and allowed them to become investment companies as well, which basically turned them into casinos.) And of course, George Bush.

Number 5 on the who's to blame list is... look in the mirror - the American people. Our standard of living is not sustainable. We are supposed to be the beacon on the hill, the example that the rest of the world follows, but our way of life cannot be duplicated by the world. If everyone in the world had a standard of living of a poverty level family in Appalachia, it would take four earths to supply the resources.

Obama said the other day that he is doing this to "keep the American dream alive." The American dream is dead, and we will fall by the wayside of all empires. We cannot keep patching this monster up with "band-aids." It's a runaway train, being fed by the fire of lust. We've run out of coal, but we just keep on stoking. Now we are throwing in everything into the fire, our furniture, then our houses, then printed money, and inevitably, our children's future. Like the pussies that they are, the Democrats bowed to the Republicans, and cut taxes. Obama wants to wait a couple years to let the Bush tax cuts expire. So much for urgency.

What we should be doing is immediately is nationalize the banks, and get rid of the fed. Then we should repeal the REAGAN tax cuts. This is a marginal tax rate that goes up to something like 70% of what the little piggies on Wall Street make after the first 3.2 million. If they start whining that they can't live on 3.2 million dollars a year, then let them eat bacon. Then they wouldn't go around gambling all that extra money on hedge funds and credit swaps, which caused this mess. Instead they would reinvest it in their own companies. Capping the pay of CEO's to a half a million is an joke. Doesn't Obama know that they will figure out a way to get paid in stock? That's the problem. The CEO's are running the companies for short term gain, instead of long term stability. They should not be allowed to be paid in stock. There needs to be super strict regulation.

The so-called "free market" idea - that there should be no regulation and the market that self corrects is a big lie invented by Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics, and perpetuated by Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and W. Junior's economics was Reaganomics on steroids. We are just now seeing the result after 30 years of tax cuts and insane trade policy. The whole system of credit is broken, and there is a quadrillion "dollars" in derivatives floating out there. It's funny money that's not so funny, because it is killing our economy. We are currently in the cancer stage of credit based capitalism. This whole system doesn't work, and it will die. A symptom of this thing breaking down is the current crash. It's like someone who has cancer, gets started on chemo, but the chemo breaks down the white blood cells, so they get an infection. It started by lending out money for homes to people who couldn't afford it, breaking those loans up into securities, and fancy instruments like hedge funds, and companies like A.I.G. insured those packages. Now everything is breaking down, and a trillion dollars worth of chemotherapy will not kill a quadrillion cancer cells.

I was just in Disney World (the sense gratification capitol of the world) for a week, and I got a lot of realizations.

I am in the process of writing a book about the subject of sense gratification, lust and greed, which is at the root of this problem. The name of it is the same as this blog, and I will use the best of it to cobble together a book.

The Peace Formula
The ancient cure for materialistic madness and partisan bickering

It's going to be about lust and greed - the perils of wanting it all. What we need is to extinguish the fire of lust by getting a higher taste. We have to restrain the senses by serving God's senses, otherwise, we are doomed. I don't care what party is in control. As Prabhupada said in the intro of the Gita,

"By the spell of illusion one tries to be happy by serving his personal sense gratification in different forms which will never make him happy. Instead of satisfying his own personal material senses, he has to satisfy the senses of the Lord. That is the highest perfection of life. The Lord wants this, and He demands it."

Although Obama is a good man, and has already done some good things, he is deluded in so many ways about the biggest problems, like the war in Afghanistan and the economy. I am very disappointed in some of his policies. I'm afraid he is going to throw away trillions into the gaping bottomless pit of the blood-sucking banks, and get us mired in an intractable conflict in blood-sucking Afghanistan that has destroyed many empires and conquerors such as Genghis Khan, and the British, Indians, and Russia. And mark my words, in a few years, we will have our asses handed to us. I wrote a letter about this that was published in the Post Gazette. (click cntl-f and type Scott to find).

But it could be worse. But I've got two words for you: John McCain. Unfortunately, Obama may slow the process of meltdown down, but I'm afraid it's inevitable, unless we, collectively, have a spiritual awakening, and this blog/book is my small attempt to "pay it forward."