Financial Crisis: Unplugged

Have you ever wondered why its a financial crisis thats getting all the attention? When there was a bloody holocaust in Darfur in 2006, a racial cleansing in Somalia in 2004, an actual war in Eastern Europe between Russia and Georgia in 2008. We were briefly informed, only to care abstractly, and hold unfaithfully to an ideal of humanity. Countless crises have ravaged our country in times not so far gone and past, and as a nation we have acted only to the point of atypical, unresponsive concern for the people of the world. These are lives that we are talking about, not video game characters; not movie roles that end as soon as the credits roll. No, the only credits that roll for these people are the lines of their loved ones that add to the list carved into the rock that marks their families ancestral grave, unfilled with bodies as they have been mutilated and destroyed, but filled with the memory of pain, the untold stories that should have raised a world in an uprising, filled with the angry frustration that accompanies an uncontrollable situation. We watch maybe a newscast that touches on the subject, drowning our showers and sinks with unused, wasted water as we pity the people we hear about so absentmindedly, while the only water that wets their bodies is the rain that either falls from the heavens or falls from their eyes as they pity a world un-saveable.

But when there’s a financial crisis here on our territory, the world is turned upside down. This is not the way the world should be. Finances should not be the focus of our world, even though they are a very important part, they should not be the focal point. But if we must talk finances, let’s talk finances.
When financial pillars like AIG, Lehman Brothers, Meryl Lynch, and Washington Mutual are going bankrupt, it is clear that our country is in a crisis. There are many reasons that our economy is spiraling. The Consumer Price Index went up 5.4 percent one year ago, and 7.2 percent 3 months ago. This indicates that the cost of living has increased dramatically alongside this drastic inflation. Unemployment in our country, rose from 5.7 to 6.2 in August. With our economy already on the brink of a recession that can only end in a depression unlike our country has ever seen, the downfall of so many financial companies has brought a devastating effect. It was then that the government stepped in and announced that they were going to buy out AIG, a major American insurance company, named by Forbes in 2008 to be the 18th largest company in the world. Since AIG had suffered a liquidity crisis following the downgrade of its credit rating in the sock market, on the brink of bankruptcy, the Federal Reserve Bank bought them with loans of $85 billion (Bill Gates was worth $57 billion in 2008, just as a reference for the enormity of such a buyout loan). So the government, through the Federal Reserve Bank had saved the American financial system and pulled the economy back from the edge! Or had it…

Let’s look at this situation objectively. A company whose CEO received in one year a total of $41.5 million which included his salary, his annual bonuses, and a “one-time $24.5 million stock award,” has had decreasing credit ratings for a while and begins to show a thinness. The economy is at the perfect state to increase the vulnerability of this company. The governmental Federal Reserve Band, instead of letting the free-market take control, steps in and bails the company out, saving the economy from suffering in its loss and also putting a potential stop to obscene CEO spending and salary/bonus incentives. Sounds great, but remember the Federal Reserve Bank now owns a majority of the company and, in essence, control over its oversight. Coupled with the colossal $700 billion dollar buyout, which was a reaction to Washington Mutual’s failure on Friday, September 26, a buyout that will be a financial rescue plan, led by the Bush administration, to save the whole financial market as a whole. The plan being to send this enormous amount of money into the market by buying out different firms and have the money back in the hands of the market which will build the economy. But now the Federal Reserve Bank owns even more. The government is slowly buying out the entire financial market. The bases on which this country was founded, bases such as free-market and economic independence of the government, are very quickly fading into the realms of history and out of those of the future. If the economy crashes at the end of this recession and falls into a depression, the implications will be more effective than in 1929-1932.

But let us discern the actual facts for a moment; the facts that aren’t announced by the media moguls who control the media outlets that glorify the buying of so much financial power. The Federal Reserve Bank, started in 1913 by President Wilson as a central banking system of the United States government in response to financial panics similar to those of our day and as an enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, is supposed to have a “reserve” of worth to match the amount of bills or currency that the country has circulated. That is the Federal Reserve Note (a bill) system that we have been used to. The paper dollar is of no worth, but the fact that it “reserves” a certain amount of wealth from the Federal Reserve made it have worth. That is why we cannot simply print more money and feed it into the economy because if we were than the value of the dollar would be down, or it would be inflated. So when, for example, there are 100 gold pieces in the reserve and only 100 one-dollar bills being circulated, each dollar is worth one gold piece. But when more money is printed without an equal amount of wealth added to the reserve, than we have what is called inflation of the dollar value. So if we printed 30 more one-dollar bills and put no wealth in the reserve, than every dollar is only worth about 0.77 gold pieces. This seems scary to some who have never heard this before, but the actual fact of the matter is that our Federal Reserve has not been backing up our bills for a long, long time. Yet our dollar still has value. It has value because of faith and fear. And when finances are backed up by simply ideas, than the exchange of goods for bills is really just the exchange of an idea of wealth, an idea that does not exist outside the world of ideas. Faith in the dollar has allowed us to arrive to the point where our country’s credit is running short and we are needing to pull out our reserves and show for all the money we have printed, but all the wealth is not there to equal the bills by far. So as the Federal Reserve puts $700 billion into the financial market, where is that money coming from? The taxpayers of course, but is there actually that much wealth backing up the money that is promised, or is it simply the passing of an idea, of a number on a screen that now reads an account having more than before, a credit card swipe that subtracts numbers from numbers on a screen but does no real wealth exchange. With the multi trillion dollar debt that is hanging over this country’s head, the financial crisis is raping an America that has been unaware of its own danger for far too long.

I believe in the idea of an America that should have been, the same way I believe in a God even though I have no proof that I can show that He exists. The idea of faith is really all that matters, the same way that when you buy anything with a dollar you are handing the cashier a note to an amount reserved in the Federal Reserve but you are taking it on faith that there exists that amount. The time has come for us to grab this idea of America, not as it is with corruption and deception running rampant, and to actualize the idea of how America should have been. We the people can move ideas from the metaphysical to the physical; we can manifest an idea of America. The power lies in the mob, in the populous. The only reason I know this is the same reason I know that God exists, an opinion that is not proven: because there exists my faith the idea of true government and real representation—the ideals of this country’s founding—of which we should be taking part. If we were to mobilize as a mob to spark a change, we could overturn this idiocy that has ruled our lives for far too long. The words of change are not the words of complacent dis-action, but rather the words of movement, of awakening, of cohesion, of boycotting and protesting, and the words of revolution. A Social Reformation to revolutionize our country.

The financial crisis plagues our country as our world begins to fall apart. But even though I know there is corruption, even though I know this is not the way it should have been, I vote on principle—on the principle that participation is the way of government, and I WILL hold up my end of the honor code. Because IF I had the influence deserved to only the wise and experienced, IF this country’s people awoke all together, IF the people as a whole tore off the blindfolds that have comfortably covered their eyes and skewed their vision for so long, IF they were to listen to me even in my youth and see that even the philosopher who will one day be famous and remembered for all of time was at once a young man and, even though his philosophies did not change, the influence had to be gained before the people would listen to the same things, IF they saw that movement of all had the power of an unstoppable machine that could spark this government back into its original uses, IF there was a revolution of the people, I would need to be a participant in their ranks. So I vote for the principle of change, for the principle of sparking revolution—for the principle of Social Reform. Read more...

A Time For Change

The times that stand out to us are simply moments; our memories are not the feeling of a place or a year but rather combinations of many moments that culminate together to form the feeling we retain of a place or a year. We then look at this synopsis of an entire period of time to decipher how we felt—whether we were happy or if we enjoyed living in a certain place. Moments are the basis of our memories, and since our memories and our past define, in combination, who we are, it is actually the moments which define us. So seemingly casual, those small, innumerable windows of ourselves combine to form the entirety of our existence. We do not live for the moments, we live because of all the moments. We tell ourselves that life is a grand entity, that there is a purpose—a singular reason for being—when it is really through momentary glimpses into ourselves and into others that are so striking, so memorable, that our path to this singular purpose in which we place so much stock, this singular reason for life, we find is simple vanity. Would it not be better to see how limited our knowledge really is and admit that there is no earthly singularity to anything, let alone the reason for life, and come to terms with “Momentualism”—with the truth that we are designed to see in complex patterns of combinations of momentary glimpses of a life lived in which our mind remembers and files into categories we label as being great lapses of time simply because we are insecure with ourselves and labeling them as not being distinct moments gives us the illusion of control. It is: we are: all is: Momentualism. In fact, the very notion we have of time, the idea that we can measure it—that it is something physical that can be named, measured, and manipulated—is again just our insecurity of being out of control. As if we could control time. We even compartmentalize our time into minutes to hours, hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to years, years to decades to centuries to millennia. As if a millennium is not just a large group of seconds culminated to form an entity we call a millennium that does not even really exist—only moments. We define the 70’s or the 60’s based on a few moments which we see as important, like John Lennon’s arrival or the Vietnam War, and as a people, we see that time period as a time when we wanted peace, free love, and change; yet in actuality they were just moments; moments which happened to be close to each other and really have changed, evolved, and developed. Yet we see every entire decade as being starkly different from the next, but it is all a continuation of moments: viable vignettes into our vision. In this example, our vision is in decades, but with Momentualism we can see into our vision: it is a new vision into our society’s vision, into how we see. Our memories of any period of time are biased based on that vision—a vision which is skewed and forced to see in compartmentalization—in only seeing the combinations instead of the individual. (We are progressively becoming more and more impersonal as a people. We look at others simply as dollar signs, or groups of insignificance. Our recent technological interconnectivity has done nothing less than disconnect us from the importance of connection on a personal level. We strive to do more in less time, making more money with fewer costs, and somewhere in the middle our neighbors are lost, our coworkers are lost, our friends are lost, nearly all of the people we come into contact have become lost into the gargantuan void of social apathy and self-preservation in the face of our technological interconnectivity. No wonder the individual feels no self-worth, no genuine drive to be more than he is told he can be, to join together as a collaboration and not to create an insignificant collage in the warped vision of compartmentalization, but rather a driving force that can move mountains, change societies, revolutionize governments; one that is made of important, self-assured individuals with the vision of Momentualism. No wonder there are hardly any philosophers growing. No wonder the ideas of our time are selfish and capitalistic; forgetting the interconnectivity of humanity as they focus on the interconnectivity of technology. No wonder the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening are terms only used in history classes or spoken in dark corners of empty schools of thought, seemed forgotten, having been placed long ago on the high, dusty, top shelves of hardly conscious minds. No wonder at all.) As humans we see forests and forget about the trees; we see trees and still forget about the leaves; we see leaves and still forget about the veins; we see the veins and still forget about the cells. We are brainwashed to see entities and to forget about the individual. (Not that we don’t know the individual exists, that is apparent, but we are hardly ever aware of the individual. The entity has its place in importance, yes, but we have the two switched. Entities should be used for the occasion of macro-study or of collective contemplation, and not be set in the forefront of our minds. The entity has been the center of our thoughts and has commanded nearly all of our time, leaving the deserving individual in the back of our minds with little to no thought time at all.) This is why being different is so scary for people, why it is so hard to fly against the wind or to swim upstream, why public speaking is feared more than rollercoasters, heights, or even death. Being set apart or unique has been made to be in danger. Few have actualized their vision to that of individual Momentualism: Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Che-Guevara (just to name a quick few). Revolutionaries see the beauty of the individual, of the unique thought. I will join the ranks of the brave. I am change—I will last. I am revolution. They say you missed the tree in the forest, well I say forget about the tree and look at the leaf, forget about the leaf and look at the vein, forget the vein and look at the cell, forget the cell and look at the person. That is where power is; that is where change is. It is in the individual—in the momentual. That is how decades change—through the moments. An entire forest does not turn colors as summer’s hold is swept back by the chilly winds of a cool fall breeze, no! In fall it is the cells that change. The change of a forest from summer to fall is the epitome of the effect the individual has on the whole. Change comes from individual; the ONLY power to be had comes from the individual—from the momentary. Power is found in the people, from the people, and for the people. Change starts within.
There are times in society when events have drawn out the greatest minds into the spotlight, the social discord of the time demanding their participation, their intervention, or their destruction. The 1770’s brought out Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and Franklin, the 1780’s brought out an entire population of French, in South America and in Europe during the 18th and 19th Centuries entire countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Poland, Switzerland, and Germany were all brought out to face tyranny and unfair government. They all embody social conflict culminating into action. This is NOT one of those times. It is not because, although we have the social discord, no one is accepting the calls to come forward because we cannot even hear the calls over the technology that pushes us harder, faster, bigger, better. The rest that was so valued in times past where thinking and reason were practiced has long been history. Not in that the social conflict and distress do not exist, for they most certainly do, not that the economic unreliability does not exit, for it most certainly does, and not even that it should not be one of those times, for it most certainly should be, but it is not one of those times in that there does not exist the reaction to these actions, the antithesis to these theses, the bulldozer for these paradigms. The truth is, in fact, that it does very accurately resemble one of those times—the economic trauma, the faulty leadership, the taxation without representation: all things that in such times have set people not only to move, but to revolutionize nations—all these things do exist, in eminence and in quantity, in foreboding and in darkness, in unbelievable disproportion and in even more unbelievable secrecy. The only difference is that the people (you, your colleagues, your friends, your enemies) are not rising up to accept the challenge presented by such times. The combination of those liberty-divorcing, freedom-hindering, ethic-breaking social atrocities with our still comfortable society creates an apathy and belief of disconnection unparalleled in history. Our capitalistic, every-man-for-himself mindsets blind us to the fact that change lies in power, power lies in drive, drive lies in numbers, and numbers lie in the individuals: therefore change is in the individual. There is a direct relationship between the change of a society and the change of the individual that cannot be explained in any other way than a revolutionary uprising. Directly, change is up to us. A distraught time calls out in desperation, and is heard by too few; a crumbling country cries out in anguish, and is heard by too few; the system of an ignorant and apathetical world cries out in despair to and the product it has made: a distant, unconnected, uncaring, self-helping individual who believes that a dilapidating power—a power that he has created—is unaffected by his actions, good or bad, and is heard by too few. We have created a system that in turn creates apathetical men out of us with too little care to believe that we can affect the very system we created. In times gone and past, people’s minds drove with sense and had the sense of drive. We need to experience a Modern Day Enlightenment: a time when all people will think of new ideas, of life-changing innovations, of cures for a sick country. We need social reform, not on the part of the government formation but on the part of the people. If we do nothing but sit back and complain, we can we complain that the world is sitting back and doing nothing? A Great Awakening, a Modern Day Enlightenment, a Social Reformation, a Revolution of the metaphysical to break the paradigms that have kept our mobile and intelligent minds captive in a system we created and to then revolutionize the physical and impact that very system and strip it of the power we gave it to enslave us. For the danger is that the most deceived of all are those who believe that they are undeceived; the most ignorant of all are those who are ignorant to their own ignorance; the most unwise of all are those who are sure of their wisdom. We need to look internally. Change of the whole lies in the change of the individual. You may think that these are simply ideals—ink and paper, pixel and screen—but what are actions if not ideals made manifest? What was the Declaration of Independence but grievances formulated into necessity and then into ideas that were then made manifest? What was the Constitution but ideas of representation and a government that in and of itself has its own checks on the rule of the majority made manifest? “But not now,” most say, “the modern world is no place for change, or of revolution. We should just sit back and let it take care of itself.” To those people let it be posed this question: Was not every time the modern world of its time? Before the scientific revolution in mid 16th Century Europe when they looked back at ancient Greek and Hellenistic teaching for inspiration, the world was in a “golden age” and could get no better, so they thought. Had those ideas been followed, we would still think the Earth is flat; we would never have gone on to invent airplanes, trains, computers, and would have not developed as we have. Why do we believe that our present time is any different? We have so many laws, loop holes, indirect laws, and are dictated our own Constitution by Supreme Court decisions that individual thinking has become a thing of the past—ideas of betterment and growth: a part of history. Our country was founded on liberty, equality, reason, and innovative thought. You may think that you are too small, but does the thread of a great rope think that it is too small? Of course, standing alone, a single thread has no strength. However, when they stand together they create a massive rope that can drag the mightiest of boulders out of the pit into which it had slid. Alone you can do nothing; so WHY ARE YOU STANDING ALONE? Rise up! Grab the hand of the one on your right and the one on your left and form together the intellectual rope necessary to drag this society back from sinking into the mire of dis-equality, apathy, and social, political, and familiar dilapidation. You may not be ready for this, this may be what you’ve been waiting for, this may seem like simply a good or bad idea, or this may seem to be just another page on another site in another minute of one of the atypical glances into a world of images and ideas known as the internet. This country needs change; this country needs a revolution. Maybe not a revolution of blood and overthrow, for our political system has great assets and advantages (but if that were the need, than still would I be an advocate for that action, of the need . . . regardless). There is no “unclaimed” land to conquer or to imperialize. The time of physical overthrow and overtake has come to an end, but the time of internal revolution and renovation is still in need to thrive now more than ever. We need to utilize the powers we have, the positions available, and the already ready soldiers at arms. This is the time of ideas made manifest in action—in action of the mind in participation as an individual in the collective rope of change. You, my dearly beloved reader, are one of the soldiers of which I speak. Use your mind—do not let your world be drowned in the mysterious ironies that beset it. Be the change, or be just another figure in the generation of its downfall. What are YOU going to do to change your world?
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A New Beginning

I see so much beauty in new beginnings, common though they may be. My being can be altered and changed, devolved, and matured, hammered and chiseled. Age has no relevance, how could it? Growth is always a good thing, at any time. And what better way for growth than through a new beginning. When a ship sets sail out into the sea for a new voyage, it’s captain is not worried about the past—failures or problems, dispersed throughout the story as they are—the future is always brighter! He knows that to focus on the past is to be distracted from the future—a future that is quickly becoming present. With every wave crossed, with every blow of the breeze into the full and billowing canvases, with every creak of the solid timbers I feel that future fast becoming present and a past itself. To look behind is folly; it is foolish. The road to success is riddled with failure—just ask Edison—but the final stretch, that road after the last failure and right before the success, that road is a successful one. And since it is the same journey as all the previous failures, the whole entire journey is then a success. The last voyage of the discovering ship was still a successful voyage even if there were hundreds of unsuccessful voyages before. So to those who would call new beginnings fool-hearty let it be understood that a new beginning is the beginning of a part—a part which, by definition, is part of a whole, part of a life; and that life will be successful as long as that is the end result, even if, again I say, even if there are one hundred failures beforehand. I have failed many, many times, sometimes with new mistakes, but more often than not, it is the repetition of past mistakes, of falling into old habits, of regression to previous banes that beguiles my mind. There is much pain in growth, it is true, but there is also much growth in pain. In the mirror I see an old enemy, an old comrade, an old mischief, an old wisdom; I see one to be conquered, and one to help do the conquering. Yes, my ships sails are white; they are clean, and they are full with the wind that carries with it the scents of victory, the hue of success that grazes my nostrils and tells me of a time to come: of a time when worries will not drag me to the ground, a time when stress and sacrifice are not rampant, a time when I am not ashamed to look into the mirror, a time when confidence returns. It tells me of a time which is at hand, nearer than ever could be believed. I see so much beauty in new beginnings; I see hope. I see faith in realization. Today, with these words, I once again start anew, and I believe that this time it is success. Read more...