THEY STILL DON'T GET IT

Wall Street still doesn't understand that Middle America is disgusted with corporate insiders who will not accept that Middle America thinks they have have been grossly over compensated; especially since they put getting bonuses ahead of common sense prudent practices. Middle America is not alone in this conclusion. Major investors like T Boone Pickens and Carl Icahn have been complaining about management practices that did not benefit shareholders for at least a decade while being portrayed by the Wall Street finacial press as villians.

I suspect that it is going to take a near total rejection of the stock market by investors to force the needed changes in management practices and compensation; possibly forcing the DOW as low as 5500 before they accept that it can not be business as usual in the future.

How Greed Stole Christmas

This is a tale of how the Bonus Boys of Wall Street stole Christmas.

It came to pass that the Bonus Boys were concerned that the economic reality of the median hourly wage steadily decreasing was inhibiting workers ability to qualify for conventional financing to buy houses which was depressing sales; a trend that would eventually halt rising real estate values. Stagnation or worse decreasing real estate values would translate to lower commissions and bonuses for the Bonus Boys. To circumvent the problem of economic reality the Bonus Boys came up with new types of loans. The beauty of the new types of loans were that they could almost guarantee that they would have to be refinanced in a few years yielding more fees for the Bonus Boys; good for them, bad for the consumer. The first generation of loans worked for a while but reality would begin to set in so the Bonus Boys had to come up with increasing bizarre generations of loans in shorter time frames to keep reality at bay eventually coming up with derivatives that nobody could understand but as the pace built they could not create fast enough to outdistance reality so the damned up reality burst through. The first signs that the damn was cracking was a decline in the stock market from the November 2007 high. Even with the warning signs of the continually declining stock values the Bonus Boys refused to desist from milking the system.

When the damn burst the Bonus Boys still refused to recognize reality. They appealed to their buddies in the political world to rescue them because the reality of the financial liquidity crisis is undermining the entire world economy. Having secured the federal TARP funds it appears that instead of addressing the liquidity crisis that they contributed to the Bonus Boys have used TARP to maintain their status qua. The financial liquidity crisis translates to the overall economy as decreased purchasing power; first in the big ticket items that are generally financed like houses and cars, then to discretionary items like vacations and high ticket items such as big screen TVs and electronic toys, and finally even Christmas sales.

I am very perturbed by the hard time that domestic auto industry has had getting credit help from the federal government after the fairly easy deal that the Bonus Boys of Wall Street received. There appeared to be a suggestion that Detroit's credit problems were all of their own making not part of the general liquidity crisis. It is true that the domestic auto industry has lost market share to the competition but it is also true that overall auto sales have plummeted because of the economic crisis; bottom line if people can not get financing they can't buy cars, if they are afraid they may lose their job because of the failing economy they won't buy a car. Detroit does have the problem of legacy costs impacting their overall costs of their products. The major problem is not that the wages of current UAW employees are that much higher than other producers but that past employees are costing companies almost as much as current workers. We may in the future have to address the issues related to making the retirement years Golden opposed to the survival of the domestic auto industry but the immediate need is to deal with the liquidity crisis not harp on a political dogma that the UAW is Detroit's major problem. I find it distasteful that certain politicians think that the autoworkers should take pay cuts when the did not insist that the Bonus Boys of Wall Street take pay cuts. Saving the domestic auto industry is not just about the economic impact it is also a matter of national security. Who do you trust to build the tanks and hummers?

Had all of the TARP money gone to address the liquidity crisis instead of fixing the balance sheets of the Bonus Boys of Wall Street it could have moderated the impact of the economic downturn on various sectors of industry and possibly saved Christmas sales. There is a ray of hope with the Federal government passing money to some of the regional lending institutions which have been providing financing to keep the economy afloat.

When forgiveness is a bad idea.

We are told that to forgive is a good almost divine thing but I have come to think that in most cases it is a bad idea. While ignoring accidental or unintended actions can be uplifting for the soul simply forgiving intentional misdeeds is tantamount giving the perpetrator permission to do it again. I can not accept the concept that harmful acts should simply be shrugged off as "life Lessons". I believe that the lesson we are meant to learn is to act to protect possible future victims rather than to simply forgive and forget. I am not advocating harsh punishments so much as I recommending preventive interventions.

The Empowered Person

"Power is the first good." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Power itself is neither good or bad. It is how power is used that determines whether it will have a good or bad impact. People who use power to manipulate and control people and events are why power is perceived as evil.

"Lack of power corrupts" Adlai Stevenson
Persons who need power over the lives of other people have not developed their own sense of empowerment. They attempt to compensate for their feelings of powerlessness by trying to have power over others by preventing them from using all their own power. Those who are using their own power do not need to take from others. They have confidence in their own ability to flourish through their own actions. Those who have developed their own sense of empowerment do not need to take other people's energy, self-esteem, willpower, trust, or property. They have no need to lie, or cheat. An empowered person posses the willingness, and ability to act truthfully, and honestly. If the truth is that someone needs help then the self-empowered person will act to honestly help him or her.

It is all about energy. The universe has a vibration resonance of energy that is the most basic pattern of the universe and it always tries to be in balance. Actions have consequences because nature always seeks balance. Coincidence and synchronicity are part of nature's way of achieving balance. A virtue taken to the extreme becomes a vice because it is out of balance. One of life's truisms is that which we most criticize in others is our own secret flaw.

Some people feed on the energy of the suffering of other people to feel powerful. They derive a sense of power from hurting, frustrating, or encouraging deenergizing emotional feelings of suffering. Other people's feelings of pleasure or contentment thwarts their need to feed on negative emotions so they try to make other people feel unworthy or in need of permission to do or feel what they want.

Joseph Campbell in "The Hero with a 1000 Faces" presented a wonderful analysis of the tyrant-monster arch-type observing that "his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general good ... avid for the greedy rights of "my and mine" ... This may be no more than his household, his own tortured psyche, or the lives he blights with the touch of his friendship and assistance; or it may amount to the extent of his civilization. The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world--no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper. Self-tortured, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself, the giant of self-achieved independence is the world's messenger of disaster, even though in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions. Wherever he sets his hand there is a cry (if not from the housetops,then--more miserably--within every heart): a cry for the redeeming hero, the carrier of the shining blade, whose blow, whose touch, whose existence, will liberate the land."

The tyrant-monster's greatest fear is the simple telling of truth. Telling the truth is the way that the tyrant is unmasked and revealed for what he is and thereby defeated. The simple truth is the "shining blade".

How the tyrant-monster and the redeeming hero generate their power may have best been defined by Nietzsche "there is a physiological prerequisite that is not to be avoided: intoxication. Intoxication must first have heightened the sensibility of the whole machine ... And all kinds of special varieties of intoxication have the power to work in this way: above all, that of sexual excitement, which is the first and oldest form of intoxication. And then, too, the intoxication that comes from any great desire, any great emotion: the intoxication of the festival, of a combat, bravado, victory, or of any extreme movement; the intoxication of ferocity; the intoxication of destruction; intoxication under various sorts of meteorological influences, that of spring for example; or under the influence of narcotics; or finally the intoxication sheerly of the will, of an overcharged, inflated will. -- The essential thing in all intoxication is the feeling of heightened power and a fullness. With this feeling one addresses oneself to things, compels them to receive what one has to give, one overpowers them: and this procedure is called idealization. But let us, right here, get rid of a prepossession: idealization does not, as is generally thought, consist of a leaving out, a subtraction of the insignificant, the incidental. What is decisive, rather, is a tremendous exaggeration of the main features, before which those others disappear.
In this condition, one enriches everything out of one's own abundance: what ever one sees or desires, one sees swelling, bursting, mighty, overladen with power. The individual in this condition changes things until they are mirrors of his own energy -- reflections of his own perfection. ... Everything, even what he is not, becomes for such a one a delighting in himself ...
The psychology of the orgiastic as of an overflowing feeling of life and power in which even pain has the effect of a stimulant ... Saying yes to life, even in its most inimical, hardest problems, the will to life delighting even in the offering up of its highest types to its own inexhaustibility ... beyond terror and pity, to be oneself identified with the everlasting joy of becoming -- that joy that includes in itself the joy in destruction as well. "

It is unfortunate that what Nietzsche perceived as the basis of a "superman" is also the framework of the tyrant. This may stem from Nietzsche's disrespect for the masses in favor of the superior person. Nietzsche does not appear to have a belief in equal rights but rather seems to see equal rights as a weakness in society that the superior must overpower. His "superman" is to be free "soaring above men, mores, laws, and the conventional" and heroic "That is the way I am; that is the way I want it to be -- to He** with you!" with a "genius of the heart" that is truthful but he feels that he will be "necessarily put the task of putting up a front". It is the belief that the superior being is above the law and can selfishly demand things the way he wants them to be while "putting up a front" that makes the "superman" into a tyrant rather than an empowered person.

Just about all religions have some basic major theme like the golden rule, golden mean, or karma that address a representation of action and consequence. I believe that this is the universal sacred truth and that everything else is the religious orthodoxy of humans. In "The Future of an Illusion" Sigmund Freud observed that "the truths contained in religious doctrines are after all so distorted and systematically disguised that the mass of humanity can not recognize them as truth." Schopenhauer opinionated that "Chance without significance or regulation is scarcely believable. Rather, one is moved to believe that -- just as in the case of those pictures called anamorphoses, which to the naked eye are only broken, fragmentary, deformities but when reflected in a conic mirror show normal human forms -- so the purely empirical interpretation of the course of the world resembles seeing those pictures with naked eyes, while the recognition of the intention of Fate resembles the reflection of the conic mirror, which binds together and organizes the disjointed, scattered fragments."

The empowered person comprehends that all actions have consequences and all living things have rights. The empowered person understands that her rights are protected only so long as she is willing to protect the rights of others. The empowered person generously treats others as they wish to be treated, giving help and assistance to those who need it as they would wish to receive help and assistance if they were in need. In essence the empowered person lacks greed or at the very least firmly controls their avarice with acts of kindness. The empowered person sees herself as part of society not soaring above it. The empowered person truly does enrich all around them with their generous spirit and love of living life in every moment.

The Human Spirit

Assuming that all the physical world is energy at varying vibration rates it is easy to predict that there exists a vibration energy pattern that remains when the physically known biological existence ceases. The body dies the soul endures. It is my belief that the human body is the incubator for this energy pattern that is nurtured by your thought processes. The more you exercise your mind and emotions the more intense the pattern becomes. This energy pattern is the enduring spirit that remains when the biological body's death occurs. It has very little to do with righteousness and sin or heaven and Hades. A weak or deformed body could produce a more intense energy pattern than a robust or beautiful body. Nor is the spirit about intellectual capacity as defined by IQ or academic pursuits. It appears to me to be more about understanding emotional wisdom than anything else. Empathy and compassion seem to be the factors that nurtures the spirit. I find that solutions in life like in mathematics can best be found by looking for the lowest common denominator. The lowest common denominator of the Universe is energy; all the perceived physical world is energy at different rates of vibration.



The Universe is neutral but religion can be evil.

When religion attempts to interfere with the right of free choice it has become evil. Religion takes the path of evil when it tries to stop change which is usually part of progress of human civilization. The Universe's pattern is change; that is evolution is the natural way most especially palingenesis (renewing). R.M. Bucke theorized that human conscience's itself is evolving. I suspect that Jung may also had a grasp of this progression pattern. Society is progressing because human consciousness is evolving. Unfortunately most organized religions become archaistic; locked into their orthodoxy they can not grasp the essence of the idea that change is part of the Universal plan therefore they cling to much to the past instead of embracing the future as change requires. Of course not all change is necessarily good but embracing the concept of change means that bad changes will also be changed for a better choice in the long run; the philosophy that if life deals you a lemon make lemonade. As Nietzsche observed "Truth is not something present all along that needs merely to be discovered and disclosed; it has to be created. ... that in itself is never final: not a process of becoming aware of something .... fixed and determinate but of conferring and actively deciding."

It is interesting to contrast the views of Kierkegaard who felt that the greatest gift bestowed on man was the freedom to choose God and that in rejecting God "freedom of choice will become your 'idee fixe', till at last you will be like the rich man who imagines he is poor, and will die of want" with Sartre's observation that he found it "extremely embarrassing that God does not exist; for there disappeared with Him all possibility of finding values. ... We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free." I find it intriguing that in Sartre's rejection of a God concept he bemoans the loss of someone to blame rather than the loss of a companion with whom you can celebrate the richness of the universe.

I suppose that I view God more as Schopenhauer's conic mirror that makes sense of the distorted images.
"However, if we now consider the mighty influence and immense power of outer circumstance, our explanation in terms of inner character will seem hardly strong enough. Furthermore, that the weightiest thing in the world--which is to say, the life course of the individual, won at the cost of so much effort, torment and pain--should receive its outer complement and aspect wholly from the hand of blind Chance--Chance without significance or regulation--is scarcely believable. Rather, one is moved to believe that--just as in the case of those pictures called anamorphoses, which to the naked eye are only broken fragmentary deformities but when reflected in a conic mirror show normal human forms--so the purely empirical interpretations of the course of the world resembles the seeing of those pictures with naked eyes, while the recognition of the intention of Fate resembles the reflection in the conic mirror, which binds together and organizes the disjointed fragments."
I suspect that some individuals are born with better conic mirrors than the rest of humanity.


Karmic Consequences
I believe that the law of Karmic consequences is a philosophical version of the scientific principle that for every action there is a reaction. Actions a person takes will have an intended and unintended reaction in other people. I conclude that karmic consequence may go beyond this into the realm of the impact of the emotional energy of the reaction; therefore I differ from those who espouse the concept of accepting bad acts as only a life lesson because I feel that for karmic consequence to flow people must embrace the emotional reaction to an act, experience the pain plus the rage and then let it go so it can flow back to the perpetrator resulting in your healing and karmic consequence to the one who hurt you. If you cling to the pain you remain a victim in that state that Caroline Myss defines as "woundology" so the emotional energy you should have released that would have had karmic consequences to the "wounder" stay bottled up in you and karmic consequence does not happen.

I view the purpose of life to be to experience every moment to the fullest to mature the soul. I can not accept the idea that to spend one's life sitting under a tree contemplating the cosmos while ignoring the life events going on around you is the highest purpose of being. Interacting with the life events around you seems to me to be living life to the fullest thereby nurturing the spirit.

Oil: Is the price only about supply and demand?

The oil companies keep repeating the idea that the current high oil prices are due to supply constraints because of high consumer demand for oil products. Their solution is to increase supply is to access untapped oil resources. Oil companies in the US reject calls for using alternate renewable sources such as Brazil is currently doing. The only solution for big oil is the utilization of undeveloped reserves in protected Wilderness areas like the Artic and the coastal shelf deposits.

I reject the claim of supply being constrained by consumer demand as the reason for the high prices when I note that inventory numbers for oil and oil products continue to rise. The increase in demand for oil products is the result of additions to inventory not consumer demand. My prediction is that when the oil companies get the access they want we will see a fall in oil prices with a possible free fall to as low as $30 a barrel on the correction. When Congress grants the drilling rights they want in the Anwar it will be a great opportunity to do a long-term short on oil and oil companies.

National Health Care

While my primarily libertarian philosophy does not favor another big government entitlement program my more pragmatic side reasons that like highways and the post office a national health care system is a necessary evil of a modern industrial society. It is not often that I agree with Senator Kennedy but I do concur with his assessment that the best way to achieve basic national health care for the US would be to make the Medicare system universal. Why add another layer of bureaucracy when we have a working system? Some tweaking of the current Medicare framework would be necessary but for the most part it would expand easily. The current system requires the payment of a monthly premium that is withheld from monthly benefit payments this should probably be eliminated in a universal System as the collection process would be impractical; possibly it could be replaced by extending the Medicare tax to income not currently taxed for Medicare purposes (ex. interest, dividends, and capital gains). Universal coverage would probably require doubling the current Medicare tax rate of roughly 1.5% to about 3% but the impetuous to the economy and general welfare of the country would make it well worth the cost. Since the current programs co-payment system seems to work very well I see no reason to change it. The prescription program should be restricted to only the Social Security recipients until the system can be better assessed.