The Moral and Ethical Authority

Am I missing something?

So this bunch of (mainly white) old men living in the lap of obscene luxury in the Vatican are calling for a crackdown on the financial markets now that the Occupy Movement has established its global street cred and gained such enormous traction.

"Oh, hang on everyone, wait for us, we're on the side of the people, the poor downtrodden people!"

a document released by the Holy See is calling for a "world authority" to crack down on capitalism and suggests some are considering it. Written by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and released on Monday:
Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority

Read more about it here.

It is difficult to put a figure on the extent of Vatican wealth. The closest average I can come up with in dive-bombing around the web is around 50 billion US dollars. Most of it is invested in the banking, insurance and commodities stock markets. And as we all well know transparency isn't one of the Vatican's strong suits. Somehow so much poverty in the world never equates in my mind with so much wealth in the Vatican. Is this how Jesus pictured his future church? Upon this rock which shall be rolling in red velvet and yay I say unto you a listing of stocks and bonds rippling down the steps of the Sistine Chapel?

So pardon my cynical black heart here. Isn't there a self serving whine to all of this noise about looking out for the financial interests of we the people and hear ye now from henceforth only fairness in all financial dealings?

All this coming from these outrageously wealthy masters of cover-up, these irrelevant old hypocrites

Money, Money, Money

Press title for the money money song!
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"For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money."
-Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

I've never believed in accumulating, for it always tells you what you don't have. Accumulation is like a fix to a gambler in that it is always about the getting and never the having.

Because I'm in the business I'm in I'm often asked for financial advice. I can only pass on what I do myself and that is:

Become your own financial advisor. Read the business news, spend the time.

And hey no one wants to do that. They'd rather turn the whole responsibility over to a stranger who is making commission on every transaction.

A wise Jewish shaman of my acquaintance told me 30 years ago that if I were ever invested in the stock market, whether through mutual funds, financial advisors, brokers, etc. I was to dedicate 2 hours a day to monitoring my investments carefully and also paying attention to what my money was invested in. Clean investments yielded clean returns and investments in Big Tobacco or the military industrial complex or Big Pharm is not clean money in my opinion.

I’ve been burned a few times when I threw my money into schemes at which I didn’t look closely enough or have felt dirty when I looked at my complete portfolio of holdings many years ago.

But I bailed out of all of that and settled for small annual interest returns on the bit of money I do have. And even then, I know I’m not completely clean as I know my banks are invested in sometimes unsavoury enterprises: check out who invests in those slimey payday short loan houses with their usurious interest rates.

Two years ago I said to closest friends and family – a big step for me as I do not like to expound advice on the private affairs of others or meddle in any way - I truly believe in personal responsibility – to please get any holdings out of the stock market or mutual funds. Not many listened. Very few in fact. I am appalled at what has happened to their retirement funds now. They are very, very scared with the added burden of their real estate holdings turmbling in value.

They ask me what should they do now (one of my closest friends with a former portfolio of $250,000 is looking at the still shrinking $50,000 value of what’s left of it).

I say: I can only tell you what I did before this predicted collapse. I liquidated everything I had, bought a small holding with some good farm land and good fishing and hunting nearby, paid cash, and threw what was left into GICs at 2% annual interest.

I don't believe I'm particularly smart or prophetic, but all the signs were there then of the financial tsunami of what was coming - if one was reading alternative news sources and not sedated by the presstitutes.

And this is only the beginning of the meltdown, I tell anyone who asks. We ain't seen nuttin' yet. Take care of yourself. No one else is going to do it.

One Very Angry Gaia

And boy is She getting our attention!

Of course, like many, I don’t view all of what is happening around me as a bad thing at all.

I’ve long predicted such an outcome of the outrageous unregulated economic engineering system we have adopted, and also the fact that it would happen just as soon and be as suddenly cataclysmic. No time to breathe with the coming meltdown - it will be overnight, I said as long as two years ago.

(And it will be the same with oil. Another year for accessible, reasonable and available oil is my guess, with an equally overnight shock of none available.)

The time to address the gross imbalance of wealth came and went and Gaia had to be appeased sooner or later. And here She is. In all our faces.

Our incessant obsession with gathering, guarding and grooming our Walmarty stuff and our isolation from a sense of community and a complete indifference in the well being of all who share this tiny rolling ball had to come to a sad and sorry end. Our boundless greed served no one else. Just ourselves.

So what now that She has got our attention? I predict two outcomes. The first would be violent and traumatic civil unrest, resultant military intervention, genocides and incarcerations. The second would be more community involvement: gardens, smaller homes (I already see it started here – beautiful two room cabins), community root cellars, off the grid living, a return to slow food, home cooked, healthy. Forget air travel. Bring back trains and boats. I’ve recently seen horses towing a wagon here. It did my heart good. A sustainable, manageable existence for everyone, leaving no footprint behind.

But of course the sad fact that remains of our rampant consumerism is that very few are willing to give up their "pony" or give up the idea of some day owning their own "pony".

But small up beat moment: I am heartened to read that even New York City is considering vertical farming.

We need to do this, ro rid ourselves of the pony idea for once and for all - and immediately - before Gaia shakes Herself more thoroughly next time and rids Herself, for once and for all, of the pestilent and parasitical fleas that we’ve become.