Dear Friend and Reader:
It’s nothing short of amazing how shamelessly unaware and cavalier the financial sector seems to be about the efforts to save them. Call me naive, but let me put this delicately. There seems to beВ a complete disconnect from reality informing the actions of the leaders of financial institutions in the wake of the markets’ fall.
It would be comical if the financial picture wasn’t so grim, but big financiers seem to expect help without accountability for it and appear to have no shame about screwing the country’s pocketbook in the first place. $700 billion in taxpayer money? No big sweat. Remember the arrival of General Motors executives by private jet to request funds from Congress to bail out the ailing auto industry? They were sent home to think about it some more and try again later.
Outgoing Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain used $1.2 million of Merrill Lynch’s money in 2007 to re-decorate the bathroom of his executive suite.В This was the company that later in 2008 would be asking for bailout help from the government. Citigroup, a recipient of $45 billion in federal bailout funds was shamed into returning its $50 million company jet, purchased using bailout funds.В Bank of America used a portion of federal bailout fundsВ to host a conference call to garner political support, including a plan to fund the re-election of key Republicans in Congress to defeat passing of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a law that would protect workers’ rights to unionize. AP reports today that a large number of banks that received bailout funds hired foreign workers under the H1-B visa program, neglecting American workers elegible for the same jobs, while the jobless rate is now 7.2%, the highest in 10 years.
President Obama went ballistic when it was discovered that at the end of last year $18 billion from the first bailout was used to pay employee bonuses at major financial houses. On top of that it seems that amount was relatively paltry to the industry.В Says The New York Times:
Without a doubt, $18 billion is a lot of money, but it’s a drop in the bucket on Wall Street, said Gustavo Dolfino, president of the WhiteRock Group, a headhunter for the banks. These bonuses are down, and the salaries are not enough for these people.В They can’t live on $150,000 to $180,000, so they haven’t saved any money.В They put it on credit lines and at bonus time, they thought they’d pay it off.
Now if the thought of not being able to live on $150 to $180 thousand a year isn’t jaw-dropping enough for those of us who can barely afford the minimum payment on our monthly credit card bills, there is a short and to-the-point diary in Daily Kos that gives a perfect snapshot on how the financial industry views itsВ В love-hate relationship with our government.
Having watched the Reagan years with dismay, the disdain by uber capitalists over government support coupled with their sense of entitlement in receiving it is comedy gold. These are the same people who decades ago demonized poor people on government assistance as “welfare queens”, forcing people on general assistance to be more accountable with less than $10,000 per year in public assistance than they are at $45 billion.
It seems that the new beneficiaries of social welfare for the rich have forgotten who the government is ultimately accountable to: us. In the face of this financial crisis, the Republican party, long hailed the party of fiscal responsibility and virulently anti-New Deal is sitting this one out, in spite of every effort by the Obama Administration to include them in a bipartisan problem-solving process needed now for the nation. They have no interest in helping Obama or a New Deal in the footsteps of Roosevelt to succeed. It would destroy their brand. While Rome burns, they seem to be content playing fiddle with Rush Limbaugh.
This transition is Pluto moving from the exuberant and extravagant Sagittarius into Capricorn, the sign of government, frugality and regulation. This cycle of transformation begins with the death throes of one phase and the birth of another. Planet Waves’ Next World Stories contributor Maria Katzenbach describes it in her article “Pluto in Capricorn as the Liberation of Dionysus” as this:
“Dionysus dies and is reborn. His core quality is transformation, Pluto’s core energy, which we see in Dionysus’ signature medium, theatre, in which human beings become characters they are not. The same process underlies cultural change, becoming a new kind of human being, acquiring a new human identity.”
Welcome to the theater of Pluto in Capricorn. In the opening act set in America, we find the gods tearing down the financial house in order to rebuild, preparing us for the transition. In this play, there are those who watch in horror as this happens, and those who cling to the old ways of the house as it used to be. There are those in complete denial that the destruction of their soon-to-be-former way of life is even happening.В Whether tragic or comic, their resistance to the reality of change facing all of us makes them clowns. Has anybody told them yet that the good old days of Saint Ronnie Reagan are over? Or will the floor underneath need to collapse before these folks finally wake up and recognize the house is getting razed?
Perhaps they all need to pile into a tiny three-seater corporate jet and just fly away. I think we need to call a few of these people to get them to wake up move on.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco
Mimik:
I love the idea, of Obama’s first idea dying and a newer, more outrageous one takes hold.
Kind of like “South Park, bolder and Uncut” – whenever the network disapproved of their most recent travesty and abomination on screen, they’d tinker with it some more and do something far WORSE and the networks LOVE it.
Obama should just shoot for the moon. This is probably going to be as good as it gets as far as Congress is concerned for him.
Hey, All,
This is mimi, aka Maria Katzenbach, of Pluto and Dionysus and theatre….
As I am watching the bailout drama unfold, and trying to link the drama here below with the planetary “directors” and “playwrights” above, I am seeing the archetypal dramatic patterns of Tragedy and Comedy playing out, with Pluto in Cap as the star of the Tragedy and Nessus in Aquarius stirring up some happy comedic topsy turvy revolutionary activity.
What do I mean.
Tragedy = death comes to power structures, aka The Tragic Fall, aka Pluto in Capricorn. WORST thing you can do is resist. The more you resist, the worse your fall. You could almost go as far as to say that resisting will bring ON your fall. – not the other guy, but YOU. Tragedy has a nasty boomerang effect. (Ask Oedipus.)
So, one way that the resistance to Obama’s economic plan could play out – if it follows the archetypal Tragic pattern — is that everyone resisting it is going to fall and fall bad. That would be mostly Republicans.
BUT another way that this same Tragic pattern could play out — and the astrology, I think, points to this as the more likely way — is that Obama has put forth a plan, developed under Mercury Retrograde, that needs to die. Nessus in Aquarius wants something much more non-conformist, much less conforming to old ideologies, asking for something else that ignores the old party-lines completely, and that has more new ideas for jump starting the future in it. One Huffpost blogger put it this way: “We don’t need to bail out the past. We need to bailout the future.” That feels to me like Aquarius talking.
Nessus seems to be forcing more of the Future into the plan — Aquarius energy — through non-conformist means: Obama’s websites, the blogosphere, Obama’s Citizens for Change economic house parties that are all planned for the next few weeks, and (for those who are paying attention) a LOT of books coming out very fast about the “new economy.” The best: “David Korten, Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth…Why Wall Street Can’t Be Fixed.”
Cue: Comedy.
If Tragedy is about power, Comedy is about the officially disempowered. In Comedy, an ordinary person does something improbable and unlikely and extraordinary that the status quo insists cannot be done, ain’t gonna happen, no way. The result? “Everyone lives happily ever after.” In Comedy, ordinary people make more happiness for all.
Guess what the “fringe” economic theories are all about? Happiness for all.
House parties for political economic change are SO Comedy: Comedy always ends with a feast. So is anything that happens at the local level to increase local community well-being “Comedy,” and the less conforming the better.
The more Nessus (and Eris, too) in the sign of the future and ideas, the more power to the Comedic plot line.
Obama’s bill could die. Maybe it should. But it will be because Nessus wants something bolder, and Pluto wants more change.
fickle:
Therein lies a problem regarding expectations, and its a stickier one than the one we’re talking about here.
There are many who have not had their expectation level raised by choice or consciousness. In many instances, that is not by their own design.
There is an entire social and educational system devoted to keeping expectations to a minimum, and a growing expectation that when you work for a big company supposedly to get the benefits that can help you like health and retirement, those companies DOWNSIZE to keep profit levels up, give shareholders and stock owners happy, and you are out of a job with no training opportunities available.
You’re lucky in that you’ve had the realization that you can no longer support people who make profit on profit – but what about people who have completely lost their life savings, retirement or income, with no recourse but to re-train if they’re lucky, or try to find work in a recession, or compete with overseas workers?
These measures to maximize profit taken by people who have the investment capital, ownership and cash comfort to make business decisions can and have wrecked lives. And for every one person right now who was smart enough like you to back out early, there are still ten more who haven’t and are hurting now.
We’re all faced with the struggle of an economy that’s teetering and falling. Buying local is a good first step, but we also need to re-tool the thinking entirely, and make it systemic, including education, job training, new green industries that hire locally, and local business development incentives. That to me is money better spent than on a bailout.
So basically, we agree.
The reason why wall streeters have so much cash is because that’s where their standards are at. Many poor people don’t have high standards as far as getting their needs met. I was raised with a constant reminder that I should be happy to be eating everyday. When later in life I realized that many of my peers were raised with the attitude that they should be happy when they get to eat something really special, or get something really expensive, I started to change my attitude and expect more.
Having high expectations is the best way to get on the path of getting high results.
I used to spend all my money on other people, most of them who didn’t need it. I realized my friends were saving money for the things they wanted, and had that and more. When I noticed that the same friend who told me she was broke one day would go shopping the next day I stopped feeling compelled to take everyone out to lunch and more compelled to make sure I had the things I needed just beyond the basics first.
Working hard is good, but in this world it doesn’t always pay. Don’t be afraid to get paid well, expect more and you will get more.
The problem isn’t so much that the Wall Streeter’s are so greedy as the rest of us don’t stand up and say enough is enough. Now is the chance. Stop putting money in their pockets, buy locally benefit yourself.
Money in the hands of unstable humans seems to create more instability. It has been said that money “is the root of all evil” and I think this is very accurate most times because people who have substantial amounts are able to aquire a myriad of distractions drawing them further from stable reality. Its an insidious addiction because with it you can obtain all forms of addictive vices.. What I see is insanity , these people are truly insane and it will never make sense for there is no-sense..
Like any good addict they spin a good tale , their life depends on it ..
Of all addictions when source drys up suicide is rampant and this does not surprise me..
You’ve all said some beautiful as well as powerful things its a pleasure to read…
Way to rack the balls, Fe.
About solar cells, etc. Is there a good reason why we don’t use dc power to run our homes. What’s with the conversion to ac? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use dc with home solar? As is, the solar proposed would run my meter backwards saving me on my monthly billing , but all the power I generate would go back to the electric company so they can sell it back to the people. Remember the good old days when the windmill could pump the water and run the lights?
We have a confessed tech on board today. Any ideas?
Thanks gals and guys…
Postscript on the Shift from a Capitalist to a Noetic Economy Here’s a funnier piece on the economy: From Wild River Review and Bill Thompson [www.wildriverreview.com/young/]
It’s all good… Like I said, some days are just tiring, like today. Thankfully, everything keeps moving… I appreciate your offer M. Good to know you’re just over to the left a little bit, alot of folks from Austin have been coming here, but the Hollywood film machine in NM is the worst because they come here to pay nothing, cheat and deceive just like old computer corp paradigm of outsourcing to India for 25 cents on the dollar; this is the 5th poorest state in the nation and winters are hard. At the moment, everyone is hurting since SAG is threatening strike. But, someone I know did get a grant for a documentary film on this tabla like dancer dude in NYC/India, so I know there is hope. I just hadn’t yet formulated anything, identified how federal/private funding works for making documentaries. The $$ part is deeply held secret in film biz. Walking the Rainbow Bridge (tried to literally do this once in Utah) takes faith, some days I run short, very short as my patience expires in the spaces between living authentically and trying to stay respectfully alive.
Yeah, the space I previously held is over; just haven’t located new space yet. Lots of inner sun and light and other energies filling body whenever I meditate, lucid dreams of beauty, but that doesn’t pay food rent, yet. And, frankly, not sure I ever want it too.
Should explain that Eris and Chiron are forming a yod with Saturn right now, and at that focal point, Mr. Form & Structure is conjunct my natal Neptune. You got the instigator and the wounded focusing on the maker of structures. You say documentary film, I say Neptune.
Shudda said Kristenb make us a documentary, but what the hell, let’s all help her.
As he days go by, little by little (or even faster) the corporate elites will get it. As they learn that the little people..the common man, EVERYBODY knows what they have been up to, and as all their secrets will be revealed and reviled in public, they will really finally get it. People are mad.
I’m stunned by the friends who are outraged by this betrayal and are speaking out about their anger. These are people that never talk politics, and usually dismiss the daily news as “not about them”. However this particiular story is related to the reality of their shrinking assets and they see the banks and financial institutions in the way the French saw Marie Antoinette in her “let them eat cake” attitude.
mystes. . for Goddess’ sake, take all that Uranus/Saturn/Neptune knowledge and know how and make us documentary film. The US citizenry is already primed.
Kristenb: ” I don’t know, maybe this is the documentary film world and I need to try harder therein. ”
Took me a few minutes to catch this… come to Austin. Come to Austin. Come. To. Austin. Friday Night Lights is being filmed in my backyard (kid you not… I cussed ’em out as I jogged by last week – Putos can’t park for shit). The Austin Film Society is one of the hottest organizations in the country for young filmmakers. Linklater and Rodriguez and Avellano are all neighbors (plop-plop-plop go the Names). I live in *the* most desireable neighborhood in the city, on the corner of 4 major bus routes, within walking distance of a world-class library, and next month we have SXSW. We have the Hogg Fdtn. the regional Foundation center library with hands-on assistance for developing creative, non-profit organizations. We have a BIG community foundation also for doing just that. And we’re lousy with creatives, so collaboration is key here, and everybody knows it.
I live on less $$ than you do. But there’s love out the wazoo. Everything comes from that.
Come be my guest, sunfulone. You too, Fe.
M
(I just hate hearing myself pontificate without offering action… so here’s yours.)
Kristenb
“Fe: Hello New World is great approach. One I have been trying for many years, since Summer 2003. ”
I was expecting to hear this from you. And here it is. Let me see if I can get in close enough for you to hear this, sunfullone. This is *not* the same time as that.
Hear me: we are in a *different* time. You still have one foot in the old space. Something shifted back on Jan 1-4. We got moved into a different continuum. Pick it up and move it over. Yes, it may seem harder since you are somewhat isolated, but as I told Wandering Yeti yesterday: the fact is, living authentically is *absolutely* not a quark more difficult than living a lie (which I did briefly between 1981-84, cf the Philosopher Husband era).
Count up your value in *your* terms. Fe, I do think the spell has been broken (though we can certainly pulverize the shards); I’m just chary of spending too much time trying to hand-convert something that is already well into a new algorithm.
Luxuriate. Now. Luxuriate NOW. Find and open each part of the sensory array to as much light as you can possibly handle, then go farther than that. Bring it home.
Life to Smoochey!
M
Lorin:
You’ve expressed what is now a nationwide sentiment.
all i have to say is: GRRRRRR.
Fe: Hello New World is great approach. One I have been trying for many years, since Summer 2003. I’m tired, but I am sure the planet will make it through to reach a ‘vacation’ period. Isn’t that a hoot?! Mother Gaia hasn’t gotten a single vacation!!! Maybe we could start a campaign and fund for HER retreat? 🙂
Except on days when folks ask and openly wonder why I left two other professions and then are afraid I will leave their little job. I look them in the eye, I tell them the truth about wanting more time to write and study esoterics/spiritual texts, but they distrust me or say I am too smart for their tasks (former computer programmer/geologist). So, I’m just a little tired.
After 5.5 years of shifting, which I know pales in comparison to others who go through this their entire life. Yes. Great compassion generator 🙂
I have Eris nearly conjunct my midheaven, and am going through Venus return with Pallas with Uranus Opp Uranus, Uranus Opp Saturn, Saturn Opp Uranus and Neptune Sq Neptune, and Uranus transiting Chiron and Saturn, and Pluto Opp Uranus and Sun Sq Sun and Mc transiting Saturn and Chiron and this doesn’t include the all the other new objects or old favorites.
Normally, I have been the little solar cell for everyone else, even make these solar art cards, being totally obsessed with the sun and the sun behind the sun and lucid dreams and specks of data on what is next, but I cannot do it alone, and at the moment, sad is all I feel in all my layers of energy, except when one energy comes, but that energy is beyond. And, worse because I’m just me, not a dad with x kids and wife to support, etc. I’m tired of all the judgment systems in place in our society, even then others tsking people after the fact for the decisions they made. Fucked up.
So, right now, I wish I lived back in the gray of the NW and could curl up in a little cedar shaving filled hole in the forest or go off to a cave in the Himalaya. [Please don’t worry, I’ll get over this, eventually, but the absurdity of it all, is well, absurd, you know?!]
And, then my mother chimes in yesterday with ‘tell them you desperately need the job.’ Which is how I ended up underpaid, etc, etc for 2 decades in the first place thinking I’d be treated fairly and compensated for being loyal and doing a good job. Think again. Ugh. The upside is I know how to live on $1,400 a month or less if I found/garnered free/cheap housing, and I have no debt, no savings, but no debt. I always give gifts as cash comes along to brighten others days, help out at my sangha, keep up memberships I value and gain value from, however it never fails to ASTONISH me when friends say, “I’m poor.” And, then go on to say they have x 100’s K in the bank or they are going on a Baltic cruise. Twist of fate/karma between me and them, you and them, etc.
I don’t wish ill for any of us, nor deny any of us real love, pleasure and joy or adventure or exactly what we need/want to eat, etc; just a different system, one based upon enthusiasm and interest maybe, instead of bank account or name dropping or connections. I don’t know, maybe this is the documentary film world and I need to try harder therein. I’m just really tired right now even though my situation is still better than 5-6 billion others here. I’m trying to honor this and go deep within while remaining honest about where I am at so as not to paper over such stages, thus lie to others who might need to know about this space later for themselves.
I have immense respect for everyone’s journey. Thanks for being here.
Ms. Shanna:
Thanks for the link to the NY Times article.
I’ve clarified the little mis-step by Mr. Thain on his bathroom upgrade. Imagine if you will – that guy was up to be Secretary of the Treasury if McCain was elected President.
By the way, I love the entire visual of Obama swaying the jawbone of Alan Schwarz.
“Go your way now and complain to that Scoundrel your Governor. God Damn your Governour, Laws, King, Council, and Assembly.” Ethan Allen, watching Charles Hutchesson’s house burn. — from The Unknown American Revolution.
I still love this quote.
speaking of, I really love the NYT piece on Obama’s reaction to the Citicorp, et al. cluelessness this week. “It’s Not the Bonus Money, It’s The Principle.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/business/31nocera.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
the first line, “And on the ninth day, the president jawboned.” For those of you outside the Bible Belt, this was an allusion to the Jewish superhero, Samson (yes, of the magical hair powers fame) who took the jawbone of an ass and slayed a thousand Philistines.
Presumably the Philistines are the top execs and the Wall Street folk who still don’t get it. I’m reckoning it was the jawbone of Alan Schwartz. (You can fill in your favorite Wall Street bad-guy of your choice.) It’s an interesting picture.
mystes:
The more we turn fear into excitement for the new the better off we’ll be. Instead of “Goodbye Cruel World” it should be “Hello New World”.
We need to be as inventive and creative as possible to do this. But fuirst we need to break the ancient spell of $$$dollars$$$ as a principle power.
KristenB
“Until it all collapsed…”
Twas just a warm-up. But this doesn’t have to have anything to do with *you*. You are a little solar cell. Catch and convert. C’mon baby… just let it come through.
Eristically yours,
the 13th letter
Great article!
My wish is that they all had to fill out unemployment applications, show up weekly to report on how they are doing, how the money is being spent, report when they make money so they can be denied benefits that week and file other weekly applications to show their intent for truly fixing their situation.
This is common practice for the rest of us who ask for government “bail out” funds.
Ugh, I think I may be officially depressed after looking for work for several months now myself, and at an inflection point.
The tech sector (of which I was a part, and finally decided to leave in 2003, then again in 2007) went through this same phenomena in 1999/2000. People unable to live on ten(s) of thousands of month, partly because the housing market skyrocketed beyond all concepts of greed frankly, and partly because, well, marketing ?! culture and beyond enticing folks to purchase crap ! and a new computer every 6 months along with all the incompatible software and the reasonable expectation that stock options would make them millionaires (and many did reap this benefit), etc. Until it all collapsed.
mystes:
Yes, the double-buck is actually a cypher. And those complaining about not having more than enough have a real blindside to their totally inappropriate sense of entitlement.
I love the idea of making them irrelevant, and ultimately what they have worthless. It will take a long to do it, but if we do, we will have jumped into hyperspace for the species.
Let’s focus intent there.
Fe, $$ is the sign of something *not* being there. The “more” you have of this symbol, the less you *actually* have. I have seen this fact manifest again and again with my very-wealthy and somewhat-wealthy friends.
That ‘something’ is labor/love/photosynthesis/beautiful-chaos/insert-favorite-reality-here. $$ implies the existence of the Thing-Itself (which is a philosophical and material impossibility). The only haecceity (thing-in-itself) in the universe is Sophia. Period. But money has shouldered its way into that position and tries to pretend Sophia is an atavism, and the only Real Thing is itself.
Now, curiously, the really highup muckety-mucks in finance know this. They know $$ is a philosophical and material scam, BUT they are so addicted to that sugarrush they can’t stop grabbing for it. Let ’em. The fatter they get, the faster the value will reveal itself.
They’re doing us a huge favor. Faster, pastor.
Then we rebuild from another base.
It’ll take a while before the Presi-Dear starts to see through this game. I am hoping Krugman and Stieglitz have the guts to point it out.
Then we shift to an authentic system of value, based on primary productivity, measured in sunjoules, biomass and recyclability.
Hang in there.
Kissies,
M