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<\/a>I have to hand it to Americans for keeping their cool — everyone from market traders to people who continue to use the credit\/debit system with faith that it’s still going to be there; to everyone not making a run on the banks. Of course the notion that Visa cards are not going to work is ridiculous because everyone, including the banks and the merchants (not just the customers), depends on them.<\/p>\n
But plenty of “ridiculous” things have happened. Who could possibly crash a passenger airplane into the Pentagon some 59 minutes after an attack on New York?<\/p>\n
The banking and credit crisis is well-established in Europe at the moment. We are working on getting details together for our Friday coverage (it may take a couple of weeks as we are still looking for a gunslinger on the issue; chime in if you are one; you can be an anonymous source). Though it’s difficult to believe, I am hearing that many European banks are in worse shape than American ones, but that the governments there are in a position to quietly socialize (i.e., take over) the banks without much fanfare.<\/p>\n
Knowing that we’ve had an inordinate amount of dung flung at us the past few weeks, er, the past decade (though what is happening now is an obvious end-of-term endgame by the Bush administration) I am sure you’re wondering what else is up for the next few months.<\/p>\n
I’m going to tip my hand and share some of what I know, remembering that I’ve made a choice not to use astrology to be specifically predictive<\/em> but rather to comment on the energy that is afoot, and what is possible, more than anything. Rick Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche<\/em>, calls this being archetypally predictive<\/em>. This leaves room for you, me and the cosmos to be creative and come up with something better<\/em>. We create the specifics; or we deal with the ones we are handed. And we need to see where we have a choice in that.<\/p>\n Make no mistake at all: we are in what may be the most significant moment of change of our lives. It’s a moment that will last, according to the astrology, at least four years, well into 2013 and beyond. We enter the peak when Pluto ingresses Capricorn next month.<\/p>\n What I am noticing as things get weirder is that a scant few people seem somewhat more intent on cooperation. We who are getting that message know that no matter what occurs, cooperation is the key. That is a skill we may need to develop consciously, because we know that at the end of the day, economy is what we, among ourselves, exchange. Under the current system there is always a third party trying to get into the game. Yesterday I went to pay the phone bill and the electric bill on my studio. I was sick of paying by computer so I walked over to Hannaford’s supermarket half a mile away, and handed them the bill payment coupons and the checks and was told that it was going to cost me $2.50 to pay. The lovely young lady gave me a puppy dog look to express her empathy. And she said it had to be cash.<\/p>\n I happened not to have cash in my pocket. I ALWAYS carry cash, but not this time; it was sitting on my desk. So I went to an ATM, made a withdrawal and had $2 skimmed from my account. Then I paid my bills, having made two donations to the banking industry itself, to the tune of well over 1% of what I was paying; just to pay<\/em>. So when you think of banking, think of an industry that can skim a percentage from every transaction, usually two or three times and still can’t stay in business. (For example, when you subscribe to Planet Waves, the credit card services bureau skims 2.5% from us, and then they charge you at least a membership fee for your card, and possibly interest on the purchase, and they hold the money in its entirety for three days<\/em> and invest it in god only knows what — milk futures in China.) We all put up with it because it’s convenient to the point of mandatory.<\/p>\n