Hype-ocracy

"Economic growth is not an end in itself, but policy makers pursue it because richer countries are better able to provide health, jobs and a clean environment for their people," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Saturday in a commencement address to the graduating class at the University of South Carolina.

What Mr. Benanke left out was the modifier that those countries with strong socialist democracies, working in concert with nationally supported, taxed and regulated industries, such as Finland and Norway, far surpass other rich countries in providing for quality-of-life needs of their citizens. Of course, he was a Northern intellectual in South Carolina. He may have been afraid of being tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.

My question is: Mr. Bernanke, when you were sitting by and watching your Wall Street friends ruining the American and world economies, did you caution them about the higher values and ethics of providing for the people with more regulation and higher taxes? Or were you hedging your own political bets?

Change

Change is inevitable. Our bodies change constantly. The weather changes. The planet itself is always changing.

Human beings can execute behaviors, based on thought, which can change our environment. Yet, how do we use this exceptional ability? We use it to accumulate things at the expense of our health and well being.

The change which some politicians are promoting in their speeches is not really change for the betterment of the species or the planet. Their focus is to preserve the bad habits of materialism and selfishness which are rapidly degrading the planet. They are obsessed with human creations, wealth and power.

True change for the better would be focused on education, the alleviation of poverty by taxing the materialistic, directly dealing with overpopulation and holding responsible those who have plundered human wealth for irresponsible and destructive purposes. However, the domination of world governments by the very greedy corporate entities who have been destroying the planet for decades has perhaps already doomed the human species to a bleak future for some time to come.

Individual practice always allows for positive change in one human life. If the current destructive course of the human experience is to be reversed, individual practice will be at the core of that change. Living in the light of truth with compassion and responsibility is one way to create daily changes in the world, one life at a time.

Economics

The human economy reflects the folly of the human denial of the human condition. In general, human beings live their lives irresponsibly. This is grossly obvious in the state of the planet, which human beings continue to consciously pollute and abuse every day.

The vast ignorance and denial of the inevitable consequences of overpopulation among human beings of all social and educational levels is obvious in the lack of discussion of overpopulation by world leaders, scientists and educators. This too is irresponsible.

The economics of the human species are less science than manipulation of markets and money to perpetuate the power of the few at the expense of the many. The current turmoil in the global human economy is evidence of this reality.

Humans spend their lives trying to balance their conditioned denial and religious illusions with the reality of mortality and their own irresponsible attitudes toward their own species and the rest of the planet. These contradictions will not be balanced. By letting this farcical play fall apart, the human mind awakens. By embracing mortality and taking a determined path to make the world a better place with daily right action and right thought (practice), human Being can be happy Being, liberated from the pain of constant uncertainty and illusion.