Linda,

You and your friend are rational and intelligent people. You do not get distracted by circumstances. You petition and more important you vote. You did not need any prodding from me to do these things. Unfortunately it does not work that way for all people as it did for your friend. I know or know of a number of persons who are very conservative in their thinking (that is they are suckers for conservative slogans) who will gladly take a government benefit when they need it but condemn it for anyone else as not being deserved. Tea Party thinkers who condemn food stamps or such for the 'undeserving' but they are fine if they need them as they 'really' need them. They are not undeserving slackers. I only know of one person in this situation who balked at taking the food stamps. But he did take them because he really did need them. This is where the term 'low information voters' comes from in part. In some cases, it is an euphemism for 'stupid'.

There are some reading the board who consider politics as beneath consideration. They will be the ones surprised if a right wing president takes office and does all of the things that they are promising to do as candidates. Perhaps to wonder why they paid into Social Security all their life and now they can't get it as the country cannot afford it. Why the banks are making vast profits and yet they cannot get their mortgage rewritten down to the rates that new ones are going for. Why CEOs for big corporations are making millions plus bonuses and yet the product they make is being made in another country and American jobs are being deleted.

Ted

the Republicans overshoot when they take actions that affect those who cannot help themselves

the Democrats overshoot when they defend programs that waste money on those who can help themselves, or programs that on balance damage those they are intended to help

indeed, the strong rarely contain the capacity to imagine "other", and the circumstances they would face should fate deal them some challenging cards, and the weak rarely contain the capacity to understand the incentives and ruleset that keeps the economic engine running, the hand that feeds them

Democracy, when taken to its limit, puts the power to pilot an economy in the hands of the majority, with the weak having the balance of power.

A situation arises where the weak, who are themselves divided between those who have decision space to become strong, and those that do not have this decision space, begin to direct the economy in the same manner that that they direct their lives...which is to focus on short term gain, long term pain.

fyi - I am now outside the wire as of a few days ago. That being said, one senior manager dubbed me "the most dangerous person in the Department" - I presume due to my habit of asking awkward questions (without being disloyal, which destroys your sustainability). I continue to ask awkward questions, to your discomfort.

==
article from yesterday's Globe (Canada)

Europe is eating its young. Younger workers are the last hired, first fired. All they can get are temporary, short-term contracts – when they work at all. The contrast with their parents’ generation could scarcely be more stark. Italy is full of retired government workers who were pensioned off at 58 or even 50. In Spain, job security for older workers has been so ironclad that companies needing to cut back often find it cheaper to close down entirely than lay people off. In France, companies are loath to hire permanent workers because they’re too expensive. The result is a two-tier job market: caviar for the old, crumbs for the young.

Things aren’t so good in the U.S. either, especially in the public sector, where pension costs are eating governments alive. Young police officers and firefighters can’t get hired because older police officers and firefighters got pension deals that turned out to be unaffordable. But in a country where nearly half of all families now receive some form of government benefit, reform will be extremely hard.

No wonder young people have taken to the streets in protest. Who can blame them? The boomers have screwed it up so badly that there’s nothing left for them. The trouble is that they are protesting against their own best interests. They should forget about the Occupy movement – and join the Tea Party.

So argues Niall Ferguson, the reliably provocative economic historian. In a new lecture series launched this week in Britain, he argues that the real crisis of Western democracy isn’t rapacious bankers, rampant capitalism or inequality, it’s massive public debt – debt that “allows the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn.” Our staggering levels of public debt are a fundamental betrayal of the young by the old. If we really cared about the young, we’d pay off these debts as soon as possible.

The situation is much worse than we think, because the official debts of nations don’t include the enormous unfunded liabilities of welfare schemes such as old-age pensions and medicare – entitlements that overwhelmingly benefit the old. If corporations published figures this misleading, Mr. Ferguson contends, we’d throw the executives in jail for fraud.

The numbers are frightening. In the U.S., the gap between future federal government obligations and future revenues has reached an estimated $200-trillion – nearly 13 times the official debt. The unfunded liabilities of state and local governments amount to another $38-trillion. Unless these debts are curtailed, the next generation faces a bleak future of much higher taxes along with drastic cuts in other forms of public expenditure.

Yet instead of demanding cuts to unsustainable entitlements, most younger voters want policies that would make matters even worse for them. The protests in Quebec are just one example. The modest tuition increases proposed by the Charest government were part of a wider effort to address Quebec’s crushing debt, which will weigh like a millstone around the necks of the next generation. Obviously, large parts of the next generation don’t see it that way. As Mr. Ferguson puts it, “Young people find it quite hard to compute their own long-term economic interests.” And that is one of the biggest barriers to reform.

Our ability to curb our debt addiction is the biggest test faced by Western democracies today. This is more than a financial problem. It’s a moral problem. We have broken our social contract with the generations that come after us, and it’s our duty to restore it. Mr. Ferguson says we could begin by insisting on an honest accounting from our governments about what our promises will really cost. The truth might even scare us straight.

_________________
Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Randy,

Congratulations upon achieving retirement, as I read your comment. It's sort of like the Janis Joplin song, another word for freedom is nothing left to loose.

I have been noting all along that things must be paid for, just as the conservatives point out. The problem comes in where there is first a lie upon which they wish to base this by first removing taxes from the über rich, confining the debt artificially to disproportionately those of the middle class, who really cannot carry it, and giving those with the real money pretty much a free pass. Pensions based upon retirement at 20 years with full vesting are absurd yet many municipal pensions are just so based. This is a violation of MBT based principles. It is not however the worst such violation as the threat of control of the 99% by way of the $ of the 1% 'owning' governments as well as the land and superstructure of a much disproportionate portion of the world is very real as I would have also claimed to have documented.

There is nothing at core really wrong with an old slogan of communism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in 1875. Except of course that their execution was not up to their conceptualization. That is the way that NPMR, in my understanding, functions. Putting it into personal terms, Tom has no problem with being placed in the position of experiencing his life, in a major part, as being for the purposes of NPMR in this program of paradigm change. He had to do much of the real work himself as NPMR 'society' does nothing for you. It does not educate you for a job nor does it provide the means, whatever they might be. Should we be telling Tom that we would understand if he just abandoned the project and relaxed to enjoy his 'old age'. They provide only nudges to steer you in the right direction. Ultimately, the goal of NPMR is to support AUM in its goals, but this is not done on a basis of education and direction. It is done on the basis of selection of individuals to take on jobs as challenges. So Tom's reward for a job being well done in the past will be to be 'awarded' an even more challenging one in the future if he proves able to succeed at this one.

That slogan in PMR has been disobeyed and badly implemented. Here in the US, that rejection is total in that the pass is being given to those with ability as in most ability to pay taxes. It is being given lately on the lying basis that they will create jobs. On the basis of normal human greed, this does not happen. It also does not happen as disobeying the principles of capitalism as I point out. The capitalist is not about to start an enterprise by spending money that is unlikely to return the investment with a profit. Thus they do not create jobs when the laws have been set up to pay off best for job creation in other countries with no labor law protection or minimum wage. Enlightened self interest is not part of capitalist principles but is within the capabilities of some practitioners of the art. Thus some among the über rich become philanthropists in their later lives funding as an example, efforts to eradicate polio in India or establishing a network for funding entrepreneurship at a low level in third world countries with very small loans to finance starting capitalism at a very small scale. Some such as Warren Buffet have 'volunteered' and explained the unfairness of their not being taxed at the rate that their secretary is taxed. More however take the route of the Koch brothers and finance politicians who will return the favor with favorable tax laws to enhance the future income of the über rich.

Capitalism may be the form of organization of money and labor that works versus other versions that have failed notably. It is not however a form of organization for society that is not completely open to the effects of human greed. For capitalism to control government simply means that the free will of those not at the top of the heap will be violated, if there is not a balancing of control. Our extreme societal advocacy of materialism is at the base of this problem and thus Tom's project to change the paradigm back to the basis of Consciousness and making clear the way in which reality works. Applying these principles to organizing society has much more potential to produce a decent society than applying the principles of laissez-faire capitalism to all of human(IUOC) interactions. You should also note that the way that is presently planned to pay for these things is to dilute the value of the dollar as it is now variously evaluated at something like 3 cents on the original dollar value. Prices are denoted in billions now instead of the millions of my youth. But you must start fixing things at the beginning. If an 'etch a sketch' runs the US, we will not fix things at a certain level and possibly proceed on to other things that should also be fixed. We will be locked into the 99% controlling the 1% with no incentive to ever change it again. Yes, all of the pension matters will get fixed as well as all of the other social services that the right says that we cannot afford. These are the promises that they will keep. There will however be no trickle down and there will be no rising of all boats, only the yachts.

Ted

Other than not following the heard and voting against the right wingers, i personally have never found any ways to make any difference what so ever. I gave obvious information to discredit the Bush administration in a up close and personal way for years, with nothing but frustration in return. I really do think their needs to be things that happen, like Sainbury was describing. To make a change in ones mindset, i will even go as far to say to make any real and lasting changes, there will probably have to be a near complete system collapse. Greed and power mongering is running so rampant, i really see no other way. The probability of MBT catching on at a being level, and at a collective level on our current path, seems to me to be nil. I see people living and talking about their problems, but i see just a few living in the solution. I can see the manipulation, with fear mostly. as to guide the 99%, but as far for any real answers, for any real and lasting changes. I do not have any, which brings me back to rebuilding from the bottom up, and try again, hopefully with creative nonviolent solutions. Sabby

My point has been all along that those who are members of this board might have a tendency to ignore politics as outside of their considerations of spirituality and metaphysics. I have tried to point out that Tom's My Big TOE is not an isolated and other worldly concept but is rather an explanation of how to live our PMR lives in a better way. This would lead us to pay attention to mundane politics when they impinge on the free will of all of us in potential and particularly upon the free will of those who cannot defend themselves for one reason or another. Some have understood this message. Others have taken it as a partisan advocacy when it really is not. Pay attention to what is going on in the world. The idea is not that Tom advocates an other worldly viewpoint. The intention of the true nature of reality is still that PMR is treated as our reality and even as a physical reality in daily interactions. Just know that there is more to it than that and do not fear for the future as if you must grab all you can here and now. A real understanding does not lead to that concept.

Ted