Dear Subscribers,

People have been deluging me with pleas to post this or that with respect to the global economic crisis.  I have basically declined to use my list for such purposes, but there are one or two comments I might make that hopefully make sense to at least a few readers.

We used to take antitrust laws seriously, but in the present economic debacle, we are acting like such frightened rabbits that "anything goes" -- which includes allowing the feeding frenzy where the very, very big eat the slightly less big competitors.  We have long tolerated this in the automotive industry because we have been conditioned to believe that such staggering sums are required to finance production that there is no room for the little guys.  In fact, Argentina used to be a major producer of automobiles, but as we know, this ceased to be the case when the economy took a dive. 

In recent years, foreign, especially Japanese, car manufacturers have built plants in the U.S. while Ford built a state of the art plant in Brazil.  There is no such thing as a top executive in any company who is clueless about his company's market share and the percent of the market owned by the competition so while giving up market share to Volkswagen and Toyota and Kia, Detroit was literally throwing away American jobs and using as an excuse that health insurance was too expensive or the public was not interested in fuel efficiency or . . .  In short, policies were built around the very high profitability of gas guzzling cars while the door was left open not just for Germany and Japan to claim a piece of the huge American market, but soon we are going to see Indian and Chinese cars everywhere.

For their brilliant foresight, Detroit wants a bailout because without it, jobs will be "irrevocably" lost.  I believe that all top management should be sacked and all failing companies (in every industry) should be taken over by employees, no golden parachutes, no rewards for myopia, and no bonuses for padding pockets while losing control over the bottom line.

With the banking industry, the picture is just slightly different because there really is a piranha at the top of the heap and, interestingly, local banks, such as credit unions, are not in the same mess as the big banks.  Nationalization of banks will, of course, be promoted as a solution, but the bank to nationalize is the Federal Reserve.  Who ever heard of a central bank that is not operated by the government?  Central banks should not be private and secretive but rather responsive to the interests of the citizens of the country.  As for the big banks, they should be completely restructured, like Ma Bell, not more giants but lots of small, local banks that are responsive to the community.  Interest rates should be close to zero and the ability to increase the theoretical existence of money by simply moving funds from one bank to another should not be tolerated. 

Okay, I weighed in, but I think we have had a series of presidents who were all members of Skull and Bones and they were busy playing pirate games at the expense of the nation.  Now, we need to end the scam and get serious about the future.  This begins by creating real jobs that are based on the future, not by pouring your future earnings into promises to pay off bailouts through exorbitant taxes.  If the government has money, it will spend it on wars or boondoggles because this is how elected officials repay those who got them elected.  This has to change or we will never fix the underlying problem.

Every day, I get emails about health and environmental issues with work places and homes but people want to take a tablet rather than fix the problem at the causal level.  It's the same with the government.  The cure has to go much deeper or it's just a band aid. 

Of course, the people with the most power have the most ambition and they want to use the "crisis" to ram more rubbish down our throats, but when did we ask the people who caused the problems to fix them?  If a surgeon bungled an operation, would you give him a second chance on your body?  Why are we listening to any of the pundits now?  To solve the problems, we have to use a different mindset and strategy and I believe this means "back to basics" not more of the same.  We need to become responsible for our little niches and let that domino effect play out, not wait for something to trickle down as if the intention were to feel the dew!

Okay, enough is enough is enough.  I have been working very hard on the ayurvedicbazaar.com and hope to phase out the old cart really soon.  I am seeing that more and more people responded to the essay on fire with a determination to detoxify, but please don't forget that toxins are often in hiding so if you dislodge them from the liver or knees or the brain or wherever, they move into circulation and this is an opportunity and a risk.  If the toxins are eliminated, all is well and there is gain for the pain, but if the eliminatory channels are not working adequately, the toxins will be reabsorbed and perhaps relocated. . . meaning, they may not go back into the knees, but the lungs or kidneys may become worse.  So, the usual place to start is with the eliminatory system and then it is generally safer to push the detoxification.

http://www.ayurvedicbazaar.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=9

Sometimes the kidneys also need support.  I have almost jumped on another issue that people are always writing about: urine therapy.  I know about it, have known about it for years, but if mercury is excreted in the urine, why on earth would we think the urine is sterile?  I just can't go there but I bet I receive a lot of emails with a lot of links to various historic practices and research, but I don't play roulette and this just isn't my game.

Many blessings,

Ingrid

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