Meditations on Money: Balancing Life and the Global Economy

By Lloyd Salomone

Meditations on Money: Balancing Life and the Global Economy takes complex socio-political economic issues and synthesizes them into understandable concepts for day-to-day living. It will demonstrate how money and materialism relate to spiritual and ecological thought — from far left communism to far right capitalism — and will take you on an enlightened journey into humanity’s past 100 years and what’s on the horizon.
Meditations on Money weaves seemingly unrelated subjects into ten cohesive meditations that offer up advice and practical wisdom to help people balance their lives and communities in a chaotic world created by hyper-globalization.
Meditations on Money will enable you to move your thoughts, feelings and actions in new directions to produce higher levels of peace, joy and harmony for you, your friends and loved ones, and for the natural world we all need for our very existence.
“This book is the ideal text for university students, members of political parties, members of faith groups, and concerned citizens of all ages to read and discuss with friends — especially friends who might not share all the same values. It certainly forces the reader to answer “Why do I make the choices I do?”
— Penny Ericson, Dean and Professor Emeritus, Nursing, University of New Brunswick
“The book allows the reader to survey the multiple and complex intersections of history, spirituality, economics, politics, and philosophy.... The writing reflects a deeply personal engagement of matters that bear implications for all persons and groups concerned for present and future human well being in relation to nature.”
— George Feenstra, Minister, United Church of Canada, Steinbach, Manitoba

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lloyd Salomone
• Release date: Dec 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995178410

Lloyd Salomone

Lloyd Salomone is a researcher, writer and filmmaker based in Canada. Since 2003, he has been producing “knowledged based” documentary films and digital media projects for television broadcast, online streaming, community screenings and educational purposes. Meditations on Money – Balancing Life and the Global Economy is Lloyd’s first non-fiction book and he is currently researching a second one.

Book preview

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GOOD HEARTED BOOKS

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ISBN 978-0-9951784-1-0

Copyright © Lloyd Salomone 2013

Cover art, design: Magdalene Carson

Published in Canada

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

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class=cip1>http://www.accesscopyright.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Salomone, Lloyd, 1960-, author


Meditations on money : balancing life and the global 
economy

/ Lloyd Salomone.

Includes bibliographical references.
Issued in print and electronic formats.


ISBN 978-0-9951784-0-3 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-0-9951784-1-0 (epub).--


978-0-9951784-2-7 (mobi).--ISBN ISBN 978-0-9951784-3-4 (pdf)

1. Money--Social aspects. 2. Money--Psychological aspects. 
3. Quality of life.

I. Title.

HG222.3.S25 2013ݧ 306.3ݧ C2013-906505-9


C2013-906506-7

First edition 2013 (General Store Publishing House)

Second edition 2016 (Good Hearted Books)

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Forethought

MEDITATION ONE

ANCIENT SPIRITUAL AND ECONOMIC THOUGHT

Primary Causes of

Human and Natural World Suffering

Economics, Morals, and Spirituality

Understanding Universal Space and Time

Understanding Universal Energy Forces

Understanding Natural Life Cycles

Understanding Commonalities and Differences

The Magic of Attention

MEDITATION TWO

ECONOMIC MODELS

PAST AND PRESENT

Barter and Merchant Trading Systems

Contemporary Economic Systems

MEDITATION THREE

COMPARISON OF CURRENT AND NEW ECONOMIC MODELS

Socialist Communism vs. Mixed, Regulated,

and Balanced vs. Laissez-Faire Capitalism

MEDITATION FOUR

NEEDS, HAPPINESS,

AND SUFFERING

Buddhist Philosophy

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Contemporary Economic Models in Relation to Needs, Happiness, and Suffering

MEDITATION FIVE

REFLECTIONS ON CURRENT ECONOMIC MODELS AND FOUR GLOBAL EVENTS

Reflections on World War I

Reflections on the Great Depression

Reflections on World War II

Reflections on the Cold War

MEDITATION SIX

CONTEMPLATING THE NEXT

GLOBAL DEPRESSION — GD II

How Economically Unequal and Unbalanced Is the World?

Will There Be Another

Global Depression — GD II?

Why a Great Depression and Not a Recession?

Contemplating the Inevitable

MEDITATION SEVEN

THE EGO AND YOUR TRUE BEING

Know Your Ego and True Being

Diversions, Delusions, and Dumbing Down

Fear and Pain vs. Peace and Joy

Producing Real, Positive, Harmonious, and Balanced Outcomes

MEDITATION EIGHT

LEARNING TO LIVE IN THE ECONOMIC PRESENT

The Profession of Economics

Economic Opportunists

Economic Realists

Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith

An Economic Model Reality Check

Developing Deep Economic, Cultural, and Ecological Connections and Balance

MEDITATION NINE

BALANCING LIFE AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Aristotelian Philosophy

Mixed, Regulated, and Balanced

Socio-Political Economic Model and Governance Structure

Unbalanced People and Countries

Balancing the Unbalanced

Creating an Ecologically Centric Constitution for All

The Universal Declaration

of the Rights of Mother Earth

Creating an Ecologically Centric World

MEDITATION TEN

HARNESSING YOUR ENERGY, INTENTIONS, AND DREAMS

Einstein and Energy

Meditating on Personal and Collective Energy

Ifs … and Then What?

What Makes Humans Good?

Harnessing Energy

and the Magic of Attention

Afterthoughts

APPENDIX I

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION

OF THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH

APPENDIX II

CHART COMPARING CURRENT AND NEW ECONOMIC MODELS

Reader Notes

About the Author

For all beings who suffer needlessly from unbalanced,

socio-political economic models and governance structures:

May peace, joy, and harmony arise in their lives and the world.

For Ann and Sal for their faith, love, and support.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Kent Martin, Jane Karchmar, Joe Blades, family, friends, and colleagues for their feedback and encouragement.

My gratitude to libraries, museums, galleries, archives, and all repositories of human knowledge.

Introduction

Every day we behave, choose, and decide what will affect us, individually and collectively, as a person living in a society, community, country, and the world. For most of our lives, we live in self-centred silos of information and knowledge, but seldom do we consciously, clearly, and wisely see the big, universal picture of life on Earth and what our thoughts, feelings, and actions actually mean to us and all other life on the planet. This has resulted in behaviours, choices, and decisions that have mainly produced unrealistic, negative, highly judgmental, unbalanced outcomes and unnecessary suffering for ourselves, humanity, and the natural world.

Meditation is the act and process of engaging in contemplation, reflection, and the focusing of one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions to clearly see, consciously understand, and wisely achieve what we really need for a peaceful, joyful, and harmonious life. Can meditation help humanity better understand our behaviours, choices, and decisions so they individually and collectively produce more realistic, positive, harmonious, and balanced outcomes, and reduce the level of suffering to ourselves and the natural world, of which we are an integral part?

Meditations on Money: Balancing Life and the Global Economy takes seemingly unrelated and complex socio-political economic issues to explain human existence on planet Earth in an uncomplicated manner. The book is written simply, honestly, clearly, and seeks not to preach, but puts forward ideas and concepts that give pause for deeper thought and reflection.

For readers who seek a deep spiritual journey, this book may or may not meet this need, but it will provide you with contemplative and acute insights about the qualitative and quantitative value of life and how money and materialism have and can affect your life, society, community, country, and world you live in — for better or for worse.

For people adhering to pre-established intellectual ideologies — social, political, cultural, ecological, economic, and religious — the book might not support or reinforce them, but it will stimulate your mind and possibly challenge and change your beliefs, values, and ethics, because it provides a unique world view that is relevant at this point in human history.

If you’re the least bit inquisitive or interested in how money and materialism relate to politics, economics, science, technology, military matters, business, capitalism, socialism, consumerism, history, sociology, spirituality, philosophy, religion, psychology, biology, and nature, Meditations on Money has woven together all of these disparate subjects into ten cohesively structured and themed meditations that take you on an enlightened journey of humanity’s past 100 years and point to what’s on the horizon in the twenty-first century.

Meditations on Money was written to better understand and grasp the socio-political economic situation that we currently live in and is offered with the goal of moving your thoughts, feelings and actions in ways and directions that will produce higher levels of peace, joy, and harmony for yourself, those you associate with, and the natural world you need for survival and existence. It is my sincere hope that the ideas contained and questions posed here will give you pause for deep reflection. May the book offer you some sane advice and practical guidance to help navigate and balance yourself in a self-created, chaotic, manic-depressive, bipolar world, which can be changed if you so desire.

Finally, may your personal and collective behaviour, choices, and decisions positively affect your life and that of all beings, human and non-human, who need each other to peacefully coexist and ecologically survive on Earth.

Forethought

Sometimes the world needs a soul-searching event to knock humanity out of its deep state of unconsciousness, causing people to profoundly reflect and wisely meditate about money, materialism, and life on planet Earth.

Over the past 100 years, four such major global events did just that: World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Soon there will be a fifth, GD II, the second great global depression.

In August 2007, the United States’ economy began its slide into financial turmoil. For over fifty years, all levels of government, business sectors, and households have been individually and collectively spending well beyond their means. This cumulative debt load is in the process of being curbed and brought into balance and wiped off the books, resulting in belt tightening, foreclosures, liquidation of material possessions, bankruptcies, and a reassessment of how the global economy functions. But the United States is not the only country excessively spending and carrying huge deficits and debts because of unrealistic monetary and materialistic expectations. Upon closer examination, nearly every rich, contender, third-world, and fourth-world country is overspending and carrying huge debts, with most of this debt well above their ability to pay off in a realistic time frame and in a sustainable manner, placing the entire global economic system on very shaky financial footing.

But do most people know how much debt they, their country, and the world are carrying? And do they know what the root causes and detrimental consequences of such global economic thought and policies are? Do they know the psychological, emotional, physical, and financial reasons why GD II, a second great global depression, is at hand? Do they know what GD II’s social, political, cultural, ecological, spiritual, and economic impact might be on the world? And most important, do they know what the world might look like during and after GD II?

Currently, humanity is so politically, economically, socially, culturally, spiritually, and ecologically out of balance that we are unaware of where a balanced "middle path" really is or what it might look like.

Meditations on Money will reveal, in sharp contrast, how individual thoughts, feelings and actions, collective behaviours and movements, and political decision-making in the past 100 years has and will continue to decisively change the geopolitical landscape of Earth over the next ten to twenty years. The world is close to the end of the superpower military era. The USSR collapsed in 1991, and the United States is precariously slipping over the edge of a major socio-political economic fall that is turning the American Dream into a social, military, and financial nightmare. Then there are the contenders-in-waiting, China and India, who are rapidly in the process of following a similar path as the USA, which will eventually lead to their socio-political economic decline in the near future. Unless these countries, along with other rich and contender countries, in particular, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia, can change their socio-political economic paths, they will be taking humanity down a dark and dreary road that will soon intersect with the ecological carrying capacity of Earth’s biosphere.

The world will soon be under the grip of a global psychological, emotional, physical, and financial depression, GD II, during which period new political, social, cultural, ecological, spiritual, and economic ideas, approaches, and movements will emerge.

An eye for an eye,

and soon the whole world is blind.

Mahatma Gandhi

MEDITATION ONE

ANCIENT SPIRITUAL AND ECONOMIC THOUGHT

The likelihood of a major economic global downturn is now unfolding, and many people around the world have lost and will lose a lot of money and material possessions, most of which they never really owned, could not afford to possess, or even really needed to survive and lead a truly happy life.

Primary Causes of

Human and Natural World Suffering

Economic uncertainty and downturns are not new to humanity. Materialism has been the number one cause of great conflict, debt, and suffering for thousands of years. In fact, every major religion has economic principles deeply rooted in its core spiritual philosophies, values, and ethics, claiming that suffering in the human and natural world has three primary causes:

Power, control, and greed are caused by excessive monetary and material cravings.

Disunity, hatred, and killing are the result of covetous and highly competitive behaviour.

Ignorance, unconsciousness, and foolishness lead to false realities and delusional states.

Economics, Morals, and Spirituality

When all of the dogma and idolatry associated with formally structured religions is stripped away, the fundamental essence and wisdom of how people should live their personal and collective lives from a simple, moral, spiritual, ecological, social, cultural, political, and economic perspective is clearly contained in the mythological oral teachings and religious and spiritual texts of all humanity. For example:

Buddhism

Buddhism is over 2,500 years old. Within its spiritual philosophy, the Noble Eightfold Path speaks of choosing "Right Livelihood." There is a basic moral obligation for a person to earn a living by way of the right conduct and right means.

"Right Conduct" refers to behaviour designed to promote unity and good relations among people, as opposed to promoting fear, conflict, pain, and loss caused by selfishness, greed, exploitation, killing, cheating, and stealing.

"Right Means" discourages and excludes behaviours that produce suffering, such as:

Slavery and bondage of human beings

Dealing in arms and weapons

Slaughtering animals and wildlife

Producing intoxicating substances and poisons

Engaging in dishonest trade

These five negative human behaviours have been the primary causes of fear, conflict, scarcity, pain, debt, and natural world suffering since the dawn of human civilization and are currently on the rise all over the world.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Judaism began with God’s speaking to Abraham some 4,000 years ago. Abraham’s words were later prophesied in the teachings of Jesus Christ early in the first century and in the rise of Christianity after his death during the Roman Empire era. Abraham was also preeminent in Islam through the words of Muhammad in the seventh century, at the end of the Roman Empire era.

As it relates to economic teachings, in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy speaks of "The Year of Cancelling Debts." At the end of seven years, you must cancel all debts. Every creditor shall forgive the loans they have made to their fellow persons and not require payment from them, because the Lord’s time for cancelling debt was proclaimed.

What’s interesting is the accuracy and contemporary relevancy of Deuteronomy’s teachings, because even today, "short-term economic cycles" run approximately seven years in length. Since the Great Depression ended in 1939, there have been ten distinct recessionary periods in the United States and global economies. Each time, significant debt has been cancelled to and from individuals, businesses, and governments. Recent economic downturns include the OPEC oil crises in 1973; a hyperinflation recession in 1980; Black Monday in October 1987; the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe in 1991; the Asian Crisis and high-tech meltdown in 1999; and, in August 2007, the sub-prime mortgage collapse began, which has triggered a global recession and is leading to a major global psychological, emotional, physical, and financial depression, through the cancellation of non-repayable debt. Since ancient times, the covetous and highly competitive nature of money and materialism has always resulted in endless cycles of human fear, conflict, scarcity, debt, pain, and suffering; but none will be as severe as GD II.

In the ancient scriptures and social justice teaching of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions, "treating one’s neighbour as oneself’ and the forgiveness of sins" on Earth are central tenets to meeting God’s requirement for reaching heaven and living in eternal peace.

As it relates to social equality and forgiveness, these moral concepts extend well beyond money and economics to include all aspects of one’s life and social experiences. Although Abraham is central to all three religions, for over 1,300 years, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, in deep-rooted and significant ways, have not treated each other as equals, nor have they been able to forgive themselves and each other for past sins, as pronounced in their scriptures. They continue to live in fear, conflict, worry, strife, distress, pain, and indebtedness because of their inability to be open-minded and to fully acknowledge and respect the social and cultural differences between their religious and spiritual teachings and those of others.

Hinduism

Hinduism, which began in India, has produced some of the most ancient spiritual and religious texts in the world, the oldest being the Vedas, which date back to 1500 BCE, and the Upanishads, which were completed between 600 and 200 BCE.

Two key teachings of Hinduism involve dharma, the fundamental law of the unity of life, and karma, the law of cause and effect. Hinduism compares mental thoughts, emotional feelings, and physical actions to small seeds that can grow into huge, deep-rooted, wide-spreading trees, where every thought, feeling, and action has a consequence on personal and collective growth. So, negative thoughts, feelings, and actions will lead to more negativity in return, while positive ones will lead to more positive outcomes, such as peace, joy, and happiness. When individual and collective karma and dharma are in harmony, then selfish interests are diminished and the "welfare of the whole" is best fulfilled and balanced.

Unfortunately, human beings continually engage in negative, fearful, and destructive karmic behaviour to oppress and control other people and societies, which eventually leads to retaliation on the part of the oppressed. This negative, judgmental, unbalanced karmic cycle is still being practised by humanity on a global scale by pitting people, genders, religions, ethnic groups, communities, businesses, governments, and countries against each other through extreme covetous and highly competitive "winner-take-all" behaviour. Unfortunately, dharma, the fundamental law of the unity of life, is seldom achieved within the human experience, let alone balanced with the natural world.

Taoism

Taoism is a spiritual philosophy that is 2,500 years old. The word Tao means "The Path or The Way" and its symbol, the yin-yang, represents the cyclical balance of opposites in the universe. When yin and yang are equally present, all is calm. When a person or situation is off balance, then there is confusion and chaos. The Tao embodies the harmony of opposites without conflict and it seeks to regulate natural processes by promoting and nourishing balance in the universe. Acting in harmony with nature means acting consciously according to one’s true nature and with intuitive wisdom and caution versus unnecessary force and speed, so human experiences become balanced and harmoniously aligned with the natural environment.

All over the world, people and societies are in a constant state of socio-political and economic change. Unfortunately, very few people can fully and rationally understand this rapid state of change in order to slow it down, manage it, and find a balance so as to consistently produce positive and harmonious outcomes. For most people and countries, it’s their constant desire to promote fast, convenient, and expedient "selfish change," which has led to higher levels of societal imbalance, leading to extensive and unnecessary suffering for themselves and the rest of humanity.

Aboriginal spirituality

Since the dawn of humanity, Aboriginal cultures around the world have sought "oneness" with the Creator. The natural world, including humans; the masculine and the feminine; thoughts, feelings, and actions; and spiritual energy are all geologically, chemically, and biologically interconnected and woven into a seamless, ecologically diverse, natural universe of life on planet Earth. The physical survival of humans is considered to be deeply interconnected with the survival of all other living beings. In many indigenous cultures and communities, these beliefs continue to influence relations between humans and nature by responsibly caring for and preserving the natural world for at least seven generations, so the future of all life on Earth is protected in perpetuity.

By fully understanding and respectfully living in balance with what nature and its processes can provide — a unique biosphere that allows all life to exist on Earth — many Aboriginal people have been able to find true peace, joy, and harmony within themselves and with the Creator. Unfortunately, much of this ancient wisdom and practice is being lost as technology, capitalism, and consumerism have risen to great heights, to become the new religions and false idols of modern worship and praise, but are devoid of any real, deep spiritual and philosophical principles.

Understanding Universal Space and Time

Without material objects, the known universe consists of no-things. It’s nothing but energy, which represents pure infinite space, silence, stillness, and simplicity.

Even with matter, the known universe is nothing but space and energy. Between every subatomic particle in the universe there is more space and energy than matter. So every object in the universe, including human beings, consists mainly of space and energy. If space and energy is within everything, then all forms of existence in the universe are infinitely interconnected by space and energy; so we are ALL ONE, and we all consist of silence, stillness, and simplicity.

Time is the measured or a measurable period during which an action, process, and condition exists or continues to exist from one point to another. Through visual observation over millennia, humans have created a measure of time based on universal movements. One day consists of the moon’s revolving around planet Earth. Based on this, one day has twenty-four hours, one hour contains sixty minutes, and one minute is sixty seconds. One natural month consists of approximately twenty-eight days, which is based on the moon’s cycle of brightness, going from complete fullness to darkness. Based on Earth’s movement around the sun, it was observed there were four distinct hemispheric seasons over the course of 365 days, known as a year.

Based on instruments designed to measure movements of "human time within space and energy on planet Earth, the known universe is scientifically estimated to be approximately 13.7 billion years old, when, according to the big bang theory, a massive instantaneous explosion led to the creation of all observable matter of existence. Our solar system is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. The sun is the centre of our solar system, which is located in the Milky Way galaxy, one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in our ever-expanding universe. In over 4.5 billion years, planet Earth has gone through massive geological, chemical, and biological changes. Humans have existed in one primitive form or another on Earth for over an estimated two million years. Simply put, humanity is a miniscule speck of existence" in a universe of space and energy.

There are many religious, philosophical, and scientific theories of how our universe and possibly other universes came to exist, such as being created by gods and goddesses or unique evolutional phenomena. Instead of letting these differences cause enormous fear, conflict and suffering to humanity and nature, as has been going on for millennia, people from all over the world should focus their attention — thoughts, feelings, actions — on peacefully and harmoniously celebrating and protecting the natural and cultural diversity that has been created on Earth.

If everything is infinitely interconnected and ALL ONE within the universe, then why do certain people think their genders, cultures, religions, societies, and countries are more superior to other humans and natural species? It’s odd, considering there are 7,105 known living languages and cultures, and over 1.8 million known natural species of living beings on the Earth, whose lives