Power of Thoughts

Few people think what they think they think

Few people think what they think they think. Do you know what you think about? The answer is revealed by the life you lead. If you are happy and successful, you are thinking thoughts of happiness and success. If you are wading through an endless stream of problems and finding life painful to bear, it is caused by thoughts of doubt, failure, anger, helplessness, incompetence, and pain. In other words, whether you think life is miserable or great, you're correct, for life is whatever you think it is.

Yes, I'm writing about our THOUGHTS again. This article is prompted by a reader's question, "When you are facing one disaster after another, making compromise after compromise and failing your family time and time again, how does one keep getting up to face the next problem without losing the will to live?"

Let me begin my issuing a few warnings.

1. If you are so mired in problems that you are on the brink of depression, you may be unable to work things out without professional help. If this is your situation, visit a counselor or mental health professional at once. Your life is too precious to dawdle away.

2. Even if you have some semblance of control over your thoughts, if you are entrenched in dark thoughts, it may not be possible for you to see the sun unaided. In other words, the thoughts I share may fall on deaf ears. As Nietzsche said, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." If you cannot hear the music, what I say will make no sense to you. If that is the case, seek professional help to get you to the point where you can start to help yourself.

3. When we face one disaster after another, it reinforces the false belief that the cause of our suffering is external events. Be careful not to get caught up in this lie. The problem lies within. It is your thoughts. And you can change your thoughts for the better. Positive thoughts lead to positive feelings, positive behavior, positive consequences, positive beliefs, and a positive life.

4. When you are used to living a life of negativity, any advice you get may appear more like salt in the wounds than as help. That is, you are likely to interpret sound advice as a personal attack. Rather than help you, it may appear to you that the only thing your friends are interested in is in blaming you for your unfortunate circumstances. Because you interpret offers of help as personal attacks, you will resist and fight any thoughts that you are responsible and that you can change. Instead of changing yourself, you will insist that the world change for you, which it will not. The result is endless frustration, with no progress in sight.

5. When you become enmeshed in a web of negative thinking, you are likely to develop a victim's mentality. You will cry out to be rescued. "Help me! Save me! I don't want to change. I don't want to accept responsibility. I don't want to make an effort and work hard. I don't want to struggle. No, I don't want any of that. All I want is to be saved. Won't you rescue me?" All such pleas for help are made in vain. Don't seek to be rescued. Instead, try to reach the point, with or without the help of others, where you will be able to rescue yourself. You are the only one who can do it.

Now, let's look at what some of the brightest minds had to say about the power of thought:

"What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind. Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. But once mastered, no one can help you as much." Buddha (568 ~ 488 BC)

"A man's life is what his thoughts make of it. Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." Marcus Aurelius (121 ~ 180 AD)

"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare (1564 ~ 1616)

"Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts." Soren Kierkegaard (1813 ~ 1855)

"All that you accomplish or fail to accomplish with your life is the direct result of your thoughts. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." James Allen (1864 ~ 1912)

You may think that what you think about is unimportant, but your thoughts are the bricks you use to build your life. Negative thoughts build a prison. Positive thoughts build a comfortable home. But beware of intruders in your home. Beware of a home invasion. When a sudden disaster strikes, don't let negative thoughts ransack your home; don't allow these intruders to steal your happiness. Chase uninvited guests out of your home (mind).

How can you master yourself and master life unless you master your thoughts?
But how do we master our thoughts? Although the techniques are simple and straightforward, I cannot cover them in any detail in such a brief article. However, I can refer you to two modern classics. These short and powerful documents are ESSENTIAL READING. The first is Ralph Waldo Trine's "Character Building Thought Power," which was written in 1899. The second is "As a Man Thinketh," by James Allen (1864 ~ 1912). There is nothing to buy; you can read both documents at http://cornerstone.wwwhubs.com/framepage.htm.

So, what is my advice to our reader? Simply this: if you cannot help yourself, get outside help at once. And if you can help yourself, read, study, apply, and master the material in the above two documents. Welcome the challenge that faces you. With effort and patience you can change your thoughts and change your life. After all, "There are only three conditions necessary for the acquisition of any physical skill, mental power, moral virtue or personal excellence. The COURAGE to try something you do not know how to do, the PATIENCE to try again once you have discovered that you don't know how to do it and the PERSEVERANCE to renew the trial, as many times as necessary, until you do know how to do it." (Thanks, Bruce, for this quote which comes from "The Five Western Philosophies from Plato to Christianity," written in the 1920s) Finally, have faith in yourself. And remember the words of William Sloan Coffin, "Faith is not believing without proof, it is trusting without reservation." Trust yourself. You can do it. Start today. Start now.

We mustn't be surprised by calamities and hardship. Such obstacles are the admission ticket to life and a small price to pay to gain admission to the endless joy that await those with a positive outlook. Let's abandon the attitude of a victim and replace it with that of a victor. So, when the going gets tough, keep in mind the following poem (author unknown):

I asked God to give me happiness.
God said, "No. I give you blessings. Happiness is up to you."

I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, "No. Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me."

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, "No. You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful."

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said, "No. I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things."

I asked God to help me help those weaker than myself.
God said... "Ahhhh, finally you got the idea."

http://www.personal-development.com/chuck/thoughts.htm

The Wealth Divide The Growing Gap in the United States Between the Rich and the Rest

An Interview with Edward Wolff

Edward Wolff is a professor of economics at New York University. He is the author of Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It, as well as many other books and articles on economic and tax policy. He is managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth.

Multinational Monitor: What is wealth?
Edward Wolff: Wealth is the stuff that people own. The main items are your home, other real estate, any small business you own, liquid assets like savings accounts, CDs and money market funds, bonds, other securities, stocks, and the cash surrender value of any life insurance you have. Those are the total assets someone owns. From that, you subtract debts. The main debt is mortgage debt on your home. Other kinds of debt include consumer loans, auto debt and the like. That difference is referred to as net worth, or just wealth.

MM: Why is it important to think about wealth, as opposed just to income?
Wolff: Wealth provides another dimension of well-being. Two people who have the same income may not be as well off if one person has more wealth. If one person owns his home, for example, and the other person doesn’t, then he is better off.

Wealth — strictly financial savings — provides security to individuals in the event of sickness, job loss or marital separation. Assets provide a kind of safety blanket that people can rely on in case their income gets interrupted.

Wealth is also more directly related to political power. People who have large amounts of wealth can make political contributions. In some cases, they can use that money to run for office themselves, like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

MM: What are the best sources for information on wealth?
Wolff: The best way of measuring wealth is to use household surveys, where interviewers ask households, from a very detailed form, about the assets they own, and the kinds of debts and other liabilities they have run up. Household surveys provide the main source of information on wealth distribution.

Of these household surveys — there are now about five or six surveys that ask wealth questions in the United States — probably the best source is the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

They have a special supplement sample that they rely on to provide information about high income households. Wealth turns out to be highly skewed, so that a very small proportion of families owns a very large share of total wealth. Most surveys miss these families. But the Survey of Consumer Finances uses information provided by the Internal Revenue Service to construct a special supplemental sample on high income households, so they can zero in on the high wealth holders.

MM: How do economists measure levels of equality and inequality?
Wolff: The most common measure used, and the most understandable is: what share of total wealth is owned by the richest households, typically the top 1 percent. In the United States, in the last survey year, 1998, the richest 1 percent of households owned 38 percent of all wealth.

This is the most easily understood measure.

There is also another measure called the Gini coefficient. It measures the concentration of wealth at different percentile levels, and does an overall computation. It is an index that goes from zero to one, one being the most unequal. Wealth inequality in the United States has a Gini coefficient of .82, which is pretty close to the maximum level of inequality you can have.

MM: What have been the trends of wealth inequality over the last 25 years?
Wolff: We have had a fairly sharp increase in wealth inequality dating back to 1975 or 1976.

Prior to that, there was a protracted period when wealth inequality fell in this country, going back almost to 1929. So you have this fairly continuous downward trend from 1929, which of course was the peak of the stock market before it crashed, until just about the mid-1970s. Since then, things have really turned around, and the level of wealth inequality today is almost double what it was in the mid-1970s.

Income inequality has also risen. Most people date this rise to the early 1970s, but it hasn’t gone up nearly as dramatically as wealth inequality.

MM: What portion of the wealth is owned by the upper groups?
Wolff: The top 5 percent own more than half of all wealth.

In 1998, they owned 59 percent of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively.

The top 20 percent owns over 80 percent of all wealth. In 1998, it owned 83 percent of all wealth.

This is a very concentrated distribution.

MM: Where does that leave the bottom tiers?
Wolff: The bottom 20 percent basically have zero wealth. They either have no assets, or their debt equals or exceeds their assets. The bottom 20 percent has typically accumulated no savings.

A household in the middle — the median household — has wealth of about $62,000. $62,000 is not insignificant, but if you consider that the top 1 percent of households’ average wealth is $12.5 million, you can see what a difference there is in the distribution.

MM: What kind of distribution of wealth is there for the different asset components?
Wolff: Things are even more concentrated if you exclude owner-occupied housing. It is nice to own a house and it provides all kinds of benefits, but it is not very liquid. You can’t really dispose of it, because you need some place to live.

The top 1 percent of families hold half of all non-home wealth.

The middle class’s major assets are their home, liquid assets like checking and savings accounts, CDs and money market funds, and pension accounts. For the average family, these assets make up 84 percent of their total wealth.

The richest 10 percent of families own about 85 percent of all outstanding stocks. They own about 85 percent of all financial securities, 90 percent of all business assets. These financial assets and business equity are even more concentrated than total wealth.

MM: What happens when you disaggregate the data by race?
Wolff: There you find something very striking. Most people are aware that African-American families don’t earn as much as white families. The average African-American family has about 60 percent of the income as the average white family. But the disparity of wealth is a lot greater. The average African-American family has only 18 percent of the wealth of the average white family.

MM: Are you able to do a comparable analysis by gender?
Wolff: It is hard to separate out husbands and wives. Most assets are jointly held, so it is not really possible to separate which assets are owned by husband and which by wife. Even when things are specifically owned by one spouse or another, the other spouse usually has some residual lien on the assets, as we know from various divorce proceedings. If a pension account is owned by the husband and the family splits up, the wife typically gets some ownership of the pension assets. The same thing is true for an unincorporated business owned by the husband. It really is not that easy to separate out gender ownership in the family.

What we do know is that single women, or single women with children, have much lower levels of wealth than married couples.

MM: How does the U.S. wealth profile compare to other countries?
Wolff: We are much more unequal than any other advanced industrial country.

Perhaps our closest rival in terms of inequality is Great Britain. But where the top percent in this country own 38 percent of all wealth, in Great Britain it is more like 22 or 23 percent.

What is remarkable is that this was not always the case. Up until the early 1970s, the U.S. actually had lower wealth inequality than Great Britain, and even than a country like Sweden. But things have really turned around over the last 25 or 30 years. In fact, a lot of countries have experienced lessening wealth inequality over time. The U.S. is atypical in that inequality has risen so sharply over the last 25 or 30 years.

MM: To what extent is the wealth inequality trend simply reflective of the rising level of income inequality?
Wolff: Part of it reflects underlying increases in income inequality, but the other significant factor is what has happened to the ratio between stock prices and housing prices. The major asset of the middle class is their home. The major assets of the rich are stocks and small business equity. If stock prices increase more quickly than housing prices, then the share of wealth owned by the richest households goes up. This turns out to be almost as important as underlying changes in income inequality. For the last 25 or 30 years, despite the bear market we’ve had over the last two years, stock prices have gone up quite a bit faster than housing prices.

MM: A couple years ago there was a great deal of talk of the democratization of the stock market. Is that reflected in these figures, or was it an illusion?
Wolff: I would say it was more of an illusion. What did happen is that the percentage of households with some ownership of stocks, including mutual funds and pension accounts like 401(k)s, did go up very dramatically over the last 20 years. In 1983, only 32 percent of households had some ownership of stock.

By 2001, the share was 51 percent. So there has been much more widespread stock ownership, in terms of number of families.

But a lot of these families have very small stakes in the stock market. In 2001, only 32 percent of households owned more than $10,000 of stock, and only 25 percent of households owned more than $25,000 worth of stock.

So a lot of these new stock owners have had relatively small holdings of stock. There hasn’t been much dilution in the share of stock owned by the richest 1 or 10 percent. Stock ownership is still heavily concentrated among rich families. The richest 10 percent own 85 percent of all stock.

As a result, the stock market boom of the 1990s disproportionately benefited rich families. There were some gains by middle class families, but their average stock holdings were too small to make much difference in their overall wealth.

MM: Apart from the absolute level of wealth of people at the bottom of the spectrum, why should inequality itself be a matter of concern?
Wolff: I think there are two rationales. The first is basically a moral or ethical position. A lot of people think it is morally bad for there to be wide gaps, wide disparities in well being in a society.

If that is not convincing to a person, the second reason is that inequality is actually harmful to the well-being of a society. There is now a lot of evidence, based on cross-national comparisons of inequality and economic growth, that more unequal societies actually have lower rates of economic growth. The divisiveness that comes out of large disparities in income and wealth, is actually reflected in poorer economic performance of a country.

Typically when countries are more equal, educational achievement and benefits are more equally distributed in the country. In a country like the United States, there are still huge disparities in resources going to education, so quality of schooling and schooling performance are unequal. If you have a society with large concentrations of poor families, average school achievement is usually a lot lower than where you have a much more homogenous middle class population, as you find in most Western European countries. So schooling suffers in this country, and, as a result, you get a labor force that is less well educated on average than in a country like the Netherlands, Germany or even France. So the high level of inequality results in less human capital being developed in this country, which ultimately affects economic performance.

MM: To what extent is inequality addressed through tax policy?
Wolff: One reason we have such high levels of inequality, compared to other advanced industrial countries, is because of our tax and, I would add, our social expenditure system. We have much lower taxes than almost every Western European country. And we have a less progressive tax system than almost every Western European country. As a result, the rich in this country manage to retain a much higher share of their income than they do in other countries, and this enables them to accumulate a much higher amount of wealth than the rich in other countries.

Certainly our tax system has helped to stimulate the rise of inequality in this country.

We have a much lower level of income support for poor families than do Western European countries or Canada. Social policy in Europe, Canada and Japan does a lot more to reduce economic disparities created by the marketplace than we do in this country. We have much higher poverty rates than do other advanced industrialized countries.

MM: Do you favor a wealth tax?
Wolff: I’ve proposed a separate tax on wealth, which actually exists in a dozen European countries. This has helped to lessen inequality in European countries. It is also, I think, a fairer tax. If you think about taxes that reflect a family’s ability to pay, a family’s ability to pay is a reflection of their income, but also of their wealth holdings. A broader kind of tax of this nature, would not only produce more tax revenue, which we desperately need, but it would be a fairer tax, and also help to reduce the level of inequality in this country.

MM: In broad outlines, how would you structure such a tax?
Wolff: I would model it after the Swiss system, which I think is a pretty fair system. It would be a progressive tax. In the United States, the first $250,000 of wealth would be exempt from the tax. That would exclude 80 percent of all families. The tax would increase at increments, starting out at .2 percent from about $250,000 to $500,000. The marginal rate would go up to .4 percent from $500,000 to $1 million, and then to .6 percent from a $1 million to $5 million, and then to .8 thereafter.

It would not be a very severe tax. In fact, the loading charges on most mutual funds are typically of the order of 1 or 2 percent. It would not be an onerous tax, but it could raise about $60 billion annually. Eighty percent of families would pay nothing, and 95 percent of families would pay less than $1,000. It would really only affect very rich families.

MM: Do you recommend non-tax approaches to deal with inequality as well?
Wolff: I think we have to provide a much broader safety net in this country.

There are lots of things that we should do to strengthen our income support system. We can expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is now a fairly substantial aid to poor families, but which can be improved.

The minimum wage has fallen by about 35 percent in real terms since its peak in 1968. We should think about restoring the minimum wage to where it used to be. That would help a lot of low-income families.

The unemployment insurance system is in a real mess; only about one third of unemployed persons actually get unemployment benefits, either because they don’t qualify or because they exhaust their benefits after six months. Typically the replacement rate is about 35 or 40 percent. In the Netherlands, the replacement rate is 80 percent. Our unemployment insurance system is much less generous than in other industrialized countries and can certainly be shored up.

Of course, the welfare system is in a total state of disrepair, since it provides very restrictive coverage. Even before the switchover from AFDC to TANF with the 1996 welfare reform bill, real welfare payments had declined by about 50 percent between 1975 and 1996. So we had already experienced an enormous erosion in welfare benefits, even before we adopted this new system.

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html

The Wealth Divide
The Growing Gap in the United States
Between the Rich and the Rest

---

An Interview with Edward Wolff

Edward Wolff is a professor of economics at New York University. He is the author of Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It, as well as many other books and articles on economic and tax policy. He is managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth.

In the United States, the richest 1 percent of households owns 38 percent of all wealth.

Multinational Monitor: What is wealth? Edward Wolff: Wealth is the stuff that people own. The main items are your home, other real estate, any small business you own, liquid assets like savings accounts, CDs and money market funds, bonds, other securities, stocks, and the cash surrender value of any life insurance you have. Those are the total assets someone owns. From that, you subtract debts. The main debt is mortgage debt on your home. Other kinds of debt include consumer loans, auto debt and the like. That difference is referred to as net worth, or just wealth. MM: Why is it important to think about wealth, as opposed just to income? Wolff: Wealth provides another dimension of well-being. Two people who have the same income may not be as well off if one person has more wealth. If one person owns his home, for example, and the other person doesn’t, then he is better off. Wealth — strictly financial savings — provides security to individuals in the event of sickness, job loss or marital separation. Assets provide a kind of safety blanket that people can rely on in case their income gets interrupted. Wealth is also more directly related to political power. People who have large amounts of wealth can make political contributions. In some cases, they can use that money to run for office themselves, like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. MM: What are the best sources for information on wealth? Wolff: The best way of measuring wealth is to use household surveys, where interviewers ask households, from a very detailed form, about the assets they own, and the kinds of debts and other liabilities they have run up. Household surveys provide the main source of information on wealth distribution. Of these household surveys — there are now about five or six surveys that ask wealth questions in the United States — probably the best source is the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. They have a special supplement sample that they rely on to provide information about high income households. Wealth turns out to be highly skewed, so that a very small proportion of families owns a very large share of total wealth. Most surveys miss these families. But the Survey of Consumer Finances uses information provided by the Internal Revenue Service to construct a special supplemental sample on high income households, so they can zero in on the high wealth holders. MM: How do economists measure levels of equality and inequality? Wolff: The most common measure used, and the most understandable is: what share of total wealth is owned by the richest households, typically the top 1 percent. In the United States, in the last survey year, 1998, the richest 1 percent of households owned 38 percent of all wealth. This is the most easily understood measure. There is also another measure called the Gini coefficient. It measures the concentration of wealth at different percentile levels, and does an overall computation. It is an index that goes from zero to one, one being the most unequal. Wealth inequality in the United States has a Gini coefficient of .82, which is pretty close to the maximum level of inequality you can have. MM: What have been the trends of wealth inequality over the last 25 years? Wolff: We have had a fairly sharp increase in wealth inequality dating back to 1975 or 1976. Prior to that, there was a protracted period when wealth inequality fell in this country, going back almost to 1929. So you have this fairly continuous downward trend from 1929, which of course was the peak of the stock market before it crashed, until just about the mid-1970s. Since then, things have really turned around, and the level of wealth inequality today is almost double what it was in the mid-1970s. Income inequality has also risen. Most people date this rise to the early 1970s, but it hasn’t gone up nearly as dramatically as wealth inequality. MM: What portion of the wealth is owned by the upper groups? Wolff: The top 5 percent own more than half of all wealth. In 1998, they owned 59 percent of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively. The top 20 percent owns over 80 percent of all wealth. In 1998, it owned 83 percent of all wealth. This is a very concentrated distribution. MM: Where does that leave the bottom tiers? Wolff: The bottom 20 percent basically have zero wealth. They either have no assets, or their debt equals or exceeds their assets. The bottom 20 percent has typically accumulated no savings. A household in the middle — the median household — has wealth of about $62,000. $62,000 is not insignificant, but if you consider that the top 1 percent of households’ average wealth is $12.5 million, you can see what a difference there is in the distribution. MM: What kind of distribution of wealth is there for the different asset components? Wolff: Things are even more concentrated if you exclude owner-occupied housing. It is nice to own a house and it provides all kinds of benefits, but it is not very liquid. You can’t really dispose of it, because you need some place to live. The top 1 percent of families hold half of all non-home wealth. The middle class’s major assets are their home, liquid assets like checking and savings accounts, CDs and money market funds, and pension accounts. For the average family, these assets make up 84 percent of their total wealth. The richest 10 percent of families own about 85 percent of all outstanding stocks. They own about 85 percent of all financial securities, 90 percent of all business assets. These financial assets and business equity are even more concentrated than total wealth. MM: What happens when you disaggregate the data by race? Wolff: There you find something very striking. Most people are aware that African-American families don’t earn as much as white families. The average African-American family has about 60 percent of the income as the average white family. But the disparity of wealth is a lot greater. The average African-American family has only 18 percent of the wealth of the average white family. MM: Are you able to do a comparable analysis by gender? Wolff: It is hard to separate out husbands and wives. Most assets are jointly held, so it is not really possible to separate which assets are owned by husband and which by wife. Even when things are specifically owned by one spouse or another, the other spouse usually has some residual lien on the assets, as we know from various divorce proceedings. If a pension account is owned by the husband and the family splits up, the wife typically gets some ownership of the pension assets. The same thing is true for an unincorporated business owned by the husband. It really is not that easy to separate out gender ownership in the family. What we do know is that single women, or single women with children, have much lower levels of wealth than married couples. MM: How does the U.S. wealth profile compare to other countries? Wolff: We are much more unequal than any other advanced industrial country. Perhaps our closest rival in terms of inequality is Great Britain. But where the top percent in this country own 38 percent of all wealth, in Great Britain it is more like 22 or 23 percent. What is remarkable is that this was not always the case. Up until the early 1970s, the U.S. actually had lower wealth inequality than Great Britain, and even than a country like Sweden. But things have really turned around over the last 25 or 30 years. In fact, a lot of countries have experienced lessening wealth inequality over time. The U.S. is atypical in that inequality has risen so sharply over the last 25 or 30 years. MM: To what extent is the wealth inequality trend simply reflective of the rising level of income inequality? Wolff: Part of it reflects underlying increases in income inequality, but the other significant factor is what has happened to the ratio between stock prices and housing prices. The major asset of the middle class is their home. The major assets of the rich are stocks and small business equity. If stock prices increase more quickly than housing prices, then the share of wealth owned by the richest households goes up. This turns out to be almost as important as underlying changes in income inequality. For the last 25 or 30 years, despite the bear market we’ve had over the last two years, stock prices have gone up quite a bit faster than housing prices. MM: A couple years ago there was a great deal of talk of the democratization of the stock market. Is that reflected in these figures, or was it an illusion? Wolff: I would say it was more of an illusion. What did happen is that the percentage of households with some ownership of stocks, including mutual funds and pension accounts like 401(k)s, did go up very dramatically over the last 20 years. In 1983, only 32 percent of households had some ownership of stock. By 2001, the share was 51 percent. So there has been much more widespread stock ownership, in terms of number of families. But a lot of these families have very small stakes in the stock market. In 2001, only 32 percent of households owned more than $10,000 of stock, and only 25 percent of households owned more than $25,000 worth of stock. So a lot of these new stock owners have had relatively small holdings of stock. There hasn’t been much dilution in the share of stock owned by the richest 1 or 10 percent. Stock ownership is still heavily concentrated among rich families. The richest 10 percent own 85 percent of all stock. As a result, the stock market boom of the 1990s disproportionately benefited rich families. There were some gains by middle class families, but their average stock holdings were too small to make much difference in their overall wealth. MM: Apart from the absolute level of wealth of people at the bottom of the spectrum, why should inequality itself be a matter of concern? Wolff: I think there are two rationales. The first is basically a moral or ethical position. A lot of people think it is morally bad for there to be wide gaps, wide disparities in well being in a society. If that is not convincing to a person, the second reason is that inequality is actually harmful to the well-being of a society. There is now a lot of evidence, based on cross-national comparisons of inequality and economic growth, that more unequal societies actually have lower rates of economic growth. The divisiveness that comes out of large disparities in income and wealth, is actually reflected in poorer economic performance of a country. Typically when countries are more equal, educational achievement and benefits are more equally distributed in the country. In a country like the United States, there are still huge disparities in resources going to education, so quality of schooling and schooling performance are unequal. If you have a society with large concentrations of poor families, average school achievement is usually a lot lower than where you have a much more homogenous middle class population, as you find in most Western European countries. So schooling suffers in this country, and, as a result, you get a labor force that is less well educated on average than in a country like the Netherlands, Germany or even France. So the high level of inequality results in less human capital being developed in this country, which ultimately affects economic performance. MM: To what extent is inequality addressed through tax policy? Wolff: One reason we have such high levels of inequality, compared to other advanced industrial countries, is because of our tax and, I would add, our social expenditure system. We have much lower taxes than almost every Western European country. And we have a less progressive tax system than almost every Western European country. As a result, the rich in this country manage to retain a much higher share of their income than they do in other countries, and this enables them to accumulate a much higher amount of wealth than the rich in other countries. Certainly our tax system has helped to stimulate the rise of inequality in this country. We have a much lower level of income support for poor families than do Western European countries or Canada. Social policy in Europe, Canada and Japan does a lot more to reduce economic disparities created by the marketplace than we do in this country. We have much higher poverty rates than do other advanced industrialized countries. MM: Do you favor a wealth tax? Wolff: I’ve proposed a separate tax on wealth, which actually exists in a dozen European countries. This has helped to lessen inequality in European countries. It is also, I think, a fairer tax. If you think about taxes that reflect a family’s ability to pay, a family’s ability to pay is a reflection of their income, but also of their wealth holdings. A broader kind of tax of this nature, would not only produce more tax revenue, which we desperately need, but it would be a fairer tax, and also help to reduce the level of inequality in this country. MM: In broad outlines, how would you structure such a tax? Wolff: I would model it after the Swiss system, which I think is a pretty fair system. It would be a progressive tax. In the United States, the first $250,000 of wealth would be exempt from the tax. That would exclude 80 percent of all families. The tax would increase at increments, starting out at .2 percent from about $250,000 to $500,000. The marginal rate would go up to .4 percent from $500,000 to $1 million, and then to .6 percent from a $1 million to $5 million, and then to .8 thereafter. It would not be a very severe tax. In fact, the loading charges on most mutual funds are typically of the order of 1 or 2 percent. It would not be an onerous tax, but it could raise about $60 billion annually. Eighty percent of families would pay nothing, and 95 percent of families would pay less than $1,000. It would really only affect very rich families. MM: Do you recommend non-tax approaches to deal with inequality as well? Wolff: I think we have to provide a much broader safety net in this country. There are lots of things that we should do to strengthen our income support system. We can expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is now a fairly substantial aid to poor families, but which can be improved. The minimum wage has fallen by about 35 percent in real terms since its peak in 1968. We should think about restoring the minimum wage to where it used to be. That would help a lot of low-income families. The unemployment insurance system is in a real mess; only about one third of unemployed persons actually get unemployment benefits, either because they don’t qualify or because they exhaust their benefits after six months. Typically the replacement rate is about 35 or 40 percent. In the Netherlands, the replacement rate is 80 percent. Our unemployment insurance system is much less generous than in other industrialized countries and can certainly be shored up. Of course, the welfare system is in a total state of disrepair, since it provides very restrictive coverage. Even before the switchover from AFDC to TANF with the 1996 welfare reform bill, real welfare payments had declined by about 50 percent between 1975 and 1996. So we had already experienced an enormous erosion in welfare benefits, even before we adopted this new system.

Vse in nič, Pismo v Oni, 4.5.2010

Vse in nič

Lep pozdrav! Sem športnica, ne bi rada povedala več, ker bi bila prepoznavna. Moja težava je v tem, ker kljub vsem uspehom osebno nisem srečna. Izhajam iz ugledne športne družine. Že kot otrok sem bila vključena v vse možne športne in druge aktivnosti, marsikaj na željo staršev, npr. šola klavirja, balet. Menim, da sem bila prikrajšana za normalno otroštvo, tako da nimam pravih prijateljev. Vsi me spodbujajo, polni visokih besed, meni pa je to začelo presedati, saj me nihče ne vpraša, kako se počutim kot ženska. In tu je problem. Nimam fanta. Vsi me imajo očitno za nedosegljivo, jaz pa se tudi ne morem komu ponujati. Moje življenje ni tisto, kar sem pričakovala, vse bolj se zapiram vase, kljub letom, ko bi bila lahko že vesela mamica. V športu res uživam, toda misel, da sem kot orodje v rokah, me sili, da bi vse opustila in zaživela normalno življenje. Zanima me vaš nasvet in ali imate svojo ordinacijo, ker bi se rada srečala z vami, če bodo moji problemi prehudi.

Marija

Alanis Morissette Perfect

www.youtube.com

Draga Marija, zelo sem vesela, da ste se odločili pisati. Imam občutek, da imate po eni strani vse v življenju: slavo, uspešnost v športu in zaželene občudovalce, po drugi stani pa nimate prisrčnosti in topline pravih prijateljev ali partnerja.

Problem je v tem, da vi kot avtentična oseba ne obstajate. Obkroženi ste s pričakovanjem staršev, občudovalcev, sponzorjev, ki jih pridno in zvesto zadovoljujete. Vendar pa so njihova pričakovanja res samo njihova, in ne vaša, zato vas to ne osrečuje. Drugi, na primer vaši starši, doživljajo prek vaših dosežkov svoje lastne neizpolnjene želje. Vi pa ne živite svojega življenja, saj niti ne veste, katere so vaše želje in potrebe, saj gresta vsa energija in čas le v to, da osrečujete druge.

Na mojo veliko radost se v vas oglaša glas nezadovoljstva. Kaj vam glas govori? Vprašajte se, kaj vi in samo vi potrebujete zase. Kaj vi želite? Prisluhnite sebi in sledite sebi. Vi ste edinstveno bitje, in ne mehanična lutka na stikala.

Pišete, da ste bili kot otrok vključeni v vse možne aktivnosti, marsikaj na željo staršev. Ugotovili ste, da ste bili prikrajšani za normalno otroštvo. Očitno je, da ste se kot otrok naučili boriti za uspeh in priznanje, vendar ne toliko na svojo željo, temveč ker so to vaši starši ali oboževalci želeli, spodbujali ali zahtevali.

Z vsakim uspehom, ko ste osrečili starše ali oboževalce, so drugi doživljali svojo zadovoljitev in užitek, medtem ko ste se vi korak za korakom bolj oddaljevali od avtentične sebe. Kot ste že sami ugotovili, ste doslej bolj orodje v rokah drugih.

Prvi korak, ki ga morate narediti, je ugotoviti, da se vaš avtentični jaz razlikuje od jaza, ki išče potrdila, dokazila ali priznanje od drugih, kot to, da je to edino, kar je veljavno in vredno v vašem življenju. Že v otroštvu ste potlačili ali zadušili svoja čustva, tako da vaša avtentična čustva niso bila izražena in zato niso mogla bila zadovoljena.

Drugi korak, ki ga morate narediti, je spoznati, da je dobiti aplavz in priznanje drugih sicer zelo zapeljivo, ampak ali je vredno cene vaše osebne sreče.

Mogoče je zdaj čas, da prevrednotite svoje življenje in ugotovite, da ni treba prodati svoje duše za priznanje drugih. Pridobljeno priznanje drugih pomeni samo površno in bežno obliko zadovoljitve v primerjavi z avtentičnim jazom, ko sam sebi daš pohvalo za uspeh, ki je dolgotrajna in osrečujoča. Pravo srečo boste občutili šele takrat, ko boste primarno odlična športnica zaradi sebe in šele potem za druge. Življenje ni le črno ali belo. Ker v športu uživate, ni treba menjati enega (športnega) življenja za drugo (osebno) življenje. Treba je samo v svojih dejanjih bolj uglasiti svoje želje z željami drugih.

Hvala, da ste me vprašali za naslov moje ordinacije, saj se zavedate, da en odgovor, čeprav je odličen začetek, ne more biti dovolj poglobljen, da preusmeri vse sile okoli vas v drugo smer, in to takoj. Kot pregovor pravi, Rim ni bil zgrajen v enem dnevu. Oglasite se pri meni na Pristaniški 3 v Kopru, z veseljem sem vam pripravljena pomagati, da skupno najdeva ključ do vaše sreče.

Dr. Marjeta Ritchie, specialistka klinične psihologije

GOSPODARSKA KRIZA JE NATEG TISOČLETJA

Čudovit intervjuji - Anton Komat

Včeraj se je v Københavnu končal vrh o podnebnih spremembah. V preteklih mesecih in tednih

smo se naposlušali teorij o segrevanju ozračja, česar naj bi bil kriv človek, ki onesnažuje okolje

in v zrak spusti preveč ogljikovega dioksida. So pa tudi taki, ki tega ne verjamejo. Med njimi je

raziskovalec in publicist Anton Komat, ki trdi, da se naše ozračje ne segreva, pač pa da smo,

nasprotno, na pragu novega ohlajanja planeta. “Leta 2012 bo že vsem jasno, da se ozračje

ohlaja in ne segreva,” je prepričan Komat, ki je izpostavil še nekaj primerov, ko danes malemu

človeku mogočneži malajo oči in iz žepa kradejo denar. Zato je tudi napisal knjigo Umetnost

preživetja, ki jo je pred kratkim izdal v samozaložbi.

Včasih ste tudi vi verjeli hipotezi, da je za segrevanje ozračja odgovoren človek. Zdaj o

njej dvomite. Zakaj?

“Hipoteza o antropogenem izvoru pregrevanja planeta ali po domače Al Gorova hipoteza je zelo

enostavna in na prvi pogled zelo verjetna. Dvomiti sem začel, ko sem na spletu naletel na

oregonsko peticijo, v kateri je več kot 30.000 raziskovalcev protestiralo proti enoumju v

znanosti, proti favoriziranju samo ene hipoteze in onemogočanju drugače mislečih.”

GOSPODARSKA KRIZA JE NATEG TISOČLETJA

Hipoteze torej, da je na potezi človeštvo, ki mora zmanjšati izpuste ogljikovega dioksida

in s tem rešiti planet?

“Tako je. Vprašal sem se, zakaj v sodobnem svetu zatirajo drugače misleče znanstvenike, jim

odtegujejo financiranje in jih premeščajo na druga delovna mesta. Očitno gre za velike pritiske.

Potem pa sem podrobno preučil Al Gorovo teorijo in ugotovil, da sploh ne upošteva podatka, da

milijarda in 300.000 krav na našem planetu izloči ogromne količine metana, ki ima na

segrevanje ozračja večji vpliv kot vsa naša vozila skupaj. Niti besede ni v tej teoriji o globalni

goveji čredi, kar je bil drugi vzrok za moj dvom.”

Očitno obstaja tudi tretji?

“Res je. Med znanstveniki, ki zagovarjajo Al Gorovo hipotezo, ni geologov in astronomov. Prav

ti pa imajo kronske dokaze, na katere se opirajo skeptiki. Meritve temperature izvajamo zadnjih

100 let, astronomi pa pojavnost sončnih peg opazujejo že, odkar je Galileo izumil teleskop.

Geologi lahko s preučevanjem sedimentov in ledene skorje za milijone let nazaj dokaj natanko

ocenijo temperature in prisotnost ogljikovega dioksida v atmosferi našega planeta. Začel sem

tudi preučevati sistemsko teorijo, teorijo kaosa, fraktalno analizo, kar mi je klimatske

spremembe razkrilo v novi luči. Poglavitni vzrok zanje je periodično utripanje aktivnosti sonca.

Zadnja dva milijona in pol let smo imeli 34 ledenih dob. Zdaj smo na koncu zadnjega

interglaciala, začasne otoplitve, torej nas čaka nov ledenodobni sunek. Kdaj se bo začel, ne

more nihče napovedati, verjetno pa prej kot v tisoč letih.”

Kakšno povezavo ima torej ogljikov dioksid s segrevanjem?

“Količina ogljikovega dioksida v atmosferi je posledica in ne vzrok segrevanja.”

Ampak vi pravite, da se naše ozračje od leta 2005 ohlaja?

“Leta 2005 se je končalo obdobje suš. Pričenja se obdobje neurij, torej ohlajanja. Lani smo padli

v povprečju za stopinjo.”

Zakaj pa potem vsak dan poslušamo, da se ozračje segreva?

“Zato, ker ponarejajo podatke. Climategate je izbruhnil ravno zaradi tega. Nekateri znanstveniki

so iskali navodila, kaj narediti s podatki, da temperatura pada. Navodilo je bilo, naj izberejo

samo tiste podatke, ki potrjujejo segrevanje ozračja. Rusi so včeraj objavili podatek, da so na

njihovem ozemlju uporabili le tiste meritve, ki podpirajo tezo o pregrevanju, torej le četrtino vseh

meritev.”

Verjamete v teorijo zarote?

“Poglejte, od starega Rima naprej poznamo centre moči, ki odločajo. To ni nobena zarota, tako

deluje naš svet. Vsi predsedniki so samo lutke, za njimi so vedno centri moči, ki odločajo.”

Je cilj domnevnega prirejanja podatkov ustaviti gospodarski razvoj Kitajske?

GOSPODARSKA KRIZA JE NATEG TISOČLETJA

“Nafte imamo še za 40 do 50 let. Zato je vse dražja, glavna nahajališča pa so pod vojaškim

nadzorom. Zahod za tranzicijo na novo energetsko osnovo potrebuje 20 do 30 let. To je bistvo

Kjota in Københavna. Zaradi pritiska na energente je treba zaustaviti rast novih velikanov:

Kitajske, Indije, Brazilije, Južne Afrike … Če bi njihovo gospodarstvo raslo od 8 do 10 odstotkov

na leto, bi čez 25 let potrebovali nov planet. Tega pa nimamo. Zato je vojaški konflikt za vire

neizbežen. V tem pogledu je københavnski vrh čisto v redu. Tudi pozivi, da moramo varčevati

energijo, paziti pri izpustih, zmanjšati onesnaževanje, nehati uničevati gozdove. To je vse prav.

Vzroka globalnih problemov pa ne rešuje. Največji problem postaja znanost, ki pridobiva značaj

ideologije. Če dejstva ne gredo v koncept zamisli, jih ponaredijo. Grozljivo je, kako znanost

uporablja metode inkvizicije, le da danes ne gorijo grmade, ker so metode bolj sofisticirane.”

Kaj je torej vzrok težav?

“Filozofija ekonomije neomejene rasti bruto domačega proizvoda. Edini primer, ki je v naravi

primerljiv s to noro ekonomijo, je rak. Zanj pa vemo, kako se konča. Ubije gostitelja in sebe.

Svet bo rešila samo nična rast, stacionarna ekonomija. Porabiti bomo morali samo toliko, kolikor

narava lahko obnovi in mi recikliramo. Ne pa, da proizvajamo neskončne gore odpadkov in

žremo nepovratne vire. Bolje bi bilo proizvajati kvalitetno blago, ki ga lahko vzdržujemo in

servisiramo. Koliko stvari, ki jih kupimo, zavržemo prej kot v enem letu!”

Pa se naši voditelji tega zavedajo?

“Seveda ne. Poglejte samo, kako rešujejo finančno krizo. Na način, kot je nastala: s

povečevanjem potrošnje. Na ljudi v času gospodarske krize in brezposelnosti vendar ne gre

pritiskati, naj več trošijo! Gospodarsko krizo in človeštvo lahko reši le stacionarna ekonomija.

Model zanjo obstaja, naredili so ga nemški ekonomisti v času naftne krize v 70. letih prejšnjega

stoletja.”

Mislite na skupino okrog Willyja Brandta?

“Da. Brandtova skupina je obudila zamisel Johna Stuarta Milla iz leta 1848, ki je napovedal, da

bo ekonomija prešla v stacionarno rast, ko bo zahod dosegel visoko stopnjo znanj in

gospodarskega razvoja. To pa se ni zgodilo.”

Zakaj ne?

“Ko so odkrili severnomorsko nafto in tehnologijo ploščadi, so na to rešitev za človeštvo

pozabili. Obenem pa je Henry Kissinger postavil novo doktrino sveta, ki pravi takole: Kdor ima

nafto, ima nadzor nad državami. Kdor ima nadzor nad hrano, ima nadzor nad ljudmi. Kdor ima

nadzor nad financami, ima nadzor nad svetom. Ta nadzor je danes z globalizacijo dosežen.

Kissinger je kapital sedmih največjih naftnih korporacij usmeril v industrializacijo kmetijstva,

naftno in prehransko industrijo pa povezal še s farmacijo. Ključna v tej zgodbi so tudi semena.

Danes imamo pet korporacij, ki združujejo proizvodnjo hrane, semen, farmacijo in gensko

tehnologijo: Monsanto, Novartis, Aventis, DuPont in AstaZeneca. To je konglomerat, ki vodi

svet.”

GOSPODARSKA KRIZA JE NATEG TISOČLETJA

Je sploh še mogoče obuditi Brandtov model?

“Če bomo svet reševali na način zločina, kot to počnemo danes, bomo doživeli katastrofo. Svet

potrebuje tragedijo v smislu antične tragedije, da se oba pola združita in v sintezi nastane nekaj

novega. Tragično bo to soočenje za tiste, ki imajo danes moč in meč. Če pa ne bomo prišli do

spoznanja, da smo vsi na isti Noetovi barki, bomo namesto tragedije za nekatere doživeli

katastrofo vsi ljudje.”

Kaj lahko v tej situaciji stori posameznik?

“Vse. Zdaj imamo vsi bolj tanke denarnice in smo pozorni, kaj kupujemo. Tisto, kar bomo

kupovali, bodo trgovci dajali na police, pa naj si bo to krama ali kvalitetno blago, ki ga lahko

servisiramo in vzdržujemo. Nihče na tem svetu ne bo ničesar storil namesto nas. Oblast sodi na

intenzivno psihoterapijo, popolnoma je zgubila stik z ljudmi z realnostjo. A samozadostna oblast

je kot milni mehurček. Ko bodo ljudje prevzeli stvari v svoje roke in začeli ozaveščeno krmariti

svoja življenja, bo vse drugače. Vsak dan smo na volitvah. Kar smo zavozili globalno, bomo

morali reševati lokalno. V ZDA trenutno 50 milijonov ljudi hrano dobiva na državne karte. Nikoli

v zgodovini se kaj takega še ni zgodilo. Zato zdaj Američani okopavajo vrtičke in sejejo solato.”

Se nam tudi v Sloveniji lahko zgodi kaj takega?

“Glede hrane prav mogoče. Dve tretjini je uvažamo, v 70. letih prejšnjega stoletja pa smo jo tri

četrtine pridelali sami. Energija ne bo tak problem, saj imamo še popolnoma neizkoriščeno

geotermalno energijo. Podobno je tudi s solarno. Pa veliko gozdov imamo. Obdelovalno zemljo,

ki jo imamo skoraj najmanj v Evropi, pa namenjamo pridelavi hrane za živali. To je absurd

slovenskega kmetijskega kaosa. Dokaz, da živimo v nori državi, je tudi to, da politika favorizira

potrošnjo energentov, ker od tega pobira davek. Tudi pritisk kapitala na naravne vire je

strahoten. Vojna za vodo v Sloveniji že poteka.”

Res? Kje?

“Vsakič, ko kupimo vodo v plastenki, smo kupili privatno vodo in se odrekli vodi iz pipe, ki je

javna dobrina in zastonj. Plačujemo samo njeno distribucijo in vzdrževanje javnih vodovodov.

Če zanemarimo dejstvo, da hormonski motilci v plastiki ubijajo spolnost in povzročajo raka, bi

se morali zavedati, da je voda v plastenkah vsaj 2000-krat dražja od tiste iz vodovoda. Bolj ko

bomo kupovali to vodo, večji bo pritisk kapitala na črpališča. In nekega lepega dne se bomo

zbudili in ugotovili, da polovico vodnih virov zasedajo privatne polnilnice.”

Kdaj pa nam bodo začeli zaračunavati zrak?

“Saj davek na izpuste ogljikovega dioksida ni nič drugega kot obdavčitev zraka! Zaradi te fame

okrog ogljikovega dioksida bo energija zdaj dražja za okrog 30 odstotkov. Princip kjotskega

protokola, ki se nadaljuje s Københavnom, je prav obdavčitev tistih, ki izpuščajo ogljikov

dioksid. Termoelektrarna Šoštanj plačuje milijardne kazni za izpuste. Mar mislite, da tega ne bo

vštela v ceno električne energije?”

GOSPODARSKA KRIZA JE NATEG TISOČLETJA

Kaj bi morali še vedeti o današnjem svetu, pa si morda ne upamo vprašati?

“Da je gospodarska kriza nateg tisočletja. Poncijeva piramida se je zrušila in treba jo je postaviti

nazaj. To pa ni mogoče ob gospodarski rasti, ki je nižja kot 3 do 4 odstotke. Zakaj politike in

ekonomiste zadene kap, ko začnem govoriti o stacionarni ekonomiji? Ker ekonomija kraje pade!

Če bi jaz šel v kazino in zaigral milijon evrov, potem pa bi se oglasil pri predsedniku vlade in ga

prosil, naj mi nakaže milijon, ker ne morem živeti, bi me verjetno poslal v norišnico.”

Hočete reči, da bi komu drugemu ta denar dal?

“Seveda, bankam! Ampak ne milijona, pač pa več trilijonov. 50 trilijonov dolarjev, to je 50.000

milijard dolarjev našega denarja je izginilo. To je nateg, ki ga bodo plačevale še generacije za

nami. Da bo gospodarska rast zagotovila delovna mesta, je čista laž. Samo denar se bo še

naprej pretakal od ljudi navzgor. Mehanizem pobiranja denarja pa je jasen: davki, inflacija … V

ZDA že tiskajo denar. Kitajska noče kupiti njihovih državnih obveznic, in so nasedli.”

Je bil zato Barack Obama pred kratkim na Kitajskem?

“Seveda, vbogajme jih je šel prosit!”

Kam je torej treba vreči bombo?

“Nobenih bomb ni potrebno metati. To lahko naredimo drugače. Ves ta sistem lahko uničimo v

trenutku, če se nehamo zadolževati in vsi naenkrat dvignemo svoj denar z bančnih računov.

Vsa voda bo stekla iz bazena in pošast, ki plava v njej, bo nasedla. Mar ni to dober recept? Ali

veste, da je v vsakem predmetu, ki ga kupimo, vsaj 50-odstotni delež obresti?”

Ste optimist ali pesimist?

“Težko bi se opredelil. Rešitev vidim v konceptu svobodne družbe, ki ga je utemeljil filozof Karl

Popper. Nihče ga ni maral, ne kapitalisti ne komunisti, ker je njegov koncept smrtno nevaren za

današnji neoliberalen svet. Pravi, da je vsak človek toliko pameten, da lahko prebere katerikoli

znanstveni vir in ima o tem svoje mnenje. Ne potrebuje ekspertov in komisij, ki odločajo o

njegovem življenju. O stvareh lahko odločajo samo tisti, ki so neposredno prizadeti, torej ljudje.”

Videti je, da ljudje vse bolj prevzemajo stvari v svoje roke …

“Ljudje so si začeli sami urejati življenje, kar je sijajno. Dokaz za to je tudi odklonilen odnos do

cepljenja proti novi gripi, kljub vsem pritiskom in medijski kampanji. Internet, t. i. blogosfera, je

danes bolj kredibilen vir informacij kot svetovne agencije. Erazem Rotterdamski je napisal

Hvalnico norosti, ki je v srednjem veku postavila temelje za renesanso duha. To potrebujemo

tudi danes. Postali smo brezbrižni, otopeli, obenem pa histerični in malce shizofreni. V našem

globalnem eksperimentu smo dosegli dno. Potrebujemo novo upanje, nov vzgon za novo

civilizacijo, novo renesanso duha. Če pa je edina vrednota denar, potem adijo kultura. Človek

danes beži pred soočenjem z družino, partnerjem, prijatelji, s samim seboj. Gre v supermarket,

dela kariero in vozi avto. Prižge televizijo in se odklopi. Moramo se soočiti sami s sabo,

GOSPODARSKA KRIZA JE NATEG TISOČLETJA

predvsem pa se moramo ustaviti. Stara modrost pravi, ustavi se in prišel boš.”

Bi nam priporočili še kakšno knjigo?

“Propad civilizacij Jareda Diamonda je sijajno branje. Nekatere močne in cvetoče kulture so v

zgodovini propadle zaradi povsem banalnih vzrokov. Vsak nerešen problem predstavlja domino,

in ko je domin preveč, zadostuje že majhen sunek, da vse podre. Primerjava z današnjim

časom je zato več kot koristna.”

http://www.erazem.com/epriporoca/gospodarska-kriza-je-nateg-tisoletja.pdf