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Social Entrepreneurs:Transformers of Business and Society
By Dan Butts and Mike Whitty

Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.
Bill Drayton, CEO, chair and founder of Ashoka, a global nonprofit organization devoted to developing the profession of social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurs combine street pragmatism with professional skill, visionary insights with pragmatism, and ethical fiber with tactical thrust. They see opportunities where other only see empty buildings, unemployable people and unvalued resources. Radical thinking is what makes social entrepreneurs different from simply “good people.” They make markets work for people, not the other way around, and gain strength from a wide network of alliances…
John Catford, Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing Our World, xv

Size, ownership, and accountability are the main issues. Smaller enterprises, with local roots and equitable ownership of productive assets, combined with democratic regulation are essential for socially just, efficient, and sustainable enterprises.
Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible, 296

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Neoliberal markets and the dominant global business model have failed huge numbers of people worldwide, particularly the 900 million desperately poor who can’t afford to pay market rates for life-sustaining goods and services. The truly indigent lack decent housing. Adequate food and clean water are a luxury. Affordable health care services are all-too-often nowhere to be found, especially in remote rural areas in many parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
The deregulated, profit-driven corporate economy and federal governments have also failed to address the breakdown of bridges, levees, and essential public infrastructures while bearing considerable responsibility for rapidly deteriorating ecosystems, accelerating climate-related disasters, and growing social and economic inequalities in highly developed nations, such as the United States, the richest and most powerful nation in human history.
The good news is that social entrepreneurs are giving desperately needy people throughout the world hopeful alternatives to these interlocking crises by boldly developing new and sustainable business models for the 21st century. Social entrepreneurs are creating lasting social and environmental value with their central goal of long-term investment in innovative solutions to pressing social problems for the many rather than the corporate “quick fix” of short-term financial wealth for the few.
With their limited resources social entrepreneurs are skilled at attracting partners and collaborating with others. They are also highly attuned to the needs and values of those being served and the communities in which they operate. Leading social entrepreneurs are changemakers, role models, and mass recruiters who empower local activists to channel their dreams, talents, and passions into concrete and transformative actions.
Social entrepreneurs see the possibilities rather than the problems created by rapid change. They are both visionaries and tough-minded realists committed to practical solutions to serious social problems. They are notable for their unflagging passion and persistence despite great obstacles. They are flexible and unafraid of failure.
Social entrepreneurs are the driving force of civil society which counterbalances the excesses of business and the failures of government to serve the disenfranchised and protect our threatened planet.
As Ashoka founder and CEO Bill Drayton writes: the fundamental challenge for successful social entrepreneurs is to convince potential funders that their basic vision is both important and viable. A critical part of the Ashoka strategy is to encourage for-profit finance firms to enter the social financial services business. The single most important source of these new investment opportunities flows from the business/social “hybrid value-added chain” (HVAC) work.
A good many social entrepreneurs working toward this goal have found powerful leverage in reconnecting business with the newly entrepreneurial/ competitive citizen sector through new value added chains involved in design, production, distribution, servicing, and parallel supports including finance. This competitive dynamic is key to the jujitsu that allows Ashoka, a small force, to set in motion so large and irreversible an historical change.
One area where the HVAC principle is working is with small farmers who don’t have access to drip irrigation equipment (to promote water conservation). The piping and irrigation firms’ costs are too high for the poor rural economy, and the companies don’t understand or trust the small farmers or their environment.
Over the past decade in Mexico, a partnership between Amanco (the leading piping company in Latin America), Ashoka, and local citizen groups who have mastered the relevant skills to help poor rural farmers earn much more, more securely (Drayton, 21-23).
In their important book – The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan see leading social enterprises being built from three innovative business models – the “leveraged nonprofit” (model 1), the “hybrid nonprofit” (model 2), and the “social business” (model 3).
All pursue social or environmental ends that the markets have largely or totally failed to address, and they use different means to do so. They sometimes adopt unique leadership, management, and fund-raising styles, each with its own meaning and lessons for people working in mainstream organizations in the public, private, or civil society sectors.

Leveraged nonprofit enterprises (model 1) deliver public goods to the most economically vulnerable who do not have access to, or are unable to afford, the service provided – such as health, education, safe drinking water, housing, and the like.
An example is Barefoot College, an Indian organization that has had a huge impact on defining and driving what founder Bunker Roy calls the “barefoot” approach to development. Barefoot College was created in 1972 by a group of students from top Indian universities under Roy’s leadership. Based in Tilonia, Rajasthan, it was built around the Ghandian concept of the village as a self-reliant unit.
By applying traditional but informal educational processes to manage, control, and own technologies designed to meet basic needs, the college helps illiterate or semiliterate poor people in rural areas learn to use these technologies without relying on outside paper-qualified experts. All staff at the college take a living wage, not a market wage – and the maximum living wage is $100 a month.
Barefoot College provides abundant evidence of the capacity of ordinary people to identify, analyze, and solve their own problems. It has trained barefoot doctors, teachers, engineers, architects, designers, metal workers, IT specialists, and communicators. Barefoot engineers have solar-electrified the college: indeed, it is still the only fully solar-electrified college in India. Barefoot solar engineers, many of them illiterate women, have solar-electrified thousands of houses in eight Indian states (Elkington & Hartigan, 31-35).

Hybrid nonprofit ventures (model 2) are the most experimental such as a homeless shelter starting businesses to train and employ their residents. Hybrids have the potential to reach new levels of social or environmental value creation. They are able to recover a portion of their costs through the sale of goods and services, in the process often discovering new markets.
Rubicon Programs, founded in 1973, was the first multi-service agency in the United States to link a real job with decent housing and a support system to sustain homeless or otherwise disadvantaged people who are trying to make positive changes in their lives.
Under Rick Aubry’s leadership, Rubicon has incorporated mainstream business principles into its practice and built two highly successful social enterprises: Rubicon Landscape Services, which generates annual revenues of more than $4 million, and Rubicon Bakery, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading bakeries, with annual sales of $2 million. Employees are primarily people with little or no work history who are trying to overcome the challenges of poverty, homelessness, and/or mental health disabilities (ibid., 37-39).

Social business ventures (model 3), particularly in the United States, is the model of choice for most environmental entrepreneurs largely due to the more obvious market opportunities for ecofriendly products and services (see Co-op America’s National Green Pages; www.coopamerica.org).
The entrepreneur sets up the venture as a business with the specific mission to drive transformational social and/or environmental change. Profits are generated, but the principal aim is not to maximize financial returns for shareholders but instead to financially benefit low-income groups and to grow the social venture by reinvestment, enabling it to reach and serve more people.
Currently, the most prominent social businesses tend to be found in the area of microfinance, including Grameen Bank and BRAC in Bangladesh (see profiles below), SKS Microfinance and Basix in India, and Accion and Finca in the United States (Drayton, 42-44).

Profiles of Changemakers

Wilford Welch, in his inspiring book – The Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing Our World – identifies successful visionaries who are initiating large-scale improvements in the critical areas described below as well as in “Human Rights and Social Justice” and “The Environment and the Restoration of a Sustainable Planet.”
Health. The Children’s Health Association, which began In Brazil in 1991, has so far reached 20,000 people, breaking a vicious cycle of poor health, poverty, and social exclusion. Founder Dr. Vera Cordeiro, who in 2005 was recognized as “The Most Influential Woman of Brazil in the Health Area,” believes that the greatest systemic treatment is not a particular medicine for a particular illness, but rather a holistic approach to patients’ overall health concerns, employment status and family needs.
Vera has recruited an enormous network of volunteers, physicians, psychologists, teachers and community leaders to offer their expertise in one aspect of the 5-point program of health, housing, income, education and citizenship (Welch, 34).
Education. John Wood, former Microsoft executive, founded Room to Read in 1998 to publish local books, fill libraries, and construct new schools in the Himalayan Mountains. Rooms to Read’s accomplishments include building over 400 schools, self-publishing 250 local language children’s titles, representing over 2 million books, and funding for over 4,000 long-term girls’ scholarships.
Woods is committed to implementing an innovative and expansive growth model that will provide 10 million children in Asia and Africa the enduring opportunity of reading and learning by the year 2020 (ibid., 64-70).
Fair Trade. Priya Haji is the cofounder and CEO of World of Good, a for-profit company that distributes in over 1000 retail stores throughout the United States handcrafted products made by artisans in developing countries. Of World of Good profits, 10 % goes to its nonprofit foundation, which seeks to improve the standard of living of the artisans.
World of Good, which supports 5,680 artisans, with nearly 23,000 dependents and 142 artist groups in 34 countries, has sold over 1 million handicrafts since 2004 (ibid., 107-110).
Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation. Tim Williamson, a former Wall Street stockbroker, in 2002 created The Idea Village, the prominent nonprofit engine for entrepreneurship in the city of New Orleans, developing a database of over 600 local entrepreneurial businesses that collectively employed more than 3,000 people and generated $150 million in revenue.
Now, in the aftermath of Katrina, the Idea Village is helping to rebuild New Orleans, introducing an innovative approach to disaster relief that actively identifies and empowers entrepreneurs as the most fundamental pioneers of reconstruction.
The revitalization plan features the IV Business Relief Fund, the IDEAcorps, which brings together MBA students from Tulane University, community volunteers and professional consultants to assist local entrepreneurs, and the “IV 100” Entrepreneurs, a group of 100 companies, each with less than 50 jobs and $5 million in revenue, that the Idea Village identifies as the most promising entities for growth and expansion. Roughly 95% of the companies it has worked with since Katrina are still in business (ibid.,156-166).

Microcredit and the Grameen Bank

The Grameen Bank, which, along with its founder Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, has been the model that has been copied by hundreds of other organizations around the world. The goal of microcredit institutions is to provide small loans, anywhere from $25 to $400 per loan, to poor individuals who do not qualify for loans from conventional banks requiring collateral.
Microcredit lending to the poor has achieved repayment rates that are nearly perfect all over the world, due to the strong core principles of incentive-based community trust. Women are often the recipients because they repay loans at nearly 100 % and have proven to be more committed to helping their children and general community.
In many rural communities, a borrower will buy a goat or a cow with the start-up loan and then sell the dairy from the animal at market prices, slowly making a profit over time to repay the loan, receive new funds and expand the business.
By 2005, the Grameen Bank had reached 60,000 villages in Bangladesh through microcredit loans while providing financial services to more than 6 millions poor farmers. In total, Grameen Bank had supplied over $5 billion in loans.
Most impressively, within 5 years of their first microloan, over half of the individuals receiving microloans from the Grameen Bank had crossed the poverty line. Today there are over 158 institutions in more than 40 countries utilizing the Grameen Bank microfinance model, which has become a major tool in the struggle to alleviate global poverty.
The World Bank estimates that there are over 7,000 microfinance institutions reducing poverty through microcredit financing worldwide (Welch, 87-88).

BRAC in Bangladesh

Fazle Abed founded BRAC – the former Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee – to fight poverty, illiteracy, and child mortality and to support women’s health and development on a massive scale. His organization mobilizes the latent capacity of the poor to improve their own lives through self-organization.
The full-time staff of BRAC is over 45,000 and has helped 3.8 million poor women establish 100,000 village organizations. BRAC now has over 5 million members in more than 180,000 village organizations across Bangladesh.
BRAC’s health programs are reported to reach some 10 million people. The organization has pioneered oral rehydration therapy (for diarrheal disease), which played a major role in halving the country’s infant mortality rate. Another example of BRAC’s success was when it found that poor women were not profiting from rearing dairy cows, it improved the breed of cow and set up a modern dairy.
BRAC has helped change the global development paradigm from that of helping “needy beneficiaries” to encouraging villagers’, particularly women’s, self-development. This proves that profitable enterprises can be initiated that expand the opportunities for the poor (Elkington & Hartigan, 93-94, 105).

Ashoka – “Everyone a Changemaker”

Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs – men and women with system-changing solutions that address the world’s most urgent social challenges.
Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka, the world’s first and largest social entrepreneurship recruitment and sponsoring organization, has launched and provided key long-term support for more than 1750 leading social entrepreneurs in over 60 countries. It provides these “Ashoka Fellows” start-up stipends, professional services and a powerful global network of top social and business entrepreneurs. It also helps them spread their innovations globally.
Ashoka’s modest investments consistently yield extraordinary returns in every area of human need – from human rights to the environment, from economic development to youth empowerment. Five years after start-up launch, over 90 % of Ashoka Fellows have seen independent institutions replicate their innovations and over 50 % have already changed national policy
(Drayton, 2).
Each of Ashoka 400 leading social entrepreneurs has a powerful, proven, society-wide approach to getting society to do a far better job of helping all children and young people to learn and grow up successfully. Ashoka’s Youth Venture identifies and nurtures school or community youth leaders who recruit and develop Venturer teams and connect with allies and local Partners. Venturers’ initiatives include founding a newspaper, a program to help new immigrant youth, a peer-to-peer counseling service, or building a municipal skateboard park (ibid., 12-17).
Ashoka is also pursuing a new Social Investing Venture (SIV) program. The SIV program seeks out leading entrepreneurs anywhere in the world who are championing major structural change in social finance. It helps them get started and succeed and will work to enable them to share and collaborate with one another, with leading operating social entrepreneurs, and with thought leaders in the social investment field (ibid., 29).
Ashoka’s best estimate is that the citizen sector is halving the gap between its productivity level and that of business every 10 to 12 years… and it is generating jobs two and a half to three times as fast as business.
In 2008 with the global corporate-driven economy failing to meet the challenge of poverty and other worsening social and environmental crises, Ashoka and other social entrepreneurial organizations are successfully responding to the world’s most critical opportunity – multiplying society’s capacity to adapt and change intelligently and constructively and building the necessary underlying collaborative architecture (ibid., 7-9).

Philanthropreneurs

Philanthropreneurs are individuals with great wealth who seek to use their resources in highly entrepreneurial ways. In 1998 Jeff Skoll, the former president of Ebay, established the Skoll Foundation, the largest foundation for social entrepreneurship in the world, and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Oxford University Business School.
Skoll also established Participant Productions, which funds feature films and documentaries that promote social values while being commercially viable.
These films include Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth about global warming; Syriana about petroleum politics; The Kite Runner about life in war-torn Afghanistan; Angels in the Dust, a hopeful film about an AIDS orphanage in South Africa; and Jimmy Carter Man From Plains. Each film is connected to a social action campaign encouraging increased awareness and concrete actions by individuals to address the issues (Welch, 195-196).

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As we’ve been seeing in the past year with the collapse of the fossil fuel-based energy system and the industrial food system, our most powerful societal sectors – business and government – are unable to effectively resolve these and other worsening crises. As history amply demonstrates, every crisis presents new opportunities. With the new millennium a new “superpower” – civil society led by visionary and innovative social entrepreneurs – has begun restoring and transforming society in a more just and sustainable direction.
Only by building strong, self-sustaining civil society with thriving local communities will people in every country be able to withstand the forces of technological displacement and market globalization that are threatening the livelihoods and survival of much of the human family (Rifkin, 250).
Civil society is a powerful global force and the most important social innovation of the 20th century. It ranks in importance with the invention of the nation state beginning in the 17th century and the creation of the modern market starting in the 18th century (Perlas, 27).
The millennia when only a tiny elite could cause change has come to an end. A generation hence, probably 20 to 30 % of the world’s people, and later 50 to 70 %, will be changemakers and entrepreneurs. That world will be fundamentally different and a far safer, happier, more equal, and more successful place (Drayton, 27).

Dear friends – near and dear Ones. Humanity is a Singular Entity.May everybody enjoy this world. May no one suffer
and may every body see the bright side of Life.This is the promise in all the religions of the world and let us join
our forces for Peaceful March all over the world.Make sure no single child is left behind. Our economic system is outlived.We are seeing the Demise? what

Dearest Baba has declared(Baba means nearest and dearest).
“Why do you think I created PROUT? Do you think I can eat? Do you think I can sleep when God in human form is treated like this? When there is so much suffering? It is my duty as a Guru (Guru means dispeller of Darkness) to help these people”

–P.R.SARKAR, PROUT Propounder

Very soon and appropriate moment we will have Peaceful March to educate the masses all over the world through our 180 countries establishment. We will make all the governments realize and all the parties of the government realize. Prout.org is the only solution through peaceful revolution. It is happening. It is happening. It is happening. It will happen. This Universe of our is Tiny Island.

P.R.Sarkar gave 5000 songs for the Golden Age Promised. This is one Song in English. Due respect to English language (fit for universal language)

I love this tiny green Island…surrounded by the Sea?
Touched by the Sea, decorated by the Sea?…4

I love this tiny green Island surrounded by the Sea…
Am I a secluded figure? In the vast a little a meagre?
No no no no I am not alone..4
Great is with me….
The Great is with me…
I love this tiny green Island, surrounded by the Sea.

This universe covers 70 % water and 30% land. Every body has same composition. Search within and within and Within. Solution are no more with the governments or economists or politicians.We are the Solutions. We are the Solutions and We are the Solutions.

Circulate,circulate and circulate to entire Human beings on this planet.Lord will shower the Blessings. Nations without philosophy and idealogy is no Nation.This is wake up call for all civilized People of the World. May Lord Grace shower upon each and every Human Being.We have to do Justice to every one in Animals Kingdom, Plant Kingdom and all the sub kingdom in this glorified Universe of ours.

LET US CELEBRATE THIS DIWALI WITH AN AWAKENING TO A BETTER ECONOMIC SYSTEM THAT GUARUNTEES THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS TO EVERY HUMAN BEING. LET ALL THE CURRENT ECONOMIC DARKNESS OF CAPITALISM BE EXHAUSTED AND LET THE NEW SYSTEM OF SADVIPRA SAMAJ BEGIN. There is only ONE MANTRA FOR ENTIRE HUMANITY…Baba Naam Kewalaam (LOVE IS ESSENCE OF EVERYTHING…HUMANITY COMES FROM LOVE..SUSTAINS IN LOVE..MERGES IN LOVE…I am devotee of the Lord of all Lords.

Edited by Paras

Economic Depressions

By Shri P.R.Sarkar

17 January 1988, Calcutta

In the economic sphere, you must know that two factors are very important. The first is that money will have to be kept in circulation. It must be understood that the more the purchasing capacity of money is not utilized or money is kept stagnant, the more the economic stratum is damaged. The second is that money, and indirectly its interest, can bring about disparities in wealth if it loses its ability to be the unit of economic equilibrium and stability. If these two fundamental factors of economics are even partially forgotten, a worldwide economic depression will result.

Even if countries or socio-economic regions which have been maintaining a stable economic standard engage in trade related to bullion with other countries, they will have to suffer such a depression partially if not totally. If countries which are prosperous in various spheres and economically unrelated to other countries undergoing a depression, invest their wealth in enterprises of a non-yielding nature such as excessive defence spending, superfluous construction of large buildings, luxury goods, etc. – investments which do not earn any income in return – these countries will also suffer from economic depression.

However, if a country discontinues trade related to direct or indirect economic transactions and commences barter trade instead with other countries, it will not suffer much from such an economic depression. In this case only a very slight economic depression, which is hardly felt, takes place at the end of every financial year due to imbalances in economic transactions. This type of depression is felt slightly every three years, a bit more every thirty years, and still more every 350 years…

When something, for some reason or other, descends from its universally accepted position, or its natural value is reduced or brought down, we call it “devaluation”. When the leaders of the state find it difficult to balance the value of the currency with bullion, sometimes they officially reduce the value of the currency. This is called “monetary devaluation”. But, an economic depression is felt throughout a country or the world due to some inherent defects in the existing economic systems.

17 January 1988, Calcutta

Each and every movement in this universe is systaltic. Nothing ever moves in a straight line. Due to this systaltic motion, internal clash and cohesion take place. The ups and downs of socio-economic life in different phases of the social order are sure to take place due to this systaltic principle. When the period of pause is long, society goes through a phase of extended staticity, and it may lose all its dynamic movement or even cease to exist. If there is lack of dynamic force in the phase of pause, then the stage of dynamicity may not come in the subsequent phase.

The downfall of both capitalism and communism is inevitable due to their inherent staticity. Both capitalism and communism are on the verge of extinction from this world. The external and internal spheres of capitalism have ordinary acceleration, but there is a contradiction between its internal and external spheres. The contradictions in capitalism are due to the self-centred profit motivated psychology and the accumulation of wealth for the benefit of a few rather than for the welfare of all. Hence, capitalism is not congenial to the integrated growth of human progress. A day is therefore sure to come when capitalism will burst like a fire-cracker.

Marxism, too, is a transitory phenomenon. In the external sphere of Marxism there is only ordinary acceleration, and in the internal sphere there is staticity. The result is negative dynamicity. That is why Marxism will never be a success either. Marxism is just like a comet on a parabolic path – it is not of hyperbolic order. Marxism can only bring society to an omni-static state; that is, the state of nihilism or cynicism – a sort of negation.

Economic Depressions – The Result of Staticity

In the economic sphere depressions are inevitable in both capitalist and communist countries due to this very inherent, intensive and innate staticity. Economic depressions are actually the net result of suppression, repression and oppression – that is, exploitation. When exploitation reaches the culminating point, the mobility and the speed of the society become virtually nil. In such a stage, that is, in this culminating point, a natural explosion takes place. In the case of the material world the explosion is of a material nature, and in the psychic sphere the explosion is of a psychic order, and so on. Depressions may happen in any of the four eras – the Shúdra, Kśatriya, Vipra or Vaeshya Eras.

Depressions may also take place in the cultural life of society due to suppression, repression and oppression. As a result, every aspect of cultural life becomes perverted and degenerates. This is why we get perverted literature, music, dance, art, architecture, etc.

In both social and economic life this depression becomes unbearable for one and all. Such a depression took place between 1929 and 1931. During this depression in Bengal, five kilos of brinjal were sold for one paisa, and forty kilos were sold for eight paise in the Burdwan market, but there was no one to purchase these items. There were also big curtailments in salaries, and people had to accept salary cuts of ten percent or more.

Today also the stage has almost come for such a severe reaction. The explosion will come in two, three or five years. It will surely come within ten years. The difference between the previous depression and the future depression will be that in the previous one there was little inflation, but the future depression will be associated with inflation. Hence, it will be more detrimental to the integrated development of human society.

This depression will occur in the industrial subsection of the commercial economy. It will have widespread and devastating consequences for humanity.

An endeavour should be made to shorten the span of this economic depression. Before the final culminating point comes, it is possible to avert the disaster and accelerate the speed of social movement. We can do so by creating a socio-economic and cultural impact on the entire social structure through PROUT. As the world is passing through a most critical phase, we should be more active and create an impact. If the positive impact we create coincides with the explosion, the effect will be excellent.

It must be borne in mind that both inflation and depression result from the ailment of staticity. If the production in a country is abundant and the gold bullion reserves are in proportion to the country-s economic position, there is no possibility of inflation. However, if the circulation of the capital decreases as a result of staticity and the quantum of production also goes down, then inflation is bound to take place.

If a country has a constant deficit in foreign trade, in that case also there is the possibility of inflation. In addition, if foreign trade is not conducted according to the barter system and the country has to import foodstuffs and export raw materials, inflation will certainly occur.

On the other hand, if there is sufficient production and adequate supply, but suddenly the quantum of demand falls, then the value of money suddenly increases for the buyer. This is called “negative inflation” or “deflation”.

The Causes of Depressions

There are two main causes for economic depressions – first, the concentration of wealth, and secondly, blockages in the rolling of money. If capital is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals or the state, most people will be exploited by a handful of exploiters. As a result of this process of severe exploitation, a serious explosion takes place. This explosion is known as a depression in the economic world. The concentration of wealth, and particularly the concentration of the value of wealth, is the fundamental cause of a depression.

Secondly, a depression may occur when money that is in the possession of individual or state capitalists stops rolling. Money remains inert or unutilized because those capitalists think that if the money is allowed to roll freely then their profits will decrease, even though it will bring relief to the common people. The very psychology of capitalists is to make profit from the rolling of money. When they discover that the investment of money does not bring profit up to their expectations, then they stop rolling money. This keeps money immobile or inert; consequently, there is no investment, no production, no income and hence no purchasing power. The situation becomes so dangerous that there are few buyers to buy commodities.

If there is surplus labour and deficit production, the effect of depression is more acute. Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, especially the Telengana region, and Orissa are surplus labour areas, so during a depression these areas could face indiscriminate closure of business houses and lay-offs. When wages fall, the people in surplus labour areas who used to go to deficit labour areas for employment will be subjected to more hardships. This will aggravate the unemployment problem in surplus labour areas. In such situations, restricting the transfer of food among different socio-economic units could lead to an acute scarcity of food in the deficit production areas, and therefore a cordon system should not be introduced. Countries and regions with surplus production and deficit labour usually suffer less hardships during depression.

The Effect of Economic Depressions

An economic depression in capitalist countries will not spare communist or so-called socialist countries, India and the Middle East. India exports many raw materials to industrially developed countries and their satellites. India also purchases raw materials such as raw cotton from other countries, although it used to export such materials in the past. Therefore, to the extent to which India is dependent on other countries for its exports or imports, it will be affected. India also has immense loans, and these loans will put a strain on the Indian economy during the depression. The fire sparks of depression will not spare India. If the financial or monetary trade – or say the trade that affects bullion – is lessened, and barter trade is increased, then the effect of a depression on India will not be much. Therefore, India should try to increase its range of barter trade.

Bangladesh exports manufactured goods, raw jute and hide, and imports foodstuffs and almost all other articles. If Bangladesh wants to avoid a depression, it will have no alternative but to increase its barter trade.

In time the Arab countries – those selling oil – will be the most affected. Even the communist countries will not be spared from the onslaught of a depression. These countries have not been able to solve their food problems. Although they have huge buffer stocks, they depend on Canada, the USA and Australia for wheat. If these dollar-based countries suffer from a depression, the communist countries will certainly be affected by a depression, although not much.

Depression is not a natural phenomenon. Pause is a natural phenomenon. In a Proutistic structure pause may occur but depression will not occur. To save society from depression, the approach of PROUT is to increase purchasing power by increasing production, reduce disparities in the value of wealth, and increase the circulation of money; that is, by keeping money rolling. Empty slogans will not do. Attention will have to be given to increasing the level of production.

In capitalist and communist countries, the mode of production is defective. In capitalist countries, labour does not work in the interest of the management and management does not allow the rolling of money due to the concentration of wealth. In communist countries, labour does not feel one with the job and that is why there is sluggish production.

The cooperative model of PROUT is free from both sets of defects. PROUT is well-adjusted with human ideals and sentiments. Other socio-economic systems are ultravires to human existence and all-round elevation.

Bullion Inflation

In capitalist economies, production is for the profit of the capitalist and the profit goes to individuals, groups and the state exchequer. In socialist economies or so-called communism, the profit goes to the state exchequer and a microscopic fraction of the profit goes to the actual producers. In both cases capitalism exists, and whenever fresh financial investment is required, inflation takes place.

In a Proutistic economy, production will be solely for consumption. As there will not be any profit motive, there cannot be any fresh inflation, and the existing inflation will gradually die out. In Proutistic production or consumption, in the first phase the money value remains constant and full-fledged purchasing capacity will be guaranteed to the people. In the second phase, when production increases in the revised economic order, money will get back its natural market value. Finally, after consumption, money will get back its actual value. Inflation will be checked and purchasing capacity and the minimum requirements of life will be guaranteed to the people.

The second phase will continue for ten to fifteen years. After the expiry of this period, that is, in the third phase, minimum requirements of life will increase and people will acquire more purchasing power. This power will increase at an accelerating rate.

The printing and issuing of monetary notes having no bullion value must stop immediately, and new notes having bullion value should be issued in new colours and shapes. No monetary notes should be issued by the government from then on without a clear assurance that it is prepared to pay the requisite amount of money in gold coins. This can only be implemented by a Proutistic government.

Production Inflation

The problem of production inflation cannot be ignored either. Production inflation may occur in two ways. First, owing to the application of scientific methods, the production of certain commodities may increase in excess of the demand or need in particular socio-economic regions. Then it becomes a problem how such excess production or overproduction can be marketed or consumed. Secondly, it may also happen that all of a sudden under certain circumstances the production of commodities increases, then it becomes difficult to find a market for such production.

Now a question arises whether or not such production will increase purchasing power as well as elevate the standard of it. In general circumstances such production is not a big problem, not a chronic problem, but if no measure is taken to find a market for such overproduction, then it may take the form of an acute problem. This problem can be tackled by taking three measures.

First, there should be a free trade system so that overproduction can be consumed by other countries or other economic units. In India, excepting the Punjab and Haryana, there is underproduction of milk. In other states, common people cannot get a sufficient amount of milk. But there are many countries, such as certain European countries, where there is overproduction of milk. In England, Germany and Sweden the authorities even give orders or encourage the public to kill cows. If in these circumstances free trade is allowed among different countries, the countries having overproduction or underproduction can make respective adjustments among themselves so that the overproduction of commodities may be consumed by under-producing countries. In that case the concerned countries will be benefited. Here free trade means that there should not be any imposition of export or import duties, and thus the prices of these commodities will benefit the consumers when they reach the market for actual consumption.

Secondly, there should be proper arrangement everywhere for the preservation of products which are in excess production. In Malda in Bengal there may be overproduction of mangoes which are perishable commodities. As there is no system of preservation, the ordinary mango growers will have to sell their mangoes at throw away prices. But if they could sell the same products four months later they would get remunerative prices. Moreover, if processing factories are established, they can then produce dried mango, mango candy, mango juice, sauce, jam, etc., which can be preserved for a longer time. There are many countries in Europe or other parts of the world where there is no mango production. If a system of preservation were available, then mangoes could easily be sold in those European countries, and the mango growers could earn a good amount of money.

In many places in India abundant vegetables are produced in the winter season; for example, in Nadia district, at Ranaghat, Nagi, Bago, etc. In European countries at the same time there cannot be any vegetable production due to the excessive cold. If vegetable processing factories could be installed in those places, then perishable vegetable products could be easily preserved by such processes as canning, and exported to other countries. From Calcutta it takes a maximum of twenty days for a ship to reach Europe, so preservation arrangements could be made for that period. Similar arrangements could be made for betel leaf. If this were done, then the poor growers at Tomluk, Mecheda, Bagnan, etc., would be able to live a well-to-do life.

Thirdly, new diversified styles of consumption should be invented. That is, consumption should be of a progressive nature and the style of consumption should be diversified. For example, there is only limited utilization of linseed at the moment in India. If the oil extracted from the linseed is deodorized, then it can be widely used as an edible oil. Also linen thread can be manufactured from linseed plants, which generally go to waste. Okra is abundantly produced in India, but it is only used as a vegetable. Oil can be extracted from okra seeds, and this can be processed and marketed as edible oil. Also, fine thread can be manufactured from the okra plant, and good quality clothes can be prepared from that thread.

In Bangladesh and West Bengal there is overproduction of jute, which is an acute problem today. This problem can be easily tackled by diversifying the methods of jute consumption. For example, we can get fine thread from raw jute to produce good quality clothes.

In the existing world structure geo-sentiment is an obstacle to the implementation of free trade. Neither the capitalist countries nor the communist countries like the free trade system because it is detrimental to their respective self-interests. But there are some free trade zones in the world which are very bright examples of the success of this sort of system. Singapore is one such example. There was a good proposal to declare Calcutta a free trade zone, but it was not implemented for many reasons, including the failure of the concerned leaders. Bengal could have been greatly benefited by such a system.

In a revised economic structure – that is, PROUT – there must not be any import or export duties on consumable commodities. If this is done, then this earth will be converted into a golden earth.

The commune system suffers from the acute problem of chronic shortages of food products, so the communist countries always import food products from capitalist countries, in spite of all sorts of hue and cry raised by them regarding their “isms”. Therefore, they oppose the free trade system.

In case there is overproduction of non-perishable goods or raw materials, these raw materials must not be allowed to be exported to other countries. Instead, raw materials must be immediately converted into manufactured goods at the place where they are available. For example, Orissa, the western portion of Ráŕh, certain portions of Madhya Pradesh, and certain portions of southern Bihar and Telengana are rich in different kinds of raw materials. These economically undeveloped places can easily be converted into advanced areas like the Rhine region of Germany. Poverty stricken people will live an affluent life if factories in these areas convert raw materials into manufactured goods.

The export of raw materials is a sign of an unhealthy economy in a country. If overproduction is caused due to the scientific application of improved methods in industry and agriculture, such as good manuring, then consumption may be adjusted through different methods as suggested above. This will also increase the purchasing power of the people. In such a stage the bountifulness of nature will ultimately prove to be a boon for the common people. Hence, in a Proutistic structure production inflation would not be regarded as a problem.

The Panacea

PROUT is the panacea for the integrated progress of human society. It aims to bring about equilibrium and equipoise in all aspects of socio-economic life through totally restructuring economics. Without PROUT, socio-economic emancipation will remain a utopian dream. Only PROUT can save the world from depression.

Furthermore, only PROUT is free from the inherent and exherent staticity. In capitalism there is exherent and inherent staticity. In communism there is extensive and intensive innate staticity. People suffer from the ailments of staticity. These ailments will destroy all forms of “isms” in the very near future. Wise people should utilize this moment.

We are near the last stage of the Vaeshya Era. If an impact is created, it will help the suffering humanity. It is the most opportune moment for creating an all-round revolution. This is a new sub-theory under Proutistic theory and may be called gati vijiṋána – the science of dynamics in PROUT.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks skidded Monday, with the Dow
slumping nearly 778 points, in the biggest single-day point loss ever,
after the House rejected the government’s $700 billion bank bailout
plan.

The day’s loss knocked out approximately $1.2 trillion in
market value, the first post-$1 trillion day ever, according to a drop
in the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the broadest measure of the stock
market.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU)
lost 777.68, surpassing the 684.81 loss on Sept. 17, 2001 – the first
trading day after the September 11 attacks. However the 7% decline does
not rank among the top 10 percentage declines.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX)
index lost 8.8%, its seventh worst day ever on a percentage basis and
the biggest one-day percentage drop since the crash of ’87, when it
lost 20.5%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) fell 9.1%, its third worst day on a percentage basis and also its worst decline since the crash of ’87.

Stocks
tumbled ahead of the vote and the selling accelerated on fears that
Congress would not be able come up with a fix for nearly frozen credit
markets. The frozen markets mean banks are hoarding cash, making it
difficult for businesses and individuals to get much-needed loans. (Full story)

“The
stock market was definitely taken by surprise,” said Drew Kanaly,
chairman and CEO of Kanaly Trust Company, referring to the House vote.
“If you watched the news stream over the weekend, it seemed like it was
a done deal. But the money is being held hostage to the political
process.”

Stocks had fallen from the get-go Monday morning. In
addition to expectations for the bailout, there was also news that
troubled Wachovia had to sell its banking assets to Citigroup. A number
of European banks also collapsed.

But the possibility that the House won’t pass the bailout plan caused stock losses to accelerate.

“It’s a huge disappointment,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank.

Although
another version of the plan will likely go before Congress, investors
are concerned that passing the bill could be a more drawn-out process.

On
Monday afternoon Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said markets around
the world are under great stress and that a plan needs to be passed as
soon as possible.

“People do expect that there will be some
plan put in place, but even before this vote, there was doubt as to
whether it would be enough to avert the crisis,” said Ken Kam,
portfolio manager of the Marketocracy Masters 100 (MOFQX) fund.

Investors thought they would be debating whether the plan was good enough, he said, not whether the plan would even go through.

But the ‘good enough’ question remains in place.

“We
are charting new territory in policy tools and implementation with this
program and there’s no guarantee that it will work,” said Alan Gayle,
senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Investments.

“That a
number of institutions haven’t been able to last through the
negotiations adds to the uncertainty,” Gayle said, referring to
Washington Mutual’s failure on Friday and the buyout of Wachovia
Monday.

Stocks are also extremely choppy and volatile as Wall
Street moves to the end of the third quarter. Financial institutions
and funds are expected to have their books settled before Wednesday, so
there is a lot of last-minute scrambling, Gayle said.

Treasury prices rallied, sending yields lower, as investors sought safety in government debt.

Government rescue plan:
Congress had supposedly reached a compromise on the $700 billion bank
bailout plan Sunday, but the House voted against the bill Monday.

The
bill is based around Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s initial plan to
buy up bad mortgage debt from banks as a means of getting them to lend
to each other again. However, Congressional lawmakers added provisions
to protect taxpayers and enable them to benefit if the companies do as
well. (Full story)

But
it was shot down, with lawmakers voting largely along party lines, with
House Republicans mostly voting against it and House Democrats mostly
voting for it.

Investors also remained skittish amid more bank turbulence – and banks continued to hoard cash.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world announced steps Monday to make billions available to troubled banks.

Wachovia:
Citigroup is buying the company’s bank assets in a $2.2 billion
all-stock deal that will see the company hold onto its brokerage
business and remain afloat, albeit in a smaller form.

The deal
calls for Citigroup to absorb up to $42 billion in losses and the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to be responsible beyond that.
Citigroup will give the FDIC $12 billion in preferred stock and
warrants in exchange. (Full story)

Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500) shares began trading in the afternoon, plunging 81%. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) fell almost 12%.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) bought Washington Mutual (WM, Fortune 500), after it suffered the largest failure ever of a U.S. bank. JPM shares fell 15% Monday.

On Monday, regional bank National City (NCC, Fortune 500) slumped 63% on worries that it might be next. Other regional banks dropped too. Bank of New York (BK, Fortune 500) fell 27%, Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB, Fortune 500) fell 43% and Regions Financial (RF, Fortune 500) fell 41%.

Big banks fell too, including Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500).

Market
breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers beat
winners 19 to 1 on volume of 2.05 billion shares. On the Nasdaq,
decliners topped advancers by over five to one on volume of 2.88
billion shares.

Global markets: Worldwide markets struggled. Asian and European markets ended lower after three European banks fell apart.

Dutch-Belgian bank and insurance giant Fortis was given a $16.4 billion lifeline to avoid it collapsing. The British government nationalized battered U.K. bank Bradford & Bingley.

Germany’s
financial regulators and several banks stepped in Monday to throw a
line of credit to Hypo Real Estate Holding AG in a multibillion-euro
move aimed at shielding the No. 2 commercial property lender.

Credit markets:
Businesses depend on the credit markets to function on a daily basis,
and the absence of ready capital has threatened to stall the broader
financial system.

Several measures of bank fears surged Monday,
suggesting that despite the bailout, banks remain worried. However, as
with stock markets, the freezing up could be an immediate knee-jerk
reaction that is mitigated once Congress passes the bill.

Additionally, credit markets may have been more focused on Wachovia and the other distressed banks, than the bailout.

The Libor-OIS spread, one gauge that banks use to determine lending rates, rose to a record 2.2%.

Meanwhile,
the TED spread hit a more than 26-year high of 3.58% before dipping
back to 3.54%. The TED spread is the difference between what banks
charge each other to borrow for three months and what the Treasury
pays. When banks charge each other a higher premium than the U.S.
government, that’s a sign of fear.

The three-month Treasury bill,
seen as the safest place to park money in the short term, fell to 0.34%
from 0.83% late Friday. Earlier this month, the three-month bill fell
to a 68-year low around 0% as panic gripped financial markets.

Long-term Treasury prices
rose, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.58% from
3.82% late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite
directions.

Treasury prices have been rallying recently and
yields tumbling as nervous stock market investors have looked for safer
areas to move their cash.

Other stock movers: Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500)
slumped almost 18% after RBC and Morgan Stanley analysts downgraded the
stock to “neutral” from “buy” saying the consumer spending slowdown
will hurt profits. (Full story)

A variety of other big tech stocks slumped, including Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500), Qualcomm (QCOM, Fortune 500), Cisco Systems (CSCO, Fortune 500), Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) and Applied Materials (AMAT, Fortune 500).

Among other movers, Circuit City (CC, Fortune 500) slipped 21% after it reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss and withdrew its fiscal 2009 outlook due to tepid sales.

All 30 Dow components ended lower and all lost at least 3%.

Oil and gold: U.S. light crude oil for November delivery fell $10.52 to settle at $96.37 a barrel, in the second-biggest one-day plunge ever. (Full story)

Oil
prices had plummeted over $55 after peaking at $147.27 a barrel on July
11, as investors bet that sluggish global growth will diminish oil
demand. But prices have seesawed in the last few weeks as the financial
crisis has intensified and investors sought to put their money into
hard assets.

COMEX gold
for December delivery rose $5.90 to $894.40 an ounce. Like oil, gold
prices had also rallied during the biggest periods of unrest over the
last few weeks

Other markets: In currency trading, the dollar gained against the euro and fell against the yen.

Gas prices fell for the 12th day in a row, according to a nationwide survey of credit card activity.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm?postversion=2008092918

Video Transcript On

Debt and Deficit: McCain, Clinton and Bush

By

Ravi Batra

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M5Of0vdObc]

Hello friends. It is now well known that the federal deficit and debt have been getting out of hand over the last 30 years. It all started under President Reagan when he decided to slash the income tax drastically, while raising the tax rates on the middle class. The top-bracket tax rate fell from 70% in 1980 to 28% by the end of Reagan’s second term in 1988. At the same time the self-employment tax soared from a factor of 0.09 to 0.15.  Thus the self- employed small businesses saw their tax rate jump by 66%–yes indeed 66%. That is why, you see, Reagan transferred the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class, because most small business persons belong to the middle-income group.

    Incidentally, the current Republican John McCain voted for the vast rise in the self-employment tax in 1983. This was his first major vote, and he used it to raise this middle-class tax by as much as 66%. I repeat this figure because I don’t understand how McCain did this and still claims that he has been a friend of small business people. If you don’t believe me, just look at federal archives for 1983. How can anyone raise your tax bill by 66% and still claim to be on your side?

    What did Reagan’s policy of tax-transformation do to the federal budget deficit and debt?  Of course, they both soared. Reagan and his advisers had foreseen a sharp fall in the deficit, but Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, who had earlier called such policy voodoo economics, knew better. His warnings came true. As the deficit soared, GDP growth fell below the historical norm, and poverty began to rise.

    Then came Bill Clinton in 1993, and he raised the income tax rate on high incomes to slash the deficit, which fell sharply, while GDP growth went up. So poverty figures began to fall under Clinton. The moral of the story is that when the income tax rate fell, the deficit and poverty rose, and when it went up, the deficit and poverty fell. History shows that high income tax rates cut the budget deficit, while high middle class taxes cripple small business and hence the economy.

     No government can live without taxes, but the Democrats tax those who can afford to pay them, while the Republicans tax the poor and the middle class. I prefer the Democratic way, because it is not only fair, it is also good for the economy.

    The current president George Bush repeated Reagan’s folly and cut the income tax rates again mostly for the wealthiest Americans. So the results are the same. While both the federal deficit and debt have soared, poverty is back to where it was under Bush senior. Please take a look at Table 1. From 1980 to 1988, the number of people living below the poverty line went up by 3 million under Reagan, and then  another 6 million by 1992 under Bush senior. Clinton slashed poverty figures by 6 million, and now George Bush has brought them up again by 5 million.

Table 1: Poverty Rise under Various Presidents; 1980-2008

President                       Jump in Poverty Figures

Reagan                                       3 million

Bush I                                        6 million

Clinton                                    – 6 million

Bush II                                      5 million

Source: The Economic Report of the President, 2008.

     To me, it is more than a coincidence that poverty rises whenever Republicans take over and falls under Democrats. First, poverty rises under Reagan and then again under Bush senior; it falls under Clinton, and finally it rises again under George Bush. So the record is quite clear that Republicans create poverty and Democrats reduce it. Vice President Dick Cheney says that Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. No! They do matter, because they create poverty.

    So now the federal debt and deficit are out of control. Please take a look at some charts. Figure 1 shows how it all started, how the deficit jumped from Carter to Reagan, then fell under Bill Clinton and now is sky-rocketing.

     Figure 2 reveals how our debt fell under every president from Truman to Carter, and then started to rise under Reagan, fell again under Clinton, and is now sky-rocketing. Finally figure 3 displays where our federal debt stands from 1940 till today. It has grown tall, taller and the tallest—at close to $10 trillion today. It cannot go on like this forever. The Bush borrow-and-spend policies must be reversed before the economy collapses. I request Mr. McCain to reconsider his support for Bush’s tax cuts.

   Figure 1: Federal Deficits—Reagan, Clinton and Bush

     Source: Global Policy Forum

Figure 2: National Debt since WWII

Source: zfacts.com, and The Economic Report of the President, various years.

Figure 3: Our Federal Debt Today

Source: MarkTaw.com

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUJqNmkcmSw]

Video Transcript On

McCain vs. Obama on the United States Economy

Ravi Batra

Commentary

I am an economist by profession and an independent voter. In the past I have voted for the Democrats, independents and Republicans in elections, and I feel I can take an objective look at the economic plans offered by John McCain and Barack Obama, especially their tax policies. I will use facts from this book to form my opinion.  This book is called The Economic Report of the President, and appeared in early 2008.

Table 1: Increase in Family Income

Bill Clinton (1993-2000)                                        $8,600

G W Bush (2001-2006)                                        – $990

GDP Growth and Job Creation

President                                GDP Growth             Job Creation         Manufacturing Jobs

                                             Per Year           

Clinton (1993-2000)                  3.7(%)               23 million                 450,000

Bush (2001-2007)                     2.8(%)               5 million                – 3.2 million

Source: Economic Report of the President, 2008

     Please take a look at Table 1. First, under Bill Clinton family income soared by $8600, and under Bush it has actually declined by $990. This information is on page 266 of the president’s own report. Second, under Clinton more than 23 million jobs were created and only 5 million under Bush. This information appears on page 280 of the president’s report.

     Why is job creation so strong under Bill Clinton and very poor under George Bush? After all, GDP growth under the two presidents is not that much different—3.7% vs. $2.8%. So the economy expands under both presidents, yet Clinton created 23 million jobs while bush only 5 million. And with manufacturing, Clinton generated almost half a million jobs, whereas bush has actually destroyed over 3 million such jobs. What is the problem?

   There are two reasons. First is outsourcing. Because of Bush’s tax relief to corporations that ship jobs overseas, American multinational companies now mostly hire workers abroad; so American output still rises but few jobs are created at home. Thus, one reason for poor job creation under Bush is the vast growth in outsourcing.

    The other reason is a huge rise in taxes on small business. The Republicans are right when they say raising taxes kills the economy and jobs, but they forget that they are the ones who raised such taxes. This perhaps comes as a shock to you.  “ What! The Republicans raising tax rates, and that too on small business?” Nobody would believe that. Aren’t they the party of tax cuts? They are, indeed, but only for the wealthy. They have crippled the small business person with the largest tax rise that occurred on self employment under President Reagan. Please take a look at Table 2.

Table 2: Trust Fund Data: Tax Rates for Self Employed Persons

    Source: Social Security administration: www.socialsecurity.gov

     As you can see, in 1981, when Reagan became president, the self-employment tax was only 9.3 percent and remained more or less the same until 1983. It jumped to 14 percent in 1984, and kept rising until 1990, when Bush senior was the president. So such a giant rise in the self employment tax occurred under the watch of Republicans. This information comes from the Social Security administration.

    There is something else you should know. The tax increase was proposed by a commission headed by Alan Greenspan, the current Republican candidate John McCain voted for it in 1983, and Reagan signed it into law. All of them were prominent Republicans. So this was a Republican tax increase. How strong was this tax rise? It rose from a factor of 9 to 15 or by 66%. Can you even imagine a 66% tax rise? Such a vast tax increase has to kill the jobs machine that small businesses are, especially in a low-growth economy under George Bush.

     Historically, I find that in general the Democrats create jobs, while the Republicans destroy them. President Hoover, who created the Great Depression, after all, was a Republican. Then how come the Republicans are known as a party of tax cuts? Yes, they indeed cut taxes for the rich, but they have raised taxes on the middle class ever since 1983. And now they are also the party of outsourcing that is further killing American employment.

     John McCain wants to cut taxes for corporations and the rich again, but says nothing about the huge self-employment tax that he voted for. Obama wants to cut income taxes for the middle class while raising them on the wealthy.

    We all hate taxes, but like death they are inevitable. No government can live without them. But there are good taxes and bad taxes. Bill Clinton raised taxes on those who can afford to pay them, while John McCain voted to raise taxes on the middle class. Clinton created more jobs than Reagan, Bush senior and George Bush combined. History shows that Obama’s middle class tax cut will create millions of new jobs and raise family income, while McCain’s tax cuts for the wealthy will do what such cuts have done under George Bush—they will destroy millions of manufacturing jobs, and reduce family income even more. My humble request to Mr. McCain is this: please reconsider your giant tax increase for the middle class. My humble request for Mr. Obama is to add a small cut in the self-employment tax to his plan, from the current 15.3% to 12% over two years. After all, small businesses don’t outsource jobs; they actually create them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUJqNmkcmSw

Regional Secretary, Dada Gunamaya, and Nirainjana attended the first ever Northeast Climate Confluence that took place at the Epworth Methodist Retreat Center in High Falls, New York.  Dada taught yoga classes every morning and Nirainjana taught Kaoshikii to the participants: http://www.flickr. com/photos/ nirainjana/ sets/72157606890 536981/show/

Dada Narada Muni’s video “Introduction to Proutist Economics” was shown to 25 participants followed by a lively discussion and a request to see his most recent video “Cooperatives in Venezuela”.  Both videos were very well received with interest in learning more about Progressive Utilisation Theory.

Approximately 250 people came together in High Falls, New York for the Climate Confluence. The Confluence ran from July 31st to August 3rd, with workshops, trainings and panels ranging from immigration raids and the prison-industrial complex to mountain top removal and disaster relief. This wide range of workshops aimed to address, as the organizers put it, “the root causes of climate change.”

“The same system that wages a daily war on our communities is poised to destroy our very life blood: the earth, the water, our food, and our culture,” says Sundeep Sood, Confluence organizer. “By combining our knowledge and energy we will create real solutions and decrease our dependence on the institutions that are attacking the planet and all life.” With these ideas in mind people of all ages and backgrounds from across the Northeast came to the Epworth Center in High Falls to create the kind of world they want to see. 

The Confluence opened on Thursday night with a speech from Tom Porter, the elder of the Mohawk Nation. He blessed the event and gave permission for the Confluence to take place on land that had once been part of the Mohawk Nation. In his beautiful speech he expressed hope for the future and a willingness to work with those attending the Confluence to help build a better world. 

The three workshop streams, Ice Storms to ICE Raids, Self Sufficient Communities and Connecting Grassroots struggles all had a great variety of workshops and came up with concrete action plans for future activism on a variety of issues. Most people would agree with Dan Cabrera when he said, “I was able to learn so much about important issues at the Confluence, and also meet so many great people to network with. It was definitely the highlight of my summer.”

The Confluence occurred concurrently with convergences in Oregon and England, and other climate convergences are planned for the coming weeks in Australia, Virginia, Quebec and Hamburg, Germany. There are already plans in the works for a 2009 Northeast Climate Confluence, which promises to be even larger than this year’s. 

All Margiis and Acaryas are welcome to attend the house blessing ceremony of Dinesh and Nirainjana scheduled for 6:30pm on Saturday, September 27th in White Plains, New York.  
 
Come early at 5pm to hear Robert Hoch of the White Plains Historical Society talk about the historical significance of the hill where we are located, Horton’s Mill, used by George Washington for storing ammunition during the Revolutionary War and the Battle of White Plains in October of 1776.  Learn also about the First Peoples who were here before the colonialists arrived.
 
RSVP is required at nirainjana@yahoo. com. We will send the address and directions to those who RSVP.  Thank you!

MAYAN EXAMPLE BY TAPAS
We should use the Mayans as an example of  this.  They created a
society in the Americas very similar to India during its time, in
culture, science, and strength.  They created Maha-Master-Units.  They
created a society so great that researchers are now wondering if the
Mayans didn’t help to influence India’s culture (At least in
Architecture).  I believe many of the great mayan temples were
institutes for learning and maintaining their knowledge and spirtitual
practices.  Likely selected children were brought there to learn and
meditate from an early age.

Apparentely in Ancient Times, back when the European’s were still
living in the dirt and hitting themselves with sticks, Asia and the
Mediterranean Countries were trading via sea with each other and with
the Mayans.  The Surya Siddhanta, a textbook on Astronomy from India,
talks about the America’s and called it Patala or Pataldesa, which
means the underworld.  Not because they believed it to be underground,
but because the other side of the globe appeared to be straight down
or underneath them.

It further explains that the Americas were called Surya and Asia was
called Devas.  The Surya Siddhant says that the Devas and Asuras live
on the earth.  The Devas live in the northern hemisphere (we now call
EAST or Asia) and the Asuryas live in the Southern hemisphere (we now
call WEST or the Americas) and have a tradition of enmity against each
other.  It further says that the ocean which surrounds the poles of
the earth has divided the planet into two great continents; the
continent of the Devas and the continent of the Asuryas.  The
Brahmanas of India write the Deva-Serman after their names thus
describing themselves as the Devas.

Hindu records say that a member of a great race which preceded ours
was a highly developed personality known a Asuramaya.  He learned all
the basic cosmic cycles and used his knowledge to determine the
durations of the various geological and cyclical periods of human
evolution.  The chronology and computations of the Tamil calendar, say
the Brahmans, are based upon the work of Asuramaya and upon carefully
maintained collateral zodiacal records.  The name Asuramaya is
compound of the two Sanskrit words, Asurya and Maya.  The personage
himself is Maya, the prefix Asura signifying that Maya was of the
Asuryas, a name given to a certain caste or people of Ancient times.
The word Asurya derives from surya, Sanskrit for the sun.  The
astronomer named Maya was said to have gained his knowledge from
studying the sun.  The sun and its encircling planets also occupied
the central attention of the Mayan astronomer caste in Central
America.

In ancient “Vedic” times there were two great architects, Visvakarma
of the demigods or Aryans, and Maya of the Asuryas.  Surya Siddhanta
was gifted to Mayasura by the Sun (Or Brahma).  The Mayan people, also
known as technicians, were no doubt named as such because of being
connected with this person named Maya or Mayasura or Maya Danava.
They were part of his clan or tribe.  They had fallen away from the
Vedic way of life and were sent or escaped to the region of Central
America.  They carried with them much of the science of astronomy and
navigation for which this Mayasura was known.

In the “Brahma-Vaivarta Purana”, Lord Krsna tells Ganga Devi that a
Golden Age will come in the Kali Yuga- one of the four stages of
development that the world goes through as part of the cycle of eras.
Lord Krsna predicted that this Golden Age will start 5,000 years after
the beginning of the Kali Yuga, and will last for 10,000 years.

The Mayan Calendar Prophesizes the Golden Age to start on 2012 and it
supposedly matches with the Hindu Calendars when their prophesized
Golden Age will start.

Arjuna one of the heroes of the Mahabharata was a friend of Maya, an
expert architect and he had also married a Naga princess.  Maya
himself is described as an Asura, as contrasted with Devas (literally
bright ones), another fact of significance.

MAYAN ARCHITECTURE AND VASTU ARCHITECTURE

It is noted in the Vastu Shastras that the creator of its architecture
is named Mayan.  Apparently Mayan is written in the architecture plans
of many of the great temples in India and around the world.  I will
copy part of an article written about Sri V. Ganapati Sthapati
research.

It is Sthapati’s theory that Mayan, the creator of Indian
architecture, originated from the Mayan people of Central America. In
Indian history, Mayan appears several times, most significantly as the
author of Mayamatam, “Concept of Mayan” which is a Vastu Shastra, a
text on art, architecture and town planning. The traditional date for
this work is 8,000bce. Mayan appears in the Ramayana (2000bce) and
again in the Mahabharata (1400bce)-in the latter he designs a
magnificent palace for the Pandava brothers. Mayan is also mentioned
in Silappathikaram, an ancient Tamil scripture, and is author of Surya
Siddhanta, one of the most ancient Hindu treatises on astronomy.

The fundamental principle of Mayan’s architecture and town planning is
the “module.” Buildings and towns are to be laid out according to
certain multiples of a standard unit. Floor plans, door locations and
sizes, wall heights and roofs, all are determined by the modular plan.
More specifically, Mayan advocated the use of an eight-by-eight
square, for a total of 64 units, which is known as the Vastu Purusha
Mandala. The on-site inspection by Sthapati was to determine if the
Incan and Mayan structures did follow a modular plan and reflect the
Vastu Purusha Mandala. He also intended to examine the stone working
technology-his particular field of expertise.

Machu Picchu

The moment Sthapati approached an ancient Incan residential building
at Machu Picchu on March 15th, he pointed at the wall and said, “That
is a thickness of one kishku hasta”-33 inches, a standard measure in
South India first promulgated by Mayan. He proceeded to measure the
buildings in detail and discovered each was indeed built on a
module-based plan, following the system of Mayan’s eight-by-eight
squares. The module method was followed within small fractions of an
inch. The buildings were oriented toward certain points of the
compass, also a principle of Mayan, rather than randomly placed. Also
the lengths of buildings were never more than twice their width, as
Mayan stipulated.

CHICHEN ITZA

At Chichen Itza, Sthapati, Deva and Thamby again unsheathed their tape
measures and closely examined the Pyramid of the Castle. It too
conformed to the Vastu Vedic principles of Mayan. The temple structure
at the top was exactly 1/4th of the base. And the stepped pyramid
design derived from a three-dimensional extension of the basic
eight-by-eight grid system. The temple room at the top was also
modular in design, with the wall thickness determining the size of
doorways, location of columns, thickness of columns and the width and
length of the structure.

Most interesting was the name of this structure-chilambalam, meaning a
sacred space. It is Sthapati’s theory that the Mayans worshiped the
very concept of space, specifically a space made according to the
modular system. This same idea is found in Hinduism in the sacred room
in the center of the Chidambaram Siva Temple in South India, where
space or akasha is worshiped-there is no idol. Chidambaram, Sthapati
finds suspiciously like chilambalam, means “hall of consciousness.”
The concept of sacred space is at the center of the mystical shilpi
tradition of India

The richly decorated Mayan buildings provided a feast for a sculptor’s
eye. There is a very common feature called a “mask” by the
archeologists, but known to the Mayans as “Big Nose.” A nearly
identical face is a common feature of Hindu iconography, seen, for
example, at the top of the arch placed behind a deity. “It is the very
same thing in India,” we call it `Maha Nyasa’-Big Nose!  Several other
details of the sculptures were similar or identical to India, such as
the earrings, ear plugs, teeth, head dresses, even buckles around the
waist. There are bas reliefs of priests sitting in lotus posture
meditating.

Sri Ganapati Sthapati concluded that after a lifetime study of South
Indian architecture, that Mayan, the divine architect of Indian
tradition, came from Central America.

LANGUAGE
Linguistic Similiarities between Mayan and Sanskrit.

Chacla in Mayan refers to force centers of the body similar to the
cakras of Hinduism. K’ultanlilni in Mayan refers to the power of God
within man which is controlled by the breath, similar in meaning to
kundalini. Mayan chilambalam refers to a sacred space, as does Tamil
Chidambaram. Yok’hah in Mayan means “on top of truth,” similar to yoga
in Sanskrit.

Southern Persia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan had several different
names: Sivapuri (The Region of God Shiva), Sivabhu (Sacred Land of
Shiva), Sivapuni (The Purity of Shiva), and Shivulba (The Womb,
Origin, or Cave of Shiva). The Pueblo Indians called their underworld
or place of origin Sibapu or Sibapuni; for the Mayans, it was
Shibalba, their “underworld” and place of the gods. The linguistic and
functional similarities of the Hindu Sivabhu, Sivapuni, and Shivulba
with the Puebloan Sibapu, Sivapuni, and the Mayan Shivalba (Xibalba)
are too nearly exact to be coincidences.

Guatemala derives from Sanskrit Guadhaamala, meaning Guha (Cosmic
Intelligence) + Dha (Serpentine) + Amala (Umbilical Cord).  (the
Sacred Umbilical Cord Linking India with America?)

There is a Mayan holy book, Chilam Balam. Chilan or Chilam is a title
of Mayan priests. Balam is the Mayan name for Jaguar. In Sanskrit,
Cheilan = Ceylonese and Vyalam = tiger; lion; hunting leopard.
“Jaguar” probably stems from the Sanskrit Higkara, meaning Tiger-like
or “sounding like a tiger.”

Linguistic Similiarities between MAYAN and CEYLON.

They gave several names that directly and indirectly identified
Ceylon: Shilanka (Xilanca) – an ancient name of Ceylon (Zeilan-Ka).

Shikalanka (Xicalanca) – Ceylon. In Tamil, Shikalam.

Itzamna was one of their culture heroes. He claimed to have come from
a western country. Isham, meaning ‘Tiger, “”Land of Gold,” was a
Dravidian name of Ceylon. The Na in Isham-na is an honorific.

Ishbalanka (Xbalanca), another culture hero. In Tamil, it means “Shiva
of Lanka.” India’s God Shiva was supposed to have made the footprint
on top of Adam’s Peak in today’s Sri Lanka.

Shibalba, The Mayan underworld. This word stems From the Sanskrit
Shivulba, meaning “from the fountainhead of God Shiva-Mt. Meru, in
India.”

Palenke (Palenque). This name derives from the Tamil Pal-Lanka,
meaning “Protectorate of Lanka.” Ancient Lanka was India’s “Atlantis.”

The Yaxilan (Yakshilan) Mayan ruins. This name means “The Ceylon
Yakhs” in Sanskrit.

Ceren, a name of Ceylon. Some Mayan ruins in El Salvador are called Ceren.

Lacandon, a tribe of Yucatan. India’s god Kubera banished the Laks, a
Tartarian Huna or Rakshasha tribe from Northern India to Ceylon,
giving the country one of its many names and becoming the Lakan or
Lakam people. The Don in Lacan-don derives from Dan (Tannu or Dannu?).
(See the online Cologne Sanskrit and Tamil dictionaries for comparison
of ancient Ceylon names with those of Mayan tribes and places.)