Waiting for the ferry to Block Island…
Left about 5 AM this morning for Block Island RI. We will spend Christmas there. Stopped at Linda’s for breakfast sandwiches before picking up Mother in Law, fresh out of hospital. We are charged with helping her build strength and put on weight. We can do that!
On a different note, for the past year I have been vacillating between Drafts and Obsidian as a place to gather my readings, quotes and notes. I have landed firmly in Obsidian as the amazing richness of its capabilitties becomes ever clearer.
Books Read: Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein 📚
Concentration of wealth –– both income and assets –– is an inescapable corollary of debt growing faster than goods and services. Certainly, governments can neutralize wealth concentration through redistributive taxation, but the underlying tendency will always be there.
Books Read: Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein 📚
Here’s another way to see it: because debt is always greater than money supply, the creation of money creates a future need for even more money. The amount of money must grow overtime; new money goes to those who will produce goods and services; therefore, the volume of goods and services must grow overtime as well.
Books Read: Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein 📚
There can never be a time when we reach “enough,” because in an interest based debt system, credit exchange is not just “goods now for goods in the future,” but goods now for more goods in the future. To service debt, or just to live, either you take existing wealth from someone else (hence, competition) or you create “new” wealth by drawing from the commons.
Books Read: Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein 📚
The imperative of perpetual growth, implicit in interest-based money is what drives the relentless conversion of life, world, and spirit into money. Completing the vicious cycle, the more of life we convert into money, the more we need money to live. Usury, not money, is the proverbial root of all evil.
Books Read: Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein 📚
This morning my mind was blown. I read the chapter on usury (interest) and debt. For the first time in my life I understand the connection between money supply, interest, and the imperative that the economy must grow. It was a revelation.
Tonight’s Christmas movie… Watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Prime Video
List of Christmas movies watched so far…
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Christmas in Connecticut
- The Bishops Wife
- White Christmas
- Elf
- Die Hard
Books Read: Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein 📚
After it has been so long manipulated, chopped up, habituated to intense stimuli, and jerked around from one lurid but empty object to another, our attention is so fragmented we cannot sustain it long enough to create anything independent of the programs that surround us. We lose our capacity to sustain thought, understand nuance, and put ourselves in another persons shoes. Susceptible to any simplistic narrative with immediate emotional appeal, we are easy targets not just for advertising, but for propaganda, demagoguery, and fascism. In various ways, all of these serve the money power. p93
List of Christmas movies watched so far…
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Christmas in Connecticut
- The Bishop’s Wife
- White Christmas
… i will add to the list as we run up to Christmas.
Working on a little photo booklet to give to family and friends for Christmas this year. This is proof of concept. There will be refinements in next iteration.
First cookies of the season, Molasses Cookies with a Kick. The kick being cayenne pepper.
Tonight’s Christmas movie… Watch The Bishop’s Wife - Prime Video