Life and Spirituality

I n recent times, an idea has asserted that it is only a few in the world that control most of its wealth and power. It is said that even in democratic countries the top 1% own most of the wealth and control how our world functions to the extent that Nature permits. In fact such control is by much less than the 1%. It is by few among the 1% with the rest of the 1% being their families, associates, aids, employees and principal puppets and slaves.   It has further been concluded by many thinkers that a just world requires that this domination and control of the 1% come to an end and that shall happen in part when capitalism ends and is replaced by communism or socialism. That might be even worse as past experience of mankind has shown because one important point is often missed in all this, and it is as follows, It is not the control by 1 percent that is bad for the world, it is how that control is acquired and perpetuated. If lies, unethical and criminal means, ...

A s a step towards peace and happiness, humans seek many different things. Some of these are - wealth, health, fame, beauty, ability, worldly education, education of life etc. A few achieve excellence in one or more areas. For the moment, let us confine our attention to two prominent acquisitions - wealth and wisdom. There are examples in human history when a few individuals attained excellence in both. Two famous examples of this are - King Solomon the Wise and King Rama of Asian prehistory. However both were godly personalities. More often, among humans we find persons have attained either great wealth or much wisdom but not both. Examples of wealthy persons in modern times are the billionaires of the world. Examples of excellence in wisdom are a series of saints and hermits through human history. These latter have shown the way to other humans when they were in distress. While wealthy persons have fine jewels, clothes from leading designers, fine mansions with expen...

W hile most humans focus on earning and accumulating wealth in their journey through life or at least try very hard to do so, there are a few amongst them that do not make this a prime focus of their life. It is not that they do not like or value wealth but they are either distracted with other things that life has to offer or consider other pursuits far more important. Saintly persons are some from amongst these latter. People like Gandhi when they became saints gave away everything they owned. The word saintly is not used here in any religious sense but in the sense of persons bearing a consciousness close to the divine or universal consciousness. The saintly lot of humans do not worry so much about accumulating wealth because somehow deep within them is the unshakable belief that the Lord or Universe would take care of their genuine needs as and when they arise and that accumulating much wealth in a life time is really not worth it except for its temporary use, tha...

A Brief Introduction to the Economics of Greed and Exploitation S ome of the posts in this blog have been about economic inequalities and its tragic consequences - such as hunger, homelessness and early mortality - that seems to be increasing in some of the leading capitalistic societies of the world. The wealth of the world has become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. It has given rise to things such as the occupy movement and a demand for a return to communism. However communism and equality created by it have not worked since some amount of economic diversity and inequality are natural and required just as it is with the size of trees in a forest. At the same time, given the opportunity, humans can become extremely exploitative leading to unsustainable inequalities. The new revised version of the book – A brief Introduction to the Economics of Greed and Exploitation – suggests simple methods to control extreme economic inequalities in modern capitalism i.e easy and p...

Corporate Taxes: Rule of Ninety I t is neither natural nor practical to have an equality of wealth and income for all in any society as perhaps some idealistic philosophers  may dream of at times. It is inequalities that motivate humans to work and also because inequality within limits is a natural thing. However, massive inequalities in any society are equally unnatural and damaging. Whereas it is natural for trees in a forest to be of different heights, it is not natural to have a few trees that are a million feet tall either. Unfortunately something like that has happened as regards human wealth and income distribution is concerned and these inequalities have been growing in recent decades. An earlier article described how less than one hundred humans on the planet possess a wealth equal to half of the seven billion humans on the planet, with the rest being owned by a very small percentage All this takes place in the backdrop of societies where huge numbers of hu...

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poor_and_rich_in_Thailand.JPG W e know from history that in the past, much of the world’s wealth was held by a few rich and powerful kings and emperors. Has that changed now? Have you wondered how the world’s wealth is distributed in the new modern democratic age where we have rule of the people, by the people for the people. It seems that the emperors may not have gone away. They have perhaps just changed their style and address. Nevertheless as human civilisation advanced inequalities on the whole reduced or moved up and down over the centuries, then something dramatic happened around thirty years ago in 1985, inequalities began to rise again at ever faster rates. See here for precise scholarly data on this and simple ways to fix it. According to a report in the guardian,  The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a n...

backyard trees This blog and others by this author have repeatedly stressed the importance of living in green spaces and of increasing green spaces on our planet by endeavors such as planting trees and designing cities to include designer green areas http://someitemshave.blogspot.in/2012/06/green-hybrid-city.html . Some of the advantages mentioned were felt intuitively but were not backed by scientific evidence. All this changed this month when the results of a new study due to the University of Edinburgh were published in the journal of Sports Medicine. What the researchers found was that green spaces lessen brain fatigue with all its attendant benefits. These benefits include reduced stress and improved mental and physical health. In another blog of this author (steamcenter.blogspot.com) dealing with technological matters in layman style, this blogger has stressed the contribution of increasing greenery for improving the climate on the planet and in the present blog t...

Earl's Court, Nainital Today my mind went to a fundamental question – how much money does one need for a good life, perhaps the best possible one on the planet. The reason for this thought arose because of worries for a friend and class fellow (Rajat Gupta) who was until a few years ago amongst the richest persons in USA. Then he got involved in legal difficulties because of which not only did the sources of his income stop but he has also been fined and is paying exorbitant legal costs. The net outcome would be that his wealth will reduce substantially. However, on deeper reflection the cause of my worry disappeared as I deliberated briefly on what amount of money is required by a family or person to have a very comfortable and good life style, in fact the kind that much less than one per cent of the population of the planet is able to afford. I presently live in India and my estimates began from here. I arrived at the conclusion that a million dollars of net we...