Global Economic Crisis: Is It Over Yet?

Headlines proclaim optimism for the end of the economic crisis. Is it really over? It won’t be until we realize its cause is deeper than economic factors, and we learn how to operate in a global, integral system

The world watches Wall Street and world financial markets nervously as they pin their hopes, dreams, and sense of security on recovery to 2007 levels. After plummeting 54% to a decade low in March of this year, markets have continued with volatile rises and falls. Each bit of optimistic news, “Corporate earnings higher than anticipated,” “Bullish calls from prominent analysts,” and “the US Federal Reserve pronounces the end of the recession might be on the horizon,” spurs a rise. Optimism and hope lift the markets, much like a hot air balloon when the air is warmed. But are these rises filled with anything more than hot air?

Is It Over Yet?

It would seem that there is denial on Wall Street. The optimistic headlines generated by self-interested parties seem to be ignoring other economic news, like the 9.5% unemployment rate in the US, which doesn’t capture the magnitude of joblessness. The uncounted include many who have stopped looking altogether, and 1 in 6 Americans who want full-time employment, but are settling for part-time work. The US Labor Department’s broader measure pegs unemployment at a much higher rate nearing 24% in Oregon. 7.2 million Americans have lost their jobs since the start of the recession and 15 million Europeans are out of work. So far this year, 1.5 million homes have received foreclosure notices or have been seized by banks. Bank failures in the US have reached 77 in 2009. Not all headlines or economists are pointing to recovery as, “Global Deflation Pandemic is Brewing” reports. (Wall Street Journal 7/24/09) In fact, by many counts the crisis is far from over.

What Caused The Crisis?

The US federal government recently appointed a panel of experts to find out just what caused the economic crisis. It would be easy to point to the likes of Goldman Sachs executives who seemingly grabbed the billions handed to them by the government’s bail out efforts and slipped them into their own pockets. Just how did they manage to make the surprising earnings, which they assert justifies compensation levels rivaling 2007 highs, if not at the expense of taxpayers? Or is the crisis due to the financial products pedaled, whose complexity defied regulation? Or are the regulatory systems, which failed to safeguard us, to blame?

The Real Cause

None of them are the cause. Our economy, our world economy, is a reflection of our natural desire to get more and more. All of us together created the global economy. We collectively created the global economics of hoped-for-perpetual-growth to fuel our ever growing desire for more. As soon as we get what we want, with a brief pause of momentary gratification, we move on to wanting something else.

This is according to Nature, Kabbalah explains. We are merely acting according to Nature’s force of receiving. But now we see there is a problem with this. Oh yes, we are in the midst of a crisis, and in spite of Wall Street’s grasping at straws for recovery, most of us pretty well see we’ve already broken the camel’s back. And there is no way back to the era of super-growth-consumption economics. The crisis is impacting virtually everyone and everything on the planet.

The Message The Crisis Brings

Indeed, there is a big problem. We’ve successfully grown with this force of Nature, the receiving force, and it has caused us to realize we are all interconnected. This is precisely the purpose of the crisis. Really this is it. The global financial crisis is illuminating our interconnected nature. It is shining brightly and powerfully, like a spotlight, to make sure we can’t miss it. The message in bright lights reads: We are globally financially and economically interdependent, linked, and inexorably entwined—the whole world and everyone in it, including you.

And the message doesn’t stop here. This is just the glaringly obvious part. Our interconnection is even deeper, more encompassing than the global economy, finances, or the internet. The writing of the rest of the message is a bit dimmer, we are just beginning to see it.

It reads: We are an interconnected humanity on all levels. We are beginning to see that the world is a single, integral system. We are beginning to realize and feel it as more than mere words. We need to recognize that just like the financial crisis is allowing us to see this global interconnection on the economic level, all other crises besieging the world are aiming to help us appreciate our complete human interconnection and interdependency. For indeed that is their purpose.

We Are All In This Together

This seems very deep. But in reality, it is also very simple. We are all in everything together. All of our actions impact everything else on the planet. And conversely, the entire world influences each of us.

Having recognized that we are a globally integral system, we need to learn the way this system of interconnection works, how it operates, so we can thrive in it. It is a law of Nature, and like Newton studying the apple’s fall, we need to examine and explore the properties of this law.

So, we take another look at its component, the force of receiving. The development of the force of receiving, we noted, is what led to this financial crisis. This immense preoccupation of always wanting more for ourselves allowed us to develop a blind eye toward how this taking for ourselves affects any and everyone else. This actually shines some insight onto another component of the law of Nature, the force of giving. And we see we’ve overgrown one side—receiving, at the expense of the other—giving.

Our Interconnection Is Not In Balance

These forces are not in balance. It is the imbalance that is causing the crisis, not Wall Street. It is the imbalance in each of us, and as we recognize that we are all interconnected, we realize that our individual aspirations for having more impacts everyone else with whom we are interconnected. The crisis is revealing both the interconnection between all of humanity and the imbalance in the interconnection. The crisis is aiming to reveal to us that no individual will prosper unless the whole world prospers.

Real Solution: Learning to Balance Our Interconnected Nature

As we realize our completely interconnected state of humanity, and become educated through the wisdom of Kabbalah about the forces of Nature—receiving and giving—we can naturally understand the optimal role of each member of humanity within these forces, and we will achieve real prosperity and perfection. Both the cause and solution to the crises lies within each of us, separately and collectively. What we all need to end the crises, is to stop pointing fingers at others, and to start looking within and see our crucial role in fixing it, by adjusting our attitude to the world with the giving and receiving forces of Nature. Not only will this end the crises, but it will bring us to abundance, prosperity, and real fulfillment.