The classic poem “If…” was written in 1898 by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling.
I adored both writing this music and recording the performance. It’s a simple guitar and vocal performance; very clean and soft. It’s heartfelt, and I’m sure each of us can identify with these beautiful words. They’re ageless, and apply through a life time, and generations into the future.
If…
copyright 2011 Intelligentsia Media Inc.
words Rudyard Kipling
music Elaine Diane Taylor
SOCAN/ASCAP
digital download available now at the CDBaby Store
available soon on iTunes
If…
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
In the cycles of a society using fiat currency, there’s the inevitable overuse and printing of more currency than the value of the society’s assets.
If they need money for war, they print. If they need money to give bread and circuses to the population to get re-elected, they print. If they owe favours, they print.
This brings higher prices for goods and services and lowers the number of jobs, because people aren’t buying as many goods and services.
So we get lower incomes, which lowers amount of purchasing, which increases hunger, which leads to anger.
The people who received the fiat currency in the form of low interest loans do great. Everyone else? Not so much.
Eventually the anger leads to protests.
That’s where we’re at right now.
Ezra Klein from the Washington post states the feeling quite well: http://tinyurl.com/69my89g
The “Occupy” movements are gaining momentum, but are chaotic at the moment because the people are not sure what’s wrong. Some want more regulation, some want revolution. They’re in the process of honing down what the movement is about.
Many are angry that they played by the rules and aren’t getting ahead, while they see some who didn’t play by the rules doing just fine.
Eventually, as happened in history, the distrust leads to reduced credit, which will in turn lead to people put their money into something without counterparty risk. I believe eventually that thing will be gold, silver and other tangible things of value. I believe we’ll go back to some kind of a gold standard.
A game of coins and crowns.
Coins and Crowns
copyright 2011 Intelligentsia Media
SOCAN/ASCAP
I really hope that the growing worldwide demonstrations stay peaceful.
Occupy Wall Street is now getting mainstream news coverage, though the online streaming is where the real coverage is.
“Occupy” now has demonstrations planned for many major cities around the world. This is a worldwide issue and everyone is feeling the effects of the conduct of the major banks.
I’ve been reading opinions on blogs and boards and it seems some are happy to protest and some believe the protest itself is being influenced and promoted by government and banking interests.
Some say the 700 protesters blocking traffic and arrested yesterday on Brooklyn Bridge in New York were willfully disobeying peaceful rules of protest. Some say the police themselves moved the crowds into the street.
There’s no way to know for sure.
What we do know is that peaceful demonstration is lawful.
It’s a way to bring concerns to the attention of government policymakers and officials. It’s a way to bring media attention which brings a way to consolidate those of similar interest.
Vancouver is now joining New York. October 15th, 2011 in a peaceful demonstration at the Art Gallery to show government parties that we as a group want policies in place that remove the banks use power and influence to bring about policies that favour the 1% of top income earners, and corporations, and to instead bring fair policy to the 99% of the population.
Coins and Crowns
copyright 2011 Intelligentsia Media
SOCAN/ASCAP
This is a protest against inequality in a social order.
Not that some have more and some have less, but that some people with more have gamed the system for personal gain at others’ peril.
The capitalist system allows a person to work hard in order to gain a better lifestyle. More work, or smart work, gets someone a better future than if they spend all day playing XBox. That’s a fair system.
What is not fair is when those with power use that power to consolidate money and influence, and then align with government policymakers to make rules that gives them personally a better future at the direct expense of the rest of society. Even the ones working hard.
Beyond that there are the opportunities of those with power to break the laws that are there to ensure fairness, and use influence to keep those aware of the breach quiet.
The middle class is disappearing.
Fiat currency, which is paper or digital dollars not backed by gold, silver or anything of value, is used by banks to create loans. It’s called fractional reserve.
A bank must have, or used to have, one dollar in their bank for each nine dollars they loaned out. Ten percent reserve. If they showed one dollar on their asset sheet, then they found nine new people to loan one dollar to and they made interest on those new loans as well as fees. When you took out a loan for a dollar, they used your promise to repay the loan with a dollar plus interest, and put that promise on their asset sheet as something they ‘own’. That dollar you promised to pay is put on their balance sheet as an asset. No joke.
They pretend they have that dollar and they go out and make nine new dollars out of thin air (there’s a process but I’m giving you the short story), and lend these new digital dollars to nine new people. Those nine new people promise to pay back that nine dollars plus interest.
That’s how it worked in America. Now it works the same way, but they don’t just loan ten to one, as of a few years ago it’s now 25 to one, or more.
Do you understand? The assets on the banks sheets is comprised of loans that people have promised to repay for houses they could not afford.
The increase of money supply to create the loans has diluted the value of the dollars that people hold so they can’t buy as much as they used to. No purchasing? No job creation to make the goods. No jobs? No money to buy food which is now increasing in price.
It’s a Ponzi Scheme.
Remember how the banks were lending money in 2007 to people who didn’t even have a job? It’s because they ran out of credible people to loan money to. No loans? They make no fees. No fees? No bonuses.
In order for the bank to grow and sustain itself, and pay its bills, it must find more and more people to loan to.
It’s a Ponzi Scheme that will crash.
It is not sustainable. There will never be enough money to pay off all of the loans, because the interest and fees must also be paid, so more must be created in order to pay the interest and fees.
At this point the policymakers, and people in-the-know can see it’s a sinking ship. At this point they are just trying to think of a way to save themselves.
The system will crash. All fiat systems in history have failed.
When that happens? Empires change hands.
Every time an empire borrows money to expand and pay off corrupt insiders it falls.
Think Rome.
Think Holland and the Tulip bulb ponzi.
Think Britain.
Now think America.
At this point the individual looks to the group but also must look to themselves to supply what they need for their families.
Whenever an empire turned over in the past there was great distrust between countries. Just for a few years. Chaos and war and economic stress comes for a few years. Then a new reserve currency, for trade, is set up and new growth happens. The new reserve is backed by gold and/or silver.
It’s a repeating cycle.
Will it happen? Is there enough gold and silver to back the gubbazillions in digital dollars?
We’ll see. It’ll come soon. It’s a cycle.
The Occupy Wall Street protests are part of that cycle. If the government pays attention and changes policies to benefit the middle class then it can possibly survive. A few years of struggle to pay off the debts, as Iceland has just gone through, and then growth and good times.
If they do not listen and only save themselves then it will take longer. The individuals politicians and bankers benefit while they delay, unless they break the law and are prosecuted to deter others.
Change will come one way or the other. The system as it is is not sustainable.
It will crash. The sooner it crashes the sooner we prosecute any law breaking and have a new start.
Occupy Wall Street is the start to bringing about new equality.
This brings higher prices for goods and services and lowers the number of jobs, because people aren’t buying as many goods and services.
