Wednesday 27 November 2013

Jupiter Pluto Opposition April 2014: The Cardinal Grand Cross


The third and final Jupiter Pluto Opposition occurs on 20th April 2014 but it applies about a week earlier as a feature in a cardinal grand cross that will be seen in future generations as a defining moment in the world history. Pluto is anchored to the root of all national charts with a 1st January nativity, indicating that the event of the grand cross will have a profound and long term impact on the forward evolution of the people influenced by the movements of planets in this solar system. Growth is always a painful event and I expect this episode to be more painful than usual because of the potential long term benefits of getting it right.

If you are reading this article you will hopefully be more informed than those who trust the propaganda of government spin and the selective reports of the main stream media. You may want to review your present interactions with the world and prepare for changes that have yet to happen; as they most certainly will and in a manner that is sudden and radical.

Anyone whose lives were affected by the debt crisis in 2009 will want to know how the long term impact goes right the way through to 2020. This article examines the astrological symbolism that predicts the vanguard of a much deeper crisis than that of 2009 and 2014 triggers the moment where we must prepare for a depression every bit as bad, if not more so, as the great depression of the 1930s. It may take until 2015 before we see the full effects of it but there will be nothing we can do to alter the fact that it must happen; if only to make everyone realise that our debt based money system is terminal and must be replaced.

For myself personally, this article defines a climactic point to the journey I started back in 2003 when I first started working with the ‘Barbault Scale’ through a steep learning curve and a thirst to understand the importance of my discovery. Although the journey is far from over, I believe that the experiences we are about to share are profound enough to pay attention to the sources I have used to speak of what lies in the future. For those who do not study mundane astrology, it is an opportunity to examine its worth. I am also indebted to Theodore White and William Stickevers for their collaborative spirit and support.

I started a series of articles of the Jupiter Pluto opposition, knowing that the third pass reached a tipping point in world events. And when one looks at an aspect like the Jupiter Pluto opposition hitting three times before moving on, one must consider what happened at the first hit in order to understand the third hit.

At the point of the first Jupiter Pluto opposition applying at 9 degrees 26 Cancer / Capricorn (7th August 2013) the main focus in the UK was on the financial situation, where the nation’s GDP was revised slightly upwards from 0.5% to 0.6%. The meteoric leap was hailed as evidence that the economy was improving. I considered it a short term statistic that would be dwarfed by what is to come. However, the Bank of England Inflation Report press conference, that took place on 7th August 2013, also talked up the notion that the recovery was underway but acknowledged that unemployment was still too high. 

By the second Jupiter Pluto opposition, (30th January 2014) with Jupiter retrograde and Pluto conjunct Venus, the masses of money has reached a critical point but neither trade nor bonds (Quantitative Easing) can stop the inevitable. With the ‘writing on the wall’ you can expect governments to make knee jerk reactions and al manner of daft attempts to save their skin. It won’t work. Even at this time, Uranus is starting to apply by square and just before this event, on 11th January 2014, although no cross is formed, the main players of Pluto will square Uranus, will square Jupiter (loose) will square Mars and square back to Pluto. It is a one-day preview that those who have influence may glimpse at what the immediate future brings. Governments would be right to be worried.

On January 31st 2014, at the time of the Jupiter Pluto opposition, The Aquarius lunation is just a few days old and Mercury is in the same sign at an anaretic degree. It would be wrong to sign trade agreements in haste on the promise of short term gain.

The UK government has been adamant that cuts and austerity measures are the only solution for the debt crisis, plunging millions of people into hardship and poverty. But the government will also be aware that the protracted measures have hurt the poorest in society and bled the consumer of the means for the UK to spend its way out of recession.

The unemployment figures have been manipulated to the point where it can no longer cast a fog over the truth because the economic figures and the lack of real economic recovery is beyond placation or ‘wait and see’ or ‘we are on the right path’.The people have already had enough and government will have witnessed civil unrest since November 2013 and while it is quietened, in the physical at least, by the winter months, they know that there will be a rejuvenated gathering of unrest and plans of new assaults for the spring of 2014. 

Before then, and as the winter becomes, as it was known back in 1974, a winter of discontent (Pluto at 9 degrees of Libra, square the world axis), the end of January may see the start of thinking anew. The fixed view to hold a course of continued austerity has not worked (austerity as symbolised by Saturn in Scorpio). If anything it is about to get worse, so it is time to rethink. As Mercury moves into Pisces, only to station retrograde, refraining from aspect to Neptune, the government may only at this point start to realise that their plan is not only not working but the road ahead has fallen apart and they are staring into the abyss of a nightmare scenario. 

Then will come the lies, the denials and in the meantime trying to work furiously behind the scenes to limit the damage to their reputations and the purity of their political ideals. Furious will be the attempts to maintain the secrecy of economic collapse while the North Node travels backwards to the beginning of Scorpio, perpetuating the themes of clandestine business dealings and with continued austerity in mind. The focus of the people will also be concerned with pulling back on luxuries and concentrating on the necessities of life, further emphasising the impression that economic recovery promises are not forthcoming any time soon.

Venus is stationary direct and conjunct Pluto in Capricorn on 31st January 2014, suggesting that the financial administration of money to the masses has to be radically changed (square to Uranus). If the derivative debt bubble hasn’t burst already then this will be another possibility. It is not a case of if it will happen but when.

There’s more...

On August 1st 2013 the European Union passed a law that allows governments, in the event, of a banking collapse, to confiscate money from the individual bank accounts of ordinary savers (that is you and me). As the cardinal cross becomes manifest the pressure to enact this particular law is likely. When will it happen (and I believe it will happen across the whole of Europe and elsewhere)? It seems reasonable in the face of a stock market crash, where debt derivatives hoarded by banks and large financial institutions suddenly become worthless that the notion is already there to steal the money of ordinary people to save themselves. The end of January with a stationary Venus alongside the Jupiter Pluto opposition, square Uranus , and mercury (trade) applying to conjunct Neptune (the dissolving of) seems a reasonably good candidate for a stock market crash. If it does not happen by then, the market may limp along for a little while longer but if it makes early October 2014 then the crash will be both profound and unambiguous in its portents for a lengthy period of global depression.

If the crash occurs in January/February 2014 then the government might possibly wait until the budget statement in March to reveal the full horror of their plans (The North Node moves into Libra, encouraging a focus that is less secretive although Saturn remains in Scorpio) which may end up being an announcement of intent as soon as Venus ingresses into Pisces at the beginning of the 2014 tax year (April 6th) and applies to Neptune. Venus reaches full conjunction with Neptune just two days before the cardinal grand cross.

On March 1st 2014 Mercury stations direct at the same time Mars stations retrograde at the 27 degrees of Libra that the present Saturn Pluto cycle started. Mercury will be conjunct the UK 1801 natal Venus and square natal Neptune. The UK Neptune in the 2nd house has always been an energy for fraud (and links the UK to it’s past history with drug trafficking). Transiting Mercury will pass this point at least once a year. Stationing so close to the UK natal Venus is one thing but we should also note that a few weeks later, on 21st March, transiting Neptune conjuncts secondary progressed Pluto when the North Node ingresses into Libra. Much must surely come to light, even if slowly and over a long period of time, that some would have preferred to remain buried. Meanwhile Mars picks up speed as it travels retrograde to become the final component that forms the cardinal grand cross.

The exact Jupiter Pluto opposition occurs on 20th April 2014 (Sun ingress into Venus’s sign of Taurus) but such is the power of the grand cross that all aspects will come into play from around 14th April 2014. However, it should be noted that at the exact point of the final Jupiter Pluto conjunction the Moon is conjunct Pluto, implying that the people (Moon) oppose the law (Jupiter), raging against the government’s perspective of what the status quo should be. So possibly what we will see on 20th of April is an enraged response to the events of the cardinal grand cross.

Venus, the financial planet is conjunct the wounded healer Chiron in Pisces. This implies clearly that the financial system is busted irrevocably, and being in a mutable sign is unstable. Chiron, the teacher, must surely demand that through experience of pain the lessons to be learned are transparently clear.

In the UK 1801 chart the cardinal grand cross covers the 1st / 7th - 4th / 10th axis, close enough to the angles of the world axis to intimate that this is a global event (as if the Uranus Pluto square at this point were not enough already). So it is very likely that much of what I say here will apply to countries outside the UK.

Uranus is crossing into the 7th house, shaking off the unconscious behaviour of the 6th 12th houses to suddenly have to wake up to the notion that what was taken for granted before is not going to work anymore. Uranus crossed the 7th house of the UK 1801 chart in March 2013 for the first time, which was around the time that Cyprus was bailed out of their banking crisis. Importantly perhaps, one must recall that Cyprus became the first country where the bank’s investors had a percentage of their personal money confiscated to save the bank; and later in this article you will discover how this became a paradigm for future crises. 

On April 14th Pluto also goes stationary - the status quo in sharp focus. Remember looking at the worn out sofa or the bed with springs poking out all over the place, and realising it really has to be replaced? Well this is the point where the debt economy becomes akin to the shabby sofa. It is outmoded and does not work. It is riddled with corruption and many business practices have been warped towards the pursuit of profit rather than the pursuit of excellence.

For many months (you might say about a week before the first Jupiter Pluto opposition in Aug 2013 when Mars was conjunct Jupiter and applying to the opposition of Pluto right up to the point before Mars started applying to Uranus by opposition) the T square of Jupiter opposing Pluto and squaring Uranus has given an outlet through the missing arm of Libra. There would have been opportunities to channel a solution through the Libra portal. With Libra’s ruler, Venus, in Pisces, the solution is clearly to share money with the collective. In other words, the economy cannot grow if no one has money to spend. However, Venus traveling towards Neptune, shows how the massive quantitative easing programme  simply swallowed up all that money potential into large institutions, leaving nothing for the people. Meanwhile Mars in its detriment in Libra sits on the fence, unable to make decisions, knowing that money must form part of the solution but can do nothing without drastically reforming the current establishments, which the UK cannot possibly do unilaterally without isolating itself (Saturn, exaltation Libra, peregrine in Scorpio).

The banks have had plenty of opportunity to take the economic situation by the throat and restructure the way money is made and distributed. But despite several warnings, the corporate machine has just one aim, to make profit for its share holders. To do otherwise might have saved the economy but no cooperation exists in this game of monopoly.

Likewise the corporate bodies of oil, pharmaceuticals, mining, enormous companies dedicated to government contracts and other money-sucking giants sweep aside the consumer for their share of the economic pie. They are huge, ‘too big to fail’ giants who must consume more and greater meals until only they are left in the game. The little people only count if they are consumers.

It is this attitude of the corporations’ unwillingness to bend, and to their eternal shame, the governments and politicians supposedly elected by the people to serve the people, who are powerlessness not only to do the job they were elected to do but to change anything at all without biting the hand that gives them money. So although there is an outlet, it is not without tremendous consequences. So although the governments must make the changes, they won’t. And by April 14th 2014, when Mars, having not been used to solve the economic problems when the opportunity was there, becomes part of the problem itself, making a financial collapse inevitable. It may not happen straight away but this will be the starting point where nothing short of completely disowning the global economy in its present form will make enough of a difference. 

Theodore White noted recently that those planets within the cardinal cross cannot be involved in the solution. This means that Mars opposing Uranus (Mercury conjunct) squaring the Jupiter Pluto opposition, leaves only Venus and Saturn.

But let us examine the cardinal grand cross for a moment to understand what is there. Unlike the ‘preview square’ of 11 January 2014 mentioned earlier, the cardinal cross, starts around 11th April and remains for at least 24 days. It is not a flash in the pan event. It is a serious conflict of worlds between those who want things to stay the same opposing those who demand change must come. The personification of this event will be tangible and measurable. The mainstream media may try to report the events in the way that they want us to think but it will be unlikely that they could not report it at all. It is a pity that they have tried to do this in the past so as not to give publicity to all the people awake enough to make a noise about the corruption and dreadful decisions leaking their way into government legislation in the most subversive manner in an attempt to obscure their very existence.

The Pluto Uranus square, the necessity for reform underpins the square with mighty and possibly radical means to change the status quo. What started in 1965 is a cycle that is cutting edge and innovative but forces away unceremoniously all the outmoded practices, establishments and traditions that will not go quietly. Sometimes there are catastrophic events that must take place before the world can evolve. In this sense one should consider the generational divides, the older generation (Pluto in Leo) still holding on to old ways and power for themselves. Then look at the generation of Pluto in Sagittarius, the generation expected to pay the debts of their elders and yet possessed of the highest unemployment rate ever. As they experience the consequences of global mismanagement, it is to this generation that the evolution of globalisation must evolve.

The next consideration in the cardinal cross is Jupiter, on its third and final opposition to Pluto and square to Uranus. The masses of money are being held by too few people and it needs a radical shift to break the inevitable outcome of a breakdown in money and a breakdown in civil compliance. This is something that has been known for some time by the powers that be and they have had years to do something about it. But instead the politicians have tinkered around the edges of doing anything remotely meaningful and those who possess more money than they can use meaningfully are happy to see the world go to hell in poverty and destitution.

The large corporate giants that have grown obese on the back of war and destruction would rather create more war and destruction to feed themselves instead of the people. This much was demonstrated in the sudden rush to go to war in Syria until the people of the UK made enough noise for their government to say, ‘no’. The war machine tries desperately to find an out let for it’s $1.5 million dollar tomahawk cruise missiles to get used, thereby creating a market to build more missiles. Have no illusion that the reason to strike Syria, or any other country of late, was anything other than the creation of potential profit through war.

Then Mars completes the grand cross, opposing Uranus. The lack of any meaningful action is now seen by the people and there is nothing for it but to force radical change. Up to now the governments and the corporations had their chance to do something about it but up to now they have failed and they will continue to fail. Instead they will try to use fear and force to keep the people, now very unhappy, compliant and subservient.

There are trade agreements in progress (note Mercury will be conjunct to Uranus in Aries at the time of the grand cross) that have more to do with corporate protection and the right of corporations to sue governments for future loss of earnings than it has to do with trade itself. THIS is their answer to trying to sort out the debt crisis; protectionism, looking after their profitability as if the system that is killing us has to go on at least until they control the world.

Mars in Libra may find it hard to make decisions but action will undoubtedly occur if continued inaction impinges on human rights; the energy has to go somewhere and most likely the primary outlet will be frustration. In the UK there have been numerous attacks on welfare recipients including stricter sanctions on job seekers, unfair withdrawal of benefits from people who are sick, disabled and terminally ill, caps on rent at a time when landlords are putting up rents by 10% and more, and at the same time penalising tenants with a ‘spare room subsidy’ that is more popularly known as the ‘bedroom tax’.

To add further misery, the general cost of living keeps getting higher: Food prices go up well beyond the pace of salaries. Utility companies, all sold off by previous governments into private hands, raised costs by an average of 10%. The basics of life are getting beyond the ability of people to manage. The elderly in fuel poverty are increasingly having to decide between heating and eating; a choice that even the ever growing food banks cannot relieve.

Hospitals and schools are closing down, crushed by the previous (Labour) government’s silly decision to engage in Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) where the cost of continuing to use the building exceeds the budgeted ability to pay. Local councils are cutting services back to save money, government posts are being shed to save money. All of this at the expense of the people but affected mostly on those with the least money.

Meanwhile the contrast between rich and poor is clear and the opposition plain. Bank moneymakers and CEOs of private companies indulge in enormous bonuses, politicians shove their noses ever deeper into expenses and salary increases far above the 1% cap they placed on everyone else. This is meritocracy gone crazy; a few people get masses of money and in their arrogant complacency they believe that there is nothing the ‘have nots’ can do about it.

Only in the last days of November 2013 did the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, declare that we should not moan at the super rich. In fact we should owe them a debt of gratitude for all the taxes they pay. Boris Johnson, formally of Eton and a member of the notorious Bullingdon club along with David Cameron and George Osborne, is naturally of rich parentage and presently demonstrative of the breathtaking hubris that exists among those who appear to believe that they have a divine right to bathe in the trappings of wealth indifferent to the elderly who die unnecessarily of the cold weather or one of the many hundreds of disabled people that have taken their own lives because destitution is imposed on them and they can see no way out.

The debt crisis was not caused by the poor, the elderly or the disabled who are paying such a dear price for the failures of banks and predatory speculators and yet, to Boris Johnson and those of his perspective, we should be thankful that the super rich pay their taxes,

Yes Mr David Cameron, I would like to understand right now how we are ‘all in this together’?

So according to the grand cross of Jupiter opposite Pluto and Mars opposite Uranus / Mercury, no trade or corporate intervention can help; in many ways that was instrumental to the cause. No amount of money thrown into large institutions will help; the quantitative easing has made the problem worse because it was the wrong thing to do. It would have been far better to give lots of money to the people to spend. Even the people, who will surely take to the streets, cannot change the situation just because they are upset. They cannot buy their way into a better economy because they do not have the means. The administrations are powerless to take unilateral action because the problem is global and therefore the solution also has to be global.

Wresting the control of the world’s destiny out of the hands of the powerful will not be done by head-on confrontation; the protection is far too powerful and organised to be broken by individuals not trained or equipped to take over. But it will not stop people from protesting loudly and in ever greater numbers.

Saturn in Scorpio is in Mars’s traditional sign. It is inevitable that those in power will try to use Mars through oppressive means. The greater and lesser malefics are both in difficult positions, so to consider solutions using them will only bring more hardship, brutality and unnecessary suffering to millions. It is just the sort of thing you would expect from bullies and from those who are scared of what would happen if they lost control. This is undoubtedly the point at which the symbolism suggests the government takes money from the accounts of individuals and sparks a great deal of civil unrest. The potential for martial law arises as the government continues to attempt appeasing their corporate masters. If this does not happen at this point then something of equal outrage that we know nothing of today would have to occur.

Venus meanwhile sits mid point between Neptune and Chiron. This is as good an indication of a global economic depression as you can get. It also implies that it could be as much as 5 years before we climb out of it. This gives the world plenty of time to see its entire corporate structure go underground or belly up. This is not going to be pretty. But Venus is also in a trine aspect to Jupiter, making a team up of the greater and lesser benefics against the team of malefics. On the one hand it is easy for those with money to have an easy life through this period of hardship. On the other hand it is also easy to see what must happen for everyone to benefit from economic stability.

The full moon on 15 April, (and total lunar eclipse) defines the opposing camps; the leadership and those in power want innovation, new ideas to make money but oppose the people who want reformation of the monetary system. With the Sun in the same house as the Uranus Mercury conjunction, the clear favourite is to come up with new trade agreements.

But looking at the 2013 trade agreement between the US and the UK, as mentioned earlier, there is already massive opposition to it because of the notion that corporations can sue countries for loss. It raises concerns that the genetic modification companies will try to foist unwanted products into Europe (indeed it looks like they have done that by stealth through major brands) or fracking companies will gain access to the UK against the wishes of the people. Remember that if planets within the cardinal cross cannot produce a solution, then Mercury (trade) conjunct Uranus cannot be the answer.

The moon and North Node are in close enough conjunction in Libra to indicate a belief that the people’s focus will be predominantly on fairness and equality, raising the questions about the haves versus the have nots, a living wage, proper working rights and conditions, the rejection of zero hours contracts and poverty wages.

It seems certain that the government and the people are going to be as far apart from each other as you can get. The Liberal Democrats (the Conservative’s coalition partners)may well decide at this point to end the coalition, leaving the Conservative party to run a minority government. But no one will want the poison chalice of running an irreparable economy and no major party will be seen as a saviour. The people, if they have any sense, will reject all the major political parties, all of whom had the opportunity to make bold decisions to represent the people but all chose to represent corporate profit. Simply put, there are no candidates in politics today equipped to deal with the economic mess or removed enough from the Westminster swamp to make a big enough difference to the lives of the UK people.

In the UK 1801 chart the full moon has sun in the 7th and moon in the 1st house, placing the wishes of the people in a stronger position than the leadership. But the cardinal cross is a global event, and with Pluto on the world axis it further implies that those countries with 1st of January natal charts will share similar sentiments. So much of what we see in the UK chart will be mirrored in others. It also implies that the effects of the debt crisis and the solution to it will also have to be global.

In the light of crisis and uncertainty, the Scottish referendum on independence (18 September 2014) is likely to be defeated. While there are great aspirations by the Scottish people to govern their own affairs, when it comes to the point of voting there will be so much more emphasis on the sharing of debt rather than the sharing or wealth that the insecurities of individual is likely to outweigh the attraction of self determination.

So in 2014 the world will hit an impasse where no solution is possible until those who oppose the necessary changes either crumble into obscurity or fall from grace. Household names in business will fall. Banks will collapse. Governments will steal your money. Protests will become bigger and bolder. It all must happen before we, the people, can find enough common ground to mount an effective opposition against those who determine to cling in deep denial to a sinking vessel. There will be those who believe that violence in some way solves problems, promoting the likelihood of martial law, particularly when Mars conjuncts Saturn in August 2014 and then conjuncts Pluto in November 2014. This is not the effective opposition that will work. A new strategy involving the internet and people coming together in unity to perform individual acts is the only certain way to defeat the ageing oligarchy and a terminally ill debt based economy.

By 2015, when Saturn moves into the mutable sign of Sagittarius, we will begin to live in unstable and uncertain times. The UK 1801 Yod of Pluto inconjunct to Jupiter and Uranus will inconjunct itself by solar arc. This is the period that people should prepare for. It will contain great tension and uncertainty for us all. How we see ourselves and our position in the world will be challenged. But it is also a time of great potential for us to become more educated, more ‘clued up’ as to what is going on and how we can play our individual part to ‘being the change we want to see’.

Unemployment may rocket even further as businesses fold. Inflation may rise rapidly and taxes will go the same way unless services and infrastructure are cut beyond the bone. The debt crisis is so deep already that in 2013 that even the central banks have admitted there is no way back, hence the law to steal money from everyone’s account. Think of basics like food, water, and warmth. There will be at least two to three years of very harsh times, the likes of which you may never have seen before outside of poverty stricken and war torn third world countries.

By 2018 there will have to be some harsh decisions made about how the UK views its resources and where it sees its ideals and its sources of income. That UK 1801 yod will hit the UK ascendant, challenging us to present ourselves to the world with ideas of how we can rise from the ashes of the crumbling old world order. However, this far ahead is beyond the scope of this article and I am sure I will be looking to 2015 and beyond another time.


The solution to the cardinal cross, to the masses of money described by the Jupiter Pluto opposition, lies with the planet Venus; the planet of the economy and matters of finance. It matters little how much money a country has if most of it is held by very rich individuals or squirrelled away by large institutions. The debt based economy (Venus midpoint Neptune and Chiron) is sick and terminally ill. It must be dissolved before it destroys us all.

But remember that the backdrop to all of this is the Pluto Uranus square, demanding change and reform, particularly with a view to our understanding, both individually and nationally, of the use of credit (1966 was the UKs first personal credit card). Therefore with Venus in Pisces the economy as it exists remains as long as the collective continues to use it. Opposing the Venus position lies Virgo, the house of work, trade and small animals. It has already been floated that the idea of more locally based economies is the way to move forward. The suggestion does satisfy symbolically the most likely consequence of contracting economy but it does not necessarily indicate the solution.

With Neptune in Pisces, knocking on the door of the UK1801 6th house, large institutions will be scrutinised for transparency and probity. There can no longer be ‘too big to fail’ businesses. We must root out and scrap all secret companies and tax loopholes. Business must be channeled into serving the community or to be treated as separate from the community both in economic and budgetary terms. With the North Node traveling through Libra until October 2015 the focus on a more equal society must arise before the North Node enters Virgo and starts to pick and unravel how to bring the whole mess back to empowering every individual rather than a selected few.

In fact transiting Neptune knocking around the UK 1801 natal and secondary Pluto (Jupiter   conjunct in solar arc) suggests that the evolution of the country is likely to be working towards a completely new phase of existence, reinventing itself in readiness for historic changes, like the possibility of working more with the Chinese and less with the US.

I think it rather curious that it seems the cardinal cross promotes a form of active protection on every level, hence the reason why it seems pertinent to ensure that individual preparations should be considered seriously before Jupiter and the focus of the North Node reaches the mutable sign of Virgo in 2015. We have but a few short months (until July 2014) to use our energies to initiate changes to our own lives before meeting a greater resistance by the forces around us.

There are more people ‘awake’ to what is going on than there was a few years ago but so many people, sheeple, are trapped in a herd-like fog of consumerist ignorance, more intent on watching soap operas and reality TV than creating an awareness of the threat they are under. Even main stream media is of little use nowadays. Those who do want to know what is going on must look at the information from web sites like RT News, The Huffington Post, Avaaz and 38 degrees. This is not an exhaustive list but they give you more of what is going on than you will get on the TV (at least while the government haven’t past a bill to gag them).

For many people, unless we use the time to wake them up, will be aghast and unprepared when the global economy collapses. There are very real dangers that the dollar, the Euro and the Pound are under threat of collapse; maybe not in 2014 but soon after. So please share this and other information to everyone in your friend circle. It will take many more people than are awake right now to build up an effective campaign against those who would be happy to see the poor people die of poverty and destitution rather than change the system.

The cardinal cross might sound a bit apocalyptic but it far from being the end of the world. It is, in fact, the need to clear the decks for a brand new beginning. For any of us to be a part of that new beginning, to have the influence over how the world is to be, we must join forces as a people across all nations and reject the hegemony that controls us today. 

End 

Friday 8 November 2013

Profit Is Not A Dirty Word


On 1st October 2013, David Cameron started to draw up the lines of the 2015 UK general election by saying that profit is not a dirty word. This may indeed be true in some cases, particularly the small businesses that expand to employ more local workers to stimulate the local economy. The notion of generating profit to benefit local communities in terms of business and commerce and the overall wellbeing of a town or city is a good thing.

But when you use profit to kill off the competition, to benefit share holders at the expense of communities, to manufacture using the cheapest labour from abroad and deny employment in the place you want to sell from, to ignore community wishes by imposing yourself on them through expensive legal wrangles with the local council, to beat down producers and manufacturers, effectively stealing their profit to offer low prices without losing its profit. Then profit is more than dirty; it is cancerous.

The effect of profit can be realised readily through the UK energy industry. Natural gas is priced at the same level as oil, even though there is no particular correlation. Energy companies charge around 5% for the administration of people’s energy bills but this is taken out irrespective of cost variation. Bills go up quickly whenever oil prices rise but never come down.

Nestle, the CEO who says that water is not a basic human right but should have a monetary value, Steals water from areas in Pakistan and make entire villages uninhabitable.

Monsanto, who on their own website attempt to justify suing farmers for doing what farmers should be doing, also sue farmers whose land becomes accidentally contaminated by Monsanto products.

Scientists find a cure for cancer but because pharmaceutical companies cannot patent dichloroacetate, they have no way of profiting from it. Did you know there was a cure for cancer? Did you realise that the big pharmaceuticals are happy for you to die until they can find a cure with a profit margin?

The mainstream media won't tell you because they are owned by large money making corporations.

Large corporations in today’s society have become a malignant growth that threatens to wipe out any competition and has no care for people or environment. Profit is generated for the sake of profit, without consideration of the consequence it may have on local communities or even nations. And if David Cameron truly believes that profit is not a dirty word, then he must travel the same way that corporations must go; consigned to the rubbish heap of terrible ideas. There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that profit is as disgusting as it can get.

And this is before we even begin to talk about investment banks, playing with trillions of (select currency unit) that make the cost of housing out of the reach of millions, pricing food out of the mouths of poor people and even selling debt on the promise of greater profit later.

As I understand it, the world is now run by 10 enormous companies, in which the game of monopoly plays out its final turns whilst all the other players, excluded so long ago, can no longer play. The consumer’s role is simply to spend what little money trickles down their way on what they decide we should have.

On 1st November 2013, the 99% (we the people) protested through various groups, such as anonymous, the occupy movement and the People’s Assembly, to make governments aware that we are no longer passengers on their corrupt journey. We reject the oligarchy, the large corporations, the austerity measures where we pay for debt we did not create. It would, in fact, be a simple and easy gesture for the 1% to reset the worlds economy by paying off all government debt tomorrow. But that is not the rules of monopoly and they would rather send millions of people off to die in a senseless war to stimulate the economy and generate yet more debt, rather than set up the board for a brand new game.

Not that we should ever want to play monopoly ever again. The experiment has proved that mega rich people and mega corporations create huge imbalances in the economy and starvation, destitution and poverty. The system, in short, is well and truly busted.

When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 it was to stabilise the banking system. Now it produces money out of thin air to keep banks going in their quest for profit. Not even the tiniest percentage benefits the people or their communities. And yet the people and their communities will be expected to pay the price when it all goes wrong.

At the bottom end, people in the UK find their minimum wage jobs are not even living wage jobs. High Street shopping venues fill up with betting shops, estate agents, charity shops and fast food outlets. Gone are clothing, butchers, fishmongers, bakers, greengrocers and niche shops that could only survive on patronage and passing trade. Parking your car is virtually impossible. So people are forced to shop in the supermarkets, large department stores, shopping malls designed solely for national and global players.

To profit as a small business is a good thing. But the REAL economy, around 8% of the world’s money is stifled. Banks want to charge extortionate interest rates to small and medium sized businesses because they know the business paradigm is stack against their survival. If we really wanted our small and medium sized businesses to revive communities and flourish, we would have a bank dedicated to lending only to them at an interest rate designed only to cover the continuation of the bank’s reason for being. In other words the bank does not profit for share holders or for expansion, other than to service the growth of small and medium sized businesses in their catchment area.

Ed Milliband promises a price freeze on energy bills. This is a classic example of politicians tinkering around the edges of a much bigger problem. If this is Labour’s big play for the general election, they are not worth voting for any more than the Conservatives.

Liberal Democrat, UKIP, English Democrats and all the other small parties have the same problem with trying to work within this dying debt dependent monetary system. They are not worth voting for either.

Several attempts have been made to create a ‘none of the above’ option for disenfranchised voters to have a meaningful vote. In recent times this has not had a great impact of voter intention. So this means that for Ed milliband in 2015, he will be able to continue the ‘Labservative’ reign for another 5 years; although the poison chalice of running a country through a deep depression will soon lose it’s lustre.

Albert Einstein, a genius it is said and so maybe worth listening to, once said that, ‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’. Swinging our vote from Labour to Conservative and back again has achieved the same thing time and again. They have had their time and their game no longer works. The world needs a new money system, a new type of political stewardship and an end to the nasty affair with usury.

Before financial gain, the word ‘profit’ was also defined as benefit. For David Cameron that is a particularly disgusting word. Perhaps the question we must be certain of before the next UK general election is who profits and who benefits? Will it profit you to vote for more of the same and expect that the result will be different this time?

Is that not just a sign of insanity?