USA is 'third world' country for many

(Raising Wildflowers) The USA is a "Third World" Country for Millions of Americans

#costoflivingcrisis

Trump's tariffs destroy Stock Market

American stock market loses nearly $2 trillion after Commander Trump tariff announcement

Former Pres. B. S. Obama's devastating eight-word comment sums up chaos of Trump's haphazard tariffs: "What if I had done any of this?"

(ABC News) Stocks suffer major losses in first trading session after Trump's new tariffs. It's April 3rd, 2025, and U.S. stocks have suffered major losses on Thursday at close of the first trading session after President Don Elon Trump's sweeping tariffs [taxes on imports that create higher prices for American consumers] announcement. We're in the fog of war, and Commander in Chief Trump is blasting away and making enemies of everyone.

Stormy tells all: bad sex with Trump

Full Disclosure (Audible Audio Edition): Stormy Daniels (aka Stephanie Clifford)

Which orange mushroom most resembles Trump's small, misshapen penis? - This tiny one!

Porn star Stormy Daniels EXCLUSIVE: Details of sex with Donald Trump

Is it small, very pale, with the odor of fungus?

(Jimmy Kimmel Live) In Stormy "Stephanie Clifford" Daniels' first interview for her new book Full Disclosure, she talks about meeting Donald Trump in Lake Tahoe, the details of the night they spent together in his hotel room for sex as Trump cheated on his wife, Melania, shortly after she had given birth to Trump's youngest son, Baron, where she demonstrates how she spanked him with a Forbes magazine, witnessing and overhearing a phone call he had with former U.S. Secretary of State and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, reveals what she found in his bathroom, why she prayed for death during sex with him, and picks which mushroom resembles Trump's penis the most from a line-up Jimmy-K provided for her. #Kimmel

• VIDEO: Hope for Kavanaugh and other men accused of sexual assault

MAGA protesters outside NY courthouse

Trump’s criminal trial begins in Manhattan with Arguments | Trump Trial Live

(CNN-News18) Started streaming Monday, April 15, Tax Day: Live outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York. The first criminal trial of an American president will begin Monday as prosecutors and defense lawyers convene in a Manhattan courtroom to begin selecting the jury that will decide Don J. Trump’s fate. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, has charged Mr. Trump with 34 felonies, accusing him of falsifying documents to conceal a sex scandal involving prostitution with a porn star in the furtherance of election interference. The case, one of four indictments facing the former president and presumptive Republican 2024 nominee, could reshape the political landscape ahead of Election Day. Jury selection could last two weeks or more and the trial may spill into June. Mr. Trump is expected to be in the courtroom for much of it, bringing campaign theatrics to the sober atmosphere of a criminal proceeding #donaldtrump #hushmoney #hushmoneytrial #usanews #news18 #englishnewslive

Trump arrives at courthouse for hush money criminal trial | NBC News Special Report

(NBC News) April 15, 2024: Former Pres. Trump has arrived at a New York courthouse as jury selection is set to begin in the hush money trial against him. NBC News reporters walk through the case against Trump and how his team may argue his defense as the first criminal prosecution of a former president gets underway. #Trump #DonaldTrump #HushMoneyTrial

"Convicted felon Trump"?

• NBC News, April 15, 2024; Stormy Daniels, Jimmy Kimmel Live (10/19); MSNBC, 4/6/24; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Safe bonds and risky stocks fall with market

Associated Press (ap.org); Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

The day's Dow Jones industrial average volatility (Friday, Feb. 9, 2018) is worrisome.

.

Even "safe" bond investments falter...

Don't worry, P Galore. I have bitcoin. - Get off.

NEW YORK, NY - The stock market is not the only thing dropping. Bonds, which are supposed to be the "safe" part of every investor's portfolio, have faltered, too. In what has been a rude awakening for some naive investors, bond funds have lost ground these past couple of weeks, unlike in past downturns for stocks. What is different this time is that the same things undercutting stocks are hurting bond prices: worries about inflation and the possibility of much higher interest rates. More

A very un-Buddhist Xmas (video)

Occupy San Diego occupies Wal-Mart to enlighten holiday shoppers.

Cyber Monday (the online Black Friday) arrives after reports of a record breaking "sales season." Meanwhile, the Occupy Movement reminds consumers to abandon conspicuous consumption and consumer debt. The banks rule by police state actions as a last resort. Their first resort is seducing customers into needless purchases (brandwashing) and hopeless debt. Even Duncan Royale Hotei-osho can't be happy as the spiral of debt-and-new-consumption continues. If we must shop because it is our addiction, shop local!

• History of Buddhist Japan's Santa Hotei
• OccupyTogether.org
  

Piggy Bank of America caves in: No $5 fee

(mccarthysweekly-paxvobiscum.blog)

(WP) In a rare reversal, Bank of America announced today that it will drop a highly criticized fee for customers who swipe their debit cards. The bank had intended to begin charging the $5 fee next year, citing new federal regulations that it says have hurt its bottom line. But the debit charge drew a torrent of fury from customers, lawmakers, and even Pres. Obama. Faced with consumer backlash, Wells Fargo recently abandoned its own testing of a fee. Regions Bank and SunTrust have also dropped their charges. More

• Debt plan for Greece to fall hardest on locals
• Commerce Dept. revokes $80M Internet stimulus grant
• Fed mulls how to share its goals

(costofwar.com/en)

Agitation and Ahimsa (video)

Sanjiv Kakar (Times of India), OccupyWallStreet.org, Wisdom Quarterly, Feminist.com

Ahimsa means harmony, non-violence, non-harming. Police are not familiar with it.

Today we see tens of thousands of citizens, including many youths, taking to the streets for a better tomorrow. In a country with a sizable youth population, having youngsters at the forefront of political agitation is not surprising.

• occupywallst.org
• Satellite to fall Friday night
  

Let movements remain nonviolent. For violence always ends in failure. It is truth that wins out in the end because, like the sun hidden by clouds, it will shine before long.

The spectacle of families bringing their children to Anna Hazare's fast at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi for a dose of morality and [divine] ethics raises fundamental questions. What is it that we can do to establish ahimsa in our youth? Since protest is here to stay as a vital tool in the political arena, education in non-violence becomes a priority. More

• Take action! (feminist.com)
• V Day for safer college campuses
• Nepal supports Palestine's independence
• Tibetan monks visit Red Bank's Westside
• Nepali Congress will stay together
• Remote Indian village reached after quake
  
• Uprising Radio: Rise Up for Justice and Peace
• Buddhist pilgrimage to expand in Indian state
• Between China and India lies Burma's future
• Meditation in New York (free class Oct. 2)
• Buddhism in Northeast USA (directory)
  
• Temple to teach Thai, Buddhism classes
• LAYTON, Utah - Wat Dhammagunaram Buddhist Temple is teaching a 12-part series on basic Theravada Buddhism Saturdays, 2-4 pm. Wear white. Chase12@comcast.net, (801) 966-0639, 644 E. 1000 North.

Sex and the Stock Market

This device gives Japanese consumers the ability to smile in spite of the economy, which tanks due to a supernatural mechanism as in the early 1990's when the Japanese emperor, allegedly, had sexual intercourse with a "sky goddess."

This spring, 2009, a new Rolling Stone magazine story claimed that the financial investment firm Goldman Sachs "has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression."

But Van Nuys, California based megachurch pastor Jack Hayford, current head of sex-scandal embroiled GOP Senator John Ensign's religious denomination, has endorsed a theory proposing that a supernatural mechanism drove down Japanese stock market prices during the early 1990's: the Japanese emperor's alleged sexual intercourse with a "sky goddess" who, according to the theory, might be a succubus.

Footage from a 1993 Evangelical video shows Hayford enthusiastically introducing and endorsing a talk during which his colleague C. Peter Wagner claimed that the early 1990's economic downturn of the Japanese economy was due to what Wagner depicted as a Shinto ritual in which Japanese emperors have sexual intercourse with a demonic sky-goddess being that, posited Wagner, may have been a succubus.

Wagner blamed slack Japanese stock prices on the alleged tryst. As British religious scholar Richard Bartholomew notes, C. Peter Wagner's treatment of the Shinto ceremony is factually dubious on a number of counts. More>>

Strange clues to recession

Strange clues to recession
Experts say these bizarre trends can reveal the health of the economy. What mosquito bites tell us

• Latest sign that recession is easing
• Find surprising ways to save money

Stranger clues to Recessions:

Pacifica Radio gets new leadership

Daniel Borgström

Pacifica radio has new leadership -- people who are attempting to deal with a serious financial crisis which was building for years.

After years of stumbling leadership, Pacifica radio has new people in key positions:

• LaVarn Williams, formerly a local board member here at KPFA, is now the interim Chief Financial Officer (CFO);
• Ricardo de Anda is the interim General Counsel; and
• Grace Aaron, now the interim Executive Director (ED), oversees the five-station network.

The largely new national board (PNB) made long overdue changes. The departed -- who included attorney Dan Siegel, a former iED -- were the status quo responsible for the network's grave financial crisis. During the decade beginning 1999, Pacifica remained in the hands of several mutually back-scratching groups, who pushed their own agendas to the extent that the survival of the five-station Pacifica network is now in question. When a member station is in trouble, it draws resources from others in the network. More>>

Zeitgeist Movement: New Orientation

Recession's end in sight?
The current recession will end sooner than you might think, but more jobs will be lost.

When to expect it

"I feel a lot better," says one economist

Economy showing some signs of life

• Zeitgeist Movement website

CLICK TO VIEW

Zeitgeist the movie and Addendum have inspired a movement. This orientation explains what we can do now about the global economy, banking collapse, corporate consumerism, and feeling better.

WATCH IT NOW

Iceland's gov't falls amid financial mess

David Stringer (AP, 1/26/09)

REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Iceland's coalition government collapsed on Monday after an unprecedented wave of public dissent, plunging the island nation into political turmoil as it seeks to rebuild an economy shattered by the global financial crisis.

• VIDEO 1 (Reuters)
• VIDEO 2 (Reuters)

Prime Minister Geir Haarde resigned and disbanded the government he's led since 2006. Haarde was unwilling to meet the demands of his coalition partner, the Social Democratic Alliance Party, which insisted on choosing a new prime minister in exchange for keeping the coalition intact. More:

• Iceland's government collapses amid financial crisis

• Pakistan may pose bigger crisis for U.S. than Afghanistan
• Is California's $42B deficit actually a golden opportunity?

Money: Stocks roll back-and-forth

Tim Paradis (AP)

• Play Video FOXBusiness – Weighing In On Inflation Options
• Slideshow: Stock Markets
• Play Video Video: Money
• Watch: Stocks, Initially Down Big, Recovering CBS 2 New York

NEW YORK – Wall Street ended a tumultuous two-week run relatively quietly Friday, finishing another back-and-forth session mixed as investors were cheered by signs of easing in the credit markets and managed to absorb lackluster economic news with equanimity. But while there was less volatility than during recent sessions, analysts warned that the market still faces rough times.

The expiration of options contracts helped tug stocks in different directions. Still, the Dow Jones industrial average traded within a narrower range than it had in much of the past two weeks and ended down 127. The market's big rallies on Monday and Thursday gave all the major indexes gains of well over 3 percent for the week — but that was just a partial recovery from the devastating double-digit drops of the previous week.

"The stock market has finally realized one thing — that the governments around the world have thrown in a lot of money and they're using all the tools that they possibly can" to restore order to the credit markets, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners Inc., a New York brokerage house. "I'm sure we'll still have a strong bear grip to the market but I do believe the market was way oversold. I do believe we've made a bottom."

How to be Rich, Beautiful, Famous

Rock E. Phillips

The media is taking no blame for the financial meltdown. Blame instead is being shifted to "consumer greed" for high risk financial instruments. See Wall Street was only obliging our insatiable need for fatter 401k returns, don't you know? (Sarcasm). And if you aren't beautiful, that only shows a lack of surgery. Fortunately, there are still distractions like Britney's new video and documentary. Despairing of misleading media reports feeding these very human and very deep seated desires, the Buddha gave advice on how to attain them. Many sutras were delivered to a multi-millionaire (maybe billionaire) of his day.

Why you're not Rich
Find out how you may be unknowingly preventing yourself from becoming a millionaire.

• 10 poor habits
• Careers with 7-figure salary potential
• Trim bills without sacrificing lifestyle
• Switching to Cash is no solution

Engineering Beauty
A new computer program claims to optimize each individual's beauty.

• Hot or not? NYTimes.com
• "Bond" star has cosmetic surgery
• Beauty parties are latest wealthy trend

Britney's Comeback Video
In "Womanizer," Britney Spears has some naughty fun flaunting her new svelte shape.

• Breaks all the rules
• Britney opens up on documentary
• Thousands of terrified Christians flee

Buddhism on Beauty, Riches, and Fame
accesstoinsight

"There are, O householder, five desirable, pleasant, and agreeable things that are rare in the world. What are those five? They are long life, beauty, happiness, fame, and (rebirth in) a heaven. But of those five things, O householder, I do no teach that they are to be obtained by prayer or by vows. If one could obtain them by prayer or vows, who would not do it?

"For a noble disciple, O householder, who wishes to have long life, it is not befitting that one should pray for long life or take delight in so doing. One should rather follow a path of life that is conducive to longevity. By following such a path one will obtain long life, be it divine or human.

"For a noble disciple, O householder, who wishes to have beauty... happiness... fame...[or] (rebirth in) a heaven, it is not befitting that one should pray for them or take delight in so doing. One should rather follow a path of life that is conducive to beauty... happiness... fame... (rebirth in) a heaven. By following such a path one will obtain beauty, happiness, fame, and (rebirth in) a heaven."
(AN 5.43)

Riches

"Householder, there are five reasons for getting rich. What five?

"...A noble disciple with riches gotten by work and zeal, gathered by the strength of the arm, earned by the sweat of the brow, justly obtained in a lawful way, makes oneself happy, glad, and keeps that happiness; one makes parents happy, glad, and keeps them so; so likewise one's spouse and children and servants.

"...When riches are thus gotten, one makes friends and companions happy, glad, and keeps them so.

"...When riches are thus gotten, ill-luck...is warded off, and one keeps goods in safety.

"... When riches are thus gotten, one makes the five oblations to kin, guests, spirit-beings, kings, and deities.

"...When riches are thus gotten, the noble disciple institutes offerings of lofty aim, celestial, ripening in happiness, leading heavenward, for all those recluses and brahmins who abstain from pride and indolence, who bear all things in patience and humility, each mastering self, each calming self, each perfecting self.

"Now if the riches of that noble disciple, heeding these five reasons, come to destruction, let one consider: 'At least I've heeded those reasons for getting rich, but my wealth has gone!' — thus one is not upset. And if one's wealth increases, let one think: 'Truly, I've heeded those reasons and my wealth has grown!' — thus one is not upset in either case."
(AN 5.41)

The importance of the preceding discourses is further emphasized by the fact that the Buddha impressed them again on the multi-millionaire on another occasion in a slightly different form. On that occasion the Buddha said to him:

"Householder, there are these four conditions (to realize which is) desirable, dear, delightful, hard to win in the world. What four?

"(The wish:) 'Oh may wealth by lawful means come to me!'

"'Wealth being gotten by lawful means, may good report attend me along with my kin and teachers!'

"'...May I live long and reach great age!'

"'...When the body breaks up, on the other side of death, may I attain a heavenly world!'

"Now, householder, to the winning of these four conditions, four conditions conduce. What four?

"Perfection of faith, perfection of virtue, perfection of generosity, and perfection of wisdom."
(AN 4.61)

Many of the occasions when the Buddha gave instructions to the millionaire have been recorded in the Pali canon. They constitute a comprehensive code of conduct for the conscientious lay follower of the Buddha, so that a single multi-millionaire has also become a benefactor to all those in future times who are trying to follow the Teaching. These discourses, which are contained in the Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikaya) range from the simplest message to the most profound. A few are mentioned here, beginning with the most basic advice to the laypeople:

"Householder, possessed of four things, the noble disciple has entered on the householder's path of duty, a path which brings good repute and leads to the heavenly worlds. What are the four?

"Herein, householder, the noble disciple waits upon the Order of monastics with the offer of a robe, almsfood, lodging...and medicines for use in sickness. These are the four things."
(AN 4.60)

"Householder, there are these four kinds of bliss to be won by the householder: ...the bliss of ownership, the bliss of wealth, the bliss of debtlessness, the bliss of blamelessness.

"...A person has wealth acquired by energetic striving, amassed by strength of arm, won by sweat, lawful and lawfully gotten. At the thought: 'Wealth is mine acquired by energetic striving...,' bliss comes to one, satisfaction comes to one. This, householder, is called, 'the bliss of ownership.'

"...A person by means of wealth acquired by energetic striving...both enjoys wealth and does meritorious deeds therewith. At the thought: 'By means of wealth acquired...I both enjoy my wealth and do meritorious deeds,' bliss comes to one, satisfaction comes to one. This, householder, is called 'the bliss of wealth.'

"...A person owes no debt great or small to anyone. At the thought: 'I owe no debt, great or small, to anyone,' bliss comes to one, satisfaction comes to one. This, householder, is called 'the bliss of debtlessness.'

"...The noble disciple is blessed with blameless action of body, blameless action of speech, blameless action of mind. At the thought: 'I am blessed with blameless action of body, speech, and mind,' bliss comes to one, satisfaction comes to one. This is called 'the bliss of blamelessness.'

"Such, householder, are the four kinds of bliss to be won by the householder..."
(AN 4.62)