MUM management reconsiders its unpopular decision to waste a lot of housing space in Vedic City.
Director David Lynch is on the Board of Trustees of MUM, and he's trying to make it clear that he fits right in with the deficient thinking dominant in the ranks of TM management. In talking about 9-11 conspiracy thinking for Dutch TV, Lynch supports the ludicrous notion that the Pentagon impact hole is too small to have been caused by a large jet.
Eccentric is OK for a filmmaker or other artist; stupid is not OK -- although the second-largest-circulation paper in the U.S. carried a review of Lynch's new book and film that suggested that even for lovers of eccentricity, Lynch is hard to take: "To be blunt, "Inland Empire" is unwatchable, and the book -- a hardbound pamphlet, really -- reads like the nattering of a confused child." (there is some strong critical acclaim for "Inland Empire.") By the way, I have two words for Lynch, who quit smoking for 20 years before taking it up again: Peter Jennings.
6Dec2006
A workable way to interest the public in the validity of the Yogic Flying phenomenon may be to fund a university study in which Yogic Fliers' hopping is attempted by non-Yogic gymnasts. To date, this type of comparison has only been done by reporters, like this clip which clearly shows that muscular effort is not the basis of Yogic Flying (note: this clip was removed from youtube for some reason, but it depicted gymnasts trying and failing to duplicate the yogic flying phenonmenon). Gymnasts who attempt to duplicate Yogic Flying can only achieve a small fraction of the height and length of the hopping that YFers do, and are totally exhausted after five minutes of this effort, while Yogic Fliers can go on for twenty minutes or more. A study of this sort might look interesting to some University's Engineering or Physiology dept., and even if nobody undertakes the study right away, the fact that MUM is willing to fund such a study is useful publicity because it demonstrates a willingness to look at Yogic Flying/Hopping in a methodical way to see if it can be differentiated from hopping by muscular effort or from the magician's levitation trick. This study doesn't seem to be an expensive proposition, and since there are all kinds of video tape including TV presentations on Yogic Flying by the National Geographic Channel, this is an experiment which probably only absolutely needs the participating University's gymnasts to attempt to replicate the hopping of YFers. MUM is pretty much a joke to date in the public awareness, as in this humor column in a Texas paper, the Austin American-Standard : "This is not to say that the Alamo Bowl doesn't serve a purpose. It gives people in Iowa a chance to get out of Iowa. And this is no small matter.
Let's go over some of the tour highlights of a visit to Iowa, and you'll see what I mean.
Take Maharishi Vedic City near Fairfield, Iowa, for example — one of those places where chanting and humming goes on in a pair of domes.
The people in these domes claim to aspire to float in the air above the floor, said a friend of mine who is from Iowa. So he went to check out the alleged floating to see if it was real floating or bogus floating.
Instead of actual floating, my friend said, these people were hopping around the floor on their butts. But they called this floating. So Iowans are not only boring, they are also delusional. It would only be floating if their cheeks left the floor and didn't come back down."
Both Iowa Senators, and the U.S. Congressman representing the district in which MUM is located did write letters of support which are more meaningful than the average representative's letters, because "Iowa's overall power ranking as a state delegation was No. 5, thanks in part to the seniority of many members However, it's not impossible that it is political activity at the very top of the U.S. administration that is responsible for the sudden change of heart (very sudden -- it was only a couple weeks ago that the State Dept. denied the request to grant visas to 2,000 pundits). As of Oct 2006, the nuclear deal between the U.S. and India seems about to collapse because of the anticipated Democratic takeover of Congress, which was seen as shifting the American attitude to anti-proliferation (although as it turned out Congress is more interested in boosting American economic and strategic interests than in quibbling over a few nukes -- "What finally clinched the deal each time there was a deadlock, Burns said, was the fundamental US decision to break away from three decades of non-proliferation orthodoxy that had walled India off." ).
So the Bush administration is trying to butter up India in order to soften the blow, according to a Times of India article 20Oct2006: "The possible demise of US-India nuclear deal has galvanized the Bush administration into declaring a major upgrade of broader strategic ties with New Delhi. A high-level U.S delegation led by Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns will visit India in November to 'move forward the strategic relationship in an ambitious way,' the administration announced on Friday.
Although a top U.S official insisted that the civilian nuclear deal remains the 'top concern and top objective' of the administration and they are hopeful of the Senate taking up the matter in the lame-duck session, it appears Washington is laying the ground for a possible failure to push the agreement through this Congress with some big ticket announcements. 'We want to begin efforts...to put our best foot forward to fulfill the vision of the strategic relationship with India,' Burns said at a briefing for only the Washington-based Indian press corps."
The U.S. may hope that showing respect for the ancient culture of India by admitting hundreds of experts in traditional Vedic recitation, despite their poverty which would ordinarily disallow visa issuance, will be one of the ways of putting its "best foot forward" in demonstrating the importance that the U.S. attaches to its relationship with India, despite the reluctance of anti-proliferation members in the U.S. Congress to give nuclear technology to India because of its decision to continue developing and deploying nuclear weapons. Another gesture that was recently made is lowering the cost of a U.S. visa, for Indian applicants, by $50.
This is certainly good news for the TM community, but naturally, is not unalloyed with the usual silliness. Instead of moving the pundits into the housing built for 500 of them in 2004, 100 ladies in the Mother Divine group will continue to stay in the pundit housing, and another new trailer complex will be built for the coming pundits, said to be arriving within weeks. MUM President Bevan Morris laughably claims that MD has "completely occupied" the pundit campus, but this is just an egregious waste of space and money. It would be easy to find temporary housing for the Mother Divine group until new housing could be constructed for them, but TM managers are just not wired to do the obvious or the rational, no matter how many degrees they have. MUM is trying to sell this inefficient use of resources as a way to enable 1000 pundits to gather together at a new site, but the original site was 40 acres, more than enough to add housing for 500 more pundits than originally planned for. Hopefully the pundits' Vedic recitation will improve the quality of thinking in TM-ville...
As part of their celibate lifestyle, the pundits avoid all contact with women, and it has been suggested that the real reason why the pundits were not moved into the trailer park built for them was because it has been occupied for 9 months by the Mother Divine group of ladies. Since the pundits are here to purify the atmosphere, it should certainly be possible to perform some Vedic rite to purge whatever subtle feminine influence remains in the metal trailer units that these recluse ladies have occupied for a brief period. Anyway, both Mother Divine and the all-male Purusha group of monks were
evicted from their North Carolina home at the same time. So Purusha could have been moved into the Vedic City trailer park in order to avoid this million-dollar-plus snafu -- of course, this presumes some level of common sense and orderliness that is just not found in the managers of the TM movement, despite the brilliance of the movement's founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
If it turns out that the admission of the pundits is a gesture related to the U.S. Congress' possible rejection of the nuclear deal (and after a temporary flurry of confidence about the deal, in April 2008 it looks again like the deal is in trouble), then it is a gesture not likely to have an extended shelf life -- both the U.S. and arms-hungry India are likely to be much more interested in military matters than cultural ones in three years when the visas of this group of pundits expires (Vedic City Mayor Wynne said in Nov. 2006 that the pundits are not students, which was the original type of visa that was sought. Apparently, the pundits have been granted L-1 visas: "Employees in this category will, initially, be granted an L-1 visa for up to three years."
But, given the power of the subtle level of life at which the pundits operate, it does not make a difference if the pundits eventually are not found in Vedic City or anywhere else outside of India. MMY has said that the pundits' performance in India can influence any country in the world: "...the Indian
programme for invincibility to every nation in the world, far or
near, they can do in India the Yagya ceremonies, the Yogic value, the
Yagya values [Vedic performance to create specific life-supporting
effects]. They have their programme whispered to them from their
fathers, their forefathers, and from their family tradition—that, if
you do like that, like that, you can create an effect in any part of
the world, at any time, in any space.
'They have those formulas. They can turn the magic wand we would say.
Yagyas are done for people far away, but they are done in the
convenience of the Vedic Pandits and they produce the effect. It's a
big well-known feature of Vedic performances that they make the
resolution that ''I am doing for that country, and that country is
going to suffer from rains and now rains will come in time.'' They
don't have to come to that country, they can do their Vedic
performance in India conveniently, comfortably according to their own
tradition, and that help can come to us. With this help available to
every country our consolidation word will fructify in this week, next
week, this month, next month, this year, next year."
The TMO has sold a number of hotels in the last couple years, and clearly has the $3-5 million necessary to build the facilities needed (the Global Country of World Peace is trying to buy a golf course for $6 mil), and then ask for continuing support from TMers. MUM says it's going to build this housing:"Vastu housing is being built for these people.
This scholarship support will become available when 1,000 people commit to this program." Possibly 2008 will see a greater applicant pool, as the first Baby Boomers will begin to retire at age 62, and there are undoubtedly many TMers who would take advantage of this opportunity of free housing and food and an opportunity to spend their golden years in meditative bliss (and they would not even need a stipend, thanks to their early-retirement Social Security check -- to avoid problems and maximize happiness, MUM should not require everybody to do 8 hrs/day in meditation, but should let people select the meditation time that they are comfortable with. In the 20Dec2006 press conference at mou.org, Maharishi repeats several times that people should not strain, saying that 3-4 hours of meditation a day is plenty.). Money is no problem: A donor pledges $1 million a month to support a large Siddha group in Fairfield. Mr. Settle, in the oil exploration business, has been a generous donor to the TMO previously.
In reporting that the U.S. has refused entry for 2000 pundits to Vedic City, the TMO admits for the first time that the reason that the 500 pundits did not come to Vedic City in 2004 is because they were denied visas by the U.S. State Dept. (because the pundits are from poor families, poverty being the overwhelming reason that entry is denied to the U.S. --"...the little-acknowledged reality is that roughly half the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the United States entered on bona fide visas and stayed after they expired. While the interview process for visas has become tougher, it has failed to stop these so-called "overstays" from reaching for the American dream.
). The question comes, if 500 pundits could not get visas, what was the point of asking to admit 2000?
This change in U.S. Government policy will allow MUM to market more education to online students, a good thing because there are few American and other rich-country students willing to attend MUM in-residence and put up with a suffocating social environment.
The lawsuits, filed last Friday, claim the required twice-daily regimen of meditation was dangerous for a mentally ill student.
‘‘In particular, transcendental meditation can magnify psychological problems, including the likelihood and severity of aggressive and violent behavior,’’ the lawsuits said.
The lawsuits say university employees ignored the first attack, resuming classes and blaming the attack on Sem’s improper meditation.
Sem was placed in the custody of Joel Wynsong, the university’s dean of men, and taken to Wynsong’s apartment on campus, where he stole a paring knife, court documents said.
He then fled the apartment and went to the dining hall where he stabbed Butler, records show.
The lawsuits allege the university was negligent for failing to recognize the threat Sem posed to students, reporting the initial attack to authorities and keeping Sem away from other students after he attacked Killian.
‘‘We are very much looking forward to have the opportunity to bring to light the events that lead to Levi Butler’s death,’’ said Stephen Eckley, the Butler family’s attorney.
Bill Goldstein, a lawyer for the school, said he was unaware of the lawsuits and would have to review them before commenting."
The lawsuit states that students meditate twice a day, but this is not true -- if Sem had only been involved in twice-daily TM, that might have been OK (some mentally-ill people who learn TM are told to meditate only 10 minutes twice a day instead of the usual 20 minutes twice a day), but students were being told to meditate an additional 10 minutes out of each class hour, effectively doubling daily meditation time, clearly not suitable for an unstable guy like Sem, who should have been allowed to opt out of participation in these extra TM sessions (whose effect is magnified by meditating in groups). Unfortunately, the culture of MUM does not allow people to think for themselves, and that cult-level type of control, as well as the attempts to conceal the first crime committed by Sem and the usual MUM management ineptness (meaning indifference to students except as objects over which to exert totalitarian control, which amounts to criminal negligence), resulted in this tragic and completely avoidable death.
Since the TMO seems committed to high prices for TM instruction everywhere but India, a policy which is clearly designed to limit the number of people learning TM outside of India, Director David Lynch should take the hint and take his expertise and foundation funding there to make some TM commercials for cable TV (preferably before MMY dies, so that he can be included, even if the commercials are not shown at this time), which reaches 61 million homes in India's big cities (the TMO does not have the resources to teach TM all over India, which makes satellite TV advertising inadvisable at this time -- running ads in only one city at a time is likely to be necessary in order to have enough TM teachers to handle demand for instruction). Sending the message of TM and the revival of Vedic civilization to the 200 million Hindus with cable access (about half the households of India have televisions) -- a natural audience for this message -- would be a great way to greatly increase the number of TM meditators and thereby give the pundit project in India the support it deserves. Lynch is uniquely qualified to create a thing of beauty that would call the attention of Indians to Maharishi's revival of Vedic culture -- boring infomercials about TM, like that found at TM.org, may be appropriate for the U.S., but only somebody with artistic vision can do justice to creating awareness among India's 800 million Hindus about the beauty of Guru Dev and Maharishi's revival of Vedic wisdom. No attempt should be made to pitch these ads to anybody but Hindus, since thousands die in religion-based strife every year, and there are actually laws against conversion in some states in India; the TM movement does not need to give any appearance of getting involved in any of this struggle for hearts and minds outside of its natural Hindu constituency, which, at 800+ million, is more than adequate to change the world. Another smart move would be to keep talk of science to a minimum, and if a scientist is needed to talk about TM's benefits, let it be an Indian PhD -- Western science could never approach the significance of the Vedic science which made ancient India great, and there is no need for John Hagelin to make an appearance when there are so many highly-qualified Indian scientists who practice TM.
The ~200 Purusha, also evicted from Boone, are dispersed among TM facilities in Livingston Manor, NY, Vlodrop, Holland, and India. Although there are only about 100 ladies on the Mother Divine program, MD might be occupying the whole trailer park, a facility designed for 500. While they were in Boone, the MD group was called "Maharishi Spiritual University," and was given permission to operate as a university by the state of North Carolina (every state has its own standards for allowing degree-granting universities to operate, with Hawaii being the least restrictive, allowing the presence of some "universities" that are not much more than a post office box, and Iowa being highly restrictive). Then MD changed its name to "Maharishi University of Enlightenment," like MSU, a "women-only" college, and MSU was moved to Vedic City. Purusha and MD's claiming student status in NC did not work, possibly disabled by the fact that for some reason, Purusha never attempted to start a university like MD, typically oddball behavior by TM's inept managers who rarely come up with plans that could actually work.
There is certainly no prospect of selling these bonds in any meaningful amount -- the Endowment Fund for World Peace could not even raise the $100 million target for supporting Vedic pundits in India ($114 million was pledged, but only $87 million in pledges were redeemed -- now the TMO is looking to raise $10 trillion, which is only 100,000 times as much as the mere $100 million they could not raise). Even if this project could be financed, it's not doable or desirable for a number of reasons. The reason why there is land in any country that is not used for agriculture is because it is not "arable" (meaning that it can profitably be used for agriculture) for reasons such as lack of water or poor weather, etc. Certainly, by herculean efforts, any land can be made to grow food, but the cost of doing so means that the costs of the food produced will price it out of the market. Of course, price is not considered to be an object for TM managers, who think that $50/lb honey is a good deal. However, outside of a few buyers in the TM movement, there would certainly be price resistance to hyper-priced produce grown under this theoretical TM-movement scheme. Also, from an ecological point of view, it's undesirable to air-freight produce from 3rd World countries to Europe and America -- in addition to being costly, it's a source of pollution: the "food miles" of produce can add a great load of fossil-fuel emissions onto an already polluted world: "It is important to buy locally grown organic food rather than imported, though. To give an idea of how far food travels, a typical basket of 26 imported organic foods may have travelled the distance of six times around the equator." The TMO is making large claims about the beneficial effects on society at large of groups of Yogic Fliers at MUM, but the public seems to be shrugging this off. Claims of influencing the stock market in a positive direction, for instance, are difficult to accept because there are so many influences to consider. There is too much noise in the environment for people to buy these macro claims.
I think it would be worthwhile for the TM movement to do whatever it can to create a more favorable public awareness of the movement, especially the Yogic Flying, and this could be accomplished by funding university research of the phenomena.
28Nov2006 After years of having no luck getting U.S. visas for pundits to come to Vedic City because the pundits are poor, the TMO may possibly have given money to the pundits so they could open up bank accounts, and this did the trick (or, much more likely, political activity did -- see below) -- the pundits are being granted visas, even though visa granting to Hindus has been tightened up recently. This is a perfectly legitimate way for visa applicants to pass financial muster for entering the U.S. -- the State Dept. notes that adequate bank accounts are a basis for granting visas because they indicate that a visa applicant has strong ties to his home country and is likely to return home after his visa expires: "Some examples of ties can be a job, a house, a family, a bank account.". There are about 400,000 people from India living illegally in the United States. Although there is near-zero chance that any of the pundits, who have dedicated their lives to Vedic studies, will overstay their visas, the people who do visa screening don't know that, and have to follow State Dept. guidelines in order to avoid adding to the hundreds of thousands of Indians who are in the USA without papers (800,000 U.S. visas are issued to Indians every year -- only Mexico, with its common border, is issued more U.S. visas -- playing all the angles to get into the USA is big business in India).
6Nov2006
The TMO has called for wealthy people to support a plan for increasing the number of meditators in MUM's Golden Domes to 2000 : people willing to spend 8 hours a day meditating on campus would receive $500/month, which would enable them to pay $200/month to rent a room in town or on campus, and have a little left over for living expenses.
25Sep2006 In the 2007 edition of U.S. News and World Report college guide, MUM drops to its lowest reputation score ever: 1.4 on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 -- no other school in the country has a score that low, even among the 4th tier schools with which MUM is compared (history of MUM ranking). I don't know to what extent MUM professor John Hagelin's foolish association with moron-magnet Ramtha is responsible for the increasingly low opinion ("peer assessment") of MUM held among academicians in the Midwest, but it certainly can't help MUM's public image. That image is, of course, as Maharishi likes to point out ("Leaders are the football of common destiny of the people. If someone is a leader, he represents the collective consciousness of the area."), an unavoidable correlate of the collective consciousness of the TM movement -- only when group consciousness in the TMO is less foolish will TM managers like Hagelin operate in less foolish ways.
19Aug2006 The Global Country is talking about building in Kansas near the geographic center (Brahmastan) of the United States, but since the pundits who are the main feature of the Brahmastan facility in India (see photo and roll-over caption, top of this page) are unable to get visas to enter the U.S., perhaps the TMO should look elsewhere. Traditionally, Canada has been more generous with visas -- the TMO should try and get visas to Canada for 25 or 50 of the pundits who were denied U.S. visas. If this is successful, then the Brahmastan of North America (located in Rugby, North Dakota, but very close to the International Peace Garden in the Canadian province of Manitoba) can be developed in Canada (the Brahmastan of Canada is so far north that it is impractical to develop, and the Brahmastan of North America makes more sense given the ~600,000 sq. miles of Alaska that lies outside the 48 United States, in trying to establish regional Brahmastans). The lack of water at the proposed site in Kansas probably means that plans for developing organic farming are not going to work, which would pretty much make the site only a token facility, like the Global Country of World Peace monument to be erected at the unbuildable Brahmastan site in Canada (near Baker Lake).
24May2006 Colleges will no longer be required to deliver at least half their courses on a campus to qualify for federal student aid. This move will enable MUM to offer online-only degrees to students from around the world and greatly increase enrollment. Currently MUM has had some success exploiting the niche market of students from poor countries (only about half of would-be MUM students from poor countries qualify for visas) who want to work in the U.S. at much higher wages than they could earn in their own countries while also obtaining a Master's degree, like the ~150 Ethiopians working on an M.S. in Computer Science. This is a great opportunity for these foreign students, who bank a lot of money (even after paying off MUM's hefty tuition charges) and will likely continue TM after they return to their home country. Employers love hiring people on student visas, as it is much less costly and easier than hiring other foreign nationals. Nations also consider this employment of foreign students as serving national interests -- France is trying to attract more students from India.
1Mar2006
MUM sued for not protecting students
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 28, 2006
Two federal lawsuits claim the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield doesn’t protect its students.
The lawsuits were filed separately in U.S. District Court by John Killian, 23, a former student, and the family of Levi Butler, a student who was killed in a stabbing on campus in 2004.
Butler was stabbed several times in the chest with a paring knife on March 1, 2004 in the campus dining hall. The attack came several hours after Killian was stabbed in the face with a ball point pen.
Shuvender Sem, 26, of Lancaster, Pa., was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the attacks and committed to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center at Oakdale.
Read the shocking account of MUM negligence in the court filing.
28Feb2006
"Five hundred students at American University in Washington, D.C., and surrounding campuses will participate in a landmark two-year demonstration and research project to create coherence in the collective consciousness of the Washington, D.C., area, and to scientifically document the effects of the Transcendental Meditation program on brain, behavior, and health of college students."
When Maharishi started teaching TM in the West, he did not charge for instruction initially, but found that people did not value anything that they did not pay for, and people were discarding the practice after a few days. "One may have the experience of carrying a diamond on his neck, but he needs to have the knowledge that it is a very precious thing, and he is very fortunate..." The way to make sure that somebody understands that TM is of value is to charge a fee for instruction -- when somebody is willing to pay the fee, it demonstrates that the instruction is valued, and is not being started just on a whim. The Abramson and Lynch Foundations have donated $1.2 million to pay instruction fees, but if these five hundred students are not paying at least 10% of the TM fee ($2500 in the USA), then I would expect a high dropout rate and an unsatisfying research project (students do pay $50 to learn TM, but get that back when they complete two sessions, reducing the cost of instruction to zero).
18Feb2006 The evicted Mother Divine group moves into the Vedic City trailer park that pundits could not occupy because they were refused entry into the United States ( even top Indian scientists are being given the third degree by visa screeners:"...young American consular officers in foreign countries have been under tremendous pressure since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Making the wrong decision would be career-ending, so they play it safe, not really understanding the macroscopic implications of their decision," Wulf said. "Denying a visa to the president of ICSU is probably as dumb as you can get. This is not the way we can make friends.") Never mind. MUM gives some helpful hints to applicants from poor countries about passing the visa interview.
A possibility for MD is to simply become MUM students. A possible degree would be the PhD in Vedic Science (maybe on an "MD Track" emphasizing time spent in meditation, like the "performance track" of music majors), which can require many years to finish and would allow long-term student status for MD members (a PhD in English can easily take 9 or more years). Even MD members without a bachelor's degree could join this PhD program, as universities have discretion in who they admit to their degree programs -- for instance, comedian Bill Cosby has a doctoral degree, but he did not finish his bachelor's degree. If some new MD degree program is required, the accreditation team would need to make a "focused visit" before granting approval.
7Feb2006 Hagelin's film turn gets even bleeping better!:
"And then, of course, there’s Ramtha himself, the 35,000 year-old Lemurian warrior who is “channeled” by a superrich, puffy-faced blond woman from Yelm named JZ Knight. Ramtha appears in the film, speaks in a wacky brogue, and puffs away on a Sherlock Holmes–style pipe. But sadly, he does not dance. Whatever put this idea into my head, you might ask? Quoth the press notes: “Noted parapsychologists Ian Wickramasekera and Stanley Krippner of Saybrook Graduate School repeatedly observed that while JZ Knight is channeling Ramtha, her brain-wave state shifts from beta (a normal waking state) to delta (deepest sleep). Although operating from delta, Ramtha is able to talk, walk, eat, drink, and dance using JZ’s lower cerebellum.” God, would I shell out to see two and a half hours of that. Dance, Ramtha, dance!
The history of the mad scientist in movies
2Feb2006 After years of talking about issuing coupons or scrip or the new currency "Raam" (none backed by hard currency or gold) to eradicate poverty in 3rd World countries, the Global Country of World Peace is now issuing $10 trillion USD worth of bonds to buy unutilized land in underdeveloped nations so that organic produce can be grown and air-shipped to developed countries.
For all the talk of the Sat Yuga ("the enlightened age") beginning, this is just the same old Kaliyuga ("age of ignorance") type of solution: money, and lots of it, will solve all problems.
The TM movement's own publications also decry eating foods that are not locally grown: "Locally grown foods are also higher in prana, because they don't have to be shipped or stored and can be bought tree-ripened. There is another reason to eat locally grown foods--they contain the same ratio of the five fundamental levels [SIC -- should be "elements," not "levels": earth, air, water, fire, space] as the climate in which you live."
But the most critical reason why the TM movement's scheme won't work any more than the many money-based schemes (mostly admirable efforts by well-intentioned people to reduce suffering in the world) to improve the economy of poor countries is that systemic and chronic poverty is usually a result of factors like civil and ethnic strife, corruption, and war that no amount of money-tossing will help. But by transforming the consciousness of the people through TM, the political and social climate can be improved, and then the issue of poverty will go away because it is not concomitant with the orderly brains functioning in an orderly society (although the curse of laziness will mean that there will always be lazy people who choose poverty).
Crackpot TM management is a necessary measure -- all this grandiose planning about spending imaginary money to cure poverty (and nothing would be left over to help the poor after debt service -- the Global Country is offering 15%/yr interest on the bonds) is just busywork for TM managers who like to feel important, and it will disappear, along with the current management, when world consciousness can tolerate an effective TM movement.
What do investment professionals think about the Global Country's high-interest bond sale? Too good to be true.
Inspired by the Global Country, the U.N. comes up with a $7 trillion plan, which has a funding source in the form of pollution-permit trading.
14Jan2006
