Astrology Explored

October 15, 2008

On this beautiful planet of ours, with an abundance of resources:

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income. In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets in 2004

In her book Time and Money, Barbara Koval writes:

“Greed, in fact, is the inability to be satisfied with what you have no matter how much, coupled with an inability to share of spend for fear of personal loss. The greed of the rich is never being satisfied with what they have and grabbing more, no matter whom it hurts.”

We have a very small proportion of the population owning a big share of the available wealth and in the greed for profits, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

There is a myth that poor people make choices that limit their ability to earn money.

The general public views poverty as the result of personal failures and deficiencies. This perception rests on several myths. The most prevalent are that poverty results from a lack of responsibility; welfare leads to chronic dependency . . welfare promotes single parenthood and out-of-wedlock births; welfare provides a disincentive to work; welfare creates a “culture of poverty” because recipients share and hand down to their children a set of defective behaviors, values, and personality traits; and welfare funds extravagant spending by welfare recipients (Ehrenreich, 1987; Katz, 1989). These myths of pathology translate directly to the debate of who deserves help. They also fuel powerful stereotypical racial and gender messages. It is mothers, especially African American and single mothers, who are viewed as undeserving. Unwed mothers are thought to have the choice of marriage and do not obtain the sympathy that widows have. Other groups that are perceived as undeserving are immigrants, especially if they are not fluent in English.

But certain economic realities prevent a significant portion of the population from sharing the resources of the planet. Governments control the money markets, decide the flow of goods and services by taxation, and redistributing that money.

Strategies for alleviating poverty and decisions about government spending continue to be closely linked to the perceived causes of poverty, as well as the extent to which these causes are perceived to be modifiable (Furnham, 1982). Poverty is seen as an individual problem or a social issue (such as education or crime) rather than an economic issue (such as unemployment and the economy)(Gallup, 1992).

One good example of how this works is how we decide to educate our population. The quality of schools is determined by how tax money is redistributed. If you are unlucky enough to grow up in an area where there is not enough wealth to support a quality education, your employment opportunities are already limited. Once your employment opportunities are limited, your ability to earn wealth are limited. For instance, in the United States, the median household income was about $50,000 in 2006, but to obtain that household income a least one of two working adults need to have a college degree.
blockquote>New information from the U.S. Census Bureau reinforces the value of a college education: workers 18 and over with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915. Workers with an advanced degree make an average of $74,602, and those without a high school diploma average $18,734.

We have entered a period due to the planet of expansion, Jupiter, being in the sign of constriction, Capricorn and the planet of transformtation, Pluto, soon to reenter that sign that government control of resources will grow more pervasive than ever.

Pluto as a planet talks about power and control, and in its extreme side, theft, rape and gross greed. The theft and rape of economic resources of under the aegis of the government control will never be more subtle than with Pluto in the sign of Capricorn. We won’t be dealing with Big Brother, we will be dealing with Big Daddy, and a withholding one at that. All governments will seek to maintain the status quo, a very Capricorn function. To do that more laws will be placed to steal resources from those least able to defend themselves against the system to pay those entities that have an insatiable greed.

It is up to us to make choices that steer control of our and other’s lives away from governmental control. At the threshold of the Aquarian Age, the age of brotherhood, we must think one step beyond our current situation, and reevaluate what our priorities are. It is unconscionable to sustain the greed of few with the labor of millions.

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