Tag Archives: Elizabeth Warren

Dear Banker, The End is Nigh


(First Published in The Huffigton Post September 11, 2017)

In one of the clearest signs of how pathological the banking industry has become, this past week Texas Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling escalated his party’s rhetoric on how government regulation gets in the way of freedom and how the banking industry’s crusade to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the CFPB) is a patriotic duty. How ironic that this comes at a time when Texas needs billions in taxpayer dollars to rebuild in the aftermath of hurricane Harvey.

On his official website, the Congressman declares that his next legislative step is to repeal the law that brought the CFPB into existence, the Dodd-Frank Act. Like the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank has been a thorn in the side of Republicans since its creation. The warped repeal logic is the same; anyone who comes in the way of corporate greed must be neutralized before they cause an outright psychotic meltdown to a system seeking self-preservation while on life support.

So, why is it at a time when the unemployment rate is at historic lows and stock markets are at historic highs, are Republicans still blindly pursuing a deregulation agenda? The short answer is that the political infrastructure for deregulation is far more developed and well funded than the weak voices of the 99% advocating for regulation and fairness. In an era of low interest rates and slow growth, the only way for bankers to stay alive is by inventing new fees and penalties, and engaging in predatory lending. In short, the banking industry has become an entire system of Tony Sopranos in designer suites made more brazen by the 2008 bailout and a refusal to accept new economic realities. They own politicians who want the world to believe that any protection of the consumer is a despicable violation of freedom. This is the very definition of predatory capitalism that has run amuck in an economy that has gotten used to a passive, nonexistent, incompetent and impotent-by-design regulatory structure.

The CFPB is the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who many believe represents a new breed of politicians on Capitol Hill. She thinks in terms of the generational run of democracy, not its exploitation for short-term gain. Her believes, while representing the emerging values of humanity, are a clear threat to bankers and their lobbyists who think only of the quarterly bottom line. While wealth continues to shift away from Main Street due to this well-established deregulatory infrastructure, bankers and their representatives in Congress seem to be hell-bend on making sure no regulation whatsoever gets in the way of their bottom line as they repeatedly called this agency undemocratic, freedom hating, and a destroyer of jobs and consumer choice.

This rhetoric about the evil effects of regulations on the private sector was borne out of Ronald Reagan’s declaration that government is the enemy of capitalism. Forty years later and this pathology has continued to grow. It has given America a fresh crop of ill-informed lawmakers who know nothing but obstructionism and the dying belief in the powers of the free market. At the behest of their lobbyists who control their destiny, they have successfully blocked the evolutionary pulse of our institutions and our culture. They have wrapped themselves in Old Glory while doing the ugly deeds of a predatory private sector. Who would point to such raw display of patriotism and freedom and accuse it of wrongdoing?

To see this battle play out from an ideological lifecycles perspective gives us hope that the end to predatory private sector behavior is near. The emerging system of values is rightfully angry and has no tolerance for incompetent and corrupt politicians. It recognizes the toxicity of an untamed private sector. As part of its natural manifestation it seeks to undo the inequalities caused by the dying ideology. What’s next for the US is a system of social democracy with a capitalist expression that can only thrive on collective fairness. While its current advocate, Bernie Sanders might seem abrasive to many the merits of its values speak volumes to millions of people.

This social evolution is being helped by two factors. The first is that history shows when an environment of unregulated greed is accelerated, which is the case under the Trump Administration, it spawns the seeds of its own destruction. The current White House is full of advisors who see the current pathology as truth. It is now just a matter of when President Trump appoints a new head of the CFPB. It will very likely be someone similar to the rest of his appointees, grossly incompetent, and fanatically intentional in his/her actions to destroy whatever is left of the power entrusted to our government institutions. It seems inevitable that the Dodd-Frank Act will be repealed. This will result in a new financial crisis for which there will be no bailout, which will hasten the end of the current system and help usher in the new.

The second and far more ominous factor is the confluence of the disruptive forces of the digital economy. The driving dynamism behind this technological revolution is the quantification of each and every industry. Banking is no exception. Neither is healthcare or is the carbon fuel industry. Here’s what we know about the patterns of this revolution: Once an industry is quantified it becomes digitized, and once it’s digitized it goes through a profound structural disruption. After the disruption comes the industry’s democratization. This last stage is the nightmare that haunts traditional CEOs since it violates so many of the tenets of the traditional capitalist model.

So as bankers and CEOs of old model industries continue in their myopic vision of lining up political stooges to deregulate and lobby for their outdated and outmoded products and services, something far bigger is emerging that terrified them. The real possibility that this game we call capitalism can no longer be rigged.

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The Bloody Dance of the Red and the Green

I will remember 2016 for the times I outraged people when I said the biggest danger facing the world today is a flaw inherent in our most advanced stages of development. This affliction festers under the surface of Western countries that are centered in or moving into the Egalitarian Green Value system. While most of the virtues of Green seek harmony and the restoration of our ecology, its Achilles’ heel lies in its inability to see the murderous intent and the supersized ego of the Red system. Red is hell-bent on destruction if it doesn’t get its way. It stands tall and makes statements like “after me the deluge”, or “I alone can fix it’. Through field applications, we have seen not only the blind spot that Green has for Red, but its defense of it when it victimizes it and blames its misery on the current system of establishment rules. Today, much of the Western world is suffering from Green fatigue, and, sadly we still refuse to acknowledge our blindness to a Red menace that is taking hold of the world and placing it on a very dangerous path.

When it comes to Red, the Green pattern of thinking goes something like this: If choking societal rules and Global standards of behavior were removed, Red will stop its killing and other insolent behavior and express itself fully so we can all live in peace and harmony. After all, it’s all about unrestrained non-judgmental self-expression according to the Green worldview. It is in that view that I find the biggest danger facing the Western World today. In my opinion it is the primary reason why Western cultures are moving to the right. Green Egalitarian ego that sees no value system hierarchy is like a blind virus that destroys all Second Tier efforts and prevents cultural emergence at the highest levels possible.

The danger from Red is no longer a perceived threat. It has worked its way into the White House and made the world more vulnerable in part due to President Obama’s naĂŻve Green underpinnings. One of the hallmarks of his legacy is his policies that wound down the US’s role as an interventionist world power. After the disastrous Bush policies, Liberals around the world hailed this as a new and evolved era in world diplomacy. So much so Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 barely 10 months into the job. This would’ve been a global evolutionary trajectory if the entire world was centered in both the strategic-scientific Orange system and the egalitarian-humanitarian Green system, but alas, Green sees no hierarchy and no evil. slide5Like the Europeans who granted him the award, the President understood that no more world police meant that competing powers around the world have the right to self-expression regardless what stage of development they were in and whether that stage poses a danger to world security. Military might was associated with our savage past and on to the Post American Century we marched. Dialogue and (perceived) mutual respect replaced sanctions and military threats. The signal to Red was clear: the US will no longer stop you from whatever savage activity you want to initiate.

Green mistakenly sees Blue as a foreboding and rigid hierarchy and a hurdle that unfairly stops Red. It doesn’t realize that more than 40% of the world lives under RED Life Conditions and that Blue is their next and most important stage of development. That is the power of institutions that form the cornerstone of modern culture, not the individual Red ego that leaves it vulnerable to destruction. Transition from Red to Blue has historically been the toughest transition in human history. Green doesn’t grasp that when you dialogue with Red and dangerously closed theocracies (False Blue) like Iran, the big stick, a militarized inspection task force, the Sixth Fleet, and a formidable military have to remain the ominous specter watching Red’s every move. These are the necessary conduits that keep Red on the straight and narrow path towards Blue. With Red, you can’t threaten with consequences, you promise punishment and the immediate delivery on that promise. You arrest Mullahs who prevent you from preforming inspections. You bomb Russian columns if they don’t heed the warning before they invade sovereign countries. Yes you have to be that tough with Red or the consequences will be frightening.

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In the absence of a big stick, Red leadership will immediately move to fill the vacuum created by Blue. It has a strong detector that immediately sniffs out weak Blue and propels it into action knowing there will be very little consequences. It acts impulsively without worrying about having to deal with the punishment. Immediate gratification, muscle flexing and acts of heroism are what matters. When the consequences come they are dealt with not through corrective evolutionary actions but with more coercive, Blue-busting lawlessness.

It is no secret that the biggest Red threat to world security today is Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Before you begin to angrily color him in higher value systems, pose the same questions that Dr. Graves posed to his subjects to determine their true value system center of gravity (COG). Ask WHY? Find that person’s most visible actions and the reason for taking them and you will quickly come to the answer. Mr. Putin’s COG is Red and all the other intelligences he possesses are in service of his Red system.

Putin’s quick and brazen invasion of Crimea was the first defiant act in the face of a NATO shifting to Green. After the invasion President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry were quick to label his actions in terms like: “this is not 21st century behavior”. Then economic sanctions were imposed on the Russian people in the hope that Putin changes. Well, the Russian economy tanked, and Putin became more popular. His support for defying NATO has increased. He found kinship with other murderous Reds like Assad who also has a good detector for weak Blue and knows the US in its Post American Century will be nothing more than a punching bag for Red of all shapes and sizes.

Green doesn’t understand that the verbal reprimand given to Putin is a sign of weakness. It doesn’t understand that people like him Assad and the Ayatollah’s of Iran do not value the lives and the civil liberties of the people they govern as much as Green thinks. Sanctions are nothing but a hurdle to overcome through any means possible. Global Blue changing to Green means the disappearance of rules to them, especially when it shows signs of weakness.

Red never forgets and it will always look for revenge. The greater the channels and the resources, the deeper the damage will be. In addition to helping Assad flex his bloody muscles against his own people, Putin is taking his own revenge on Chechen Muslims who occupy the highest ranks in ISIS. He hasn’t forgotten 2004, the worst domestic terrorism attack in Russian history by separatists Muslim Chechens. Is the destruction of the entire city of Aleppo enough revenge for Red? Is a quarter of a million dead Syrians a fair price to pay to erase an ugly memory of insolence the Syrian people had nothing to do with?

We shouldn’t ponder these foreign policy questions too long, because Putin’s Red made it all the way into the White House and made things exponentially more dangerous. Driven by “never forgetting” and “seeking revenge” Putin set his eyes on someone from the old guard when it comes to US foreign policy, Hillary Clinton. Obama’s sanctions against Russia were never enough for her, which put her squarely in Putin’s crosshairs. Like the kinship he found with Assad, Putin found kinship with Trump. It was a venture to crush their common enemy regardless of cost because a Trump win will give both men unimaginable spoils.

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While a divided America continues to fight over whether or not the Russian hacking effected the election, we are forgetting something far bigger. The undermining of American democracy by a foreign power. Why has this issue been trampled over by both parties? Why is this cyber Pearl Harbor not causing bipartisan anger and street demonstrations against the evils of Russia? Why aren’t countermeasures being put in place to cripple Russian hacking once and forever? The answer is quite simple. To the Liberals President Obama’s statement “I told Putin to knock it off” is enough. It is as laughable to Putin as the President’s previous statement about Red not being a 21st century behavior.

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The Republicans on the other hand had all but acknowledged the party’s disarray in the Presidential election. In the party’s downshift to oblivion they have become Red obstructionists in Congress and were getting ready to perform another autopsy that will help them see the light when Trump The Redeemer appeared. There will be no further inward reflection for the Republican Party. It seems that it will stabilize at a COG of RED-to-outdated Blue with a special orientation towards corporate interest. Russian meddling didn’t just give Trump the Presidency; it gave the Republican Party a new lease on life. For that, Putin gets a free pass.

Speaking softly without the big stick has become a symptom of the disease that plagues the Democratic Party and allows for dangerous politicians like Trump and Putin to rise.

How long would Red leadership around the world continue to rise? Well, if the Trump-Putin ego flexing doesn’t get us into World War III the answer might lie in how quickly Liberals own their own Red and accept the notion that blind disregard to the developmental hierarchy is far more dangerous that the biggest thing Red can deliver.

The coming four years will give us an unprecedented opportunity to see if the Democratic Party can evolve. Not necessarily into Second Tier, but enough to realize that in a world that moves forward, its ideologies have become outdated. Blind Egalitarianism without accountability gives us Trump and the Tea Party. The new Democrats need to be as angry as Senator Elizabeth Warren. They need to see through the entire First Tier and articulate the corrosive effects of the values of the last 40 years when only money mattered. This will be an uphill battle that requires the meticulous building of a new Blue system that regulates smartly while awakening Orange’s conscious side that cares for its greater community and the planet, but above all, it needs to let Green know that it’s blindness to Red will no longer be tolerated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MEMEnomics; The Next-Generation Economic System –The Book

Friends and colleagues, after more than 10 years of working closely with Dr. Don Beck, hundreds of presentations and training seminars, 5 years of research and three years of writing, I am happy to announce that my new book MEMEnomics; The Next-Generation Economic System was launched on September 30, 2013.

I am grateful to all my colleagues and thought leaders for supporting the framework for the sustainability philosophies outlined in the book. I am  humbled by the compliments it continues to receive  from both the integral consciousness community and the business community. I’m especially thankful for Don Beck of the Global Center for Human Emergence for writing the brilliant foreword,  to Deepak Chopra, the sage and the scientist for his beautiful words of endorsement, to Howard Putman, former CEO of Southwest Airlines for his Big Picture view of the book, to Jean Houston, one of the founders of the Human Potential Movement for her relentless support and for Dr. Bruce Lipton for acknowledging its evolutionary nature.

My gratitude also goes out to Economist Hazel Henderson, Founder of Ethical Markets for her endorsement, to Cindy Wigglesworth, author of SQ21  and to John Steiner and Margot King of the Tranpartisan Center in Boulder, CO for their support of our work over the years.  The enthusiasm the book is receiving echoes the need for better business values around the world. Its success is a celebration of the emerging values of business consciousness that give us all hope for the future.

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Below is a publishers preview from amazon.com

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2013

Books about subjects like economics are rarely written from the perspective of human or cultural evolution. Seldom, if ever, does a reader come across a narrative with pioneering methods that reframe a specialized discipline through a wide-cultural whole systems approach. This is precisely what Said E. Dawlabani does in this revolutionary book, Memenomics: The Next-Generation Economic System. This is a book that reframes the issues of competing economic and political ideologies and places them into an evolutionary new paradigm. This is a book about change done right.

It is no secret that today we are dealing with a great political divide that threatens many of our democratic institutions. Right and left ideologies have becomes polarized camps that seem to be worlds apart. If we were to do a content analysis of all the speeches, books, and articles from the last few years, we would see several clear and distinct patterns which seem to point us in several different directions. There is a formidable challenge that awaits thinkers who are shaping the future of humanity. One of monumental proportions that will call on our collective ability to create political and economic systems that can best handle the complex conditions confronting life on our planet. When the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith penned his views on the evolution of human morality and trade over two centuries ago, he captured the hearts and minds of people the world over. But today, after guiding the free enterprise system to unimaginable heights, his teachings are being questioned at their core. Current global economic and governing systems can no longer run on fixed or rigid ideologies regardless of how virtuous or inspiring they were in the past. In order for new leadership to emerge to answer our challenges, new paradigms must be created.

One new paradigm for human and cultural emergence is beautifully detailed in this book. Memenomics makes the case for how artificially imposed systems in economics become closed and toxic. By using processes that were pioneered through five decade of research and global applications Said repeatedly makes the case for why the future of economics must consider a values-systems approach if the field should emerge into a whole-systems form of leadership in the future. Through technologies such as Natural Design and life cycles of values systems, Said pioneers a fresh reframing of economic history that uncovers the blockages of trickle-down approaches of the past. He then offers remedies that set a new standard for sustainable practices, ones that are based on functional platforms designed to address the needs of people and cultures at their particular level of economic emergence. This book is a brilliant primer on the application of the values-systems theory to economics. It is a field guide for anyone looking to establish a cultural values-systems understanding not only to economics but also to the applications of the theory of Spiral Dynamics and the seminal work of Clare W. Graves. It represents the evolution of the Gravesian model into a field that rarely considers the different needs and motivations of the different stages of human and societal development.

To buy the book on amazon, please click on this link

You can also read the Foreword, Introduction and Chapter One for free on Amazon Kindle Preview here 

I’m quite pleased with the success of the book. It has been consistently in the top 100 books on Economic Theory for the Kindle version.  Although the Library Journal doesn’t consider it a part of mainstream economics, it was never intended to be as such. Change, rarely, if ever comes from within the system; a view that this theoretical framework made clear over four decades ago.

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