THE SOOTHESAYER INTERNET

 April 2009

Weapons of Mass Distraction versus Weapons of Mass Destruction:

 Last month’s media furor over AIG’s executive bonus payouts using TARP money, while rightly igniting anger of the masses over all that money going into the pockets of people at the top of the food chain while others are in food lines, is really misleading and distracting from the real global economic nuclear weapon – derivatives.  We have heard a lot about AIG creating a fund to be the counterparty in the credit derivatives swaps taken out by banks and financial entities like Goldman Sachs to “insure” themselves against their involvement in the toxic mortgage market.  The money that went out here, in the  billions, is far more significant that these bonuses, in the millions, many of which went to personnel just keeping the insurance business going, who had nothing to do with the exotic instruments that brought down AIG.  Once again, mass ignorance about what has been allowed to happen over the past decade, has poked fingers in the eyes of the innocent and distracted the public. 

According to the Bank for International Settlements (the central bankers’ bank) in December 2007 the amount of outstanding derivatives worldwide was about $1,144 Trillion with credit derivatives, at that time, standing at $548 Trillion, and Credit Default Swaps at about $58 Trillion.  We are talking a Quadrillion U.S. dollars!  

And who made all of this possible?  In the late 1990’s, as I have pointed out in previous newsletters, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Lawrence Summers, with the enthusiastic help of Sen. Phil Gramm pushed through the Republican controlled Congress the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (the original legislation separating financial from commercial banking), and pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (deregulating derivatives).  This law was signed by Pres. Bill Clinton.  So . . . we had the cooperation of both the Democrats and the Republicans that, together, set the stage for the roulette wheel economy and the biggest financial crash in modern history.  

This month, as Mars in Pisces goes from an opposition with Saturn to a conjunction with Uranus, more truths will come out and people will likely be exhausted, disillusioned, and overwhelmed.  Pisces is symbolic of flooding and the nation (especially North Dakota) will likely get more of that as well.  As bad as all this sounds, I am of the opinion that it is necessary for us to come out of our coma, face the truth, and forge new systems based on more localized economies rather than giant financial monopolies that tend to bring  the whole system down with them.  We need to think about backing up our currency.  We need “out of the box” thinking and that will not happen until it has to happen.

 The Economy:

 Venus, which is now retrograde, goes direct at a critical 29 degrees of Pisces on the 17^th and is conjunct Mars and the Moon on the 22^nd.  Last month, I predicted a currency crisis.  March was filled with fears with regard to the U.S. dollar and gold rose and fell accordingly in connection with these fears.  Mostly, messages were confusing.  China intimated that they are looking to get out of U.S. dollars, then said they were not going to do it at this moment in time.  The notion of a single global currency was brought up with the idea going nowhere.  Discussions revolving around “baskets” of currencies used for world trade were thrown around. Between April 21^st and the 26^th, Mercury in Taurus will square Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius which will focus on the “accounting” of the budget deficits and projected U.S. debt.  This will also bring even more uncertainty into the real estate market (Taurus).  Some will project unrealistic optimism while others descend into unbridled pessimism.  The G-20 meeting will likely reflect both anger and confusion.  Currency instability will continue to be a major topic.  Confusion will win the day again.  There will be more people who flee into gold, but the powers-that-be, as usual, will likely try to stop this tide.  

People with money will likely be switching out of the “big” global banks and into more regionalized banks.  This would include Islamic banks in the Middle East and smaller regional banks in the U.S.A.  In this kind of environment, people are buying and taking “direct delivery” of gold.   

 The “Green Economy” will be getting a lot of press, along with concerns about the costs incurred.  There are no enforceable laws that penalize factories for leaving a country with strict environmental standards and labor protections and go to nations that allow pollutants to contaminate everything with no restraints.  America has been “outsourcing” its factories and labor for years and has, effectively, destroyed the middle class even before this economic collapse.  Although new inventions will surface between now and June (with the coming conjunctions of Neptune, Jupiter, and Chiron), getting these products on the market when we are out of money, will be difficult.

The Weather and Natural Upheavals:

 The planets this month suggest more volcanic and earthquake activity.  The volcano in Alaska may not be finished yet.  The Pisces placements suggest more flooding.  These placements suggest volatility between April 12^th and 30^th.  Locating just where these events will take place is not my specialty, so I would be very careful with respect to air travel at this time.    

Foreign Policy:

 In spite of a carefully thought out policy by the Obama administration, there will likely be more volatility in Pakistan and Mexico.  Both of these nations have their Natal Suns afflicted by Pluto and they are being set off by Venus and Mars at the end of this month.

His Pakistan/ Afghanistan policy announced last month has intelligence contained within it, but many doubts are being expressed that it is at all possible to contain the extremists and violent Al Qaeda terrorists hidden on the Pakistan border and throughout this wild tribally governed mountainous desert.  Historically, every nation who has tried has left in defeat. 

The news media has not recently reported extensively on Iraq in which we are engaged in a gradual withdrawal.  The so-called successful “surge” was really the result of our paying off the warring factions there not to fight. My take is that a lot of agreements in Iraq will start to crumble this month.  Can we afford to continue paying them off?  Obama plans to keep troops there for many years.  These regions are crucial in the coming and inevitable struggle for control of dwindling oil reserves.  We are caught in a mire that will be difficult, if not impossible, to solve in the immediate future.

Final Thoughts:

 Within the framework of our present psychological makeup, it is monumentally difficult for us to face the massive twin meltdowns of the global climate and the worldwide financial system.  Each one of us has our personal struggle as jobs disappear, houses foreclose, wealth is lost, and, most of all, the systems we trusted and depended upon have failed us.  There is plenty of blame to go around.  The wealthy speculators, consumed by greed, got laws passed in Washington, enabling them to gamble away the economy.  People with fewer resources allowed themselves to borrow money and buy what they could not afford, leading ultimately to bankruptcy.  Others just “sailed along” in a fog of denial that anything wrong was going on.  The age old human tendencies that have been haunting us forever have, once again, written our history.  So what is the answer? 

There is no answer if we continue to see the world through the lens of the past.  New frameworks of consciousness are within us, waiting to be acknowledged and experienced.  Our cyclical relationship to the constellations above promises us that the old way of life with its systems of belief is dying a natural death.  A new form of human expression is on the horizon and resides deeply within the DNA of each and every one of us at this moment in time, waiting to be born. 

Let us all decide to be there when it happens!

 Linda

Linda Schurman