parallel and intertwined thoughts

First, on the current economic affairs.

The beauty of capitalism and its money is that it flows to "the idea", to "the systems", that promises good returns. And of course, where there is money - the dynamics is usually tilted towards the greedy. But that has always been. It is humanity's wound. That's why we needed a Savior in the first place :- )

But that slice of the story is important only to media corporations whose primary business model is providing free content and let advertisers foot the bill. Greed and misbehaving people and the effect of such acts is of human interest after all. According to Journalism 101 :- )

But is that the only story? Or is that the only story that can be sold?

What about the system's penchant to reward short-term thinking? I mean, why did the money go to Housing Projects that was not sustainable in the first place? Why did it not go to green technologies? Sustainability projects?

Is short-term thinking such an addiction? A disease?

If so, how could we "cure" it? Hmmm, tell the truth.

The Inconvenient Truth :- )

That's it?

What about basic education, secondary education and tertiary education embracing sustainability and putting it front in center in their respective syllabi?

I mean, seriously, this is not a joke - why don't we put the classroom right in the middle of the forest? Right smack in the middle of a farm?

Why extract the truth, put it on books and teach it a classrooms when you can take away the "middle man"? Put the classrooms in the forest and let learning come alive for the first time in the Philippines! I mean, Aristotle and Plato never went to the classrooms that we consider to be ideal and yet the thoughts they had still speaks to us. I mean, what thoughts have came out of our "accredited" education system?

Who put the "middle man" in the first place? When did we embrace that that's the way how things should be?

I mean Porter advocated in the 80's the idea of competitive advantage. What if the Philippines real strength is really about and rooted on having mud on our feet? And because of our "confusion" as a race - we have not turned the strength into a competitive advantage? I mean, can anyone replicate the "laboratory" - our natural resources, that we have here in the Philippines?

What does it mean to us that we have in the Philippines the center of the center of the center of biodiversity? Do we even freaking appreciate what that truth and that fact means?

Let me give you a number - if United States of America and European Union ever consider replicating what we have here in the Philippines into their lands, assuming it is technically feasible, it will cost them something around $3 TRILLION dollars plus compounded interest rate of inflation and some 300 million years!

And if our financial calculators, whether what you have is Texas Instrument's or HP's, comes up with a number, the next step is compare that number to the price we sell our lands to the Koreans in Baguio, in Tagaytay and in Batangas - then you'd understand that we sold ourselves short! We sold our lands cheap! We simply and "voluntarily" let them stole our treasure!

So, can we have "forest classrooms" na and Off Lotion to go with that, too? Serious, can we get "dirty" already and sink our feet and our minds into the mud?

Do we really know that we are rich as a nation? I mean, only "rich" people can afford to be lazy! Juan Tamad? Hello!

And I am not limiting the idea of being rich in having zeroes on the right:- )

Now let's go back to the western hemisphere's economic troubles that will reach our shores like a tsunami, if not abated, next year.

What if all the wealth that was created by this $54 Trillion Credit Default Swap "industry" was based on a paradigm that will not hold up anymore? It may be true before but it may not be true anymore today. Has anyone check on this?

Experts "vainfully" estimate that all the wealth that the global economy produces is in the similar outrageous number. Mind you wealth is different from money :- )

Wealth disappears. Money on the other hand is of value only if you need something. Plus, when the whole earth is a wasteland, it will dawn on us that we can not really eat money :- )

"Be still and know I am God..."