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Part 3 of 3

"The Secret Isn’t A Secret And The Wish Fairy Is A Fraud

By Bill Harris June 22nd, 2007 
Source Dream Manifesto

"This is part three of the article "Without Two Important Principles The Secret Won't Benefit You".

"Here’s something else to keep in mind. If you sit around and focus your attention on something you want, but you’re daydreaming, you aren’t going to get it. Why? Because daydreaming is a kind of thinking that already has lack of action built into it. There’s a huge difference between thinking about something when you’re in wishing mode, and thinking about the same thing when you’re in acting mode. If you want to create something, always do your thinking while in acting mode.

But let’s get back to creating that $100,000 a year. I’ve already mentioned that focusing on how to do this gives you ideas. But it also causes you to notice resources you might use. You might, for instance, notice books about how to make more money. Or you might notice that someone has a seminar about how to make more money.

It occurs to me as I’m thinking about this right now that my friend Harv Eker, for instance, has a great seminar, and a book, about making money. If you Google “Harv Eker,” you’ll see all kinds of offerings he has. I know they’re good, and if you follow his advice you’ll learn how to make more money. Jack Canfield has some great stuff, too, and his book, The Success Principles, is a very complete guide to how people create what they want in the world. I have a very powerful online course that will teach you, in-depth, exactly how to create whatever you want, which I’ll tell you more about later.

There are almost unlimited resources available about how to make money. You usually don’t notice them because you haven’t focused your attention on finding them. Then, of course, when you find them, you have to take action and use them. This is where most people fall down. There’s a price to pay to get what you want in this world, and most people would rather not pay it.

Paying The Price - And Enjoying It
The people you see who are getting what they want in life are almost always those who have figured out how to enjoy paying the price, which of course makes it easy to pay. As I said earlier, this is the essence of the Law of Attraction - the price is just whatever you need to give in order to attract or create what you want. That’s why just sitting there hoping and wishing doesn’t work. When you do that, the only thing you’re putting out is an intention, which, while it’s a good start, is of no value to anyone - unless you act on it.

The resources you begin to notice when you focus on what you want might also include people who could help you. And when you begin to spot such people, you have to keep in mind that if you want their help you have to make it worth their while to help you. This might mean paying them, but you could compensate them in many other ways. You could make them a partner. You could give them a feeling of being a good person who helps others. Or anything in between.

And, quite often, if people who have the ability to help you see that what you have has real merit, some of them will help you just to help you, because they understand the Law of Attraction and they know if they help you it will come back to them in some other way. Often the people who have really mastered the Law of Attraction have so much, and they create what they want so effortlessly, that they just want to give back by helping others.

It Never Hurts To Ask
It never hurts to ask for help, even if you’re not sure how to compensate the other person. But always start with the willingness to compensate them in some way, even if you don’t yet know how. In fact, if you aren’t sure, you could begin by saying, “I’m not sure how at this point to make it worth your while, but I sure could use your help.” Ask, and see what happens, and always be open to compensating the other person in some way, even if you haven’t yet figured out what it might be. In fact, be eager to compensate them.

So, you focus on what you want, and you ask yourself questions such as “How can I make $100,000 a year?” Because of that, you get ideas, you notice resources, you attract or notice people who might be able to help. Focusing on what you want and imagining how good it will feel to get it causes you to feel motivated to act, and so you take action. Then, after you act, notice what happened. Evaluate your action. Your action was either successful or not, or something in between. Whatever happens, you’ll get feedback. If your action worked, you might want to do more of it. If it didn’t work, learn whatever you can from it, and then take another action based on what you learned. Keep acting, evaluating, and then acting again, until you create or attract whatever it is you’re trying to get.

Even if you have to refine your actions many times, you’re still benefiting because you’re gaining wisdom. This is why successful people are so successful. They’ve acted, and received feedback, and acted again, and received more feedback, and have done this so many times that they’ve become wise. They’ve become experts. So be willing to pay the price to become an expert. All these little so-called failures are really tuition in the school of life, and the learning they bring is very valuable.

All the while you’re doing this, of course, you’re remaining focused on where you want to go and what you want to create, and you’ve already decided, in advance, that nothing is going to keep you from getting there. If you slip up, if what you’re doing isn’t working, if you fall on your face, you learn everything you can from what happened, and continue to focus on how to get where you want to go.

This constant focus on the end result, along with taking action, and always trying to think of how to create value for others, always, eventually, gets you there. The only way you can fail is if you’re mistaken about the value of what you provide, or you quit before you get there. You might change your approach for getting there a number of times, based on what you learn, but you otherwise just keep focusing your attention on what you want and acting to get it.

The Secret Shortcut
Now, would you like to know a huge shortcut to this process? I thought so. It’s easy. Find other people who are already successfully doing what you want to do, or getting what you want to get. Then, find out what they’re doing, and copy them. Also, while you’re at it, find out how they’re focusing their mind.

So far I’ve spoken about focusing your mind as if it was a pretty simple “one-size-fits-all” thing to do, but there are actually a number of important things to learn about how to focus your mind, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that in a moment. For now, just know that it’s very beneficial to find out what the person you’re modeling believes about what they’re doing, what they think is important about it, how they decide what to pay attention to and what to delete from their attention, and many other nuances about how they focus their attention.

And, then, of course, you want to find out what actions they’ve taken to create what you want to create. All of this you can copy, which gives you a huge head start. Then, as you gain wisdom through your own actions, you can add your own twist to what you learned from them.

How do you find these people? First, just asking yourself that question “How do I find people who are successfully doing what I want to do?” causes you to think of ways to find them. But just off the top of my head, I can think of a few ways. Again, you can use Google. You can find books they’ve written. Ask other people if they know someone. You can look in the Yellow Pages. You can spot them in the newspaper. Many people are selling information on doing many of the typical things someone might want to know how to do, in the same way Harv Eker is teaching people how to make money.

How To Get What You Don’t Want
Now, let’s talk about the other side of the coin. What happens when you focus on what you don’t want? Actually, the process works the same way, except you end up getting what you don’t want instead of what you do want. Whatever you focus on, you mind takes it as an instruction to create or attract it. And, as I said earlier, your mind is very good at creating or attracting whatever you focus on.

If you focus on not being poor, for instance, your mind will get busy figuring out how you can be poor. If you focus on not being anxious, you’re mind will figure out how to make you feel anxious. If you focus on not making a mistake, you’ll make mistakes.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that you create it, the other big penalty for focusing on what you don’t want is that you get to feel bad. All bad feelings - anger, anxiety, fear, confusion, panic, depression, annoyance, shame, guilt, hopelessness, or anything else - come from focusing on what you don’t want. This is the flip side of feeling good when you focus on what you want, especially if you’re taking action, and that action has value.

When you focus on what you don’t want, or what you’re worried about, or what you’re afraid of, or what you want to avoid, you put your mind to work creating it, and you feel bad. Both of these penalties obviously make focusing on what you don’t want a bad idea. In fact, focusing on what you don’t want is poison to your life.

But how does focusing on what you don’t want affect the second principle, taking action? When you focus on what you don’t want, one of two things happens. You might, as a result, not take any action, which is a kind of action, with its own results (or lack of results). If you’re afraid of making a mistake, you might avoid acting, and the very failure to act is, in and of itself, a type of mistake. When you don’t act, you always know what will happen. Nothing.

Or, you might, ironically, take an action, driven by your fear, that creates the very thing you don’t want. Not wanting to make a mistake, you act in a way that creates mistakes. Not wanting to make a bad investment, you figure out a way to become attracted to bad or risky investments, or you fail to learn what you need to know to make an good decision. Not wanting your business to fail, you are led to take the very actions that do make it fail.

I see this all the time among my students. They focus on avoiding something they’re afraid of or worried about, and (almost) as if by magic, they create it. The mind is ingenious in creating what you focus on, and it doesn’t care whether it’s what you want or what you don’t want.

For this reason, it’s crucial that you focus your mind consciously and intentionally. Your mind is always focusing on something. As I said earlier, it isn’t that you can’t manifest what you focus on, it’s that you’re very likely choosing what to focus on automatically, unconsciously. What you focus on is very often driven by past events, childhood decisions and traumas, that cause you to focus on what you don’t want at least some of the time.

Attracting Danger
Here’s how it works. When you are traumatized during childhood (and the trauma can be quite unintentional), you develop a belief that the world is a dangerous place, or at least a potentially dangerous place. In order to avoid this danger, you have to watch out for it. To do that you have to focus your attention on it, and there you are, giving your mind an instruction to create or attract the very thing you don’t want.

So The Secret is a wonderful thing. It works - especially if you add the second and third principles I’ve shared with you. But it’s like electricity. You can light up a city with it, or electrocute yourself. You can only use The Secret to get what you want to the extent that you can consciously and intentionally direct your attention. As long what you focus on is chosen without conscious intention, you’re going to find yourself attracting and creating, at least some of the time, some things you don’t want.

And some people are unfortunately attracting a lot of what they don’t want, a lot of the time.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can develop the awareness and the ability to use it to intentionally direct your focus. You can turn off the autopilot. This is why < snip > is so powerful, because it increases your ability to be aware, to live consciously rather than automatically. As your awareness grows, you clearly see how your focus creates what happens in your life, and as you watch this happen it becomes more and more difficult to focus on what you don’t want, and much easier to focus on what you do want.

It’s not an accident that so few people are truly successful. Success, in whatever way you define it, flows directly from focusing on what you want, and then, as a result, taking action that is of value to the world. If you can’t focus intentionally, though, this process becomes very difficult.

You Can’t Focus On What You Have Deleted
It also becomes easier to implement The Secret in your life if you better understand the focusing process. In this discussion I’ve treated focusing as a simple process, but it’s actually a complex cognitive process. There are many steps, and they whiz by very quickly, mostly outside your awareness. For instance, you have dozens of mental filters that delete much of what comes in through your senses, then distorts (sometimes in a positive way, and sometimes in a negative way) what is left.

Why does this matter? Well, you can’t focus on what has been deleted from your awareness. What if, for instance, you delete some - or even all - of the possibilities? Many people do this. When they look around, there are no possibilities! I correspond with people everyday who tell me that they see no possibilities, yet the same possibilities are actually available to them, as to anyone else. But because they’ve filtered them out, they aren’t there.

And this is just one of twenty-some filters people unconsciously use before they ever get to the part of the process where they focus on something.

People filter out possibilities, solutions, ideas, resources, ideas, kindnesses, love, what they could be grateful for, and all kinds of things. Many people filter things in such a way that all they see are problems and what is wrong. They have nothing left to focus on but what they don’t want! Can you see how it would be valuable if you could consciously choose how to use these filters?

We unfortunately don’t have room here to go through the entire process by which you focus your mind. However, even if you know nothing about this, other than to focus as much as possible on what you want - and you’re willing to take action and to do whatever you can to make sure your actions are of value to others - you’ll get results that are head and shoulders above those achieved by other people.

However, I invite you to consider the possibility that you could master this internal focusing process, by taking my online course, < snip >. Those who master this process tap into a power that allows them to do or achieve anything they put their mind to. There’s no reason why you couldn’t be one of them.

I also invite you, if you aren’t already doing so, to use < snip > to increase your conscious awareness (and to get all the other mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits it brings). You can get a < snip > and a free Special Report.

The Secret Isn’t A Secret And The Wish Fairy Is A Fraud
The Secret really isn’t a secret. It’s been around for thousands of years, and many people have taught it in many different forms. The only reason it can be referred to as a “secret” is that very few people actually use it. It’s been estimated that about 2% of people actually embrace the three principles I’ve described and commit themselves to using them consistently. Or, if they try to use the first principle, they skip the second two and insist on wishing and hoping and believing in magic, eternally waiting for the Wish Fairy to give them
what they want.

I’m hoping that you’ll be one of those who embrace these principles and actually use them. And I am here, along with my staff, to help you use the tools we’ve created to become happy, peaceful, and successful, and to create whatever you want in life."

http://www.dreammanifesto.com/the-secret-isnt-a-secret-and-the-wish-fairy-is-a-fraud.html

Part 2 of 3

"The Secret Won’t Work Without Asking the Magic Question

By Bill Harris June 20th, 2007 
Source Dream Manifesto

"This is part two of the article “Without Two Important Principles The Secret Won't Benefit You”.

"Now here’s a really easy way to focus your attention on what you want. I call it the Magic Question, but again, it really isn’t magic. To focus your attention on something you want to create or attract, ask yourself, “How can I create X?” whatever X is, or “How can I get X?” Sometimes, if you’re in what seems to be a particularly bad situation, you might say, “Given that I’m in this situation, what can I do to get X?” For instance, if you just lost your job and you have a lot of debts, you might ask yourself, “Okay, given that I’m in this situation, what can I do right now to create a new job and create enough money to pay all these debts?”

When you ask this type of How Can I? question, it focuses your attention on what you want, and in doing so you enlist your mind in finding an answer - in other words, to figure out what you could actually DO to begin creating or attracting what you want.

Then, as you get ideas, you have to act on them. Sitting there wishing and hoping for a miracle, or hoping that a coincidence will slam into you is what NOT to do. Dr. Phil, if he were here, would be asking such a person, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” I know a lot of very successful people, including nearly every teacher who appears in The Secret, and believe me, none of them sit around waiting for a miracle to land on them.

Even the few of them who actually, and in my opinion mistakenly, teach that focusing on what you want is magic, when you watch what they’re actually doing, they are taking action. How they can miss the fact that they are is beyond me, but a few of them - who shall remain nameless–do teach people to just “put it out to the universe” and that no action is necessary. They too, though, take action, but I guess they somehow fail to see the connection between the action they take and the results they get.

If you look around at successful, make-it-happen people, you won’t see any of them who don’t take action.

It only looks like they’re not taking action

Now I’ll admit that sometimes the results can look as if they are coming to a very successful person awfully darned easy and awfully darned quickly, but these results are still coming from action, preceded by focusing on what that person wanted.

My friend Gay Hendricks, along with his wife Katie, have been bestselling authors of books about relationships for over twenty years. Another friend, Jack Canfield, is also a bestselling author. Either one of them can pick up the phone, call a book publisher, tell them an idea for a book, and get a book deal instantly. If some other person wanted a book deal, it could take them years to make it happen. If their idea didn’t have value, based on what the publisher wanted, they might never make it happen.

To someone who did not understand the principle of taking action and the principle of creating value, it might look like Gay or Jack made something happen as if by magic, without taking action. However, in this case the book deal happened quickly because of actions they’d previously taken. In fact, Jack visited scores of publishers with the original Chicken Soup for the Soul book, and was almost ready to give up, when he finally found a publisher willing to print his book. But now, after selling well over 100 million books, he’s already proven that he can create a bestselling book. He’s already taken the action necessary to get a book publisher to send him a contract and a check. The same goes for Gay Hendricks.

I can create a new course or a new product, and Centerpointe program participants will buy it tomorrow, in droves. This isn’t magic, though. It’s the residual of thousands of actions I’ve already taken which have convinced my customers that when I create something, it’s going to be worth it for them to buy it in order to get the benefits. I’ve already taken the required action, and sometimes that makes it look as if little or no action is being taken in order to get a certain outcome.

Will the Wish Fairy Give You a Raise?
Let’s take this down to a more mundane example. If you work in an office, and your boss approaches you and offers you a better job in the company, with more pay, why does he do this? Is it magic? Is it because you’ve been sitting in your cubicle putting it out to the universe that you want a better job with more money? I doubt it. If your boss offers you such a promotion, I’ll bet you anything it’s because of past actions you’ve taken that have convinced your boss that you’re worth the raise, and because he’s pretty sure that your future actions will make it worth his while to give you new responsibilities and more money.

Now, let’s look at the third principle, the idea that the action you take has to benefit someone, that your action has to create value.

Think of it this way. From time to time you give money to other people, right? You pay your electric bill, you pay your car payment, you give money to the supermarket, you give money to the clothing store, or the gas station. Why do you do this? Is it just because you like these people? Is it because they put it out to the universe that you would stop by and give them money?

Well, you might like them, and they probably did sit down and focus on how to get you and other customers to give them some of your money, but when it comes right down to it, you gave them money because they have something you want more than you want the money. Like everyone else, unless it’s just because you love them, you give money to others if you get something valuable in return. What’s more, you’re the sole judge of whether what they have is valuable. It doesn’t matter who else thinks it’s valuable - if you don’t think it is, you don’t give up your money for it.

The ONLY Reason People Will Give You Money
Other than money you might give to someone just because you love them, this is the only reason why money changes hands. This means that if you want money, someone else is going to have to give it to you, and they’re going to use the same criteria you use. If giving you money gets them something they want more than the money, they’ll give you the money. In order to get more money, then, you have to figure out a way to create more benefit, more value. This is really the essence of the Law of Attraction. The amount of money you attract is equal to the value you provide.

This applies to more than money, of course. As the Beatles said in one of their songs, the love you get is equal to the love you give. I’m only talking in terms of money because that’s what most people think of when they think of The Secret and the Law of Attraction. But whatever you want–love, respect, friends, or anything else - you’ll receive it to the extent that you put out, through your actions, something of equivalent value. Be a good friend, and you’ll have friends. Act in a way that invites respect, and you’ll be respected. And so on.

The main point, though, is that for you to get something in this world, you have to give. As Emerson said, the universe’s books are always balanced - which, by the way, also means that you can’t fail to receive when you give, and if you have to wait, you build up interest, you might say, while you wait.

Now, some people struggle, at least partially, because they haven’t found a way to offer very much value, so they don’t make much money. If you’re flipping burgers, it’s probably because you don’t have the skills that make you more valuable to someone else, which means others aren’t willing to trade very much money for whatever you provide. The burger-flipper needs to be reliable enough to show up, smart enough to follow directions, and be able to get along with the other employees, but not much else is required.

It’s also possible that you have something that would be of value to others, but you haven’t found a way to let others know about it. In that case, you have a sales and marketing problem, and you need to find a way to convincingly let others know about the value you could provide for them.

The more valuable you are, the more money you make.

But there’s a solution to this, and it isn’t wishing and hoping. If you don’t have a way to create very much value for others, you can always get more knowledge or more skills. I have people who work for me who know how to take orders over the phone and enter them into the computer, and they do it well.

However, a lot of people can do such a job, so it isn’t a very lucrative job compared, for instance, to someone who knows how to manage people, or who knows how to run a computer network, or who knows how to create an advertisement that creates a lot of sales. Such people end up getting more money because they provide more value. And, they can provide more value because they’ve paid the price to have those skills and that knowledge.

So if you aren’t making as much money as you want, you need to figure out a way to create more value, and you need to figure out a way to make sure people know you have this value. The value could be your ideas, it could be your labor, it could be a product you create or sell, or it could be a service you provide. If it has value, and if you can find a way to make sure people know about it, you’ll make money equivalent to the value you provide. And, of course, none of this will happen unless you take action, and you won’t take action–or know what action to take - unless you begin by focusing your mind on what you want and asking yourself how you can get it.

But please don’t think that you can just wish for something or “put it out to the universe,” and then, without taking action or providing any value, expect to get it. In fact, let me clue you into another aspect of the Law of Attraction. If a random event brings you something, for which you haven’t provided value - something you haven’t paid the price to have - I hate to tell you this, but you still have to pay in some way.

If you win the lottery, you’ve received a bunch of money without having provided value in exchange. You know what happens to nearly all people who win millions in the lottery, don’t you? That’s right. They almost always lose all the money within a few years. Unless that person does something with the money that provides value to others, they’ll find a way to lose it.

And, by the way, this is the way debt works, too. If you go into debt in order to have something before you’ve earned the money, you end up paying more for it. There is a price for everything, and when you pay in advance the price is lower, and when you pay in arrears the price is higher. One of the big secrets to success is to find out what the price is for what you want and pay it, in full, as fast as possible. The price might be money, but it also could be time, experience, learning, work, or something else. Sometimes the price is a series of events that look like failures, but are really preparation for success. But whatever the price is, the faster you pay it, the better. This is what the second two principles are about.

Who wants $100,000?
Okay, let’s take an example to see how you could use these three principles to get what you want. Let’s say that you do want more money, and you realize right away that you don’t yet have a way to provide additional value to others, which is what would qualify you to receive more money. For that reason, no one is giving you money. What do you do? The first thing to do is to use the first principle, the principle of focusing your attention on what you want. “I want more money,” you say. You ask yourself, “How can I get more money?” Notice that I’m using that “How can I?” question again. It’s always a great question to ask because it focuses you on what you want.

It would be even better, though, if you were more specific. I might say, then, “I want to make $100,000 a year. How can I do that?” Or, I might say to myself, “Okay, how can I make $100,000 a year? Many other people do it, so I know it’s doable. How could I do it?” I would keep asking myself this question, and I would focus my attention on discovering a way to do it. Knowing the other two principles, I’d know that when I get an idea, I’m going to have to take action, and the action will have to benefit someone, so I’m keeping that in the back of my mind.

So, what happens? First, you start getting ideas. Right now, off the top of my head, I’m just going to share with you the ideas that come to me, as if I was the person wanting to make $100,000 a year. The first idea that comes to me is to see if I can find out who else is making $100,000 a year. What professions make that much? Well, certainly a lot of people who have their own business make that much. A guy who owns a McDonald’s makes more than that much for each store he owns. Someone who owns a couple of dry cleaning stores probably makes that much. I could probably go online and find through Google a whole list of types of jobs that make $100,000 a year.

People who sell certain products online, or through the mail, probably make that much. Certain professional speakers, or authors, make that much. Someone who sells real estate can make that much, or more, and so can insurance agents. So one idea that came to me was to check out who’s actually making this kind of money, because that might give me ideas for how I could do it. By finding this out, I could at least save myself from doing something that I think will make me a lot of money when in actual fact few if any people actually make that kind of money doing it.

For instance, I see a lot of people in certain MLM-type businesses, but rarely do I see anyone who even makes $1000 a month, let alone significant money. I’m not trying to bash MLMs in general, because some of them are great, and I’m not saying it isn’t possible to make good money in MLM, but if you’re looking for a way to make a lot of money, wouldn’t it make sense to avoid something where nearly everyone who does it fails?

If you want to start a business, do a little checking before you act and find out what other people in that business are making."

To be continued .......

http://www.dreammanifesto.com/the-secret-wont-work-without-asking-the-magic-question.html

Part 1 of 3

"Without Two Important Principles The Secret Won’t Benefit You

By Bill Harris June 18th, 2007 
Source Dream Manifesto

"Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve heard of the hit DVD movie, The Secret, which I was fortunate enough to have participated in. The Secret has developed into quite a phenomenon. Many of the teachers who appeared in it have appeared on Oprah! and Larry King Live, and several other national television programs. Hundreds of thousands of people have watched the DVD, and those who have are hungry for information on how to implement what many people call the Law of Attraction. I want to share my take on The Secret and the Law of Attraction, and talk about what you can do to put these principles into action in your own life.

As powerful as The Secret is, there are a few things - a few very important things - it either leaves out, or de-emphasizes. I want to discuss these things, because once you understand them you’ll have the maximum ability to use these important principles to take change of your life. Without them, The Secret won’t benefit you at all.

My belief is that there is a way, no matter who you are, and regardless of your past or present circumstances, to master your life, to master your mind, and to create anything you want in life. The Secret describes a part of how to do that. It’s a very important part, but it’s still just a part. I want to tell you about the other parts, and share some of the practical details, the “how-to,” of what I and the other teachers talked about in The Secret, because there’s more to The Secret and the Law of Attraction than just putting something out to the universe and hoping to get something back.

As the people who made The Secret have said, it’s true that for thousands of years a certain small segment of the population has known about and used this secret, and that those who’ve known it and have used it have prospered in extraordinary ways, and have influenced the world in ways that have seemed almost magical to those who don’t understand this secret. But you need to know more than generalizations about this secret in order to fully implement it, and I want to share some of that with you.

Before I get into some of the nuts and bolts, I want to tell you about two aspects of this secret that were not emphasized in The Secret DVD and book. I’m sharing this with you because these two additional aspects of The Secret are crucial, and if you leave them out, The Secret doesn’t work.

What you focus on creates your life - but it ain’t magic!

Let’s start out, then, by acknowledging that it’s true that you create in reality, in one way or another, whatever you focus your attention on. Your life is going to be an outcome of where you predominantly place your attention. There are, of course, as I said, some things you need to know about the how-to of this in order to get all the benefits, and I’ll talk about that in a moment. What is unfortunate, in my opinion, is that all too often people think that all you have to do is focus your attention on what you want, and then, in some magical way, you’ll get it.

I will say that the way this law works does seem like magic, especially when you first use it and see your results suddenly change from dismal to successful, but there is no magic involved, and without the second two principles I’m going to share, you’ll end up being nothing but a wishful thinker, wondering how long this “Secret” stuff is going to take. I know because I get many letters from people asking me how long it’s going to take, and I have to truthfully tell them that if all they do is focus their attention on what they want, it’s going to take forever.

So let’s look at these other two principles I mentioned, and then we’ll get into some of the nuts and bolts of how to focus your mind in a way that really works. The first principle you heard a lot about in The Secret DVD - the fact that what you place your attention on you tend to create or attract into your life. However, if you stop there, not much happens. After you place your attention on what you want to create or manifest, you have to use the second principle, which is to then take action to get it.

Forget About the Wish Fairy
Yes, I hate to break this to you, but if you want money - or anything else, for that matter - you can’t just wish for it. Whether you want great relationships, a fulfilling career, good health, or anything else, in addition to focusing your attention on what you want, you also have to take action.

And the action you take also has to, in some way, be of value to the world, and to other people. You could act your ass off, but if your action has no value for anyone, you won’t get anything back. This is why they call it the Law of Attraction. You get back what you put out. To get value, you have to give value. That’s the way it works.

For some of the people who come to me, or the other teachers you saw in The Secret, life isn’t working so well. I know what that’s like, because I used to be one of them. Such people aren’t making much money, usually. They very often aren’t in a fulfilling career. Their relationships aren’t satisfying. They don’t feel happy and peaceful. Their health may not be very good. Many of them feel very lost in the world. They sometimes feel like, well, like losers in the game of life.

Often such people don’t have the skills that allow them to offer a lot of value. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t develop those skills, or in some other way figure out how to create value in the world, but at the present time they either don’t have the skills or don’t know how to use them to create benefit for others.

You see, the problem is that such people - and remember, I used to be one of them, so I understand the thought process - such people would LOVE to find out that there’s a magic way to become prosperous, popular, respected, happy, and loved. Then, when someone comes along and tells them to just “put it out to the universe” it almost becomes a cruel joke, because to create the kind of life I just described, you have to do more than just think about it or wish for it.

I want everyone who feels lost and discouraged about creating the life they want to know that while you can’t JUST focus your attention on what you want, it isn’t that difficult to add these other two principles, and, having added them, you can learn how to have everything you want in life. It isn’t magic, and it isn’t difficult, but there is a price to pay. My career, once I found it, albeit late in life, is about showing people what that price is, and then showing them the easy way to pay it.

Here’s How It Works…
So let’s look at the first principle, what most people think of now as The Secret - the idea that what you place your attention on is manifested in reality. This is a solid, real, principle, but it isn’t magic. Here’s why this principle works - if, of course, you use the other two principles with it.

When you focus your attention on something you want to create or attract, several things happen. Your mind is a very powerful goal-seeking mechanism. You just have to give it a goal, and it gets busy figuring out how to get it. When you focus on something, your mind takes it as an instruction to figure out how to create or attract whatever you’ve focused on. In fact, right now, you’re already using that power. The problem isn’t a lack of ability to manifest what you focus on, but rather a lack of conscious and intentional control over what you focus on.

In other words, most people focus their mind unconsciously and unintentionally. Their focus runs on autopilot. Your mind was pre-set to focus in a certain way during childhood, and now it just runs on automatic. Depending on what happened while you were growing up, your mind focuses a certain amount of the time on what you want, and a certain amount of the time on what you want to avoid. Either way, though, it attracts or creates it.

Here’s how it works. Now remember that this first principle works in conjunction with the other two - taking action, and making sure the action is of value to someone. So when you focus on something you want to create or attract, a number of things happen. First, you get ideas about what actions you could take. If you want to attract a glass of lemonade, you think about having it, and your mind immediately suggests that you go to the kitchen, if you have some lemonade there, or take a trip to the supermarket to buy some, if you don’t. Instantly, you get ideas about what action to take in order to make your idea a reality.

Turning Wishes Into Lemonade
You can probably see that sitting there visualizing lemonade without doing something about it is a belief in magic, and if that’s all you do you’re not going to get lemonade. Even if someone walks into the room just as you think of lemonade, and you ask them to get you some, you’ve still taken action. And, if by some coincidence you thought of lemonade and right then someone walked into the room and said, “I was wondering if you’d like some lemonade?” this is not happening because you thought about lemonade. A lot of magic-believers would like to think so, but you could sit there every day and think about lemonade, and it would be a long time before that method would work again.

Scientists have a name for this. It’s called a coincidence. People who believe in magic turn coincidences into evidence, but that doesn’t make it so, and you can easily prove this to yourself by thinking of lemonade the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and finding out what happens. What will happen is that no lemonade will manifest the next day, or the next, or the next, unless you get up out of your chair and take action to find some.

How to find all the resources you need
So the first thing that happens when you focus on getting something is that your mind generates ideas about how to get it, ideas about what actions you could take to get it. The second thing that happens is that you begin to notice resources you could use in getting what you want. You might notice people who could help you that you weren’t noticing before. You might suddenly become aware of information, books, seminars, TV shows, or whatever, that previously you had not noticed.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of wanting to learn about something and going to a bookstore. Suddenly you see all kinds books about the subject that you never noticed before, and would have just walked right by if you hadn’t told your mind to notice them.

Let’s say you’re driving down the street and you decide you want an Italian meal. If there are any Italian restaurants on that street, will you notice them? Of course. Would you have noticed them if you hadn’t focused your attention on Italian food? Probably not.

When you focus your attention on something, your mind develops a kind of radar that causes resources to wave little red flags at you, and to almost jump into your arms, or at least into your awareness. But again, you can see how this relates to taking action, because these resources you notice are useful only if you use them.

Okay, so far, by focusing on what you want, you’ve begun to develop some ideas about how to get it, and you’ve started noticing resources you could use. Next, focusing on what you want causes you to become motivated to act. Because you’re thinking about what you want, and about how you’ll feel when you get it - good, probably - you become motivated to do something, to take action.

You can be a high-quality person
And, finally, focusing on what you want causes you to tap into or develop certain internal qualities that help you to get it, such things as courage, or persistence, or focus. Because you’re focused on what you want, and are thinking about the benefits of having what you want and imagining how good it will feel, you’re more likely to be persistent, to focus your attention, to be disciplined, to be self-reliant, to take personal initiative, to use your imagination, and to be enthusiastic.

Those who focus on what they want develop all of these personal qualities, and, depending on what qualities are needed in order to create what you want, possibly others. And, the more and the longer you focus on what you want, and the more positive emotion you add, the more these qualities become part of your personality.

So focusing your mind in the way described in The Secret causes you to have ideas, to notice people and resources that could help you, to become motivated to act, and to develop internal qualities that will help you act to get what you want. You can see, then, how incredibly valuable focusing your attention on what you want can be. If you’ve ever wondered why some people seem to have so many ideas, how they seem to always find the resources they need or the people who can help them, how they stay motivated, and how they seem to have all these amazing personal qualities, now you know. They did it by continually focusing their attention on what they want and then taking valuable action.

To be continued…

http://www.dreammanifesto.com/without-two-important-principles-the-secret-wont-benefit-you.html

This video is making its way around the internet, very high energy entertainment suitable for all ages.  Hope you enjoy!!

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This dance team is 4th thru 8th graders from a school in Ohio and they are unbelievable.    Well worth the watch.   This first performance is at the United States Naval Academy.
 
 http://soonereyo.blip.tv/#1826380

Bringing this blog post forward, below is the print version of his message. 

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Dead skunk in the middle of the road.

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"W.H. team discloses TARP firm ties

By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 4/3/09 10:49 PM EDT
Source Politico  
 
"Those are among the associations detailed in personal financial disclosure statements released Friday.
 
Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, pulled in more than $2.7 million in speaking fees paid by firms at the heart of the financial crisis, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Corp. and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers.

He pulled in another $5.2 million last year from D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund for which he served as managing director from October 2006 until joining the administration.

Thomas E. Donilon, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, was paid $3.9 million last year by the power law firm O’Melveny & Myers to represent clients, including two firms that received federal bailout funds: Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He also disclosed that he’s a member of the Trilateral Commission and sits on the steering committee of the supersecret Bilderberg group. Both groups are favorite targets of conspiracy theorists.

And White House Counsel Greg Craig last year earned $1.7 million in private practice representing an exiled Bolivian president, a Panamanian lawmaker wanted by the U.S. government for allegedly murdering a U.S. soldier and a tech billionaire accused of securities fraud and various sensational drug and sex crimes.

Those are among the associations detailed in personal financial disclosure statements released Friday night by the White House. The income reported on the forms mostly covers 2008 and in some cases the beginning of 2009.

Presidential appointees are required to disclose information about their income, assets and investments, and those of their spouses and dependent children, within 60 days of starting work. And the disclosure forms filed by many appointees to top agency jobs have been available for public inspection for some time, thanks to the federal Freedom of Information Act.

But the White House is largely exempt from the act, and Obama press aides dragged their feet on reporters’ requests for the disclosure documents filed by officials in the Executive Office of the President.

Craig disclosed that his work for Williams & Connelly included representing Pedro Miguel Gonzalez Pinzon, a Panamanian lawmaker who allegedly murdered a U.S. soldier in 1992, as well as Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a former Bolivian president who has lived in exile since 2003, when clashes between protesters and the Bolivian military killed an estimated 70 people and wounded hundreds more.

During the presidential campaign, Craig, then serving as a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, drew flak for representing Sanchez de Lozada.

Craig also listed among his clients Henry Nicholas, founder of microchip maker Broadcom, who is facing securities fraud charges in an alleged stock option backdating plot. In June, the government unsealed an indictment also detailing a raft of drug and prostitution charges, which Craig called “a kitchen-sink attack on Dr. Nicholas.”

Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama aide, reported $852,000 in salary and deferred compensation from Habitat Executive Services, a Chicago real estate development and management firm, plus nearly $350,000 in director’s fees from groups including the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and USG Corp.

She also indicated that she served as vice-chairwoman of the committee seeking to lure the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, which paid a public relations firm owned by Obama political guru David Axelrod and to which White House social director Desiree Rogers, another member of the Obama’s inner circle, donated more than $100,000.

Other forms showed that White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen earned $1.3 million from the firm in which he was a partner, Zuckerman Spaeder, and press secretary Robert Gibbs earned $156,000 from Obama’s presidential campaign and also owns a pair of rental properties in Alexandria, Va., worth as much as $1 million."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20889.html

Very important video ...... whether you like the person or not please watch even if you have to hold your nose while doing so. 

CRITICAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION.

"DickMorrisReports - 4.3.09


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFDBkf4F_hs

Wonderfully articulate article about self reliance and solving our own problems instead of naively believing someone's going rescue us.

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"Living Mindfully
"Growing Up

by Suzanne Matthiessen
Source Oracle20-20.com

"When listening to both candidate - and now President Barack Obama's eloquent, motivating speeches, I've often nodded in agreement to his call to all Americans, despite their political affiliation, to become more accountable, less divisive, more compassionate, less indulgently consumptive, more transparent and less entitled. His call has been my call to all human beings to be more humane toward one another. Everywhere I turn, people rave about how finally we in the United States have a leader who instills hope for the cause of our shared humanity. And while it is beautiful it also puzzles me, for after all, what President Obama talks about is really simple common sense - yet people act as though it's revolutionary new thought. He's merely bringing voice to what most people seem to want, and have wanted, for their entire lives. If so many people have yearned for this to be the way in which we treat one another, why has it never been actualized?

Perhaps it has to do with individual maturity levels, and the fact that adequate numbers of people hadn't grown up enough until now to actually begin to link up personal aspirations for honorable human interaction, coexistence and mutual respect, regardless of our differences, in a tangible, collaborative fashion. Our mucking about like pigs in the pen was contagious enough to keep us from rising up and out of the mud of petty actions, insecurity-based competition, scarcity thinking, and self-oriented behavior, even though we have grown increasingly weary of a "me me me" materialistic-based culture. A tipping point has possibly just begun to be reached. Maybe we have almost matured enough as a larger body of homo sapiens, and combined with the beauty of perfect timing in Earth-related human history and culture; the elements are perfect to tip people forward toward a new possibility of human existence.

Please note I said possibility.

The other dynamic I've observed with many people who are excited about the possibility of more evolved human coexistence President Obama is presenting is that a ton of weight is being placed upon him as the bringer and solidifier of this potentially more enlightened age. Even the now famous image of then candidate Obama in red, white and blue with the word "hope" at the bottom equates him with hope itself. Although he has said repeatedly it is up to the people of the United States to make that vision of hope a concrete reality, many are depending on him to make it all happen. They have Messiah-ized President Obama, and placed the burden upon his shoulders. "Yes we can - but you are the one who will make it happen."

This stance taken by many worries me, because it's the same taken by any group of people who have been waiting to be saved by someone or some thing outside of themselves. It's also the stance taken by those who don't like to get their hands dirty and do the hard work that allows change to take place both on an individual as well as a collective level. It's the same stance taken by those who'd rather take a pill than to work on becoming well and whole by means of positive lifestyle choices. It's the same stance taken by people who feel all they have to do is visualize what they want to automatically show up in their life and don't feel they need to put in the effort to earn it.

I've seen people who get teary when President Obama speaks about doing the right thing, regardless of the human or global arena he is referring to, who, moments later, refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and criticize others for things that they do as well! If people actually believe they have not been part of the multitude of actions and behaviors that have served to divide people and contribute to the many human-created global dilemmas we now face, it will be very difficult to make possible the world President Obama envisions as reality. That is, unless everyone grows up even more - and grows up real fast - to where this collective tipping point can be more than a figment of an idealistic imagination.

So what do I mean when I saw "grow up"? Let me extract from and expand upon a column I wrote for Oracle 20/20 Magazine over three years ago titled "Impeccability." In it I quote teacher A. Hameed Ali, who said, "Choosing to be an impeccable warrior means choosing to be a person, choosing to be a responsible adult, instead of being your mother's baby. There is dignity in it; you are your own person, your life is your responsibility and you always have the choice to do your best. Impeccability can be in action, in feeling, in thinking. Impeccability can be in terms of the will, in terms of the mind, in terms of the heart." Choosing to live with impeccability - which I have described as being different than being perfect - is at the center of becoming a grown up, mature, whole human being, a man or a woman who has left behind indulging in childish games and myopic attitudes, and the damage such behaviors can cause.

Growing up - and being impeccable - is about living a life of mindful, eyes wide open, accountable choice, always aware that none of us is certain how much time we have on this planet, and that every moment, every thought, every communication, every action matters in terms of our own personal evolution in the time we're given in this life - and knowing there is no certainty we will have another incarnation, another chance to "get it right."

Life as a mature human being is one lived where mistakes are readily owned up to and corrections made simply as a code of honorable behavior, as there is no room for egoic defense when fully embracing the path of integrity and honor toward ourselves, our fellow human beings, and the planet we all share.

Grown up human beings - regardless of their chronological age - see that it's unwise to waste energy, which means not wasting time, knowledge, gifts and talents we've been given, nor taking advantage of, or for granted, people and resources. Our inevitable death is a constant and humbling reference point that keeps the ego in check and our maturity in place. Being grown up is about playing big, not small, and is about paying attention and being fully present regarding all that is going on all around us, and not being lazy on any level. It is about not deluding ourselves with the ignorant, narcotic notion that there are choices without consequence, and owning the fact that denial and blame are useless and ultimately rather petty. Being impeccable, mature human beings means not allowing ourselves to be self-involved or self-indulgent and carry on as victims or entitled spoiled brats. It is the framework for a life lived with constantly mindful self-discipline and inner strength, because, as I have stated many times before, it is not enough to have knowledge or good intentions.

Living impeccably means there is no gap between what you project to believe and how you act, as there is no room for hypocrisy whatsoever. It means being a person of your word, and someone that can be counted on to always show up with integrity no matter what the situation.

A way to constantly reality check yourself is to simply ask in any personal challenge or dilemma you face, "If this were my last moment on earth, is this how I would want to behave?" So instead of drowning your stress and sorrows with food, drink, drugs, gambling, reckless spending or one night stands when you need a rush, choose a different response that is reflective of proactive inner strength instead of reactive self-indulgence. When your first response to being cut off in traffic is to scream obscenities, choose to take calm, deep breaths and practice Tonglen. When you think you can pull off a lie because you know you won't get caught, always remember that is the attitude of babies, not people who play big. When you succumb to the blame game instead of taking personal responsibility for your part in any given situation, know this is radically immature behavior. When you find yourself thinking you are special and above others, regardless of their beliefs or life circumstances, get over yourself and do some anonymous selfless service.

Instead of ingesting toxic substances like cigarettes, chemically laden, unhealthy processed "food" or consuming way more than you need, respect your body and treat it accordingly. Wherever you see imbalance or excessiveness in any area of your life, work to bring about equilibrium. Become mindful of how a lack of regard concerning your own physical, emotional and mental well-being shows a lack of regard for your loved ones as well.

When you realize you have hurt others by your actions or words, go make amends and stop living a life you have to defend or apologize for all the time. When you find yourself beating yourself up or indulging in false humility, stop it. When you find yourself trying to seek approval from outside sources for everything you do, work on developing healthy self-worth. If you simply accept what any person or group says without carefully pondering if it is truthful and valid, take time to investigate and own your own mind. If you find yourself primarily thinking about what you want and need all the time, become mindful of the needs of others too. If you find yourself compulsively attracted to getting caught up in cheap, petty dramas, ask yourself what are you getting out of it, and how are you hurting others? When you find yourself making great excuses instead of just owning your own crap, make the leap into maturity.

Choosing to play big and being a grown up is choosing the right thing to do in every moment, even if you think nobody notices. Let the fact there are no guarantees as to how much time you have to wipe out any ridiculous pride or grudges or notions that you are right and they are wrong and "its up to them to make the first move" attitudes you are self-righteously holding on to which will ultimately make you have to live with regret - because all of a sudden it's too late. Instead of bitching and moaning about how awful things are, go out and be the change you wish to see in the world. Don't wait for President Obama or anyone else to do it for you. Own where you haven't quite grown up yet, and get busy playing big. There really is no time to waste being otherwise. "

© Suzanne Matthiessen, innerevolution media and communications. All rights reserved.

http://oracle20-20.com/magazine/2009/0409/living_mind.php

Apr 3, 2009  
 
"Geithner's dirty little secret

By F William Engdahl 
Source Asia Times 

"US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in unveiling his long-awaited plan to put the US banking system back in order, has refused to tell the dirty little secret of the present financial crisis. By refusing to do so, he is trying to save de facto bankrupt US banks that threaten to bring the entire global system down in a new more devastating phase of wealth destruction. 

The Geithner proposal, his so-called Public-Private Partnership Investment Program, or PPPIP, is not designed to restore a healthy lending system that would funnel credit to business and consumers. Rather it is yet another intricate scheme to pour even more hundreds of billions of dollars directly to the leading banks and Wall Street firms responsible for the current mess in world credit markets, without demanding they change their business model. 

Yet, one might say, won't this eventually help the problem by getting the banks back to health? 

Not the way the Barack Obama administration is proceeding. In defending his plan on US TV recently, Geithner, a protege of Henry Kissinger and before his present posting president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, argued that his intent was "not to sustain weak banks at the expense of strong". Yet this is precisely what the PPPIP does. The weak banks are the five largest banks in the system. 

The "dirty little secret" that Geithner is going to great degrees to obscure from the public is very simple. There are only at most perhaps five US banks that are the source of the toxic poison causing such dislocation in the world financial system. What Geithner is desperately trying to protect is that reality. The heart of the present problem, and the reason ordinary loan losses are not the problem as in prior bank crises, is a variety of exotic financial derivatives, most especially credit default swaps. 

In the Bill Clinton administration of 2000, the Treasury secretary was Larry Summers, who had just been promoted from number two under former Goldman Sachs banker Robert Rubin to be number one when Rubin left Washington to take up the post of Citigroup vice chairman. As I describe in detail in my new book, < snip >, to be released this summer, Summers convinced president Clinton to sign several Republican bills into law that opened the floodgates for banks to abuse their powers. The fact that the Wall Street big banks spent some US$5 billion in lobbying for these changes after 1998 was likely not lost on Clinton. 

One significant law was the repeal of the 1933 Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited mergers of commercial banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms such as Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs. A second law backed by Treasury secretary Summers in 2000 was an obscure but deadly important Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That law prevented the responsible US government regulatory agency, Commodity Futures Trading Corporation (CFTC), from having any oversight over the trading of financial derivatives. The new CFMA law stipulated that so-called over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives like credit default swaps, such as those involved in the AIG insurance disaster, (and which investor Warren Buffett once called "weapons of mass financial destruction"), be free from government regulation. 

At the time Summers was busy opening the floodgates of financial abuse for the Wall Street Money Trust, his assistant was none other than Tim Geithner, the man who today is US Treasury Secretary, while Geithner's old boss, the self-same Summers, is President Obama's chief economic adviser as head of the White House Economic Council. To have Geithner and Summers responsible for cleaning up the financial mess is tantamount to putting the proverbial fox in to guard the henhouse. 

What Geithner does not want the public to understand, his "dirty little secret", is that the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000 allowed the creation of a tiny handful of banks that would virtually monopolize key parts of the global "off-balance sheet" or OTC derivatives issuance. 

Today, five US banks, according to data in the just-released Federal Office of Comptroller of the Currency's Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activity, hold 96% of all US bank derivatives positions in terms of nominal values, and an eye-popping 81% of the total net credit risk exposure in event of default. 

The top three are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase, which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives; Bank of America with $38 trillion, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs, with a mere $30 trillion in derivatives; number five, the merged Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank, drops dramatically in size to $5 trillion. Number six, Britain's HSBC Bank USA, has $3.7 trillion. 

After that the size of US bank exposure to these explosive off-balance-sheet unregulated derivative obligations falls off dramatically. Continuing to pour taxpayer money into these five banks without changing their operating system, is tantamount to treating an alcoholic with unlimited free booze. 

The government bailout of AIG, at more than $180 billion so far, has primarily gone to pay off AIG's credit default swap obligations to counterparty gamblers Goldman Sachs, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, the banks who believe they are "too big to fail". In effect, these institutions today believe they are so large that they can dictate the policy of the federal government. Some have called it a bankers' coup d'etat. It definitely is not healthy. 

Geithner and Wall Street are desperately trying to hide this dirty little secret because it would focus voter attention on real solutions. The federal government has long had laws in place to deal with insolvent banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) places the bank into receivership, its assets and liabilities are sorted out by independent audit. The irresponsible management is purged, stockholders lose and the purged bank is eventually split into smaller units and when healthy, sold to the public. The power of the five mega banks to blackmail the entire nation would thereby be cut down to size. Ooohh. Uh Huh? 

This is what Wall Street and Geithner are frantically trying to prevent. The problem is concentrated in these five large banks. The financial cancer must be isolated and contained by a federal agency in order for the host, the real economy, to return to healthy function. 

This is what must be put into bankruptcy receivership, or nationalization. Every hour the Obama administration delays that, and refuses to demand a full independent government audit of the true solvency or insolvency of these five or so banks, costs to the US and to the world economy will inevitably snowball as derivatives losses explode. That is pre-programmed, as a worsening economic recession mean corporate bankruptcies are rising, home mortgage defaults are exploding, unemployment is shooting up. 

This is a situation that is deliberately being allowed to run out of (responsible government) control by Treasury Secretary Geithner, Summers and ultimately the president, whether or not he has taken the time to grasp what is at stake. 

Once the five problem banks have been put into isolation by the FDIC and the Treasury, the administration must introduce legislation to immediately repeal the Larry Summers bank deregulation including restoration of Glass-Steagall and the repeal of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that allowed the present criminal abuse of the banking trust. 

Then serious financial reform can begin to be discussed, starting with steps to "federalize" the Federal Reserve and take the power of money out of the hands of private bankers such as JP Morgan Chase, Citibank or Goldman Sachs. "

F William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order; and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca). His newest book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is due out at end of April. He may be reached through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net. "

(Copyright 2009 F William Engdahl). "

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KD03Dj02.html

"What are you weight-ing for?
Uncovering the Hidden Reasons for Weight Gain

by Randall K. Holmes, ACH, CtHA
Source Oracle20-20.com

"Recently talk-show host Oprah Winfrey revealed her renewed battle with weight. Despite having access to personal trainers, nutritionists, and dieticians Oprah continues to struggle with weight. Anyone who has gone through “yoyo” dieting, weight-loss and then regained the weight understands her situation. However, what most people do not realize concerns the effect of past conditioning that reinforces the extra weight.

Most people who have a weight problem acknowledge that they are “emotional eaters”. It is well-known that emotional eating is triggered when we are experiencing uncomfortable emotions. Boredom, loneliness, anxiety and other stressful feelings often trigger a comfort food eating response. Weight is not only about the number of calories you eat, but about the emotions you carry. If we struggle with our emotions we most often struggle with our weight as well.

People often over-eat when feeling uncomfortable emotions. We do this because food creates a metabolic change in our bodies that changes our blood chemistry, which then leads to a change in brain chemistry. The result is that food makes us feel differently. Over a period of time this cycle of – feel bad, then eat, then feel differently - becomes a subconsciously programmed response. A lot of weight-loss approaches, such as hypnosis, attempt to break-up this pattern of conditioned responses.

However, weight gain is not always about negative emotions. What is not as well known is that not all subconsciously triggered eating is about changing bad feelings directly. In some instances weight can be about our subconscious acceptance of positive reinforcement buried in the past.

In NLP,(Neuro-Linguistic Programming), it is taught that behind every behavior there is a positive intention. Sometimes what started as having a positive intention or purpose in our past ends up moving us away from our currently desired state, like being at our ideal weight, for example. Weight issues often reflect past mental programming that no longer fits in with our current lives. However, we continue to live our lives ruled by past conditioning.

An often overlooked cause of over-eating and weight problems stems from forgotten past positive programming. For some people there has been a positive intention for gaining and maintaining weight.

Oprah Winfrey is a good example of this often overlooked cause for weight retention. There are two incidents in her life that have reinforced Oprah’s weight gain to fulfill a positive intention. And although these root causes are in her past, the programming remains as does the weight.

The first pivotal incident that reinforced Oprah’s over-weight conditioning concerns her teenage unplanned pregnancy. On a biography of her life, Oprah explained that being large and wearing big clothes helped her conceal a pregnancy from her strict father. So, early on being over-weight had a positive intention in Oprah’s life.

The second critical positive reinforcement of Oprah’s weight issue was centered on her strong desire to be in Steven Spielberg’s movie, “The Color Purple”. After trying out for a part in the movie, Oprah decided to go to a “fat farm” to lose some of her unwanted extra weight. However, when Steven Spielberg called to inform Oprah that he had a part for her in the movie, he told her not to lose an ounce. Oprah was given a part in the movie, and her weight was again positively reinforced.

We all have positive and negative issues that affect our weight. If you are struggling with your weight, or in any other area of your life, begin to look for your hidden re-enforcers. Change begins with understanding."

http://oracle20-20.com/magazine/2009/0409/holmes.php

Love to compare metaphysical data with hard science.  Metaphysically it's been predicted that we're in the early stages of a mini ice age as opposed to global warming.  Metaphysically I've just learned that the sun's heliosphere is at its lowest level ever on the planet and will remain that way indefinitely.  Makes sense that it's tied into early mini ice age prediction. 

For those of us who've kept up with sun spot cycles during years of peak activity summers were hotter, winters were warmer.  Considering what's happened the past couple of winters bringing ice and snow storms of the century.  In my own area where I've lived all my life past two autumns have been cool, winters cold, springs cooler just like they were when I was a kid. 

"changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up."

Looks as if NASA's own data is saying something other than global warming especially if the phenomenon remains in this low cycle as predicted. 

Both articles are quoted as they appeared on NASA site.

___________

"Deep Solar Minimum

April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Above: The sunspot cycle from 1995 to the present. The jagged curve traces actual sunspot counts. Smooth curves are fits to the data and one forecaster's predictions of future activity. Credit: David Hathaway, NASA/MSFC. [more]

Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years: plot.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. "We're due for a bit of quiet—and here it is," says Pesnell.

But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:

A 50-year low in solar wind pressure: Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

A 12-year low in solar "irradiance": Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun's brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. Unfortunately, space junk also remains longer in Earth orbit, increasing hazards to spacecraft and satellites.

Above: Space-age measurements of the total solar irradiance (brightness summed across all wavelengths). This plot, which comes from researcher C. Fröhlich, was shown by Dean Pesnell at the Fall 2008 AGU meeting during a lecture entitled "What is Solar Minimum and Why Should We Care?"

A 55-year low in solar radio emissions: After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths. Records of 10.7 cm flux extend back all the way to the early 1950s. Radio telescopes are now recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955: plot. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood.

All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is "weird", "extreme" or just an overdue "market correction" following a string of unusually intense solar maxima.

"Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm."

Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than the one we're experiencing now. To match those minima in terms of depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year.

In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to see what a deep solar minimum is really like." A fleet of spacecraft including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others are studying the sun and its effects on Earth 24/7 using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. Their measurements of solar wind, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields show that solar minimum is much more interesting and profound than anyone expected.

Above: An artist's concept of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Bristling with advanced sensors, "SDO" is slated to launch later this year--perfect timing to study the ongoing solar minimum. [more]

Modern technology cannot, however, predict what comes next. Competing models by dozens of top solar physicists disagree, sometimes sharply, on when this solar minimum will end and how big the next solar maximum will be. Pesnell has surveyed the scientific literature and prepared a "piano plot" showing the range of predictions. The great uncertainty stems from one simple fact: No one fully understands the underlying physics of the sunspot cycle.

Pesnell believes sunspot counts will pick up again soon, "possibly by the end of the year," to be followed by a solar maximum of below-average intensity in 2012 or 2013.

But like other forecasters, he knows he could be wrong. Bull or bear? Stay tuned for updates. "

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm

______

"Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space

Sept. 30, 2008: Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age.

As of Sept. 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times.

"Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle."

A spotless day looks like this:

The image, taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on Sept. 27, 2008, shows a solar disk completely unmarked by sunspots. For comparison, a SOHO image taken seven years earlier on Sept. 27, 2001, is peppered with colossal sunspots, all crackling with solar flares: image. The difference is the phase of the 11-year solar cycle. 2001 was a year of solar maximum, with lots of sunspots, solar flares and geomagnetic storms. 2008 is at the cycle's opposite extreme, solar minimum, a quiet time on the sun.

And it is a very quiet time. If solar activity continues as low as it has been, 2008 could rack up a whopping 290 spotless days by the end of December, making it a century-level year in terms of spotlessness.

Hathaway cautions that this development may sound more exciting than it actually is: "While the solar minimum of 2008 is shaping up to be the deepest of the Space Age, it is still unremarkable compared to the long and deep solar minima of the late 19th and early 20th centuries." Those earlier minima routinely racked up 200 to 300 spotless days per year.

Above: A histogram showing the blankest years of the last half-century. The vertical axis is a count of spotless days in each year. The bar for 2008, which was updated on Sept. 27th, is still growing. [Larger images: 50 years, 100 years]

Some solar physicists are welcoming the lull.

"This gives us a chance to study the sun without the complications of sunspots," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Right now we have the best instrumentation in history looking at the sun. There is a whole fleet of spacecraft devoted to solar physics--SOHO, Hinode, ACE, STEREO and others. We're bound to learn new things during this long solar minimum."

As an example he offers helioseismology: "By monitoring the sun's vibrating surface, helioseismologists can probe the stellar interior in much the same way geologists use earthquakes to probe inside Earth. With sunspots out of the way, we gain a better view of the sun's subsurface winds and inner magnetic dynamo."

"There is also the matter of solar irradiance," adds Pesnell. "Researchers are now seeing the dimmest sun in their records. The change is small, just a fraction of a percent, but significant. Questions about effects on climate are natural if the sun continues to dim."

Pesnell is NASA's project scientist for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a new spacecraft equipped to study both solar irradiance and helioseismic waves. Construction of SDO is complete, he says, and it has passed pre-launch vibration and thermal testing. "We are ready to launch! Solar minimum is a great time to go."

Coinciding with the string of blank suns is a 50-year record low in solar wind pressure, a recent discovery of the Ulysses spacecraft. (See the Science@NASA story Solar Wind Loses Pressure.) The pressure drop began years before the current minimum, so it is unclear how the two phenomena are connected, if at all. This is another mystery for SDO and the others.

Who knew the blank sun could be so interesting? More to come...  "

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30sep_blankyear.htm

Interesting how this is crafted     "both Republicans and Democrats, awarded bonuses totaling $9.1 million to more than 2,000 staff members, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of office-disbursement forms. The money comes out of taxpayer-funded office budgets, and is surplus cash that would otherwise be forfeited if not spent. ...."

________

APRIL 1, 2009, 10:07 A.M. ET
"Lawmakers Have Long Rewarded Their Aides With Bonuses

By BRODY MULLINS and LOUISE RADNOFSKY
Source Wall Street Journal Politics

"WASHINGTON -- While Congress has been flaying companies for giving out bonuses while on the government dole, lawmakers have a longstanding tradition of rewarding their own employees with extra cash -- also courtesy of taxpayers.

Capitol Hill bonuses in 2008 were among the highest in years, according to LegiStorm, an organization that tracks payroll data. The average House aide earned 17% more in the fourth quarter of the year, when the bonuses were paid, than in previous quarters, according to the data. That was the highest jump in the eight years LegiStorm has compiled payroll information.

Total end-of-year bonuses paid to congressional staffers are tiny compared with the $165 million recently showered on executives of American International Group Inc., which is being propped up by billions of dollars of U.S. government subsidies. But Capitol Hill bonuses provide a notable counterpoint to the populist rhetoric and sound bites emanating from Washington these past weeks.

Last year alone, more than 200 House lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, awarded bonuses totaling $9.1 million to more than 2,000 staff members, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of office-disbursement forms. The money comes out of taxpayer-funded office budgets, and is surplus cash that would otherwise be forfeited if not spent.

Payments ranged from a few hundred dollars to $14,000. Lawmakers, at their own discretion, gave the money to chiefs of staff, assistants, computer technicians, and more than 100 aides who earned salaries of more than $100,000 a year.

This has gone on for many years. There is no prohibition against handing out excess cash. The lawmakers say it is a nice incentive to get staff to conserve budgets, and it rewards hard work and long hours.

"Most aides could make more money elsewhere, but choose to work on Capitol Hill because they believe in public service," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who along with other top House leaders awarded bonuses. (Senators also give bonuses, but documents showing those payments aren't yet available.) Mr. Daly said bonuses are a small perk for underpaid government employees.

Each House office receives between $1.3 million and $1.9 million annually in government funds to pay for office expenses, including salaries. In 2008, some lawmakers returned excess cash to the government, including Rep. Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican (who also gave some bonuses) and Rep. Tim Walz, a Minnesota Democrat. Meredith Salsbery, a spokeswoman for Mr. Walz, said aides are asked to be "thrifty and conscious of taxpayer dollars" and that Mr. Walz "knows the power of setting a good example."

The 435 House offices typically return a total of about $1 million or $2 million a year, or less that 0.5% of the overall budget for office expenses, but the amount can vary widely. In 2006, for example, lawmakers returned just $36,549.

Disbursement forms show that dozens of aides working for the Financial Services Committee got a bonus from panel Chairman Barney Frank. Spokesman Steven Adamske said the Massachusetts Democrat gives bonuses to staffers because "government workers are pretty low paid." He said several aides who got bonuses had worked long hours during 2008 on the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Top Financial Services Committee Republicans also gave their aides bonuses. "These were merit bonuses for people who had performed especially well," said Larry Lavender, an aide to Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee.

Overall in the House, disbursements were roughly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

Six lawmakers who lost their re-election races paid more than $300,000 in bonuses to 89 staffers. Thelma Drake, a Republican, gave about $40,000 in extra compensation to about a dozen aides after losing her Virginia seat. Mrs. Drake said the payments were a form of severance to "good staff members who worked their hearts out and who were about to lose their jobs."

A handful of lawmakers who retired handed out a total of $283,000 in bonuses. After Republican Heather Wilson gave up her New Mexico seat in the House to run unsuccessfully for the Senate, she gave 13 aides bonuses as high as $3,000. "My practice over 10 years in Congress was to give bonuses at the end of the year," she said.

Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California handed out the largest payments, giving $14,000 apiece to three aides. Spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod said her boss is "proud of the bonuses she is able to give."

Last fall, Democratic Rep. Tom Udall left the House to run for New Mexico's Senate seat. Several members of his House staff took leaves from their government jobs to work for his campaign. When Mr. Udall won the race and returned to Washington, his office budget had accrued a large surplus. He decided to spend the surplus funds by increasing salaries for nearly his entire staff for a short time.

Disbursement forms show that in late December, Mr. Udall temporarily increased salaries for 19 of his 22 employees to an annualized rate of $163,795. Among those who earned the higher pay were staff assistants, a scheduler, an executive assistant and a part-time employee.

Spokeswoman Marissa Padilla said Mr. Udall traditionally "adjusts salaries at the end of the year based on seniority, merit and unused leave" when his office has a surplus."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123854799133476409.html

Guess when Washington nationalizes health care they can remedy the population problem by "making the infirm elderly comfortable" instead of administering a medication that would heal or otherwise prolong their lives.  Socialized medicine at its best, taking care of the young and productive.

Beware of wishing for utopia ...... it will turn into a monster when it becomes entrenched.

___________

"Earth population 'exceeds limits' 

By Steven Duke 
Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service 
 LIVING ON A CROWDED EARTH 
 
Current world population - 6.8bn
Net growth per day - 218,030
Forecast made for 2040 - 9bn
Source: US Census Bureau  

"There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government. 

Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability". 

Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice. 

Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton. 

"We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Dr Fedoroff said, stressing the need for humans to become much better at managing "wild lands", and in particular water supplies. 

Pressed on whether she thought the world population was simply too high, Dr Fedoroff replied: "There are probably already too many people on the planet." 

GM Foods 'needed' 

A National Medal of Science laureate (America's highest science award), the professor of molecular biology believes part of that better land management must include the use of genetically modified foods. 

"We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven. 

"We're going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops," she told the BBC. 

THE MOST POPULOUS NATIONS 
China - 1.33bn
India - 1.16bn
USA - 306m
Indonesia - 230m
Brazil - 191m

"We accept exactly the same technology (as GM food) in medicine, and yet in producing food we want to go back to the 19th Century." 

Dr Fedoroff, who wrote a book about GM Foods in 2004, believes critics of genetically modified maize, corn and rice are living in bygone times. 

"We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production." 

In a wide ranging interview, Dr Fedoroff was asked if the US accepted its responsibility to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be driving human-induced climate change. "Yes, and going forward, we just have to be more realistic about our contribution and decrease it - and I think you'll see that happening." 

And asked if America would sign up to legally binding targets on carbon emissions - something the world's biggest economy has been reluctant to do in the past - the professor was equally clear. "I think we'll have to do that eventually - and the sooner the better." 

The full interview with Dr Nina Federoff can be heard on this week's edition of the new One Planet programme on the BBC World Service "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7974995.stm

I am NOT in favor of awarding failing company directors with any type of bonuses whether contracturally entered into previous to decline or not.  However what's taking place is slowly putting the noose around necks of the general public regarding run away power of the government to set salaries and make those changes retroactive. Very dangerous out of control seizure of power.  We conservatives warned time and time again but it fell on deaf ears.

BTW those believing the Republican Party is dead, the Libertarian Party is poised to pick up massive voting defectors from both major parties which have failed miserably in recent years thanks to the Lamestream Media.  There's a place for small central government proponents to go and effect change ... think people are going to be shocked at defections next voting cycle.

_________

fascism   A political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)

Bringing Todd's blog post forward .........

"$1 Trillion in new taxes on the way

A lesson in what is going on

"........ Ultimately, because it wrecks the economy, it ensures that the government will be able to take over private-sector business in order to provide "stability" (when they in fact created the instability), and then we are well down the road to socialism —perhaps so far down that road that we can't turn back.
However....

I say the word "socialism", but if you look up the word "socialism", that is really not what is being created. The real word is "fascism".

That's right, fascism.

Most people hear the word "fascism", and think it's some kind of curse word, because it has been mis-used for so long, and because Nazi Germany was considered a fascist state, the word "fascist" has become synonymous with "Nazi".

But the word "fascist" does not mean "Nazi", so put aside your pre-conceptions for a minute.

Fascism is defined as follows:

Fascists aim to create a single-party state in which the government is led by a dictator who seeks unity by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or a race.

That is exactly what is happening. A single party is seeking to dominate the landscape by creating a dependent lower-class that consists of more 50% of the population, ensuring their votes since the government in power is essential to their survival. (Or so they think.)

Every message from the party currently in power is that not paying exorbitant taxes is "selfish" — in other words, it is against "the common good".

And that, friends, is not Capitalism, it is Fascism. ........."

https://blogs.lotterypost.com/todd/2009/2/1-trillion-in-new-taxes-on-the-way.htm
________

"Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
By Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent 3/31/09
Source Washingtonexaminer.com

"House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., left, talks with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, right, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, on Capitol Hill Tuesday, March 24,2009.

Frank's committee has passed a bill giving Geithner extensive control over salaries of employees working at companies receiving government bailout funds. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)

The legislation is expected to come before the full House for a vote this week, and, just like the AIG bill, its scope and retroactivity trouble a number of Republicans. "It's just a bad reaction to what has been going on with AIG," Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, a committee member, told me. Garrett is particularly concerned with the new powers that would be given to the Treasury Secretary, who just last week proposed giving the government extensive new regulatory authority. "This is a growing concern, that the powers of the Treasury in this area, along with what Geithner was looking for last week, are mind boggling," Garrett said.

Rep. Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who wrote the bill, told me its basic message is "you should not get rich off public money, and you should not get rich off of abject failure." Grayson expects the bill to pass the House, and as we talked, he framed the issue in a way to suggest that virtuous lawmakers will vote for it, while corrupt lawmakers will vote against it.

"This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they're willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable," Grayson said. "We'll find out who are the people who understand that the public's money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street."

After the AIG bonus tax bill was passed, some members of the House privately expressed regret for having supported it and were quietly relieved when the White House and Senate leadership sent it to an unceremonious death. But populist rage did not die with it, and now the House is preparing to do it all again. "

Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blog posts can be read daily at ExaminerPolitics.com. "

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Beyond-AIG-A-Bill-to-let-Big-Government-Set-Your-Salary-42158597.html