The Music Biz and how it predicts our FInancial future…

For those who may not know the music industry that had existed for nearly a hundred years started to collapse around 1998 and is now a shadow of its former self. I know because I was a musician and am married to one as well. I was lucky I got out – My band which had put out one indie record and was then offered a deal with Sony through a smaller label who had a deal with them, didn’t go through with our deal as the other two members didn’t feel comfortable with the changing negotiations. In fairness to them I knew it was because the industry was changing and felt it was a more than fair deal for our bizarre off beat band but there were many issues which led me to believe it was a blessing in disguise – one of them was my overwhelming feeling of darkness – that the whole industry was about to fall off the cliff and with a married couple with both in that business we would be devastated and never able to have a family or a normal life. So although I had worked hard and was very torn up about my decision I turned down an enormous amount of money and walked away from an awaiting catastrophe.

As bad as the music business was and I could tell you some horrible stories, at least musicians and songwriters were able to live middle-class lives. For the most part this is no longer true unless one had the good fortune to make a lot of money before the collapse and invested it well. Or if you are one of a handful of artists who have fans who will actually buy your work.

I am re-printing a piece from David Lowery – founder of the seminal band “Cracker.” He now teaches music business economics at a University in Georgia. He illustrates the collapse well and why the devaluation of intellectual property is very bad. I will add here that this will ultimately DEVASTATE the U.S. ECONOMY. The same feeling I had before the end of the music industry and the darkness I felt connected to the fall that was coming in the STOCK MARKET is back and stronger than ever. The second part of that fall is about to happen and the reason is we have been dogging bullets and avoiding reality but truth be told the ONLY THING WE EXPORT IS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. The only real way for a person to pull themselves up from the middle class to the upper-middle class or toward wealth is through INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. We have now decimated this highway and given it over to corporations. We no longer MAKE things here. The 90s model of us being the intellectual leaders of the world – exporting our inventions, culture and innovation is now a road that has been blown up by CORPORATE interests whose GREEDY 1% will not stop until they have ALL the WEALTH and we are ALL STARVING to DEATH and WILLING TO DO ANYTHING for ANY AMOUNT of money just to SURVIVE. Yes this is the future we have been picking through our own personal greed and devaluing, dividing and conquering the world through money and power.

I haven’t wanted to bum people out and have been avoiding talking about this. We have been choosing the dark path for 40 years and while there is always a way to correct and change the future our fate is being sealed with each greedy, manipulative and negative, mean-spirited thing each of us do in our daily life.

We NEED A SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. RESPECT, LOVE, COMPASSION, HONESTY and KINDNESS on all counts – there is no such thing as “IT’S JUST BUSINESS.” The earth has limited resources and while we’ve been being sold theoretical business models that pretend there are infinite resources on earth we all know THIS IS BS. And when the ball drops it will be more painful than we can ever imagine.

Truthfully I’m terrified. I hope we can come together collectively and those who are here to move humanity toward the light will step up and do their job and stand up now before IT’s too late.

Here’s the re-print of what Professor Lowery had to say:

A great piece by David Lowry about music piracy that has gone viral!

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

June 18, 2012

Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered.

• 546 Comments

Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music library, she’s only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist’s biggest allies. We also believe–for reasons we’ll get into–that she has been been badly misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to present a countervailing viewpoint.

Emily:

My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you. I believe you are already on the side of musicians and artists and you are just grappling with how to do the right thing. I applaud your courage in admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you are grappling with the moral implications. I just think that you have been presented with some false choices by what sounds a lot like what we hear from the “Free Culture” adherents.

I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written. Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to make it “convenient” so you don’t behave unethically. (Besides–is it really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would disagree.)

Rather, fairness for musicians is a problem that requires each of us to individually look at our own actions, values and choices and try to anticipate the consequences of our choices. I would suggest to you that, like so many other policies in our society, it is up to us individually to put pressure on our governments and private corporations to act ethically and fairly when it comes to artists rights. Not the other way around. We cannot wait for these entities to act in the myriad little transactions that make up an ethical life. I’d suggest to you that, as a 21-year old adult who wants to work in the music business, it is especially important for you to come to grips with these very personal ethical issues.

I’ve been teaching college students about the economics of the music business at the University of Georgia for the last two years. Unfortunately for artists, most of them share your attitude about purchasing music. There is a disconnect between their personal behavior and a greater social injustice that is occurring. You seem to have internalized that ripping 11,000 tracks in your iPod compared to your purchase of 15 CDs in your lifetime feels pretty disproportionate. You also seem to recognize that you are not just ripping off the record labels but you are directly ripping off the artist and songwriters whose music you “don’t buy”. It doesn’t really matter that you didn’t take these tracks from a file-sharing site. That may seem like a neat dodge, but I’d suggest to you that from the artist’s point of view, it’s kind of irrelevant.

Now, my students typically justify their own disproportionate choices in one of two ways. I’m not trying to set up a “strawman”, but I do have a lot of  anecdotal experience with this.

“It’s OK not to pay for music because record companies rip off artists and do not pay artists anything.” In the vast majority of cases, this is not true. There have been some highly publicized abuses by record labels. But most record contracts specify royalties and advances to artists. Advances are important to understand–a prepayment of unearned royalties. Not a debt, more like a bet. The artist only has to “repay” (or “recoup”) the advance from record sales. If there are no or insufficient record sales, the advance is written off by the record company. So it’s false to say that record companies don’t pay artists. Most of the time they not only pay artists, but they make bets on artists.  And it should go without saying that the bets will get smaller and fewer the more unrecouped advances are paid by labels.

Secondly, by law the record label must pay songwriters (who may also be artists) something called a “mechanical royalty” for sales of CDs or downloads of the song. This is paid regardless of whether a record is recouped or not. The rate is predetermined, and the license is compulsory. Meaning that the file sharing sites could get the same license if they wanted to, at least for the songs. They don’t. They don’t wanna pay artists.

Also, you must consider the fact that the vast majority of artists are releasing albums independently and there is not a “real” record company. Usually just an imprint owned by the artist. In the vast majority of cases you are taking money directly from the artist. How does one know which labels are artist owned? It’s not always clear. But even in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn’t they be rewarded for the bets they make that provides you with recordings you enjoy? It’s not like the money goes into a giant bonfire in the middle of the woods while satanic priests conduct black masses and animal sacrifices. Usually some of that money flows back to artists, engineers and people like you who graduate from college and get jobs in the industry. And record labels also give your college radio stations all those CDs you play.

Artists can make money on the road (or its variant “Artists are rich”). The average income of a musician that files taxes is something like 35k a year w/o benefits. The vast majority of artists do not make significant money on the road. Until recently, most touring activity was a money losing operation. The idea was the artists would make up the loss through recorded music sales. This has been reversed by the financial logic of file-sharing and streaming. You now tour to support making albums if you are very, very lucky. Otherwise, you pay for making albums out of your own pocket. Only the very top tier of musicians make ANY money on the road. And only the 1% of the 1% makes significant money on the road. (For now.)

Over the last 12 years I’ve watched revenue flowing to artists collapse.

Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.

Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!

The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.

Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Without going into details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.

On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular, two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chesnutt. Both of these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their total  incomes fall in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.

Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010, Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these musicians will tell you that the pair suffered depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately needed.

I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that “small” personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly “love”. And it is up to us individually to examine the consequences of our actions. It is not up to governments or corporations to make us choose to behave ethically. We have to do that ourselves.

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Now, having said all that, I also deeply empathize with your generation. You have grown up in a time when technological and commercial interests are attempting to change our principles and morality. Rather than using our morality and principles to guide us through technological change, there are those asking us to change our morality and principles to fit the technological change–if a machine can do something, it ought to be done. Although it is the premise of every “machines gone wild” story since Jules Verne or Fritz Lang, this is exactly backwards. Sadly, I see the effects of this thinking with many of my students.

These technological and commercial interests have largely exerted this pressure through the Free Culture movement, which is funded by a handful of large tech corporations and their foundations in the US, Canada, Europe and other countries.* Your letter clearly shows that you sense that something is deeply wrong, but you don’t put your finger on it. I want to commend you for doing this. I also want to enlist you in the fight to correct this outrage. Let me try to to show you exactly what is wrong. What it is you can’t put your finger on.

The fundamental shift in principals and morality is about who gets to control and exploit the work of an artist. The accepted norm for hudreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time. (Since the works that are are almost invariably the subject of these discussions are popular culture of one type or another, the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion.) By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally. We are being asked to continue to let these companies violate the law without being punished or prosecuted. We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.

Who are these companies? They are sites like The Pirate Bay, or Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. They are “legitimate” companies like Google that serve ads to these sites through AdChoices and Doubleclick. They are companies like Grooveshark that operate streaming siteswithout permission from artists and over the objections of the artist, much less payment of royalties lawfully set by the artist. They are the venture capitalists that raise money for these sites. They are the hardware makers that sell racks of servers to these companies. And so on and  so on.

What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the equivalent of looting. Say there is a neighborhood in your local big city. Let’s call it The ‘Net. In this neighborhood there are record stores. Because of some antiquated laws, The ‘Net was never assigned a police force. So in this neighborhood people simply loot all the products from the shelves of the record store. People know it’s wrong, but they do it because they know they will rarely be punished for doing so. What the commercial Free Culture movement (see the “hybrid economy”) is saying is that instead of putting a police force in this neighborhood we should simply change our values and morality to accept this behavior. We should change our morality and ethics to accept looting because it is simply possible to get away with it.  And nothing says freedom like getting away with it, right?

But it’s worse than that. It turns out that Verizon, AT&T, Charter etc etc are charging a toll to get into this neighborhood to get the free stuff. Further, companies like Google are selling maps (search results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot. Companies like Megavideo are charging for a high speed looting service (premium accounts for faster downloads). Google is also selling ads in this neighborhood and sharing the revenue with everyone except the people who make the stuff being looted. Further, in order to loot you need to have a $1,000 dollar laptop, a $500 dollar iPhone or $400 Samsumg tablet. It turns out the supposedly “free” stuff really isn’t free. In fact it’s an expensive way to get “free” music. (Like most claimed “disruptive innovations”it turns out expensive subsidies exist elsewhere.) Companies are actually making money from this looting activity. These companies only make money if you change your principles and morality! And none of that money goes to the artists!

And believe it or not this is where the problem with Spotify starts. The internet is full of stories from artists detailing just how little they receive from Spotify. I shan’t repeat them here. They are epic. Spotify does not exist in a vacuum. The reason they can get away with paying so little to artists is because the alternative is The ‘Net where people have already purchased all the gear they need to loot those songs for free. Now while something like Spotify may be a solution for how to compensate artists fairly in the future, it is not a fair system now. As long as the consumer makes the unethical choice to support the looters, Spotify will not have to compensate artists fairly. There is simply no market pressure. Yet Spotify’s CEO is the 10th richest man in the UK music industry ahead of all but one artist on his service.

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So let’s go back and look at what it would have cost you to ethically and legally support the artists.

And I’m gonna give you a break. I’m not gonna even factor in the record company share. Let’s just pretend for your sake the record company isnt simply the artists imprint and  all record labels are evil and don’t deserve any money. Let’s just make the calculation based on exactly what the artist should make. First, the mechanical royalty to the songwriters. This is generally the artist. The royalty that is supposed to be paid by law is 9.1 cents a song for every download or copy. So that is $1,001 for all 11,000 of your songs. Now let’s suppose the artist has an average 15% royalty rate. This is calculated at wholesale value. Trust me, but this comes to 10.35 cents a song or $1,138.50. So to ethically and morally “get right” with the artists you would need to pay $2,139.50.

As a college student I’m sure this seems like a staggering sum of money. And in a way, it is. At least until you consider that you probably accumulated all these songs over a period of 10 years (5th grade). Sot that’s $17.82 dollars a month. Considering you are in your prime music buying years, you admit your life is “music centric” and you are a DJ, that $18 dollars a month sounds like a bargain. Certainly much much less than what I spent each month on music  during the 4 years I was a college radio DJ.

Let’s look at other things you (or your parents) might pay for each month and compare.

Smart phone with data plan: $40-100 a month.

High speed internet access: $30-60 dollars a month. Wait, but you use the university network? Well, buried in your student fees or tuition you are being charged a fee on the upper end of that scale.

Tuition at American University, Washington DC (excluding fees, room and board and books): $2,086 a month.

Car insurance or Metro card?  $100 a month?

Or simply look at the  value of the web appliances you use to enjoy music:

$2,139.50 = 1 smart phone + 1 full size ipod + 1 macbook.

Why do you pay real money for this other stuff but not music?

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The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:

Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?

Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?

This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it’s as if:

Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Hardware: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class. Screw you, you greedy bastards!

Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!

I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love first generation Indie Rock, and as a founding member of a first generation Indie Rock band I am now legally obligated to issue this order: kids, lawn, vacate.

You are doing it wrong.

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Emily, I know you are not exactly saying what I’ve illustrated above. You’ve unfortunately stumbled into the middle of a giant philosophical fight between artists and powerful commercial interests. To your benefit, it is clear you are trying to answer those existential questions posed to your generation. And in your heart, you grasp the contradiction. But I have to take issue with the following statement:

As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realize the gravity of what file-sharing means to the musicians I love. I can’t support them with concert tickets and t-shirts alone. But I honestly don’t think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.

I’m sorry, but what is inconvenient about iTunes and, say, iTunes match (that let’s you stream all your music to all your devices) aside from having to pay? Same with Pandora premium, MOG and a host of other legitimate services. I can’t imagine that any other legal music service that is gonna be simpler than these to use. Isn’t convenience already here!

Ultimately there are three “inconvenient” things that MUST happen for any legal service:

1.create an account and provide a payment method (once)

2.enter your password.

3. Pay for music.

So what you are really saying is that you won’t do these three things. This is too inconvenient.  And I would guess that the most inconvenient part is….step 3.

That’s fine. But then you must live with the moral and ethical choice that you are making to not pay artists. And artists won’t be paid. And it won’t be the fault of some far away evil corporation. You “and your peers” ultimately bear this responsibility.

You may also find that this ultimately hinders your hopes of finding a job in the music industry.  Unless you’re planning on working for free.  Or unless you think Google is in the music industry–which it is not.

I also find this all this sort of sad.  Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade” coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly.  Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that  certify they don’t use  sweatshops.  Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China.  Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples.  On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation.   Except for one thing.  Artist rights.

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At the start of this I did say that I hoped to convert you to actively helping musicians and artists. That ultimately someone like you, someone so passionately involved in music is the best ally that musicians could have. Let me humbly suggest a few things:

First, you could legally buy music from artists. The best way to insure the money goes to artists? Buy it directly from their website or at their live shows. But if you can’t do that, there is a wide range of services and sites that will allow you to do this conveniently. Encourage your “peers” to also do this.

Second, actively “call out” those that profit by exploiting artists without compensation. File sharing sites are supported by corporate web advertising. Call corporations out by giving specific examples. For instance, say your favorite artist is Yo La Tengo. If you search at Google “free mp3 download Yo La Tengo” you will come up with various sites that offer illegal downloads of Yo La Tengo songs. I clicked on a link to the site www.beemp3.com where I found You La Tengo’s entire masterpiece album I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.

I also found an ad for Geico Insurance which appeared to have been serviced to the site by “Ads by Google”. You won’t get any response by writing a file sharing site. They already know what they are doing is wrong. However Geico might be interested in this. And technically, Google’s policy is to not support piracy sites, however it seems to be rarely enforced. The best way to write any large corporation is to search for the “investor’s relations” page. For some reason there is always a human being on the other end of that contact form. You could also write your Congressman and Senator and suggest they come up with some way to divert the flow of advertising money back to the artists.

And on that matter of the $2,139.50 you owe to artists? Why not donate something to a charity that helps artists. Consider this your penance. In fact I’ll make a deal with you. For every dollar you personally donate I’ll match it up to the $500. Here are some suggestions.

Nuci’s Space.   This is Athens Georgia’s home grown musician health and mental health charity.  This would be a nice place to donate money if you were a fan of Vic Chesnutt.

http://www.nuci.org/

Music Cares. You can also donate to this charity run by the NARAS (the Grammys).http://www.grammy.org/musicares/donate

Health Alliance for Austin Musicians.  Friends speak highly of this organization.

American Heart Association Memorial Donation. Or since you loved Big Star and Alex Chilton, why not make a donation to The American Heart Association in Alex Chilton’s name? (Alex died of a heart attack)https://donate.americanheart.org/ecommerce/donation/acknowledgement_info.jsp?campaignId=&site=Heart&itemId=prod20007

I’m open to suggestions on this.

I sincerely wish you luck in your career in the music business and hope this has been enlightening in some small way.

David Lowery

The Economy & Housing Market Through Astrology

Well, Mercury is now retrograde so prepare to have computer problems, loose things have technical difficulties and redo everything at least twice. It’s a pain in the butt especially when Mercury is in Virgo where it is stronger as co-ruler of Virgo. Virgo is also an earth sign – making the retrograde more physical than usual and more intense.

Something, I’ve been thinking about a lot is the housing market and how traditionally it has been dictated by the moons nodes. I’ve never seen them wrong. We are currently at the worst placement possible for selling a home, and for the real estate market in general, of course if you are looking to buy you will get the deal of a lifetime.

The north node in Capricorn generally brings about a fall in prices and the desire for people to be frugal with their money as well as keeping away from buying property. This is exacerbated by the fact that Pluto (which rules power and money) is also in Capricorn which would only serve to make people edgy about investing in property. Of course the way we do business and even think about our career paths will change over the next 10 years or so. Instead of a single focus one will find it necessary to be flexible, doing whatever is needed to accommodate the burgeoning (albeit zygote-like state its in) paradigm.

Before this mess I had read a study that noted people born in the early 1960s had an average of 5-7 career changes in their lives (that was thus far) and this study was done before 2000! Our economy despite our desire to remain in a state of delusion about it, has actually been pretty unstable for a long time. I know absolutely no one who was born after 1960 who got out of high school found a good working class job and stuck with it their whole life. These opportunities were and are extraordinarily rare now.

The absolute bottom of the real estate market (from what I’ve seen) is just as the north nodes turns and goes into Sagittarius – usually this is when the market turns around and begins to get better, and also when one can get the best deals with some confidence that there will indeed be a rebound. Now is really a great time to buy a home or investment property if one has the money. The best time to invest in real estate is now until the spring of 2011 (when the north node enters Sagittarius) houses at that time will start to sell better and prices will begin to rise again (slowly, very slowly).

My only caveat is that real estate will not spring back like it has before with the dampening influence of Pluto in Capricorn. People will stay a bit traumatized about owning property for a while until the economy picks back up which I believe will be a slow and steady climb up the mountain for many more years to come. So one should not invest in a home unless one is sure one can stay in it until the whole economy stabilizes and that could take a while.

I’m sorry to say we are in the depression I talked about. It’s important to remember when Obama drives one nuts with seeming passivity, that the other option, McCain, would have driven us into the Greatest Depression of this or any other time in modern history, his chart showed this clearly. And as I stated several years ago when I began blogging about the giant fall in the stock market about a month before it happened (fall of 08) we were going to have to face this. What we are experiencing now is a mollified version of the tidal wave that would have hit us if we’d gone further to the right.

What we need now is for people to learn empathy and compassion – this is the spiritual lesson in this financial disaster. It’s unfortunate that we have to learn the hard way, but it’s human and it’s just the way it is. When things are going well, we don’t look deeper than the surface of things.

Now get ready for the pushing of chaos and order, black and white, left and right – the further polarization of our country to the point of a potential war if we are not careful. Let’s not learn the hard way anymore! Compassion. Just be compassionate to oneself and to others and put oneself in others shoes, if we practice this, we will avert the next potential disaster staring us in the face.

Many blessings and best wishes,

Denise

OK, Brace Yourselves!

I can say this because I had confirmation and some of this information is out there. I was told not to pay cash for anything right now. I was told to put everything on credit cards as banks were going to be involved in some major malfeasance and one will need cash.  The government or governments will have to step in and fix the banking system.

If you are good and pay off everything, you will be ripped off by the sociopathic heads of the world’s financial institutions. It goes against everything I believe, but that’s what I was told. I’ve had a hard time following that advice.

Today I heard on the radio that bankers in Europe have declared war on the Euro. They literally are trying to destroy it, and take down whole financial systems so a few of them can make a few extra bucks. This is a sick game and something that Warren Buffet called, “Financial Nuclear War.”

With Uranus going into Aries we can expect that people will not take this lying down. In fact I believe we will see a class war which eventually could lead to civil wars and has the potential to lead to another world war if the governments of the world do not take immediate action against the financial criminals.

This is so insane, and yes the energy is very bizarre, unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It feels like we are on the edge of chaos. This is why I have not wanted to post. I didn’t want to scare anyone. But for now you can take care of yourselves in a physical way by storing as many nuts as you can and don’t pay off your credit cards – pretty much the exact opposite advice you’d get from Suze Orman, although if this world weren’t going so crazy and weren’t so corrupt I’d agree whole heartedly with her. But we don’t live in those times anymore. The sociopaths have control of our financial ship and they are about to steer us off a cliff knowing how much suffering they will cause, just to collect the insurance money. These are very sick people.

I will dole this out slowly as not to overwhelm everyone and wait to get confirmation of what my guides have been telling me. I don’t want anyone to freak out. It won’t do any good. I must admit I have been very depressed about the future for the past several months. And until I had a strategy I didn’t want to bum anyone else out.

I wondered for a while if I should take all my money out of the bank and reading this you probably will wonder the same. Problem is where to keep it? For now I don’t suggest that. If I come up with a brilliant solution or get information on what to do I will post it. If anyone else gets an inspired thought or idea let us know by posting it.

If you are middle class – STAY OUT OF THE MARKET!!!! Like vampires they will suck you dry.

Many blessings,

Denise

Here Goes…

Here’s a post from a reader named Michael:

Thanks for the warning.

I would really appreciate if you can give a more detailed warning. I have been doing some googling for future events. My conclusion:
For the next 10 years, there would be massive riot in US & Europe, massive inflation, The Great Famine, World War, by the year 2020, 2/3 of human population would perish, the center of geopolitical power would shift from west to east asia…but i don’t know exactly when would all these happen.

I really hope, you can give a more detailed warning….suct as the Event, Location & their Timing. So that all of us can be prepared.

And an e-mail I got from Joe:

Denise,  Your predictions from September 2009 for Gold are playing out as you predicted. It is scary to know that your spirit guides are telling you to keep silent for know. Hope all is well. Your New York Buddy Joe

Reading all of your comments it seems you are getting freaked out which I do not want. I’ll tell you what some of what I have been told with the caveat you must not let yourself become consumed by it. You must make the choice to work on your own spiritual connection with God/Goddess/Great Intelligence. The more we do this the less intense these things will be and the more you can protect yourself and your family from what is to come. This may seem odd, but I know it to be true. And it’s important that each of you learn to trust your own intuition and wake to your higher selves. You all have the same abilities I do. Just as we all can talk or walk some better than others, with practice we can all become our best selves. The Great Intelligence needs us to wake up, grow up, we are destroying ourselves and the earth. But we can’t do this by rioting in the street or by any one simple act. In order for global warming to be fixed, well, we missed that boat and we may have a chance to correct its severity at some future time when humanity is brought to its knees, but we as individuals can not focus on that now.

For now we must forge the relationship to our higher self, that which is one with the Great Intelligence or God. We are about to face many horrifying things in our lifetime. How long and heavy and intense these things are depends on the lightness of our collective self, humanities ability to awaken to the light.

I suggest that everyone pray or meditate every day no matter how short the time, even if it’s just a sleepy prayer before falling off. Make sure to always question spiritual gurus, priests, psychics, including me. Always trust your own intuition above all else. And if you don’t have a very clear understanding of it, start a journal ( a dream journal also helps) and write down your impressions and how those things manifested, through this process you will learn to decipher your own personal symbolic language. You may have already started this but don’t give up on it.

Just like everything in life some are born with the ability to be great scientists or brilliant athletes and some struggle with math or even walking (that latter one would be me) but we all have gifts and one we all share is our connection to the divine. There is no one on this world who is more holy than any other, or more loved by God than another. We are all equal in that respect. Some have greater access to understanding of the divine’s messages while here on earth like messengers of the Holy Spirit/Goddess/God/Ain Soph, but that does not make them anymore holy or spiritual or anything else than anyone else in this world. It may make them more focused on that aspect of life due to that talent and that’s really all there is to that.

In these times we’ve seen many people come forth and claim to have “The Secret,” or have all the answers. I could name an endless stream of best-selling authors who through the avenue of “The New Age” have sold people all kinds of dangerous and irresponsible ideas and recklessly uncompassionate malarkey. When dealing with the subtler energies of the astral and mental planes we have to understand that they have akin to the rules that govern the physical plane. They are simple and if followed one will never incur negative karma and will stay always on the path of light. I will outline them so that it is clear. People trained in the older traditions (of which the New Age has borrowed) are sworn to secrecy due to the idea that power in the wrong hands and without understanding of the rules can lead to incredible danger not just to the individual but to the collective of humanity. It is my opinion that this is a huge part of the corruption of our connection to the divine and is part of the reason we are headed down a very dark road. I will list the main principles. Here they are:

1) Never impose your will over another sentient being – this includes things we would deem as positive. One should never even do a healing for someone without their consent or if one does so because consent can’t be obtained at the time – always include an out in your prayers such as, “As long as this is in accordance with their wishes and is for the good of all.”

2) Don’t ever ask  or visualize specific things like, “God – I want a brand new silver Toyota Avalon,” or “I want to win ten million dollars in this weeks lottery.” First of all this is a misuse of energy and for obvious reasons not going to do much good other than frustrate you and lead you down the road to insanity. But more importantly visualization techniques are powerful and are not meant for such frivolous things. It is also not taking into account the bigger picture, perhaps another person is supposed to win that lottery to learn a lesson and asking for specific things is imposing your will over the Universe’s plan and is a practice of the left-handed path. If you need financial help, simply pray for prosperity, for guidance, for help, you may petition the Great Spirit for whatever you  need as long as you don’t tell the Great Spirit how it should be done! If you have faith and do the work needed to help yourself (you can’t just be a recluse and expect to find your soul mate, etc.) the Great Spirit will honor your request when it is best for all involved and you are ready. Often by the time this happens you will have let go of the outcome and this will help enable the request to manifest.

I feel that it is important to put these rules out there as there are so many “New Age” instructional books and gurus who in an effort to swindle the public overly simplify the process and sell people false hope of instant gratification through visualization and the like. Maintaining a positive attitude and a strong connection to the Great Spirit doesn’t make a person rich or healthy or anything other than guaranteeing one accomplishes their purpose here on earth and lives a meaningful, well-rounded life where they learn what they came here to learn. I urge all people who are engaged in dabbling in these techniques for financial power over others for ego-based reasons, to stop this behavior, it is part of what is steering our ship off course. Greed is not good, it is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. The wealthy are often spiritually corrupt as we’ve seen, and what we haven’t is, they are often lost and have this mad squirrel disease to fill up the emptiness of their soul which ironically can never happen via money.

Have you ever noticed that some of the most miserable and/or superficial people in this world are insanely wealthy? And some of the happiest are dirt poor? This is of course not always the case. There are some very wealthy people who stay connected to their spirit and there are very depressed poor people who are spiritually disconnected. My point here is that happiness is not connected to material wealth. And if we lived in a civilized western culture money and happiness and the ability to move forward would be even more divorced from one another. One would not worry about having to get an operation for fear of losing their home from the cost or worry about how they were going to pay for their child’s education. But in these more secular and less “Christian,” countries they are actually living the example of Christ instead of hiding behind the bible and using it as a giant swatter, shooing away those they prefer not to help. We may call ourselves a “Christian” nation, but we are the least Christian in our actions of any industrialized western nation.

Jesus was not a free market capitalist, remember his freak out on the money changers in front of the temple? This wouldn’t have been an issue if he put money above all else. And by the way, Jesus was extremely poor. Fancy that.

I will in my next post detail some of the events I have been warned about. Some of them have already started, ie. the earth changes and economic troubles. My fear is that these things are just the lead up to much more intense difficulties to come and yes, many outer planets are going into the warring sign of Aries starting with Uranus at the end of this month. It will go back and forth between Aries and Pisces for a while. Next spring Neptune will be strong in its natal placement of Pisces which makes me fear that unexpected violence will lead to intense loss. The riots we have seen in Greece maybe just a very small taste of the unrest to come…

If it’s OK I will post what details I can. Again, the reason I’ve been told not to go into all of this is because ultimately nothing can really be done about it on a large-scale. The main focus now should be on personal spiritual development and of course we should continue to influence and push those in power to do everything possible to rectify global warming and stay out of skirmishes and wars. But no matter what we must elevate ourselves, by doing so we elevate the collective consciousness.

Many blessings to you,

Denise

Answering Readers’ Questions… Focus on The Economy & Stock Market

DERA

For a long time the oil companies, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies have gouged the public. Will there ever be changes that will benefit the good of the public instead of these companies?

Also, I read somewhere that there will be fewer doctors. The reason is due to problems dealing with the insurance companies.

Hi Dera,

This is a great question, one we’d all be interested in knowing.  So lets look at a couple different charts for the US, and see what will be going on in the world of doctors and health care as time progresses.

OK, we can do a lot more here then just look at health care. There are a few things I want to point out before I get to that. If you notice in the Declaration of Independence chart (our official birth date 7/4,1776) you’ll notice a preponderance of planets in the 8th and spilling into the 9th house. Let me explain why this chart, while it does have resonance with our country still, and is used by some astrologers is often seen as not being the official chart of the country.  

Let me explain the 8th house thing spilling into the 9th (8=cults, 9=foreigners), that would be the Pilgrims, the Quakers, the Shakers and all the small radical religious groups that “came over,” (actually many were kicked out of England because of their beliefs) during that time. It was these people who founded this nation, and that energy which is all very 8th house is the bedrock of our nation, sort of like our subconscious.

However, just because we declared our Independence we still were not truly legal until the US Constitution started, and was signed. Often the later is used as the true north of the US because it is comprable to a marriage date as opposed to when you first started dating. It’s the completion of what was started on July 4, 1776. That being said, the first date with your spouse is also very important because it sets the tone of a relationship.

Our Declaration, definitely set the tone for our nation, which is why we are a haven for radical religious (cult-like or lets come on out and just say it cults). 

Truly the only difference between a cult and an organized religion like Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or Judaism is the length of time and amount of people that identify themselves as part of that religion, so I don’t mean to demean the word “cult,” all religions start out as cults. Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, the Mormons started out this way, the Shakers, the Quakers, Scientology is now becoming more acceptable and less seen as a cult. Basically, once a religion goes from a small group to an institution it looses its cult status.

But, anyway, I digress. I want to also say that I just looked at all 3 charts and compared them to 9/11 and found the most accurate by far to be the US Constitution signing chart. Someone had posted much earlier (sometime in September or October) that the US Declaration chart had been used by Liz Greene and somehow she had found a way to make it dovetail with the 9/11 attacks. I would very much doubt this to be true, and this reader was probably confused. Liz Greene more than likely used the Constitution Signing chart because if you look at it in terms of transits, it should have been a very good period with Jupiter returning and hitting this charts stellium in Cancer. And transiting Pluto is not making any close opposing aspects. Perhaps she used a solar arc chart or a progressed chart based on it but it couldn’t have been that actual chart with the transits.

Anyway in the US Constitution Chart, transiting Pluto had just gone over the US Cons. Sign. chart’s Moon and squared Mercury ruler of the 8th house, both death aspects and transiting Neptune was in the 12th house of loss making an applying a conjunction to the ascendant, again major loss. The 12th and 8th house are both death houses, and both Neptune and Pluto are key to major loss, transformation, literal and figurative death.  

So lets focus on the US Constitution Chart as it seems most accurate in terms of transits. 

1st your question of health-care:

In the spring of 2009 we’ll see the first in a series of bills aimed at health-care reform as transiting Uranus in Pisces goes through the first house and opposes the US cons. sign. chart’s Sun. The way we see this issue has been changing over the past seven or so years, our minds began changing then when Uranus opposed Mercury in the 7th. And then as bankruptcy laws changed and increases in health-care costs went up, Uranus opposed Venus in the 7th, again highlighting the financial need for laws to change how we deal with our health-care system, pointing out the lack of human kindness in it. And finally when it hits the Sun in spring of 09, the vitality of this issue, the soul of the problem will be tackled in a bill. This aspect will go back and forth for a while so it will be the first in a series of several major changes to the system we now have in place.

It probably won’t be until May of 2010 until these changes are really put into action. This will be when transiting Uranus in Pisces will be trining the US cons. sign’s Uranus in the 6th house of health and the health-care system. This overhaul will be immediate, and a bit of a shock to the system, but will be a great improvement especially for women and children, and those who don’t have steady employment, but work more piece meal.

In terms of the Pharmaceutical company’s getting there’s — it’s coming. In February of 2012 when Neptune (ruler of their industry) enters Pisces they will start to see their days ripping off Americans coming to an end. This same thing can be said of the oil companies who are also ruled by Neptune. Companies who lower their prices and make sacrifices will stay in business, and do very well. Volume will be the key to this business and be very profitable from that angle. Those that want to continue making 150,000,000% profit off each pill will go under. The oil industry will have to basically do what its doing now, keep cheap in order to survive. Even then as Neptune goes into Pisces alternative types of fuel will become the mainstay, most likely hydrogen based, either water itself or hydrogen engines this will happen in 2012.

Of course all of these changes won’t happen overnight, little by little we’ll see things headed down this path, and this trend will continue until about 2025. So hopefully by the end of it we will be a completely green world. Let’s cross our fingers that is one potential outcome.

My guess is that at that time (2025 when Uranus enters Aries) the pharmaceutical industry will have a revolution of a different sort, and will be more nano-technology driven, with tiny micro surgical techniques in the form of pills that will release tiny robots that will cut out ulcers or cancers or whatever, very early on, staving off the need for more traditional medicine in a lot of cases.

Truthseeker

Hi Denise, I have a question in relation to the property market in Australia. Will property crash in Australia? Will it drop more than 30%?

Thanking you in advance.

Hi Truthseeker,

Real Estate will crash or bottom out in 2011, truly bottom out. Meaning the value of houses will go under. I’m not familiar enough with the real estate market down there but if you feel that the houses are really over valued, this will be when they are not just “corrected” but when they are actually worth less then what logic dictates that they should be. People will not want to buy real estate during this period. They will be afraid of it. This is when you should buy real estate. You can make a fortune at that time until about 2013. Then you still can make money but not as much. It will hit a peak again starting around 2018 and really 2019, 2020, people will be going crazy again like they just did for it. so there you go. Hope that helps.

northernlights2008

Any thoughts on the two unresolved Senate races in Minnesota and Georgia? I think you predicted the Senate would get close to 60 seats a few weeks back. I wonder what the cards say closer to the evantual realities. Thanks!

Hi Northernlights,

I still have the feeling that the Dems are just barely going to crack that 60 margin. I lost track of where it was now. It’s hard to believe its still going on! And no one really cares! That’s the amazing thing, it shows how good things are on the political front at least.

sally ann

Hi and thanks Denise,
This may be a tarot card question.
Will COMEX gold default in December? Many analysts are predicting this will happen when so many paper gold contracts holders demand physical delivery,that the COMEX will be unable to meet the demand. (Now, physical gold is trading at far higher prices than the COMEX paper gold and COMEX price corruption is suspected).

Hi Sally Ann,

The tarot says: Yes.

It seems there has been some lying going on. Some illusion, delusion, some mismanagement and whoever was in charge has just sort of walked away from the problem leaving the company and investors in the lurch, while taking what they could from the situation. Not good. Hope this turns out to be a false read on the situation, here. But that’s what the cards are saying. Sometimes though the cards aren’t very good with timing. Astrology is much better for that.

I want to clarify a basic note here. I wish I could have seen the little bump up last week in the stock market, but as I said before there is too much novelty here to read the market for these. There is too much irrational, emotional stuff clouding the zeitgeist of the market. It’s almost as if everyone is on amphetamines, stuffed into a theater in the dark, and someone shouts “Fire!” There’s a stampede before anyone bothers to look around, and see if there actually is one or if its just a nut yelling it.

And on the other end of that, are the financial “experts” who are kissing the “ouchy’s” of investors and lulling them back into the market with false expectations that everything is OK when it’s not which is why we saw this crazy drop when the news came out that we are in a recession. Duh. Really? It’s ridiculous. And I’m sure in another month it will be news that we’re in a Depression that will cause the market to plummet. But look around, it doesn’t take a genius to figure this out.

The arguement against why this isn’t a Depression is a very flimsy one right now. It is simply that unemployment isn’t high enough. But back when George W. took office his administration changed the laws so that as soon as your 6 months of unemployment ran out you were taken out of the unemployment statistics. So how many people have been unemployed for years? We don’t know. They aren’t being counted. This is a hidden problem, another shadow that we’ll see come out when Pluto pops over the ascendant of the Dow.

Here’s the other thing, in the Decleration chart Pluto is about to shred it. I’m glad it’s not our real chart, (and if it is well, we’ll know it for sure soon) but rather our more unconscious one, or we’d be in even bigger trouble then we already are. But it’s still posed to do some major damage to our US Cons. Sign chart this will happen a little later though in March of 2009, and will again most likely hit speculators and the stock market.

Ironically, this Monday Pluto hit 0 degrees again as it had the last time we had the major drop in November, and that is directly on the US Const. Sign charts south node in the 5th — meaning, what we have reaped in the market we are going to be sowing, and it’s going to be powerful, and painful. I think the Dow’s big Pluto over the ascendant happening at the end of December into January will be more about the horrible corruption, lies and sociopathic behavior of CEOs that will come out making investors think twice about trusting their money to these people, many of whom are really criminals in business suits. This is the shore I think the Tsunami is headed in terms of the Dow.

OK, More questions tomorrow. These will be covered over the next couple of days:

Be well. Best wishes to all. Pray for our planet and each other. We need it now!

Jean

Hi Denise,

You asked for more information on the mutual funds I inquired about.
MEURX – Mutual European (Z fund) – Fund inception date is 7/3/1996
MDISX – Mutual Discovery (Z fund) – Fund inception date is 12/31/1992
I don’t know if this matters or not, but in November 1996, Heine Securities Corporation, known for the Mutual Series of funds, merged into the Franklin Templeton complex.

Thanks.

Cathy

Denise, Thank you for the charts on Boeings. Here is some info on Airbus that I found -Airbus Industrie was formally established as a Groupement d’Interet Economique (Economic Interest Group or GIE) on 18 December 1970.
2000 three of the four partner companies (DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, successor to Deutsche Airbus; Aérospatiale-Matra, successor to Sud-Aviation; and CASA) merged to form EADS. If this doesn’t help – I’ll keep searching but I appreciate your efforts of trying. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Id

Dear Denise,

Thank you for your analysis and insights. In these troubled times on a lot of fronts ( financial, physical and even spiritual ) you provide clarity and hope.

I have two questions.

1 – Urban survival. In which timeframes do you see possible shortages of food and basic necessaties?
2 – When will the dollar downtrend and demise commence?

To readers of this blog, please do google “urban survival” and make some basic preparations.

Peace

Wei

Hi Denise:
Great postings!
Wondering about Citicorp (c). I think you ran a chart, but I didn’t find the interpretation for it. Given recent bail outs, will it survive?
If you have time, I am wondering about US Steel (x) and Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, Inc (FCX), Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), Foster Wheeler Ltd. (FWLT), Procter & Gamble (PG), and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (BNI).
Many Thanks,
Wei

 

KRG

Hi : Very interesting

On the prediction that India will hit Pak sites, I wonder whether this could happen thru US, becos it seems more likely that Obama will use his power to persuade Pak to let US take on the training camps etc in Pak. Don’t see India doing this unless we continue to get hit like 26/11. May be you could run a chart for US vis-a-vis Pak and see how it looks…

 

Truthseeker

I woke up with the feeling that the credit crisis wasnt the cause of the market crash at the end of Dec/ Jan

northernlights2008

Any thoughts on the two unresolved Senate races in Minnesota and Georgia? I think you predicted the Senate would get close to 60 seats a few weeks back. I wonder what the cards say closer to the evantual realities. Thanks!

 

Iris

Another question. Some of Obama’s supporters are up in arms about the people he is choosing to work in his Administration. They feel that they have been betrayed. Will the Disgruntled Dems. get over it in time or will they hold a grudge for the next 4 years?

 

Thanks! 

 

grace43

 

 

Will Arnold Schwartzenegger be joining Obama’s cabniet? I thought when Obama said a top Republican would be on his cabniet, it would be Arnie. Now he’s picked Gates to stay on as Sec. of Defense. Since some very conservative Christians are in top level positions in the military, this seems to be a wise move aimed at keeping them calm. What’s up for the Governator after his term runs out?

Here’s his birth information: 30 July 1947, Thal, Styria, Austria (Taken from his bio on Internet Movie Database)
Birth Time: 04:10 (04:10 AM) MEDT(-1:00) (taken from Lois Rodden’s AstroDatabankhttp://www.astrodatabank.com/nm/SchwarzeneggerArnold.htm )

Thanks in advance!

PS

I sure hope he will be. After four years of having to look at Bush and Cheney, this lady would appreciate someone up there easier on the eyes. LOL

 

Answering Readers’ Questions…

OK I’m going to answer 3 questions from one reader tonight and also tackle the auto industry mess. I did not have time today to watch their plea for money today, but here are the charts of 2 major auto industry giants, and some indication of their fate.

Personally, I don’t feel that the companies should be bailed out, the workers should be. By this I mean instead of giving them 25 billion to these companies to screw things up some more, why not give all of the workers a decent severance pay, and re-education training, then make the overpaid CEOs who have run these companies into the ground, repay the 25 billion dollar loan off by selling their private jets, downsizing their homes, and selling off their assets until they lifestyle is commensurate with their job performance.

For the past 30 years these companies have made crappy cars, been in bed with the oil companies, have laid of thousands of workers without any concern for them (until the crocodile tears we’re seeing now) and haven’t invested in research, design, engineering or technology. According to the free market capitalism they’ve been playing ball in, they deserve to go under. All they are going to do with this money is waste it. So I say give it to the people who need it, the workers — give them enough to survive the transition into a new field of work and retrain them. That will ultimately do the economy a lot more good then throwing money down a golden CEO toilet.

Now you may say, hey Denise, you thought the bail out for wall street was OK, what gives? Well, I did think the first package, the one that didn’t pass would have helped a great deal, but the compromised one would do no good. And in that case the problem was worldwide like a global leukemia that needed immediate chemotherapy. Unfortunately, before that happened someone stuck a bunch of saltwater in the IV instead of the needed drug, and it didn’t kill off the bad paper (which is causing a strangle hold on the economy) it just watered down the problem. This is real trickle down economics, bad decisions by the greedy to steal the poor’s money through false promises of being able to buy and afford the American Dream of owning a home. Now its trickling down to us all paying for their con.

So lets look at Chrysler and GM’s charts and see if bailing them out is worth it.

I think GM will get a bail out, but they’ll have another crisis of major proportions in 2011, and very likely go under at that time, so I don’t see the point of bailing them out. They are going to fail eventually, it’s only staving off the inevitable. It would take a miracle, over the next couple of years, for them to turn this company around, and make the coming transiting Pluto opposing their natal Pluto be a change for a better rather then the death of the company. I think its really throwing good money after bad with them, but congress in its freak out state will try to do something, the money may not really come into their possession until mid-late January of 09 though.

OK, now here goes with Chrysler. Again they are headed for total destruction. But not immediately, I don’t want to bother going into all the dreadful aspects with them, there are too many. They really don’t have a chance of making it in the long haul. By 2012 they will be collapsing in on themselves. Again, giving them money will only hold the coming problem off until then, but I feel congress will try to rescue them as well, but it will ultimately be for naught. They are in even more serious trouble then GM. And they are not very upfront with their business. We’ll find out about a lot of bad stuff in 2012, a lot of smarmy activity and reckless business dealings. 

This is very sad. Anyone who works in this industry, my advice to you is this: You have a couple of years, take classes at a community college or any sort of school that offers you a new career opportunity. The medical field, nursing homes, funeral businesses, prisons, the federal government and institutions of all kinds will be growing over the next twenty years as Uranus (and then Neptune) transit through Pisces. So nursing, being an MRI tech, x-ray tech, funeral director, prison guard, government employee, will all be areas of opportunity. Start taking classes in a related field and do research on careers ruled by Pisces, there are many. Find one that seems interesting and get education to go into that new field. You don’t have very long, so don’t waste your time trying to keep your auto industry job unless you want to move to wherever they make Toyotas and Hondas.

tckal

Hi Denise:
(1) The Gallop poll shows that Obama’s favorability rating is at 71%. Are the people who didn’t vote for him finally starting to see him as the right person for the job? This rating is very good for someone who hasn’t even taken office yet. Go Obama!
(2) Do you the know the timing of when Sarah Palin will have this civil case against her? She has been plastered all over the news lately. Everyone wants an interview with her to ask about her $150,000 + clothes (was this her doing?). She should really be ashamed of herself for saying those lies about Obama. She’s so quick to call people “jerks” and liars if they say anything negative about her…but when she does it, in her eyes it’s ok…like when she tried to incite hate and violence towards Obama. It’s just so upsetting to see these republicans being so hypocritical and mean. I don’t understand them at all.
(3) Speaking of hypocrisy, Elisabeth Hasselbeck (Sarah Palin’s twin sister), the woman who is so hated by many for her strong republican views, constantly butts heads with her co-hosts. I really don’t think her co-hosts enjoy working with her, eventhough they say they do and they all love each other. I feel they secretly hate her too and they just have to put up with her because this team brings high ratings. What do you think about this?
Thanks again for answering our questions. I really enjoy this site…I feel we have our own little community in here where we can come to share our views, seek spiritual guidance and feel hope! Thank you Denise!

Hi Tckal,

Question 1:

I think this is because there were many people on the Republican side who knew Obama was the better man for the current job, even McCain admitted he didn’t know much about the economy. McCain certainly isn’t a dumb guy, but between the two men, Obama has a superior intellect, something we are in desperate need of after 8 years of a monkey (George W, ironically looks like Curious George to me only he’s missing the curios part) banging on a typewriter hoping to write MacBeth. 

Many people identify themselves with a party kind of in the same way they identify themselves with a religion. They are raised Catholic so they call themselves that, but they never attend church, are pro-choice, don’t know if they believe in God, hated CCD and never read the bible. But they have incorporated Catholic into their identity because that’s what their family was, or is, and so they think of themselves that way even though they really aren’t. This goes for the brands Republican and Democrat.

I’ve seen people on both sides misidentify themselves because of this same issue. For instance (this has happened to me more then once and on both sides of the fence) I have a musician friend that when we first met told me, he was a Republican. I found this hard to believe because everything he said and did ran counter to this identity. So I asked why he said he was a Republican. His answer was, “that’s the way I was raised.” 

“OK,” I said. “So your anti-choice?”

“No,” he replied.

“You’re anti-gun control?”

He shook his head.

“So your all for the, ‘just say no to drugs thing.'”

He smiled mischeveiously.

“You believe in criminalizing drug offenders?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, you’re not a Republican then, you’re a Democrat,” I finally said.

After a few weeks of thinking about what he believed, and the platform of both parties, he realized he really was a Democrat, and not a Republican, but it took someone confronting him on it for him to think about it. I think a lot of people who identify themselves as Republicans couldn’t do the deed of voting Democrat because it would be like being a Bears fan and going to Soldier Field, sitting in the Bears section, and rooting for the visiting Broncos to win. It’s a loyalty issue. Odd as that may seem.

Personally, if the Democrats started acting like Republicans, and Republicans like Democrats, I’d become a Republican. Doubtful this will happen anytime soon, but for me, and I’m sure most people who read this blog, its the ideology of fairness, compassion, kindness, humanitarianism, helping out those in need and being open minded (as long as they aren’t violent or vile or something like that) we are loyal to, it’s not the brand name Democrat. But not everyone thinks this way. So I think of the71% you mentioned, that extra 18% or so of Republicans, they wanted to vote Obama, but couldn’t make their hand punch a hole next to the word Democrat.

2) Oh, Sarah Palin…

See all that stuff in her 7th house? That rules court cases and the public eye, she has and has had Neptune (glamour, confusion, delusion) going back and forth over all those planets this year which is probably why she was tapped (astrologically speaking) for the position of VP out of relative obscurity. I’d say the suit will be filed next year, and will come to fruition (either in settlement terms or a court case) in 2010 when Neptune hits her Saturn (hello, karma).

3) Elizabeth Hasselbeck…

I don’t know if you heard of the study done by Dr. Drew Pinsky about narcissism and different sorts of stars. Musicians had the lowest, or most normal rates per capita of those he studied, actresses (interestingly not actors) the second highest percentage of NPD over the general public, and guess who had out of control NPD? Reality TV show personalities. Turns out they had this mental illness in overwhelming numbers. Need I say more? 

OK, I will. This mental illness (in its extreme) or tendency often makes people difficult to deal with. They have major entitlement issues, and this, as we have all known people like that, is not fun to deal with.

However, I’m not saying Elizabeth Hasselbeck has this problem (I’d have to look at her real chart, not just solar to see if she has it, Sarah Palin does, though).

I have often wondered about your question as well. I do have the feeling she drives the rest of the women on the show a bit crazy, but I also get the feeling she’s probably very nice to them, and I don’t feel she holds onto anything. Despite her annoying views, I have a feeling she’s pretty upbeat, and when not talking politics, or ideology is probably good natured, and fun to have around.

So in answer to that question, I’d have to say, I think she was driving them nuts during the election, but they don’t hate her. And now that its over I’m sure any rifts can be patched.

Hold on tight, we’re getting closer to the wild ride.

Best of luck to all of you and many blessings,

Denise

Psychic News Flash About The Global Economy…

 What I have stated in earlier posts still holds as it pertains to the immediate future. And we will see more foreign markets collapse as ours continues to which will give birth to a solution.

All of a sudden, I’ve had a feeling that something is happening behind the scenes. Something unprecedented in world history and something that will save us from a global depression. It may not yet be going on, but will soon happen. (I’m precognitive to the point that I get time confusion thinking things have already happened, or are happening, that are yet to happen.)

I finally got this message.

There will be a commission/union or league of nations (what its called I’m not sure of exactly yet) that will be set up to oversee the banking and credit industries. This will in turn restore market confidence world wide and regulate the banking and credit industries so another debacle like this can not happen. International banking and credit laws will be put in place and we, the US will have to abide by them. Pirates, robber barrons, pillagers and Republicans will kick up about this saying it will destroy our “free market,” (their no rules — wild west style). The council or commission, will be independent of any one country and operate in a similar way as the UN, but with more international judicial interfacing.

There will be opposition against this in US. Some out of ignorance, some out of pride, some out of greed, some because they will not understand its necessity. Of course there will also be those bible types who will claim this as some sign of Armageddon (but they also claimed this same prophecy about the European Union).

I think this will occur over the next 2-3 years and is part of the Pluto return and opposition to the Dow’s natal Uranus in the 7th. We will literally see the death of the Dow Jones as we have known it and something new, better and global will replace the way we used to do business. 

So it’s not all doom and gloom. For now, the immediate future is not so great.

But the stronger Obama has gotten in the polls the more my feeling that we will avert calamity gets.

Transitional times are scary. Lots of things are going to change, people are going to lose their jobs, houses and some wealth. We’ve already seen this. But on the other end of this is hope. It will get worse before it gets better, but it will get better, and then we can focus on the real impending disaster, and threat to our world, global warming.

I’ll save that one for later. 

Just sit tight, try not to get too worked up, or afraid. We are all going to take a hit in different areas of our lives, but we will recover, and build something better in this messes wake.

Good luck and best wishes.

Barack Obama – his chart, who is he?

It’s interesting to see how prevalent the 7th house is in the charts of politicians. As law makers it makes sense being that the 7th house rules courts and justice as well as partnerships, the public and open enemies.

In Barack’s case we see a lot of 7th house action, his mind is defintely occupied with issues of fairness, equality and service. His Leo sun is reigned in by the 6th house of service so any bombast is tempered with his desire to serve coupled with his opposition to Uranus in the 7th and his Aquarius rising he has strong desire to serve humanity.

With his Pluto in the 7th his partner is strong, as we know. And has great influence, as well as Joe Biden will. He takes into consideration other points of view and weighs them heavily in his decision making process.

Moon in Gemini trine his Jupiter gives him a cool emotional demeanor and an understanding of both foreign and domestic people. His childhood would involve a lot of emotional ups and downs and moving quite a bit, this is also public knowledge but is indicated in his chart. His mother was an intellectual and teacher, (Moon in Gemini in the 4th) this created great opportunity for him to grow intellectually as moon trines his Mercury in the 6th. Again he puts his knowledge into serving the greater good. Not surprising he would become a community organizer as his need to serve is strong and taught him a lot about the world and himself.

Mars in Virgo in the 6th again reinforces his desire to play fair and serve others in the process which is probably why he was attracted to law. but the kind of law he was interested in and is interested in is focused on workers and their plight, those that serve others, he identifies with them which is part of his passion to serve.

He has the ability to think outside the box (Aquarius rising) but this is balanced by many factors in his chart which enable him to think in gradations of color as opposed to the black and white world of someone like Sarah Palin who has a proponderance of fixed signs and too much Aquarius in her chart leading her into the realm of magical thinking and the inability to listen to others, this quality often referred derogatorily as “a know it all,” is not present in Barack Obama. His chart is balanced with all the elements and enough mutable signs to offset his fixed sun and rising. He is strong in his convictions without being married to his ideas, able to amend his position to changes that come along when necessary and capable of listening to a good case and changing his mind to fit the facts and circumstances.

His emotional center is his home life, his wife and children, and his mother. Jupiter in Aquarius in the 12th making a trine to his moon will ultimately be a great benefit, just as the chips look down for him luck strikes and fate helps him along. 

All in all he is compassionate, service orientated, humanitarian and extremely intelligent, if this makes him an elitist then we should all be so lucky as to be called this. His excellent aspects make him capable in many ways, not just his general intelligence, ability to understand the working person, his service oriented personality but also he understands finances not just the big picture but the details of the economy. Notice the trine between Saturn in Capricorn in the 12th and Mars in Virgo. He understands what is going on behind the scenes, things we the public do not see and knows how to fix this via legislation, Mars in the 7th in Virgo. It’s no surprise that the top wealthiest among us those in the top one percent fear him because he is not going to be a giant help to them but rather to us, the everyday people who work for a living. He has many enemies in that elite group and it will be no surprise that they will pull out all the stops to make sure he’s not elected including resulting to fear tactics (geared to the naive) which will more than likely be their main focus in trying to take him down. But alas, he does have Jupiter there to save him. So he does have hidden forces who support him and luck on his side.

He will restore our good name in the world and put our economy back on track and with all the Virgo in his chart he will reform health care for the betterment of us in the middle class.

So make sure to vote!

Chart comparison of 1929 Stock Market Crash, Future & DOW

It looks like it will really start to get scary in late December with Pluto heading over the horizon and a bunch of activating planets to set it off. However the actual death of the market will be early 09. I’ll post that chart when I figure it out. I had just looked in my Ephemeris and hadn’t done an actual chart until now, meaning I had made an approximation of when the real trouble would begin. I’ll post the actual date I think the market will implode in a few. 

For now there will be good and bad days. I suggest using your intuition to pull out when your stocks or mutual fund is up. There will be some wild fluctuations until the crash but don’t let the economists fool you with how stable things are ultimately. Let’s face it if the market crashes it effects all the world markets and the companies you’ve invested in. There is a better than likely chance whatever stock you have will be meaningless as many businesses will more than likely go out of business and you’ll be left with a piece of paper that is worthless. Why take the chance? If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. CD’s are paying about 4%, about or more than what you can make playing the stock market and there is no real risk as long as you don’t need your money immediately. This is my advice. I’d hate to see ordinary Americans used and taken advantage of once again when I might be able to help some of you.