Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (1)

Lakshmi: Goddess of Wealth, Fortune and Prosperity

I remember during my undergraduate studies at university one of my best friends had a statue of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi in their room and explained to me what her name was, who she was and what she represented. Lakshmi to give her, her full title is: "The goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity (both material and spiritual). She is the wife and active energy of Vishnu." 

My reaction at the time was, "That's a nice bit of Kitsch. My room could do with something a bit leftfield like that." Admittedly I had my eyes more on Ganesha for those reasons.  I suspect for some people and in the general way of these things, the above merely becomes all part of a nice backstory to embellish what amounts to the popularity of Lakshmi specifically holding the office of "wealth dispenser good luck" charm and soon she takes on more and more the role of "psychological piggybank".

The above website, debtbombshell.com provides a very quick summary of the relationship between our UK Government Spending, the Deficit and the UK Debt: Arising from the difference in Spending and Income (Budget):-

Every year the UK runs a large budget deficit. The Government spends more money than it can tax, so we plug the gap by selling bonds to investors at home and abroad. These bonds - known as gilts - have to be repaid in full, with interest. Added together, our unpaid loans make up the UK's national debt.

Right now, that debt is growing violently. The Government forecasts it will soar to an eye-watering £1.1 trillion by 2011. To put that in perspective, the UK went bust in 1976 running a budget deficit of 6% of GDP. In 2010 that deficit is going to top 11%.

Historically, our debt burden was heavier after World War II. But like any loan, if the money isn't invested wisely we end up borrowing even more. When the Government runs up huge debts and produces nothing to show for it, we're the ones that shoulder the burden. This year that burden will grow by £167.9 billion.

This website (a little out of date) paints the picture quite bleakly and it's no wonder that Economics is often referred to as "The Dismal Science" in affiliation with Finance and Accounting (also in derogatory language: "Bean-counting"). Also provided is a fascinating graph of National Debt; and further calculations and representations of calculations can be found at ukpublicspending.co.uk .

Here's a couple of different graphs representing historic debt. They're 'a little off each other', but the take-home is that in general managing debt is more challenging when:-

• Economic conditions are adverse and/or deteriorating (eg wars)
• Government spending/deficit increases (eg wars)
• Government income decreases (eg lowering taxes)
• Public personal debt levels increase and bank lending exposure to high risk

Some crude summary points but the take-home is that the management of money and wealth-creation is very important to the good governance and prudent public and private sectors of our economies. Perhaps the above all need an image make-over such as wonderfully illustrated in Lakshmi iconographic representation above? Perhaps more people and our government could do with their own stash of statuettes of Lakshmi in their homes and offices?

Lakshmi Statues: Art and Iconography

There's a very strong component of the management of a Nation's wealth, it's economy and it's "fortunes". Looking the history of The Central Bank of England aka The Bank Of England :-

In the Kingdom of England in the 1690s, public funds were in short supply and were needed to finance the ongoing Nine Years' War with France. The credit of William III's government was so low in London that it was impossible for it to borrow the £1,200,000 (at 8 percent) that the government wanted. In order to induce subscription to the loan, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The bank was given exclusive possession of the government's balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue banknotes.The lenders would give the government cash (bullion) and also issue notes against the government bonds, which can be lent again. The £1.2M was raised in 12 days; half of this was used to rebuild the Navy.

 There's a quick summary here connecting debt and currency and their relevance for example Quantitative Easing": The Consequences Of National Debt. A really applicable quote worth applying and remembering is from

Chapter 24 — Liberal Leader Mackenzie King Said in 1935:-

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.

“The Liberal Party believes that credit is a public matter, not of interest to bankers only, but of direct concern to every citizen. The Liberal Party declares itself in favour of the immediate establishment of a duly constituted national bank for the control of the issue of money in terms of public needs. The flow of money must be in relation with the domestic, social, and industrial needs of the Canadian people.”

It's worth reading the full context in the link above. Now considering the above, then looking once again into the History of the European Union in The Great Deception, Chapter Twelve - In A Minority of One: 1986-1988 p.273

"The  British  economy  has  been  transformed  in  the  past  twelve  years. In the 1960s and 1970s we were the sick man of Europe, at the bottom of the league tables  for  growth,  investment  and productivity. In  the  1980s  we  were  at  the top." ~ Conservative Campaign Guide, 1991.

One cannot understand  the  second half of Thatcher’s eleven-year reign as Britain’s longest serving prime minister of the twentieth century without appreciating just how significant was the part played in it by ‘Europe’. In the years after Milan she found herself increasingly at odds,  not just with her Community ‘partners’ but with her most senior  Cabinet  colleagues, until  they worked to bring about her downfall.The first signs of this division came from an unexpected direction, when, early in  1985,  her  Chancellor  Nigel  Lawson,  known  as  a  robust  ‘Thatcherite’, became  persuaded that the key to imposing monetary discipline on Britain’s economy  was to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism. He was soon supported by Howe, but  their  motives were quite different. Lawson regarded himself as something of a ‘sceptic’ on European issues.

He saw linking the pound  to the Deutschmark-dominated  ERM  simply  as  an  economic  tool,  on  the  grounds that Germany had become a byword for maintaining price stability and that the move  would  signal  to  the  markets  that  the  UK  had  no  intention  of  devaluing her currency. Lawson genuinely believed the ERM was a means by which members  of  the  Community  could  co-operate  to serve  a  common  economic purpose. Howe on the other hand was well aware that the ERM’s real purpose  was  not  economic but  political:  a  mechanism  designed  to  promote greater integration. 

This echoes with the concept of "engrenage" as per Jean Monnet's "Engrenage": Destination Unknown? and we also come back (or forwards) to Our Government: "Ifs, Buts, Maybes" and Sir James Goldsmith's The Referendum Party's subsequent influence on triggering a Referendum Pledge from John Major's Conservative government and therefore raising and hence matching Tony Blair's "New Labour" government of 1997 and all the way through the Referendum Promises as per Pattern Recognition.

We're beginning to join the dots on a very important part of "the once and future Sovereignty" of the United Kingdom. From Of Democracy and Time Dilation know that our Government has been an abject failure in it's lack of honest, accountability and representative attempts to re-associate democracy with governance and hence input into solving these problems and the damage they "wreak to a nation", could have done further and will continue to do both to the UK and beyond in the Eurozone Debt Crisis:-

"Beneficial Crisis" via "engrenage" of the eurozone members

Coming back to the key points:-

1. Governments should know the importance of the Money Supply
2. This was in action during the ERM exit of the UK.
3. Despite this Referendums and debates have continued over the validity of joining the EURO up to the early 2000's.
4. This continues to the present in 2015 concerning EU membership.
5. The underlying problems are not addressed by our government and nor are the arguments clarified on EU membership.

There are signs that some people are looking for real changes such as Positive Money:

 As well as being reflected in The Harrogate Agenda: 5. No taxation or spending without consent:-

No tax, charge or levy shall be imposed, nor any public spending authorised, nor any sum borrowed by any national or local government except with the express approval the majority of the people, renewed annually on presentation of a budget which shall first have been approved by their respective legislatures;

Coming back to Lakshmi and the iconography:-

Her four hands represent the four goals of human life considered important to the Hindu way of life – dharma (alignment with the "order of things" or "cosmos" as the Greeks would call it, or for example the pursuit of an ethical, moral life), kāma (the aesthetic satisfaction "in the realm of the senses" such as love, desire and emotional fulfillment), artha (leading a purposeful and meaningful, goal-directed life and attaining the means to do so, pursuit of wealth or such similar goals for example), and moksha (liberation or emancipation through self-knowledge or self-actualization; in the Hindu tradition termed release from saṃsāra). The Lotus, Elephant(s) and other details all hold their own symbolisms without going into further details.

It seems to me that a lot of the discussion on our economy and on our government's privileged position in running our economy on our behalf or managing it, forgets the reasons for money and wealth to serve the people, not the people in charge and their interests first; to merely make them wealthy. Much like how the tendency for people to see Lakshmi merely as the "goddess of prosperity" instead of appreciating some of the underlying components that all contribute to "Prosperity"; it itself is a product of underlying and related elements. Looking at money as per Mackenzie King (see above):-

“Money consists only in figures engraved on metal, printed on paper, or inscribed in bank ledgers.” 

or as per Positive Money:-

"Most of the money in the economy is actually just numbers in a computer system... the question is where does that money come from?"

It seems the greed for wealth runs our economies and hence our governments' popularities, but it also seems that it equally ruins our economies as much and then we have "musical chairs" between the same people pretending to run the economy "for a better Britain". If we know that the EURO is a political tool, why not the Pound in the hands of our own government and as per the history of The Great Deception it's misuse for political means, too? And indeed right back to the founding of the Bank Of England?