Category: Headline

Mr. David Siegel has made a billion dollars. You may remember him as the man who came to national attention this year when he announced he wanted to build the biggest house in America—a 90,000-square-foot home inspired by Versailles. Follow this link if you think I just made that up.

Now he will be remembered also as the man who sought to persuade his employees to vote against Barack Obama by telling them that some of them would have to be let go if the President is re-elected and raises taxes on the super-rich, as Mr. Obama has said he wants to do to return the U.S. economy to a sound footing.

Mr. Siegel is the founder/owner of a company that leases high-end time-share homes to persons looking to vacation in luxurious surroundings. His company, Westgate Resorts, is based on Florida and is one of the largest, if not the largest, firms of its kind in the world.

A few days ago Mr. Siegel, who employs something like 7,000 people, sent a memo to those who work for them, saying that “If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back.”

Mr. Siegel presumably feels that an increase in the amount of taxes he pays will affect his overall wealth and his company’s health in such a way that he will have to fire people to maintain things at their present level.

This is a fascinating point of view for a man who was worth, a few years ago, a billion dollars. Perhaps he might choose to not seek to complete the building of the Biggest House in America (did you follow the link and look at the picture of what he wants to create?) and take some of that money and make it available to his employees, so that he doesn’t have to fire them because he is paying more taxes.

Mr. Siegel, in his memo, asked his employees how they would like it if they had to pay 50% of what they earned in taxes. Wouldn’t that be a disincentive? Wouldn’t that take the wind out of their sails, and the oomph out of their desire to work as hard as they are now?

Well, it might if their annual income was $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000. It might even if their income was $200,000. But would it if their annual income was 50 or 75 or 100 million? I mean, how much is enough? If you were earning $50,000,000 a year and you thought that using half of it to help those who are less fortunate, by funding through your taxes government programs designed for that purpose, was being asked of you, would you say, “No! I have to earn as much of that $50-million as I can! You don’t understand! I’ve got a 90,000-square foot house to finish building!”

Indeed, the central question before humanity at this point in our history is: How much is enough? Before I start giving back…yes, even if I have to give back half…how much do I need to make just to keep for myself? Five Million? Ten? Fifty? A hundred million?

Now you might argue, “But I shouldn’t have to give any of it back. It’s mine. I earned it, with the sweat of my own brow. And I did it all by myself. Nobody else helped me. None of my employees helped me.  None of my customers helped me. I got no help or incentives or tax write-offs in any form from my government. I did it all alone, all by myself. This country was built on freedom. I should not have to give half of it back to the government to help the Have-Not’s. They can go out and make their own hundred million, just like I did!”

You might argue that. In fact, that is essentially what Mr. Siegel was arguing when he sent his memo to his employees a few days ago. In that memo, he gave a name to those who his tax dollars would be helping. He called them: “the unproductive.”  (Check the last paragraph of his memo.)

Here is the full text of that memo, as posted at Gawker.com. Give it a read, then leave any comment you may have below.

=================================================

Subject: Message from David Siegel
Date:Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:58:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: [David Siegel]
To: [All employees]

To All My Valued Employees,

As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.

However, let me share a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.The current administration and members of the press have perpetuated an environment that casts employers against employees. They want you to believe that we live in a class system where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. They label us the “1%” and imply that we are somehow immune to the challenges that face our country. This could not be further from the truth. Sure, you may have heard about the big home that I’m building. I’m sure many people think that I live a privileged life. However, what you don’t see or hear is the true story behind any success that I have achieved.

I started this company over 42 years ago. At that time, I lived in a very modest home. I converted my garage into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. We didn’t eat in fancy restaurants or take expensive vacations because every dollar I made went back into this company. I drove an old used car, and often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, many of my friends got regular jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a nice income, and they spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into this business —-with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford to buy whatever I wanted. Even to this day, every dime I earn goes back into this company. Over the past four years I have had to stop building my dream house, cut back on all of my expenses, and take my kids out of private schools simply to keep this company strong and to keep you employed.

Just think about this – most of you arrive at work in the morning and leave that afternoon and the rest of your time is yours to do as you please. But not me- there is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have that freedom. I eat, live, and breathe this company every minute of the day, every day of the week. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. I know many of you work hard and do a great job, but I’m the one who has to sign every check, pay every expense, and make sure that this company continues to succeed. Unfortunately, what most people see is the nice house and the lavish lifestyle. What the press certainly does not want you to see, is the true story of the hard work and sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits, but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the costs of running a business have gotten out of control, and let me tell you why: We are being taxed to death and the government thinks we don’t pay enough. We pay state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes and unemployment taxes. I even have to hire an entire department to manage all these taxes. The question I have is this: Who is really stimulating the economy? Is it the Government that wants to take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not, or is it people like me who built a company out of his garage and directly employs over 7000 people and hosts over 3 million people per year with a great vacation?

Obviously, our present government believes that taking my money is the right economic stimulus for this country. The fact is, if I deducted 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, that’s what happens to me.

Here is what most people don’t understand and the press and our Government has chosen to ignore – to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Instead of raising my taxes and depositing that money into the Washington black-hole, let me spend it on growing the company, hire more employees, and generate substantial economic growth. My employees will enjoy the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But that is not what our current Government wants you to believe. They want you to believe that it somehow makes sense to take more from those who create wealth and give it to those who do not, and somehow our economy will improve. They don’t want you to know that the “1%”, as they like to label us, pay more than 31% of all the taxes in this country. Thomas Jefferson, the author of our great Constitution, once said, “democracy” will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate business, not kill it. However, the power brokers in Washington believe redistributing wealth is the essential driver of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change they want.

So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.

So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn’t? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job. While the media wants to tell you to believe the “1 percenters” are bad, I’m telling you they are not. They create most of the jobs. If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the “1%”; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country.

You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

Signed, your boss,

David Siegel

===========================================
I can totally understand how Mr. Siegel’s “motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed” if his only motivation has to do with his income. But what if his motivation has to do with making the lives of others better? What if that was, in fact, his prime motivation…not merely a secondary outcome? And that, my dears, is the difference between a person who is motivated by humanity’s Old Cultural Story and a person who is motivated by our New Cultural Story.

A person whose prime motivation is generated by The New Spirituality could probably find a way to keep his plant or his office open, and everyone there fully employed, and somehow get by on half of his multi-million-dollar-a-year income.

You think?

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan meet this Thursday at 9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific time for a 90-minute debate. Should anyone bother watching? If so, why?

Many people within the so-called New Thought Community appear to be scoffing at politics this election year in the United States, expressing little or no interest in hearing what the candidates for the highest offices in their country have to say about the issues of the day.

“They’re all just lying anyway,” one such observer was recently heard to say. “Nobody can actually tell the truth, and the whole game is rigged, so what’s the point of giving it any energy?” Of course, if you think that life is rigged against you, it is. And if you think that life is rigged in your favor, your experience will reflect that.

This is because like is rigged. It will show up for you pretty much as you expect it to. And when those expectations are held by, and spread across, an entire group, they have even more power in the lives of humans. As someone once said, “Wherever two or more are gathered…”

I do not hold the thought that everything that is happening in life on earth is the working of some system or cartel that is plotting against us. Do I think that too many vested interests control too much of the political and economic power on our planet? Yes. Do I think that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that anyone can do about it? No.

The people of Egypt have proven that. The people of Libya have proven that. In 1776 the people of the United States proved that. Can they prove that again? This remains to be seen. But part of the process is to take part in the process—however imperfect it may be.

Vernon Howard, the American spiritual teacher, author, and philosopher whose work created the New Life Foundation and who celebrated his Continuation Day 20 years ago, said, “You are slaves to whatever you don’t understand.” There is no question about the truth of that. And that is the best reason to have an interest in the debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden if you are a citizen of the United States.

Even if both men wind up skirting the truth, the Fact Checkers who have proliferated in abundance since the advent of the Internet will let us know this very quickly, and that alone will tell us something about them, about their positions—and about ours.

We can’t understand that to which we pay no attention at all, deciding in advance that we already know all there is to know. And we cannot change what we refuse to take part in.

Yes? Make sense?

Some people around the world have had their fears raised even further Monday with the announcement in Stockholm of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The prize has been awarded to John B. Gurdon of the University of Cambridge in England and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan for their years of work and ultimate discoveries leading to advances in cloning and stem cell manipulation.

In a news report of the story for the New York Times, Nicholas Wade, the paper’s science writer and editor, wrote that the techniques of both researchers “reach to the beginnings of life, and have generated objections from people who fear, on ethical or religious grounds, that scientists are pressing too far into nature’s mysteries and the ability to create life artificially”

This raises the question: Is there such a thing as “artificial life”? Because we simply define “artificial life” as Life which is created in a way that does not involve intercourse, does that make it really “artificial?” Or are we actually, as a species, finally learning about the true nature of Life, and is it our definitions, our beliefs, and our religions that are creating “understandings of life” that are artificial?

Dr. Gurdon, who is 79, and Dr. Yamanaka, who is 50, share the Nobel Prize in their field this year for pioneering work that they conducted 40 years apart. Their separate research led to “the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent,” according to the Nobel committee.

The term “pluripotent” refers to the ability of a living human body cell to differentiate into another type of living body cell. The work of the two researchers has shown that completely mature cells can be induced to turn back the clock of their own maturation process, returning to their original state as immature cells—meaning that they become cells that are once again undifferentiated, and can differentiate in any way. The discovery that living cells of the human organism are both reversible and reprogrammable is monumental.

The ability to reverse and reprogram cells in a laboratory suggests that cells of any human being can be extracted from the body, induced to reverse their life cycle, turned back into undifferentiated cells, then reprogrammed to differentiate, or form themselves, into healthy cells that could replace injured, diseased or dying cells in that person’s body.

In other words, illness—and even deathly illness—might well be able to be reversed, by using the body’s own cells, simply regenerated.

This implies that ultimately—when continuing research moves to the next step forward—a person could live forever, simply by replacing degenerating body cells with regenerated ones. This approach, already being seriously explored as a means of abating disease, is called Regenerative Medicine.

Now might be a good time to point out that Conversations with God made it clear, in a statement that drew scoffs and skepticism years ago, that life in the physical was meant to be eternal, lasting as long as any individual wished to inhabit a particular body, and that it has been the Free Will decisions and choices made by our species that has created behavioral (smoking, no exercise, etc.) and environmental (pollution, global warming, etc.) factors leading to our own short live spans.

In other words, says the New Spirituality, it doesn’t have to be this way. And now Science is proving it—and giving us the means to actually reverse our own previous bad decisions. Could it be that there is no such thing as “artificial” life, and that there is only Life? Could it be that how it forms itself out of Itself is the mystery that creates Eternal Life? Could it be that this mystery is now being solved? And should humanity fear this knowledge, or celebrate it?

When we know more and more about How God Works, is this a cause for sadness?

Some people are saying it’s the most vitriolic, attack-oriented, negativity-based political season they can ever remember.

The American presidential election, with its concurrent races for the country’s Senate and House of Representatives, has turned into a cesspool. Most (but not all) Americans are saddened by this, and wonder: “What has happened to a political process that we were once able to celebrate, and were proud to place before the world as a model for the entire planet?”

More important, perhaps, than what has happened or how, is what, if anything, can be done to save the situation. And not just to save one country’s interior decision-making process, but to save all of humanity from itself—for our entire species, from one corner of the globe to another, has failed to find a way to disagree agreeably.

And a poisoned political system is just one manifestation of that. At least (so far) people are not killing each other en masse in the U.S. to get their point across or their grievances heard. The same can’t be said in some other parts of the world, where there is no room—none whatsoever—for dissent of any kind, to say nothing of vitriolic denunciation of those who are or would be leaders.

What, then, could be the answer? Is there any antidote to humanity’s poisonous ways?

Yes. It is a New Spirituality that informs our politics. That is, a new set of sacred understandings that we hold about ourselves and about the purpose of life. And, of course, about God.

“Spirituality” is just a long six-syllable utterance for a two-syllable word: beliefs. Our highest and most sacred beliefs form the basis of our most critical and self-creative behaviors, and of our politics. A politics that do not arise out of our most sacred beliefs are bankrupt. Yet if you most sacred beliefs are themselves incompletely informed, what then? What we need is a new set of beliefs about everything: who we are, why we are here, and the best way to accomplish that. Our present understands and beliefs about God, about Life, and about each other arise out of religious doctrines that are incomplete.

Those beliefs hold that we human beings are separate from each other, and separate from God. We are not, those dogmas tell us, all The Same Thing. Yet the New Spirituality holds otherwise. “All things are One Thing,” it says. “There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing There Is.”

One source of that New Spirituality, a series of books titled Conversations with God, has placed a remarkable “dare” in front of all the world’s leaders. In the dialogue which comprises the books (from which the above statement emerges), every global political figure, every planetary spiritual or religious leader, every world business or economic trendsetter, and especially every teacher or professor in every classroom, is challenged to place a simple, astonishing 15-word message before those who turn to them for guidance:

We are all One. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

Those are 15 words that would change the world. Conversations with God calls them The New Gospel. Can the Pope say them? Can the highest Ulama utter them? Can the chief Rabbi speak them? Will the Archbishop of Canterbury? Will any president, prime minister, senator, member of parliament, or candidate for any such office, make this declaration?

How about you? Can you say them, in the midst of a disagreement you may be having with another?

Until and unless we all can, we will never remove the poison from our politics. For our politics are our lives, narrowly defined by greatly magnified. Yet the antidote is there; a healing formula is available. It is not a “secret formula.” It is widely known and widely available to all of us. We can mix up a batch in a jiffy. All it takes is a blending of the Soul, the Heart, and the Mind.

What could cause humanity to embrace this New Gospel? Do we have to be brought to our knees? Must we come right to the edge of our own extinction? Will we have to virtually self-destruct, as we are watching ourselves do in Syria and other places? Would even the threat of planetary (as opposed to regional) self-destruction be enough? Some people in America are asking that right now.

We must get clear as to who has the answer—and it is neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Romney.

It is you.

========================
(If you have an observation that you would like to offer specifically in the area of World News or Current Events from a New Spirituality point of view, we will be happy to consider it for publication here. This is your opportunity to Dialogue With The World on your ideas about what’s happening making headlines these days, within the context of The New Spirituality–and how you believe the second could one day affect the first. Please send submissions to Lisa McCormack, Managing Editor, at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com)