2012 and Paying the Price of Peace

First published September 16, 2009

All around us, the paradigms we've been using are falling apart, and new ones are emerging.  
 
1. Economics is probably the most obvious example. While the current economic perils have been forecasted by many, particularly those from the Austrian school of economics, even Austrians must acknowledge that this is the first crisis that is truly out of everyone's control -- including the Federal Reserve's. A somewhat new economic paradigm is needed.  
 
2. On the finance side of things, Fred Wilson has talked about valuation problems [32].  
 
3. Bill Burnham is correct when he asserts that accounting standards (GAAP) are completely broken [33].  
 
4. And that's just the business side of things. On the technology side, we have the much hyped singularity and things like open source software communities, which are changing technology life cycle and how new stuff gets invented and distributed.  
 
From a 2012 perspective, what's going on is that the confining structures of the world, which are all we know but are confining nonetheless, are coming to an end. The New World Order is working desperately to preserve and lock in those structures, but they are destined to fail.  
 
Once these structures collapse, something akin to a renaissance awaits us, as many if not most of those who are into the Mayan calendar will tell you. However, this will require a spiritual evolutionary leap for humans. The price of the renaissance is peace; we won't get it without getting global peace first. And so, when we ask ourselves what new paradigms we should look for, or how to create these new paradigms to replace the old ones falling apart, it may be useful to think of what type of new paradigm would require and enable peace. In monetary policy, for instance, the new paradigm that awaits us is one that will make war too expensive and hence economically unfeasible; the current monetary policy paradigm is just the opposite, it incentivizes war and debt (and so that's what we have, war and debt).