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The Solari Report – 22 Jan 2009
Michael Corleone: “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.”
Kay Adams: “Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.”
Michael Corleone: “Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?”
— The Godfather, Part I
A true family is a group of people who invest in each other’s skills and future. Within such a family, no person is expendable.
Throughout history, financial wealth has been organized around families. Many of the powerful institutions in our society, in fact, represent intergenerational pools of capital -– for example, the Bechtel Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Glenmede Trust Company
If we are to build a strong economy, it will be made up of strong families. Either families in the traditional sense, or families that we create. Many of us are members of families that, like the Corleone family in The Godfather series, have been torn apart by the manipulation of our ambition, greed, and naivete by powerful financial and business interests. Husbands and wives are turned against one another. Children and parents disappoint each other and grow apart. Sibling rivalry threatens family interests.
Most of us assume that The Godfather films — Part I, Part II, Part III — are movies about an organized crime family. The reality is that we all live inside The Godfather’s world. The Godfather series has much to teach us about navigating in our current environment:
- The double-binds that families and businesses face in the real economy
- The stresses that this places on marriages and children
- How we can reduce the risk of being manipulated and turned against one another
- The important role played by churches, foundations and tax-exempt organizations in controlling and managing intergenerational wealth
- The interconnectedness of street crime to the board rooms of global corporations to the financial markets that trade their securities
In this week’s Solari Report our focus is on “Let’s Go to the Movies.” I have prepared a special report on how The Godfather series can help you understand the risks you and your family manage today and what this means to building real wealth in your household and business.
Note: Solari Report subscribers can now listen to Catherine’s discussion of this topic via MP3 recording. You can subscribe monthly or annually here.
Resources:
Michael:
You are welcome.
You said: “Most of my help is coming from those with strange/deep military experience. (‘Knuckledraggers’)”
I have never heard that word. I will check it up. I have also had help from this quarter. Some of the finest, most generous and most under-appreciated people in our country come from this category.
Catherine
Catherine,
Oh wow. To be clear I am not saying that I understand all you just said above. I do know it ‘jives’ with me. I also know the concepts here are to a great extent beyond words.
You stated, (quote), “…There is a perspective…”. I agree and feel I am on my way, perhaps even firmly on my way, to it. This takes ‘tempering’. The very 3-D mechanics of that ‘tempering’ from whence we get the concept into psychology is not understood. You place a blade from the greatest heat to the greatest cold over and over. You are not doing the same thing again and again with each transfer. From the furnace to the ice-water, from the furnace to the ice-water…, again and again but each time is ENTIRELY different. I have seen a Civil War saber, very sharp, be able to bend so far that the tip nearly touched the handle. (Of course took a strong guy!) Still from physical ‘tempering’ it is so seeming strange that what makes the sharpest edge also makes it the most bendable/malleable/adjusting.
You also stated, “…An advantage is taking the time to map out how all the time and money works. That means living through a great deal of betrayal and not taking it personally…”. Boy, do I understand. It was my ‘mapping knowledge’ that put me suddenly in a dangerous game way above my head/emotional-maturity. I lived through very many betrayals taking them personally and undergoing great pain and leading to more errors. Slowly. Meaning a ‘slow’ slowly…., very slowly…., I started to get beyond, at least a bit, taking betrayal personally and experience it as more of a natural process. I could say this transfer is what I am undergoing now. Most of my help is coming from those with strange/deep military experience. (‘Knuckledraggers’)
Now I am seeing your ‘perspective’ concept. It is getting out of yourself, seeing yourself as almost something else…, not ‘personally/egoly’. (Well, still a better word than egoish, lol.)
Your next sentence was, (quote), “…I had someone with a history in CIA covert operations tell me once about the hard times in this process….”It is like a wave…just let it roll over you.” That was some of the best advice I ever had. If you can simply grow through things, you can learn much.” (unquote)
Yes, instead of swimming in the wave I would get angry at it and waste my energy trying to ‘hit it back’ for being a wave.
Yes, now more I am able to accept my own death and feel more purpose for the breaths I have left. And also more and more I see that ‘power of’ is so much more than ‘power over’. In fact it is here that the thesis is confused with the antithesis. ‘Power of’ and power over’ are more opposites than just ‘different directions’.
I could see you had this perspective early in the way you described cab drivers and elevator operators drawn to helping you. I had a bit of that too but late, not early like you.
Catherine, thank you ever so much for this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_sea_shipping
Catherine..
Not to sound stupid..but what is Short-sea? I have never heard of it. You recommend any worthwhile and credible works regarding geopolitics? My powers of deduction..let’s say are..un-developed. Just putting a historical time line on the “evolution” of the American way of life could entail a masters degree in American and World Economic History. But you have ridden, should I say, are riding the tiger. Do you not fear for your life? Or is your voice so dim, “they” have no fear enough to martyr you.
The Solari principle is to me a matter of getting back to basics. I am through with ersatz sophisticates. By the way, if you happen to know any women who are interested in putting the Solari Index to the test, you could forward my email addy to them. 😉 Just kidding. It is hard to assess blame for the mess in which we find ourselves as convoluted as it all is. Just pick a headline, if the mortage crisis isnt enough. Simplicity really is a virtue. Moms and Dad, brother and sisters, Aunts and Uncles…basics. Most of us are pretty darn average.
Lots of commentators seem to think its about money citing the scads of counterfeit dollars being printed then coming up unaccounted for. Trouble is, most of them don’t believe its counterfeit. In my view, its about power. Remember Jesus’ famished after a 40 day fast in conversation with you know who? 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Remember principalities and powers? Oppression..coming home to roost in the middle class? We will have much to learn from our black brothers and sisters.
The old saw, hindsight has 20-20 vision, so true. I wish I had bought 10 acres when I was a young man. You know where I am going with that.
That’s an easy leap for believer, huh. But for hard nosed pragmatists, the end justifies the means. The whole worldly scenario is just one nest of tangled and knotted twine. Its enough to drive one to become a survivalist.
Chuck Colson has a new book out. Wouldn’t he be close enough to the machinations of government to be aware what you are speaking? What I am getting at is, aren’t there others like yourself either in or out of government so angry they would be writing the truth?
Sorry for rambling.
God bless you.
IHS
Timothy
Ok, this wasn’t the greatest movie, so many people probably didn’t see it nor did they miss much, at least in the way of entertainment. But, everyone who missed it DID miss some very important potential clues as to what our ruling masters really are capable of doing. I am talking about the latest 2008 Incredible Hulk with Liv Tyler and Ed Norton. Here are some incredibly key points I think it conveys:
– the ability of our govt. to track vast amounts of data through the Internet to pinpoint our location and build a personal profile on each one of us in a matter of seconds (b/c of our willingness to use credit cards, enter frequent shopper programs, use devices with GPS, etc. etc.)
– highlights the very real attempts at building a Super Soldier and likely abuse and violation of all sorts of human rights
– presents the idea of the government “owning” people, if they participated in any way, shape or form in some mad experiment
– it presents a brilliant scientist helping the army by offering his great intellect without moral obligation to its potential MUCH greater negative ramifications (not Banner, but the character who has studied the Hulk and failed to re-create him)
and of course, there’s always the name of the super-soldier creature generated to battle the Hulk in the end…the Abomination. not to be confused with our REAL modern day Obama-nation.
Anyway, something to consider for upcoming “Let’s Go To The Movies”.
Keep up the great shows. Very informative and inspiring. They make us feel a little less “on our own”.
in the rainforest, there are a trillion trillion subdivisions of the simple thing water. on this blog there a trillion trillion different ways money/ideas subdivide. is there an advantage here?
no.
Michael
I don’t know if there is such a thing as a handbook.
There is a perspective. I would say the most valuable training was being raised by an African-American woman and finding deep roots in that culture. This included growing as a Christian and training in Spiritual Warfare with Christians with great faith and a deep understanding of both evil and “the system.”
An advantage is taking the time to map out how all the time and money works. That means living through a great deal of betrayal and not taking it personally. I had someone with a history in CIA covert operations tell me once about the hard times in this process….”It is like a wave…just let it roll over you.” That was some of the best advice I ever had. If you can simply grow through things, you can learn much.
Ultimately, it helps to have a purpose and to understand that death is not the worse thing that can happen. Power is something that comes from within. It is a perspective. I have always had it. Perhaps there is such a thing as genetic memory or reincarnation.
As to the Godfather, I grew up in Philadelphia and had respect for the Italian mafia. Things are indeed more complicated than they seem.
Catherine