I would like to thank Marshall Thurber and The Positive Deviant Network (the PDN) for the space they have provided for this blog. I am by nature not socially inclined and I have consciously circumscribed my contact with others.

After 63 years on this planet, I have a close and extraordinary set of friends and am wary of more. Marshall’s experiment with the PDN however brought me into a unique circle which has added much to my life.

This blog and my published writings would not now exist were it not for the PDN. So, Marshall, thank you again for all your friendship has given me since we first met in law school in 1966.

My first blog will offer a talk I delivered to the PDN in February 2008. The previous year I gave my analysis of the coming economic crisis to the PDN on March 1, 2007 and subsequent events have confirmed what I then predicted—the US and global economy are now moving towards an extreme financial crisis.

This year at the February gathering of the PDN, I spoke about the context of this and the many crises and shocks that will follow—economic, political, ecological, and spiritual. Why are these crises happening and why are we here now?

Life is whole cloth. Events, time, and space are not discontinuous, notwithstanding appearances. The present economic crisis has meaning for us beyond the issues of money and the reasons usually given.

Here is the speech that discusses the reasons for these crises (in four parts):

Part 1/4:

Part 2/4:

Part 3/4:

Part 4/4:

Click here to download the MP3.