Is Raj Patel Maitreya?

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 07 February 2010 02:44PM CST

Section: Spirituality

MaitreyaMost Buddhists believe in the prophecy of Maitreya as a bodhisattva who will descend from Tusita (the closest Christian analogy is heaven) to Earth, become enlightened, and teach the pure Dharma. Maitreya is believed to incarnate after the teachings of Gautama (Dharma) have been forgotten. Instead of entering nirvana, Maitreya remains embodied so he or she can help and teach the rest of us in the building of a new world. The arrival of Maitreya marks the end of what Buddhists call the middle time, a low point of human existence on Earth.

Although Maitreya, arguably, originated with Buddhist thought, other spiritual movements and religions—including Islam, Zoroastrianism, Bahai, theosophy, the ascended master teachings, and others—have adopted the concept.

Throughout recorded history, individuals have claimed to be Maitreya, usually to form a minor Buddhist sect or cult.

One of the modern followings, Share International—an outgrowth of theosophy—believes Maitreya fulfills the prophecies of most major religions: Christianity (the second coming of Christ); Hinduism (the Kalki avatar of Vishnu); Islam (the Imam Mahdi); Judaism (the Jewish Messiah). Benjamin Creme, the originator of Share International, and his followers believe that Maitreya was embodied in the Himalayas and moved to London in 1977 and then to the US, emerging gradually so as not to impede free will. Largely as a reaction to Creme’s activities, the evangelical Christians (mostly in the US) claim Maitreya to be the Antichrist. Ironically, Creme and his followers do not claim Maitreya as a religious leader; only that Maitreya will unite the global population to reorder social priorities, making food, housing, education, and medical care universal human rights.

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SEC may finally investigate role of Goldman Sachs in US mortgage market collapse

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 07 February 2010 09:42AM CST

Section: Business

Epic failAfter years of doing absolutely nothing, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears to finally be investigating the role Goldman Sachs played in the failure of American International Group (AIG) and the collapse of the US mortgage market. Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story report for the New York Times that AIG had already covered Goldman’s insured losses by January 2008. The insurance giant suspected it had overpaid on Goldman’s claims and wanted some of its money back, “insisting that Goldman—like a homeowner overestimating the damages in a storm to get a bigger insurance payment—had inflated the potential losses,” write Morgenson and Story. Goldman, for its part, wanted even more money all the while “resisting consulting with third parties to help estimate a value for the securities,” Morgenson and Story report.

In addition to the billions it received from AIG, Goldman also soaked the US taxpayers to the tune of US$12.9 billion.

You know the rest of the story: AIG bailed out Goldman and the US taxpayers bailed out AIG to the current tune of US$180 billion, with no guarantee that’s the end of it.

The SEC reportedly wants to know whether the demands of Goldman and other Wall Street firms “improperly distressed” the already flailing mortgage market. What’s not in doubt is that in 2006 Goldman began to make enormous bets that the US mortgage market would fail. As the mortgage market imploded, Goldman’s profits soared. It’s not inconceivable that Goldman would undervalue the securities in dispute with AIG. After all, the lower the securities were valued, the higher Goldman’s profits. Independent reports—if there is such a thing on Wall Street—indicate Goldman consistently valued the securities at prices lower than third parties, according to Morgenson and Story.

This is not to say that AIG is blameless in this fiasco. As Morgenson and Story report, AIG gambled heavily by writing more insurance than it could have ever possibly covered. More importantly, “without the insurer to provide credit insurance, the investment bank could not have generated some of its enormous profits betting against the mortgage market,” write Morgenson and Story.

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Rethinking Apple’s iPad

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 31 January 2010 12:09PM CST

Section: Technology

Steve JobsEither Steve Jobs has so finely tuned his infamous reality distortion field (RDF) that it’s now capable of delayed affect or one of the most important pieces of Apple’s iPad introduction completely evaded me. Either way, I’ve come to partially rethink my position on the iPad.

Late yesterday I learned that Seattle-based Omni Group—the company that makes three pieces of software I live in every day: OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and OmniPlan—has intentions to make iPad versions of its software. Most importantly, company chief executive Ken Case wrote that Omni has already started work on an iPad adaptation of OmniGraffle and is putting its work on OmniGraffle 6 for the Mac on hold. I’m not real happy about the Mac version being put on hold, but I learned a long time ago to try to ride the horse in the direction it’s going.

The importance that the bulk of Omni’s team came out of the University of Washington—an institution with one of the historically best human interface labs on the planet—can’t be understated.

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