Can't Afford to Live - the rise of the New Kingdoms
While governments across the world have been sleeping a takeover of that most precious commodity, real estate, has been taking place, thanks to corporate and business interests who now constitute the New Nobility in the New Kingdoms -and these kingdoms are not just found in capital cities -but also in smaller cities and in great numbers
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| severely unaffordable -from CNBC article |
Governments of course are conscious of the influx because they are alert to incoming finance and the in-flow to local economies -but effectively they are asleep at the wheel when it comes to preserving socio-economic conditions that enhance a balanced society.
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Can't Afford to Live as a creeping condition across the globe speaks of a gross imbalance that positions money as the only factor under consideration. Can't Afford to Live means people increasingly having to relocate out of known environments, abandoning employment, losing social and family contexts in which they have lived their lives. Masses of people unable to continue meeting ever climbing costs -not only in the real estate sector -whether buying, leasing or renting - but also including local taxes, transport costs, food costs - the overall general cost of living becoming increasingly unmanageable in proportion to income in a way that has not been seen in recent history in first world nations outside of periods of economic depression.
The consequence of such major socio-economic re-positioning is that whole sectors of society operating on low or fixed incomes - the working poor, the unemployed, the ill, disabled, many in the creative arts, temporary workers, part-time workers are pushed to the fringes, out of cities, out of sight.
This is so reminiscent of life in the Medieval Period -unsurprisingly Game of Thrones and similar era dramas are part of contemporary popular culture. The hierarchy from royals down to peasants operated similarly to a caste system [still existing in India]
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| sourced from Finer Times
It seems in the new millennium life is edging close and closer to the Old World model. More than 30 million people are entrapped in slavery -despite it being illegal - and it is now more profitable than ever due to the prevalence of people engaged in the sexual slavery of women and children.
Essentially it is a battle between governments and corporates that has to be fought -rather than governments being bought - if there is to be any reversal of the very ugly trends that are gaining a foothold.
As an observing astrologer the writing on the wall translates into considering the contemporary influences which correspond with energies of power and control.
The usual suspects in this category are the planets Pluto and Saturn and their corresponding zodiac expressions Scorpio and Capricorn.
Since 2008 the energy we call Pluto has been expressed in the areas of life related to the energy of Capricorn.
Pluto is a slow, deep acting force which brings about change at the most fundamental level - often through sheer annihilation - then something new has to arise from the remnants.
Pluto stays in Capricorn until 2024 -so we are past the half-way point but much more is to come before this process of Capricornian change is even clear to the everyday person.
Capricorn
The ideal function of Capricornian energy in a family is the presence of a functional adult provider-father figure, mentoring, supporting wife and family in their well-being and outer-wordly successes.
Government was formed using this template: to manage the well-being and outer-wordly success of citizens en masse through laws and regulations that allow for adequate standard of living -such as food provisions, housing and work being available or achievable - as well as being responsible for all of the critical infrastructure - roads, sanitation, banking etc - all of which enables citizens to operate happily and effectively in their environment.
Capricorn at its best is protective, supportive, responsible, careful, prudent, sensible and nurturing in that fatherly way where the task of looking after is accepted as a decent duty to society.
Somewhere along the road in recent decades Capricorn lost its way - at a fork in the road the energy split in such a way that the positive purpose of Capricorn got lost. Most likely after the loosening up period of the sixties.
Unleashed from the controlling atmosphere of societal disapproval more and more fathers became happier leaving the children of their unions for their mother to raise alone. Seeds were sown for the breakdown of the traditional structure of the family.
Economic changes then tightened the squeeze on many families so earning enough on one wage became too difficult -so even when parents remained together their absence from the home led to children growing up unraised .
The two processes of change - one within the family and one in outer society involving economic management under successive governments - have steadily eroded the conditions in personal family life and in the degree to which nations are being managed effectively in order to support and nurture citizens in general.
Imbalance is the most relevant keyword here -families in contemporary city life are experiencing a type of imbalance in Capricorn energy - a deficit -where nurturing and support, time and engagement or connection have been replaced by either an abandonment of responsibility, a hands-off, possibly liberal or leave-them-to-it approach regarding the task of child-rearing [increasing calls for schools to do the work of parents is one example] - or swinging between the extremes -resorting to excessive control, restriction, punishment - the tough parent mode, struggling to manage a situation that has lost its focus.
Parents are not meant to be friends or jailers of their children. Their roles are providers, nurturers, guides and helpers -within a structured context of clear boundaries and consequences.
Society equally enters meltdown when governments and local authorities fail to recognise their reason for existence.
Both the private and societal domains of Capricorn lost their way due to the lure or pressure of money.
Capricorn is a worrying energy, keenly aware of security -and threats to that wellbeing. Anxiety about survival, the future, financial pressures is just as much a part of the picture leading to the double-income family as it is to the reason why the governments-as-business model of operation has become the norm ahead of government-as-social-agency.
As soon as business ethics began to permeate the operation of governments -not purely for efficiency - but eventually for cost-saving and profit the distortion of fundamental Capricornian values was underway.
Under the business model of government people are spreadsheet data.
A very cut-throat energy is inherent in this model - and accordingly social services like hospitals and welfare are readily scaled back, standards degraded, benefits reduced. This is tough-love Capricorn. User-pays. You're on your own..irrespective of your condition..survival of the fittest.
Austerity is a key tough-love Capricornian ethic. And protests in different nations have been sustained in recent years over harsh government policies aimed at distancing the State from the wellbeing of its citizens.
Yes we, globally, as a species, in this era, are only halfway through this process of getting back to sanity regarding the fundamentals of human existence.
At the start of 2018 another player enters the arena.
The planet Saturn..effectively the boss of Capricorn,...meaning the planet energy is the source of what is delivered through Capricorn people or representations such as government business, corporations.
Saturn is a faster mover than Pluto and has a 3 year period to do its thing in the sign that applies during its location along its orbital path.
And very late in 2017 Saturn entered Capricorn -effectively a double-whammy period till late 2020 when the best of Capricorn can arise out of the debris and destruction created by Pluto in Capricorn.
In some ways in some contexts Pluto since 2008 has wrecked families, wrecked communities and wrecked whole societies or nations. Did anyone say America ?
The dismembered parts lay all around, the ash and the artefacts...but Pluto and Saturn are both rebuilders and with Saturn now energising this drama this pair of power players can effectively work together to undo so much of the mess and annihilation.
At its best the Saturn in Capricorn era puts in place guidelines, regulations, laws which are protective which serve the common good, which pull people back into line where they have strayed off course, which support and nurture people until they learn enough self-management to be able to detach from the trainer wheels.
The same conditions are set to be applied in family life as well as in the territories of local and state governments regarding how their jurisdictions are managed to better reflect more functional and balanced communities.
Saturn fully leaves Capricorn at the end of 2020 and by then the clawing back of authority and control over business and corporate factions should be evident.
Already calls have arisen for megacorps to pay their fair share of taxes and this aspect is highly consistent with Saturn & Capricorn at work - regulating businesses in a fair and collectively beneficial manner instead of those giants being left to call the shots.
The new business "disruptors" like Airbnb and Uber have in many contexts been able to come like cowboys into the Wild West - on the one hand providing competitive services but at the same time causing many flow-on issues - like no accommodation left for locals wanting to live in Barcelona - and the huge number of infuriatingly unskilled drivers operating a taxi service.
Not playing by the rules is one of the complaints lodged against both companies and under current influences the landscape could become more challenging for any "wild-child" companies who are in it just for the buck.
Scorpio is noted for its link to Pluto -the natural zodiac expression of Pluto's energies. During most of 2018 Scorpio -which carries Pluto's themes of power and control - will be expressed courtesy of the super-sized planet Jupiter.
With Jupiter in Scorpio until early November 2018 some people will experience a big power surge. or great sense of empowerment .
[Jupiter had just entered Scorpio and was effective for Jacinda Ardern -marking her rapid ascendancy to Prime Minister of New Zealand in October 2017 ]
This combination of Pluto Saturn and Jupiter - all about power and control -some of that in public arenas, some inside private lives - is already visible by mid January 2018-so the shift in energy has been Fast -from hidden to exposed -in great numbers in a short time frame.
The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements arose out of abuse of power and the time being right to call that out. One aspect of power is money and another is obviously sex. The physical or bodily use of power to control and assault another person sexually -often with financial/or employment -related coercion - has had global coverage -amidst some backlash from those still mentally linked to a primordial era.
Time literally is up on this type of behaviour now that these 3 planets are working in synergy to call out the behaviour, confront and disempower the abusers.
This process empowers people who may have seen themselves mainly as victims. The fact that it has historically been predominantly men abusing their power primarily over women says a lot about a collective power shift going on changing the landscape in gender politics - and this is the work of the slow moving energy of Pluto -so expect more to come.
Abusing others physically or sexually reveals a lack of clear comprehension of personal space as well as what is appropriate and what isn't. The need to learn boundaries as adults is essential for all of us who did not have that awareness instilled by proper parenting. It used to be called self-control or good manners or being polite.
Saturn and Capricorn give us the signals to learn all of these values which are fundamental to self-management -even if just by observing the heights from which we can fall when we get it terribly wrong.
So even being an abuser has links back to this Capricorn story of how families are intended to prepare us to be decent humans -and if the processes don't happen then the risk factors increase for us unformed people and whoever we try and engage with.
The lack of boundaries also permeates thinking in the corporate and business sector due to their fantasy of perpetual growth. In the body that's called cancer and it threatens to kill the host.
The gross imbalances adhered to by the big players in their pursuit of ever-increasing profits -such as the Bad Daddy conduct of hiring near slave labour in emerging economies to produce luxury goods and increase company revenue. Giving Back is the ethic that big business can adopt to restore balance.
Governments, corporates and big business can redeem themselves by completely rethinking their model of operation so that they operate in keeping with the best Capricornian principles -not simply the most self-protective and financially ambitious - adopting Good Daddy policies such as sharing the space with the whole community family - instead of pricing people out of town.
The private model is Dads who have a Den or Man Cave or Garage that's their own extra space show their dominance expressed in occupying or controlling more of the family real estate than anyone else.
Occupying real estate takes us back to the New Kingdoms which have increasingly been in development across the world's cities - occupying meaning those with control over land and values to such a degree that governments have so far been unable or too entangled with business to curb the process of transformation from much more egalitarian communities into much more elitist, privileged and wealthy residents contrasted with many more strugglers and the rise of beggars in the first world.
Under Saturn and Pluto influences particularly over the period until 2020 the opportunity arises for governments - as well as families in their private sphere - to take back control and restore balance and for corporates to reclaim their humanity.
Failing that much greater social disintegration is likely to be evident and conditions more extreme until the necessary corrections are made to reflect the essence of benign Capricorn as essential to our shared existence.
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