Not exactly, says British epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson.

For decades, Wilkinson has studied why some societies are healthier than others. He found that what the healthiest societies have in common is not that they have more—more income, more education, or more wealth—but that what they have is more equitably shared.

In fact, it turns out that not only disease, but a whole host of social problems ranging from mental illness to drug use are worse in unequal societies. In his latest book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, co-written with Kate Pickett, Wilkinson details the pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, encouraging excessive consumption.

The good news is that increased equality has the opposite effect: statistics show that communities without large gaps between rich and poor are more resilient and their members live longer, happier lives.

YES! Magazine web editor Brooke Jarvis sat down with Richard Wilkinson to discuss the surprising importance of equality—and the best ways to build it.

To read the interview, click here.

Martin Weiss PH. D. just ended an online video conference to brief investors on major events that could forever change their future.

His panel made nine new predictions to pinpoint, as accurately as possible, how and when that future is likely to unfold.

They showed how to build — or rebuild — an entire portfolio with a disciplined approach that gives you the specific percentages to put into each major asset class right now — stocks, gold, commodities, bonds, and currencies.

And unlike any of their prior events, they took questions from a live audience.

To read the transcript, click here

Ron Paul recently delivered the following remarks on the floor of Congress. His words reflect truth informing power, something few in Congress are willing to hear. His description of the Orwellian world we find ourselves living in, driven by greed and the lust for power, are reflections of dangerous old paradigm thinking that must give way one day to a world designed to work for everyone, not simply the few at the expense of the many. And while you may disagree with some of the specifics of his words, in times like these, it is wise to consider his overall message. And its not simply about politics but about changing the paradigms of every discipline and institution that have become the tools of special interests. In my forthcoming book, I will outline the inclusive new paradigm world that can work for all of humanity. In the meantime, Paul’s words are a reminder of just where we are in sharp contrast to where we are told we are.

“Could it all be a bad dream or a nightmare? Is it my imagination or have we lost our mind? It’s surreal. It’s just not believable. A grand absurdity. A great deception. A delusion of momentous proportions. Based on preposterous notions and ideas whose time never should have come, Simplicity grossly distorted and complicated. Insanity passed off as logic. Grandiose schemes built on falsehoods with the morality of Ponzi and Madoff. Evil described as virtue. Ignorance pawned off as intelligence. Destruction and impoverishment in the name of humanitarianism. Violence the tool of change. Preventive wars used as a road to peace. Tolerance delivered by government guns. Reactionary views in the guise of progress. An empire replacing the republic. Slavery sold as liberty. Excellence and virtue traded for mediocracy. Socialism to save capitalism. A government out of control unrestrained by the Constitution, the rule of law or morality. Bickering over petty politics into chaos. The philosophy that destroys us is not even defined.

We have broken from reality. A psychotic nation. Ignorance with a pretense of knowledge replacing wisdom. Money does not grow on trees or a government printing press escalating deficits. We’re now in the midst of unlimited spending of the people’s money. Exorbitant taxation. Deficits of trillions of dollars spent on a failed welfare warfare system. An epidemic of cronyism. Unlimited supplies of paper money equated with wealth. A central bank that deliberately destroys the value of the currency in secrecy without restraint or nary a whimper.

Yet cheered on by the pseudo-capitalists of Wall Street, the military industrial complex and Detroit, we police the world with 700 bases in 130 countries around the world. A dangerous war now spreads throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Thousands of innocent people being killed as we become known as the torturers of the 21st century. We assume by keeping the torture pictures form the public’s eye, we will be remembered as a generous and good people. If our enemies want to attack us only because we are free and rich, proof of torture would be irrelevant. The sad part of all this is that we have forgotten what made America great, good and prosperous. We need to quickly refresh our memories and once again reinvigorate our love, understanding and confidence in liberty. The status-quo cannot be maintained considering the current conditions. Violence and lost liberty will continue without some revolutionary thinking. We must escape from the madness of crowds now gathering.

The good news is the reversal is achievable through peaceful and intellectual means and fortunately, the numbers of those who care are growing exponentially. Of course it could all be a bad dream, a nightmare and that I’m seriously mistaken, overreacting and that my worries are unfounded. I hope so, but just in case, we ought to prepare ourselves for revolutionary changes in the not too distant future. “

In Web of Debt, Ellen Brown delivers a probing account of the never ending debt being created on our behalf, who really benefits, explores how we came to give our power to print money away and how we can get it back. This is new paradigm writing at its finest. Here is one piece of Ellen’s writing that provides a glimpse into a brilliant mind and caring heart in service to humanity.

From the Introduction:

Money in the Land of Oz

If governments everywhere are in debt, who are they in debt to? The answer is that they are in debt to private banks. The “cruel hoax” is that governments are in debt for money created on a computer screen, money they could have created themselves. The vast power acquired through this sleight of hand by a small clique of men pulling the strings of government behind the scenes evokes images from The Wizard of Oz, a classic American fairytale that has become a rich source of imagery for financial commentators. Editorialist Christopher Mark wrote in a series called “The Grand Deception”:

Welcome to the world of the International Banker, who like the famous film, The Wizard of Oz, stands behind the curtain of orchestrated national and international policymakers and so-called elected leaders. 10
The late Murray Rothbard, an economist of the classical Austrian School, wrote:

Money and banking have been made to appear as mysterious and arcane processes that must be guided and operated by a technocratic elite. They are nothing of the sort. In money, even more than the rest of our affairs, we have been tricked by a malignant Wizard of Oz.

In a 2002 article titled “Who Controls the Federal Reserve System?”, Victor Thorn wrote:

In essence, money has become nothing more than illusion — an electronic figure or amount on a computer screen. . . . As time goes on, we have an increasing tendency toward being sucked into this Wizard of Oz vortex of unreality [by] magician-priests that use the illusion of money as their control device.

James Galbraith wrote in The New American Prospect:

We are left . . . with the thought that the Federal Reserve Board does not know what it is doing. This is the “Wizard of Oz” theory, in which we pull away the curtains only to find an old man with a wrinkled face, playing with lights and loudspeakers.13
The analogies to The Wizard of Oz work for a reason. According to later commentators, the tale was actually written as a monetary allegory, at a time when the “money question” was a key issue in American politics. In the 1890s, politicians were still hotly debating who should create the nation’s money and what it should consist of. Should it be created by the government, with full accountability to the people? Or should it be created by private banks behind closed doors, for the banks’ own private ends?

William Jennings Bryan, the Populist candidate for President in 1896 and again in 1900, mounted the last serious challenge to the right of private bankers to create the national money supply. According to the commentators, Bryan was represented in Frank Baum’s 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by the Cowardly Lion. The Lion finally proved he was the King of Beasts by decapitating a giant spider that was terrorizing everyone in the forest. The giant spider Bryan challenged at the turn of the twentieth century was the Morgan/Rockefeller banking cartel, which was bent on usurping the power to create the nation’s money from the people and their representative government.

To read the full Introduction and order a copy of this powerful expose, visit Ellen’s site.

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Brown developed an interest in the developing world and its problems while living abroad for eleven years in Kenya, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. She returned to practicing law when she was asked to join the legal team of a popular Tijuana healer with an innovative cancer therapy, who was targeted by the chemotherapy industry in the 1990s. That experience produced her book Forbidden Medicine, which traces the suppression of natural health treatments to the same corrupting influences that have captured the money system. Brown’s eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000 copies.

A new friend just sent me a link to the following video that first appeared on the Huffington Post site and which I hope may be the start of the greatest populist movement in history. Rewarding banks for their thievery, reckless conduct and paying bonuses to these incompetent executive bankers is a slap in the face to taxpayers. “What can we do?” has been the burning question. The answer is simple…move your money from the big banks to local community banks. Watch the video and, if it makes sense to you, open an account at your local community bank on Monday morning and transfer your money. If you don’t know the name of the bank, go to the Move Your Money site shown at the end of the video and enter your zip code and you’ll see a list of your community banks.

In just 4 days since its posting on You Tube 225,000 people have watched this video. Let’s hope many of them will open community bank accounts in the next few days and this movement will snowball. Please consider forwarding a link to this page to your friends, family and business associates and become part of a transfer of wealth that will impact large banks in the only place they fear, in their pockets.