Whose Hard-earned Money?

Government of the People, for the People, by the People

Fools Elected by Fools Hansadutta das

And then the Americans came. How did they come? “Oh, you should have democracy. You can vote.” Vote for what? [laughing] Two men are running for office, and ten million people are voting. So what is the big choice? Both of them are rogues. [laughter] Fool’s paradise. The people are foolish, and they are given the right to vote. “You vote.” So amongst all the fools, they select one grand fool. more

HANSADUTTA: Bhima was telling me about his great grandfather, who went to Bali. And what they would do, they would put trinkets—

BHIMA: Cloth, shoes, beads—

HANSADUTTA: They laid it on the beach, and then the natives would come. They thought that the gods had brought it. They would take it back, and in exchange, they would leave what they thought was their valuables—rhinoceros horns, whatever. But they were actually valuable things. The same thing the British did when they came to America. They gave Indians beads and trinkets and in this way bought off the land. In the same way, video machines, tape recorders, computers ... all these so-called modern commodities, amenities such as washing machines and fax are the same thing. It has no real value.

SITHU: Because we don't know what the soul is.

HANSADUTTA: Right, you don't realise you have such a precious commodity in yourself, but you have sold it for a few trinkets. That's really what's happening. You have to graphically throw attention to what's really happening. I mean, what are people getting? Like Krishna Lila said, he's got a flat, and he can sell it for a hundred thousand. I said, "Wow," but he can't get the money. The money has to go to the CPF. So it doesn't mean anything. It's meaningless.

SITHU: It's a kind of security for Singaporeans, they can get the money out.

BHIMA: No, only when you pass a certain age.

SITHU: Really?

VRINDARANYA: You cannot take it out. Let's say you migrate, then they don't allow you to take it out.

BHIMA: They won't allow you to come back.

VRINDARANYA: He'd have to wait for quite some time before they would give him the money for his flat, and then if he were to migrate and didn't want to stay here, he'd have to wait to get the money.

HANSADUTTA: How long? Five years?

VRINDARANYA: You have to wait until you're 55 years old.

HANSADUTTA: [laughing] Then there's nothing to spend the money on, because you're too old to enjoy.

VRINDARANYA: That's why the Malaysians got so upset. They said, "Why we have to wait until we are 55? They didn't want the money—

HANSADUTTA: They don't want what?

VRINDARANYA: They don't want this money kept for them, because they are foreigners, they come here and work. After they work, the government will keep some money for them, and when they are 55 years old, they can come back and collect that money.

SITHU: But this is cheating, isn't it? I mean, people are putting their trust and money in the hands of government, and government is giving them to believe that it's for their own good, that government is looking after them.

HANSADUTTA: They all do. Roosevelt said, "A chicken in every pot." Everybody... the people in general are foolish. That's why they're the people in general. And then the foolish people are fooled again. They say, "Okay, you can have the right to vote, so you elect any leader that you like." The foolish people elect a foolish leader, and he cheats them. And then they think, "Oh, he cheated us. We have the right to throw him out, and we'll get another leader." But this process never stops. It's perpetual.

SITHU: This is like a whole big scam that they promise you something that you look forward to, not that you have lost your money, but they are holding it, and you are dependent upon that.

HANSADUTTA: By the way, that's one of the qualities of Kali-yuga—becoming overly dependent on other's mercy, which demoralizes a man. It's not healthy at all. The only people that are dependent are the shudras. Shudras are dependent on the brahmanas, kshatriyas and vaishyas. They assist them, and in exchange they are maintained with food and clothing. But here they create the illusion that you are the master, that you are earning so much money so that you can buy a flat. But actually, everything is controlled by them. You have no... it's just like "If you don't buy the flat, then you're out on the street, and if you're out on the street, then you're in trouble. And if you buy the flat, you can only sell it according to our direction. And if there's a profit, well, we also have to determine what to do with that." But people don't see. They're bewildered.

SITHU: I thought it's like stealing.

HANSADUTTA: Most people can't see it.

SITHU: But if you don't want to pay your CPF, then you don't get your old age security.

VRINDARANYA: That's why it's better to be a full-time devotee. You save all the trouble. I don't have to pay CPF, nothing. I just do my service for Krishna, and then there is five hundred dollars there because I was in the Army. [laughter]

BHIMA: Depend on Krishna, rather than depend on CPF.

HANSADUTTA: By the time you're 55, you're so worn out, you can't do anything with that money anyway. Besides, that money will be worthless.

BHIMA: They don't give it to you in one lump sum. They give it to you in small installments.

SITHU: Installments! [laughing]

HANSADUTTA: Well, see, what's happening is... they had the same thing in America. It wasn't exactly compulsory there, but most people did it because it sounded so good. It's called social security. So these people have paid social security for twenty, thirty, forty years, right? But in the meantime, as this time elapsed and they came to that age (65 there), that money which they saved... Calculating at the age of 20, when they began, that at the age of 65 they will have x amount of dollars—but inflation from that point to this point was so great that by the time you get it, it's not enough to live on even.

SITHU: Cheated.

HANSADUTTA: So they just scammed them. Meanwhile, they have used the money, invested it and re-invested it a hundred times, and by the time you come to that age and you get that money, you cannot live on that money. It's not enough. It's just not enough to live on.

BHIMA: Three months ago, I heard on the BBC about the Russian situation. A soldier had spent his whole life working, and when he comes out and tries to find a place, he couldn't find a place. And he wanted to buy a suit. And his whole savings... I don't know how many thousand—23 thousand rubles—he couldn't even buy a good suit today. A suit! His whole life savings. And he was immediately finished.

HANSADUTTA: There was a political cartoon in one of the newspapers. The Russian housewife and the worker man. He just came home and was sitting down to a bowl of soup, and he was eating the soup. And he was saying to her, "Is this what you bought with our hard-earned rubles?" And she replied, "Those are the rubles." [laughter] In Germany—my father used to tell this story—in Germany, after the war, inflation was so out of sight, and it was running rampant, so the story is that people were waiting in line to buy bread, and he needed so much money. He needed so much money just to buy a loaf of bread, because inflation was so crazy. It cost like a million marks to buy a loaf of bread. The people were standing in line, and this one guy was there with a whole wheelbarrow full of money. But in the meantime, as he was waiting in line, inflation had gone up so much and the price of the bread had gone up so that he didn't have enough money. So he told one friend, "You wait here and watch my money. I have to run and get some more money and come back." So he went, but when he got back, his money was lying there, but the wheelbarrow was gone. [laughter] The money was worthless.

Anyway, this is the history of all these materialistic societies. The leaders are godless. The leader is supposed to be Naradeva, representative of God on earth or God amongst men, the King. And he rules the citizens and manages the resources of the land on behalf of God. So when the leader is godless, he can only be a cheater. He cannot be honest. Because honesty begins with this point. He has to first of all establish his identity in relationship to God, as God's servant, and on behalf of God ruling the people. If a person is godless, he is a cheater.

Now everyone comes up with a clever program, so the people are befooled, but a person who is God conscious will understand how it is going on. Prabhupada used to say, "If a person is not a devotee, he cannot be trusted."