Painfully obvious truths everyone forgets to soon.....

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a hundred different ways before it finally gets through to you?  The ten truths listed below fall firmly into that category – life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, but for whatever reason, haven’t fully grasped.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…

1.  The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know.  It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step.  You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.

LIVE your life TODAY!  Don’t ignore death, but don’t be afraid of it either.  Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take action.  Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Be scared to death, and then take the next step anyway.

2.  You will only ever live the life you create for yourself.

Your life is yours alone.  Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you.  They can walk with you, but not in your shoes.  So make sure the path you decide to walk aligns with your own intuition and desires, and don’t be scared to switch paths or pave a new one when it makes sense.

Remember, it’s always better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of the one you don’t.  Be productive and patient.  And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard for what you believe in.  This is your life, and it is made up entirely of your choices.  May your actions speak louder than your words.  May your life preach louder than your lips.  May your success be your noise in the end.

And if life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it.  Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land, be brave enough to step up to the edge of the unknown, and listen to your heart.

3.  Being busy does NOT mean being productive.

Busyness isn’t a virtue, nor is it something to respect.  Though we all have seasons of crazy schedules, very few of us have a legitimate need to be busy ALL the time.  We simply don’t know how to live within our means, prioritize properly, and say no when we should.

Being busy rarely equates to productivity these days.  Just take a quick look around.  Busy people outnumber productive people by a wide margin.  Busy people are rushing all over the place, and running late half of the time.  They’re heading to work, conferences, meetings, social engagements, etc.  They barely have enough free time for family get-togethers and they rarely get enough sleep.  Yet, emails are shooting out of their smart phones like machine gun bullets, and their day planners are jammed to the brim with obligations.  Their busy schedule gives them an elevated sense of importance.  But it’s all an illusion.  They’re like hamsters running on a wheel.

Though being busy can make us feel more alive than anything else for a moment, the sensation is not sustainable long term.  We will inevitably, whether tomorrow or on our deathbed, come to wish that we spent less time in the buzz of busyness and more time actually living a purposeful life.

4.  Some kind of failure always occurs before success.

Most mistakes are unavoidable.  Learn to forgive yourself.  It’s not a problem to make them.  It’s only a problem if you never learn from them.

If you’re too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful.  The solution to this problem is making friends with failure.  You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner?  The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.  Behind every great piece of art is a thousand failed attempts to make it, but these attempts are simply never shown to us.

Bottom line:  Just because it’s not happening now, doesn’t mean it never will.  Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.

5.  Thinking and doing are two very different things.

Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it.

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.  Knowledge is basically useless without action.  Good things don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals.  Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.

And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you’ll likely be waiting the rest of your life.

6.  You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive.

Life gets much easier when you learn to accept all the apologies you never got.  The key is to be thankful for every experience – positive or negative.  It’s taking a step back and saying, “Thank you for the lesson.”  It’s realizing that grudges from the past are a perfect waste of today’s happiness, and that holding one is like letting unwanted company live rent free in your head.

Forgiveness is a promise – one you want to keep.  When you forgive someone you are making a promise not to hold the unchangeable past against your present self.  It has nothing to do with freeing a criminal of his or her crime, and everything to do with freeing yourself of the burden of being an eternal victim.

7.  Some people are simply the wrong match for you.

You will only ever be as great as the people you surround yourself with, so be brave enough to let go of those who keep bringing you down.  You shouldn’t force connections with people who constantly make you feel less than amazing.

If someone makes you feel uncomfortable and insecure every time you’re with them, for whatever reason, they’re probably not close friend material.  If they make you feel like you can’t be yourself, or if they make you “less than” in any way, don’t pursue a connection with them.  If you feel emotionally drained after hanging out with them or get a small hit of anxiety when you are reminded of them, listen to your intuition.  There are so many “right people” for you, who energize you and inspire you to be your best self.  It makes no sense to force it with people who are the wrong match for you.

8.  It’s not other people’s job to love you; it’s yours.

It’s important to be nice to others, but it’s even more important to be nice to yourself.  You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.  So make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you.  Know your worth, even if they don’t.

Today, let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as incomplete as you think you are.  Yes, let someone love you despite all of this, and let that someone be YOU.

9.  What you own is not who YOU are.

Stuff really is just stuff, and it has absolutely no bearing on who you are as a person.  Most of us can make do with much less than we think we need.  That’s a valuable reminder, especially in a hugely consumer-driven culture that focuses more on material things than meaningful connections and experiences.

You have to create your own culture.  Don’t watch TV, don’t read every fashion magazine, and don’t consume too much of the evening news.  Find the strength to fill your time with meaningful experiences.  The space and time you are occupying at this very moment is LIFE, and if you’re worrying about Kim Kardashian or Lebron James or some other famous face, then you are disempowered.  You’re giving your life away to marketing and media trickery, which is created by big companies to ultimately motivate you to want to dress a certain way, look a certain way, and be a certain way.  This is tragic, this kind of thinking.  It’s all just Hollywood brainwashing.  What is real is YOU and your friends and your family, your loves, your highs, your hopes, your plans, your fears, etc.

Too often we’re told that we’re not important, we’re just peripheral to what is.  “Get a degree, get a job, get a car, get a house, and keep on getting.”  And it’s sad, because someday you’ll wake up and realize you’ve been tricked.  And all you’ll want then is to reclaim your mind by getting it out of the hands of the brainwashers who want to turn you into a drone that buys everything that isn’t needed to impress everyone that isn’t important.

10.  Everything changes, every second.

Embrace change and realize it happens for a reason.  It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end it will be worth it.

What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow.  You never know.  Things change, often spontaneously.  People and circumstances come and go.  Life doesn’t stop for anybody.  It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day.  It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives.  A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth.  Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event.  And these events are always happening.

However good or bad a situation is now, it will change.  That’s the one thing you can count on.  So when life is good, enjoy it.  Don’t go looking for something better every second.  Happiness never comes to those who don’t appreciate what they have while they have it.

Source: “10 Painfully Obvious Truths Everyone Forgets Too Soon,” from marcandangel.com

Nature's Pharmacy

There’s no question that maintaining a nutritious diet can help keep your body healthy. But when it comes to which foods can specifically benefit which body parts, science remains surprisingly sketchy. But nature gives us a big clue as to what foods help what part of our body!

Here are 10 foods that mirror the body parts they provide nutrients for—for example, brain-boosting walnuts actually look like a brain. Coincidence? Maybe. Though these healthy foods are beneficial to the whole body, the list below is a fun reminder of what to eat to target specific areas. Remember, these are best & more powerful when eaten raw.

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. According to science, eating carrots greatly enhances blood flow to the eyes. Carrot gets their orange color from a plant chemical called beta-carotene, which reduces the risk of developing cataracts. The chemical also protects against macular degeneration an age-related sight problem that affects one in four individuals over the age of 65. If one tries to pop a pill of beta-carotene it doesn’t have the same effect, says scientists at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red in color, so also the heart is red and has four chambers. Research has confirmed that tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and it is indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes resembles the alveoli of the lungs. The lungs are made of branches of ever-smaller airways that finish up with tiny branches of tissue called alveoli. These structures allow oxygen to pass from the lungs to the blood stream. A diet high in fresh grapes has shown to reduce the risk of lung cancer and emphysema. Grape seeds also contain a chemical called proanthocyanidin, which is thought to reduce the severity of asthma triggered by allergy. One reason that premature babies struggle to survive is that, these alveoli do not begin to form until 23 to 24 week of pregnancy.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are similar to those of the neo-cortex. Scientists claim that walnuts help in developing over three dozen neuron-transmitters within the brain enhancing the signaling and encouraging new messaging link between the brain cells. Walnuts help warding off dementia. They also extract and break down the protein based plaques associated with Alzheimer’s diseases, according to a study by Dr. James Joseph of Tuft University in Boston.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and are shaped exactly like the human kidneys (hence their name). Kidney beans provide a variety of minerals and vitamins, and so are generally beneficial for your health. If your kidneys are healthy, kidney beans can — when consumed as part of a balanced diet — contribute to your kidney health. If your kidneys are diseased, you might need to moderate your intake of kidney beans.

Celery, Rhubarb, Bok-choy and more look just like bones structure. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are made up of 23% sodium and these foods have sodium in them. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocados and Pears are good for the health and functioning of the womb and cervix of the female and look just like these organs. Modern research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances the birth hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and can even prevent cervical cancer. It even takes exactly nine months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit, just like a human baby! There are said to be over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods.

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Studies have shown that Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the sperm count as well as overcoming male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes resemble the pancreas and can actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics. The oblong sweet potato bears a strong resemblance to the pancreas, and also promotes healthy function in the organ. “Sweet potatoes are high in beta-carotene, which is a potent antioxidant that protects all tissues of the body, including the pancreas, from damage associated with cancer or aging,” says Somer.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries. An Italian study found that women whose diets included a lot of olive oil had a 30% lower risk of ovarian cancer. The reasons are unclear, but the healthy fats in the oil may help suppress genes predisposed to causing cancer.

Grapefruits, Oranges, and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts. The similarity between round citrus fruits––like lemons and grapefruit––and breasts may be more than coincidental. “Grapefruit contains substances called limonoids, which have been shown to inhibit the development of cancer in lab animals and in human breast cells,” says Dr. Moulavi.

Eating a Banana will cheer you up and put a smile on your face. This popular fruit contains a protein called tryptophan, when digested it gets converted into a neurotransmitter called serotonin, which is a mood regulating chemical in the brain. Banana can be termed as an antidepressant drug, since it adjusts the level of serotonin production in the brain.

Onions look like the body’s cells. Research shows onions clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. 

Ginger looks like the stomach and it also aids in digestion. Indians and Chinese have been using it for over 5000 years to calm stomach and cure nausea, and motion sickness. It also slows down the growth rate of bowel tumors.

A Mushrooms when sliced in half resembles the shape of the human ear. Mushrooms improve hearing abilities, since they contain Vitamin D, which is healthy for bones, especially the 3 tiny bones in the ear that transmit sound to the brain.

Broccoli – the close-up of tiny green tips on a broccoli head looks like 100 of cancer cells. A team of researchers at US National Cancer Institute found if a weekly serving of broccoli was enough to reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 45%.

Ginseng root looks like a human body, and it is a holistic cure for nearly all ailments. 

Honorable Mention

Red wine, which is rich in antioxidants and polyphenols, including powerful resveratrol, looks like blood. “When you drink it, you’re really loading up on the healthy stuff that protects against destructive things in the blood, like LDL cholesterol, which can cause heart disease,” says Somer. “There’s also a blood-thinning compound in red wine, so it reduces blood clots, which are associated with stroke and heart disease.” 

• Source : – http://www.celestialhealing.net

30 Mantras to Change Your Life

Which of these mantras appeal to you the most? What is the mantra or mantras that you live by? Please let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below.

1) Why be normal?

2) Get out of your comfort zone.

3) Know that you have a purpose.

4) Every pencil holds a promise.

5) Do the small things that make others feel big.

6) Tourists see, but travelers seek.

7) Asking for permission is asking for denial.

8) Embrace the lightning moments.

9) Big dreams start with small, unreasonable acts.

10) Practice humility over hubris.

11) Speak the language of the person you want to become.

12) Walk with a purpose.

13) Happiness is found in celebrating others.

14) Find the impossible ones.

15) Focus on one person in every room.

16) Read the signs along the path.

17) Create separation to build connection.

18) Never take no from someone who can't say yes.

19) Stay guided by your values, not your necessities.

20) You can't fake authenticity.

21) There is only one chance at a first impression.

22) Fess up to your failures.

23) Learn to close the loop.

24) Change your words to change your worth.

25) A goal realized is a goal defined.

26) Surround yourself with those who make you better.

27) Vulnerability is vital.

28) Listen to your echoes.

29) If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough.

30) Make your life a story worth telling.

Source : Adam Braun  the Founder of Pencils of Promise

What If Everything You Were Ever Taught Was A Lie?

There is a war going on right now and it doesn’t involve guns or the military industrial complex.

It’s a War on Consciousness and most People are Clueless that it even Exists.

Education or Indoctrination?

Ultimately, the education system can be blamed for feeding us propaganda and forcing us to regurgitate it so we can “fit in” with the rest of society.  Our public school systems are set up to get the students primed for economic slavery without ever offering courses that allow to students to think creatively or freely.

If you trace the company’s who print our children’s textbooks, you’ll find a Zionist agenda behind them all.  For example, George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was arrested for funding both sides of World War II, yet we never learned this in school.  Why?  Because had we learned this, NEITHER Bush would have been elected president for having a traitor in their lineage.

We are taught about Darwinism and how man evolved from ape but if this were true, then why are there still apes?

And surely, Christopher Columbus didn’t “discover” America.

Granted some things that we learn in school are the truth, such as math, music and some science but our TRUE history has been kept from us for reasons of subservience, control and conformity.

In all forms of education, there are still perpetual references to “fossil fuels” including at the college level.  How ridiculous is this?  Oil is abiotic, which means it replenishes itself, yet we are draining the planet of a lubricant that serves no other interests other than economic.

For example, in the late 1980′s, Stanley Meyer invented a car that could go from coast to coast in the United States on 21 gallons of water.  He was offered $1 billion from the automobile industry for his invention but turned it down because he wanted this idea to go to the people.  Shortly afterwards, he was poisoned to death and the invention has been hidden from us ever since, yet our children are not learning about inventors such as Meyer in school, nor are they being encouraged to develop alternate fuel sources.

Our children are inevitably asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Their answers become conditioned responses in various forms of economic subservience instead of what they truly would like to do.

A better question to ask them, once they understand the concept of money is, “If there was no such thing as money, then what would you like to do with your life?”

Surely, the fry cook with a high school education would not still be making french fries at a fast food “restaurant”.

Out of place artifacts

There are literally thousands of “out of place artifacts” that shows how we have been here MUCH longer than the official story of both evolution and the bible, yet no high school or university will come near to approaching this topic because it would blow the lid off of all religions.

For example, in Illinois, a well bit brought up a 200,000 year old bronze coin from a depth of 114 feet just outside Chillicothe, Illinois. According to the Illinois State Geological Survey, the deposits containing the coin are between 200,000 and 400,000 years old.

If our true history was revealed, it would cause every system of education to rewrite history and would make the professors teaching “history” look like idiots, so it’s much easier to suppress the truth than to admit they were wrong while killing religion.

In the beginning… there was religion and government

It is blatantly obvious that religion has been teaching either half truths or full out lies, right from the start.  According to the Christian bible, God created Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply.

Based under this premise, we would all be the products of incest.

There are four different blood types (A, B, AB and O) along with 2 different Rh values (positive and negative).  It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to have 4 different blood types and 2 different Rh blood values all originating from Adam and Eve, yet people happily accept this as the truth without ever questioning their human origins.

The bible dates back to approximately 6,000 years ago.  Assuming God created everything at that point in time, then there shouldn’t be any fossils older than 6,000 years of age.

In Genesis 1:26, it is stated, “Let US make man in OUR own image…”.  Who is US and OUR?  Some religious zealots will say it’s the Father, son and the Holy Ghost, but this was LONG before the “son” was conceptualized, let alone Adam or Eve.

Another example would be Noah and his alleged gathering of every pair of animals on the planet.  How did he gather animals that were not indigenous to the Middle East, such as polar bears, penguins and sea lions?

Most people have an equally hard time understanding that both religions and governments will lie to you in order to fulfill an agenda.

In religion, look no further than several clergy members of the Roman Catholic Church who admitted that the fictitious hell does not exist.

In government, look how Hitler burned down his own Reichstag building
and blamed the communists in order to incite war.  Many people believe the same template was used for 9/11.

The closer you look, the more you’ll find that religion is in bed with the government as both are about controlling the masses through subservience, control and conformity while neither encourage free thinking or questioning the official stories.

Literal television “programming”

Most people seem to have the attitude that if a talking head on an official news station, such as CNN, says something, then surely it must be the truth.  A CIA whistleblower has already admitted that the news has been scripted for decades in order to influence public opinion.

A recent article entitled, “ Why is the Obama Administration Putting Government Monitors in Newsrooms,” shows how there will never be “fair” and “unbiased” news reporting in the United States.

The television shows that people watch are either so mundane or intellectually draining that you’re better off not watching TV at all.  Furthermore, the commercials are either hyping materialistic crap that we don’t need, processed food ladened with GMO’s, alcohol(ism) or some Big Pharma pill that will only place a symbolic bandage over the issue and will never cure you of anything.  The actors they use to sell these products ultimately are telling us that we are not pretty or handsome enough and that our lives would be so much better if we were like them.

This is the LITERAL programming we receive when we watch TV, yet millions of people would rather do that than to better themselves with a hobby or creating something that would benefit mankind.

Those in power want you to be as distracted as much as possible with no time to think critically or independently, about anything other than who won the recent sports game or the latest contestant on a reality show.

Where is the truth and who should I believe?

For those who watch too much TV:  Each day you waste by doing nothing to better yourself is one less day that you had an opportunity to grow in body, mind and spirit.

Instead of watching TV, spend time reading and researching material from the masters.  You can find a large quantity of esoteric texts here.

Instead of getting your news from the main stream media, go to alternative news websites such as In5D Alternative News to get the news that the mainstream media fails to report.

Sadly, most people will fight for the same system that has kept us all as economic slaves than to envision a world without money, government or religion.

Einstein is often quoted as saying, ” Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”  This is reminiscent of every election as they always boil down to the lesser of two evils… and you always end up with evil.

If you look hard enough, you can always find the truth but most people aren’t willing to spend the time doing so.  These are the same people who are content watching 3-5 hours of TV every day.

Ultimately, use your discernment when researching anything, including anything that’s on this website.  If your gut tells you there’s something wrong, then chances are, there is something wrong with what you read.

You’re always being guided to find the answers, whether that is through personal experiences or through the experiences of others.  Be open minded about everything you read and watch when researching and you will continue to follow your path of enlightenment.

The war on consciousness will only go as far as you allow it to go.

Question EVERYTHING!

Source : http://www.trueactivist.com

Credits: This article first appeared on in5d.com via whydontyoutrythis.com

Paid what you're Worth ?

It’s often assumed that people are paid what they’re worth. According to this logic, minimum wage workers aren’t worth more than the $7.25 an hour they now receive. If they were worth more, they’d earn more. Any attempt to force employers to pay them more will only kill jobs.

According to this same logic, CEOs of big companies are worth their giant compensation packages, now averaging 300 times pay of the typical American worker. They must be worth it or they wouldn’t be paid this much. Any attempt to limit their pay is fruitless because their pay will only take some other form.

“Paid-what-you’re-worth” is a dangerous myth.

Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today’s dollars. Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour.

Does this mean the typical GM employee a half-century ago was worth four times what today’s typical Walmart employee is worth? Not at all. Yes, that GM worker helped produce cars rather than retail sales. But he wasn’t much better educated or even that much more productive. He often hadn’t graduated from high school. And he worked on a slow-moving assembly line. Today’s Walmart worker is surrounded by digital gadgets — mobile inventory controls, instant checkout devices, retail search engines — making him or her quite productive.

The real difference is the GM worker a half-century ago had a strong union behind him that summoned the collective bargaining power of all autoworkers to get a substantial share of company revenues for its members. And because more than a third of workers across America belonged to a labor union, the bargains those unions struck with employers raised the wages and benefits of non-unionized workers as well. Non-union firms knew they’d be unionized if they didn’t come close to matching the union contracts.

Today’s Walmart workers don’t have a union to negotiate a better deal. They’re on their own. And because fewer than 7 percent of today’s private-sector workers are unionized, non-union employers across America don’t have to match union contracts. This puts unionized firms at a competitive disadvantage. The result has been a race to the bottom.

By the same token, today’s CEOs don’t rake in 300 times the pay of average workers because they’re “worth” it. They get these humongous pay packages because they appoint the compensation committees on their boards that decide executive pay. Or their boards don’t want to be seen by investors as having hired a “second-string” CEO who’s paid less than the CEOs of their major competitors. Either way, the result has been a race to the top.

If you still believe people are paid what they’re worth, take a look at Wall Street bonuses. Last year’s average bonus was up 15 percent over the year before, to more than $164,000. It was the largest average Wall Street bonus since the 2008 financial crisis and the third highest on record, according to New York’s state comptroller. Remember, we’re talking bonuses, above and beyond salaries.

All told, the Street paid out a whopping $26.7 billion in bonuses last year.

Are Wall Street bankers really worth it? Not if you figure in the hidden subsidy flowing to the big Wall Street banks that ever since the bailout of 2008 have been considered too big to fail.

People who park their savings in these banks accept a lower interest rate on deposits or loans than they require from America’s smaller banks. That’s because smaller banks are riskier places to park money. Unlike the big banks, the smaller ones won’t be bailed out if they get into trouble.

This hidden subsidy gives Wall Street banks a competitive advantage over the smaller banks, which means Wall Street makes more money. And as their profits grow, the big banks keep getting bigger.

How large is this hidden subsidy? Two researchers, Kenichi Ueda of the International Monetary Fund and Beatrice Weder di Mauro of the University of Mainz, have calculated it’s about eight tenths of a percentage point.

This may not sound like much but multiply it by the total amount of money parked in the ten biggest Wall Street banks and you get a huge amount — roughly $83 billion a year.

Recall that the Street paid out $26.7 billion in bonuses last year. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a Wall Street banker to see that the hidden subsidy the Wall Street banks enjoy because they’re  too big to fail is about three times what Wall Street paid out in bonuses.

Without the subsidy, no bonus pool.

By the way, the lion’s share of that subsidy ($64 billion a year) goes to the top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo. and Goldman Sachs. This amount just about equals these banks’ typical annual profits. In other words, take away the subsidy and not only does the bonus pool disappear, but so do all the profits.

The reason Wall Street bankers got fat paychecks plus a total of $26.7 billion in bonuses last year wasn’t because they worked so much harder or were so much more clever or insightful than most other Americans. They cleaned up because they happen to work in institutions — big Wall Street banks — that hold a privileged place in the American political economy.

And why, exactly, do these institutions continue to have such privileges? Why hasn’t Congress used the antitrust laws to cut them down to size so they’re not too big to fail, or at least taxed away their hidden subsidy (which, after all, results from their taxpayer-financed bailout)?

Perhaps it’s because Wall Street also accounts for a large proportion of campaign donations to major candidates for Congress and the presidency of both parties.

America’s low-wage workers don’t have privileged positions. They work very hard — many holding down two or more jobs. But they can’t afford to make major campaign contributions and they have no political clout.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the $26.7 billion of bonuses Wall Street banks paid out last year would be enough to more than double the pay of every one of America’s 1,085,000 full-time minimum wage workers.

The remainder of the $83 billion of hidden subsidy going to those same banks would almost be enough to double what the government now provides low-wage workers in the form of wage subsidies under the Earned Income Tax Credit.

But I don’t expect Congress to make these sorts of adjustments any time soon.

The “paid-what-your-worth” argument is fundamentally misleading because it ignores power, overlooks institutions, and disregards politics. As such, it lures the unsuspecting into thinking nothing whatever should be done to change what people are paid, because nothing can be done.

Don’t buy it.

Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His new movie "Inequality for All" is in Theaters. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.