Topic: Economics
Easy 
We can learn a lot about history and the people writing it by keeping tuned to what is not being said. Applying this principle, we can see why Westerners have such trouble understanding the significance of cow protection—especially protection of the bull or ox. Because of what is routinely suppressed or overlooked in history books, it’s hard for people to understand when Prabhupada says,...
Easy
Disciple: Srila Prabhupada, in a recent study by U.S. agricultural officials, they found that it’s uneconomical to eat meat. It takes so much energy and man hours to raise and transport and slaughter the cows that it’s very wasteful.
Srila Prabhupada: Wasteful, yes. Therefore I say they have no brain. They are all rascals. Rascal leaders. A little labor in agriculture will be sufficient to...
Easy
Supplies of petroleum are dwindling, and that poses a special problem for farming. In his book Family Farming, Marty Strange summarizes a study at the University of New Hampshire:
By 2020, domestic supplies of both oil and gas will be depleted, and if agriculture’s technological base does not shift, 10 percent of the oil and 60 percent of natural gas consumed in the United States soon after...
Easy
"The Bhagavad-gita specifically instructs us, krishi-go-rakshya: we human beings must protect the cow, our milk-giving mother. Go-rakshya—'protect the cow,' not go-hatya—'kill the cow.' This is most sinful." —Srila Prabhupada
Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita that the activities of the productive class of society should be krishi-go-rakshya-vanijyam: agriculture, cow protection, and trade...
Easy
Starting around 1840, American farming became increasingly centralized. Replacing oxen with horses freed people to move to the cities to work in factories. And the new city dwellers became consumers for the products they’d once grown.
The village miller with his ox-powered grist mill gave way to automated mills in large Midwestern cities. As the mills of the Midwest began selling wastes back to...
Easy
(edited for clarity)
19 October 1975, Johannesburg, South Africa
Indian man: Don't you think the people (in South Africa) are lazy?
Prabhupada: Why aren't you lazy here? It is the government's policy or government's management. You see? To become lazy is the recommendation of the shastra. "Lazy" has become a bad word, but actually real life means to not work very hard. Working hard (only) for...