It's The Economy Stupid
November 23rd 2008 17:14
"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
~35th President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy
~35th President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy
This week I wanted to tackle the one issue that goes beyond any broken glass ceilings, broken promises from our government or position in social class status.
There won't be any talk about the top 10% gobbling up the wealth nor will there be fire and brim stone about the maltreatment of our own people along the lines of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation or creed…
This conversation will stretch past the beautiful space we share with each other from sea to shining sea and will overshadow the red and blue lines drawn in the sand that lights the flame of the argument of a reduced government against progressive policies.
From the day I began writing these blogs to the minute I sit hear and speak to you now, my message has and will always be the same….
The things that divide and tear us apart have blinded our society from the real villain that has lurked from the day the ink dried on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
This villain allowed a nation to justify keeping men and women in bondage to pay the debts of revolution, ignore the warnings from our forefathers by passing Constitutional amendments that said a man was less than a man because of the color of his skin and also allowed a line to be drawn across the middle of this nation that separates our country in social misunderstanding.
This villain injected a virus into this nation by taking all the debts from the states that formed this great nation and throwing into a central bank forming what became the multi billion dollar Federal Deficit our Presidents of every political party have extended, increased and ignored to finance The Cold War, Vietnam, Star Wars, The War on Drugs, The War On Terror, Covert Operations, the Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and on and on and on….
When it is said to me that Bush bankrupted our economy because of wars in the Persian Gulf I am forced to look back on the ultimate body of work and our countries sick history with debt and credit and I have to disagree…
The Villain in this Shakespearean drama isn't George W. Bush nor is it William Jefferson Clinton or any other President...
The Villain isn't because of lack of balance of power in a Republican Congress that gave the Green Light to credit card companies to enslave our societies by crippling bankruptcy protection nor is it our current Democratic Congress who had the latest act in this play where they worked with Fannie & Freddie to lower the standards of home ownership…
We need to pick up the ball and admit to ourselves that the ultimate villain in this power play is partially looking us right back in the mirror each and every morning.
We live in a society that praises ultra luxury in cult figures like Paris Hilton and Athletes who have swimming pool moats and waterfalls on their acreages of fenced property. We worship them like kings and queens as we support their athletic prowess or worship them by purchasing magazines that track their daily lives or base our lives through the support of their reality TV shows in envy wishing we could be them.
I personally see nothing wrong with this form of escapism but the problem comes when we try to emulate their lifestyles through the swipe of the credit card. While this wasn't the whole problem because we also can't forget the people who were clinging to each and every penny only to be offered a line of credit they couldn't afford to pay off.
This is the trend that was noted by the Credit Card companies who with the help of our government formed a business model to prey on low income individuals who they knew would be forced to pay just the minimum.
The "customer for life" theory ballooned their profits as the fees were raised upping the ante of bankruptcy claims. When their profits took a hit they turned to our government that was supposed to be built for and by the people who said "it's ok we'll fix that".
My question is who was left holding the bag in this endless cycle?
It certainly wasn't the banks or credit card companies but it was the American people…
You can only squeeze a grape so much before it becomes mush and this all finally came to a head when people simply couldn't pay their bills and the credit card companies were forced to absorb the backlash. Simple "Economics theory 101" is when people can't pay off the absorbatent profits of these companies; they cease to be profitable so the greedy giants whose business model was to "fleece the people" their empires began to crumble.
Like the homeless man who begs during the day and quickly throws off his drab to jump in the limo at the end of the "work day" these companies headed on down to Capitol Hill where once again our Government wrote them a check and gave them more protection with the injection of the blood from the American voters.
Credit cards began the domino topple which was followed by the Mortgage giants who ran on the same philosophy, causing the Tsunami of public pessimism where retail chains saw their customer base dwindling, the car industry saw vehicles sitting longer and the end result was lay offs across the board in every industry.
The reason why I delve into this recent history is lesson is because of the simple fact that the basics are still the same for us to repeat what happened in 1930 with the great depression but the consequences are direr in the aspects of maintaining long-term American prosperity in a dysfunctional world.
While things may look rosy with the national gas average below two dollars a gallon in the aspects of our daily convenience… the dark cloud hanging above the pump is coming closer and closer as the prices continue to fall.
Americas financial problems are the world's 500 pound Guerrila as markets across the globe are also falling at a faster rate. The end result of this free fall will be within the factors of the companies who supply us with the resources of energy and food cutting their own prices at their own expense…
Which is a dangerous thing for a weak world market.
The things we have a possibility of looking forward to are world wide gas and food shortages as hording will become the norm. This has been the war time policy for countries on the African Continent for millions of years resulting in genocide, tribal warfare and what eventually culminated in African Chiefs working with Europeans to begin what was known as the "World Slave Trade."
The important thing to take from this is to understand that our problems are only the catalistic ripple to the imminent storm. While we may feel the pain of this recession on the home front, third world nations have been and will always be hit 10 times as hard. This hit on their sources of food and basic commodities for life is what leads to the rise of fanaticism and terrorist groups. These groups prey on the undedicated and socially disadvantaged.
It was a war that carried us through the great depression as Americans of every race, religion and sex threw down their own personal social agendas of the day and jumped into building the weapons that brought down Hitler's fascist empire and I wish I could say that it was something this simple but painful that would save our economy from dipping into the depths of obliteration…
In a modern world we have two things from different realms of thought saving us from this being the case. The first is the fact that we have privatized weapons making creating the fact that no amount of war will ever spurn our national economy and the other is that the face of war is no longer about nation to nation conflict which places the world economic mess into a hairy situation.
The things that will help us through the next few decades is in the thought that our country has been through some crucial times in her young history but we have always come out on top in each and every situation.
The burning down of our nations Capital and the White House couldn't kill American resolve and I can't see existing in a world where we're simply one of many in the aspect of prosperity killing our resolve either.
The Mushroom cloud of global warming, the worldwide economic crisis, gas and food shortages may sound like the end of the world as we know it and I'm personally sure it is. What we need to do is prepare ourselves personally for this new world order by shedding off the old ideals that won't let America evolve with the rest of the world.
Sources:
Middle Class.Org Bankruptcy Bill Info:
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