Bailouts Not Working

The bailouts appear to be only working for the elites on Wall Street. We still have massive unemployment. The government is running up huge, unprecedented deficits. Certain cartels and industries are running up the costs to the middle class(oil and health care for example). The future of our children and grandchildren has been mortgaged.

Here's an excellent article explaining why the road we're headed on is paved with rocks:

Bailing Is Not The Way Out!

Copyright (c) 2010 Scott F Paradis

As the government continues to attempt to bail out the sinking ship known as the U.S. economy, we find ourselves in the dubious position of realizing an infusion of cash only adds ballast weighing down the listing vessel. We are paying one credit card with another - a practice that may well end the grand American experiment.

While we deride Friedman's monetary policy and look to Keynesian fiscal policy for answers, we can't escape the reality - time and circumstances have changed. Old solutions will not work on this new problem.

Our mistaken national policy of installing finance as king, unleashed the unchecked creativity of Wall Street. The leverage invoked by wanton and reckless financial malfeasance left a wreck with two defining characteristics: a destabilized middle class and a penchant for needless consumption.

Through our desire to reside in more prestigious residences, drive ever more grand SUV's, and accumulate more impressive toys we have fallen prey to misguided financial policy, counter productive energy policy, and imprudent foreign policy. We have leveraged our future, willingly accepting the reward of trinkets for Manhattan while simultaneously shackling ourselves and future generations into lifetimes of debt service.

Addressing the crisis by plowing more money into the hands of the elite that brought us to this precipice only reinforced previous mistakes. It is time to stop concentrating wealth in the hands of the few while building debt for the working classes. We have undermined trust in what once had been the enabler of global stability - the U.S. economic engine. That engine is fueled by the optimism, innovation, and engagement of ordinary people with extraordinary vision.

Unfortunately, most often, real solutions, those demanding sacrifice, are left until all easy options are exhausted and the wreck rests on rock bottom. We haven't hit bottom yet, so we likely won't entertain real solutions soon. Those solutions, in the end however, will come from the people - a top down approach in our current political environment will not work.

As our financial system crumbled we are forced to reconnect to what matters most - to enduring values - to one another. Economic nepotism must be laid to rest. We must embrace a system whereby the moneyed elite and the masses act together in a collective self-interest based on universal, enduring principles. We must come to realize the material excess of wealth is a false idol leading us astray. We must come to recognize and embrace ideals more appealing than appearances and more enduring then accumulation.

Overcoming the greatest challenge of our time, demands we overcome the greatest challenge of all time - the double-edged sword of human nature: fear and hubris. The debt bubble and the aftermath of its demise is a flaunted example of the frailties of human nature. Admitting we have a problem is the fist step to fixing it.

Though we have strayed into believing accumulating is our highest purpose, this crisis may yet cause us to see a greater truth. We are here to experience, to act, to grow, to love. The stuff we accumulate does not endure. For in the end, it is the people we become and the love we share that matters. Bailing is not the way out. A coming together and a commitment to one another is.


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Scott F. Paradis, author of "Promise and Potential: A Life of Wisdom, Courage, Strength and Will" http://www.promiseandpotential.com publishes "Insights" and a free weekly ezine, "Money, Power and the True Path to Prosperity". Subscribe now at: http://www.c-achieve.com