This post is a divergence for me as it is not related to development nor is it technical it is simply an observation of the current economic situation and what I see as some of the major problems. I don't presume to be all that economically savvy but I can observe and evaluate what I see as well as anyone.
With the economy getting visibly worse I think this is a great time for Americans to take a hard look at themselves and try and figure out what went wrong and why. I have heard many opinions about why we are in such a terrible economic downturn: greed, bursting housing bubble, frozen credit, lack of consumer spending and a whole host of others. But I believe that all of these are effects of not the cause of the economic downturn. The most fundamental reason for all of these is shame or more precisely the lack of shame.
In the current politically correct age Americans have lost their sense of shame. This is going to sound contradictory but shame is nothing to be ashamed of. People feel no shame for anything, and if they get a whiff of shame they lash out and blame those shaming them. What the hell happened to us.
Banks and mortgage companies conjured up "sub prime" loans for people who historically couldn't qualify for a loan on a $3 cappuccino but all of a sudden qualify for a $100K plus home loan. The human waste that would willingly dupe good people into such a ludicrous financial situation should be shamed. It wasn't greed but the lack of shame of making money by graft and deception that caused the sub prime mess. Greed was the fuel but shame could have been the breaks to reign in the greed, but those breaks were never applied.
Don't believe for a minute that those people who were allowed to be duped share no responsibility. They people should be ashamed for being so ignorant of basic microeconomics. In the time of almost limitless and FREE information (books, Internet, financial advisers) there is no excuse for anyone to make a financial decision that gets them into so much financial trouble from something as simple as the value of their home decreasing or the interest rates going up 1 or 2 points. Those people should be shamed for being so ignorant and lazy, not stupid; stupid assumes they didn't have the brain power, ignorant and lazy because they just didn't take the time to take advantage the myriad of information sources. Now if they really didn't have the brain power the onus rest squarely on the banks and/or mortgage companies for serious malfeasance and they not only should be shamed but incarcerated. The problem now is that those people who did take the due diligence to make a good financial decision but were swept up in the tsunami are now being punished for nothing more then their neighbors and financial institutions not being ashamed of doing the wrong thing.
Onto to the executives. This group is a little harder to shame as a group because their are good executives and their are some mediocre executives and then there are the down right piles of crap executives. The good executives who didn't lie, cheat and steal to get ahead and in fact helped your customers and employees steer clear of the current debacle [Daniel P Amos of Aflac], you should be applauded for your strength of courage to do the right thing in an environment of "irrational exuberance."1 For the truly monstrous executives who exacerbated the current economic disaster you should be ashamed for living like a vulture, in which case you should do the honorable thing and give back your millions and step down and never be in charge of anything more than a hot dog cart. Mediocre executives, well you should just be ashamed for either being too stupid to be in the position you're in or for sitting on the sidelines and watching the world crumble. As an American executive you have a responsibility greater than than to your share holders. You have a responsibility to the American people to live honorably as well as successfully. You have a responsibility to your customers who have spent their hard earned wages to purchase your product. You have a responsibility to your employees who give you their blood, sweat and tears every day to help you prosper. As an executive you should know who is trully important and why. America is important because it has an economy and government that, while flawed, allows you to succeed. Your customers are important because they are the reason you are in business and they are your livelyhood,without them you don't have a business. Your employees are important because they are the company they are its hands its heart and its brain, without them your ideas are just thoughts without purpose. You, the executives, are important because you are the soul of a business and if you are dishonorable then the soul of the company is no better than a common criminals. The only group that really isn't that important is the share holders, because thousands of successful and privatly held companies prove that every day. If a share holder insists on making money at any cost they are a cancer to America, to your customers, to your employees and to you and they should be disregarded as you would disregard the rantings of murderer. Let their money go because its not worth selling your soul to let evil prosper. A share holder who doens't feel shame for making money at the expense of the truly valuable is a terrorist in every sense of the word.
While I'm not as synical as most and don't believe all politicians are crooks, I do believe that the only good politician is a hog tied politician. Power always progresses toward corruption. Americans have been wrongly convinced that a good government is a productive government. A stalled and divisive government retards its power and therfore slows progression toward corruption. There are times, during war or national emergency, that an efficient government is necessary but generally a government mired in debate and conflict is desirable. During the roaring 90's and early 2000's politicians were given too much power by the American poeple. They were allowed to create policies that were are now suffering under. Policies that made lending to "sub prime" borrowers possible through Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac which were allowed to leverage to the tune of 50 to 1. That means for ever $1 of actual equity they were in debt $50 dollars. This policy was to make home ownership a reality for all Americans all in the name of fairness. Those politicians, particularly Barnie Frank, should be ashamed for putting the American economy and the world economy for that fact in serious jeopordy. These same politicians that got the world into this mess are now trying to tell us they are going to get us out of it. They should be ashamed for being such a miserable failure but still thinking their opinion counts. The American people should be ashamed for not throwing these bums out of office when their stupidity caused this mess and now we are giving them another bite at the proverbial apple. I had a hope that Obama could turn this around but he is turning to the one thing that got us into this mess in the first place, debt. It is shameful that our addiction to debt is going to cause the first American generation to be worse off than their parents. We should be ashamed to leave our children and grandchildren the burden of paying for our multi trillion dollar debt, I repeat $3,000,000,000,000 +/- 2 trillion. It makes me physically ill to think we are going to screw every man, woman and child with a minimum of $35,000 of debt for at least the next 20 years.
So be ashamed America. Be ashamed that we deserve this recession/depression for our stupidity, ineptitude and greed. Be ashamed for being the first generation in America to leave our children with less than we we given from our parents. Be ashamed because it is the only thing that will force us to do be better than we have been.
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