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AMERICA IN CRISIS - A TIME FOR RENEWAL
The system that we are basing our economic strength on is not working. It is floating in time, waiting for a misstep from which it cannot recover. Therefore, it is not the bail-out that is going to save this economy. It is only a change in values.
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The current bail-out of the American credit system and of mortgage lenders within the proliferation of banks, lending institutions, and mortgage companies in this country has not addressed the primary problem contributing to the existing crisis, namely, the system itself which is outmoded and filled with personal aggrandizement and mismanagement at all levels.
The availability of opportunity for mismanagement of funds and also of using these funds for personal gain has been widespread within corporate America, and the system itself promotes this as it promotes the maintenance of a pyramidal economic structure that contains a very few at the top, and many at the bottom struggling to get by.
We need, in America, to experience a renewal of our basic values – a renewal of our desire for equality, freedom, justice, and a way of life that embraces all, making it possible for all to live and prosper, not just the wealthy few. These words are given lip service, today, by both political figures and CEOs, but the generosity of spirit and caring for future generations that lay at the heart of the Founders of this great nation, has, over time, diminished into a kind of self-seeking and self-promotion based on a sense of entitlement to vast incomes, opportunities, and other business perks for the few, while the rest go unnoticed. This is not just the philosophy of the wealthiest in this country, but of those who seek to become wealthy and to follow in their footsteps.
We once cared more about the land, about the natural beauty of this country, about what we would leave to future generations. We once felt ennobled by a noble task – the task of creating a new Republic and of making that Republic into something to be proud of. This nobility of purpose is still at the foundation of America’s spirit, but has become covered over and at times obliterated by the kind of self-seeking and self-aggrandizement that has caused consumers at all levels to overspend, overreach, overinvest, and to ignore or underestimate the consequences of doing so. And it is not just consumers who have held such an attitude. It is the government itself which has placed this nation in debt to the amount of trillions of dollars, with millions of dollars in interest being added to that each day.
America is the largest debtor nation in the world. Foreign governments, especially China, support the national economy and enable it to function. We are trillions of dollars in debt and the debt only grows, it does not diminish. If those who hold our debt were to call it in, this country would not be able to continue functioning, for we have no other collateral to fall back on. We have become an economic system built on sand rather than on substance, and the money that we use as venue is not backed up by true financial resources that would guarantee its stability. We, as an economic system, are riding on credit, not just the mortgage industry, not just the consumers, not just the corporate executives.
Today, we witness a credit system that has stopped working because its underlying premise does not work, namely, that we can go on borrowing and borrowing for whatever we wish to purchase, and we will not have to pay the price for this indulgence. Because we have lived with this illusion for so long, we now begin to find ourselves no longer having a solid foundation on which to stand. This is what leads to the current call for a ‘bail-out’.
We need to renew our vows to ourselves and to those who come after us, to the world that watches what we do, and to those who listen to the speeches that are made and wait to hear something true, and honest, and real.
This system that we are basing our economic strength on is not working. It is floating in time, waiting for a misstep from which it cannot recover. Therefore, it is not the bail-out that is going to save this economy. It is only a change in values which will allow America to once more exist on the solid footing of its own ideals.
This must be our promise to ourselves and to the future – not simply to repair the present damage and address the present crisis – but to address the existing false optimism based on entitlement that has given rise to this crisis. It is only in this way, through a change in the heart of the system, that true stability can be found.
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