You do not need a degree in economics to know the same rules apply to finances as to calories: spend less than you earn, eat less than you burn. Duh. Not hard to comprehend. Yes hard to do -especially the calories part - but not hard to understand. This is what's missing from the current conversation and what's been missing from the consumer culture ethos. People, please, take responsibility for actions and choices.
Take calories. I need to lose weight. I know I need to lose weight. I know I need to eat more healthfully and exercise more. I choose - consciously - to let myself eat badly, work to exhaustion and not move enough. I know first hand the likely consequences (is it first hand when family members have the usual weight related diseases of heart and sugar?) and I have witnessed what it takes to overcome them - time, the third rail of a good life along with money (security, not billions) & food (wine, olives, cheese, chocolate), and commitment to use that time wisely by, for example, exercising and being conscious to hyper-vigilante about food choices.
I am probably harming myself. And if I don't take care of myself, I may cost the economy in terms of healthcare spend in the future. I will deal with it. Eventually. As soon as the morning temps are consistently over 40, I can resume my morning skate.
Now reader, you may think I've written myself into a rabbit hole. I am in effect not taking responsibility for my health actions just like I am charging myriad others did not take responsibility for their financial actions. Glass houses, stones. Have I contradicted myself? Just wait.
People who spent more than they earned and let the naked emperor get away with deceiving them are no different than me eating more than I should and blaming the food industry and advertising for making it hard to be healthy. Oh wait - I didn't do that, did I?
It would be very easy for me to say it's too hard for me to eat / exercise appropriately because advertising promotes an eat eat eat culture and our food industrial complex is as out of control as our financial system. Except it's really hard to deceive myself.
I'm blind about many things but I know the difference between a bag of chips and an apple. I know that going home and sitting is not the same as going home and doing sit-ups. I know that I have less energy than I would were I to exercise regularly.
Let's not deceive ourselves or the American people any longer. Let's call a spade a spade, make decisions that don't simply enrich the individual but also sustain the community.
I am of the opinion that greedy power mad crazies were for the past 20 years on a quest to further consolidate wealth and power. They used every trick in the book to distract us from that sad slimy truth. And we let them.
We are just beginning to understand level of effort exerted to create a (highly un-American) culture of extreme consumption to distract us from reality (Oh I smell a(n) (un)reality TV rant coming on). One of those realities was that we were spending way more than we earned - individually and nationally.
Let's stop letting them get away with it. The good news is, with the rate of delevering going on, there's hope for Americans. Too bad it takes a crisis to do what we should've been doing all along. And hopefully we'll have a post-depression period of responsibility longer than the 50 years preceding the creation of the easy credit era.
And maybe we’ll all lose some weight too.
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First, to answer your question, 'second hand,' not 'first hand.' You are probably now aware that this is Lorraine's conscience responding to your missive. Now I am free to respond using with my Id impressions. Generally, holding victims responsible for crimes committed against them would called be unjust, similarly, we may add owners of pets and parents of children equally with varying degrees of culpability for the digressions of their charges. It is an easy and natural exercise to choose to hold adults accountable for their actions, however, not always just. The easy observation always warrants further exploration and your assertions can be further explored. Here is a test. If you had no home (roof over your head) and someone offered you and your family shelter, would you take offer or stay out in the cold? Desperation, real or imagined, entices one to take desperate actions. We have many desperate people in this land of ours. Those that became most ensnared in the sub-prime debacle were some of the most powerless individuals in this country. They were preyed upon by topfeeders. The bottom line is that the acts of the mob were fueled by our government/corporation. It is not that difficult for those making the rules to create different phenomena throughout the country and the world, to illicit certain expected reactions from the plebs sordida. Hold individuals accountable for this? A futile action.
ReplyDeleteThe government and banking industry were aware that bankers were writing toxic loans and the public at large would snap them up. My question is, why did banks issue these obscenely risky loans to so many loan unworthy applicants. You say, for quick profits. Maybe. I have to believe more on the line of bankers ignorance of the aggregate economy. But then again, economic bubbles have always been a byproduct of capitalism, just as much as greed. Remember Gordon Gecko, "Greed is good." People really believe that. By the way, I didn't know that you were a lefty. Now that I have been adequately inspired by your own musings, I shall endeavor upon my own.
ReplyDeleteWell Ruff, Cergosum makes a sound retort.
ReplyDeleteYou should not expect perfection from imperfection, and we, by far, are imperfect. Excuse...no, truth--yes. And the predators that prey on that imperfection are imperfect themselves. But they control all the devices and levers that manipulate society's imperfection. The "dumbdown" syndrome is very real and further enhances their ability to take advantage of this imperfection...excuse, no, truth--yes.
Its too easy to proclaim that folk ought to have known their limits. That totally dismisses the human factor. And its the human factor that corporations spend all that research money on. And the populous is not protected from such predation. One solution would be to retard the "dumbing down" process, because that is going to be the catalyst for more of the same type of shanannigans in the future...and it will revisit us.
I love you!
Thanks Renwick and Cergosum. First let me say that I am still learning about this blogging thing and just now figured out how to see / add to the comments (geesh such a techno-idiot I am). And also, I am positively giddy that you'll responded and so thoughtfully. I'm thinking this is the coolest thing in the universe!!!!
ReplyDeleteI realize when I rant that some of my notions are both unfair and whacko. (Wait til I get on some of my favorite conspiracy theories...like, what was the deal with impeaching Bill over sex?? C'mon - there was definitely something else going on there!)
And I suppose perhaps I suffer a bit from idealism (also known as the wearing of rose-colored glasses).
And I also know that, much as one might aspire to clear-sightedness, one always has blindspots.
And I also know that facing life head-on with brutal honesty first and foremost with oneself is an exhausting, debilitating, energy-suck.
So I'm going to chew on your view (collective your, so the rhyme works). I will say this - raising the level of dialogue to stem the erosion of debate and reverse the trend toward stupidity is something I completely agree with.