In the End, As In the Beginning

Allowing people to believe they are participating in a free market when really the game is fixed is the underlying problem.

We are pawns and slaves to ATM machine that has been running for hundreds if not thousands of years. I think that domination and control is the cause of the problems. Greed, ignorance, and caste systems follow closely. Freedom is what we fight for but someone is holding the leash.

Simply put the economy operates on debt. Instead of based on an actual standard, like gold, the transactions occur only because the lender and borrower have confidence. Now that the loan for a home that one person bought can be sold to another and another, the derived value of that loan contract becomes almost worthless because the confidence is etched away all along the supply chain.

In actuality, people must instead spend their money getting to work, buying food, and the biggest cost, taking care of their health care; be it insurance and medical bills, or organic food. This is because we have allowed the factories that we need to work in to pollute. Allowed driving our inefficient cars to pass for progress because the shape and model numbers changed. Allowed ourselves to smoke and drink, stress and bend our bodies like good Americans. Well I'm a bad boy.

The promises that were made were not being delivered. Whether it be a pension, a promotion or a better future, we are now finding ourselves almost out of time. The story is supposed to go...and they lived happily ever after. Well ever after is almost here. Happily is up to us, not the US.

So all of these derivatives and credit accounts that are seizing because the tread mill got too fast are causing the financial structures we use to “do business” to carry too much debt and that makes the tread mill sag so that it looks bad to investors who won't even throw other people's money on the thing for fear the whole thing will break. The game is up when you’ve got something to sell and no where to "put" it.

Or, is the game just starting? This problem we find ourselves in can’t be fixed by the same minds that got us into it. To throw more cash at debt in order to stabilize it is like putting more lipstick on a pit-bull. Facing that this economy is unsustainable and getting this "vehicle" to the next rest stop should be our concern. How to keep our investments from tanking and disappearing while we shore up new industry which will allow people to support their causes and themselves without damage and costs like war and pollution is a question we should consider. The answers are staring at us in the forms of problems.

Our economy is operating in an unsustainable way on two levels. One level that is really pretty easy to fix: Business, government, and the public won’t walk away from the easy “pickins” if we don’t walk away first. We are considered consumers. We buy because we can and the cost doesn't matter because if we don't have it, we know we can get it. That time is over.

Businesses, no matter what they sell, must be operating "green" where the energy for distribution is renewable. Why would we continue to pay an overhead cost unless it somehow served a bigger purpose, control? Domination? Market domination? Just because that would limit the competition by causing the scale of business that must be achieved to support a family require a loan from a bank? Just because big business needs more time to work it out with the government how we'll can be led down a path that keeps us producing...and consuming.

We must only buy that which is sustainable: Those goods that are fairly traded. We must be able to see where the money goes. If it can’t be done all at once, it is something to strive for. When you know what your money pays for, you are in the driver’s seat of the economy and no economist will be able to tell you anything that you couldn't agree or disagree with. No longer will you be at the mercy of your "stock man", "money guy", or "portfolio manager". You'll know where your money is because you wouldn't put it anywhere that you might not be able to find it.

The second level is that our bigger, global economy if you will is manipulated by those who see a good deal and know they can make it. This is called taking advantage and is not part of "fair trade". If it sounds too good to be true...it probably is. From the poor farmer or craftsman in another country being promised everything he would seem to need to the 2 for 1 tennies and half price sales we are so accustomed to by now.

So the confusing part is that you can have it all but just not at the cost that you have to pay today. The whole system is set up to perpetuate the paradigm of the rich getting a lot richer and the poor getting a little less poor and this we call progress. Would you be content if you were 'given' health care? The rights and privileges attained by white men in 1776 are still greater than those of most people today. The only difference is that we now have technology that makes the injustice a little more tolerable. From laughing gas to propane, and penicillin to paxil, I think I can, I think I can. Oh wait pandemic? World economic collapse? I can't handle that...

We need to search ourselves and get back to our beginnings. We took this land from native people who were living in relative harmony because our monetary and social structure was taxing us without representing us. We've corrupted their way of life and learned only enough from their way of life to get us face to face with our way of life. The systems developed (or developed and corrupted) for control and continuance of empires, religions, nations and corporations may be stabilized, but will not be looked upon the same anymore. This bailout solution is one that the "powers that be" have come up with once again, a solution was never found so quickly? Pay more for a system which ensures it’s strangle hold on our necks and ankles and wrists. Pay to play and pay to keep those who don't play "fairly" in prison, and those who bend the rules on the top.

Look at these issues closely and see that all we need to do is to learn how to take care of our business, our finances, our health and our environment. Always looking to another for direction is what got us all stamped. Walk gently in the direction that is best for you and those that you love. Spend your energy and time helping instead of taking.

If you later find that you were one of the few who were able to “get theirs” and it was at the cost to all the others, things soon will then change, with out a need for legislation. It will be judgment day as it was in the beginning. But if you follow your heart, it matters not how much wealth you acquire or how much money you can give, only that your hands are there to share.