Taking Our Countries Back from the Recession

People should take responsibility for themselves and their actions. This also goes for those who created the "recession" in which we now find ourselves. Taking a judgemental position of superiority and entitlement is what created the foundation for the problems many countries now face. The problem began, not with the unemployed, but with the greed, abuse of power, and purposeful financial deregulation by politicians and top CEO's (who now earn approximately 540% more than the average American, compared to the approximately 56% more that top European CEO's earn over the average European worker) to enable exponential increases in monetary acquisition, along with the greatest transfer of wealth and property to banks in history...paid for by the average citizen in taxes, loss of jobs, foreclosures, furlough days, reduced wages and benefits, reductions in funding for necessary things like education and basic health care, teacher layoffs, etc.

Don't blame the victims of this abuse of power and greed. The abusers' refusal to take responsibility is why those who created this mess should be tried and held accountable in a court of law. Those who are allowed to abuse with impunity will continue to abuse. In fact, our failure to hold accountable those responsible will encourage more abuse.

Taking back our countries should be about demanding ethical behavior of those in power, free and fair elections, justice for those who abuse their power, paying living wages, and adequate educational and health care funding for a start. It should be about empowering all people to rise to their highest ability level and giving a helping hand up to those who are down so they can once again contribute to society. Those who have a sense of superiority and entitlement should walk a mile in the shoes of those whom they judge. Life is very different from another's perspective.

How can we empower ourselves and each other to take our countries back to responsible leadership in politics and business? How can we take on greater responsibility and more effective leadership in our own lives as individuals and as citizens?

Let Them Eat Cake?

Well, 100 years before Marie Antoinette, a princess in the French aristocracy said, "qu'ils mangent de la brioche." This has been incorrectly translated as, "let them eat cake." "Let them eat brioche" was callously uttered by an aristocrat when there was not even enough plain bread to feed the poor people, never mind the delicious, butter-rich brioche. One way or another, this kind of callous disregard by the idle rich towards the working poor of those times led to the French Revolution. In fact, Marie Antoinette was dubbed "Madame Déficit" for her active role in overspending the people's tax money. Therefore, I believe it completely appropriate to dub George Dubya "Monsieur le President Déficit" for taking a surplus and overspending the people's money to create the huge deficit that President Obama and the people of the United States have inherited.

George Bush, et al are responsible for the mortgage and financial meltdown crisis, recession and layoffs we now face. The road to our current recession and deficit is long. Phil Gramm began removal of the regulatory protections put in place after the last Depression. Then Enron officials both laughingly and greedily began the recent power surge in unregulated profit dollars, followed closely by other power companies, Big Oil, and the mortgage and financial industry.

When government and industry conspire to grasp more and more of the people's money, the people will throw the "cake" back into their faces. The American Revolution began with the Boston Tea Party because colonists were being taxed without any representation. When government and corporations conspire against the people, they also seem to think the people don't know or notice they're not being represented.

Whenever unfettered greed and abuse of power create a huge gap in income between the rich and the poor, accompanied by the disappearance of the middle class, there is often a revolution. The US government was afraid of a revolution during the first Depression. I’m surprised it’s not worried now. As a teacher, it never ceases to amaze me that people never seem to learn from history, but keep repeating the mistakes of the past. I am noticing many troubling signs, such as tea parties, comments all over the internet, and hearing talk on the street. Oh, I also noticed that the traditionally served little tea cakes were conspicuously absent from the many and very recently held tea parties.

I absolutely do not want to see a similar, violent history lesson repeated in this country. Honestly, I believe people should resort to non-violent means to effect social and political change. I truly hope the current government rapidly takes the proper steps to close the current income gap, and that President Obama and his administration also address the many other horrors of the Bush/Cheney “Reign of Terror” on the common person.

Christmas

Yes, I am well aware that I should be in the Christmas spirit. This year, however, I can't seem to rustle up the energy to "celebrate." I don't see the point to all the lunacy of rushing around to put up a tree and decorate, only to rush around taking it all down again in a couple of weeks. I also can't afford to travel to spend the holidays with family. Instead, I've decided to save money by not driving all over the place to buy gifts (or order gifts and have someone else drive all over the place to deliver them). I refuse to add to the recession by spending what I don't have, or paying the loansharks at the credit card companies to borrow their money.

I do plan on using this time to get healthy, relax and develop a store of energy to bring back to work. I've made a couple of donations. I also want to do something creative, enjoy the beauty of nature and my backyard, listen to beautiful music, sing loud enough to raise the rafters, and spend some time with friends. An absence of decorations doesn't mean that I cannot celebrate in my heart and mind, where it counts the most. After all, long before the consumer model of Christmas came to the fore, Christmas was all about love. In the original spirit of Christmas, I wholeheartedly send the warmth of the holiday season and my love to all my family and friends. I truly wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas.

The Financial Crisis: Recession or Depression?

The current administration has done a great job of distraction. They have formed committees to study problems in order to purposefully and in all actuality get nothing done. They are giftedly performing wholesale obfuscation of the truth through the use of lies, distraction, and dissemination of disinformation. Just because the government doesn't want to tell us the truth doesn't change the facts, challenges and hard reality of the lives average Americans lead. Thanks to Phil Gramm, his Enron loophole and deregulating the banking industry, as well as all the other authors of this new financial reality, I guess we really are now a "nation of whiners" in their eyes.

Our reality is that we have moved from a recession and are rapidly entering a depression (the financial kind, not the mental, implying it's in our imagination kind, Mr. Gramm). I know the rich don't say this and that our government says the inflation rate is only 5.4%. I honestly don't see where they get this number because the average American is seeing much different numbers and could probably relate to the term depression much more readily.

Americans have seen 605,000 jobs disappear just since the beginning of this year. We have experienced a 35.6% increase in gas prices, a 17.3% increase in household energy costs, an increase of 7.5% in food prices, a decrease of approximately 20% in home prices and a record amount of foreclosures, and only a 3.3% increase in the average salary, all over the past year. Our two major mortgage lenders and leading insurance firm had to be taken over or bailed out by the federal government to prevent a further collapse of our economy. Former blue chip banks have gone bankrupt or are about to be bought for pennies on the dollar. The Dow has dropped nearly 1,000 points in two days, and this has lead to a domino effect to other world markets. The Russian market has collapsed and had to be shut down to prevent further damage.

If this financial crisis is not a depression, I don't know what is. And all through this economic crisis...our President, George W. Bush, has remained conspicuously absent and silent. Not one appearance before the American people. Not one word spoken to explain his take on the situation, what he plans to do to rectify it, or information about what American citizens should do to make it through this crisis. Nothing. Absolutely nothing!