What Needs To Go Right by Bill Sharon
Go to Article
Click the titles below to read them.
- The Price of Ice Cream by Bill Sharon
- After Lehman
- 11/24/08 Getting Hit By a Bus
- 11/23/08 Too Big to Survive
- 10/16/08 Deleveraging
- 09/17/08 Taxpayer Bailout
- 09/10/08 Worrying
- 08/28/08 Frick and Frack
- 08/20/08 Incarceration
- 08/11/08 From The Head To The Heart
- 08/01/08 Who We Have Been Waiting For
- 07/21/08 Ecology, Security and Economics
- 07/18/08 Karma
- 07/18/08 Einstein
- 07/11/08 Being Right
- 06/25/08 Getting Hit By A Bus
- 06/23/08 The Market
- 06/12/08 The Price of Ice Cream
- 06/02/08 The Lesson Derived From Derivatives
- 05/26/08 Senator Clinton, Fear, and Assassination
- 05/21/08 Shareholder Value
- 05/10/08 It's not easy being Green, or even truthful it would seem
- 05/06/08 Lunacy and Freedom
- 04/23/08 Moody's Blues
- 04/07/08 We are all African
After Lehman by Bill Sharon
There is much scurrying around in the Democratic Party these days; what to do about Sarah Palin. The liberal pundits are in an uproar and the conservatives are chuckling up their sleeves and nursing some cautious optimism. Cable news is having a ball.
This weekend the financial powers of the world met in
Nouriel Roubini is telling us that we are just at the beginning of a major financial meltdown that will result in a one to two trillion dollar loss and a contraction in GDP of 10%. Mr. Roubini has made a living from predicting doom but he is riding a wave of newfound popularity, probably because it is difficult to envisage a scenario that doesn’t’ come close to his predictions. The financial experts who oppose his views make hopeful assertions about the end of the year or early next year for the hemorrhaging to stop but it is increasingly clear that nothing is clear.
I am reminded of the chorus from Dylan’s Ballad of a Thin Man:
… something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
The question is who is it that doesn’t know what is happening? It has not been unusual for the public to be uninformed about the bad and even criminal behavior of their government and the irresponsibility of those in positions of authority in the financial system. That’s been the norm, even in the recent past. But the Internet has changed all that. There is abundant information about the nature and dimension of the current fiscal crisis and there is abundant information about the actions of our government. Many ask why there is not more of an outcry. Where’s the indignation and outrage?
This lack of an emotional response is likely because catharsis is loosing its appeal. You couldn’t tell that by the partisan reactions at the party conventions but you hear it in everyday conversations on the street. People know that there is a connection between the financial meltdown and their job security, the rise in food and fuel costs and the diminished likelihood that they will be able to send their kids to college, the lengthy list of failed pharmaceuticals and battle to get insurance companies to cover healthcare costs.
The meetings in
Although he surely would have been excoriated in today’s media for his extra-marital activities, John Kennedy is generally thought of as a great inspirational leader. In one of his most famous quotes he asked us not to think of ourselves but to think of each other, to think of our country. Perhaps it is not so much that great leaders lead, perhaps it is that they give us permission to act on what we already know to be true.
Sarah Palin’s admirers love their kids and they help their neighbors. They don’t want their daughter’s to be pregnant before their time any more than I do. They are loosing their jobs, their healthcare deductibles make it impossible to use their insurance for anything but catastrophes and they live paycheck to paycheck like most of the rest of us. It doesn’t make what is considered good television or radio and it won’t warm the cockles of a partisan’s heart, but we all need to find a way to start talking to each other. The Internet, with its many tools (blogs, social networking, radio, television to mention a few) provides us with ample opportunity. Nobody is going to lead us in that effort but hopefully our new leaders that take over next year will encourage us and play to our aspirations rather than our fear. But if they don’t, it’s no excuse for all of us to pretend that someone else is going to solve all these problems for us.
ATTENTION!
It has been brought to our attention that Margaret is being portrayed as a psychic on $1.99 sites. These sites are doing so without Margaret's permission. Margaret has not claimed she is a psychic. - MW