Time for Scrooge?

Greed - The desire for that which we haven't earned.

This is the definition of greed that I ascribe to. Greed is the cancer of Excellence. It is the evil we battle against when we come together as a Community to try and work for each other's Excellence. It is not good.

Returns are economic rewards for assuming risks. Economies are based on production, human production. Or, the economic rewards for Excellent achievements. For us to become economically successful we need to have the courage to face the risks and overcome the myriad of things that might go wrong. Excellence breeds wealth. Money is the integer of wealth. Merely a measuring stick. Greedy people have a tendency to treat money as wealth. They SOOOO miss the point.

They can't comprehend the difference between the physical substance of money and the spiritual accomplishment of wealth. They are like Scrooge before the three Christmas spirits helped him see the error of his ways. The Scrooge after that glorious Christmas was known as the man who MOST kept the Christmas spirit alive, finding ways to share, support, and give of his wealth to better the lives of all in his community.

We need to revisit the story of Scrooge to better deal with the current state of our economy.

The world has been cursed by greedy Scrooges who valued money as an asset unto itself. Bankers and mortgage brokers trying to manufacture more and more of it without any underlying wealth. Bundling unworkable loans into packages that hid the risks and allowed for more and more layers of money to weigh down the 'wealth camel's' back until it broke. Without human Excellence producing greater value in the system the unsupported money actually accelerated to a point where the WORLD couldn't produce enough wealth to support it. Rewards without risk. This greed also seeped into the oil markets where, I believe, they revisited their track-record of manufacturing demand to drive the price of energy to untold heights making the same amount of oil more expensive than its value to the economy. Auto executives making business decisions based on short-term stock prices instead of long-term business prospects to the point that they now cannot exist in this new market of revised credit and oil consumption habits.

And they all come running to the people's representatives in Congress for tax favors, loans, and bailout money!

Who earned the bailout? Not the mortgage, oil, or auto execs. They have shown themselves to be self-centered, greedy, myopic leeches on the business system that requires its leaders to generate wealth as a precursor for rewards. To find the core value of their contributions based in facts not just ink on paper.

So, I am against the bailouts? Actually, no, I'm not. I believe the United States, as a whole, as a community of institutions: government, business, and taxpayers should look to assuming the roles of Christmas Spirits and make the shallow, greedy, sorry excuses for humans suffer for our current situation. But not to destroy ourselves in the process. Not to bail out the industries involved would be cutting off our noses to spites our faces. Really more like cutting off our heads to relieve a headache.

The machine that is our economy needs a new transmission. Always a costly repair. The only question is if we pay for a new or rebuilt transmission. I vote for new over rebuilt. We are in a position to identify a clearer role for regulation on an economy that cannot allow more of these greedy Scrooges to run roughshod over our wealth in their pursuit of money. The bailout buys us time to analyse where our future growth will come from. Alternative fuels, more efficient cars, and/or perhaps a new technology can become the accelerators of a new production growth. Find the new leaders who can see past daily stock quotes and build businesses and valuable assets.

We need to establish a component in the machine that rewards post-spirit Scrooges to step forward and create wealth through human achievement and production. Scrooges who understand that we are all in this together. That any money they try to hoard that cannot be supported by our production is valueless. Wealth is the by-product of the community achieving greater levels of Excellence. The bailout will give the economy the chance to invest in innovation and productivity, the ingredients of Excellence, the ingredients of wealth.