I recently watched an interesting, oh what's the word for it, "special report" on the US housing industry and what many call the birth of the current "financial crisis". Now for some reason I am somewhat skeptical about the connection between the US housing crisis and the global financial "crisis." A skepticism that was further fuelled by this program, for, even though the show's thesis maintains that the housing bubble is what caused and catalysed financial crises around the world at the end of the show it shows that places like that Norwegian city that bought up badly rated CDOs didn't buy mortgaged backed CDOs...demontrating there is another very serious (maybe more serious) piece to this puzzle. Of course I don't really care about or understand money, so I can't suggest what it is...but I am interested in something Allen Greenspan had to say...
At the end of this program, titled House of Cards, Allan Greenspan suggests that it is human nature to be greedy and further that that nature, the drive for greedy, self-satisfaction, narcissistic endeavor, is what has brought millions out of poverty...
That sentiment hit me pretty hard. Like a slap in the face with a wet pickle by a rugby player named Laura Boghean. This idea that greed is what brings us out of poverty. If that is true, then I think we have unknowingly and fundementally redefined the word poverty. And I am sure this new definition won't stand.
The program goes a long way in demonstrating how we rethought what we meant by the "American Dream." An expression that once meant to prevail after years of struggle, toil, careful investment, pain-staking care and much sacrifice. In the program it is again and again used to mean having every material thing you always wanted...and having it before you are old enough to know what it is without sacrificing anything upfront (though we are all seeing there are big forced sacrifices in the long run).
So what do we mean by poverty? As Allen Greenspan uses the word, it can only mean not possessing much materially in the world. This is the same way President G.W Bush uses it. He sees only poverty as people not having as many lollipops as they want everyday. He sees it as people not owning homes, he sees not owning a home as the fundemental cause of every other social problem in America. This isn't poverty, is it? And if we believe this is poverty then we are the ones truly in poverty.
We are in a poverty of love, spirit, faith, knowledge or happiness. I can only imagine that living in a poverty of these 5 things is a truly sad and tragic thing that corrupts, denegrades and destroys our societies. I don't see how material poverty can cause these things without a greater poverty of the human needs. The only way material poverty can cause social corruption is if we believe that greed is what will bring us out of poverty. If we believe having things makes us happy, brings meaning into our lives... But this is the catch, if we believe and agree greed has this power it is because we live in a poverty of these 5 things.
If you have all the love, all the faith in life in your friends and family in everyday strangers, all the spirit and energy to pursue your life to experience use and generate happiness while people with pools and 6 gaming systems and two cars and machines that vacuum the house day and night might think you live in poverty in your 1 room apartment with mum and dad and 3 brothers but you wouldn't and shouldn't agree with them.
I guess that comes of living within my means. Of living temporarily. Of hoping in increments and preparing for things I want...rather than for taking things i want then having to work to pay for them. I agree that greed is one of the most effective eroding forces of western society. It is the vice over all vices that corrupts and destroys families, friendships, networks and the kinship of strangers. It works with great speed and greater effect than murder, sloth, lust, alcohalism or any vice you can conceive.
I am not trying to point us to some kind of social altruism, it has nothing to do with how we interect with each other, but how we live with ourselves. It has to do with learning how to appreciate and value at a greater level what we have, what we have worked for and things that we are willing to work for. We need to be willing to work for things.
I am sorry for the millions in the US and Canada citizens being thrown out of their homes. Not because they are being thrown out of their homes, but because they never had a chance to learn the value of what they had. They never learned how to be satisfied with what they work for. I am sorry for the people on wall street and the banks that went bankrupt in the way I feel sorry for soldiers with PTSD...I am sorry for people world wide loosing their manufacturing jobs, but I hope that they will find more meaningful ways to contribute to our society, rather than just making more stuff for us to want.
Greed is not the friend of poverty, but the enemy...greed doesn't bring us out of poverty; it drives us into it. But then what does Allen Greenspan know about anything anyway? His defense for why he is not guilty in allowing this problem, and in creating this problem, I didn't understand it...
At the end of this program, titled House of Cards, Allan Greenspan suggests that it is human nature to be greedy and further that that nature, the drive for greedy, self-satisfaction, narcissistic endeavor, is what has brought millions out of poverty...
That sentiment hit me pretty hard. Like a slap in the face with a wet pickle by a rugby player named Laura Boghean. This idea that greed is what brings us out of poverty. If that is true, then I think we have unknowingly and fundementally redefined the word poverty. And I am sure this new definition won't stand.
The program goes a long way in demonstrating how we rethought what we meant by the "American Dream." An expression that once meant to prevail after years of struggle, toil, careful investment, pain-staking care and much sacrifice. In the program it is again and again used to mean having every material thing you always wanted...and having it before you are old enough to know what it is without sacrificing anything upfront (though we are all seeing there are big forced sacrifices in the long run).
So what do we mean by poverty? As Allen Greenspan uses the word, it can only mean not possessing much materially in the world. This is the same way President G.W Bush uses it. He sees only poverty as people not having as many lollipops as they want everyday. He sees it as people not owning homes, he sees not owning a home as the fundemental cause of every other social problem in America. This isn't poverty, is it? And if we believe this is poverty then we are the ones truly in poverty.
We are in a poverty of love, spirit, faith, knowledge or happiness. I can only imagine that living in a poverty of these 5 things is a truly sad and tragic thing that corrupts, denegrades and destroys our societies. I don't see how material poverty can cause these things without a greater poverty of the human needs. The only way material poverty can cause social corruption is if we believe that greed is what will bring us out of poverty. If we believe having things makes us happy, brings meaning into our lives... But this is the catch, if we believe and agree greed has this power it is because we live in a poverty of these 5 things.
If you have all the love, all the faith in life in your friends and family in everyday strangers, all the spirit and energy to pursue your life to experience use and generate happiness while people with pools and 6 gaming systems and two cars and machines that vacuum the house day and night might think you live in poverty in your 1 room apartment with mum and dad and 3 brothers but you wouldn't and shouldn't agree with them.
I guess that comes of living within my means. Of living temporarily. Of hoping in increments and preparing for things I want...rather than for taking things i want then having to work to pay for them. I agree that greed is one of the most effective eroding forces of western society. It is the vice over all vices that corrupts and destroys families, friendships, networks and the kinship of strangers. It works with great speed and greater effect than murder, sloth, lust, alcohalism or any vice you can conceive.
I am not trying to point us to some kind of social altruism, it has nothing to do with how we interect with each other, but how we live with ourselves. It has to do with learning how to appreciate and value at a greater level what we have, what we have worked for and things that we are willing to work for. We need to be willing to work for things.
I am sorry for the millions in the US and Canada citizens being thrown out of their homes. Not because they are being thrown out of their homes, but because they never had a chance to learn the value of what they had. They never learned how to be satisfied with what they work for. I am sorry for the people on wall street and the banks that went bankrupt in the way I feel sorry for soldiers with PTSD...I am sorry for people world wide loosing their manufacturing jobs, but I hope that they will find more meaningful ways to contribute to our society, rather than just making more stuff for us to want.
Greed is not the friend of poverty, but the enemy...greed doesn't bring us out of poverty; it drives us into it. But then what does Allen Greenspan know about anything anyway? His defense for why he is not guilty in allowing this problem, and in creating this problem, I didn't understand it...
1 comment:
nande! Who are you? Let's chat more. While I think you're being unduly pessimistic, wow...what a great essay. Do you mind if i save a hard copy?
I say unduly pessimistic, not because i think the changes in the economic systems are not as bad as they seems, but because i don't think the collapse of human civilization, as we know it, is a particularly bad thing. It's just a thing. Not good or bad. Just a change. And as much as we hate change (me especially) it happens, and it's not that big a deal.
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