Corporations and the little guy

September 25, 2008

I must admit to having mixed feelings regarding the current broohaha over bailing out financial corporations. A few things surface in my head:

1. These giants need to take their medicine for the mistakes made.
2. Why doesn't the government bail ME out too?
3. why should I care about a bunch of rich greedy assholes who couldn't care less about where they were going to end up as long as the money was flowing?

After all, it's us vs them right? The big bad bullies on the cultural block or the little Davids with their slings. I have to admit though, that if you really look at who it might affect should these financial giants stumble, some of the faces look very familiar. We all have strings tied to several large corporations in one form or another.

There really is no way of getting away from corporations in today's world. If you buy anything, goods or services, somehow a large corporation has it's stamp on some or all parts of the process ending in your purchase. Unless you live in the woods and subsist on game you hunt yourself, or forgaged plants, it's impossible to get away from making a direct or indirect purchase from a major corporation.(even then, what are you hunting with? a stick or a knife you bought at Walmart?) In large part, should the financial corps go down, these other giants will also falter as they find sources of credit drying up. If that happens, we all suffer through loss of jobs, loss of income, loss of the (God given American) ability to consume.

Now would this be a bad thing is the question we must ask ourselves? Is it worth the expense and danger of involving large government in saving them to avoid the pain of a slow down or possible depression in this country?

It seems to me that we cycle near danger every few years. Going from boom to bust continuously over and over again. The problem isn't with the criminal minded, it is with the myopically stupid minded who follow the dollar no matter what the consequences are for our future. The problem is none of us really recognizes the danger we flirt with. Really, even those of us who have grandparents that may have told us about living in the 30's don't really get the point do we? We are all about getting what we want NOW, damn if we don't have the money. Use the credit card!

Perhaps we need experience to teach us all as a nation, again, what it means to sacrifice and how important it is to save rather than to continue in our mode of instant gratification.

Perhaps the human animal is simply incapable of learning from other's experiences.