May 7, 2006 at 23:00:00

The Good Life

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By Bill Burkett (about the author) Page 2 of 4 page(s)

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In 1995, every white child was raised to believe they were one of two categories; the Bold and the Beautiful or the Ugly and Downtrodden. And their was an elitism far greater than at any preceding time in American history and an accompanying race for those not born into the elite society to get in. As with every generation, every individual made a conscious choice.

Some chased their dreams of wealth and fame while others succumbed to a life of mediocrity. But for whatever reason, in about 1995 those within the mediocrity found they could lift their pride and power through a persuasion that the end was near and they could be heaven bound through their religion. Gone were the days of religion in private. Religion became Hollywood, and the vast riches from its exploitation followed. So did megachurches, television networks, and the hookers, scandal and ugliness that excess breeds.

That was just in America. As a counter reaction, Jewish, Islam and other religious beliefs had to work hard to either react or follow this rush to greed and excess. They too developed and exploited their own religions and from that exploitation came the religious zealots of their own persuasion.

The Apocolyptic belief also unleashed another subconscious reaction: grabbing for all the ghusto.

�live for Today� became the motto. �Grab all you can�, the mantra.

Within social and work cultures we found opportunism abound. Its tempo has only escalated over this past decade as it pits more and more competition for greed and corruption neighbor against neighbor; business against business; culture against culture; special interest against special interest; nation against nation and religion against religion.

Now why should we ever be surprised that the World is in the worst shambles in our lifetime? Where PEACE was before the goal, today, it's perpetual war and strife � competition. Where once the though of harmony, respect, and cohabitation was accepted as the Worldwide desire; now it's annihilation or cleansing � that's right religious, moral, business competition cleansing. And war is not a tool too far.

In the last five years, President Bush has accumulated more national debt than all of the Presidents that preceded him in the 225 years history of the United States.

The debt of nations however, is nothing more than the accumulated debt of its individual citizens.

Just like Constitutions, societies, rules of law, they are simply �trusts� between people � or as the sitting President has forthrightly said, �Just a Goddamned piece of paper�, when speaking of the US Constitution.

Yet he used the framework of the constitution to claim he doesn't have to abide by over 750 laws passed by the United States Congress � the arm of government entrusted with making law within the same US Constitution.

But, I digress. Let's examine the individual debt as well.

This nation has lived on credit. The banking industry encouraged and built its wealth stream on the basis of false economics.

When car prices got too high to afford in the 80s, we developed longer term mortgages and lease agreements and encouraged people to concentrate not on net worth or value basis but on cash flow or making payments basis. The fact was, we produced a car that wouldn't last but three years under commuting conditions, yet we managed to develop financing schemes � scams, actually � to charge interest on for amortization periods up to seven years. While it makes no practical sense from a consumer sense; it disavows the base problem that the cars have been over priced; the law of true supply and demand was displaced by the Republican Reagan Administration. Credit restrictions and usury laws were relaxed; banking was totally deregulated and all consumer protections displaced.

This alteration came in the banking industry when I was a banker in the 1970s. I know of which I speak. We knew there had to be a transitional approach because the price of living had exceeded the real ability to pay for goods � especially durable goods. The net effect was that we had to find ways that people could live then � and pay later.

Within a decade, personal bankruptcies became more prevalent. And within the 1990s financial institutions which had expanded to almost every retail merchandiser in America saw bankruptcy losses as cutting deeply into their bottom line. They chose to shift the blame from themselves to the creditors. It took a one-party government made up of the 35% of solid support who believed they were enjoying the good life to do it � but the drawbridge for the elite set was finally cast in stone and raised.

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