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March 03, 2009
The Undoing of the Human Race
I have been watching the US government’s support of AIG with a certain degree of cynicism. There are as many arguments for the appropriate solution as there are sides to a pair of dice, and about as many random outcomes. I started to devote some time to dissecting the information that is out there to try to make some sense of it.
Now, I am generally an optimistic person. I try to find the positive spin on almost everything. I am solution-oriented, not problem-driven. I have a highly analytical mind. But I am also pragmatic.
Yesterday, I completed a review of the four trips to the taxpayer well that are described in AIG’s various press releases. I was horrified to find a pattern of opaqueness in disclosure and inconsistencies in the facts. I watched as AIG’s share price rose 17% in early morning trading to $0.49 and subsequently to $0.42 in after-market trading. The backdrop to this scene was tumbling equity markets.
I watched CNN while I made curried lentil soup for dinner. Lou Dobbs makes me crazy but his ridiculous right-wing attitude toward absolutely everything confirms my gentler, calmer, more peaceful liberal attitudes. CNN was discussing AIG and got as many of the facts wrong as they got right.
No bloody wonder that Americans, and I daresay it, the world, are confused and angry.
I am devoting more time to figuring out the AIG mess, because I am beginning to believe that AIG is at the very heart of the dislocation in financial markets. I think this is why the government continues to support it, and why bankruptcy was not an option. Too, I believe that neither the government nor AIG’s new management team has a clear picture of what’s at stake.
We used to worry that nuclear war was going to be the undoing of the human race. It’s still out there, what with North Korea and Iran allegedly attempting to build weapons capability. Lately, I have worried that what we are doing to the environment will ultimately lead to our demise. My hopefulness translates into my unflinching commitment to reduce my carbon footprint.
But I can’t help but wonder about what greed has done to the human race. I think this recession is going to get worse before it gets better. And I look at what has caused this recession and who is to blame. The reality is that we are all to blame. We consumed beyond our means. We bought houses we couldn’t afford. We leant money to those who couldn’t pay it back. We borrowed against our future to live more fully in the present. We believed that all of this would bring us happiness.
In an interview in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911”, Marilyn Manson tried to explain his theory of American consumerism. He said that it’s cultural. That Americans are taught at an early age that you must live the American dream – big house, big car, big job and lots of toys. And if you don’t, you are a failure. Therefore, people consume because they fear failing at the American dream.
I think he’s right. But the fear of being a failure (which implies that someone judges you as a failure), has now been replaced with a different kind of fear. A fear of losing your big job, big house, big car and the toys. It seems that American consumerism is changing. For the better I think, but a lot of businesses will struggle and even fail in this systemic shift. A healthy degree of responsibility is creeping into the American psyche. I hope that Americans drop their fear of failure, and engage in some responsibility and accountability for their financial house.
Buddhists believe that greed is based on incorrectly connecting material wealth with happiness, caused by a view that exaggerates the positive aspects of an object. In other words, acquiring material objects has less impact on our happiness than we imagine. Beyond the basic level of material comfort, more wealth does not increase happiness.
Greed got the world into this mess. I don’t think it made us happier. If it remains unchecked, my worry is that it will be the undoing of the human race. My hope is that people will find a less materialistic way of life that focuses on the community rather than the self.
Posted by dave at March 3, 2009 11:43 AM