What stories do we cling to?
Across the US, average Americans believe we’re a manufacturing powerhouse and that the world buys our goods. We believe that other countries are jealous of our high lifestyle. We also believe that other countries are stealing our jobs.
None of this is true. Only 10% of all corporate profits come from US manufacturing. 44% of corporate profits come from Finance, moving money around. Around and around and around, it turns out. Fractional reserves allow banks, investment banks and the US government to lend out money that does not even exist, not backed by actual cash in the bank.
Yes, jobs have left the US, but the US put its eggs into the ‘finance’ basket, and we have to now buy things from other countries, at interest. We’ve decided we want to make money off of money, not work. We want the Vegas high roller income and we throw our money at the real estate bubble, the stock bubble, the financial services bubble. All bubbles burst and now we’re flabbergasted – ‘What the hell happened?” Some say its un-American to question the government, but I don’t. I think its un-American to let the river flow so far out of its bed that we die without water. Its time to rein things in. To sacrifice, to take the power away from the people who’ve skimmed profits off the top, the middle and the bottom of every aspect of our lives. The same guys who bankrupted our economy are now in charge of the trillions of dollars they talked us out of, and Americans honestly think they will do the right thing.
Can we handle the truth?
Consumer confidence sucks: great article at The Big Picture blog: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/consumer-confid.html
Our monetary system, as we know it, doesn’t exist. I was wondering, with Paulson shoving $125 billion down the throats of banks, where the hell is that $125 billion coming from? Why can’t it be diverted to pay down part of our ungodly trillion dollar deficit? How can we keep printing fake dollars? I can’t do that for my family, why should the government do it, enslaving my family for decades?
My favorite tshirt says ‘My account can’t be overdrawn, I still have checks”. That’s an immature, ignorant joke but the funny thing is our government is still writing checks, even though we’re waaaaaaaay overdrawn.
Homeowners are being blamed for tapping into their major asset, their home values. But 99% of Americans don’t OWN their own home. They pay interest to a bank. They owe a HUGE portion of fluctuating home values. The government coddles them by saying ‘you get a great tax deduction for the loan interest you pay on your home loan’. But guess what? Your interest and principal adds up to 2 or 3 TIMES the price you purchased your house for. Tax deductions? Count those against bank profits. You don’t own your own home. You’re part of a big money ‘story’. Money lent to you so you can raise your family in a home. Money you pay interest on. Money you write on your tax return, thinking you get a ‘benefit’. Money swept away from you by the greed of the money movers, as the entire real estate market has dropped 10-40% across the US and has not yet reached bottom.
Time to sweep away the old money systems and recalibrate to our values:
- safe living environment
- earn enough to have good life
- care for young and elders
- safety net for poor
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