Our forefathers are rolling in their graves...

I recently came across this article by way of a friend who frequently posts valuable articles on the US’ financial crisis on Facebook, thus he is my trusted source for informative information on business and economics. http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111

Michael Lewis writes on the US’ financial crisis but focuses on the state and local levels of deficit.  He cites Meredith Whitney’s prediction in 2007 of state defaults based on the following data: “U.S. state and local governments faced a collective annual deficit of roughly half a trillion dollars, adding that another trillion-dollar gap existed between what the governments owed retired workers and the money they had on hand to pay them.” Lewis then goes on to present the state that faces these issues on the largest scale: California.  The article examines several local CA governments and the deficits they are facing, particularly in regards to state employee benefits. These local governments grapple with the cost of maintaining union retirement packages by making cuts to existing government employees.  As a result towns, like Vallejo, have half the number of police and firemen on duty and are seeing a mass exodus of those that have the funds to move. The town mayor notes that unions come to the bargaining table ready to fight for benefits without looking at the long-term costs.  The same can be said for those on Wall Street who look for instant profit without a care for long-term consequences to society. Lewis concludes the article with a thought provoking statement: “The richest society the world has ever seen has grown rich by devising better and better ways to give people what they want. The effect on the brain of lots of instant gratification is something like the effect on the right hand of cutting off the left: the more the lizard core [(in this article humans are likened to lizards in terms of instant gratification behavior)] is used the more dominant it becomes. “What we’re doing is minimizing the use of the part of the brain that lizards don’t have,” says Whybrow. “We’ve created physiological dysfunction. We have lost the ability to self-regulate, at all levels of the society. The $5 million you get paid at Goldman Sachs if you do whatever they ask you to do—that is the chocolate cake upgraded [(the chocolate cake symbolizes the human’s inability to say no)].”’

Our forefathers, were men of the Enlightenment, and created our democracy based on the philosophy men have the ability to govern themselves based on reason.   These principles are juxtaposed by current US societies need for instant gratification, where unions and Wall Street alike take what they can get at the time without forethought to the long-term consequences on their own society.  Perhaps we do need a higher entity that can step in and regulate since men are unable to do this for themselves.  Unfortunately, our current government has fallen prey to same issues where lobbyists and favors influence policies.  Here’s hoping that what the coffee house was to the Enlightenment is the tent to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Claire