Debt

In my post yesterday, which was what I like to call comprehensive (i.e., long), I wrote the following:

"Over eight disastrous years it has become all too clear that [the current Administration and many members of Congress] could care less about workers and average homeowners. In their view we are but consumers, programmed to mistake what we want for what we need, the result of which confusion only serves to put more and more money into the pockets of the wealthiest of the wealthy, thus increasing the gap between those who have and those who have not. No longer does anyone worry about savings rates, about putting and keeping our economy on a solid footing, an endeavor in which we all share responsibility. Of course, we bear no small of amount responsibility for this state of affairs. No one can take away our freedom. Hence, we bear responsibility."

Today, I received a Loose Change calendar at work. The quote for December 2009 is by a man named Earl Wilson, who I had never heard of before looking at this calendar. Mr. Wilson writes,
"Today, there are three kinds of people: the have's, the have not's, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they- have's." While I may never have heard of him before today, Mr. Wilson is correct. Too many of us being the last kind of people is what got us into our current economic mess. So, it is a judgment of reason that more of the same kind of consumerism is not going to get us out of it, let alone put us on solid footing either individually or collectively.