Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Start With The End In Mind

... or at least that's what I've read you should do.

The more I educate myself about the financial crisis, the less I understand just what it is we're trying to accomplish with all this thrashing around.

Is it job growth? No. Jobs come from profits. We don't like profits.

Is it long-term financial health? No. No one strives for long-term financial health by burying themselves in debt. Even the most profligate credit card hound doesn't lie to himself like that.

Is it eradicating poverty? No. We're several decades into the War on Poverty and we seem to be stuck in a quagmire. Besides, we've got mountains of statistical evidence telling us where poverty comes from and we ignore that because it sounds to prudicious.

The only thing I can think of as our goal is to get the incumbents re-elected. In order to do that, you've got to come up with short-term solutions and not tell the public that they need to change their behavior.

Bingo.

4 comments:

Dean said...

I've come to the realization that our elected officials govern in much the same manner that CEOs of large publically held corporations do: on a quarterly basis.

It should be no surprise then that their respective fates are joined at the hip.

K T Cat said...

Great comment!

Dean said...

Thanks! Link forthcoming.

Rose said...

They have to pump up the poverty figures, they have to tell us how bad things are, and how bad we are. (The homeless, by the way, don't like the Poverty Pimps.)

We have to be guilty and we have to feel bad, and we accept the punishments they dole out. We mustn't think too well of ourselves or we might get uppity, yannow.

arrrghhh. trying to think positive here. :)

(pealize)