There is something fundamentally askew in a society which seeks to reward those who pay no income tax with tax rebates (in the name of financial stimulus), rescue mortgage holders who cynically used non-existent equity to support lifestyles they had not earned and which is now instead pouring money by the bucketful into firms which abused and gamed the system (in the name of a rescue plan) while at the same time sucking dry those who believed in the system and tried to live by the rules.
Our financial crisis has the potential to rend the fabric of our society entirely. The winners in this crisis, if they can be called winners, have absolutely been those who were profligate, devious and out for the quick buck. They have lost little or nothing in the misery they have caused--they either had nothing to lose or, in the case of the investment bankers, had their mistakes paid for by you and me.
The losers, unfortunately, have been those who were solid citizens, invested, saved and worked and now find themselves working longer and harder toward a receding horizon while politicians scheme to tax their "wealth."
The lesson, if it is not corrected, will not be lost on this generation. It is not lost on me.
The values we are rewarding, in the name of crisis mitigation, are not values with which we can prosper. Even under the exigency of this crisis, we must be careful that our recovery plans reflect values which we can be proud of rather than the values which brought us to this sad point.
Norm
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