What goes around comes around
Summary: This credit-crisis-fueled recession is testing us far more deeply than merely everyone shaving a few costs while we ride this sucker out.
This credit-crisis-fueled recession is testing us far more deeply than merely everyone shaving a few costs while we ride this sucker out. And while it hurts, a little pain should bring about some positives that go far deeper than mere penny-pinching. We need to dig deeper to understand more about what makes us good people: fun to be with, smart to do business with, and decent returners-of-favors. I have always (somewhat naively) operated on the “what goes around comes around” principle, but I truly believe these times will help many of us get what we deserve. I don’t mind doing people favors – I just don’t do them twice if the first one never got returned when I needed it.
But we will come out of this, and we will emerge a bit smarter, a bit leaner, a bit more streetwise, and I firmly hope this will bring the best qualities out of us. We may emerge a few percentage points poorer than when we went into this, but the world we will be living in should be one where we help each other out more, and appreciate what we have.
When I look at the way many corporates and people behaved during the greed years, I sincerely hope these experiences bring a degree of humility to us all. I live and die by my friendships – whether personal or work-related, and I know many of you who have the same principles will get through the next couple of years. However, we all know people who just focus on what they can get out of others and rarely put back – those are the people I fear for in this economy, and I hope learn to act with more humility as a result.
Anyway, I will finish this little diatribe with a couple of points about how to treat our friends and colleagues:
People: remember who your friends are. Stop thinking just about your career and your self-interest, but take some time to get to know people a little better – and not simply those aspects that can further your own goals and ambitions
Work: use this episode to get smarter at what we do. Focus heavily on providing value and put in a little extra time and effort. If you are lucky enough to be in a job, remember the unluckier folks who helped you along the way, and take some time to see if you can help them out. If you are one of the unlucky ones, call in your favors – you will quickly learn who your real friends are...
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Talkback
The picture is wrong.
Chapter 1 starts with the Community Reinvestment Act. Introduce an enforced social program where people who are not qualified get access to money.
Chapter 4 is all about defending the social housing programs Freddy and Fanny in Congress when the president wants to introduce oversight. This is the area where Barney really shines extolling the virtues of how strong and great F&F are while ridiculing any of those that want to deprive the entitled unqualified to free money.
Chapter 7 takes a real twist when one of their own comes under fire for daring to question the wisdom of the program. A pesky Ex-president called Clinton. Fortunately, (See Chapter 2, how to completely control the media) this "idiot" never gets much play.
Chapter 11 shows the perseverence, even in the face of reality as the world crumbles on stauchly defending such a noble failed social program while foreclosures skyyrocket.
It is good to know that even when all the facts are out there, journalists are still tiedto Chapter 2 and help rewrite history, blaming a president that came to power 2 years after the seeds of the plan were enacted by Congress.
I look forward to the sequel, "How to socialize America and mortgage our future forever by running our credit cards through the roof and then blaming the ex president". Watch for the sequel coming June of 2011, endoresed by all in the media.
TripleII
Ouch.. good points... but not the whole story.
President dumbass is at fault for the war in iraq that should of never happened. He ran this countries balanced budget into the ground. He is the reason our country is soo deep in debt it can even bail itself out. If he and congress had kept our budget balanced and had concentrated on social issues, maybe, just maybe, they would of been able to prevent the forclosures.
Yes congress created the monster, yes they should be held liable for it, yes they should of kept their eye on the ball. In the end, a perfect political storm cause our current disaster that is the economy. I dont blame just one person, i blame all of them and i want them out.
The problem is that people in their states "like" their congressman/woman, they will continue to send the same person back until they die. This is why there should be term limits on all offices. No carrier politicians.
More Facts
No longer will you see the almost daily news from Amnesty International of yet another mass grave filled with women and children in another remote part of northern Iraq, and on and on.
I personally thank him for ridding the world of Hussien and imagine, an entire country freed from tyranny. A whole generation of kids growing up worried about soccer, not whether their parents will dissapear in the middle of the night. Men and Women free to protest foreign policy instead of cowed to submission from terror.
Now, all that aside, on the economy, it was NOT all Congress.
Congress did mandate that banks take on the worthless pyramid paper. The banks then took these toilet paper securities, bundled them up and started trading them in a totally unregulated market. That is the back half of how to ruin an economy. The white house is to blame for that. Banks took worthless paper and transferred company to company driving the price up a few percent each time until the toilet paper security was "worth" 5-6Xs what it was originally "worth".
A real perfect storm. The second part, bundled securities, could not have happened without the first part, a Democratic sponsored pyramid scheme.
TripleII
Can't argue with Liberals
However, we will be socialist in about 4 years...
Forget about freedom, it is going bye bye...
RE: What goes around comes around
I am a capitalist and I believe the banks, the auto industry should have all folded under the economic pressure. That is what capitalism is all about, the smart and strong weather the economic storms and the stupid go out of business. Not here though. Uncle Sam made sure the wealthy and privileged were well taken care of for their incompetence. Yeah, common people shouldn't have taken loans they could not afford but where were the bank managers when all of this was going on? They were giving the money out. They knew that our government would not let them hang out to dry for stupidity and they were right. They got taken care of. Meanwhile common people get to hear everyday how they are not competitive with HB1 workers and they demand to much money and that is why nobody wants to hire Americans. Well, ever think that rent is outrageous and the cost of living in this country is stupidly high? Of course a citizen needs to make more money.
Over the last 70 years the average rate of inflation has been about 3.98% for products and services. The inflation for wages has been about 1.8%. Sounds to me like it didn't take to many decades to totally devalue American labor compared to the cost of living.
No, in the USA the middle class pretty much takes it on the nose but the wealthy still manage to do all right even in a recession.