Revolution? What revolution?

It's now official. The current economic crisis has proved once and for all that the Woodstock Generation failed miserably. The Age of Aquarius has devolved into a barnyard cockfight. A generation that prided itself on creating an era of peace and enlightenment raised a generation of greedy kids that built an economy on shuck and jive.

Consider this written by my friend Jim McCann on Facebook (and used here totally without his permission):

The financial people are born of the "get mine" and "in your face" generation...The media, reality TV, sports. Decorum is frowned upon and even just winning is not good enough...It is considered not only ethical to win by any means necessary, it is celebrated. Those who are the most callous are the most admired...This has been magnified in a Wall St setting to the point that the system has followed its logical path and cannibalized itself.

It use to be that a child of a very wealthy family was encouraged to study, travel abroad, even to enter academia in order to give back...Now that "man of letters" is considered a slacker.
4 years ago it was the oil companies who "ran the government" now it is the "bankers" and neither is totally accurate...Many, many interests hold our system hostage.

Just look at how people have accepted torture as a "cost of doing business." We have no morals anymore. Aggression is king.

A sad commentary that is too true. Who is to blame for this? Well, we raised them. What were we teaching them? What lessons did they learn by watching us?

Of course, there were pockets of good parenting: My daughter, for instance. (Insert your own child here).

As one of the very few church-goers in my group of friends, I've got to say I think Jim hit the point when he wrote "We have no morals anymore." Maybe we Boomers were too quick to dismiss religion as hypocrisy and superstition. Maybe there was something valuable in those churches and synagogues after all.

Economy-sized Dread

Ok, all of you who are scared crapless by the current state of the economy, raise you hand.

Anyone who doesn't have their hand up is either:

1. Independently wealthy
2. Lying
3. Not paying attention

I grew up believing that another Great Depression could not happen in my lifetime. Supposedly, the economists had it all figured out and, while we may have bumps in the road called recessions, we would never again face the economic devastation that we did in the 1930s. Maybe not.

I am hardly an economist so I may not be qualified to speak about fiscal policy or monetary policy. But I am pretty aware of my surroundings. And I don't like what I see. All around me I see people being laid off, programs being cut, and retirement accounts being drained like a leaky backyard wading pool.

My hope pretty much rests in Barack Obama coming to our rescue. He's a smart guy and he seems to have a bunch of smart guys and gals on his team. He has a plan to pump a lot of money into the system to do things that should be done anyway.

But partisanship may get in the way. Already the Republicans are dusting off the Herbert Hoover game plan and working on ways to kill Obama's plan. It's not like the Republicans have a lot of credibility. After all, it was their Greed is Good philosophy that got us into this mess in the first place.

But I am less worried about fixing blame for why the economy tanked than I am about getting the economy back on its feet. I just want the politicians to be solutions oriented.

I propose that we all make a pledge to vote for politicians of either party who work collaboratively to solve this issue. And let's make a pledge to vote against politicians of either party who insist on putting their own re-election ahead of doing what is necessary to ease the pain.

Hell, we could even start our own political party. We could call it the All for One and One for All party. Who's with me?

Raise your hand.

Keeping the Boogieman at bay

I've decided to adopt the Ostrich approach in navigating the current financial crisis. It is really the only option I have. My job is in serious jeopardy because the state is broke and has cut funding for my position. So far, my boss said no jobs will be lost in our agency.

When I stick my head up in the air I see trouble all around. The economy is getting worse; revenues are disappearing for city and county governments; The Doofis-In-Chief will still be in charge for another six weeks or so. It will be very difficult to find a new job if I lose the one I now have. In the competition for scarce jobs, a 60-year-old guy in below average physical condition will be at a disadvantage. My skills are in the areas that are first targets for cutbacks.

And to make matters worse, my daughter and son-in-law also work in social service so my back up plan of moving in with them if I lose my job and can't pay my rent is dicey.

The irony is that social services are the last things that should be cut when times get hard. This is the time we need people trained to take care of others.

But there isn't much I can do about any of this. So I try to ignore it. I will live my life with as much grace and humor as I can muster. I'm normally a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy, but optimism is going to be my coping mechanism of choice.