Living in DC for the last 10 years has been interesting to say the least. I have definitely had my opinion of the American Dream redirected into the American Nightmare. I try to avoid the political types as often as possible but I have had a few occasions to practice holding my tongue while speaking to them. My personal political views are usually in contrast to those I find myself around. I think the most important view on politics is that we could use a lot less of the politics and a lot more solving the problems.
The polarity that has been driving the politics for the last few years is really wrecking our ability to participate effectively. I am finding it very annoying that the ability to have a reasonable discussion of an issue is not possible today. Everyone seems to take the I'm right and you are wrong opinion on every topic. At some point our country is going to have to leave their emotions out of the conversation and try a little bit of rationale to begin solving some of these problems.
Greed and pride are the sins that will bring us down unless there can be a balance found along the way. I remember as a kid being taught that sharing is a good thing and that admitting your wrong and apologizing for it made a lot of problems go away. Somewhere along the way these principals have faded. I'm not suggesting we become a socialist country by any means. The point is that there have been a lot of mistakes made in the last 30 years or so and nobody is willing to say I was wrong, I'm sorry or I feel bad that I made billions of dollars while you guys took the risk.
I have a lot of intellectual friends that spend a great deal of time deep in thought about how to move America back into the place that the rest of the world envies. There are some extreme challenges involved and the most important one is that people need to start analyzing what they are thinking before saying it. I can't stand to hear someone say that we need less regulation of corporations and then be complaining when they have to call the help desk when their computer has a problem because the person that answers the phone is difficult to understand because of the heavy accent.
Since my political opinions are typically in contrast with those I am surrounded by, I tend to not share much of my thoughts. I have decided maybe I should share a little of what I have been observing for the last few years. The desire for personal gain has driven us into an extremely vulnerable situation. The economic disaster we are trying to deal with was very easy to see coming for the few that weren't blinded by the desire to have more regardless of what the impact was on others.
10 years ago, I came here for a job as a contractor and was getting paid a massive amount more than I had ever made before. I did enjoy that paychecks for a while and I got a few toys and made a few trips and found myself with a large chunk of debt. I was never under the illusion that the wave was going to last forever so after a couple of years of enjoying the lifestyle I realized that I should make some changes to habits and get myself completely out of debt and even stash some money away for later. Oh yeah I was tempted to invest in the exploding stocks or even play the housing roulette that people were playing to work their way up into a house they couldn't afford. I resisted and I'm glad I did.
Property prices were beyond nuts in this area for quite a while but the bit of time I was monitoring what was happening I saw the $300,000 town houses climb to over a million in a short amount of time. I was watching people who made less than me committing themselves to these massive mortgages thinking that the growth would continue. While this was going on I was also watching a trend of the large companies beginning to send as much work as possible to a country where they could exploit the labor at 20% of the cost of what it cost domestically.
So people were committing to huge mortgages at the same time that their jobs were in the process of being sent offshore. Then I started noticing that companies that were involved in these activities start planning on the domestic demand to continue to grow. They kind of overlooked the fact that the people that used to work for them that they felt were getting paid too much were the incomes they were counting on to drive the domestic demand that they were betting on.
That my friends is the recipe for Epic Fail of biblical proportions.
It is time for sensibility to be brought back into the decisions being made that effect our future. We can't afford to continue to be the world police when we can't control the massive crimes that our countrymen are inflicting on each other with the economic loopholes that have been created. It's time for those who made a fortune at the cost of others misfortune to pay their part. We are in a place that is going to require somebody pay taxes to reduce this debt. I don't mind paying my part but I fully expect those who played such a large role in wrecking our economy to pay their share too.
I am not asking for any punishment to be given out. I would like to see a lot more people acknowledge I spent more than I can afford and I want to do better. I would also like to see those predators that took advantage of those to say we were wrong in taking advantage of your desires to have more stuff and to give them a little assistance in balancing things out. Getting out of debt requires some extreme discomfort at times but having put myself through what I had to do to get my finances going in the right direction without causing harm to others in the process has made me feel a lot better about who I am and how I got here.
If you are in debt, figure out how to get out of debt and do it. We cannot hold our government to a standard that we cannot adhere to ourselves. Don't spend what you don't have. When we can show the politicians that it can be done on an individual level then maybe we can do it as a collective. Take responsibility for your mess and clean it up. When you are done give someone else a little help in the right direction. Moral support, sharing lessons learned while getting out of debt, saying a few positive words to people rather than being judgmental of their actions and we can all move forward again.
If the polarization of the politics continues without people standing up and saying I am willing to do my part and I'm afraid our days are numbered. When we are once again able to work together for a solution that we can all live with our faith and hope will restore itself. Stop being angry and whining and start rolling up your sleeves and do what you can please.
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