Outrage over the financial scandal and other random angry thoughts

I am as pissed off about the financial crisis as anyone and as nervous as everyone. I have no answers which seems to put me in good company – no one in Congress really knows what to do either.

First, the clowns in Congress and the Greedy Bastards on Wall Street together created this mess, so those people who are putting the blame on the people who took out bad mortgages they couldn’t afford are way off base and should just shut up.

Second, this mess didn’t start in the last few weeks, months or years This began with Ronald Reagan and his trickle down economics. It began with Reagan’s dismantling of the oversight of the financial sector, especially the SEC.

Third, no matter what the final deal is, the middle class is going to take it in the butt. I have read how many of the Wall Street are licking their chops with this bailout. They know that a smart investor knows how to make money in a down market, up market or even in a depression. It’s the average working stiff who is trying to make ends meet and pay his or her taxes that always gets hurt.

My friend David Wilson sent me a copy of a letter he sent to his Congressmen expressing his anger over the whole mess. I really liked his letter and decided to adapt it and send it to my 2 Florida Senators, Mel Martinez (R) and Bill Nelson (D). I got an immediate response from Martinez and, so far, nothing from Nelson. Unfortunately, though I appreciated the response, it was as almost as empty as Nelson’s non-response.

Whoever becomes the next President, the first thing he should do is get the best economic minds in the country, people who actually have an understanding of business and real life economics, and get them to fix this mess. Put Bloomberg in charge of the bailout. I think he’ll have a better idea than most of these guys and he won’t care who is ticks off to get the job done.

Today I was reading a description of the late author David Foster Wallace in the New Yorker where he was discribed as “One of the few satirists able to avoid meanness; he was moral without being judgmental.” That phrase really struck me. We live in a society where meanness is not only acceptable but seems to be gaining creedence as an acceptable personality trait. Just watch the majority of TV shows and you see meanness personified. I try to not be mean but I am judgmental. I have questionable morals but a very strict code of ethics.

My ethics tell me that it is bad to steal. My ethics tell me it is wrong to screw your neighbor or business partner or the guy on the bus you don’t know from Adam. My ethics drive me to be responsible for my family and for my personal finances. My ethics tell me that it is my civic duty to vote even though my cynicism tells me it’s a waste of time. My ethics also compel me to express my self honestly, even bluntly , in this blog. But my judgment of others is often at odds with my ethics. Being judgmental makes me angry and being angry makes me want to scream like Howard Beal, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.”  It’s my ethics that keep me looking forward but it’s my judgements of others that make me bitter and makes me take it personally.

I have no use for morality. To me morality is a set of rules that some other person or group decide to place upon you. Ethics are the choices that you make as an individual to be on the side or right or the side of wrong.

It seems to me that our politicians are full of moral judgment but have a serious lack in ethics. Same for many of those corporate execs and high strung Wall Street types.  It is time to look at our politicians – especially McCain and Obama –  and look at their records. Let’s make sure their actions demonstrate a proclivity towards ethical behavior and a lack of pompous morality along with a tendency to avoid being overly judgmental.