Honestly, though, before I start, I have to say that he could have picked a better topic (better for me, I mean). Economics, along with math, government, and science, is something I last studied in high school. Meaning I'll probably make quite the arse of myself trying to sound educated about all of this. So bear with me. Better yet, you'll enjoy this post all the more if you go ahead and agree with me that education itself is overrated; at least, my $120,000+ undergraduate liberal arts degree certainly was. ;) Well, at least I'm qualified to give my two cents as it concerns bad investments. (Although, I probably should be throwing every pair of pennies I've got towards paying off those student loans...)
One of my biggest hopes in this whole financial crisis is that, having some of our flaws exposed in our national culture, we might be more open to fundamental change in the way we understand our way of life.
Consumerism blinds us to the larger realities of life. Instead of thinking about my neighbors or a kingdom that brings true peace, I'm concerned about my daily ration of premium coffee or whether the flooring I bought for my house is going to crack or warp because I should have paid someone to level the house from the outset.
Capitalism promotes a free market where we're free to jostle and step all over each other (it's called competition and it's great because it lowers the price and increases the quality of that premium coffee) in our rush to be the vendor of choice for all those consumers out there with their heads in their wallets (or the headphones of their iPods, ignoring all the people passing within a few feet of them).
Lest I be a hypocrite in my criticism, I want to be clear that I certainly share the blame in a culture that values people based on their knowledge of and attention to machines and materials over and above that of people (by and large, anyways). I'm caught in the cycle of buying and selling, too. I'm often more likely to be concerned with what a person's job is than what their relationships are like. I've spent a disproportionate amount of time in the past several months obsessing over an orderly (quasi-) assemblage of wood, paint, nails and electrical wires than I have showing consistent concern for the people in my life.
How much of that is going to matter when everything that's now broken encounters the Great Fix? When I get to that point, which of my "investments" will truly pay off? (Isn't it wonderful that we sometimes use financial language to refer to "spending" time and attention and energy and empathy on people? Even the word "spend" there - wow, it's just really hard to say anything in English if you want to truly affirm the "value" of humanity and not "diminish" it. Oh well, I tried.)
I doubt that we'll stop building on shifting sand. But perhaps our days of building skyscrapers on top of skyscrapers there are nearing an end (which is how I envision the whole enterprise of investments stacked upon investments in risky mortgages, which are basically ways of getting things now that we just can't live without, even though we really can't afford it, nudging us to make assumptions against the future about what our lives and financial situations will be like down the road, as if we could predict or guarantee that somehow - hey, I've got a mortgage, too... it's tough). Perhaps. It's hard to tell. Let's not wait around and see before we start seeking a better vision of building whatses (and whoses, especially) that will last.
