Groundhog

Where We Go from Here: Best and Worst Cases

I liked Cam Hui's balanced assessment of the financial meltdown, because he is reminding us that as of yet, this is only a financial meltdown. The means of production are still as dynamic and robust throughout the economy as when the Dow was at 14,000. Also, everyone still needs the products and services produced by these means.

However, Keer-eh Khar asks two fundamental questions about marketing the financial sector's failures in order to re-capitalize our banks. What are we buying, and once bought, what will there be to sell? The genius of the financial sector is that it can create capital out of nothing, but without integrity and high moral standards, the lack of any sense of fiduciary responsibility quickly returns this capital to the abyss of nothingness.

Finance is based on trust and the assumption that we will all be here tomorrow doing the best we can to pay our bills and service our debt. For the past 20 years, the financial sector has been sponsoring one get-rich-quick scheme after another. How can we trust the financiers to be any different this time around?

Will they ever have enough money, houses, yachts, airplanes, country clubs, and day spas? Most of us work for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and our human dignity? The financial "geniuses" seek wealth for wealth's sake and the power that wealth gives them over men and women with simpler lives and less ambitious goals.

If we simpler folk are to buy anything from them or sell anything back to them, they have to become trustworthy citizens with a sense of responsibility to the whole economy. This won't happen without the rule of law, government oversight, and sensible regulations. So along with the re-capitalization of our financial sector, the federal government will have to sort out the good, the bad, and the ugly actors that created this financial meltdown.