Values

[bcoylepa]

Oxfam ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/opinion/02kristof.html?_r=1) has calculated that financial firms around the world have already received or been promised $8.4 trillion in bailouts. Just a week’s worth of interest on that sum while it’s waiting to be deployed would be enough to save most of the half-million women who die in childbirth each year in poor countries.

[willing dwarf]

1. Strange dissonance between paper loss and real need!

The loss of value of the banks is like an enormous April Fools joke. All of these people were standing there, looking at a hologram of wealth and believing that it was something substanstial. Something that belonged to them.

Meanwhile millions more are living in conditions of abject poverty, living with the reality of having nothing, really nothing. And yet they keep going. They carry water for miles every day. They walk for miles to get to a road where they can get a bus to take them to a health center to get shots for their children. They struggle to pull together the few cents it costs to buy books and pay schoo fees so their kids might have a better life.

I know which group I most admire.

[bcoylepa]

2. well said

"looking at a hologram of wealth and believing that it was something substantial. Something that belonged to them."

so true - strange dissonance indeed and a heavy heart.

[PA Democrat]

3. I love your description of a "hologram of wealth", because it just says it all.

The financial high rollers really did create the illusion of wealth out of nothing and then engaged in economic blackmail to recover their "losses".

Sad that so many people still fawn over the wealthy elite but ignore the quiet dignity of people who make tremendous sacrifices to try to ensure a better future for their children.

[willing dwarf]

4. You're very right

We're given so few examples of what that dignity looks like anymore. It used to be that kids in this country saw the struggle of parents and grandparents made to put food on the table, but in a non-industrial, non-farming economy, it's become hidden behind credit card debt and home equity lines of credit. But maybe that way of life is coming to an end?

I know that real work is hard work, and it's not so pleasant to be tired at the end of the day, but at least when you've worked hard enough to long for your bed at night, you know you've probably done an honest day's work.