Financial Meltown

This morning, I see through the magic world-wide viewer that is this PC, that the world continues to unravel.

The world banks have bent over backwards trying to cut the financial crisis off at the pass, with reduced interest rates, frozen trading, etc. The United States has even played their hand on the world stage by trying to drive hopefulness through emotional trickery - yes, that'd be the $700B bailout. Funny how the Treasury and the Executive branch wanted to be sure that it was big enough to drive an emotional response, as well as potentially actually do some good. But that's another debate - not mine at this time.

The reason I write this morning is that I think the world financial and governmental leaders, as well as all the lemmings that follow, seem to be missing the real point here.

With all of the emergency fire-fighting effort that the the world banks have mustered, there still remains little to no confidence that our global, and/or local, economies are secure. Everyday folks see increased unemployment, as well as rising costs for standard infrastructure items such as food, gas, electricity, etc.

There seems to be nothing that comes across the Internet, or the morning news, that carries any fodder for burgeoning hope. We the people simply can't find anything to believe in, at least not in the historic systems of crooked financial markets and greedy corporate conglomerations.

I believe this is natural. Our collective lack of positive response to aggressive changes in lending rates, unprecedented bailout efforts, and governmental manipulation of our psyche seems normal - or as normal as a dog's behavior when he won't go near the grouchy owner who just kicked him.

We need hope, and I think there is a great opportunity that is being missed.

This opportunity of which I write is formed from several large and tangible elements that are inexplicably interconnected and dependent upon one another - however, our focus across such has historically seen these elements as diverse and individual problems. To enumerate - (1) the planet's environment is in peril; (2) our need for energy independence and alternative fuels and methods of manufacturing such is dire; (3) our need for solid job opportunities is desperate; and (4) our need to spawn positive economic growth is critical.

If you picture these four key elements as connected concentrically in space around a center focal point (that'd be us), it becomes fairly easy to see that our attention to any one individual element leaves the others faltering. However, if we acknowledge the dependent connections between these elements, we can see that their connective dependencies force lines of influence directly through the center - that'd be us again.

With that understanding, here's what I'd like to propose for generating substantive solutions to our issues, and subsequently drive the fabric of hope to spur it all on to a positive end.

The world banks and governments need to stop the knee jerk reactions to bolster confidence by falsely manipulating lending rates, and playing on the emotions of troubled borrowers, etc. Instead, their energy needs to be put behind solid actions to identify and solve the issues associated with the common thread(s) of the four problems that form the concentric circle described above. As follows:
(a) only bolster us, we the people, with enough understanding and financial manipulation to keep us solvent. (b) put their money into subsidies and investments that have the potential to solve our energy crisis by way of new and alternative fuel generation; (c) work to attach the benefits from these investments into new technologies, new businesses, new jobs, and new infrastructure, and (d) show that they have the courage, vision and leadership to identify what the "end-state" might look like, should all of us succeed along this path for a few years.

Therein lies the fabric of hope that will feed the people's desire to move forward with confidence. Therein lies the solutions to the concentrically bound problems that ail us today.

If you do your research, you'll come to understand that the technology for alternative energy exists and simply needs some incentive. You'll also come to realize that the outcome of such will not only create tomorrow's technological and business success stories, but will create jobs as well as significantly reduce our polluting ways. The end result will drive a cleaner environment, better standards of living, and opportunities for so many facets of the "we".

It's not enough, however, to point there. Work must be done. First steps are critical, and in a time of crisis, such as what we see around the globe today, we must strive to shift the focus and interest of all to move the critical balance to the "success" side of the fulcrum. Once the critical balance has shifted, the rest will follow through, probably very strongly, to bring about that "future state" we all desire.

Herein lies our hope. Herein lies our future.

I hope this finds you all well.
Jay Blue