October 5, 2011

I'm sitting in my car while the rain pummels the earth! I just left my neighborhood bank and the head teller lamenting about the fat-cat bankers and their fat-cat bonuses! She inspired me to send this out, as I know she speaks for millions, if not billions, of people around the world who have little to no voice for their frustration.

While the average guy on the street has lost not only hope, but his job, his house, his dignity and pride, high-level bankers and others are still lining the valet parking line at the country club and every fancy restaurant in town. Sales at Tiffany’s and other high-end retailers have been going up. How do we justify or even balance this in the face of so much despair and bewilderment? Truthfully, we don't, we can't – “it don't make no sense,” as Joe The Plumber might say!

What it does is widen the gap between have and have not and further push the shrinking middle-to-lower-middle class into a new population sector. Let's call them the disenfranchised! They are everyone you see on the street, in the mall and at the gas station, wondering who in the hell knows what's going on and will come along to right this sinking ship.

My teller friend has a solution. She tells me privately as I make my $92 deposit that she doesn't trust any of “them.”  “Them,” as though some Russian spy or strain of the Avian Flu. What we need to do, she tells me, is start “cutting” from the top down. Take the guys in charge who travel in limousines and have security detail and get $800,000 cash bonuses, and plop them down in Anywhere, USA for six months and let them live like the bank teller and her husband, struggling to make ends meet while raising children and the children of their children! Some do this in addition to taking care of parents too!  Only when the folks in castles, ivory towers and skyscrapers can really walk in the average guy’s shoes can he experience the sadness, frustration and pain many Americans feel.

We all know by know that Treasury Secretary Geithner was virtually booed and chased out of Europe by Finance Ministers worldwide at a recent Economic Summit. The Austrian Finance Minister was particularly incensed and told Mr. Geithner, “why should we listen to you?” It's ugly out there, boys and girls, and a betting man does not see change on the horizon any time soon. I think my teller has valid points, and we know that desperate times call for desperate measures. When do the ones responsible for all this blundering get to face a jury of the masses, and not just their peers? We know how that would play out.

Last time I wrote about how being nice might be the new paradigm shift. Truth is, either all else has failed or we just cannot find anything to be nice about! I hear a call and charge to faith, religion and spirituality! It can't hurt!


<< Back to Bob Paff's Blog