Somehow present times are beginning to feel like the Middle Ages, when physical plagues decimated some seventy-five million of the world’s population.  The black plague of the 1700s was especially virulent and the situation was truly “survival of the fittest.”  Our current “plague” is financial.  

        It may not be as virulent, but so far it has claimed at least one entire nation, twenty-two banks in the United States, and untold number of individuals and families via foreclosures and job loss.  There is no official count on marriages shredded because of “financial incompatibility.”

        This financial crisis is not just about dollars and cents.  It is also about a lack of common sense.  Mike Larson, of Money and Markets, wrote an article about “Bailout-gate,” the title of which was: “My Outrage List Keeps Getting Longer and Longer.”  He was referring to the big institutions that were living off of the largesse of us the taxpayers, via the mega-billion-dollar bailout.  As the title succinctly declares, he was outraged at the billions in taxpayer funds handed out by the Santas on Capitol Hill.

        I find it fascinating that on the same path ridden by the knights on white horses to drop off the bailout dough, cluttered along the roadside and experiencing outages in profits, are numbers of small and medium-sized businesses whose demise is cutting a hurricane-sized swath across the land.  There is not one white knight, not even on foot, rushing to their rescue. C’est la vie….”some animals are more equal than others.”

        How did we get into this mess?  The usual explanation about folks getting into mortgages they could not afford because of lax lending practices does not cut-it any more.  Even those folks with stellar credit are staggering.  We got into this mess because we were not paying attention. We turned over our cultural, social, and economic lives to politicians who engage in vile forms of “politicking”--emphasis on “tick.”  Ticks of the animal kingdom are described as blood-sucking parasites that attach themselves to their hosts.  There does not seem to be a need to redefine this definition for the practitioners of politicks.

        The governor of New York is getting lambasted for “preaching” one thing and doing another.   No, I am not talking about the governor who was prosecuting perps by day and patronizing pimps by night.  The current governor, while preaching thrift to state employees, is accused of splurging on a twenty-one-thousand-dollar antique Turkish rug.  The Texas House of Representatives spent one-hundred-and-forty-one thousand dollars to refurbish a lounge, and among the items were--drum roll please--antique chandeliers!  I don’t fault the governor or those representatives at all.  It is hard to run a state.  Sometimes the only thing standing between a bad decision and a brilliant decision is the lack of something antique!  Moreover, “some animals are more equal than others.” 

        We entrust our money to bankers and other practitioners of the art of finance.  We get maybe two percent for money saved and, if we are lucky, pay six percent to get a loan.  The unlucky ones could pay thirty percent or more.  Now there is talk that banks are coming up with all kinds of creative ways to burnish their bottom lines by increasing their fees.  Wasn’t it that same creativity that landed some of them at Uncle Sam’s door to beg for a bailout, instead of being bailed out from one of Uncle Sam’s “Club Med-type” prisons?

        A report described the California fires as “Armageddon.”  If the reporters think that those fires are Armageddon, wait until we begin living our own times of “Brother, can you spare a dime?” if the world financial crisis worsens.  I have also heard that this financial crisis was designed by the “globalists” to bring America to its knees, to usher it into George Orwell’s fictional world where “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”  I do not believe for a minute that this scenario is “imminent.”  We are already there.

        Even taking into account the inexplicable situation of neither major party making any effort to secure the sovereignty of the United States by securing its borders, or the other inexplicable refusal to develop an energy policy which will put a stop to the holding of America hostage to oil-rich sheiks, I still do not believe that there is a coordinated effort to destroy this country.  I do believe that predatory lending practices and predatory political practices coagulated into a lethal savings and investments bog from which we are all trying to find a tree with which to pull ourselves out.

        But there is real hope, not false hope, peddled by politicians who are secure in the knowledge that they “can fool enough of the people all of the time.”  Real hope is that, just maybe, God can penetrate the thick fog of the personal ambitions of the politicians in charge of the future of this nation, and infuse them with wisdom.  May they realize that the less meddling they do in our lives, the quicker the situation will right itself.  For starters, stop bailing out their buddies, and let the so-called “free market” free itself.  The free market was turned into the “free-for-all market,” and now everyone is paying the price.  Honor and integrity were dismissed as passé by the “greed is good” crowd. 

        If the politicians are itching to grant bailouts, how about bailing out their constituents by issuing ten-thousand-dollar checks, tax free, to every citizen, with one condition: “Heal the economy.”  No committees, or no studies will be needed.  The economy will be healed.  Citizens are versed in financial healing, especially if they get to keep some of their own money!

        As for the businesses that have forgotten Customer Service 101, and now label customers “consumers,” each customer is a real person, with a name.  Treat him or her with the respect he or she deserves as a patron of your business.  Stop the public relations spiel about “our” customers, which is in conflict with the backroom practicality of behaving like bottom feeders, and trying to preserve that avaricious bottom line by taking advantage of your customers, with your overpriced “services,” and your outrageous fees.  One customer missed a payment of $82 dollars on a card.  The following month, the bill ballooned to $405.  Even the Mafia probably has better interest rates. 

        Know why your bottom (line) is getting sunburned?  Some customers may be inured to rudeness, but many others are still savvy enough to “vote with their feet.”  You may find that the road to real and lasting success is to switch from the currently popular method of extracting obscene short-term profits from those consumers customers, to goals of long term growth. Develop a generational relationship with your customers.  The season of giving is upcoming. Now would be a good time to bring back some “Ho, ho, ho,” and mean it!  And Mr. Politician, about that bailout: let’s talk so that I can give you my credit union account number.  That would be a bailout that I can believe in.