What Lies Ahead

Pretty Lady has a vague recollection of once being told, somewhere, that she was a snob and a Condescending Bitch for saying that she would not marry a gambler, whether his gambling consisted of poker tournaments or investment banking.

She stands by her opinion. The Desiderata remains on her bathroom wall: 'Keep interested in your own career, however humble, for it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.'

Gambling is not a career. It is a vacant, parasitic, ultimately destructive occupation. (Thanks to 'a christian' for the link. The episode of 'This American Life' is long, but highly informative, and the perfect thing to listen to while decluttering one's desk of credit offers from defunct institutions.)

So please bear with Pretty Lady while she makes a few obvious points. In moments of crisis, sometimes the obvious is helpful.

1) This crisis did not come about because of Helping Poor People. It is not Helpful to a Poor Person to thrust unlimited credit upon him at a ballooning interest rate. This is known as usury. In many cases, it amounts to blatant fraud. If you listen to the entire TAL episode, you will note that many callow young investment bankers simply made up enormous monthly incomes for poor people and put them on loan applications. This is lying, criminal fraud. It does not relate to programs which help poor people become economically self-sufficient. Attempting to shift blame onto would-be helpers of poor people is of a piece with the weaselly mentality that commited this fraud in the first place.

2) This crisis is not about mortages anymore. It is a crisis of credit. So many people borrowed imaginary money in order to make themselves obscenely rich by manipulating numbers that now, people who are genuinely working, building and employing others cannot finance their enterprises. The credit crisis cannot be solved by giving more imaginary money to usurious, fraudulent drones. It may be solved by providing judicious assistance to people who--gasp--ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING.

3) Examples of actually doing something:

•Developing alternative energy sources.
•Fixing decaying infrastructure.
•Designing and building energy-efficient housing.
•Designing and building energy-efficient vehicles.
•Growing and distributing food.
•Plumbing.
•Patching roofs.
•Providing healing therapies.
•Developing healing techniques.
•Teaching practical information, such as how to read, write and manage money responsibly.
•Building hospitals and public transportation systems.
•Repairing bicycles.
•Delivering babies.

Pretty Lady keeps noticing that whenever she brings up this notion of actually doing something, both as an inevitable outcome of the current situation and as a worthy end unto itself, she seems to be greeted by the twittering of crickets. Is this because her notions are self-evident, or unthinkable?

For as Deborah points out, we have verily come to the End of Modernism. We can no longer operate as though our ego-will were the entirety of reality. We must acknowledge that any action we take affects other people, and that eventually, these effects return to us. Thus we cannot engage in 'careers' which are parasitic, manipulative, solipsistic or destructive without suffering destruction in turn. We must actually connect with other people in healthy, positive, pragmatic ways.

Why is this so awful?