This is a little rant that resulted from a fit I threw when I read that the IMF had officially explained that the cause of the global economic crisis was that “Americans had over-valued their assets and set off a destructive chain reaction of inflation and recession”. I was pissed. Read on…
If any part of a mechanism that is defined by the sum of parts breaks, then the entire mechanism is broken. Humanity is defined by the sum of its parts; this means that WE are defined by the sum total of each and every one of us. Not by some of us, or by most of us and especially not by the “good” or “better” ones but by all of us. Every single human being’s choices add to and become part of the definition of who and what we are: what we have chosen to call humanity or humankind. Regardless of this, there are those of us (let’s call them THEM) who will, in their imagination, consider this fact to be detrimental to, or in contradiction with or against the core beliefs held by THEM as separate from everyone else, kind of like a similar humanoid life-form, but different that everyone else; better, actually. This disagreement arises because of an inequity resulting from the comparison between what the opening statement means and what THEY imagine it means and more specifically, how it can threaten THEM. Truth is incapable of being a threat, harboring a threat or even being used as a threat. This imaginary threat that THEY fear so much (the possibility that we are actually all the same) will rear up and attempt to defend itself by replying with “Why?” or “How?” and especially with “who are you to say that?” First of all, any question which is answered with a question is an indication that the one questioning is made uneasy and fearful by the original question and attempts to question it in front of others in order to attempt to create doubt, by any means necessary, as to the validity of the question and by doing so as to have somewhere to hide. An attempt like the one described would only validate the original question in terms of relevance, however this validation is not required. The logic this truth leaves is the clear understanding that there are many of us because it is necessary, otherwise there would only be one. The universe does not understand excess or mediocrity and because of that, neither should we.
We are faced today with a challenge without equal in our history, requiring actions not yet even conceived in order to negotiate our forgiveness from ourselves and allow for humanity to continue existing. The challenge we face is the preservation of our humanity, the threat is that we have somehow come to believe and accept that humanity is the money that each human has or can get. When this is subjected to the process called “the sum total of all the shit we’ve done to ourselves” you get results like the “economic crisis of 2008-2010”.
It has been explained by “experts” and people of “letters and knowledge” that the present “global economic crisis” was caused by the overvaluation of assets by Americans, which then allegedly set off a chain of events and actions which have led us to where we are today in September of 2010 which is: scared shit-less and in panic. Naturally, we believed this and immediately become scared shit-less and panicked if we weren’t already. After all, “the experts” are telling us this and they know because they have a piece of paper that says they are an expert and they have been “validated” and “authenticated” by virtue of having claimed to be an expert before and not being dis proven as one, which is all that “being published” or “credentialed” or “noted and recognized” means, so they are unquestionably correct, right?
I’d like to ask those experts exactly just how does anything become overvalued? We are the ones who assign the value of everything that has value and we can assign it the value that we want, so how can anything be “overvalued”? This is like saying that someone is “a little bit pregnant”. We are the ones who establish the value of everything and we are supposed to believe that we “overvalued” our assets? Notwithstanding that to my mind, that the only proper definition of an “asset” is a small donkey or the buttocks of a child: to proclaim, in front of everyone, that we are suffering one of the worst periods in recorded history because we screwed up our bookkeeping, is only slightly more self-insulting than it is asinine and idiotic. Who exactly are these experts and how can they make such stupid remarks and keep a straight face? THEY, are those of us who become “them”, as in “they say that the real estate market will bounce back” and “of course we overvalued our assets, they said so.”
“THEY” and “THEM” have been the source and cause of every ill we’ve suffered and given how badly we’ve suffered, it’s truly incredible that not one of us has come forward and screamed that there is no “THEM” and that’s is all just “us”. We made THEM up and gave THEM life and authority and now THEY are literally killing us, and we forgot they’re not even real?
I’d very much like to have a talk with THEM, and ask THEM to please explain exactly how we, either individually or as a global civilization, can “overvalue” and “asset”. Would THEY actually attempt to answer that? They just might, it’s not like any of us are going to disagree from the looks of things.
We have to stop doing this, now. I realize that it would mean admitting that we’ve been wrong about everything since forever and that we have come to believe that deceit and trickery are the tools of success and that we’ve all lied our assess off for so long; but that’s okay; we can forgive ourselves and try this humanity thing again. We can, really. Now would be a good time.