Reflections on Reconciliation: Paradox of Excess & Deprivation

As the economy continues to unwind with frightening speed, I think about the paradox of excess and deprivation and consider those who appear to have much when others, too many others, have so little.

And I wonder if only now, our new president may be able to bring us together, for the common good, starting with healthcare and decent schools, and a safety net that helps us take chances with renewed confidence in our fellow man and in our country, in ways that we could not have imagined eight years ago.

Not too long ago, airlines were the companies we loved to hate. Baggage handlers lost your luggage? Youbetcha. Plane canceled with no live person on the other end of the phone to help you catch your connection? All the time. Air fares going through the roof? Regularly.

But now.......The pilot, Sully, landing on the Hudson, from Danville, California, reminding us that airline employees are part of the human family, too. Sully and his crew walked the aisles twice to make sure every passenger made it off the plane safely before they took their leave from the sinking U.S. Airways plane.

I wonder if Sully's colleagues' pensions are secure. Somehow, I doubt it.

Airline employees are part of the human family, too.

Bankers taking home huge bonuses, while families are turned out of their homes? Maybe that's true for a small group of executives. Over half of the employees who call a bank their employer likely make less than $50,000 a year. But now bankers are losing their jobs at a rate that could make auto workers' pink slips spin. A few desperate borrowers have sent threatening letters, some containing strange white substances, to bank offices around the country. But many of these workers will never work in their industry again and they could lose their homes, too.

Bankers are part of the human family, too.

Healthcare workers are working double shifts to care for increasing numbers of uninsured patients. Doctors, once the standard-bearers of the upwardly mobile upper middle class, are finding it difficult to continue practicing, paying off huge medical student loans, too often expending precious time with health plan administrators, maybe themselves worried about their own jobs, just to get reimbursed pennies on the dollar.

Venerable AV-rated law firms are disappearing along with investment banks that survived the Great Depression. And ad men endeavor to look upbeat along with general contractors and civil engineers who have no work to do.

Recently, coming home on BART from my office in downtown Oakland -- a city that is itself no stranger to despair -- I witnessed a well-dressed man sporting the requisite white collar worker's Blackberry and computer case, sitting across from me, begin to cry as the crowded car rocked and swayed, embarrassed standing-rush-hour commuters pretending to look away, all the while, the crying man in the good suit, alone in a crowd, being transported to his home that likely carries a too-large mortgage and a house full of kids with plans to go to college.

Reconciliation.

Barack Obama.

The human family.

Imagine.

Comments

[schatsie]

That would have been the neighborhood ball that was free to attend... we have so many hopes and dreams attached to this administration...

And no it does not feel empty to pay for life on Credit, that is exactly what i did to spend time with my daughter in law and 2 grandchildren while my son was in Iraq.... Credit is to live today to the best with the hope you can pay it off tomorrow... CONSUMER DEBT is not the issue, there is less than 1 trllion dollars in CREDIT CARD DEBT... There is 700 TRILLION dollars in Weapons of Financial Destruction....that was run up by the Best and Brightest on Wall Street and any more bailout to them directly is foolish....

[newmexicogold]

A Virginia defense contractor, the son of a Babtist minister, paid one million dollars to book a floor at a DC hotel. The hotel was on the parade route, and the foundation collected 300 men,women and children to use those rooms. These 300 are living in shelters, losing a battle with a terminal illness, or forgotten military veterans. The foundation also paid for the travel expenses, and gave these people clothes to attend an inaugural ball. One man has directly affected hundreds fo lives in a positive manner.

I am not wealthy, nor do I aspire to build wealth. I have all my needs met (food, shelter, health), and most of my wants met as well. I live a simlpe life that is not driven by consumption. It often requires sacrifice on my part, but I am content. Hopefully, the lesson we all will learn in the next few years is: that it feels better to own anything we earned, and it feels empty to pay for life on credit.