Forever Collectibles Detroit
Our Friends On Wall Street Deserve Every Penny Of Their Bonus Money
Our friends on Wall Street deserve every penny of their bonus money…
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… and I do mean “our friends”. A friend in the truest sense of the word, will take on the hard stuff. When you are doing something wrong or acting inappropriately, a true friend will let you know. If your life is spinning out of control and your actions are endangering your life and affecting your family and people who care about you, a true friend will step up their game to help you. You will fight them all the way, but a true friend will endure because that’s what true friends do.
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Wall Street has been a true friend to not only us (the average Joe in the United States of America), but the entire world. Wall Street stepped up their game to help us all. They weren’t deterred by the anger and hate that they knew would be coming. The world was on a destructive road and they, being true friends, did what had to be done and the rest, as they say, is history.
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The events on Wall Street made the world painfully aware of the power and influence a handful of greedy people can have over the rest of us. They also brought to light that what we do in the United States of America can have and does have a profound effect on the rest of the world. For this we owe Wall Street a tremendous debt and those bonuses would just be a small down payment. You see, in the future, when we look back, we will realize that Wall Street may have saved our lives – all of our lives. Will we ever be able to repay them for that?
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The first decade of the 21st Century has been a decade of crisis: 911, Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Detroit, terrorism, swine flu, Health Care, droughts, floods, forest fires, tsunamis, earthquakes; and the meltdown of our financial institutions. These will all look pale in comparison to the catastrophe we are creating. The factors that led to the collapse of Wall Street are the same as the ones which will forever change the planet we live on. Unchecked power & influence combined with the greed and a blatant disregard for anyone else or what is right. The consequences of what happened on Wall Street, although devastating, will be minor in comparison to what is awaiting us.
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If you are guessing that it’s Global Warming you are wrong. The debate and argument are engineered diversions. They are a smokescreen, a magician’s trick to keep your eye away from the truth. Whether it’s real or not the effects of Global Warming are only part of a much bigger problem. The “truth” is not controversial. The average person on Main Street knows it. There is not a scientific difference of opinion (not that there is a valid one concerning Global Warming). What has and is happening is that most of us are not aware of the extent of the problem or the short amount of time we have left to act.
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The problem, and I repeat, there is absolutely no difference of scientific opinion, is the condition of our various ecosystems. Our Planets’ immune system, the one that makes it possible for us to live “outside” is failing. Every single natural mechanism responsible for maintaining our health and well-being is in a state of rapid decline. EVERY SINGLE ONE! We must also realize that the only thing we have to pay Mother Earth for keeping us “healthy” is respect. So far that has been a price we have not been willing to pay. If we had to pay for the services that the Earth does for free, it would cost around $40,000,000,000,000 per year.
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We have serious National Security issues today, largely due to the lifestyle and opportunities we have been blessed with in this country. If you have concerns now, what do you think it will be like when gas and water are both selling for $20 a gallon and are in short supply?
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During the short span of the Industrial Age, we have polluted our rivers and oceans by our indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilizers. We have manufactured massive dead zones where rivers run to our seas. We have destroyed our rain forests and old growth forests. Fish now come with mercury warnings from 49 of our 50 states and on any predatory fish taken from our oceans. Our throw away society has developed a floating plastic island the size of Texas that is breaking down chemically and is adversely affecting every living thing around it, further degrading our food supply. Instances of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and asthma have all increased dramatically and continue to rise at alarming rates.
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Your Doctor tells you that you are in the advanced stages of diabetes or heart disease. You have lung cancer or breast cancer. Do you cut out the tumor? Do you change the way you have lived your life? Anyone who wants to stay alive will do whatever it takes to have more time here on earth to be with family and loved ones. Those who choose not to change leave the people who know them wondering why.
I am wondering why. We, collectively, have been informed that our lifestyle is slowing killing us and making us unhealthy. We, collectively, have ignored the warnings. We have been told that the planet we live on has a number of fatal diseases, her lungs are failing, her blood has been poisoned and her immune system will soon cease to function. As dire as this prognosis is, we have also been told that if we change the way we live our lives, we could all live long healthy lives.
So let us all thank our good friends on Wall Street for making us aware of how much control we have given to a handful of greedy people. We have also given that same control to industries that have become responsible for the fate of the quality of life for all life on our planet, for us, the generations to come – our sons & daughters, their grandchildren and all who follow. Unfortunately none have taken their responsibilities, to us, future generations or Mother Earth; very seriously. If we continue on our chosen path, we won’t have to travel to the Moon or Mars to build “space stations”. We will be able to build and test them right here at home. We are creating an environment which “we can take a trip and never leave the farm”.
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The road we have chosen will create a lifestyle which future generations will inherit. It will be far different from what all of us have been blessed with. We have made this choice by our past actions and inactions. We can choose to create new industries and jobs manufacturing enclosed, self contained habitats where our descendants will live, work, play and grow their food or we can choose a more sensible path.
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We have a tremendous opportunity if we all get involved and use just a small amount of common sense. Does it make sense to destroy a $40 trillion a year industry? If we are to pass this planet to our sons and daughters shouldn’t it, at the very least, be in the same condition as we got it? We must start factoring in the long term impact of industries and how they will affect all of us – present and future. Who would have thought a handful of bankers could cause so much pain? We can no longer run from the true cost of things. That was tried by the previous administration by not including, in their annual budgets, the billions of dollars spent each month on two wars. How much do you think that approach has helped?
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If you like the neighborhood you are living in, love the climate, don’t want to move but your house is starting to fall apart; you rebuild it. You finance your remodeling project for 25-30 years not 4 years. In this country almost everything is falling apart. We have lost or are losing whole industries: steel, textile, furniture and computer. Our infrastructure is decaying and in some cases has become so dangerous that it has been responsible for the needless loss of life. We teach our kids that more is better, that what we use up just goes away, and how our planet works has no place in their curriculum,
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If we had an effective educational system most of the problems we are faced with today wouldn’t be happening. We would know and our children would know that there is a balance to things. There is an essential part of our existence that has nothing to do with texting, tweeting, Google, the Internet, HD TV, cars, video games and fashion. Yet how many of us know that our lifestyle is the reason that 50,000 species are sentenced to extinction each year and that we are working very hard to increase those numbers.
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We have many options. One is to support industries that work in balance with nature. We could put every man and woman to work by supporting and building industries that would expand instead of contract: high speed rail, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro electric power, electric & hydrogen powered vehicles, quality education, weatherizing homes and commercial buildings, responsible farming methods, new bridges, a new National Security System, and hydrogen & “smart” highways; are only a few. The way we did things a 100 years ago no longer make sense today. Technologies and methods that didn’t make sense 50 years ago are actually some of the best choices we have today. Not only are they better from an environmental perspective but they make more sense from a capitalist’s perspective as well. We don’t have to give up our big SUVs or our HD TVs. We just need to change the way we power them.
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The one option we don’t have is time. We are truly in the 11th hour of holding on to the way we have lived on this planet. We don’t have ten or twenty years to change the way we do things. If you have not already seen it, I urge you watch “The 11th Hour”. It is a documentary about some of the issues I have mentioned here. It was produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio who does an excellent job of conveying what is the most important message pertaining to the most important issue of our time.
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Many of us, who have been aware of the issue, have felt powerless to fight the Special Interests that have been in control. But the power of the internet has leveled the battlefield a bit. Big corporations can no longer silence the common voice. The ability to convey accurate information quickly, to many and at no cost, has given us a vehicle which can be used to expose the actions of greedy corporations and expose some of our elected politicians that have been bought and paid for by Big Money. As stewards of this planet, we have an obligation to a higher power. What we don’t do today will echo badly through eternity.
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Our forefathers were a renegade band of gifted and smart individuals. They framed our Constitution in such a way that it could adjust with time based on world conditions. They knew it would have to in order to live on, as an effective Democracy, implementing the will of the people. It has been modified and it still lives on but it’s the will of large corporations that is being implemented. The two party system made sense at the beginning and it still makes sense, unfortunately it is not working today. The process has been hijacked by Special Interests. Do you think the latest Supreme Court ruling dealing with Campaign Finance will affect the influence Big Money already has? Ask yourself one question. When was the last time a truly forward thinking “project” has been passed by our Congress?
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I offer one suggestion that was attempted a while ago but didn’t catch on. “Throw the bastards out!” We pay our members of Congress six figure incomes, provide them with their choice of superior Health Insurance programs (with no mention of pre-existing conditions) and give them excellent retirement benefits. The individuals we elected as Democrats and Republicans (most) have banned together to ensure their re-elections rather than doing the work we are paying them to do. The Filibuster is a fairly new tactic (last 20 years). It is the reason many things that should have happened – haven’t. It’s time for US to filibuster the “filibustors”.
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In all of our upcoming elections we only vote for Independent Candidates. Incumbents could denounce their party affiliations and if vetted (not having a history of supporting Special Interests), could become an election pick. We can setup “local” websites for candidates to get their message out without the cost of a large campaign. This structure could be used for City, County, State and National elections. This would break the strangle hold Big Money has had on our election process. It would make it possible to elect people for their ideas not their wallets. The billions of dollars saved could be used for much better causes.
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I think the sleeping giant is beginning to wake. We can thank Wall Street for giving him the first shake. We have a number of problems that can wait 10-20 years to be addressed by a functioning government. But we do not have 20 years for this one. We don’t even have 10 years to start solving the most critical issue man has ever faced. If we are to preserve our way of life for future generations, the giant must wake now and get involved. Remember what he did the last time someone woke him up?
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It’s time to “Re-power the People.”
About the Author
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