Letter to OC Register about Bank of America

I wrote a quick letter to the editor in response to this article:
Bank of America in $8.5B mortgage settlement


Chris Kahn wrote in the Bank of America article (June 29 2011), "Countrywide enriched itself at the expense of investors by continuing to service bad loans while running up servicing fees."  Isn't this the principal concern of business: to make a profit at the expense of others' lack of knowledge or skill?  Where are all the "free market"
advocates on this?  They usually say they don't want regulations interfering with the almighty invisible hand, so why not let BofA and its subsidiaries grab as much money as they can from consumers/investors?  Rather, they prefer to complain about the government using money to help those who suffer from poverty.  Until we decide to move to a resource-based economy, these kinds of uncomfortable business practices will remain with us.

"The Elite"

Knowing that most of the wealth is owned and wielded rather mightily by few people, "the elite," it is easy to fall into the trap of blaming the system-induced problems on those people.  An "us vs. them" attitude ensnares our minds and hearts and leads to solutions that are unwise and unhelpful.

It is hard to be patient and reflect for the person who is starving while watching another greedily consuming all the food on the table (planet).  They are justified in their anger, but hasty violent reaction to a complex system-wide problem will not resolve the underlying problem.  As the disparity in access to life-sustaining resources continues to widen, communities and countries are unleashing their violence on the perceived targets and those around them.  If those that are fed enough do not start working to correct this problem for themselves and those who are hungry, violence will ripple out in widening circles and eventually ripple through their own lives.  Suffering and anger are warning signs of problems, and if they are ignored, their severity will grow.  We should treat these signs with respect and learn about their causes.

But, back to "the elite."  The elite are indoctrinated, just as we all are, that wealth needs to be accumulated. Despite all the feel-good talk that money doesn't make you happy, we all know that no money = no resources = no life = no happiness.  The fact that the world out there is always trying to get more and more of the money you have means you must be cautious about how much you let go.  How can you ever have enough when you live in a world that does not care whether you live or die, only that you can pay for it?  If you make $200,000 a year and you feel generous and want to give away 100,000, you might not do so because you have to "save for a rainy day."  What if you get cancer and cannot work?  That will cost a lot more than 200K!  Also, as you accumulate wealth, you will likely be surrounded by those that have similar resources, so you have to keep up with the Joneses.  The consequences may be real for not conforming.  If all of your colleagues have multi-million dollar homes, drive luxury cars, eat at expensive restaurants, and travel to high-cost destinations and you decide to eschew that lifestyle, it would send a signal that you condemn their lifestyle.  That attitude could see your way out of a job, out of "the elite."

Even if you own your own business, you have to "make nice" with clients.  You may have to put up appearances so they think you have a legitimate business.  Isn't that what we do by putting on suits?  Suits aren't made for comfort, they are made to give the wearer a sense of respectability that they wouldn't have if they showed up in pajamas.

"The Elite" need to be educated about the system just as much as everyone else.  Actually, they may need it even more since their lifestyles are more immune to the consequences of poverty, disease, and lack of resources.  They need to see that that their lifestyles of "abundance for few" is not just unhealthy for the planet and many of the world's people, but also for themselves.  Within the current economic paradigm, they depend on money not just for their resources, but for their social standing and self worth.  They must also realize that if they intend to have children, their kids will be at greater risk of social unrest, of never-ending worry to maintain their hold on resources, and less clean, less healthy food, water, and air.  Their children will have to deal with people who want to gain their trust to exploit them.  They will have the worries of keeping up with the Joneses and the stock market.  They too, will know, that the world cares about the money they have, not them.  They will have to squash their conscience to ensure that they keep their profits.  They may have to abandon their passion to pursue wealth-generating activities, no matter how much they detest those activities.

It's not that "the elite" deserve more pity, it's just that it's important not to get trapped into the simplistic thinking that usually follows from an angry reaction.  Anger has its place, and if things are left unchanged, anger and violence will grow.  I hope that is not what it takes for people to wake up to the problems ahead.  It may be, but I hope not.  That's why I continue to be motivated to pursue the awareness raising campaign of the Zeitgeist Movement.

Work, Buy, Consume vs. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

This compelling image reminds us about the cycle of consumption. Actually, we work, buy, and consume many times over before we die, but that image would be too large to construct.  

In the Zeitgeist Movement, the emphasis is on education, awareness-building.  This is a necessary project because the system cannot change if only a few of us want it to change.  With the exception of the ultra-wealthy, most people do not have much power alone to change the status quo.  Unlike personal revelations, in which we can change our behavior immediately, insights into our economic system and structural violence do not allow us to change those factors quickly.  It can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed, disappointed, frustrated, angry, and despair.  To add insult to injury, we cannot practically avoid the system which we reject.  We still need to buy food, pay for shelter, and other resources (gained at someone else's expense).  "How many people have been poisoned by the pesticides used on the papaya I just ate?  How brutally have the people been treated at the factory (I saw it first-hand) where my shoes were made?  The landscaping crew that constantly maintain the grounds in my townhome community, are they paid enough to live on?"  Guilt.  I see the horrors of this system, and yet my dependence on it strengthens it.

The goal of the Zeitgeist Movement to transition to a resource-based economy will take a long time, and it requires sustained effort without feeling any system-changing impact.  That's why we need to be patient and just do what we can to create a balance between what needs to be done and enjoying life.  Something that can be done by all of us is to reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Have you noticed how the media/public service announcements tend to exclusively focus on recycling?  We can all reduce and reuse if we make an effort to do so.

  

Focusing on reducing allows us to spend less money, thereby making us a bit freer from workplace enslavement.  It also decreases our impact on the environment.  And finally, by limiting our participation in the Work, Buy, Consume cycle, we accelerate the rate at which that system implodes.  As the foundation cracks, people feel the unsteadiness, and look for alternative solutions.  This searching makes the Zeitgeist Movement more relevant, more meaningful.  And that will hasten the transition.

"That's just the markety world we live in"

“The forest cleans water.”--David Powell, a forester with Virginia's Department of Forestry. He says when you look at a forest, just sitting there, it's actually doing stuff. For you. “Forests are very good at filtering out and preventing erosion and sedimentation; it also helps clean out the air.”
Sabri Ben-Achour: This is what's called an ecosystem service -- when nature does stuff for people. The trouble is, even though people benefit from nature just doing its thing, nobody gets paid for letting nature do its thing. Actually, they get paid to do the opposite: forests get cleared, roots dug up -- benefits gone. That's just the markety world we live in. So Virginia's forestry department wants to pay for the benefit and maybe get consumers to do so too later down the road…Using models, they'll quantify the benefit of a forest to a water source, wrap it up and put a price tag on it and make it a product. But who pays how much and for what?

Hanson: For decades, we've been talking about saving nature for nature's sake and that's worked to some degree -- we have a lot of protected areas around the planet, etc. -- but there are limits. For a lot of governments, a lot of people, a lot of companies, that's not a convincing argument.

----  transcript of broadcast

The person who comes up with the scheme that commoditizes the forests’ processes and can sell it to the public will surely be the next billionaire.  At first, I couldn’t help but laugh at this broadcast, imagining these people scuttling about to find ways to make a profit from this natural process.   But later, when Craig Hanson spoke about the lack of progress in convincing people to care for the environment for nature’s sake and for our own survival, I felt sad.  The question, “what does it take?” keeps entering my mind.  How bad must things become for people to implement the change that is required for us to thrive?

A friend of mine, referencing back to stages of development, pointed out that it usually takes either some kind of personal catastrophe or a giant helping hand that saves a person from catastrophe to create the conditions that allow someone to see beyond a narrow frame of reference.  For example, a person rooted in “red” who thinks the State should stay out of their business could experience a shift in perspective if they have a life-threatening illness in which outside support is the only means for survival.  Not only will they be shaken by the severity of the unanticipated disease, but they may feel gratitude for the support provided, which allowed them to survive.  From this experience, they may be transformed to acknowledge that society functions better when we work together instead of constantly trying to grab power from each other.

Even though it isn’t fun and cheerful to hear about impending economic and environmental collapse, this message needs to be repeated in as many ways as possible to alert us all to the dangers we are facing so that we can try to prevent the horrific consequences on the horizon.  We need to share these messages in personal ways too. The damage is real and is heartfelt, here and now, not in some forecasted future.  The gripe about gasoline prices is something we all share in the Western world, and perhaps that is a starting point for some to explore our system-wide inefficiencies.  Unemployment is another.  It seems that very few are untouched by these factors.  If we act sooner rather than later, we will all gain, and, I hope, have a chance to thrive.