What Will We do Now?

                                                   By John Haitt

 

’cause we rode it long,

We drove it hard

And we wrecked it

In our own backyard

What do we do now, what do we do now,

What do we do now, what do we do now?

 

What will we do now? Our economy has many of us fearful of what tomorrow brings. Human nature dictates that the blame needs to be placed somewhere. And there is plenty of blame to go around. The people facing foreclosure blame the banks; the banks blame Fannie and Freddie; Fannie and Freddie blame the government for pushing easier terms for homebuyers; and the government blames Wall Street investment firms who traded in all of this weak paper. And it will be the taxpayer who gets stuck with it in the end. The buck stops with the taxpayer. We, who made our mortgage payments, paid our bills, lived within our means and did nothing to deserve this kick in the pants.  Are we innocent bystanders? The answer ….we let past administrations dictate policies which, in the short term, produced a booming economy.  We enjoyed the fruits of this economy without seriously questioning future implications. All it takes is good people doing nothing. And we are about to make that mistake again. The name of this mistake is BAILOUT.

Our democracy allows us both the privilege to succeed and the right to fail. This is what drives our economy. When the government intervenes and places an artificial ceiling on our privilege to succeed, or an artificial floor under our right to fail, it dilutes the opportunity to learn from both our successes and our failures.  By bailing out those who face foreclosure, by bailing out companies whose balance sheets are rife with faulty loans, we erode their ability to learn from their failures. Henry Ford said “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”  Will Wall Street and all those involved in this crisis learn from their mistakes if we bail them out? Will they begin again more intelligently? I think not… I think not if they do not get the opportunity to fail.  

Let’s not wreck it in our own back yard.

 

Any thoughts?   Any lyrics more appropriate?

Advertisement