376 Views   0 Comments   CURRENT

Beyond Musical Chairs

I don’t pretend to fully understand the current financial crisis. But I know what it feels like. It feels like a game of Musical Chairs. You know, the childhood birthday party game where there aren’t enough chairs, and when the music stops, you’ve got to grab yours? As I recall, it was never a game that brought out the best in anyone, and the chaos and uncertainty always made me a little bit sick to my stomach. I never won; I was too easily distracted by the fact that it just wasn’t fair, or that the prize was a worthless piece of plastic anyway.

Except for the worthless piece of plastic part, that’s exactly how the economic crisis feels to me today – with debt circulating more and more rapidly around the seats of our economy, with capital dropping out each time a seat is removed, with rules and fairness suspended, and with uncertainty overwhelming virtually everyone, even those who didn’t really want to play the game. But there’s so much at stake today – the financial and political security of our country and much of our world – that it’s not as if we can simply move on to Pin the Tail on the Donkey or birthday cake. Instead, it seems to me, we need new music and new strategies, an understanding that we must all pay our own way and a commitment to winning with real economic growth and stability rather than with greed. Good luck!