This isn't the same, it's never the same.
It was someone quoting the Buddha who observed, you can't enter the same stream twice.
In 2008 the markets crashed, and the die was cast: save the rentier class, save the banks, too big to fail.
Meanwhile over at my favorite blog, Calculated Risk, the astute, brilliant, hilarious, wonderfully prescient and amazing blogger, Doris Dungey, under the nom de plume Tanta, was slowly dying of ovarian cancer. She cut to the heart of the issues underlying the bubble and then the collapse, and in a cruel twist, was cut down, too young, too soon.
"Tanta Vive" became a rallying cry, a salute, a cyber call-to-arms.
Naturally no policies changed, though it came to light she was read and respected throughout industry, government, and the economics web.
What would she say now that the markets are plummeting again?
People much smarter than I say, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.
So here we are again.
Fear spikes. The economy is on the brink. What of the poor? What of the nearly poor, those without insurance or pensions but with jobs they trudge to? What of the remains of the middle class - will they lean out, dropping ranks, or shoulder up to the gates of the well-heeled and demand entry? What of the large landlords, the CEO's, the board members?
The shortest sentence in the English language is, "Jesus wept." I doubt it was over a 600 point drop in the Dow Jones, but still, long sentences don't often contain that much emotional impact, or get to the heart of the matter.
We are up to no good, those of us who forget history. We can cry about lost futures. We can bemoan the lack of enforced regulation, rail against the greedy, demand justice! In the final wash, though, maybe we just need to remember something a good friend shared: all that matters is love.
It's not a cop out. It's not a descent into religiosity, either. It's just an observation: we can learn to observe, respect, and honor one another.
Or we can descend into hell, into the chaos of civil unrest, assassinations, institutionalized theft and the attendant further disparities between income classes.
It really is up to us, one heartbeat at a time.
