I know why economy sank...

After a series of activities, I have to come to understand why our nation is in much of the mess that we are in. I have concluded that one of the main reasons that the economy sank is simply because we are heartless in this country. We are so heartless that we neglected to think about the people that we threw under the bus. We are heartless because we forgot to think about the children whose parents would loose jobs in many of the industries that were mismanaged for years. We are heartless because we didn't think about what it would feel like to loose a home. We didn't stop to think about the money that we were stealing from innocent people. We don't even care about those who are less fortunate that we are or even those who are wrongfully convicted. We also neglect the fact that minorities and women still make less money than their white male counterparts--until we think about our own mothers, wives, and daughters. I guess things don't really hurt as much or even matter as much until it becomes personal for us. Simply put, we were only thinking about ourselves and the almighty dollar.

People began thinking solely about themselves and how to "get over" or how to make themselves rich or "ahead of the game" because many Americans are conditioned to think about how things are doing to work themselves. We think we are "self-made." Let's not even mention the homeless or abused. We neglect them and even ridiculing them because we somehow think it's their fault that they are in the predicament that they are in. We blame the victims of abuse often and not to mention the neglect of our children and the school system. It have become so infectious that we even belittle those who serve. We pay those in the helping professions less money often without paid overtime. We even laugh at those who help people without reservation. To me, that doesn't make much sense. I should know, I am a school teacher.

It truly saddens me when I read about people who embezzle billions and millions of dollars from innocent people or how when given an opportunity to do the right thing people still choose to go wrong. I recently attended a homeowner association meeting in my community and was floored to hear about the complaints that the members had. There were people complaining that the neighbors were changing the oil in their cars in front of their homes. They were talking about who should or shouldn't get assistance due to what the board believed. In the face of a crisis they were also insisting that they foreclose on the home of a man that hadn't paid his HOA fee since December...currently it's April. While I understand that that is simply the way it goes--it isn't right. Shouldn't we be helping each other? I guess this is one of the many reasons that our economy sank.

My biggest beef now is the fact that get angry when we think about where the tax money is going. We get angry when we hear that our tax dollars are going to help other people--i.e. the elderly, welfare recipiants, struggling homeowners, the mentally unstable...ANYONE who needs assistance. I get disgusted when I think about how selfish we have continued to be. We will continue to work in this cycle if we don't do better. I am not naive about this matter, but I do believe that our selfish nature is one of the roots of our evils. Yes, it will eventually get better, but I do wonder if there will be another wave of financial disaster such as this someday because people didn't learn from their own mistakes. This is why I believe the economy sank.