The Problem With Charity

Nearly every one has done it. Over the years I have handed many five and 10 dollar bills from my car window to some weather worn transient holding a sign that says: “STRANDED . . . NEED BUS FARE” or “HUSBAND OUT OF WORK . . . NEED TO FEED CHILDREN.” Who can ignore the desperation and pathos from a picture like that? The realization that our own luck could change one day, no doubt inspires a faint if not consciously acknowledged preemptive attempt to assuage karmic indebtedness. But, I believe, that we as human beings, also have a natural optimism, that sustains itself alongside our acts of charity and that causes us to hope for our charity as sustenance to another human as a possible investment in his renewal.

Most of the time however, especially in more populous states like California, I find the same characters day after day working the same spot near an intersection or parking lot, sometimes emitting the strong odor of alcohol or counting substantial wads of cash during a pause in their activities. To be sure, some of our charity does help the worthy, but the surety of my odds with my handouts does not encourage me theses days. When that ten spot goes into a liquor store, it has lost more value than when it goes into a McDonalds.
The American Stock market has lost considerable value within the past few weeks and it has continued to lose value after the 700 billion dollar Federal Bail out.

Americans, as a people, are a far more generous lot than many others. Our private charities abound and Americans often vote for politicians who virtually promise us higher taxes when human charity is to be the monies intended use.

Obama is filling his cabinet. He is proving already, to be unworthy in one respect, of his own mantra, the word “change”, repeated ad nauseam for nearly two straight years, appears now to be nothing more than a political cattle prod used to rouse the American voter, presumably shocking into a state of higher alertness concerning the “new candidate” before them. At least Obama understood better than McCain did, that America indeed wanted things to change. We are currently still ignoring the necessity as to the how, to “change” this economic aspect of existence.

Paul Volker, or Tim Geitherner, respectively and alternately from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve and also having served stints in both, are sharp, intelligent executives with pedigrees that are certainly worthy of notice. But like everything else going sour in both our economy and in Washington politics, these men lack an essential quality that is nearly impossible to find these days in establishment hierarchies. Experience is a tarnishing crown, because of its now frequent inability to anticipate and implement “change.”

The formula is supposed to work something like this:
Find people with considerable experience, then find the smartest and most highly recognized among these, then establish their loyalty to you (rarely difficult with remuneration of sufficient magnitude), and above all, let him wave in the proverbial wind for a brief while, at some press function or dinner party, like a subtle perfume to the American focus group that we are. It must be determined that popularity will be among his assets. And, it is no accident that good looks and youth, are now also one of the preeminent qualities Obama is looking for.

Obama had no problems rotating his shoulders to wave at his fans, and both Saturday Night Live and Mad TV demonstrated a peculiar strain of comedy that emphasized the lack thereof with McCain. What I believe McCain had in spades, a lifetime of experience in Washington politics, is not regarded as highly as it used to be. The fact remains, that many, including Senator McCain, by evidence of Senate Bill 109 that never succeeded in making it to the floor for a vote, saw our looming crisis at a time when it was still possible to avert it, but to no avail.

Experience also was on the side of Barney Frank and other similar “denizens of our demise,” who I doubt Obama will oust, because of their supreme political contribution by mere presence, to the new radical constituency which is now the Democratic Party.

Check and checkmate are the order of the day. Hardly one voice can be heard crying wisdom and boldness without two others to counter it with idiocy and partisan invective. Tim Geithner, as president of the Federal Reserve, noted at great length in one of those snoring sessions before the Senate Banking Committee on April 3, the model which would later become that for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, specifically, the infusion of funds, from the Federal Reserve at the behest of JP Morgan Chase to the happy tune of a mere 13 billion dollars. The loan was intended to shore up an instability in an important lending institution and signal solidarity and cohesion to investors and stock holders that massive losses would be curtailed and that control was the operative mandate from on high.

Instead, as we know from most recent events, the wind became colder and the king’s tits became suddenly perky as he slung back his shoulders and rode nobly . . . and naked . . . with his procession. A domino effect has transpired; from this small domino of 13 billion dollars, successive failures kept leaning to fall with geometric succession, to the point where 700 billion dollars fell from our economy like a domino rivaling the size of a Stonehenge monolith.

Experience abounds. Everywhere, experienced “wise men’”have been working feverishly to avert the growing disaster. We cannot drop the prime-lending rate to zero. It is so low now that serious investors now have to choose between finding new suitable champions in the stock market that will perform better, or, the “absolute” security of a 1% yield from the ‘absolute’ power of his majesty of the Federal Treasury (perky tits not withstanding).

We can print money too . . . lots more of it. But we are now dropping into a recession. You can only put so much money into Pork Bellies and Orange Juice. A lot of cash is now stranded in the “Experience Lane.” Change alone has not given many investors a clue about what to do with their money, and when money sits, it dies. And, dying it is. The Stock market is floundering in the confusion and Americans are now being laid off in record numbers with no end in sight.

When somebody gets a new idea, it often flounders like a fish out of water tries to get back into the river. I am a prolific inventor. I have floundered for that dear water, many, many times. I have experience and I have partners and I have untold agony every time I try to sell a new invention, because, I am always thrust against the prevailing technology with the dutiful task of demonstrating the merits of the new thing. But change, which is part of the inevitable merit of an invention, must be described and defined with its advantages before the scrutiny of patronage and experience. Without experience, we have no starting point for change and without change, we have no start.

It is too soon to know everything in our future. But in order for Obama to truly succeed at benefiting this nation, he will have to define to his growing entourage of “experienced’”Washington insiders, how they must change this nation in a cohesive clear-headed manner that will strengthen it.

But, signs are already up that compromise will be the order of the day. Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are the types who are incapable of cohesive constructive actions, yet I expect them to remain the impediment they are to their own party, their new President and as they have already proven to be, an impediment to this nation.

This nation walks as a singular proposition, yet it appears twain we will go, one leg here and the other leg there . . . steps painful enough to watch, let alone perform, and I’ve never seen a dismembered person laugh about it. And yet, many Americans still display a considerable propensity to laugh, but . . .

I’m not laughing.

Milton