Life Lessons: We Are All Connected

Anyone who still thinks that there aren't connections between every person on this planet must be living under a rock after the last couple of weeks on Wall Street. Little things add up to big things, and things that happen halfway around the world affects us right here too. We watched the world markets topple in a domino effect after the US market finally seized up after being clogged with frozen credit.

There are consequences for every action. Too few people seem to even acknowledge that fact. CEOs embraced policies that were good for their bonuses but bad for their corporations, and then watched in shock as their corporations crumbled. Bankers and mortgage brokers decided to live in a fairy-tale land where lending money to people who couldn't pay it back was somehow a sound business model.

Meanwhile, the politicos continue to blather on about the free market's ability to sort itself out, which is sort of like a Gaia Theory for economics. Yes, the free market will sort itself out, but it may do so with crushing force to purge itself of failed businesses. We don't really want it to do that, which is why the government is stepping in attempting to rectify the situation. If only more people had thought of addressing the problem before the consequences started to take effect.