Woes on Wall street

I was grouped with some of the best students in my class on a business policy course assignment during my final year in college. That was about twenty years ago. We were given joint essays to study as a group, but to give our answers individually in front of the full class. A combine class with students from other courses taking this class, which made it a very large one. I am bringing this up to connect a message from it with the current financial upheaval on Wall street.  As fact, my group members were very brilliant in their respective answers, but failed to realize that the essays and questions were not meant to test our academic strength, but was to test our training skills on practical life situations. Their positions were sharp with academic excellence, but would ruin the corporate existence of any company or situation when employed. However, I saw something within the essays and questions that required more than brilliant academic answers. I saw moral and common sense issues within the academic questions and knew deep down that the most practical and positive result to the corporate goal and the personnel was to expound and appreciate the values of human content or ethics through corporate policy decision processes. Eventually, my review and answer became the standard for others to follow and was adjudge one of the best.

In another scenario, I was discussing the housing problems with a financial consultant some months back, a Doctor in finance and the suggestions and ideas the consultant made were all brilliant textbook repertoire. Truly, the views were very brilliant and correct, but were not the answers to a practical problem. I suggested then that the core lead to the housing crisis was because our financial inputs lack human instincts to expound business or corporate decisions outside our comfort zones. That means, we have recycling of brilliant economic blueprints hinged on financial speculations, graphic and statistical data and not on moral reality, not on strict financial prudence that allows the investing and decision making mind to see business and investments in human light and not just on the super-structures. That means, taking business decisions and investment goals into long-term projects that has values or imprints of real societal expansion at heart. That places the decent human values first before figures, buildings and other mechanical business projections.

I was discussing issues with a Professor from one of the Ivy colleges some few years ago. The Professor’s view were thorough with lots of good lessons, but were too academic to score any grade in real life solutions.

However, two quick facts must be stated here. Academic excellence is most applauded and is the best way to all human development. Second, the capitalist doctrine is good for humanity and is the best for human progress, but must be executed decently and with good discipline.

Corporate goals and standard that fails to reflect on good moral or sound ethical codes, not just on paper but in practice lives on borrowed time. Corporate entities with great profits and refuses to see the human face in their dealings will eventually collapse. Corporate goals that is solely driven to siphon from the society without thought of giving back to the society would eventually fail itself. Businesses that are strictly ran without conscience will eventually face its own destruction.

Anyone that is surprised at what is happening on Wall street today simply means the person is either deceiving him or herself or just out rightly ignorant or refuses to accept the fault is all ours. Whatever we are witnessing today is just a reflection on the society we live in. A society now driven with no sense of moral appreciation. Where we celebrate vices and other defects. Where those that says the truth are screamed at and warned to stop their good course of action. Where we now hire elective officers not based on abilities or competence, but on lower standard we fathom within our subjective minds. Watch your television screen today and most of the shows are like drugs to keep you falsely stimulated and becomes dependant for more. Majority of the programs are spiritual death traps, aimed to take you away from truth and turn your focus from real life issues.

I was in a gathering sometime back and highlighted to the guest speaker of the occasion how you get promotion in offices because of who you know. The response the speaker gave was oh no, that is what is called networking. When such opinion comes out openly from the person that is supposed to lead, what would you expect when they are by themselves with the resource of others.

I was discussing with a man who is supposedly a post-doctoral student in one of the science discipline. Our discussion was on clean environment. Now, let us use this analogy to show our different perspectives. He felt the kitchen needs to be clean, but not the bathroom. Agreed, the kitchen needs to be clean, but I believe it ought to start from the inside, then to the outside. This means taking care of the bathroom and then out to the kitchen. Cleanliness and all human standards should start within and proceed out and not the other way round. His other position was to make the shower curtain clean and neatly spread, but leave the bathtub dirty. He was more concern on having a beautiful toilet cover, but not in making sure the toilet itself is hygienically clean for use. He was more concerned in the appreciation you get from outsiders on what they perceived to be clean from distance and not the appreciation you get from within yourself for doing the right thing, whether noticed or not.

The reason I have brought out some of these examples is just to show how society is wrapped up. We look and do things to satisfy the outside appearance and live the inside unkempt. We cannot tell our kids to do the right things, because we assume to show them love is to wrongly allow them to dress and behave the way they want. Most parents, whether white or black have left the responsibilities of good parenting to the society and possibly, on what they hear on TV.

The educational system is in shamble because our policies are based on political consideration and not what is conscientiously right, whether it favors you or not. Our religious bodies are failing, because we have neglected the spiritual content of our purpose and now running our ministries like political and social associations. The few courageous ones are not given attention by the media because they would expose the pitfalls of society.

Most of our political, social and economic commentators are opportune to influence public direction for good, but have chosen the narrow path or intentions only to score personal points and misdirection of societal priorities. 

The crisis in Wall street is our reflection. The Wall street debacle is only telling us to address our issues properly from the inside or we would continue to experience these gruesome mess that leads to destruction of what we all cherish. The Wall street message is for all to see and understand that freedom is not to live with choice of decay, but with clear choice for decent and right sense of belonging or direction. The Wall street message is for us to approach, whether we like it or not our true spiritual connection based on truth and justice from within ourselves or we would continue to witness diseases and distress to the human sustenance.  

The proposed $700 billion bailout is needed for the short term. However, the real and long-term solution will not come from our articulate mind, but will happen from our courageous steps to live and pursue after truth, self-discipline and love from hearts. We all need to take steps to address our fundamentals again. Proffering any solution, whether economic, social and political blueprints that refuses to address the near decay in our human values for decent, respectable and good willing attitudes to ourselves, families and society would only amount to widow dressing the issue and not solving it from the source. Economic, political and social developments of any system without the good and necessary spiritual and educational foundation is only headed to the direction it would never wish for itself.

You can suppress truth for a while, but cannot stop its power over darkness or lies. You can avoid light for a while, but will never see meaningful progress, because of what light represents. America is been terrorized from all fronts, politically, socially and now, economically, because we have abandoned our true hope in what brought us to this greatness. We have chosen to follow our bodies and not the Spirit. We have chosen to forgo truth and light for choices of depressions and unruliness, which we wrongly assume is freedom of choice, termed democracy. Democracy is the best form of government. Capitalism is good, but these must be managed with discipline from effective leaders. Republican or Democrats. Liberal or Conservatives. Change or no change. They are the same, in the same class with the same goal. These labels have made us to miss the mark. What we really need is effectiveness and truth from our systems and those mandated to administer our resources. We need leaders above politics. We need states men and women. We need honest and morally strong financial managers. We need society that would be ready to turn away from the deceit and wickedness and embrace hope and love with our sincere hearts.

Modu

"Vision is not by sight, it is by heart"

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