What Do We Value?

As the general election approaches, it seems even more urgent to reflect on our government and the values that it expresses through its actions. More importantly, as citizens we must be critical and thoughtful about how and why we support or rally against government actions.

Our economy has been a salient issue with the evident demise of some of the largest U.S. financial institutions. In addition to what we can potentially fear financially — indeed, there is much to be concerned about with the fall of AIG and certain market funds –the government bailouts of these institutions reflect values.

For one, those who are most at risk of losing their jobs in the immediate future are those who hold some of the most coveted positions among American Professionals - Investment Bankers. To be sure, these same individuals earn at the highest pay scales in our society and certainly ‘earned’ their positions with Ivy League educations and hard work.

That said, and it is beyond the scope of this blog to discuss this in detail, our government has reached a decision to bail out these institutions with billions of dollars, racking up a bill at the end of the day that could potentially reach the trillions. The very nature of free markets mitigates government intervention and here we are, intervening in the free market because of some crappy securities and questionable business practices in general.

It is in light of these events that we must begin to analyze why it is that our government values do not include social provisions, including but not limited to; social security, city infrastructure investment (think Detroit and New Orleans), and public school finance. To me, it seems clear that we, as a society, value a certain socioeconomic segment of society and to put it bluntly - we don’t value the rest all that much.

Much remains to be seen as events continue to unfold but there do not seem to be too many surprises any more about who and what the federal government values. This could be a good thing, and indeed, it could be a bad thing but in these times, I hope more people think thoughtfully about the kind of leadership they want in office and what kind of society they would like to be part of .