Where We Are Isn’t Pretty, and It Isn’t Us

Posted on November 21, 2008
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If there was ever an example of why the nation is in deep economic disarray, it’s the result yesterday of the visit by the “Big Three” auto companies to Washington. That and the real restate environment I happened to learn about in my old neighborhood in Queens, New York.

The auto companies displayed no sense of regard for public and congressional opinion by showing up at House and Senate hearings in private jets and without a plan on how to spend $25 billion in “bailout” aid in a convincingly useful manner.

Yet Congress showed no awareness of its own role in avoiding creation of a national health care system that would relieve the auto companies and other employers of heavy health insurance costs.

What we saw at the auto hearings was a dire example of how much we have lost sight of the public interest ? our common interest ? in an era of unfettered market capitalism.

And in my old neighborhood in Queens, there is a timeworn house for sale with an air-conditioner hanging out its front window. Asking price: $549,000. More than a half-million dollars for a home that has no doubt been a comfortable, yet work-a-day, residence for years upon years. If this house sells for anything close to the asking price, I’d say it’s a candidate for default in the future. And there are still, apparently, many offerings like it on the market.

We cannot sustain this dereliction of reality in manufacturing centers, the nation’s capital and my old neighborhood. We have to realize we are one people living in context with our time and needs, not speculators on our common future.

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