If you want to solve the economic crisis you need to look somewhere other than Wall Street or the Fortune 500.. To see why people think the high and mighty economic powers that be in the money capitol are behind the global financial crisis … and therefore have to “do something” to fix it … you have to consider the egocentric natures of humans.
When I was in the ninth grade I read a book about Albert Einstein. In it he was quoted as saying … and believing … that there is no such thing as gravity. He called it a “phenomenon of motion”. There was no further explanation. I’m not sure an explanation of such a statement by Einstein would have helped me or not, but I would have liked to see MORE. While I was still reading the book, we came to the study of gravity in my physical sciences class. I raised my hand, held up my library book and told my teacher that Einstein said there was no such thing as gravity. He stared at me a moment then held up a pencil and dropped it on his desk. “I don’t care what Uncle Albert said,” said my teacher, “When I let go of this pencil, it falls.”
Well, look a little more closely at that statement. When he lets go of the pencil, it falls. When an apple comes loose from the tree, it falls. The earth flies in a circle around the sun and yet does not fly off on a tangent into space. From that scientists conclude that the earth and the sun exert gravitational influence on each other and everything near them.
Well … excuse me … but what about the entire rest of the universe? Maybe the explanation to “phenomenon of motion” lies not in the influences exerted by the elements of our tiny speck in the universe, but in the powerful influences on our tiny speck from the whole rest of the universe.
See, that’s the way people think. Nothing really wrong with that. Often the simplest answers provided by the immediate environment are sufficient to solve the problem at hand. Always look at the close and simple possibilities first. But in a situation where the close and simple answers are failing, look beyond.
There’s a lot of world out on the streets below those grand sky-scraping offices. There’s a lot of world beyond the periphery of Manhattan. There’s a lot of world outside New York City, and a lot of world outside the United States. Just because the brokers in Manhattan are the biggest, most important ones they know, and just because the mass media corporations a few blocks down the street are also the biggest ones they know does not mean the entire cause and effect of the global economic crises is focused in Manhattan.
Furthermore, just because you are an expert on money does not mean you know squat about wealth. Money and wealth are not at all the same thing.
Look at a topographical map of the entire world. You will notice the beautiful green of North America and the beautiful blue of the waters. We have plenty of vegetation and water. Therefore by very nature and pure physical endowment, you would expect it to be one of the richest nations in the world. And it is. And yet, those who labor in the fields to translate that physical endowment to food on the table are often too poverty stricken to eat well. It’s the economy, which is based on money, which causes people to be up to their necks in wealth and yet be penniless.
Money is merely a mechanical device used in the manipulation of wealth. Stocks, bonds and the like are mechanical devices for manipulating money. Investment services and brokerage firms are methods and means of manipulating stocks and bonds and the like. There are so many layers of conceptual manipulation between the wheat fields on the prairie and the ivory towers in Manhattan that no one up there really knows what is really going.
Being an expert on matters of money doesn’t mean you know … or care … anything about wealth. And you have to admit, as long as it was only the pickle pickers who were starving, no one on Wall Street was worried about fixing the economy.

There is more. Right now I have to go produce some goods to trade for the things I need to continue living. As soon as I can take a few minutes, I’ll post the next installment.

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