danielredbeard’s weblog

Every time I hear someone say they’re doing something “for the chilren,” or for “the future generations,” I want to puke. I at least roll my eyes and/or cringe. To me, saying this – or worse: believing it – is a cheap way to feel good about one’s self.

I’ll contribute to the raising of my son so that he is a logically-minded man capable of helping solve the problems of his personal life, community, and surroundings when the time is his. I will raise a man who will be equipped to deal with his stuff in his time.

I realize that what I and others do has ripples or waves into tomorrow, but I also know that there’s a lot of crap going on right now that no singular person or groups of people could have stopped because at the time they thought they were doing good.

Take the Fannie/Freddi mess: Here we have a classic example of what I’m talking about. In the 90s banks were told to push loans to otherwise unqualified individuals so that they could be part of the blessing of home-ownership. By giving responsibility out, it was thought, these otherwise unqualified folks would have pressures around them so as to shape up.

But a book can be judged by its cover almost all the time, and that’s what happened with the home loans to unqualified people. Their debt was sold to financial institutions, one after the other, until the cancer had spread to Wall Street.

In the 90s, the push was a good idea with good intentions. I recall the radio and TV spots well, pushing the low-interest rate products with all kinds of feel good reasoning. But here we are, now part owners of AIG, and just having given $700B to “Wall Street.” Doing something “for the children” sort of blew up in our faces.

I say let’s make the best judgments we can with what information we have to address the problems TODAY. When my son gets to an age when he’s responsible for his part, he’ll be ready for it and I will not feel any responsibility for what those issues may be.