Costa Rica Realtor Jeff Hickcox - September 2008

While the so-called financial "bailout" debate rages in the United States, the stock market crashed 777 points on Monday leaving Americans stunned and afraid.

Liberals, conservatives, and independents alike have expressed panic and distrust in regards to the financial crisis and any possible government bailout. Some people have strong opinions about the situation, some are growing more cynical by the day, while others are just angry and confused.

With the United States in trouble, many proud Americans are for the first time seriously considering moving out of the country.

A few months ago President Bush announced that our "financial institutions are strong", and only weeks ago the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, said the "fundamentals of our economy are strong", all while the financial system was falling off a cliff. So, we can hardly be blamed for feeling confused about this crisis. Now we see both political parties blaming each other for the problem while scrambling for a solution.

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Americans are very angry about spending $700 billion in tax dollars to save a corrupt banking system. Americans have been screaming for decades about inadequate health care and education only to be met with the government mantra "we don't have the money to fix those programs", and all of a sudden we have gobs of money to bail out the elite.

This "solution" is being sold to us as preserving our credit card way of life. We have become too accustomed to living beyond our means and now the U.S. economy is operating with an estimated $45 trillion in personal and public debt. Incidentally, it seems that $700 billion is barely a band aid for what appears to be a gaping wound of blood-red ink.

Unfortunately, this band-aid approach to addressing broken systems in the United States is par for the course. Our lawmakers seek to treat the disease (which is the system) with medicine that only gives us temporary relief. Most people, that I talk to, want the system to collapse because they feel that it has become too infected.

Maybe that is what is needed and maybe we'll all be singing REM's "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine". I suspect, however, that if we don't support the bailout there will be widespread human suffering and we will not feel fine.

The really scary thing is that we are seeing massive consolidation of these already to-big-to-let-fail banks. When we, the people, bailed out investment bank Bear Sterns, Treasury Secretary Paulson sold them to JP Morgan for pennies on the dollar with government financing. And last week bank giant Washington Mutual was forced to shut their doors by the U.S. government, and was sold to JP Morgan for the rock bottom price of $1.9 billion. Can anyone guess who pays for ex-CEO Paulson's $40 million golden parachute? That's right - JP Morgan.

The U.S. system seems to use taxpayers to consolidate wealth for the Boys Club. This crisis is reminiscent of the Enron collapse where a few at the top stole the wealth of the company from the many at the bottom with little oversight or accountability. Meanwhile, the taxpayer was billed for the worthless Enron pensions. What's even more disturbing is the undoing of Enron was NOT a mistake, it was a planned theft.

This financial crisis doesn't feel like a mistake either. Many casual observers saw this coming long ago, and it seems inconceivable that the smartest power players in the world did not foreshadow these events. All Americans deserve to be as angry as the former Enron staffers.

In case you haven't noticed, we have seen massive consolidation in every industry over the last decade with very few Congressional oversight hearings for mergers and acquisitions. It seems that when only a few greedy and unregulated companies control entire industries, especially those industries that are vital to society, civilization's stability may be at risk.

The U.S. has seen dangerous consolidation in other crucial sectors like energy, food, health care, and war. What happens if any of these increasingly fragile industries crumbled as well? Well, the U.S. government will have to step in to buy them, because they are positively necessary for modern society to function. But then, you might say, the government, by way of corporate natural selection, will eventually own and control everything. Hmmm, if not a mistake, then what is their plan?

These are very tumultuous and changing times. Both presidential candidates are selling "CHANGE" because that's the only thing we're buying. So you can be sure, 'a change is a comin'. Charles Darwin said, "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change". We must be ready to adapt because as the effects of globalization are becoming more evident, the United States is in an unhealthy position to compete in a flat world.

Bill O'Reilly, of Fox News, has recently half-joked that if the bailout plan fails then Plan B is to "move to Costa Rica". I don't often agree with Mr. O'Reilly, but given the ramifications of not bailing out the financials, I wholeheartedly endorse his Plan B.

Written by Jeff Hickcox, one of our preferred and highly recommended Costa Rica Realtors specializing in the Atenas and Grecia areas. If you would like to speak with Jeff regarding Costa Rica real estate please use the form below:

Costa Rica Realtor Jeff Hickcox