Listed $140,000 Below Its Value
Denver Just One Market Where Houses Sell For A Fraction of Their Worth
This headline, found on the AOL Homepage's opening gallery, proves both how little we have learned from the current economic crises, and how much worse things may get because of that. A house can not, by definition, be sold for less than it is worth or for a price below its value. The price at which any object sells IS its value or worth. And the failure to appreciate that fact, was, and will continue to be, a major factor in creating today's economic woes.
From home owners on Main Street to brokers on Wall Street, people insisted that things were worth what they wanted them to be worth, not what they actually were worth. Whether driven by greed, stupidity or a perverse sense of entitlement, that belief is deeply destructive and apparently still quite prevalent. If it were not, then AOL could not get away with this kind of headline.
Washington can pour another 700 billion dollars into the market and it will accomplish nothing if we do not all begin to re-think our own relationship to the things we own and what they are worth. Don't get me wrong, I am no anti-materialist. But when our desires become so disconnected from reality that we actually create fantasy concepts of material value, then it's not only our economy that demands examination but our core values as individuals and as a nation.
The sages of the Mishna ask, who is wealthy? The best answer is, "the one who is happy with what he has". How so? Wealth is as much an internally constructed reality as it is a function of what we possess. If we feel rich, then who is to say we are not? But if we always need more, we will never have enough. And that feeling of never having enough compels us to inflate the value of what we have or to seek ways of getting more than we responsibly can, all as ways to meet that endless need.
It is at this point that an economic crisis becomes a spiritual or ethical crisis. And without delighting in seeing a whole new homeless population emerge, because "it's what they deserve", we better own up to our role in this crises. If we don't, then far from the beginning of the end of our current troubles, the government bail out will be the beginning of its beginning.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Subscribe
Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
the same things go for charging stuff. WE ALL KNOW BETTER, and that we should not charge things we can not afford.
We do.
There was a depression in the 20s.
The market has gone up and down.
There were problems when Carter was in.
There are problems now.
There will be more problem some other day.
You adjust.
Hugs
Laura
I think the economic situation
requires a rest.
No financial exchanges of ANY kind
between ANYONE
for a period of 31 days...
retroactive of course to before the debacle.
A period of atonement, so to speak,
before the start of a new world vision... lol
One exception is for all carpenters
to start building scaffoldings
to be paid for
by the stock market & CEO scammers.
lol
Dear Cliff Zimmerman,
Please do not be ashamed to be Jewish because Fuld is Jewish. Fuld should be ashamed for being such a horrible person.
Please do not blame Capitalism. The problem is CandI == Corruption and Incompetence. Candy rots your teeth and CandI rots the economy.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Any system can have corruption as any system allows power to accumulate in too few hands.
A few weeks back, there was s simple solution -- insure the mortgages. That would have made all the viral loans sound and there would have been no credit crunch. Bush, Paulson and a host of others knew how to stop the meltdown. instead, they intentionally aggravated the situation and got the American people to give trillions of dollars to the crooks so that they can buy up almost everything for pennies on the dollar. Today you can buy General Motors for 11 cents on the dollar, you can buy The Hartford for 17 cents on the dollar.
The economy did not dive over the brink -- it was pushed.
Why is Bush giving trillions of dollars to his buddies and not a cent to Joe Six Pack? If I have to tell you, then . . . Joe Six pack is really, really stupid. He listen that the moron from Alaska wail about Ayles w/o asking why a few thousands dollars aren't coming his way so he can buy GM, AIG, Hartford, GE, etc?
What people should be doing is voting out of office every member of the House of Representatives who voted for the "bailout" so that after the election we can undo the "bailout" and put all the crooks including Fuld and Paulson in prison.
I can't believe you are supporting John McCain.
Scott you have it figured out, we need to vote everyone who voted for the bailout OUT OUT OUT. These are the same people that have controlled congress for the last two years, and now they are pointing their fingers at George Bush and all of the Republicans, but where were they and why was nothing done to prevent this. The Dems who took over control of the house two years ago, have not even acted on any issue and especially the economy. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.