Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”- Rahm Emmanuel

You can say that Obama's Chief of Staff was pretty much on the money with this observation, and it's amazing, and a testament to the times we live in, that not more was made of it. It is frightening and discouraging that we weren't appalled, forewarned, and alarmed at this revelation. Isn't this as much as admitting that "if there was time", and "if the people knew everything", and "if we had time to think things out", that certain measures would never in a million years become accepted?

Say I'm a used car salesman and your'e looking at a car and I tell you that this is absolutely the bottom line price, but only for today. Then I tell you that my boss told me to say that the prices would triple tomorrow, that there was a crisis in the car industry and this would be the last chance you'd have to buy. I also told you that this wasn't exactly true, but my boss thought a crisis would encourage you to commit. First of all, you would be appalled, astounded, and mad. Then you would leave, hopefully.

But, that was exactly the whole point. I may be wrong on this one, but it was someone in the cabinet that also said, "The people don't really care." That's disturbing too.

So, off they went, in a flurry of spending trillions that we don't have, in a matter of months. Striking while the iron was hot, and the bloom of new Presidency and administration was still on the political rose. Prepare the bills, finish them in the middle of the night, and insist that they be voted on in the morning. We were in a crisis that demanded overnight action, with no reflection, discussion, or consideration as to what we were spending.

I know a lot of good salespeople who employ the same strategy. You go in for some small item, and they convince you that you need a package plan that is absolutely essential, but you have to get it now, because it will cost more later on, and this is your last chance or you will be sorry forever. We needed the money overnight, immediately. We couldn't survive another day without it. Then, the over 9000 pieces of pork or ear marks or whatever became public knowledge. Too late. All done. Thousands of endowments for projects that could wait if we were in such dire circumstances, but now if it was owed to those who could benefit you the most.

Flim-flam.

I don't know all the answers and I'm in really good company these days. However, the amount of "change", and proposed actions that have crammed down our throats in the last few months is alarming in anyone's book. Most of us wouldn't decide in a matter of hours to buy a business or a home without researching all the facts, or take out an enormous loan when we hadn't a clue how we would pay it back. Yet, we have.