Whatever Happened To The American Dream?

If nothing else, the events of the last several months have accomplished one thing: they've revealed to the general public (including your Humble Blogger) just how screwed up the world of finance really is.

Until recently, most of us have been able to go about our daily lives under the delusion that banks and insurance companies are tight with their money, careful to the point of absurdity about what chances they'll take, and about as exciting as a sink full of dishwater. The fact that technology companies, in the late 90s, were burning through venture capital at alarming rates - paying for SuperBowl ads, hosting huge and extravagant parties, establishing eye-popping perks for their executives (and, sometimes, employees) - wasn't a big shock to too many people, when it all came out in the days following the Tech Bust. But learning that members of the staid, conservative financial industry were acting like drunken, Vegas tourists with their 35-to-1 debt-to-asset leverages? That they were lending money to anyone with a pulse? That they were creating innovative new vehicles for bundling up those debts and selling them off to any sucker who'd buy them? Geez! What stereotype is going to fall next? Computer geeks are suddenly considered "hotties" by the rest of the planet?!

I have no idea at this point whether anything good will come of all this. I'd like to believe that we've all now learned our lesson, and that the next decade will be marked by hard work, sound investing principles and a commitment to selflessness, instead of selfishness. But I kind of doubt it. For all the damage done by the shenanigans leading up to Bailout Madness 2008/09, there was still a sizable minority of that work force who received (and continue to receive) kings' ransoms for their twisted efforts. What that probably means is that the future will simply hold more of the same: more individuals looking for an angle, searching for the best way to game the system, itching to make "money for nothing" and get their "chicks for free." That seems to be what drives the machine anymore, which is really sad for the rest of us who still believe in an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.