Ethics and Politics: How They Affect Our Country

Today's political climate is an absolute disgrace to our country and what it has done to our citizens who put their trust in government. Does anyone really know the cause of all this confusion, greed, hatred, political in-fighting and a general disregard for our constitution? Maybe we could discuss the real reason: ethics in politics. The opinions of most of our elected officials and their appointees aren't working much any more. The problems we have today are caused by a lack of ethics at all levels of government and the leadership of those who are in charge of most of our country's largest public companies. Lets take a look at these two subjects and see if we can devise a way to overcome this disaster.

ETHICS: A discipline of identifying, defining, and practicing a code of universal principles that makes human happiness possible.

POLITICS: The discipline of identifying, defining, and practicing a code of principles that makes collective human happiness possible.

HAPPINESS: The attainment of integrity in the sense of coherent wholeness of being in the fulfillment of what it means to be human and of the nature and virtue of human consciousness which consists of knowing, thinking and love....and through the commitment to truth, the responsibility of thinking, and the act of giving.

 How much knowing, thinking and love have been exhibited by our elected officials during this horrible period our country is going through? How much happiness is being created in what is probably the worst ethical/political climate in our country's history? I believe ethics is the number one problem that needs to be solved so we can get back to sanity and preservation of our society in the near future.

We are currently, or have been, winding our way through six "bubbles" in America caused by the lack of ethics at all levels of government and many large public corporations. How do you think the following six "bubbles" started. Can you sum it up in one word?  I can, it is  ETHICS

 #1 The real estate bubble: cause by lack of income growth and the artificial inflation of housing prices. Also liar loans and the repackaging of bad mortgages into securities,

 #2 The stock market bubble: Growth in the market without growth in corporate earnings. The market is currently being stimulated by the FED printing money, thereby temporarily propping up stock prices artificially.

 #3 The private debt bubble: Taking on debt under the assumption that nothing would go wrong with the economy.  Misuse of credit cards, loans backed by second mortgages, etc,

 #4 Discretionary spending bubble: Optional spending on "comfort" or "ego" purchases. Much of this spending was, and still is, related to lax credit card requirements by large banks and the results of taking out second mortgages to buy things that could not be afforded without them.

 #5 The dollar bubble: The value of a currency in a bubble economy is linked, especially today, to all the other "bubbles" that have burst or are about to burst. Eventually the dollar will collapse and the government will have to pay its bills by taking away the private financial assets of its citizens through massive inflation. It can't be stopped!

 #6 The government debt bubble: Here is an example of the growth of US debt from 1950 to 2012:

 1950 - 19 billion

 1980 - 360 billion

 2012 - 15 trillion and growing

 Currently the United States of America is the world's most toxic asset. Would this situation, which is just beginning, have happened if our elected officials and some of the leaders of our largest public companies adhered to a system of ethical principles based on real knowing, thinking and love for their constituents and employees. These leaders have devolved our country into a static , non-creative, non-evolutionary structure. Life for the majority of our citizens has become a stagnant pond instead of a flowing river. 

 The absence of happiness (for many, many people) is an indication that we are not in tune with our evolutionary thrust for life. Our leadership in general lacks passion, joy and happiness because they do not live in tune with the creative thrust which extends to the building of community, only to tearing it down. Could adhering to ethical principles, even living by "the golden rule", have prevented the past, present and future destruction of our country? Probably so. How can ethical people want harm each other?

How can we work together to revive ethics in our leaders which would guide the country to a prosperous future through the creative thrust of life and return purpose to our lives?  Please feel free to offer your comments and suggestions.

Thank you for taking the time to read the first edition of my blog on ethics and polotics. In the future we will get further into ethics and happiness and work on a way to bring our country back into balance.

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 * Thank you to Yasuhiko Kimura and Bob and David Wiedeman for their creative work in making this blog possible. Please read the book "Aftershock" for further information concerning the dire straights our economy is in and a great plan to help you make your way through the difficult times ahead*