The Only Thing We Have to Feahh.....

My head is really in the clouds today. Maybe it just seems that way because I have cotton for brains right now, just trying to get the aforementioned head around this economic mess. But I’ve been thinking a lot about faith.

For those fortunate enough to have a lot of gold holdings, why is gold valuable? Gold, believe it or not, has some spiritual qualities. Not only is it beautiful, but it doesn’t corrode or tarnish. It’s solid, and it will still be there when other metals have rusted and disintegrated – it has that feeling of eternity to it. And it’s relatively hard to find. Of course, the real value of gold to an owner is that others value it, too. People have faith in it.

It’s also interesting to see people are buying up U.S. Treasury bills as they seek a safe haven. A Treasury bill is only a piece of paper, but it’s said to be backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government. That is, of course, if you have any faith in the federal government or feel like giving it credit for anything right now.

FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” How about the flip side? The only thing we can really have faith in is faith itself. When you invest in something, you have faith that it’s going to bring you a return, and when you lose that faith, you sell it. The Bible says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

The things that make some of us feel safe at the moment won’t save us from every calamity. If you had a brick of gold, but, as an example, were really thirsty after being lost in the desert for a week, you’d part with it in a New York minute for a drink of water, if that meant your survival. All those pieces of paper you’ve put under the mattress are worthless unless backed up by something and, as a consequence, valued by others. In some circumstances, the mattress itself may have more value than what you stuffed under it.

I’m sure you’re saying, “My life savings are on their way to being wiped out, my house is upside down, and I can’t afford the gas to get to work, so thanks a lot for this little talk.”

But the bottom line, as everyone says these days, is what you have faith in. As for me, I have faith that eventually our faith will be restored. But let’s not be surprised if we find that faith resting on something different.

There, now I’ve said it.

It's a Good Thing

The great national nightmare, to paraphrase the late Gerald Ford, isn't over, but I think we're past the really hard part.

You don't have to be a Harvard-educated economist (full disclosure: I went to Princeton) to figure out what is happening to our financial structure. It was all about lending money to those who couldn't pay it back, and then insuring the financial institutions against the consequences. And at least some of the poor unfortunate victims have to shoulder some of the blame: They lied on their loan applications. But no one bothered to try to catch them at it. They were just having too much fun.

So it's all collapsing in a heap, and everyone is feeling the pain. Good! That's what pyramids and bubbles are supposed to do -- collapse. This was like a giant Ponzi scheme. The only unanswered questions involve whether those in charge of it all should be in jail; but the jails have too many people in them now as it is.

We will likely enter into a period of regulation. It's necessary, because neither socialism nor the free market work in their purest forms. Socialism doesn't work because people don't want to give up what they feel they have earned -- that's human nature. And free markets don't work because people can't be trusted when the money is sitting right in front of them, waiting to be collected. Again, human nature.

What we will find to fix this is a mix of government regulation, and yes, self-regulation. The bankers probably won't put themselves into this situation again, at least for another 30 years or so.

The great thing about hitting bottom is that the only direction to go is up -- and you can bet that the rebuilding will be done on much more solid ground. There are some very spiritual lessons to be learned here. It gets you thinking about what really has value, and what doesn't.

When we're done with home loans, maybe the next collapse will come in the credit card industry -- and then maybe the HMO system, and who knows? Maybe even the tax code. It would involve learning the hard way -- but if we had to rebuild all of these things from scratch, maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. We sure wouldn't be making the same mistakes anytime soon.

There, now I've said it.