by Randy Vaughan

Created on: October 23, 2008   Last Updated: October 27, 2008

Ask your average blue-collar working man or woman about this "financial crisis" and you'll more often than not get one of two responses: Laughter or anger. As long as it's been just us struggling from week to week, month to month, you could put into a thimble with room left over for a thousand dancing angels all the so-called leaders, both political and in the private sector, who cared. But now that it's those near and at the topas well as those with the "extra" money to investwho are having a rough go of it, now it's a "crisis". Yes, it really is laughable as hell.

The anger is that unlike here in our "real world" where mediocrity and incompetence might be overlooked but never rewarded, we're seeing that when you're incompetent enough to run into the ground a multi-million dollar corporation, you're rewarded with that "golden parachute" which can put millions into your own personal bank account while costing employees their jobs and everyday folks just about everything for which they've ever worked.

Yes, there is indeed "plenty of blame" to go around, but the heart of the blame has just one name: Greed.

It's understandable that most folks have varying degrees of contempt for people who can, but won't, work, those who've learned to "work the system," to live off of welfare, food stamps, and all the rest of those "entitlements". It's simple greed, the kind that wants something for nothing. It doesn't really care where those freebies come from or who pays for them. It wants what it wants and to hell with everything, and everyone, else.

The greed getting all the attention noweven though we dare not use that word to describe itis the greed that wants it all and at any price and to hell with who suffers in the process.

The greed on the bottom plays on human emotion with chants of "fair" in order to achieve its results while its counterpart dismisses humanity completely in exchange for lofty ideals that have desirable names like "capitalism" and "free enterprise" and "private sector". The moral couldn't be more clear: Take the homeless guy who makes his demands in the name of "fairness," put him at the top, and he'd likely tell those he left behind to go straight to hell! Now snatch that clearly incompetent CEO from his boardroomthe man who just tossed thousands of people into the street in order to increase profits for his shareholdersand put him into that cardboard box and watch how quickly he'll be demanding some "fairness" and "compassion" from others.

What do both

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