With all the discussion about the “housing market bubble” and the ensuing collapse of the financial markets, we’ve come to accept bursting bubbles as a bad thing. After all, the bubbles irrationally created in an effort to capture billions of dollars in securities that few understood, wrecked havoc with our economy.
But there exists a bubble that must be burst, a bubble with the potential to destroy both our economy and our way of life, a bubble that, for decades, has been inflating to its bursting point. Just as a balloon cannot forever expand, the envelope that surrounds this bubble can no longer stretch; something must yield.
The bubble I’m describing is the one surrounding our elected leaders, a bubble that separates them from reality and the consequences of their actions. Some have walked the hallowed halls of congress for decades and have never experienced just what it means to “earn a living.” Many have never held a job outside the public sector, so how can we expect them to understand the concerns and hardships their laws sometimes create.
The multi-termed members of congress have no concept of the consequences of being “upside-down” in a mortgage—if they need to refinance, they just contact a crony in the mortgage business and receive a “sweetheart” deal that would make the average borrower drool with envy. They have no concern for health care; they have one of the best health insurance programs in the world. They don’t have to worry about the costs of gasoline, the burden of higher taxes, the reality of job loss.
Our elected leaders are separated from reality, bubble people, who are unaffected by the very legislation they vote upon. In reality, they’re not leaders; they are little more than lackeys of a once exquisite system, now corrupted by greed and indolence. In truth, many, perhaps most, have no evil intentions to destroy our country; and while it may not be by design that their despoilment is done, the results are the same.
With their vision distorted by years of peering through the lense of their bubble, career politicians can no longer see clearly; their myopia forever incurable. The single solution is to select replacements as quickly as possible and to never again allow those sent into positions of leadership to lose their connection with the common people. And, regardless of the performance of any single one, we must not allow them to serve indefinitely. Just as we rotate our troops from the battle zone, we should periodically rotate our politicians back to reality.
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