Imagine my surprise and joy, when up popped an email, with three heartfelt words and a link from my son.
Poignant, this soulful story of love and caring -- a lioness and her cub.
Stark contrast to the headlines I was reading at that very moment -- the metastasizing economic crisis, anguish of joblessness, with it, the suppressed potential of millions -- societal restlessness; the no-end-in-sight feel of the Eurozone debt crisis (who'd ever thought we'd be bailing out governments?); protests worldwide, born of need -- for a living wage, for a voice, for a future...
How long can failure be rewarded, propped up?
Capitalism isn't just about success -- it's about failure too -- allowing failed enterprises to fail.
Headlines tell the story of a world adrift in turmoil. Markets reflective of the same. No surprise, then, the gyrations and distortions. Where Are the Bond Vigilantes? -- reads one op-ed piece -- pointing to the distortion of bond market rates when "the vigilantes have been crowded out by central banks the world over." Then I read this -- Sheared by the Shorts: How Short Sellers Fleece Investors. This took me back to the speculative attacks unleashed on Eurozone nations and banks as their debt crisis escalated. Here at home, debt and budget problems swell, and now "double dippers" too.
I guess reprieve was not in the cards when I came across, China Venture Is Good for GE, but Is It Good for the US?
How to compete in China without giving away the store. And specific to GE: What's to keep GE's new avionics joint venture with China from transferring the best of US technology abroad empowering a new set of Chinese companies to challenge US aircraft makers.
In a recent op-ed piece titled, For Jobs, It's War, Charles Blow cites Jim Clifton (chairman of Gallup) and his new book The Coming Jobs War:
"The war for global jobs is like World War II: a war for all the marbles. The global war for jobs determines the leader of the free world. If the United States allows China or any country or region to out-enterprise, out-job-create, out-grow its G.D.P., everything changes. This is America's next war for everything."
Like tributaries flowing into a river, so too the headlines. Where are they flowing -- is this time different?
Read on.
On my nightstand, a pile of clippings tell the age-old story of the indomitable human spirit, it's soaring potential. Like my son's email that lit up my day, my nightstand clippings are chock-full of stories about remarkable people lighting up the world -- one by one by one. Their presence makes an imperfect world less so. Imagine the possibilities of a candle contagion.
Have you read about Cuba's "Ladies in White?" Have you read about Dr. Hawa Abdi in Somalia? Have you read about New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman? Have you read about, know of, countless others who stand for justice, freedom, human dignity...?
I am reminded of the words of Buckminster Fuller (20th century American engineer and futurist). He wrote about making "the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone."