Even though this is theoretically an "arts" blog - the two of our main bloggers work in the financial world.
Since the other half is working on an amazing band post right now - let me attempt to explain why some sort of bail out is needed and what all this stuff means to you, your family, and friends.
Imagine you are the president of a great company with 25 employees.
Your company has been growing steadily over the years, however to keep your company going you must complete a class from a university.
The only way for you to take this class is remotely over the internet.
You pay your tuition to the university, you do your homework, and you are doing quite well in your class, averaging about a B+.
Now one day you receive a notice from the University that they have canceled your remote class due to the fact that the University administration has mismanaged their funds and can no longer afford to have remote classes.
You are shocked. You try to find another University but they also are canceling your remote classes.
You have to take this class to keep your company going, but now there is nowhere for you take this class.
So you have to close down your company and lay off all of your employees.
Now they can't afford to pay their bills and provide for their families.
They also have no money to spend and stop going to their favorite diner in town.
The lovely gal (perhaps your sister) who works in the diner or coffeeshop no longer is getting enough tips because business is slow and now can't pay her bills. She can't buy clothes for her children, she has to go to food stamps to feed her family, and eventually her diner lets her go because the owner can't afford payroll because no one has enough money to eat out anymore.
This goes on for a while, and now people can't pay their house notes and their houses are foreclosed. This makes your town property tax go up and the price of houses in your town go down. You and your sister have moved in with your parents, but now they are even having a hard time paying for all these increased taxes. Now your parents don't have enough money to pay for your youngest brother to go college - and there is no one to lend it.
The government sees this problem and decides to help the University system out. They are going to provide some money to University but also are going to make the University increase it's tuition prices on you.
You will be able to take your class. You will be able to keep your business. Your employees will all still have jobs. They will still eat at the diner which will keep your sister at work and able to buy new clothes for her kids. You won't have to move back in with your parents who will continue to enjoy low property taxes and a good house value. Your kid brother can go to college and perhaps start a business of his own.
But you are mad because you didn't do anything and you have to pay increased tuition. It was the school's administration that was the problem and it isn't fair that you have to pay for the solution.
You are absolutely right. It isn't fair. The school administration should lose their jobs, their school's should fail, they should learn their lessons.
But where does that leave you? Your sister? Your brother? Your family?
Still without a mobile class. Still without a business. Still unemployed. Still without a home.
And we call these mobile classes - loans. We call the university a bank.
When banks can't make loans to people, good people who have always done the right thing, people like you and me, your friends and your families, all of the above (and more because I didn't even touch on the stock market and consumer confidence) happens.
To put it even more bluntly, when banks can't make loans ordinary people suffer greatly.
Sure it isn't fair that we have to foot the bill. Sure it sucks to have bail out the fat cats, who like the greedy university administrators grew rich off of our tuition money and then mismanaged it.
It is the pits.
However, losing your company, laying off your workers, losing your job, your house, not being able to get a new car if yours breaks down, not being able to afford college, not being able to buy a house if you can afford one, watching your house value decrease even more if you have one, while your property tax steady increases is definitely worse.
Maybe you don't believe this. Maybe you say this has been happening.
And you are right. But it can get worse. In fact, if left unchecked, it will get worse.
The great depression was a long time ago. People forget how bad, bad is, how bad bad can be.
Some people say, "well tough luck, let the hair go with the hide." There are homeless shelters, there is charity.
Well charity doesn't work when there is no one to donate to it. Non-profits will fail (the Red Cross is dangerously close). You can't get a job when there are no new jobs. Most jobs don't work without some sort of consumer. The less people who have jobs the less taxes are gathered. The more government services fail. It is scary. It is real. It is how our system is set up.
I don't know if the bail out is what is best for the country.
I do know it is the best real option I have heard.
I do know, contrary to our righteous indignation, this current financial crisis, if it continues, does affect us all - those on wall street, those on main street, and most importantly those on your street.
I do know that perhaps we should think about ourselves before we let our rage at the fat cats lead us all to the poor house.
Two years ago I wrote this to a friend:
"Sometimes you get to the point where you are just starving for hope, for something to hold onto. You realize that you are losing things at a startling speed. Your sanity slips away. Your GPA follows. Your Bestfriend goes away. Your girlfriend leaves you. You lose what you were fighting for. Suddenly you don't know who you are anymore. You barely remember your past. If you remember you don't believe it. You are sad and depressed and hurt constantly. You have felt this way for so long it is normal. Your eyes betray a dark sadness, you are afraid to talk to someone because you don't want them to deal with the abyss of your soul. It has been 3 years and you still find it hard to cry. You will believe anything, do anything, to make this stop. All you want is to find something true and beautiful. You know that if you don't soon enough, one day you will look around, and you won't be able to find a reason why, and on that day the earth will swallow you up."
I wrote this in the midst of a depressive episode. Dealing with bipolar was still new for me.
The key word is dealing because I suspected that I had the disorder as early as my Junior year in high school. A friend of mine was (mistakenly) diagnosed as bipolar and when I read the description of the illness I felt like someone was describing me.
However, I ignored this discovery. I counted it off as merely hormones and too much of an imagination. I dismissed my cycles as "teenage growing pains". Unfortunately, this only served in delaying me getting professional help and isolating myself from potential support networks of family and friends.
I remember sincerely doubting that I would make it past my teenage years - between occasionally being suicidal and routinely taking risks that put my life in danger - I was setting myself up for an early death.
This became my first lesson in living with bipolar disorder: Pretending it doesn't exist only makes it worse.
When I started college I kept in the back of my mind that something was probably wrong with me. Yet, I was very afraid of actually finding out. I didn't want it to be real. I just wanted it to be in my head. I was known, I was popular, I didn't want to deal with any stigma.
I also felt like things were going pretty "normal" for me, I hadn't really wanted to kill myself in a while and I tended to downplay manic episodes as just "youthful adventures."
What I didn't know then was that I had been living with bipolar for three years without any sort of help or support and that I didn't even have a clue what normal was.
Finally at the start of my Sophomore year I went to the Counseling Center. Ironically, I went only to get some advice about time management. By the time I was finished telling my stories of the past three years, the psychologist had to excuse herself from the room. There were tears in her eyes.
My world shattered: my idea of normal was enough to make a psychologist cry.
After that first visit I started coming back every week. I was resistant to the idea at first - I thought it was a waste of time. However, soon after I began seeing her I had a major manic-episode.
For those who don't know all episodes aren't the same. Some episodes last longer than others, some are more intense, etc and no one knows why. While minor episodes are definitely painful, inconvenient, and traumatic - A major episode can kill you.
Needless to say it was a very difficult time in my life. I was seriously considering withdrawing from college. However, as bad as it was - I can't imagine what would have happened if I was not in regular counseling at the time. In all honesty I would probably be dead or in jail.
Thus my second lesson in living with Bipolar: Getting help can save your life.
A few months later I was going through a depressive episode. It was at that time I wrote the previously quoted passage to a friend.
What I was trying to share with them was the third lesson I have learned in living with Bipolar: You have to always have a reason for the question "Why live?" - so even when you are on the edge, even when you are suicidal, you have something or someone that will keep you clinging to life.
I pulled through that episode, just as I pulled through the ones that came before it, and the ones that have come after it.
From what I can tell many people consider my life up to this point to be "successful". I have been able to lead organizations, win awards, graduate from college, get job offers, make money, etc. However, as I have wrote about previously, I consider success to be the distance from where you started to where you are now. Even without everything else, for me, simply being alive and able to write this is "success".
Unfortunately there is no known cure for Bipolar disorder - there is no "getting better".
However, perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned from living with Bi-polar is this: No matter what obstacles come my way, I have the capacity to live my own life, to love, to be loved, and to embrace the present, one day at a time.
Thank you to all my friends, family, and loved ones. You ground me, you give me strength, you are my reason why.
For more information about Bipolar Disorder click here
Update 7/17/08 - great New York Times article out today on Living with Bipolar Disorder
