The Business of Ruin

Somewhere along the line, about ten years ago, I either bumped my head one morning or drank some tainted coffee—the end result of which instilled within me an urge to remote my way through the television cable channels and watch some of the early morning business programming. I have to admit, I really don’t understand business. I get a little—no, a lot—lost when the folks on the guest panels begin discoursing about “fiscal” policy versus “monetary” policy. When a wall-streeter talks about “playing the margins,” I typically envision someone playing shuffleboard on some sunny ship’s deck at sea. And, while I am certain shuffleboard is inappropriate in the business aspect, I am not interested enough to dig deeper for understanding. Also, I don’t know a damned thing about shuffleboard. Nonetheless, I have continued watching some of the business shows.

I am pretty sure that we have by this point established that some pretty big messes have been brewing in the financial world. The thing I find intriguing about financial and business troubles, though, is not the path that led us to them, not the structure of the particular troubles (as an example, the swath of upside-down mortgages hanging over us), and not even what may eventually solve the problems; I am fascinated by how many of the people on these business shows spend their days devising ways of carving profit from the points of collapse rather than finding a way to actually repair the problems. Often, the money-making schemes are completely beyond my understanding. If I cannot figure out shuffleboard, how will I tackle oil futures and any manner of speculation? The free markets and business formations are tricky beasts to slay and I am without a proper spear, intellectually speaking.

Still, I watch.

In the last half-dozen years, profit and failure have proven to be successfully conjoined twins. In one example, home foreclosures have ascended to all-time highs banking profits have similarly climbed. The banks are presently flush, thank you very much. This morning, as I watched another of the investment kings explaining where best to express profit in our wobbly world marketplaces, the jarring thought occurred to me that we are paving our long-term road to ruin with short-term success achieved by any means. But, since I really don’t grasp business, hopefully I am wrong.

--Mitchell Hegman