What's That Panicky Crashing Sound?

Around the neighborhoods of middle and lower class America, "Wall Street" is known as being synonymous with greed. The heart of capitalism resides on that street in the minds of many of us and for the most part, it is true. World markets started tanking yesterday while ours was closed and Asia and Europe already have had bad days today. Many analysts attribute their fiscal woes to us and that the international downturn is being called a reaction to our sub-prime mortgage fiasco and credit card/national debts.

Anyways, thats what I hear around the Internets and cable news services. I'd like to add something personal to the discussion. I live in a neighborhood in Manhattan that is next to Murray Hill and is known as a semi-quiet and wealthy area of Manhattan (relatively speaking since almost all of this island is wealthy compared to the rest of the country) where many people in the financial markets live because it is close to their offices, more of which are actually in midtown as opposed to downtown. That whole 9/11 thing scared many to flee north.

So back to me. Once a week or so I meet up with some friends that I know not through politics but live in Murray Hill and we have common connections, you know, meeting people in the neighborhood, etc etc. Well this morning the market was on their minds and fear was the big thing. A few knew that this will pass eventually and tried to use that to remain calm, self-assurances and whatnot. Of course it will pass, but not before doing considerable damage to many people's pocketbooks. Then there was an older gent that mentioned he's been through many of these "corrections" and that there are opportunities in this.

And thats when it struck me, this is all about fear and greed. Yeah, yeah, common sense I know. But this morning it really hit me on how everything in our society that causes stress is based on those "seven deadly sins." Some try to act on the opposite, but it is just so easy to be greedy (especially in Manhattan) and then when you screw people with things like credit card policies and sub-prime mortgages, it can come back to haunt you.

Well it is haunting many in the financial markets right now, with the Dow Jones down two or three or four hundred points. Who knows where it will end up today. No matter what the average of those 30 blue chip stocks is at 4:30PM, the problem still remains. Greed and fear, not to mention lust, envy and the other three dominates many of us and those that have the power on "Wall Street" have the ability to inflict pain on us all.