Moral recovery of nation needed

By Bob Peterson

As we approach the end of this year and this decade, there is no better time to review who we are and where we are going on both a national and a personal level.

This past decade has certainly tested us as a nation, as a community, and as families. While the corporate safety net has held solid for those who proved to be “too big to fail,” the individual safety net for those too small to notice is straining and has allowed far too many to fall through.

At the turn of a new decade and with economic recovery still in its infancy, now is the best time to steer a fresh course and hoist new sails of commitment.

Our economic crisis is the result of a moral crisis.

For many years we have seldom used words like “we are in this together” or “we are our brother’s keeper” or “we are all in the same boat.” We have lost our sense of community, the embrace of our neighbors, and we have misplaced our moral compass.

It is time we begin a new search for the commonality in our economic thoughts and goals. We need a moral awakening to re-establish the values of common good, decency and reward.

Let us start by agreeing that spending borrowed money for things that are wants and not needs is bad for both a government and a family. We must spend less time keeping up with our neighbors, but more time connecting with and caring for our neighbors. We need to return to the basic notion that quality is frequently superior to quantity in many of our life choices.

We all want a clean energy environment for ourselves and, more importantly, for our children. The evidence is overwhelming that climate change is bearing down on us and hopefully we can spend less effort chasing cause and effect, and more time searching for a productive response.

We have a moral responsibility to recognize that the developed economies of the world can adapt more readily than the undeveloped, and that the least of these will suffer the most.

We all want a strong economy with stability and growth with appropriate rewards for all those who share in the effort. We must make it a national priority to reduce or eliminate this boom/bust economic cycle we are seemingly trapped within. The boom periods are far too short and the rewards too narrowly focused on just a few.

The bust periods are much longer in duration and the pain is spread among far too many. Wall Street has received a disproportionate share of the treasure, and Main Street has been given more than enough of the damage and despair.

There is a moral necessity in providing basic health care for all Americans. We can disagree on the best way to get there, but a healthy nation is a better nation. Our companies are at a competitive disadvantage when exporting products because every major industrialized nation in the world has a managed system that assumes the cost of health care at a national level.

Currently, we force U.S. businesses to spend far too much on insurance premiums, yet employees receive far too little in benefits. The current system fails totally; it is both too expensive and too inefficient in delivering its results. We can do better.

Many of the traditional ideals and moral values that made this country great and prosperous have been pushed aside in the chase for short-term individual enrichment.

This current economic crisis has proven to be a very heavy penalty for a period of irrational exuberance and of idolizing the notion that “bigger is better.” We have to once again realize that more is less and that less is really more.

The true richness of life comes from sharing and not from hoarding. This economic recovery can lead us to a moral recovery that will benefit our family, our nation and the world.

Bob Peterson lives in Brooks.