Governor Chris Christie is throwing his substantial
ass around. He’s disappointed that the U.S.
Congress didn’t authorize a pork laden relief bill for the Hurricane Sandy
victims. We’re over $16 trillion in debt,
but that means nothing to the teat squawkers.
This nation has had plenty of natural
disasters. There once was a time when
the citizens of this country didn’t wait around for a federal bureaucrat to
take care of them. Instead, they rolled
up their sleeves and went to work.
A seminal point in Bank of America’s history came
during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The city was decimated. Here is an account of what happened:
Two years after the Bank
of Italy was founded, the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 occurred,
which was a 7.7-8.25 earthquake that resulted in 80% of the city being
destroyed, over 3,000 deaths, and around 200,000-300,000 of the city’s 410,000
population left homeless, because of the earthquake and subsequent fires. The
Bank of Italy managed to be the only bank able to open back up directly after
the earthquake, despite the fact that the bank building itself was unusable.
Directly after the earthquake happened in the very early hours of the morning,
Giannini went and sifted through the rubble of his building and gathered $2
million into a garbage man’s wagon, owned by Giobatta Cepollina whose son would
go on to work for Bank of America because of a promise made by Giannini to
Cepollina in exchange for use of his wagon. Cepollina’s son was able to retire
from Bank of American at 41. After gathering the money, Giannini then took it
outside of town, covered in garbage to protect it.
Next, he headed out to
the docks and setup a temporary bank with two barrels and a piece of wood as
his desk. He then began taking deposits and giving loans to help not only
businesses, but also the working class, so that they’d have the money they
needed to rebuild their homes and their lives. At that time, none of the other
banks had re-opened and most did not do so for several weeks, so few who kept
their money in banks had access to it and many others had lost everything in
fires. Giannini also immediately sent two ships to Washington and Oregon to
acquire large amounts of lumber to try to work around the inevitable materials
shortage that he foresaw. That lumber comprised most of the lumber available in
the early stages of rebuilding San Francisco.
Because so many had lost
everything, Giannini gave these people loans based on nothing but a signature
and a handshake. He supposedly never tired of mentioning to other bank big-wigs
that wouldn’t loan to the common man that every single loan he made that way to
so many working class individuals was ultimately repaid in full.
I believe we as
Americans have come to a crossroad. We’ve
become what Alexis de Tocqueville warned about in his Democracy in America:
After all, what good is it to me to have an authority always ready to see to the tranquil enjoyment of my pleasures, to brush away all dangers from my path without my having to think about them, if such an authority, as well as removing thorns from under my feet, is also the absolute master of my freedom or if it so takes over all activity and life that around it all must languish when it languishes, sleep when it sleeps and perish when it perishes.
There are European nations where the inhabitant sees himself as a kind of settler, indifferent to the fate of the place he inhabits. Major changes happen there without his cooperation, he is even unaware of what precisely has happened; he is suspicious; he hears about events by chance. Worse still, the condition of his village, the policing of the roads, the fate of the churches and presbyteries scarcely bothers him; he thinks that everything is outside his concern and belongs to a powerful stranger called the government. He enjoys what he has as a tenant, without any feeling of ownership or thought of possible improvement. This detachment from his own fate becomes so extreme that, if his own safety or that of his children is threatened, instead of trying to ward off the danger, he folds his arms and waits for the entire nation to come to his rescue.
De Tocqueville concludes:
When nations have reached this point, they have to modify their laws and customs or perish, for the spring of public virtue has, as it were, dried up. Subjects still exist but citizens are no more.
Are we subjects or citizens? I’m beginning to wonder.
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