Recent Fed transcripts just another sign that those in charge too often don’t get it.
The blindness of entrenched interests to the looming forces that threaten to disrupt their legitimacy and the lives of those who depend upon it is the defining failure in the governance of major institutions today. Some work diligently to overcome that obstacle. Most do not.
This was, and in many ways remains, a principal cause of the near collapse of the world’s financial markets in 2008, the economic downturn that continues to play havoc with countless lives today and the growing economic divide that threatens both the existence of the middle class and longer term social stability. But this imperviousness to the restless arc of reality did not begin with the folly of Wall Street and the subprime mortgage fiasco nor did it end when the Dow Jones hit record heights. It is alive today in our healthcare and education systems and in the loss of privacy at the hands of over-reaching governments and corporations that alternatively demand more personal information while failing too often to protect it. Its fingerprints are found all over the institutions of democracy that are rapidly losing public respect. It taints the interactions of governments and businesses each day with young people, the elderly and ordinary working families and causes too many to feel weary and resentful at getting the short end of the deal from those who seem immune from any accountability for their actions.
And it will continue to see the world stumble from scandal to crisis until major corporate and public institutions are distinguished by governance standards and ethical values that place primacy on the dignity and worth of individuals and not the self-aggrandizing conveniences of their leaders.