As of right now, the "Political" choice in the poll doesn't have any votes. So I just want to emphasize that this post isn't about politics.

Last night, I was listening to President Obama's address and thinking about the state of our nation. It seems that we'd really like someone to blame for our troubles. We're mad at the banks. We don't like CEOs. We find that there are people who 'deserve' foreclosure (speculators and those who 'bought too much house').

Instead of looking for someone to blame, I think it's important to look at the culture at large. Somewhere along the line, cheating became acceptable. It's everywhere, in every social strata and age group. Kids cheat on tests. CEOs cheat with profit margins. Baseball players take steriods. Joe Six Pack uses a credit card to spend money he doesn't have. Don't get me started on illegal music downloads.

If we're going to fix this, we're not just going to need economic reform, we're going to need cultural reform. From top to bottom, honesty and integrity will need to return to our country. The extent of the damage that's been done over the course of recent decades is coming to light, but the economy is going to continue to contract until it gets back to an honest level--where it's been all along, whether we acknowledge it or not. Wall Street isn't a measure of the economy. It's a measure of how well we're cooperating for the benefit of all. We're not backsliding now, we just were never as well off as we thought we were. The facade is crumbling. We've been caught with our pants down and our hand in the cookie jar. So to speak.

(Why was he going to eat cookies with his pants down? That's perverse.)