God bless you.
One thing I have gotten from my seven-month fight against brain cancer, prostate
cancer and end-stage congestive heart failure is a weakened and much more sensitive
heart.
It pains me deeply to see others suffer.
It hurts me horribly to see greed in the highest places destroying our nation's
economy and wreaking untold havoc and suffering on the masses robbing them at the
gas pumps and stealing from their retirement and pensions funds and setting in motion a
lethal chain of events costing people their jobs, their homes, their savings, their medical
insurance, their hope and their peace of mind.
When I was younger and healthier, I was just as sensitive. I would hurt when I saw
other get hurt. But my heart was stronger then. I could endure it then and the tears I'd
be moved to shed were more affordable to the rest of my young nervous system.
But the deadly state of affairs reflected in our nation's critically sick economy
really tears me up. Then there are also individual tragedies like the firing of people I meet
and find to be good people to work with. My latest pain came Thursday when I was at
the Bears training camp doing interviews and I learned that the Blackhawks, a team a
co-cover, fired Hall of Fame coach and favorite-son alumnus Denis Savard for a
1-2-1 start. Perhaps, it may prove to be a good decision later if he successor does
a better job quickly. But Savy still got a raw deal.
Would a 4-0 or a 3-0-1 start or a 3-1 start have saved him? Was the die cast long
before hand? Were there powers upstairs hoping he'd get off to a slow start so that they
could fire him quickly before he got a chance to really show what he could do? I simply
think that, on the basis of his overall progress and promise, and on the basics of the
loyalty he had shown to the organization and the honors he had brought it in the past,
he deserved and had earned a better chance of at least 10 or 20 games before
chopping off his head.
I called Denis and thanked him for being himself--a good coach and a
kind human being. You see, I've worked with some mighty mean people in my
36-career of covering sports for the Sun-Times. I have worked with some of the most
evil blessed people on the face of the earth. I'm talking about athletes, coaches and
general managers who have been blessed with good health, great talent and super
opportunities to enjoy tremendous fame and fortune. And yet many of these people
turned out to be the most hateful, ungrateful, disrespectful, mean and arrogant people
for no good reason whatsoever.
When I first started covering the Bulls for the Sun-Times in 1972, Dick Motta had
his security guard to kick me out of the locker room because I asked him for a response
to fans who feel his penchant for technical fouls was hurting the team. I remember at
that time when Bob Greene and Tom Fitzpatrick, two superstar Sun-Times writers, came
to my defense. Later Motta would coach elsewhere and we were able to enjoy a better
working relationshp.
Since then, I've had other coaches to curse me, lie to me and lie about me simply
because they disagreed with what I wrote and could not intimidate and manipulate me.
But the roll call of good coaches who, in my opinion, got raw deals grows longer and
longer, sadder and sadder. Some were able to rebound elsewhere and do well. These
include the NBA likes of Jerry Sloan, Doug Collins, Phil Jackson, Lenny Wilkens, Rick
Carlisle, Mike Fratello and Byron Scott. Other good coaches like Ray Scott, Quinn
Buckner, Dick Versace, Dave Sarachan (soccer) and Willy Roy (soccer) have not been
allowed to rebound.
Now, bad firings and trades in pro sports are not all that tragic because of the
exorbitant salaries those players, coaches and GMs earn. But the real tragedy is what
had happened to America's job market as a whole. Wall Street has greedily and criminally
mismanaged much of our country's economy into massive financial ruin and the
fallout and collateral damages are catastrophic and pestilential.
Our nation's biggest financial institutions, headed supposedly by America's
finest financial minds, have behaved wantonly and destructively to the misfortune of
millions and millions of Americans. Not only has our government allowed and helped
wealthy businesses to outsource millions of previously American jobs to cheap foreign
labor. The crooked CEOs of those businesses have pockets tax breaks and stolen the
401K and other retirement and pension savings of the employees they're thrown out of
work.
Now, we are witnessing the planet's biggest bank robbery ever in the $700
billion bailout that is designed to help the rich first and the poor possibly and probabaly
never. The agony and anguish from this magnitude of evil is too much for even an
healthy heart to bear. And, trust me, because things are being handled this way, things
are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better.
It is seldom the nature of greedy people at the top to willingly and voluntarily allow
their wealth to trickle down to the middle class and to the poor at the bottom except by
force from law or labor unions. That history has repeated itself again and again, often
resulting in bloody revolutions where the suffering masses become so enraged they
retaliate with tumultuous violence.
What America needs is not the bailing out of the rich and greedy, but the return of
jobs to the poor and the needy. Give the people jobs, not handouts, and they will be able
to make the money they need to spend on food, clothes, houses, cars, other merchandise
as well as health insurance, health care and commercial services. What we have now is
a growing population of unemployed, uninsured American consumers buying foreign
products on credit while they are already deep, deep in debt.
Anybody with a heart, a real human, caring, sharing heart, has to hurt at the sight
of such blight. And as I continue to undergo the healing of my physical heart, I pray
more desperately for the healing of America's spiritual and economic heart. But the
disease is so advanced and pervasive that what America really needs is a heart
transplant of new leadership, fresh, honest leadership, whose competence is surpassed
only by it compassion.
God bless you.
not been so lucky.
God bless you Mr. Banks, and thank God for the internet so I can read your articles in St. Louis.
May I suggest drinking Artimisinin tea with D-ribose sugar in it several times a day, as well as eating several Delicious apples every day with the skins for the amazing pectin? My father-in-law beat the big C several times since 1982, and he's still going strong up there in Chicago. His big cure came from interferon injections a couple of times a week for over a year.
I don't want to get your blood pressure up, but Americans should demand an open book on every default in the bailout, using the Freedom of Information Act. In particular, I remember reading last spring that the RNC was defaulting on a $22.9 million dollar loan at Wachovia. I wonder how many other banks they took down? That's how they can afford all of the negative commercials.
BANKS' RESPONSE: Apples! Apples! Apples! I love apples, Mary. I eat Fuji,
Washington Delicious, Johnegold, honeycrisp, McIntosh, Gala and so many, many
more. Apple pie and apple cobbler are also my favorites. And apple cider?
Hmmmm, good. I agree with you about the accountability of every penny given
to the robber barons who are responsible for this mess in the first place. That $700
billion was given to the wrong people. It was a way of rewarding the filthy rich
for their greed, their averice and gross mismanagement. That $700 billion should
have been given to the American working men and women to help them buy their
houses out of foreclosure, to held off new foreclosures and to just enabled
Americans to buy merchandise and stimulate the economy. Spread that money
around. Don't concentrate it in the hands of a greedy, stingy few.
that message was lucid and authentic. i agree heavily and believe we need a severe turnaround. a revolution is greatly needed. if we were to revolt there are more poor people than rich...
BANKS' RESPONSE: In days of yore, these conditions gave rise to
revolutions with the poor people storming the mansions and estates of the rich.
Trickle-down economics is is tricky-slicky pickpocketing. It has never been the habit
of the wealthy to willingly share wealth. Once they get it, they not only keep it, but
they want more and more and more and appreciate what they have less and less
and less.
lacy thank you for all the years. i have been reading you since high school ( early 80s). i think you are so right i myself for years have wondered how some people sleep at night knowing what their actions are doing to other people. thank you for your insight.
BANKS' RESPONSE: My wife, Joyce, is still in shock over the layoffs that
occured on her job last week. Fourteen fellow workers out of a staff of 100 were
released. Sure, on one hand, Joyce was happy that she still kept her job. But she is
a sensitive person like most decent human beings. She hurts for the others who
are being hurt. She is a mother and a wife and she sympathizes with the mothers
and fathers who lose their jobs and now must have help to support their children or
grandchildren.
bless your heart, etal. drink h20 and rest. take vitamins. get some acupuncture. call alan uretz.
BANKS' RESPONSE: Thanks for reading my blog and offering your encouraging
comments.
It is absurd to label all corporate executives as crooked because they purchase items from outside the country. It's very easy for people who have never run a real business to criticize those who have.
Globalization has been going on since before the first camel caravan crossed the Sahara. People have ALWAYS traded for items that were less expensive elsewhere.
Too, outsourced jobs account for only a fraction of the jobs that disappear each year. There phenomenon of job destruction is quite natural - and inevitable. We are innovating ourselves out of jobs. The things that used to take 10 - or 100 - people to do can now be done by one person, because of automation, computers, technology, etc..
This type of thinking would the local blacksmith making the nails we pound into our house frames with hammers instead of having them made by machine and installed by nail guns. Yes, innovation put a lot of blacksmiths out of work.
Also, markets change. For example, lot of RV manufacturing workers have lost their jobs, but that's because of fuel prices, not because their jobs were outsourced to India.
The same is true in many other industries. Look at how chain restaurants have thrived over the last 20-30 years, supplanting the mom/pop diner as the primary type of restaurant. That has nothing to do with China, it has to do with changing markets.
We are in a global economy, and no amount of whining and trying to wind back the hands of the clock is going to fix that.
What IS required, however, are innovation, the entrepreneurial spirit, and business investment. Just creating "make-work" jobs does NOTHING to fix any underlying y.problems.
BANKS' RESPONSE: I agree with most of your comments, Spank. The
Industrial Revolution and the resulting mass production of labor devices put more
people out of work. And as good the Roosevelt's New Deal was in rescuing
America from the Great Depression, the real thing that stimulated our economy
and erased the depression was World War II. It created vast new markets for the
production of cars, trucks, jeeps, boats, ships, weapons, panes, ammonition,
military clothes, food and various other supplies. We had American laborers
working over-time around the rock making products to support the war and forge
victory.
I know what you mean. My family has one breadwinner, and he is unemployed right now. HE has an MBA for a top school and can't find a job. We were transferred to Houston, then let go after 3 months of transferring here. The climate in Houston is awful. Whites HATE black people in the work force and we are black. It seems they don't like black men who have pride and are smarter than they are. We have no job. We have children and a mortgage with hardly any money. This is the second job he was laid off in the past 4 years. The other company let him go because the officers were stealing and they "reorganized," and now this.
This time it was very different. It was because of the hate in their hearts. This time I'm afraid. We are stuck in HOuston. We are running out of money and Barrack Obama may win. We will vote for him and want him to win, but do you realize how much hatred we will go through here in the south? I'm afraid.
YOu probably have no clue who I am, but Iremember you from my days at FOX. You were kind enough to help with with a project years ago. You are one of the good guys. You deserve the best and I hope you recover well and find your happiness. Just as I hope we do to.
BANKS' RESPONSE: Our streets will be filled increasingly with people
drunk with rage and looking for a scategoat. That's what happens when people
play by the rules and are loyal, productive workers, who played by the rules,
trusted the system, kept their noses cleaned, went to school to get an education
only to graduate and find those degrees as worthless as Confederate money. They
then are rightfully angry for being PLAYED by a system that now seems sinister.
But those most to blame are the rich who hoarded more money than they needed
to live comfortably.
My prayers go out to you and your family. My husband was recently diagnosed with Pancretic Cancer after a similiar situation of needing a liver transplant and in the process of evaluations they discovered the cancer - 6-12 months to live. He's only 58 - this has been so hard on us as we love each other so much. I, too, am very sad about what is happening to America but for right now I just care about today - that my husband will be given more days. God Bless you.
BANKS' RESPONSE: Dear Lord, bless Lauren and her husband according to
their needs for Your grace is sufficient to supply all of our needs according to Your
riches in glory. Please, Lord, heal her husband. Smear his cancers with the
bleeding stripes of Christ Jesus that he may be healed speedily and completely,
in Jesus' name I pray. We're waiting and depending of You, Lord. We know You
are able.
The lack of compassion for people and pain is what the american people has gradually gotten away from. I ask how did we get to this point? I am a diabetic who really struggles with the disease. This disease runs in my family and i have had it for five years now. the thing is I grew up in chicago, the henry horner projects and it was ruff. The people there was poor but they still had compassion and was happy. There are people with nothing and never had a dime but at least they didnt treat others like dirt. I think that we all need to experience something that will bring people close together aging. The only time we come together is when there is a tragic situation. I am a newly humble person i have lost two grat paying jobs,my beautiful house, and wife. Loosing those things has humbled me,because now i care and i can feel now iam not numb to alot of things and people feelings now. The lost of some things has opened me up to other feelings. I still struggle but i do understand.
BANKS' RESPONSE: Anthony, you will be shocked at how greatly our
population of the working poor is increasing more and more. It is uncalled for
and it is unfair. Yet, jobs are still the best cure for our nation's economic ills. To feed
the poor for a day is one thing. To enable them to work, earn money and feed
themselves indefinitely is abundantly better.
Very well said I must say.
BANKS' RESPONSE: God bless you for reading this blog and posting a
comment.