How.

Let me quote some genius for a moment.

I have a friend who regularly reminds me that if you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 stories you can actually think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that always gets you.

When I think of the financial-services boom, bubble and bust that America has just gone through, I often think about that image. We thought we were flying. Well, we just met the sudden stop at the end. The laws of gravity, it turns out, still apply. You cannot tell tens of thousands of people that they can have the American dream — a home, for no money down and nothing to pay for two years — without that eventually catching up to you. The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters. I just hate the idea that such an ethic is more alive today in China than in America.

Our financial bubble, like all bubbles, has many complex strands feeding into it — called derivatives and credit-default swaps — but at heart, it is really very simple. We got away from the basics — from the fundamentals of prudent lending and borrowing, where the lender and borrower maintain some kind of personal responsibility for, and personal interest in, whether the person receiving the money can actually pay it back. Instead, we fell into what some people call Y.B.G. and I.B.G. lending: “you’ll be gone and I’ll be gone” before the bill comes due.

Yes, this bubble is about us — not all of us, many Americans were way too poor to play. But it is about enough of us to say it is about America. And we will not get out of this without going back to some basics, which is why I find myself re-reading a valuable book that I wrote about once before, called, “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business (and in Life).” Its author, Dov Seidman, is the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical corporate cultures.

Seidman basically argues that in our hyperconnected and transparent world, how you do things matters more than ever, because so many more people can now see how you do things, be affected by how you do things and tell others how you do things on the Internet anytime, for no cost and without restraint.

“In a connected world,” Seidman said to me, “countries, governments and companies also have character, and their character — how they do what they do, how they keep promises, how they make decisions, how things really happen inside, how they connect and collaborate, how they engender trust, how they relate to their customers, to the environment and to the communities in which they operate — is now their fate.”

We got away from these hows.

Thomas Friedman never fails to disappoint.

I wrote a blog entry a few months ago, almost a year ago to be exact, when the first signs of potential recession were creeping up on us. And I said, and still think, that perhaps a recession isn't so bad, because "if there is a point in this rambled mess.. it's time to face the music. It might be an uncomfortable change that jars us from the lulling tones of 'the more mentality', but it should be a welcome one." And here Friedman pushes this idea, more eloquently, that we have to re-evaluate the how. We have to re-evaluate what is it about our character, and probably our lack of character that brought us to where we are now. How did we get here? It's really quite simple, and perhaps some individual introspection will take us to the right answer, to a settled outcome.

Law school is making me look a lot at the hows of my life. How my relationships are being built, how I am tackling all the stresses of school, and how I really plan on getting to where I want to go (as if I know where the destination will be). It's in these times, that corners are easily cut, and questionable judgment calls are habitually made, but it's also in these times that character gets it's opportunity to be developed. The how questions are always the most difficult to answer, but probably some of the most self awarding ones as well.

the justice in settling

why does the idea of settling bother me so?

for the past few days in my criminal procedure class we've been watching this sensational made for tv movie appropriately entitled: 'criminal justice'. surprisingly it's actually an appropriate take on the criminal justice system in the united states and the role plea bargains play in cases never making it to trial.

if you are legitimately interested at this point in watching the movie.. don't read on, for i will spoil the ending for you, but otherwise...

the movie does a relatively good job of keeping the viewer in suspense regarding whether or not this case is goign to go to trial. on one hand, the defendant so fervently believes he is innocent and refuses to be put behind bars for any amount of time at all. on the other hand, there's the doubt of his story, and the fact that his alibi appears more than a tad bit hole-filled; and his defense attorney is wisely suggesting him to take a plea bargain. say you're guilty, and you'll get less time.

in the end, it is somewhat of a surprise, though hardly shocking, that the 'offender' takes the plea bargain. and rather than making me wonder if he was really guilty or not (the movie does not reveal, and our class was split in it's decision making), it left me with a curious sense of justice left undone.

on one side is the prosecutor, she offers the plea bargain, because frankly she isn't sure she has enough evidence to convict the poor bastard. on the other side sits the defense attorney who just wants to make sure his client gets the best option available - which he believes to be the least amount of jail time available. thus, they meet somewhere in between, settle on the issue of guilt or innocence, and agree on a plea bargain. it does seem obvious that the maxim and minimum of both injust scenarios are avoided. on one hand, he could have been really guilty, yet at trial found innocent and released. and likewise, he could really be innocent, and found guilty at trial, sentenced for the maximum time of 20 years.

yet where is the justice of compromise?

both sides, instead of chosing to roll the dice, settle for something inbetween. they settle for avoiding the extremes of injustice, all the meanwhile providing little comfort for justice received.

or maybe settling is just.

more thoughts later.