The Goldman Sachs emails reveal a scenario that has turned my perception of reality upside down. Is it so necessary for a company to make money that it simultaneously wages on the success and failure of its product?

It has been astutely noted by some that this scenario is so convoluted that it could be likened to a car manufacturer deliberately installing brakes in the car it produces that are designed to fail, for it has also found a way to profit by the failure. The company makes money selling the car and has found a way to make money when the brakes fail as well. This sets up the classic double bind where a company profits at both ends. It’s the ultimate hedge.

The real damage in a scenario like this is that the consumer loses in every instance. It leads to a complete breakdown in trust. More succinctly there is no place to put your trust because you cannot win. Winning is always in the hands of the designer of the double bind. So I applaud our indignant consumer response. Let’s nip this game in the bud, for it is far to damaging to John Q Public, as well as our communal trust in the overall economy.

Woody Allen nailed it when he said: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” Thousands of travelers who are waiting to get on an airplane would agree. Not since 9/11 has air traffic been so disrupted.

It is all about control, or rather the lack of it. We go about the business of living with the assumption that we are in control of our actions. We plan trips and schedule business meetings with the assumption that we will be able to follow our plans through to fruition. Then a volcano in a remote part of Iceland with a name that we cannot possibly pronounce erupts, and poof it all changes.

So what is to be learned from this. Probably the most important lesson is that we should hold our plans lightly. Change can occur at any moment in time, and so our plans are not cast in stone. We are in control and not in control–simultaneously. Perhaps this simple truth is what causes the chuckle from the Universe.

Sometimes I read or see something that immediately takes me back into my memory banks. When this happens, I become aware of how much happens in the course of life. I notice how I adjust to the now and easily forget the lessons of the past. At times like this I remember how the lessons of history are taught over and over again, for history recycles until we get it!!!

Last night I watched a documentary on the making of Hair, a musical that jolted the world. Hair was the musical icon of the huge social revolution that began in the ‘60’s. Its fallout continued for years. It was a complicated time, deeply affected by the sexual revolution created by the pill—yet before the devastation of AIDS. It was a time when war in Vietnam tore apart the fabric of the nation–resulting in the end of the draft. It was the time of Martin Luther King, when the entire fabric of the society changed—resulting in a nation where all can participate in ways we never could have imagined. It was a time when many of us believed that we become the ideal society, that this was really possible.

Well, history has shown that we have brought some of our dreams to fruition, but many of the hopes have become tattered and worn. We still have an endless supply of things to fight about. We have learned the hard way that there is a price to be paid for some of the freedoms that we cherish. Probably most importantly we have learned that change is slow and laborious. I guess that we still need to recycle our dreams for the future in the hope that someday we will truly get it!!