My first grandchild, a boy, was born last week.  He came into my daughter’s life in the ordinary way, into a family environment that I had, in part, created.  Although that was thirty-two years ago, it was also just a moment ago.

I visited with him in his home yesterday and held him in my arms and on my lap.  After the customary oohs and ahhs, I began my apology.  It’s one that will take some time, years in fact, and I am determined to finish it before I grab my hat and move on.

We’ve made such a fine and horrible mess of the world he entered a week ago, and we’re making it worse with each passing day.  Wars, hunger, cruelty against our fellow man and woman, misery beyond description.

True, those all existed when I came into the world nearly sixty years ago, and have been with us then and always.  Men and women of good will have devoted entire lives to combatting these conditions across the world, meeting with occasional successes.  No doubt, they will exist for generations to come.

The apology today is for something else, as I am not responsibile for human nature.  No, this apology is for what we best and brightest of folks have done and are about to do to him and all those born with him.

Our political leaders are considering steps to revitalize our economy and cure some serious woes of our own creation.  Those best and brightest, the “masters of the universe” that is Wall Street, the graduates of the finest business schools in the country and world, have driven us into and well below the ground, and the digging out is presenting as difficult.

In our first round of revitalization, we bailed out those jackasses who put us into this pickle in the first place.  We just handed them $350 billion, with very elastic strings attached.  How did they thank us?  With millions and billions of bonus dollars paid out to themselves and their minions, with new corporate jets, and new office digs.

The most common argument we hear to justify those bonuses is that if the best and brightest aren’t sufficiently rewarded for their efforts, they’ll take their bats and balls and go home or go play somewhere else.  I say give them a tin can and let them stand in line with the rest of us for some soup and piece of bread.

Our government is now trying to tighten those elastic strings for the second round of $350 billion, and we are finding that those whom we helped in the first round are going to need more.  So are the half million who lost their jobs in January, but none of the money will go to help them

Beyond that, though, are the $819 billion being considered now by Congress and the President.  That’s more than $1.5 trillion combined.  Economists are split on whether that’s enough, and many even are wondering if it was or is wise in the first place.

Lincoln, my grandson, is a week old.  He doesn’t even have a social security number yet, or a bank account, or a job, or a college degree, or even a kindergarten certificate.  He can’t walk yet, or speak.  He has his Mom, his Dad, and the entire family around him, as any first grandchild would.

In addition, he owes $4838.71 already, as his share of the $1.5 trillion in debt we are seemingly about to assume.  Do the math – 310 million divided into $1.5 trillion.  However, he won’t be a truly contributing member of our economy until he is in his early 20s, so with interest on that debt, it’s going to be much, much more.

We’ve really made a dog’s dinner of this whole thing, Lincoln.  We thought we were smart, we thought we had it all figured, and things were good.  Greed, misplaced definitions of success, arrogance and hubris all got in the way, and you get stuck with the tab.

We’ll all be gone, having early on shed out mortal coil.   Our mistakes will live on for you to wrestle with, though, and for that I apologize.

Now, let’s go change those diapers.  Too bad it won’t be that simple for the economy.