why firesales are a bad idea

i just saw "live free or die hard" about a week ago, with my wife. mainly, i suppose i wanted to see maggie q, who grew up in mililani, and was both in the swim team and in cross country (my old coach and calculus teacher, mr. sawada, gave a brief interview regarding who she was). anyway, i generally liked the movie, despite a few suspend-the-reality moments (hitting a chopper with a car? or somehow surviving an attack by an air force jet while driving a semi?). one moment that really bugged me: at one point, bruce willis and the guy from the apple commercials (from here on: gfac) need to hotwire a car. so gfac pretends the car got into an accident, so that he can get onstar to perform a remote car ignition. trouble is: the movie is about "firesale" terrorism, in which, presumably, all systems, communications, utilities, everything, are down.

but what really bugged me was the whole premise of the movie. granted, terrorists supposedly have complex and at times apocalyptic motives. but apparently, the terrorists in this movie just wanted money (this seems to be an ongoing theme in the die hard movies). yet: if you have a firesale, and completely break down the entire system, how can you later insinuate that what you "stole" has any worth at all? this is the flaw in the logic. the economy, everything, is like a game. and everyone's trying to win by accumulating wealth, etc. but you can't cheat and cause a meltdown of the game, and then steal all the money. the worth of the money depends on the continuance of the game.

this is reminiscent of arguments against all those who attempt to "cheat the system." if the system is cheated too much, then it breaks down, and everything becomes worthless for everyone. case in point: our present financial crisis.

we bandy about the words "sustainable development," primarily with regards to the environment and real estate. but we should also consider those words with all endeavors, particularly those dealing with our relationships with others. we cannot abuse the system and others without somehow eventually reaping consequences later. and if our "sins" accumulate (much like our carbon dioxide), then eventually, we will be faced with wholesale threats to the system we depend upon. and then, what will our money be worth, where will our fancy automobiles (with empty gas tanks) carry us?

harmony, at some level, is necessary for civilization and its fruits. we must never forget that.

firesales might seem like a cool idea. but there's no way to cheat the system if there is no system.