What is the Exchange Rate for Trust?

Since the last time I was hear, we have listened to the State of the Union address, Gov. Kaine's rebuttal to the State of the Union, another tape from Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Alberto Gonzalez's defense of NSA spying on American citizens, and we now see a new deficit-spending bill sit in congress. If you hadn't notice the central protagonists in this plot are middle aged to old men.

Let's change gears for a second here. Didn't we all admire Oprah's retraction of her support for James Frey? Who did not acknowledge Oprah's grace and class? Meanwhile we are dragged through the tiresome reticence of men who defended dubious practice. Opinion leaders trade in the currency of trust, which buoys them to power and boosts their profits. Lovers trade in the currency of trust which makes and breaks relationships. Families trade in the currency of trust which builds and frays filial bonds.

Over the past few decades, the currency of trust has been devalued to the extent that politicians trade truth for a finessed "spinned" approximation of it. CEOs have taken publicly traded companies as their private trust funds. Yet we have continued to trust politicians and trust our investments as well. Maybe it's time for the electorate to challenge elected officials...and for stockholders to challenge CEOs to re-inject ethics as a central theme to leadership.