Who to blame.

When you google “record profits” the results are both recent and obvious.

Exxon’s Second-Quarter Earnings Set a Record - NYTimes.com

Bank Profits Set Records

Goldman Sachs To Report Record Profits In Face Of Credit Crunch

Agrium rides fertilizer boom to record profits

In trying to understand Detroit expectations for government bailouts, the man-in-the-street is left to scratch his head with the nagging question: “You ripped me off already, and now you want to do it all over again?” When the customer looks at the cost of the car he bought, he doesn't make a distinction between the gas, the insurance and the hardware. He simply says "Too much!"

Where is the rallying cry of “No taxation without board representation!” from consumer groups expected to pay the price for the collapse of the ‘Bull market let loose in the China shop’ (pun intended).

The obvious answer to the question “Who should bail out the US car companies?” is the Oil companies that fiddled while Detroit burned. I can’t criticize the Big 3 for trying to save their businesses - only that the White House is the wrong door-knocker.

This is the customer-centric view of the world: simple equations. When the cost of finance drops, I have more money to buy a house, or a car. When the cost of food and energy go up my house and car become luxuries I can no longer afford. Customers have been squeezed between the 'rock' of the banks 'and a hard place' of high energy costs. Both the banks and big oil have made a mint.

When a product value does not accurately represent a customer value it puts increased morbidity into the relationship. Cheap finance leads to high house values that can’t be sustained. High gasoline leads to low car sales that can’t be sustained. So who should take responsibility? The banks and the Oil companies.

There is a biblical resonance to this idea: 7 fat years to prepare for 7 lean years. Those with the fat should be the caretakers of the lean.

Communism died in the ‘90s. Capitalism is taking a pounding in the ‘00s. Is there potential for a hybrid of social capitalism? An aggregated moral conscience in wealth accumulation to ensure that the profligate do not spend our financial future for their immediate gain? Obama, the world is watching and waiting.

As you may be increasingly aware, customer-centric marketing is to me, not simply a system of targeted advertising mechanics, but a set of social values built around customer retention. And it goes very deep.

The resentment that percolates in the hearts of every consumer and employee right now is a dangerous element. Something has to give. I am hoping that a more honest set of social values will start to prevail in the marketing of all things customer-related. To me it is as much an underlying economic principle as it is a strategy for developing successful marketing communications.