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Fear, Greed, and the Financial Crisis—an American Expat's View From Abroad

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Without a world view, voters in the U.S. can only fulminate on old popular culture stereotypes. Truly, the distance between the author's insights and Americans' homegrown thought-ruts is breathtaking.

Beanie of CA 6:03PM October 30, 2008

My sentiments exactly, Tina, since some time ago. Osama set out to defeat the U.S. where it hurts the most, its economy. Bush fell for the challenge, and played the Iraq card, way off base, but a perfect response for Osama's purposes, a way to waste the government's resources on a non-issue, and the beginning of the end.
Osama has won, for exposing the American culture for what it is to the outside world, a greedy and parasitic beast, feeding on impoverished countries, furthering its interests unabashedly by way of corporate impositions on poorer countries.
The U.S. is truly a disgusting example of capitalism run amok, but the majority of the Americans do not realize how much the corporations and the military machine run the government.
Just look at the faces of the present administration. Do they not all have evil faces, rarely a genuine smile. They are up to no good. And this is their last chance to run away with the golden egg before they have to give up the helm to the Democrats. They'll leave it bankrupt, but that's OK, because they spent 8 years furthering their own personal interests and that of their corporate supporters.
The fact that Osama has won should wake America up to his message, and I hope that America matures to the point where it will stop bullying its way around the planet, stepping on everyone's toes.
November 15 may be a start in the right direction, if the U.S. will agree to be a part of the international community, instead of the spoiled child. The attending countries need to spank the spoiled child, and set some rules for it to abide by, a reprimand is not enough. It will be interesting to watch history unfold.

wendell 8:31PM October 24, 2008

The financial crisis has really publicized some of the worst practices on Wall Street, many of which socially conscious investors have worked to remedy over the years. It’s good to see the global financial crisis take center stage during the SRI in the Rockies’ responsible investment industry conference with the belief that a more socially responsible approach to investing can—and should—play a role in helping to transform the investing world. Here is their link for those interested in learning more on this event: www.SRIintheRockies.com

Erik of CO 6:42PM October 24, 2008

The financial markets are a life force of their own kind. And like any form of life, it will rebound, rebuild and reanimate itself over time. The events of 9/11 have made us sit up and look around, but in the end we have not changed. Our human nature for continued violence and greed has a long history and it seems immutable.
Given enough time, however long it takes, 5, 10,15,20 years, the system will rebuild and blow up to another bubble ready to burst. Humans do not change, because we insist on remaining dumb to history and its lessons: "it will never happen to us, things are different now". And of course, our education system does not lay value into teaching history, and we humans by nature prefer to cover our rational side by emotions such as greed.
Nothing has changed fundamentally. It's all part of the natural human cycle of stupidity, greed, followed by caution, until the whole madness starts again.
Ther is truly nothing new under the sun.

AncoraImparo 4:18PM October 24, 2008

When this financial crisis began to unfold, I couldn't help but think that it was the true result of 9/11. The buildings at the World Trade Center were only the symbolic shells of the real target, the banking industry and US-style Capitalism of Greed. The buildings fell so fast, and after the dust cleared, Wall Street came back even greedier and with new tricks up its sleeve. Now, the new Wall Street seems to have vanished like the buildings.
As with the Al Quaeda attacks, there was so much new information for people to absorb, so folks with no interest in banking and markets (such as myself) were suddenly glued to the television and watching the various opening bells - the Nikkei, FTSE, CAC40, DAX, and finally the Dow/S&P/Nasdaq. While I am personally immune to fear and paranoia, everyone on television seemed rather terrified.
With friends who cannot get visas to travel in the US, and the nightmare of airports in the post-9/11 world, this seemed to me the final blow. I thought, "They won."

tina of NY 10:44AM October 21, 2008

Excellent analysis by Erika Johnson-Debeljak. We have grown accustomed to living far beyond our real possibilities, buying things now with the expected earnings of our whole life ... and the wheel has turned and turned until somebody acknowledged that the king is naked. Now that everybody knows that this is so, let's learn to live more modestly and pay our bill when due.

Ricard Gené 10:33AM October 20, 2008

We can live with
Generosity, trust and our reputation
or
Fear, greed and our suspicion.
One necessitates
Courage, humility and faith.
The other results in
Arrogance, suspicion and certainty.
Neither is easy.
Both have long term outcomes.

Ken E Williams of WY 8:36AM October 19, 2008

The world is learning that there are people, there are governments, and there are middle-ground soul-less "entities" called corporations. The latter are the group that has run amok. The former are the group that will regain control.
I look forward to a world of nations cooperating with each other in ways not seen enough in the past. Bush, by necessity, has started doing this in the financial realm to avoid world collapse. Obama, if we're lucky, will make it an art form.

of 2:13PM October 18, 2008

The Greed that is typical of the capitalists who believe in free enterprise with competition is a whole lot different than the greed of our domestic and international investors who are involved in noncompetitive cartels , trusts and monopolies,these people are responsible for economic sickness of our country......and we should get busy after the election to break up these corporations via the anti trust laws.....cordially .....Steve....

Steve Roisman of CA 1:24AM October 18, 2008

Unfortunately, this economic tsunami is larger in scope, deeper in price, and far greater in magnitude than any financial collapse the world has ever faced. And because it is so big and so widespread, there is no economic quick fix or even set plan in the offing, like so many of life's problems, we will just have to muddle through as best we can. Millions of innocent people and businesses have lost and are still losing trillions of dollars worldwide and that money is gone for the foreseeable future, that is, it will take literally years to reproduce the savings and investments basis that can be used to rebuild the economic system we once knew. And yes, because of all the criminal activity including false and misleading financial and accounting reporting by financial and investment firms as well as the total lack of government oversight and regulation, it will take just as long to rebuild investor and worker confidence in the stock market, savings institutions, big business, and yes, even the governments which we all took for granted as looking out for our interests and welfare. Pumping billions of Euros and Dollars into the system will probably lubricate it enough for many businesses to retrench, that is reduce staffing, reduce production in the face of a severe loss in demand, and provide enough unemployment and even yes investment benefits to help the families and breadwinners most afflicted manage to survive and adjust to this economic downturn. But make no mistake, this recovery will take months and perhaps years to overcome, and just to depress you even further, when the new American President takes office he will face this conundrum as well as several immediate and real international security and diplomatic challenges by North Korea, Iran, and Russia among others. All of these rogue states have and will continue to take advantage of this economic crisis and it's human costs to promote their nuclear weapons programs and their overall plans to export as much international instability and terrorism as they can in the belief that the new administration will be unable or unwilling to react to their provocations. There is a Chinese curse which wishes that one lives in interesting times, well, the next twelve months should prove to be that!

Ken Besig 7:58AM October 17, 2008