…but I can’t help noticing that it’s a big deal at the moment. There’s this credit-crunch, global recession, economic crisis going on and we are all Having to Deal With It. Whether this means roughing it with supermarket beans, camping in the UK or whatever.
There’s the Economic Climate story where everything just happened. We couldn’t do anything about it. Best to just ride it out and not try to understand it.
My issue is this: hubris. We pretend we understand what is going on, we know how to fix it and have the power to do so. By ‘we’ I mean, of course, the people charged with sorting it out.
There’s this thing called The Market which by recent consensus is a very good way of generating wealth. It seems to work without anyone being in charge. Competition tosses out the inefficient and irrelevant (and maybe immoral in ethically-aware times) to leave the best players, provisionally. It’s an evolutionary system where much loved brands can go to wall without appeal. It’s ruthless, continuous and it scales.
And now it’s gone all wrong.
This cues the Reckless Bankers story. A whole bunch of bankers started making risky gambles on a bunch of clever stuff we don’t fully understand and, what do you know — it all went a bit tits-up. Banks, unlike hardware stores, can’t be allowed to go under. They are immunised from market forces. The bosses walk away with big, swinging bonuses. They also take the blame whilst the goverments come to save us and bring the good times back.
I don’t buy it. Here’s my story.
Artificial wealth was created and compounded by layers of unaccountability. Indeed, it was in no-one’s interest to break the loop. The initial borrowers wanted the stuff they saw in the media. The media wanted to advertise the stuff. The banks wanted to max out their bonuses using lucrative credit. The government wanted to stay in power by making people feel rich. The longer it went on, the bigger the hangover. The bill is now on the mat and it’s too big to hide any longer. The system can correct itself even at this painfully late stage.
I’d just like to see a little more accountability and comprehension. I’d also like to know who it is that all this money owed to…
So, I got to spend a couple of days in Paris. Shockingly, I’d never been to the place before. Perhaps I’ve seen Amelié too many times but it didn’t seem very ‘Parisian’. Most likely this was because I didn’t have time to get any further than Notre Dame. I’ll be back to take it in at my leisure.
sixball 