Are you affected with the recent financial crisis?

A generation ago before the miraculous invention of internet and the Pentium 4, no one could have foreseen  the outcome and impact of information age produced by these two inventions and the course of human evolution they have altered. They practically had changed the way we live and how business transactions are done today. The tandem becomes the standard household necessity. World news and information which would have taken weeks to travel from one country to another; and may take months for the people to learn about it from word of mouth, now is instantly available on the Internet. The old world was evolving at a much slower pace. When  disastrous events, like the tidal wave of Wall Street happened struck a few days ago and the unfolding banking crisis would take many days for  the shockwave to reach the ears of the people many thousands of miles away. But today, nearly everyone will learn about any event regardless of its nature minutes after it happens.  This morning, the Nasdaq’s 100 point avalanche has set off the world stock market to sell of. Investors were learning the bad financial news on the internet. The world wide sell-off has begun. The sell-off was carried out VIA internet almost instantaneously by people from anywhere in the world, at home, or on the go. All they need is a  laptop and WIFI coverage . The impact of the Wall Street plunge is far-reaching and unprecedented. The collapse in the banking system has already weakened the confidence of people around the world.  

In the 1930’s the depression was devastating to the United States and the Americans. With what is being witnessed now in the economy amid the collapse of US banking system in addition to the dehabilitating housing market, the damage is uncalculable and may take years to be realized. This latest shockwave has hit nearly every country with a stock market on the same day after the 778 point plunge on Wall Street. The 1930’s recession will pale in comparison to the one looming on the horizon, if this financial plague continues its course. The government’s bailout is a temporary remedy, not a permanent fix.  The problem is beyond what meets the eye. Corruption in the corporate world has been unchecked for decades and the political lobbying has dictated how we should live. That needs to be fixed!

Living in the information age, everyone is vulnerable. The worldwide banking crisis has already caused the tightening of credits which small business depended on, and constricted the flow of currency and therefore choked the world economy to a squeeching halt.  Every government of industrially developed country has pumped billions into its banking system to assure the continuous liquidity of currency to prevent withdrawal frenzy and normal business transactions.  An average person may not comprehend the enormity of a “trillion” dollars, but that was how much money evaporated into thin air on Sept 30^th, 2008.  Who knows how much is lost today with the Nasdaq down 140 points at this minute!

Looking forward, the “bailout” will cost 700 billion dollars in the form of future debts to be paid by many generations of American tax payers. It’s unfair and it’s criminal for those who are responsible to get away with no consequences. It’s not an accident and it should not have happened. The fact that the crisis it’s here and its impact is affecting everyone, what can we do to protect ourselves?

The leading American socialist George W. Bush has devalued the entire United States. The present economic crisis is a culmination of his policies, which have cost the American taxpayer dearly, and as the crisis has spread across the world, the whole world has been hit.

Even in Sweden politicians are talking about changing laws concerning banks and banking in that country. The kind of socialism that has occurred in many western countries (= the bailouts) is illegal in Sweden at the moment. Iceland is more or less bankrupt as a country, but that doesn't bother people in big countries as Iceland's population is only 320,000.

Some may be interested in a Norwegian researcher's predictions. Johan Galtung said in the late 80s that the Soviet Union would collapse in 10 years. Everybody laughed at him, including Americans and the Soviets themselves. In 1991 no one laughed at him.

In the late 1990s Galtung's prediction was that the United States will collapse in 25 years. When George W. Bush was elected president, Galtung changed his prediction to 20 years. That leaves about 11 to 12 years left for the country  -  if Galtung is right. I am not making any predictions, I'm just a keen observer myself.

Timothy Garton Ash sees a better future for America, though:

As for the decline in American soft power, that is something for which George Bush was directly to blame. His arrogance, his unilateralism, his insensitivity, his long-time denial of the need for urgent action on climate change: all fed directly into the plummeting credit of the US around the world. It would have been a different story with a different president.

For years now, we have seen those who hate the US abusing and burning effigies of Bush. The truth is, the anti-Americans should be building gilded monuments to him. For no one has done more to serve the cause of anti-Americanism than GW Bush. It is we who like and admire the US who should, by rights, be burning effigies. But now, at last, we live in hope of a better America. - The Guardian, September 25, 2008

 If you like, you can read his column here.

CB