First of all, all this glass-is-half-empty talk in the media around the current economic downturn is just a license to be negative & indulge in dark notions. There. Now that’s out of the way I can get on with the reason we’re here.
A free, unfettered market fails in saving man from himself. Human greed is overwhelming, deep seeded & cannot be overcome (as a species). Corporations in general are headless, heartless & spiritually devoid anti-human entities. (I once saw a documentary that compared corporations quite aptly with textbook psychopaths.) Corporations are robotic constructs beholden to shareholders blinded by greed, and for those in their employ it’s a matter of survival of the fittest. If the employee’s own good is sacrificed by the greater good, then it’s culturally OK -nay, encouraged & expected- that the greater good be sacrificed. This regime is not sustainable & will devour everything & everyone. Corporations would rather pay $50 million later than $10 million now (say, in a case concerning environmental impact). It’s all about instant fiscal gratification – it’s not even good business. In the meantime -in this example- our environment gets destroyed.
I’m no economist, but it seems clear that unleashing the bankers (under G.W. Bush) & letting them run wild is what caused the stock market to crash à la 1929. Fortunately, in one sense, our Canadian bankers are much more conservative, and hence our banking system is much more stable. Having said that, good luck getting a loan from a Canadian bank even in the best of times…
You: “Can I borrow $1000?”
Cdn bank: “I dunno – do you have $1000?”
A free, unfettered market equals a descent into chaos, madness & tribalism. It could even be characterized as devolution. In this dog eat dog world of finance, one thing seems clear – if my banker doesn’t have a mohawk, he ain’t worth his salt.
