On the Financial Crisis

World's leaders and the financial community seem flabbergasted: "We have been bloating something out of nothing for so long and just when it was going so well it went bust. Why?" I can't believe this wide-eyed naivete is not feigned but it seems it actually is real. The old boys really thought it would go on forever.

Last year I was in communication with a City man who I studied with in Japan some time late last century. I said that this big boys' worldwide game with the money that does not exist is none better than poor people juggling their debt between more and more credit cards -- sooner or later you are going to have to pay up. The more you put it off, the more interest you are going to pay. He accused me of negativism and ignorance of how it all works. His stance was: the present financial system is very good, it provides money for big projects. In response I pointed out to the US federal debt closing in on 9 trillion dollars at the time (it's over 10 now so they are one digit short on the clock) and that means that world's largest economy is in fact a humongous negative equity waiting to implode and take the rest of the world down with it. My party wrote it off as anti-Americanism, so typical from a Russian man like myself.

Well I don't know what kind of euphory-inducing drug they inject people in their overpriced MBA in Finance courses but one thing for sure they immunize them against all kind of moral concerns. As long as tweaking spreadsheets and clocking up sheer digits in bank computers makes profit, it's all good fun. To hell with thinking who is going to fork out the bill when the buck stops passing.

Just a month ago the public got frights from the patently dumb rumour that the CERN's collider would create a black hole that would suck the Earth in it. Little did we know the real Black Hole has been in the making in New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong last few decades. It may leave the physical reality as it is but, no doubt, the economic reality will never be the same when the implosion is complete.

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P.S. In the not very likely event that the US Government's assets are really to be liquidated to pay off its debts, Japan, China and UK will get more than a half while Russia - almost 3 percent.