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Millions of people have lost their jobs just in the first three months of this year. The stock market was basically cut in half. How can there possibly be a good side to this horrid chain of events?
To find a positive, we must look at the causes for all of the negatives. One cause among many was the movement by many Americans to borrow where they used to save. This trend was magnified exponentially by the credit markets, i.e. credit default swaps. These devices in simple terms are an insurance policy on an investment, except instead of one individual buying insurance on one investment, anyone could buy insurance on the one investment. If that investment tanked, the insurer would owe not only the original investor, but they would owe everyone who had purchased insurance on the investment. Multiply this by thousands of transactions, and then all of these AAA rated investments tanked.
Lenders also abused their ethics and coerced people (who should have known better) into homes that they could not afford. Many of these mortgages were tied to the aforementioned investments.
So what the hell good could come of this? My faint hope in the darkness of financial doom is that from the root (you and me) to the fruit (our government) we change the way America works. Change it back to a nation of savers, a nation of producers and innovators. If our best minds realize they can’t make millions manipulating the market the way their predecessors did, they will find our alternative energy, our disease cures, and the cultural understanding we desperately need.
Maybe, when the black heart of greed runs dry, the motivation of good will be more appealing.