Wow! What a world we live in. Exciting and at the same time, scary like hell. One-by-one, financial institutions we thought are as everlasting as the Rock of Gibraltar or whatever rock we want to use for 'exotic' comparison, each of them are tumbling down like a house of cards so beautiful yet so vulnerable the higher and bigger it becomes.Lehman Brothers is one of the biggest financial institutions which raised the white flag first. Clearly, we are witnessing the true essence of capitalism --- survival of the fittest. As one looks at the video below, one couldn't help ask 'what in the world is going on?'
As more stable (one knows what that really means nowadays) banks and other financial institutions absorb the weaker sex, oops, I mean the weaker ones; we are looking at a new dimension of capitalism. Are the basic tenets of capitalism slowly collapsing? Governments and their agencies (think Federal Reserve) are NOT suppose to bail out commercial institutions. Laissez-faire, right? We will know how far governments will go to bail out their respective financial systems to stem a prolonged recession. Maybe a closer observation on what is happening in Iceland will give us an idea. (I will talk about Iceland as a nation on the brink of bancrupcty in my next post).
A lot will think that what is happening is a nightmare straight from the Grimm's Brothers' imagination. I do beg to disagree. What is happening is so valuable no one, nobody can afford NOT to pay attention. The lessons we learn today will determine the directions of capitalism in the future. Perhaps, what is going on right now will revive debates on what is the best method to manage wealth. Marx vs. laissez-faire or whatever is left of it.
