Greed and the global crisis

The global financial crisis is according to experts is the worst crisis since the post-war era – a period blotched in global financial history as the most traumatic and sweeping that even many an affluent nation wail over its debilitating impact on job security, credit access and trade opportunities.

While many are engaged in finding easy scapegoats to blame, others choose to remain stoic or blasé. Quite a number of superstitious others reason that the global financial crisis is just the beginning of the upcoming Armageddon foretold long ago in their sacred books. Conversely, a good number of people express the recent financial tumble in mathematical equations, empirical data and policy analysis.    

Whatever those reasons or reactions are, ridiculous or otherwise, we shouldn’t miss to see the side of human nature in which this crisis can also be credited to. Remember that apart from the natural cataclysm that humans have to deal with since time immemorial, many of history’s serious upheavals are brought about by the cumulative action and proclivity of man to desire over and above the constraints of survival – greed.

In the 1987 film “Wall Street” Gordon Gekko (starred by Michael Douglas), a stock legendary broker in that movie, asserts that “Greed is good.” Of course, I don’t wish to connect that everyone in Wall Street is greedy nor I’m implying that everything we have today is Wall Street’s fault (although I’m almost tempted to believe so). I’m pointing at the glaring truth that exists in Wall Street that it is one of the platforms of unbridled greed that even Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi laments that “We have inherited a system where people can trade what they do not own and the resulting inflationary pressure in the global market has caused immense damage to the economic well-being of the world's poor.”

If we were to really reflect on the recent debacle, there’s no greater satisfaction and solace than to trace the origins of it all on the side of our being a glutton for more than what we can have or handle.

"We want to say that the root problem is human greed which is not specific to any one nation or even to the governing class or any one religion." according to the Dr. Rowan Williams, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Man being an economic being and with the capacity to override his moral persuasions, can choose to amass immense wealth even without regard for the welfare of others. Such opportunity has been afforded and protected by a system that does little to regulate such excessiveness. 

In fact, the Catholic leadership, for example, even holds and highlights “The shortcomings of a system founded on selfishness and the idolatry of money. These motivating passions cast a shadow over man's reason and will, and lead him into the ways of error.” says Pope Benedict XVI.

The Hindus likewise lament that the “The illusion of money veiled our minds, resulting in unprecedented turmoil in the financial markets, bank failures, plunging of world stocks, etc. says Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism.

It is the time for sanity and deep reflection.It is not a time for fear or escapism or panic or overwhelming anxiety. It is a time to find rectitude from the wisest of the wise that it is only thru self correction and restraint for more wealth that we overcome this crisis. As Saint Augustine (Letter 211) said, "It is better to need less than to have more."

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