This is the subject of much discussion in the 'blame culture' that has developed over the last few decades. We demand to know who is to blame for the situation and how can we stop it happening again. This is as true in the global economic situation as it is in the workplace, we expect answers and have procedures in place to prevent unwanted events.However, when we are discussing a free market economy, we have to accept the 'bust' along with the 'boom'. Anyone who has studied the economy knows we have been experiencing a boom, and the bigger the boom, the harder they fall... A speech from some years ago by Gordon Brown proclaims the longest sustained economic growth for centuries - Right there is the reason for the deepest recession we could ever have imagined...
So what now?
Controls, measures, plans... all manner of suggestions are out there and each one strangles the free market, each one takes us closer to the 'monster' we thought we had defeated at the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. I don't wish to appear right-wing because economics, not politics is the issue here, but I can see how the free market is supposed to work, and the boom and bust is part of that system. I can also see that the more controls you place into the system, the less 'natural' balance it has, and the more it is susceptible to wild swings. Once you try to control the free market, you have more or less killed it off.
When things are going well, everyone wants to live by the 'sword' that is the Western free market, when things are going badly, no-one wants to die by it...
Related posts:
Economic meltdown
How to survive recession
Gordon Brown rescue plan
Government Intervention
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