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One year later, what have we learned?
By Lauren | September 10, 2009
It’s been just about a year since the subprime mortgage debacle brought the world economy crashing to its knees. For the past year we’ve suffered through a miserable recession, watching home values plummet, jobs vanish, and investments tumble to a fraction of their former value. It’s been just plain awful, and even the most optimistic economists don’t think we’re quite out of the woods yet, though there’s some hope that things are beginning to look up just a bit.
So here’s the question - what, if anything, have we learned from the pain of the last twelve months?
We’ve certainly learned that there are limits to what government can do. Billions of bailout dollars later, our economy is still a mess and no one is predicting prosperity anytime soon. And, while there are a lot of proposals out there to reform the laws that govern the financial services industry, very little has actually been accomplished. I’m not faulting our political leaders - this was one heck of a mess for anyone to have to clean up, and it’s not even the only problem on their plates. It’s not surprising that they’ve failed so far to find a magic bullet.
The lesson, I think, is that regulation has an important role to play, but self-governance will be essential if we’re going to avoid future meltdowns like the one we’ve endured for the past year. It will be critically important for the folks who work in finance to take a hard look at themselves and recognize that chasing ever-expanding profits without a thought for unintended consequences is a recipe for long-term disaster. Remember when your mother used to tell you that, if a thing sounded too good to be true, it probably was? Turns out your mother was right. Here’s hoping that the wizards of Wall Street school themselves to be a little more prudent, or at least start listening to their mothers. If not, it will only be a matter of time before we’re right back in this sort of mess again.
Topics: Business Ethics, Corporate Governance, Professional Ethics, Risk Management, corporate responsibility, customer relations, ethics |