Wednesday 29 February 2012

Financial Fraud: A very necessary evil?

Anyone believing that sustainable economcs will be a wonderful, egalitatian experience, should look closely at what is happening around the developed world today.

Setting aside the spreading popular unrest, it is the utter cluelessness of our politicians and business leaders that is most startling.

Europe much prefers to borrow than to build, and the new American Way is to plunge itself deeper into debt, rather than to fairly tax those who can well afford it: the economics of the madhouse.

But we all know the truth.

Over-consumption and over-population are flame and fuel, and cannot co-exist indefinitely, so, like it or not, we'd best get used to these changing circumstances.

It could be that the financial fraudsters and bent bankers have unwittingly given us a ray of hope. As global output falls, new economic systems and social structures will evolve to take us forward.

Sounds a bit utopian, though. And as the rest of us learn to live within this more austere environment, the rich and the greedy just become richer and greedier.

What's that about money is power, and power corrupts...