There was a time when world economies were governed by the saying: If the U.S economy sneezes, the world economy catches a cold. Now in the global village that we live in today, it is enough for Greece, one of the smallest European economies, to sneeze and the world economy becomes feverish. Last week, the stock brokers at the New York Stock Exchange watched on their television screens the violence that erupted during the Greek protests against the government's austerity plans, and the bank that was burnt down in downtown Athens where three employees consisting of a man and two women (one pregnant) were killed. As a result, the Dow Jones fell by about a thousand points in mere minutes, before recovering some of its losses. Then last week ended with the Dow Jones index losing 5.7 percent of its book value, while the Standard & Poor's index slid by 6.4 percent and the NASDAQ index (for technology stocks) fell by 7.5 percent. In reality, these percentages translate into hundreds of billions of dollars that no one gained. Since the onset of the recent global financial crisis, everyone has been losing while no one is profiting, which invalidates the first and last principle that was the corner stone of all business, namely, that trade is all about profits and losses. Just like there is a great black hole that swallows stars in the heavens, I now fear that there is a similar invisible hole in the global economy that swallows people's money, which is reminiscent of the blessings of the Bible's New Testament, to which I add “Blessed is the man who has no money, for he shall not lose it”. I feel that the reader reading these words is bound to question the reasons for my interest in the stock exchange, when I have no money to deal in stocks. But I dare claim that I have dedicated myself for the service of the reader, particularly the advantaged, and then I am the worrying type, as though the personal and national worries and interests I have are not enough, and I need to take interest in the world economy. The above, however, does not mean that I have no personal involvement in the matter: As I live in London, I deal in the pound sterling, and in the dollar in Lebanon (The days of the [Lebanese] pound have been long gone, the days when I bought a new Mercedes in Germany in 1970 and changed the deutsche mark to seventy Lebanese Piasters). I also deal in the euro, because I often travel to Europe. What this all means is that if I should keep dollars they would drop in value against the euro, and if I should count on the pound, it would fall against both currencies. The issue is very serious. I saw in the newspaper a poor Greek policeman burning after being hit with a Molotov cocktail by a protester, and the picture's caption said: “Europe cracks in heat of Greece's flames”. I also read that the economies of Portugal and Spain are in danger, and that Ireland and Italy might follow suit. As is known, the European Union has 27 member states, including 16 that have adopted the euro, and the question now is about when will the Greek crisis ruin the rest of the euro zone economies and then the EU member states. I am not asking this in vain, as I read so much to the extent that it is detrimental to my health, as if I were a smoker. Over the past week and then on the day before yesterday, I read in the American press that the United States itself might be affected by the Greek crisis, and that Japan and Germany, the world's second and third [largest] economies respectively, have already been affected. When the issue involves money, all people profess the same religion. We do not need Einstein here to explain why Angela Merkel paid the price when her conservative party lost the elections in the province of North Rhine – Westphalia, as the voters voiced their discontent with Germany's bail out of the Greek economy. Moreover, the leaders of the European Union allocated nearly one trillion dollars to rescue the economies of the affected countries, without disclosing where that trillion will come from. All the above reminds me of what we retained as givens prior to the inception of the global village and its intertwined economy: we used to say that the real thief is not him who robs a bank, but him who starts a bank. Today, there is an international investment bank, which is perhaps the largest bank in existence, being referred to trial, because it advised its clients to buy stocks that the bank itself had stakes against, and which later on gave its senior employees billions of dollars in bonuses. It is being charged with theft, fraud and corruption. Alternatively, if a school teacher fails to pay the mortgage on his apartment, he would lose it the next month. I believe that I and the reader can start a campaign to defeat the entire global economy, even if that means destroying the temple on us all. My idea is to follow Shakespeare's advice: “Neither a lender or a borrower be” in lieu of any economic principle set forth by John Maynard Keynes, as I am a student of literature and not economics. If each one of us refuses to borrow or lend others, and decides to live within his means, this would preclude the need for real estate investment companies that caused the crisis, and banks would become mere moneyboxes or piggybanks where one would deposit his money to use for his daily needs. I know that this is not very logical. Even if we convince a man to live within his means, how can we convince his wife? However, I insist that it is much more logical than the measures imposed by Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher who liberated the markets from all constraints, left ordinary people under the mercy of international thieves, and planted the seeds of the subsequent financial crises including today's. It is as if we are all now in a nude club, with banking pests flying around us and choosing whose blood to suck. [email protected]
