Like most of us, I spent last week watching the world tumble into economic turmoil as stock markets worldwide buckled in the wake of enormous bank failures and the US housing market collapse.
The latest reports suggest that retirement accounts of Americans have lost $2 trillion in the past 15 months. In just the past week- the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 18 percent which is the largest drop ever in a week.
Why?
There are many and very complex reasons, but allow me to point out three that are most obvious:
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Wall Street focused on maximizing short-term profits in order to earn record bonuses
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The government, on both sides of the aisle, appears to have been acting out of partisan self-interest rather than looking at was best for America in the long-run
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Many of us on took up loans because we wanted to live in houses and drive cars that were beyond our means, and then housing values fell substantially.
Like most of the world I, too, have a wide range of emotions about this: anxiety about the future and well-being of my family, and anger at the people who got us into this mess.
Yet, as I sit here contemplating all of this, I’m left with one resounding question running through my head:
“Where are the adults?”
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