Are we seeing the credit markets and trust itself melting down, putting the entire global economy at risk?
If banks won’t make loans, if they won’t issue letters of credit, how will the economy function? How will commerce take place without these fundamental components and tools of the trade that have enabled trade between parties who are generally unfamiliar with each other?
If the economy breaks down due to lack of trust, and the credit instruments in wide use cease to exist, does that mean we will have to rebuild the world economy and in doing so indeed finally have the “New Economy” as proclaimed, but never materialized, during the Dot Com era?
Is it possible that electronic transactions and the Internet play vital roles in actually solving the problem? Do we really need letters of credit to facilitate cross border transactions and shipment of goods or could the same type of third party escrow service Ebay buyers use come to the rescue?
2 responses so far ↓
morris // October 11, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Perhaps this crisis was devised to stop the transfer of wealth to the oil producers:
http://morris108.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/russia-iran-venezuela-earnings-are-nearly-halved/
outtanames999 // December 5, 2008 at 4:46 AM
Well I doubt it, because if it was, we’ve all paid a very high price to stop the transfer. And at the end of the day, until we run out of oil, we will continue to transfer wealth to the oil rich nations. There is no way to stop that.
Far better to simply mete out harsh discipline for any oil trader who either sells or buys oil for more than, say, $80 a barrel. In fact, I propose cutting off the dick of anyone who does so.