Financial Crisis: Playing the Blame Game

Most Americans believe the current financial crisis was caused by subprime mortgages and falling house prices but the root causes are much deeper. Despite the passage of a $700 billion dollar bailout bill there is a crisis of confidence in the US dollar and the US economy. Since World War Two the US has been an economic and industrial powerhouse. The current crisis has sent shockwaves through world financial markets including the interbank Forex and confidence in the stability of the American economic system has been seriously damaged.

The crisis quickly spread to Europe causing unheard of disruptions in credit markets, interbank lending, and the banking industry. Access to credit froze, banks ceased selling gold, Forex markets were unpredictable, and European governments were forced to inject unprecedented amounts of money into the financial sector. The credit freeze has deeply affected the banking sectors and the crisis of confidence in the US dollar limits Forex opportunities.

When things go horribly wrong it is human nature to look for something or someone to blame and the current crisis is no exception. Since the crisis started in the United States most European countries are placing the blame directly on the Unites States. Gordon Brown Prime Minister of the UK, our closest ally, has stated openly that his country's financial problems are an import from the US. He did not explain, however, how the American government somehow forced British banks to write mortgages for more than the value of the homes being purchased.

Some world leaders are openly taking pleasure in the American crisis. Vladimir Putin stated. "Everything happening now in the economic and financial sphere began in the United States. This is not the irresponsibility of specific individuals but the irresponsibility of the system that claims leadership." German finance minister Peer Steinbrack said, "The origin and centre of gravity of the problem is clearly in the USA."

Somehow the perception in Europe is that the problems faced by the EU and the UK are actually American imports. Many European leaders such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy take pleasure in discrediting the American economic model saying that the, "idea of an all-powerful market without any rules and any political intervention is mad . . . [and that] self-regulation is finished. Laissez faire is finished. The all-powerful market which is always right is finished." It would seem that the European perception is that American markets operate "without any rules" when nothing could be further from the truth.

What most critics fail to realize is that the current financial is global and any solution will have to be a cooperative effort among nations. Playing the blame game in a time of serious crisis only inhibits the search for a permanent solution.