In Spain, and in most of the Western World, we have been enjoying a growing economic cycle since 14 years ago. We have been living reasonably well.
During all these years, the houses prices have been increasing until unuexpected limits. We have taken debts in unthinkable amounts to be able to pay the houses, because the interest rates were advising to take debts..it was a better business to take a debt than to invest the money!! But no one, nor the banks, the house builders, the house buyers, the governments…no one was really thinking about the consequences of this behaviour.
- The economic problems are not like «weather or atmospherical phenomena». That is, economics is something done by human beings for human beings. So, it is not an «outer» problem.
- Because it is not an outer problem, we can not blame the weather, or the governments, or Lehman Broters, but ourselves. All of us, during all these years (and before these years too…) have been looking for the maximum individual profit, according to our possibilities.The cheaper I can buy a house, or a car, or whatever, the better. But I don’t think in the consequences of «pressing» the prices for the producers.
- Therefore, the difference between Lehman & Brothers and anyone of us is simply that Lehman & Brothers was more efficient in obtaining their part «of the individual profit».
- Obviously, if we think a bit about the last statement, that means that «obtaining the maximum individual profit» is only possible creating the maximum bankruptcy of others». And we are living that experience by ourselves nowadays.
- All the previous can be summarized saying that: «we all, in the western world, are guilty of economic egoism, and even worst, of indiference and cowardice of assuming the consequences of our actions.»
Thereby,if we really want to understand what has happened, if we really want to go into the real causes of this situation, we have to look into ourselves, and to assume our «unconscious» behaviour in all this stuff.
Next step would be asking ourselve how can it be changed. Collective changes are slower and more difficult than individual changes, but if we have created this economic system, we can can change it. And that the good news: «if we have created this stuff, we can solve it».
The problem, and with it the solution, is not in the hands of the governments, or in the hands of the big companies, and of course is not simply that some bad guys have done something bad. It is that we all have behaved in an unconscious way, not wanting to be concerned about the consequences of our actions every time that we are spending or investing our money.
To be continued….