VOL. 68, NO. 2 - AAFI-AFICS, Geneva - UNOG

OF CABBAGES AND KINGS
Go Global and Bust
When I was young, I felt it my duty to worry about the whole world , not just about my own neighbourhood. I
was concerned about Patagonia (not quite sure where and what it was) and the floods that had taken place
in Hokkaido rather than the local garbage collection system or the potholes in the road.
I remember seeing a play in Bombay in the early ‘forties. It was about a small town where the resident
intellectual who could read and actually possessed a radio, was always urging his fellow inhabitants to worry
about Poland – he pronounced this with the accent on the second syllable: PoLAAAAND. The play was in
Urdu by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, a popular columnist; I had adopted him as a friend, guide and mentor,
whether he liked it or not. I remember his frequent admonitions: Forget the fancy phrases. Facts and more
facts is what you want not airy-fairy phrases.
Where was I? Oh yes, following world news and worrying about distant lands. So I read the newspapers
every day and felt satisfied that I was doing my duty as a citizen of the world. It wasn’t just the cricket scores
that I read, oh no. I read about revolutions in tiny countries I had never heard of; changes of government in
others; earthquakes in still others.
I was cured of my addiction to newspapers in one fell swoop. It came about in the following fashion. On the
way home one evening, I stopped at a small grocer’s shop (no supermarkets in those days) . There was a
pile of newspapers at the check-out counter. I added one to my shopping basket. As was my devoted wont, I
read it cover to cover: new conflict in Eritrea, revolution in the Coco Islands, earthquake in Ecuador. And
then, by accident, I noticed the date and saw to my amazement that the paper was six months old.
Obviously it had been kept on the counter to wrap up vegetables and such.
I was shocked. How could I save the world if I couldn’t tell May from December? What price having read
about the conflict in Eritrea and the revolution in the Coco Islands if I was six months off without realising it? I
began to pay more attention to local news such as why the powers that be were messing around with our
bus route rather than revolutions in the Coco Islands.
And now, fifty years later, along came a crisis that would let me undertake both duties – world wide and local
- in one stroke. The decisions made this weekend will shape our lives for years to come, screamed one
headline. It was obviously my duty to find out all about these decisions. Of course, by the time you read this,
all will be over and no doubt we will be well into the next crisis. No matter, one must begin somewhere, so I
plunged into my studies of the crisis of the day, the global financial crisis.
Shall I share the expertise I acquired with you? I may be a bit wrong here and there but basically I’ve got it
clear. The quotes are from real experts who flaunted Ph,D after their name and hit the headlines. Well, the
first thing to learn was that the crisis was due to greedy and reckless financiers. Some respectable writers
worded this differently: it was due to high default rates of sub-prime mortgages. What on earth does that
mean? you will ask. In fact it means: greedy and reckless financiers.’
These greedy and reckless financiers are the people we read about: flitting around in their private jets,
spending weekends in luxury homes in the Caribbean or in luxury chalets in the Alps, driving – or rather
being driven – around in Rolls Royces, throwing parties for a hundred people in classy hotels, and so on.
You get the picture. Actually, though I am not going to admit it, I rather envy these people; I think I would
make a very fine greedy and reckless financier.
But life is earnest, life is real; it cannot be lived in castles in the air – or luxury chalets in the Alps. What was
the crisis doing to my money? What was happening to my pension? I made inquiries. The Bank assured me
that though all the financial institutions of the world were in collapse mode, my investments were all right.
The Pension Fund assured me that though most pension funds were in despair, ours was all right. In short, I
was all right.
With all the studies I’ve made, I have become an expert and I would like to share my expertise with you. The
quickest way of doing this would be for me to give you a selection of headlines and important passages from
the newspapers. Here they are; read them and you will also be an expert.
Markets plunge, but it could have been even worse.
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