We will also have to remember that our risks go far beyond finance, and the fixes we need go far beyond financial policies. The interactions of the economy and the physical environment are similarly tightly coupled. The reckless gambles the world took on the recent financial bubble are dwarfed by the long-term gambles we have been taking by our failure to address the interconnected crises of water, energy, poverty, food, and climate change. The financial crisis should quickly and urgently open our eyes to these much greater systemic threats and the global cooperation needed to redress them.
I suspect that many world leaders are far more cognizant of this than most US national political leaders, ESPECIALLY the republicans. I'm hopeful President Obama "gets it." Don't expect the MSM to get it. And don't expect the corporate owners of MSM to get it either. Far easier to take the short term point of view that its all about the power to control who the money goes to. Expect the rich to get richer. Expect the poor, to get poorer. Expect a whole lot of conflict. Expect things to get hotter.
