Crisis - What Crisis? Lessons Learned - What Lessons?

Let us remember that very few months ago bankers and politicians alike threw ashes on their heads and promised both to repent and reform: this was .....

Today, both groups like to talk about "green shoots", of narrowing spreads, of a reversal of the stock market crash, and so on: optimism is in full swing, at least as far as the financial sector is concerned. However, I have the uneasy feeling that they just want to get on where they were stopped before they got us into the biggest financial and economic crisis in 70 years. Lessons learned? - We don't want state interference! Repent? - Let's pay back government money so we can finally get our deserved 2008 bonuses! Reform? Let us not destroy the green shoots, no heavy-handed regulation, especially not on an international level! Remuneration Reform? We want to create value for the shareholders!

Read the whole post. Nothing that would surprise regulars here, but a well written summary of the current situation, made all the more interesting by the fact that the writer is a a(n Austrian) member of the board of the European Investment Bank.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes