We may have just lived through the biggest financial crisis in 80 years, but its impact may still not have been big enough for people to learn the right lessons for next time.
Philip Wood, special global counsel at Allen & Overy, told today’s Reuters Restructuring Summit in London’s Canary Wharf that the effects on the Western world’s populace of the credit crisis, while large, have simply not reached the proportions of 80 years ago.
“Do people remember (the lessons from a crisis)? Sometimes they do.”
It took 140 years for the British to get over the South Sea Bubble of 1720 and introduce the Companies Act in 1862, he said.
“German inflation of the 1920s still casts a shadow over the German folk memory,” he added.
“(But) I’m not too sure people will remember much about this one. Apart from a few unpopular people losing their jobs, it’s not hit the population in the same way the Great Depression has, where people were hungry… it was catastrophic.
“We’ve lost a year’s GDP, but for most people it’s been a remote, silent whirlwind.”
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3 comments so far
“A remote, silent whirlwind?” What remote, insulated Ivory Tower is Mr. Wood living in? That assertion is so blatantly ignorant of the pain may people are going through that it can only be assumed Mr. Wood has no knowledge of the state of the world beyond the confines of his surely well-appointed office. What value is an opinion that reflects no more knowledge than that?
- Posted by Nan PotterPeople have learned a lesson and will remember but I think the whole effort was towards minimizing the impact of the fallout rather than preventing the companies and bankc from doing stupid things.
- Posted by Ali M. ShervaniI feel that financial industry needs to be contained and regulatory authorities will have to keep their eyes and ears open and not allow people like Maddoff to operate right under their nose.
The need is to shift towards ethical ways of doin business as for the crisis they are man made and we know how to come out of it……
Tags = Hedge Hub ?
Comparisons over time within sovereign countries are good, as data is uniform, comparable and have consistent drivers. To me it looks more like a F5 Tornado in the Mid West.
- Posted by ANON