Angus Hung, Director; Michael Langton, Head of Sales Quality Risk Management & Operations (QRMO) Limited
February 2009
Whenever we have a crisis in the financial markets and inordinate amounts of wealth are lost, the cry goes up, “How could this have happened? What were the governments doing? It’s all the fault of those greedy fat-cats on Wall Street.” Take a historical look at all the major financial crises in the past 100 years and the same clumsy song and dance routine between investors, fund managers, bankers, governments and regulators is played out.
The recipe for financial destruction goes something like this: a few dashes of incompetence here, pinches of oversight there, layers and layers of leverage in between, generous amounts of other people’s money and a whole lot of greed stirred throughout, pop in the oven to 500 degrees, let the “dough” rise until it can no longer support its weight – and then watch it collapse. Then serve whatever is left crisply burnt with ample bottles of bourbon on the side to swallow it down.
