US President-elect Joe Biden may have promised a “return to normalcy,” but the truth is that there is no going back. The world is changing in fundamental ways, and the actions the world takes in the next few years will be critical to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, secure, and prosperous future.
For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world’s foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.
But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.
As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads and book reviews, Say More contributor interviews, The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.
By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.
LONDON – The financial crisis that started in 2007 shrunk the world economy by 6% in two years, doubling unemployment. Its proximate cause was predatory bank lending, so people are naturally angry and want heads and bonuses to roll – a sentiment captured by the current worldwide protests against “Wall Street.”
The banks, however, are not just part of the problem, but an essential part of the solution. The same institutions that caused the crisis must help to solve it, by starting to lend again. With global demand flagging, the priority has to be recovery, without abandoning the goal of reform – a difficult line to tread politically.
The common ground of reform is the need to re-regulate the financial services industry. In the run-up to the crisis, experts loudly claimed that “efficient” financial markets could be safely left to regulate themselves. Reflecting the freebooting financial zeitgeist that prevailed at the time, the International Monetary Fund declared in 2006 that “the dispersion of credit risk by banks to a broader and more diverse group of investors…has helped make the banking and overall financial system more resilient…” As a result, “the commercial banks may be less vulnerable to…shocks.”
We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.
To continue reading, subscribe now.
Subscribe
orRegister for FREE to access two premium articles per month.
Register
Already have an account? Log in