It’s pretty amusing to watch how practically in every country people and opposition politicians are blaming the governments for the economic crisis. It’s like every country had it’s own small crisis that has nothing to do with the crisis in other countries.

For politicians it’s demagogically easy to blame the ruling coalitions for whatever mishaps, because who else is there to blame? And for people it’s easy to blame the governments, too, because the opposition shows the way and people have a stupid tendency to believe politicians, especially the ones who are criticizing others.

But the truth is, the crisis is in no way a country-based thing. It’s a global economic crisis, which, dear people, means that it’s not very smart to blame only your own government for the crisis, but we should look a bit further, too.

Of course I am not saying that we cannot blame the governments at all. Sure we can. For the shortsightedness they showed in previous years, for the overoptimism and for not doing anything for preventing the crisis. In constant economic growth euphoria grew, too, but instead of being euphoric the governments’ smart economic advisors, secretaries etc should have been more careful and should have looked into the future, knowing that after every euphoria there is a possibility for crisis. It’s like a Murphy’s law. Experienced politicians should have seen it coming.

But there are a lot of other factors that are behind this current economic downfall.

1. Banks. Banks lack absolutely any capability to learn from the past. An economic crisis is not a new thing, and it always comes after times when banks get over-confident and start taking absolutely unnecessary risks, like lending money to people and companies who potentially are not capable to pay it back. Loans should be calculated, but instead over-confident banks sell loans, advertising for people to borrow huge amounts and competing with each other over who gives the largest amounts of money with the lowest interest rates to more people. It’s completely idiotic.

2. Industry & companies. It’s somewhat understandable that CEOs, CFOs of companies go along with the euphoria, take huge risks with shareholders’ money, borrowing huge amounts for investments and God knows what, etc. But even they should have been aware of the fact that after euphoria there might be a very quick ride to the bottom. It’s taking unnecessary and uncalculated risks that has led to whole industries going bankrupt and now the taxpayer has to pay up for those risks and mistakes.

3. People. One of the most human things is wanting a better life for oneself. Wanting more things, bigger houses, faster cars, better education for children etc. It’s perfectly understandable, but on the other hand, people, too, should have been more calculative about the risks they are taking. It’s always a good idea to think before giving into the constant brainwash by banks about taking new and new loans, mortgages, car financing, credit cards etc if it’s really really necessary and, more importantly, if one can really afford it. It seems a lot of people have left this calculation undone.

This crisis will probably take years to overcome, but can we all say we have learned something from it when it’s over?

Mark my words, everything will continue exactly the same as it was before.

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