Next Gen Politics

Around the world, there are many fingers pointing at the U.S. as the sole culprit for the world economic woes. The problem is that, anyone that knows anything about this crisis knows that the rest of the world is just as guilty, if not more.

In 2000 Alan Greenspan kept the Federal Funds Rate at 1% for so long that the international investing community started to look for alternative, “safe”, investments. Cue Mortgage Backed Securities. The demand was so high for these “safe” investments that there was pressure to find more. That’s right, pressure from the INTERNATIONAL investors and investment houses to find more Mortgage Backed Securities. This snowballed until they were investing their money into bad home loans. They new they were bad, but the thinking was that the good mortgages would balance the bad ones. They knew what they were investing in, they knew the risk, but they were greedy. For a full description of this crisis follow this link.

It is disingenuous at best to blame the U.S. solely for this financial crisis. As interconnected as the financial markets are, there is no way it could have merely been the U.S. at fault. I’ll be the first to admit that it was a series of stupid, greedy mistakes by investment houses and banks that led us into this quagmire, but to blame only the U.S. for this crisis is to ignore the culpability of the rest of the world and does a disservice to all the people in the U.S. that did nothing wrong.

So I say to the people of the world, I know you love to hate the U.S. for it’s economic, military, and cultural dominance, but for once, could you please stop pointing your fingers at us. There are a lot of things to be frustrated with the U.S. over, but in this case, when you are pointing your finger at us, remember that there are 3 more fingers pointing back at you.