Economic Woes or Misunderstood Opportunity?

We have all heard of the disaster that has befallen the world economy. Stocks are going down, houses are being repossessed and jobs are going down the drain. At least, that's the story in most parts of the world.

All of this came about because somebody got greedy. They decided to risk the money that we had put into the bank, funding loans to people with neither the intention, nor the ability, to repay it. Now the United States has had to pony up over 700 Billion, that's billion with a B folks, in tax payers' money to shore up the entire banking system. A number of other governments have had to do the same thing.

Now, if you are one of those people about to lose your home, I do feel for you. You have worked very hard to get what little you have. You make your payments and then have that investment yanked out from under you when the bank goes under. Which is to say, I feel for those of you who borrowed responsibly.

At the same time, I can't help but wish that I had some liquid capital sitting around for the next couple of months. When the market gets this low, I have the instinct to snap up some of what the panicking monkeys on Wall St. and Bay St. are dumping. At the end of this fall, there is going to be demand again, and those stocks will be worth a fortune. Whenever somebody lets the ball drop, there will always be somebody at the other end, waiting to take the advantage.

In point of fact, I still don't know how the banking industry ever should have affected the stock markets so deeply. Okay, housing markets have tanked, and banks and trust companies dumped what they had in an attempt to make up the losses from their stupidity. Where were the visionaries that could see this as an opportunity to buy into something they didn't have? A lot of what was sold is stock in good, solid companies with viable products and services.

Every time the economy takes a downturn like this, I'm tempted to sell a kidney and buy in. Learning from the mistakes makes the global economy that much stronger.