Authors trace meltdown to greed, blind faith in markets

— -- Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson are London newspaper journalists who have been writing about the perils of the financial markets for decades. They could be excused for saying "I told you so" to government policymakers and regulators, all sorts of bankers and investors themselves who are responsible for the current global economic mess.

The titles of the previous books by the journalistic duo are telling: The Age of Insecurity is one. The other is Fantasy Island: Waking Up to the Incredible Economic, Political and Social Illusions of the Blair Legacy.

At the beginning of the book, the authors focus on the four weeks between Sept. 7 and Oct. 7, 2008, when, as they phrase the situation, "The great global chain letter that had been the turbocharged free market economy ran out of subscribers." Elliott and Atkinson take many individuals — both contemporary and historical — to task for allowing market crashes to occur in the name of greed. Mostly, however, the authors blame the underlying faith in free market economies.

Their criticisms of the free market system are akin to the criticisms issued by atheists against organized religions, and in language just as superheated: "As a failed utopia, the financially driven free market system was now up there in the same gallery as the Tanzanian road to socialism, Juan and Eva Peron's Justicialismo movement, and Major C.H. Douglas' social credit campaign. No number of lavishly produced booklets by pro-market think tanks could change this. The card sharps had been found out, the masters of the universe had rattled the begging bowl, the racket had unraveled, and the scam was over."

Veterans of documenting boom-and-bust economic cycles, Elliott and Atkinson understand well that no system involving investment dollars can ever operate with purity. As they note sagely, "Greed will never be expunged from financial markets; the pursuit of riches is, and always has been, a factor motivating those who buy and sell shares, bonds, currencies and commodities."