Wednesday, March 4, 2009

In a Single Sentence

Don't miss Thomas Friedman's article in the NYT today.

The entire brief article is worth a read, but here is my favorite paragraph:

This problem is more complicated than anything you can imagine. We are coming off a 20-year credit binge. As a country, too many of us stopped making money by making “stuff” and started making money from money — consumers making money out of rising home prices and using the profits to buy flat-screen TVs from China on their credit cards, and bankers making money by creating complex securities and leverage so more and more consumers could get in on the credit game.


The last sentence in that paragraph is by far the best single sentence I've heard that explains why we've found ourselves in the current economic fix.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good article by Friedman; it's difficult to say which party is ultimately responsible; individuals who over-borrowed, or the banks who knowingly accepted too much credit risk.