Diagnosing the financial pandemic

... or why Wall Street’s problems could cause more than a sneeze across global markets.

When Canadian communications specialist Marshall McLuhan wrote about the rise of the global village in the 1960s, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The whole “village” concept of interdependency coupled with self help and a drive towards levelling out inequality was an attractive one.

What followed eventually was a drive towards global standards for good and services; cross-border brands which delivered wherever you lived; free trade as a matter of course; and the famous time/space continuum reduced by the increasing power and penetration of electronic communications. In fact many years before, Richard Cobden argued in 1843 that any law which hindered the free movement of goods “interferes with the wisdom of Divine Providence and substitutes the law of wicked men for the law of nature.” Strong stuff.