Reaping what we sow.........

Not the light hearted Friday photo I try to post.

Generally speaking you reap what you sow.

It is true for food as in this crop in the photo nearly ready for harvesting. And its true for other matters too such as education, healthy living, and in matters of the soul and spirit.

The same is true of companies and countries desperate for more wealth and growth and influence. So the financial wizards have sown ever more exotic and complicated financial seeds. Genetically engineered to maximise profit and return for shareholders and big salaries and bonuses for those who invent the new crops and for those who nurture them. The seeds are watered and cared for to please market analysts. Mergers and acquisitions abounded to create even more complex financial plants. And so the whole system of economic wealth grows with minimal effective regulation by international bodies or by governmental farmers or by the stewards of companies who let the financial wizards dazzle them with their magical profits. Fuelled on the one hand by greed and on the other by countries taking on of massive amounts of debt during the recession.

Form dominates over substance. So long as the profits roll in and the saddle bags are regularly filled and the economy grows then who cares if the economic plants are not sustainable or are fatally flawed? But you reap what you sow and the financial markets are in turmoil (again). It's a sequence that starts again and again but these days the frequency of market turbulence and uncertainty seems to be increasing. Where, I wonder, were the auditors and watchdogs in all of this?

But its ok really..........it'll pass.........it always does........yes, there will be some casualties (in countries, in companies but most tragically affecting real people's livelihoods)............the debt owed by countries will be managed (or massaged away) somehow.........more wizardry and smooth talking by snake-oil salesmen consumed by their own products.

You'd think we'd learn? Barings, Enron, Lehman to name some of the big failures in recent years. Financial 'stuff' had gotten too complex, clever, devious etc to manage. Now its the turn of whole countries and economic blocs like the EU. And where are the senior leaders while the economic systems are burning? Well, many of them are on holiday of course. What else do you do when the heat is on but pack the saddle-bags and head off somewhere nice? Like:

Angela Merkel holidaying in Italy
Nicolas Sarkozy holidaying in the French Riviera
Silvio Berlusconi heading for his villa near Milan
And of course David Cameron in Tuscany.

Yup, the crisis will pass, no need worry. We're all in our own way reaping what we are sowing. There is a certain simplicity and pleasure about sowing a seed and watching a crop grow. Perhaps a return to more straightforward times is needed but I doubt if current senior political or market leaders see it that way. They have saddlebags to fill.

Have a good weekend blippers.