Britalian

The dust from the market turmoil of the last 72 hours is starting to settle and what is emerging is a seismic shift in the ideology of an entire nation.

A nation based upon the freedom of the market and with a government that preaches minimal government intervention in daily life let alone the stock markets has turned on its head.

The USA’s two largest mortgage lenders are now owned by the government, joined by the country’s largest insurance company. The government has intervened to prevent these institutions from going bankrupt, absorbing them into public ownership.

Have stock market practices become so questionable that the whole global financial system could collapse at the whim of the board of directors from one company? Buying three huge companies in order to prevent meltdown is a major step.

But at least the US taxpayer is getting some value. Large slices of AIG will be sold off and the money returning to the public purse. In the UK, the government bail out of Northern Rock has left the British taxpayer with a rock of a different kind to tow.

It is clear that goverments have been forced to act as a result of the greed of the same corporations now being bailed out.

It didn’t have to happen, there is such a thing as enough.