Crisis

Surprises and traumatic events occur between 5% and 20% of the time. They are as anticipated as a cold and a storm. They arrive tempestuously and unexpectedly, like meteorological phenomenon. Economic surprises are manageable but not avoidable. Washing one’s hands frequently, reduces bacterial contagion, but it also reduces our natural resistance to bacteria. Not everything is lost in societies that appear to have been destroyed by their leaders’ (both public and private) unmeasured greed. Money and power have the capacity of unleashing human impulses and taking them to unstable and transformative situations. Crises also define a society’s capacity to come together and address the problems of the moment and better its perspective of the future.

The current global crisis is not a solvency crisis, except for some banks whose capitalization is not enough to cover their losses. The crisis the world is facing is not a liquidity crisis, even though that was the diagnosis. There is great liquidity throughout the world. Exporting nations, big companies, governments, pension funds, multilateral institutions, all – except for American consumers that bought houses they could not afford – have excess liquidity.

The crisis is simply a crisis of confidence. Banks are suspect of their balances and those of others, and are not lending money amongst themselves. The “monetary multiplier,” that magic table that makes economies work, with communicator vessels that like human arteries pump the rhythm of the economic heart, have become obstructed in a couple of large arteries.

That is a temporary problem. In one or two years we will remember this period as a complex lesson that we do not entirely comprehend, but that has left us more alert. The risk of a crisis is not the crisis itself, but rather the reaction to the crisis; the unhealthy laws, regulations and dependencies that can be generated in the process of solving our uncertainties.

But if society comes together, convinced of the importance of working as one honest, hard working and balanced society, the economy recovers and we move on. But there are longer lasting and more destructive crises that can put an end to the hopes and lives of generations. Those crises occur in societies that have no division and balance of powers, where the corruption of few – or many – is strife, and where individual and collective merit is punished with mockery and disincentives. Those crises are not overcome in a year or two, though the financial crises are temporary.

Windows without Bars

A couple of days ago I had the chance to meet a talented, educated, intelligent and upright Venezuelan actor. It was on the occasion of the Los Angeles film festival, where the Venezuelan movie, El Pasajero, was being screened and where he was honored for his starring role. Speaking long distance to his wife, he observed surprised, how he was in a second floor apartment, taking in the beautiful views of Los Angeles. The sunset view reminded him of Caracas, with some palm trees and hills in the horizon and the combination of Spanish style homes among skyscrapers. Then he added astonished that there were no bars on the windows. Venezuelans have forgotten that in most other countries people live without bars on their windows. Only in countries were crime and anarchy are strife do citizen have to resort to locking themselves in their homes, apartments and neighborhoods in order to protect themselves from the violence that oppresses those that live in it. The ghettofication of the country where I was born angers me more than I could have ever predicted, when I left many year ago in search of a more intellectual and peaceful life.

In fact, there is a whole generation of Venezuelans that only know to lock themselves behind bars every night in order to avoid being robed or killed. The human capacity to adapt and tolerate such a degree of insecurity and lack of basic liberties continues to amaze me. If we were being held against our will, we could probably rouse the citizenry into destroying those bars that separate us from everyone else, and create a sense of infinite distrust in our surroundings. But what does one do when citizens lock themselves up voluntarily? What does one due when murderers and thieves freely roam the streets and honest, hardworking people are prisoners behind their own bars?

Till when will my compatriots put up with this situation that has deprived them of their basic human liberties? Windows without bars is the destiny and reality of most of the world’s inhabitants, but not that of Venezuelans.