Trust lost!
The former pride of Switzerland, Credit Suisse, founded by Alfred Escher on July 5, 1856, had to be taken over by UBS yesterday in an “emergency procedure”. Emergency law was applied and for the second time in 15 years, a systemically important bank in Switzerland had to be supported.
The Swiss National Bank, the federal government, the taxpayer, everyone has to dig into their pockets. We are talking about triple-digit billions … Whether this will really calm the world’s financial markets remains to be seen.
Politicians, the media, creditors, shareholders and even angry citizens are all looking for the people to blame. Everyone points the finger at the others, but no one seems to want to take responsibility for their own behavior.
Who is to blame for this debacle?
It is time to recognize that a financial system focused on greed and short-term profit cannot survive in the long term. Why? Because it is based on egocentrism and therefore on fear, and is fundamentally opposed to nature – especially to our own nature. Nature is a great symbiosis, in which each part serves the other. There is no fear and therefore no egocentric behavior… nature only knows the good of the whole.
Any system that does not take this principle into account will fail sooner or later. Especially for a systemically important company, the top priority should be to act responsibly by always keeping the common good in mind
Nature knows no guilt
Nature knows no guilt … it simply obeys the unalterable law of cause and effect! So the right question is not “Who is to blame for this debacle?” but rather “What causes have we individually but also collectively placed that something like this could happen (again)?”
The shareholder who bought CS shares with the sole intention of selling them immediately and taking the profit after the SNB announced its support package bears a share of the responsibility. The speculator who bet on falling prices bears a share of the responsibility. The pension fund that invests its clients’ assets in a bank involved in many scandals bears a share of the responsibility. The employee who is only interested in a high year-end bonus bears a share of the responsibility. The politician who has her election campaign financed by a company that is not committed to the common good bears a share of the responsibility.
Even those of us who seem to have had nothing at all to do with this CS case and see ourselves primarily as victims should ask ourselves, “Where do I tend not to look so closely if it benefits me financially or otherwise?” Asking ourselves this question in time and acting accordingly may help us avoid the next personal or collective crisis.
So let’s not cry out loudly for someone to blame. Instead, let’s start learning our lessons from this debacle, taking responsibility and ensuring through our own behavior that something like this doesn’t happen again in the future.
And we should finally demand an ethical, regenerative economy and be prepared to make our individual contributions to it. This is exactly what SunHeart Business Leaders stand for.
Companies, whether systemically relevant or not, that are not committed to the good of the whole no longer have a right to exist in this new economic order and the future financial system.
