Two World Changing Events

A bout of insomnia last night got me thinking of the time I'm living in. I began by wondering why the Mumbai attacks didn't affect me as much as 9/11. Nor 7/7 really. Nor the Madrid bombs in 2004.

I suppose the most probable reason for this feeling is that 9/11 is a historic moment. A single event that changed everything after it. A moment that happens once in a lifetime and defines that generation, knowing things will never be the same again.

And then I start thinking of recent history, and realise there is another epoch changing event that has happen in my lifetime. An event that has also affected everyone in a profound and global way which has changed all that happened previously. Something that happened that was so powerful, that it turns the world before it into a pile of smouldering rubble. The collapse in Lehman Bros.

Like the fall of the Twin Towers, the destruction of Lehman Bros. was televised. I remember watching the towers burn at home, not quite understanding what was going on, but knowing deep down that things had changed. I remember watching the liquidation of Lehman Bros. from the TV at work, with the same feeling at the bottom of my gut.

I couldn't believe it when I heard. I first encountered Lehmans when I was at university. It was on a milk round, as they call it, when lots of companies come and tell the soon-to-graduate undergraduates about their company. I remember listening to the Lehmans presentation and wondering: "What does this company actually do?" I also noticed they had the highest starting salary of any of the companies I saw.

Then Lehman Bros. became one of those places where everyone talked about, a perfect job that set you up for life. Like the best legends, everyone knew of a friend of a friend that worked there and had to work very hard, all hours of the day, but were fabulously wealth. They lived in the best parts of London, with great looking flats and clothes weaved with strands of angel hair and gold.

Other investment banks held the same ideals, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, they were gods to be worshipped by mere mortals. And whenever you met anyone from these hallows of happiness, they were never the people at the top. Sure, they made good money, but its always their manager or their boss that were making the big bucks. They were foot soldiers. Just doing the grunt work.

These financial institutions, tall and mighty, symbols of power and wealth in the free world. The American Dream, transported to the UK and back around the world. The golden ticket to untold Hollywood riches and Disney glory.

Then, quite unexpectedly, it comes down. It's all been an illusion and we've all been fooled. But instead of an external attack, the house of credit cards is brought down from within. Not through misreadings and hateful interpretation of a religious text, but with plain and understandable greed. No higher purpose, but greed. Just greed.

And while I was watching people fleeing the building, the ordinary office workers with their lives in cardboard boxes, I could feel that life was about to be different. I knew they would be different, but I didn't understand how. Like a child, listening to an adult conversation, I knew something was wrong, but could not predict what was going to happen next. Newspaper men and commentator were also at a loss.

And it wasn't until the second hit before we knew this was serious. AIG. This was serious. Then the rest went against wall and the hell of greed broke out and consumed the global banking system, effectively putting world in recession. Nearly everyone on the planet became poorer overnight. People looked to the skies for more rouge planes, but it was too late. The damage had been done, and everything changed. Neighbours became enemies and our homes became prisons. Don't just remember 9/11. Remember 9/14 too.

And so we live in a post 9/14 world now. Look around. Isn't it much different? And while politicians and bankers argue about the best way to fix this broken place we live, we just have memories of the things were and will never be again.

(Postscript: I realise I'm comparing an act of mass murder to a bank going bust, but it's about global impact, rather than a comment on moral ethics.)