Around the World in Times of Crisis

It all started in the fatherland of George Washington, of jazz and of Marilyn Monroe. Even the poorest American, until some two years ago, could buy a house and a Chevy only with and ID card.The smart guys on Wall Street - as our president Băsescu called them - who just made their n-th mansion, and their financial wizardry made sure the money were rolling. If the money couldn't be found in the US, they were borrowed from the Chinese and the Arabs, to whom the insatiable George Bush administration - embarked on and endless crusade against terrorism around the world - gave debt certificates in exchange. But above all ruled Alan Greenspan, the governor of the US central bank, the wizard of all wizards, the man envied by everybody for his economic genius, worshiped as a guru of capitalism and crowned with the title of architect of a new era of prosperity.