No, Mr. Bremmer, you are wrong.

It is not that dark. We are in the midst of a worldwide financial crisis. But your speech is about four months out of date.

1. There are no more big organizations getting ready to fall. AIG has been bailed out. Lehman Brothers is auctioning parts of itself off to Barclays. WaMu is shopping itself around and will be split up in an orderly fashion. Bank of America is well capitalized and will survive this quite nicely, despite being very big. In short, the dust is settling and now we must worry about the tightening of credit, which leads to:

2. The central banks of the G-7 are putting out money to ease the credit crisis. The Fed is also working on establishing a RTC-type entity that will buy up the bad paper like the RTC did real estate. There is also talk that the RTC will be resurrected as well. All of which gives hope to investors.

3. Russia's financial markets are in crisis as well. They cannot fund further expansion nor will they engage in bellicose behavior because they too are hit by the credit crisis, in some ways far worse than ourselves. Their big export is energy and weapons, neither of which is selling well at the moment. This also applies to:

4. Venezuela and Iran - both of which have lagging, failing economies. The price of oil is now below $100 a barrel, and both Chavez and Ahmad-whatever cannot continue to afford subsidizing their economies with oil money while the price is falling. You will note that they've become very quiet as of late.

5. The Petro-dictatorships are hit even worse than we are, because oil is their sole source of power. The West diversifying its energy resources will undermine them quicker and more surer than any sanctions or military response could.

Mr. Bremmer, we are surviving. Though we are in a crisis, we are making do. The more days pass without further shocks, the stronger and more inured we become as a society. And the more inured we become to the dire straits, the more confidence begins to seep into the system.

I will NOT stand here and cry for what has been, nor will I tremble in the face of what might be. I see light at the end of the tunnel. Though we may emerge into a wasteland after all is said and done, we have been here before. We will survive, and we will make do. The financial world will adapt, and it will thrive. People will continue to do business, and banks will continue to lend. The petro-dictatorships will weaken as we continue. There will be new challenges, and we will meet them.
I am tired of being afraid, simply because the press and scholars insist I must be. I refuse, because I know we can get through this.

"The Fed is also working on establishing a RTC-type entity that will buy up the bad paper like the RTC did real estate. " That won't make the paper go good, it just means that the people that caused the problem won't have to answer for it. Venezuela and Iran were doing just fine, thank you, when oil was at 50 dollars at the beginning of last year. They don't need 100 dollar oil to continue being pitas. That's also true for other big oil exporters. They would probably like to export less so that they don't have to find a way to invest all these dollars that they are handed. After all, would you like to be responsible for investing tens of billions of dollars a month right now? It is a safe bet that more banks will fail, and more forced mergers will happen to conceal real or temporary insolvencies. What the total cost is to the world economy is anyone's guess at this point. But of course you are right that the financial world will survive. Not all of it will be destroyed, and it will be rebuilt. I am very confident that the global financial system will thrive in a decade or so. But will New York still be its epicenter? Will American institutions be forgiven for their behavior, which was either fraudulent or ignorant? I don't think that that is a given - or even likely. I see the US financial system coming out of this in pretty much the same way that the US car industry came out of the seventies: with a rotten reputation, a lousy portfolio and an iffy balance sheet. Over the next decade or two, foreign financial institutions will compete strongly with the weakened US entries, and government bailouts won't solve this. This isn't a situation that calls for fear, but it does require a clear and honest assessment of the current situation and how we got there. Simply pretending there isn't a problem is the wrong way to combat fear. Try bravery in stead.

Xaedalus:

I will NOT stand here and cry for what has been, nor will I tremble in the face of what might be. I see light at the end of the tunnel. Though we may emerge into a wasteland after all is said and done, we have been here before. We will survive, and we will make do. The financial world will adapt, and it will thrive. People will continue to do business, and banks will continue to lend. The petro-dictatorships will weaken as we continue. There will be new challenges, and we will meet them.
I am tired of being afraid, simply because the press and scholars insist I must be. I refuse, because I know we can get through this.

... Empires are founded to decline and fall. Remember the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the German Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire or the Celestial Empire! Have any of them ever lasted for ever? Domino effect, don’t be too optimistic, USA is heading towards only God knows where. It iiiiiiiiis simply US tuuuuuuuuurn, be it within long or short term!