1-3 trillion dollars worth of financial assets wiped out. The $700 billion bailout of banks' mortgaged-backed securities was not a strategy but mainly a desperate effort to shore up confidence in the systme.

Can a repeition of the US Great Depression of the 1930s or Japan's
more recent protracted recession of the 1990s be avoided? Both were
results of a severe banking crisis. The answer is yes, if the
vicious cycle of asset price decline, banking credit crunch and
money supply contraction can be avoided.

"We have a globalized financial system in which a crisis that began with a bubble in Florida condos and California McMansions has caused monetary catastrophe in Iceland. We're all in this together, and need a shared solution."

Greed has destroyed the world's financial system. Spiegel Online spoke with Nobel Laureate Yumus about the profit motive, social consciousness and what should be done to end the financial crisis. Profit should not be the only reason that businesses exist.

Trust capitalism and shun government interferences we were told.
But irresponsible bankers saw a chance to get rich quick and went
for it. Their future has become ours-and the promise of a common
good has evaporated along with faith in democratic capitalism. The
gamblers have eroded confidence in both capitalism and democracy.

"This is a crisis of deregulation. Deregulated market fundamentalism causes crises. This is a crisis of financialization. An ever-larger part of the economy switched to financial speculation or gambling. Greed is systemic."

We cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platform. The rich must pay for their own bailout.

The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo capitalism is coming to an end and its military might is ebbing.