'Harsh lessons we may need to learn again'

'Harsh lessons we may need to learn again'

The bankers' pursuit of self-interest (greed) did not lead to the well-being of society; it did not even serve their shareholders and bondholders well. It certainly did not serve homeowners who are losing their homes, workers who have lost their jobs, retirees who have seen their retirement funds vanish, or taxpayers who paid hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks.[...]  Never has so much money been transferred from so many to so few.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz reflects on the recent global crisis (in the pages of The China Daily, of all places, not the US or business press), draws a few lessons and warns that it may not be over:

Regrettably, unless the United States and other advanced industrial countries make much greater progress on financial-sector reforms in 2010 we may find ourselves faced with another opportunity to learn them.

Reform, however, is looking rather unlikely, especially since the markets put in a strong rebound in 2009, convincing all those same bankers and financial sector people that all is well again.

But what these year-end numbers do not show is that US stocks ended the decade lower than they began. Those investors who were convinced that buy-and-hold was the conservative, fail-safe strategy are among the biggest losers from all this. (It's the first time that a decade's returns have been ngative since the 1930s)

Here in Asia, the mood is even more buoyant. Stock markets posted huge returns, in some cases the best in a decade.

Best performer of all? Sri Lanka.