Prof. Roger Mesznik explains the financial crisis: Are we on the way out?

Roger Mesznik talks about the financial crisis
MODUL University Vienna had the pleasure to host a presentation by Prof. Roger Mesznik, an expert in finance from the Graduate Business School of Columbia University, New York, who has more than twenty five years of experience in lecturing on corporate finance, financial markets and instruments and financial strategy and planning. Prof. Mesznik, who is also a consultant to corporations and multi-national and international institutions such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council, IBM, and the World Bank, has shared his insight into the current financial crisis with an audience of about eighty students, scholars, politicians and businessmen and women. He explained that the crisis, which started as a seemingly unexpected and sudden implosion of some elements of the financial system in the US, is now threatening the economic wellbeing of the globe and the core of our existence as we know it. In the light of rising unemployment, shrinking economies, vast amounts of lost wealth, and very large deficits, he explored whether the responses of governments and international bodies observed to date were adequate, appropriate, and sufficient. He identified the readiness of most central banks and some governments to intervene in time and the good cooperation and coordination among central banks as significant factors that saved us from the breakdown of the financial system. In order to halt the roll towards the abyss, he suggested that the governments should save firms and jobs, support social expenditures and borrow as much money as needed to achieve these results, “because borrowing is better than a collapse”. He considers it necessary to “create now the superstructure to credibly repay the huge debt once conditions improve”, but he also pointed out that this will require new taxes. “A clear program is within sight for avoiding a depression,” he stated, but “I am not
sure we have a good plan for repaying what we owe ourselves and our
children”.