What truths have we learned from the sub-prime financial crisis?

There was a misuse of the wealth of nations

Whenever mankind abuses established law and side-steps the rights of citizens, damage occurs. During the Rwanda genocide of over 800,000 people (both Tutsis and Hutus), the United Nations engaged an observatory peacekeeping mission under Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire. The UN gave him a huge responsibility yet frustrated his ability by not giving him the necessary authority to apply international humanitarian law such as the Law of Geneva and the Law of The Hague.

Injustice can affect the safe-keeping of our wealthand prosperity

Similarly, an injustice in the financial world occurred when ethically based mathematical laws and lending time-proven guidelines were overstepped by a few powerfully placed gate-keepers of finance who refused to protect the average person's wealth around the world. Sub prime mortgage contracts (with little or no down payment and very low interest rates) magnified the risk associated with debt instruments. The consequence was a depletion of the world's wealth. Bank deposits of the nations' populace were being tapped—their funds too easily lent, setting us all up for the current financial crisis with concomitant destruction of wealth. Mortgage debt ratios that have worked for bankers historically were set within mathematical boundaries that should never have been overstepped. The old regulations have secured the future of our mortgagerelated investments. Because those regulations were recently ignored, principally by the American banking system, we were deceived. Leniency due to absence of financial regulations allowed many people to borrow—and in reality speculate, without so much as the income to repay the loan. Many greedily purchased numerous homes and retirement condos without a down payment with intent to flip and earn a fast profit! Real estate investors were indirectly borrowing the average persons' money held on deposit, or invested at his or her bank, racking up billions of dollars in risky mortgages. You may remember this nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” which could easily be symbolic of the banking corporations of the US.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

We are hopeful that Obama and the other G20 leaders will figure strategies to never allow greed to operate in the banking systems of the world again.