Investor Behavior: The Psychology of Financial Planning and Investing

CHAPTER 14

Transpersonal Economics

Renée M. Snow CFP®

Adjunct Professor, Sofia University

INTRODUCTION

Today the world is struggling to emerge from the worst recession since the Great Depression. The global economic crisis began in the United States after authorities relaxed banking regulations and a new industry based on a culture of achieving wealth quickly became the norm. This new financial culture affected many people including homeowners who began to view their primary residences as investments and mortgage bankers who offered complicated loans to unsophisticated borrowers. The aspiration led investment bankers to bundle these loans and offer them to investors. This culture of getting rich quickly also moved investors, including those abroad, to believe these mortgage pools would make them a fortune. Blinded by avarice and ignoring the economic truth that securities, like planets, move in cycles, those involved depended on a continuous rise in real estate prices. This is also the typical behavior people exhibit in times of market bubbles and manias. When the natural law reasserted itself, some of the largest, most established investment companies and banks, as well as millions of homeowners, experienced financial ruin. The carnage spread to industries and people not directly involved including manufacturing industries in countries outside the United States dependent on Americans' consumerism and materialism.

Globalization brought by improvements in technology and transportation ...