Mother Nature vs. Man-Made Disasters

I am not from Fargo. Far from it. But through the years I've come to know the North Dakota city of about 100,000 people along the Red River through my husband, who grew up there. I've been to weddings, baptisms, class reunions and those other important events that make up the life of a family. Most recently Fargo has been on our minds as we nervously followed news of a historic flood.

Fargo's response to the flood doesn't surprise me. But having grown up in a Latin American city at least 60 times larger and where every-man-for-himself is the norm, it does amaze me. Thousands of residents quickly organized in a round-the-clock volunteer effort to fill sand bags and form human chains to erect miles of temporary levees.

My amazement grew stronger over the week as I also followed developments related to the current global economic downturn. I couldn't help but feel envious of the resolve with which Fargo residents came together, totally convinced of what was needed and clear-headed about how to get it done.

Perhaps we have Mother Nature to thank for that. When the crisis is of our own making, like the current man-made financial disaster, we react quite differently. Rather than having a sense of being united, we feel alone, our leaders casting blame and deliberating while the crisis grows.

It's not that we don't have an idea about the consequences of not acting. We all have heard them: We are facing the worst crisis since the Great Depression, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is at a record high, the number of home sales is at a record low, even countries that initially thought they were immune are bracing for tough times.

This week, the World Bank more than halved its November forecast for growth in developing nations from 4.4 percent to 2.1 percent. And a report by the Inter-American Development Bank predicted that growth in Latin America's seven biggest economies could slow to an annual average of 0.1 percent in the next five years if recovery in the United States and Europe takes longer than expected.

It's no wonder that calls for working together are everywhere. In his New York Times column, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman recently wrote that one of the errors that stands out from the early 1930s was that "the world's response to crisis was crippled by the inability of the world's major economies to cooperate." At the Inter-American Development Bank's last annual meeting in Medellin, Colombia, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on March 29 that "this is a time for the world to come together."

Still, days before Thursday's gathering in London of the world's major economic powers and emerging economies, the so-called G-20 summit, talk of disagreements among participants was already diminishing expectations of reaching significant consensus on the best way to rebuild the financial system and revive the global economy.

The United States, China and Japan were on one end pushing for more aggressive stimulus packages, while Europe was on the other favoring new global forms of financial regulation. Somewhere in the middle were the three Latin American participants -- Argentina, Brazil and Mexico -- that largely favored both ideas but even as a block probably do not have enough power to persuade the others.

Meanwhile, in Medellin, despite much talk about the urgency to recapitalize the Inter-American Development Bank to respond to the crisis, the Boards of Governors ended their meeting with no agreement to that end. Instead, they opted to request a review of the need for a funding increase, which will postpone any further action until the fall, at least.

It is obviously hard to appreciate the true conditions of the economy when you can't physically see them. We simply don't react to increasing levels of debt or unemployment the same way we do to rising water that threatens to inundate our homes. The consequences may be similarly dire but they don't inspire the same resolute and collective action.

Maybe it's a cultural thing as well. In a region like Fargo's, where weather is severe and its consequences can be extreme, perspectives on life are different. I am reminded of a skit on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show during the flood of 1997. In it, Keillor talks on the phone with a woman whose house is floating down the Red River, swept away by the flood. Asked how she was faring, the woman tells Keillor "Oh, I'm doing just fine. No problem here. The house rides real well in the water, so I'm sleeping OK."

This week, Fargo was pounded by more than a foot of snow. That didn't seem to faze its residents who were glad to know the water had receded below the makeshift dikes, the city was returning to normal by midweek and they appeared to be back to counting their blessings.