As crisis counsellors know, potential suicide victims often feel they have too far to fall. Many of the 120,000 financial workers who have lost high-paying jobs must be feeling this as well. But they should also consider reasons why the world will ultimately gain from this year's financial losses.
Slowing economies will pour less toxins into rivers and the air, and give Chinese factory workers and miners - who take greater risks than Wall Street investors - a chance to breathe. A decline in China's urban housing demand, and the continued shuttering of steel mills after the Olympics, means less pressure on workers to scrape copper out of hazardous mines from northern Myanmar to Chile.
A 53 per cent drop last month in the Baltic Dry Index, which measures shipping rates for commodities, should give Japanese shipbuilders more time for safety than the 20 workers who died last year rushing to finish ships in one month - rather than three months. With Japan's Labour Ministry reporting a reduction in overtime hours nationwide, parents will have more time for their children and more energy to create side-projects and small enterprises, which Japan badly needs.
The 21st century, delayed since 9/11, might finally have a chance to begin. Bargain hunters will be attracted to the low price-to-earnings ratios of green-minded Japanese corporations such as Sharp, Sanyo, Panasonic, Toyota and Shimano, which are global leaders in solar power, hybrid cars and bicycles. Forward-looking firms with growth potential, such as alternative energy companies, are likely to rebound stronger than dinosaurs dependent on oil, coal and 20th-century thinking.
Thanks to a culture of savings rather than leverage, Asia had less exposure than New York or London to the failed insurance scams. Asian and Middle Eastern countries, with vast holdings of resources and US Treasuries, and a business ethic built on pragmatism and personal ties, could continue to rise as western banks hoard cash and rebuff strangers seeking loans.
This is not only the opinion of pro-Asian ideologues such as Singaporean Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck predicts a 'multipolar' world, where better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe will replace the US-led Anglo-Saxon banking model and its 'exaggerated fixation on returns'.
