Point: John Bernard

The crisis was caused by a leadership lapse of epic proportions.

The world's most powerful economy is in peril thanks to another bout of deception, denial, greed, and collusion. What happened at Washington Mutual that caused its collapse? And what was going on at Chase that allowed it to prosper during the mortgage loan crisis? The credit crisis exacts a price from every American, so we must understand its root cause.

Pressure to grow quarterly earnings demands that organizations continually improve their performance, and one of a CEO's most important jobs is to put in place an engine that drives that performance. When an organization honors and rewards the top performers based purely on numbers - without regard to how they were achieved - it lacks a moral compass.

The Internet has only heightened the competitive pressure in many industries. Buyers have many sellers to choose from. In order to compete, sellers - including lending institutions - must customize their solutions to meet their needs. In the home-mortgage industry, intense competitive pressure created an environment in which it became easy for loan professionals to "look the other way" when it came to potential buyers' financial qualifications. After all, everyone else was.

The pressure to make earnings combined with the need for mass customization demands a new kind of organizational thinking on the part of CEOs - to succeed not only competitively but ethically. Leaders must create a managerial system with clear boundaries and appropriate controls in place to ensure ethical responsibility, accountability, and transparency throughout their organizations.

In the end, the credit crisis is the direct result of leaders who failed to create that kind of culture. 

John Bernard is a founding partner of 10x Incorporated, a Portland-based organizational development consultancy. He can be reached at john.bernard@10xinc.com.

Counterpoint: Jeremy Gin

Let's not forget the reckless spending of the American consumer.

For the most part, blame for the financial crisis - one of the worst in recent American history - has been rightly directed toward Wall Street for its greed and recklessness, and toward Washington for its incompetent regulation and inability to fix the problem. But one of the primary culprits has largely escaped criticism: the American consumer.

For the last 25 or so years, Americans have been on a spending spree. Our houses, cars, wardrobes, and gadget collections have all gotten larger and more expensive. Long gone are the days of frugality and good value. In their place stand opulence and the Consumer Culture.

However, while all this spending was going on, the American consumer was not necessarily getting much richer. Real incomes increased much more slowly than consumption, and as a result, our savings rate decreased and our net debt increased. Also, our economy became increasingly dependent on consumption.

Fast forward to today. Consumption is about to fall off a cliff, and the U.S. economy with it. Piggy banks have been emptied, and credit cards have been maxed out. American consumers are so laden with debt they cannot spend another dime.

So what happens next? The Consumer Culture will have to change. Perhaps it will again be cool to be frugal (Warren Buffett, anyone?). Perhaps we will focus more on the nonmaterial aspects of our lives, spending time with family, friends, and community.

And perhaps that is the silver lining of this terrible financial crisis - that it will be the wake-up call people need to appreciate the many things in life that have nothing to do with the economy. 

Jeremy Gin is co-founder of SiteJabber Website Reviews (www.sitejabber.com). A version of this column was originally published on Blogcritics.org.