Motto: “The same day, Moromete added up what he owed and, towards the evening, paid a visit to Tudor Balosu, to whom he agreed to sell some of the family plot. […] With the money from that, Moromete bought two horses, paid the land tax, paid that year’s due to the bank, paid his debt to Aristide and Niculae’s boarding-school but how would he solve these problems in the future was left unknown: yet again the bank, yet again the land tax, yet again Niculae…” (Free translation from Marin Preda, Moromeţii)

Hernando de Soto is one of the world’s economic geniuses, according to the Times magazine, the most famous innovator of Latin America.

Last year, I attended one of his conferences on the current economic crisis. His message, addressed to the numerous lawyers present at the international congress of their profession, was focused on the idea that today’s international crisis is caused not by lack of money, nor by lack of property, but by lack of information. More precisely, by the lack of key information on realities and basic legal relations. “Who owns what?” – asked the scholar, rhetorically, pointing out that in his home country, Peru, more that 65% of the population does not hold title on its possessions. Similarly, in the case of the subprime crisis, the virus that entered the system and crashed it, is uncertainty. Lack of basic inf0rmation about the amount of the debt, about the reality of the guarantees and about who owns a certain property is, according to de Soto, what made today’s collapse possible.