Last January I stood at the top of the World Trade Center and looked over Manhattan. It was my second visit that day - earlier in the morning the skies had been misty and the view was minimal so the supervisor suggested coming back later. By mid-afternoon I had my hand security-tagged and I was standing on the top floor, the fantastic grid of the city spread out below me. As I looked down I could feel the energy of New York reach up from over a hundred stories below. I had a pizza and beer in the restaurant at the top of the tower and muttered to myself that they knew how to fleece their captive visitors - the small beer cost around $5.
Afterwards I walked the short distance to the New York Stock Exchange where trading was light and most of the action for the day seemed to be over. But the traders still swarmed around the floor and the girl from Bloomberg TV gave a breathless report about volatile markets. Meanwhile, outside, dealmakers in expensive suits were talking into their mobile phones as they hurried along Wall Street. I stood opposite the Federal Reserve Building and really felt as though I was at the very heart of our capitalist society. And, quite honestly, it was a buzz to be there.
Whether yesterday's terrorist attacks on the US were directed at capitalism or at Western ideals or at the United States itself is still unclear. What is certain is that all thoughts of dealmaking and trading and the economy are of nothing compared to the carnage that followed those attacks.
When I saw the towers collapse in a cloud of dense smoke and rubble I remembered the awe with which I'd looked up at them and what a powerful symbol they had appeared. And I remembered the men and women of the financial district who'd come into the nearby McDonald's for coffee that afternoon - the McDonald's where you can eat a burger and watch a ticker tape of share prices at the same time. That day in January, South Manhattan hummed to the sound and the feel and the essence of capitalism.
Even though I've worked for most of my life in finance I've never believed that capitalism has all the answers to the way our economies should run.
Reducing everything to a bottom line or how much you personally are worth has serious limitations. Many people who work in stockbroking or investment banking feel the same way but those industries keep the world economies moving even if they don't necessarily do it as well as they should.
There have always been people who oppose the US model and all things to do with America.
And of late there have been ever more strident protests about the effects of globalisation on the poorer economies of the world - a feeling, perhaps, that those who have are taking too much while those who have not are struggling to provide it for them. A feeling that capitalism has failed us and that the buzz and energy of Wall Street favours the select few. There is a tendency to look to the US and cast the blame there, as though a country which encourages people to pursue wealth is almost completely to blame. Many well-known "brand" companies with the worst labour relations and working conditions are, of course, US companies.
Knocking America and Americans is a favourite pastime of many Europeans. But few Europeans have the depth of hatred that yesterday's attacks clearly show.
I can't quite believe that the towers have simply disappeared, that they have been reduced to rubble which must cover huge swathes of south Manhattan. The mall below the Trade Center - another shrine to the consumer society with its shops like Victoria's Secret which were no doubt frequented by some of the female workers in the towers - has been obliterated. The heart of the financial district has taken an absolute hammer-blow. The passion and energy that makes New York what it is, has been - in the short-term - utterly quenched. And the blow to the confidence of the Americans, already slightly shaken by recent economic performance, must surely go even deeper.
People will look for instant analysis of these events, including how they will affect world markets and the global economy. We are a society that feeds upon immediate knowledge, immediate understanding. But sometimes you don't need analysis. You need time to reflect. And to remember that a lot of decent human beings lost their lives yesterday simply because they went to work.
Author Sheila O'Flanagan is a former gilt dealer at NCB Stockbrokers
