According to the number-crunchers who understand such things, among them the International Monetary Fund's chief representative in Lebanon, Edward Gardner, our economy has little direct exposure to the contagion that has destroyed trillions (yes, trillions) of dollars' worth of wealth in recent days. For this, the experts seem to agree, we should thank the Banque du Liban and its governor, Riad Salameh, for having barred banks in this country from investing in the radioactive debt instruments that have poisoned markets almost everywhere else.

The surprising thing is not that Salameh and his advisers seem to have seen the disaster coming: Rather, it is that so few of their peers - including those in what are supposed to be the world's most advanced economies - were able to do the same. After all, the "subprime" mortgages at the heart of the crisis are not a mystery in themselves: They are loans extended to people who stood a very good chance of not being able to repay them unless absolutely everything went right in both the general economy and their own personal finances.

The front end of the scheme was one that would make a loan-shark proud: Get some ambitious but basically uninformed consumer to borrow money for his or her dream house at a misleadingly low interest rate. Heed rules on disclosure with some fine print about the rate being "variable" every three or five or 10 years, but don't blow the sale by explaining what that might well mean when rates rise (as they must) and are compounded over the length of the loan contract: a far higher payment that cannot be supported for long, leading eventually to foreclosure. Sign the deal, collect your commission, and content yourself with the notion that although some poor family is liable to lose their home, your bank or finance company will be covered because a booming real estate market means it will be able to sell the property for a healthy sum.

And rising prices today means rising prices tomorrow, too, right? Of course! The business cycle has been "banished," the American model has triumphed, ushering in the "end of history" and an era of permanent plenty. And so on and so forth.

Just in case, though, the back end of the scheme was even more insidious than its smiling face: Bundle the obviously flawed mortgages into securities, get so-called "ratings agencies" - apparently run by defrocked used-car salesmen - to affix their august seals of approval on the junk, and hock it to investors around the world.

So that's where much of the global economy is today. Millions of Americans are in danger of foreclosure, and the people and institutions "holding" their mortgages can't hope to recover their investments because the bottom has fallen out of the real estate market. Neither party has any real knowledge of the other, so there isn't even much scope for the negotiation of settlements. Worse yet, much of this now worthless paper is in the hands of large institutional investors which essentially fell for the same fairytale that took in the homeowners - and whose confidence is an essential lubricant for the global economy: Take it away, and you have what we see today.

For now the good news is that the aforementioned prophylactic Lebanon's central bank wrapped around this country's financial sector seems to have kept out the contagion. The bad news is that in some ways at least, the longer the crisis goes on, the less that foresight will matter: Lebanese working in the Gulf and other parts of the world will send less of the remittances that contribute a major portion of GDP, there will be less foreign investment to be had, and Beirut is liable to be in for a nasty surprise the next time it tries to roll over one of its maturing eurobonds in a shriveled credit market.

In the longer run, though, the cloud might have several silver linings. A global economic slowdown might finally rein in the inflationary pressures that have drastically reduced the purchasing power of those Lebanese who can least afford it. Hard times in countries around the world might also lead to a resurgence in protectionism that buys some more time for Lebanese companies to increase their competitiveness. And depleted government coffers in places like Washington and Tehran might so preoccupy their respective leaderships that they spend less time meddling in places like Beirut (but don't bet the house on it).

The best possible scenario is that some lessons will be learned, the worst that they will be the wrong ones.

Devotees of the American economic model, for example, might become less inclined to worship the false god of growth, and so more amenable to valuing collective goods like social stability and individual ones like the lives of newborns who happen not to issue from wealthy families.

But adherents to other philosophies should also be leery, because greed and self-delusion are hardly unique to America - and some people are always apt to convince themselves that they have found a way to make money on the quick. Have a look at the home loans being offered by some Lebanese banks these days: They may or may not be selling bundles out the back door, but the smiling face of low or even no interest (for now) is front and center.

Marc J. Sirois is managing editor of  the Daily Star.