\nWe\u2019ve known for literally thousands of years that debts need to be periodically written down, or the entire economy will collapse. And see this.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known for 1,900 years that that rampant inequality destroys societies.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known for thousands of years that debasing currencies leads to economic collapse.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known for hundreds of years that the failure to punish financial fraud destroys economies.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known for hundreds of years that monopolies and the political influence which accompanies too much power in too few hands is dangerous for free markets.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known for hundreds of years that trust is vital for a healthy economy.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known since the 1930s Great Depression that separating depository banking from speculative investment banking is key to economic stability. See this, this, this and this.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known since 1988 that quantitative easing doesn\u2019t work to rescue an ailing economy.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known since 1993 that derivatives such as credit default swaps \u2013 if not reined in \u2013 could take down the economy. And see this.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known since 1998 that crony capitalism destroys even the strongest economies, and that economies that are capitalist in name only need major reforms to create accountability and competitive markets.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve known since 2007 or earlier that lax oversight of hedge funds could blow up the economy.<\/p>\n
And we knew before the 2008 financial crash and subsequent bailouts that:<\/p>\n
The easy credit policy of the Fed and other central banks, the failure to regulate the shadow banking system, and \u201cthe use of gimmicks and palliatives\u201d by central banks hurt the economy<\/p>\n
Anything other than (1) letting asset prices fall to their true market value, (2) increasing savings rates, and (3) forcing companies to write off bad debts \u201cwill only make things worse\u201d<\/p>\n
Bailouts of big banks harm the economy<\/p>\n
The Fed and other central banks were simply transferring risk from private banks to governments, which could lead to a sovereign debt crisis<\/p>\n
Given the insane levels of debt, rampant inequality, currency debasement, failure to punish financial fraud, growth of the too big to fails, repeal of Glass-Steagall, refusal to rein in derivatives, crony capitalism and other shenanigans \u2026 the financial crisis was entirely foreseeable.<\/p>\n
The Financial Crisis Was Entirely Foreseeable<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It seems like no politician or staffer to a politician, even a president, had the knowledge or skill set to foresee the current financial crisis,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,50,33,28,16,31,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepamericafree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}