Rethinking the Great Recession
We Americans turn every major crisis into a morality tale in which the good guys and the bad guys are identified and praised or vilified accordingly. There’s a political, journalistic, and intellectual imperative to find out who caused the crisis, who can be blamed, and who can be indicted (either in legal courts or the court of public opinion) and, if found guilty, be jailed or publicly humbled. The great economic and financial crisis that began in 2007 has been no exception. It has stimulated an outpouring of books, articles, and studies that describe what happened: the making of the housing bubble, the explosion of complex mortgage-backed securities, the ethical and legal shortcuts used to justify dubious but profitable behavior. This extended inquest has produced a long list of possible villains: greedy mortgage brokers and investment bankers, inept government regulators, naive economists, self-serving politicians. What it hasn’t done is explain why all this happened. (Entire Article)
