Greed on Wall Street, malfeasance among mortgage lenders, ineffective regulators, profligate American home buyers, overregulation, underregulation ¡ª the list of potential causes of the 2008 financial crisis is both exhaustive and contradictory.
Rather than home in on one aspect of the crisis, taking a longer view of events suggests that the Great Recession, although severe in magnitude, exhibits many of the same characteristics of financial crises since the 1970s: An initial frenzy of lending across borders followed by a sudden stop.
Since the crash of Lehman Brothers a decade ago, the churn of debt across the globe continues to expand, driven in part by the Tokyo-based megabanks which have extended credit to businesses and governments overseas.
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