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I think to pin the 2008 credit crisis (rather than crash) on the repeal of the GS act is rather simplistic. Boom and bust has been an inherent future of market and bourse driven capitalism since post mediaeval times. In my view the 2008 crisis was driven by an inability to measure risk by state and corporate investors. Nobody had to buy the A rated mezzanine credit derivative options that were actually junk. They chose to.
Creative destruction etc...
hurricane_run-
I think to pin the 2008 credit crisis (rather than crash) on the repeal of the GS act is rather simplistic.
That wasn’t my point. I was addressing Stonehedge’s point that finance rules allowed the crisis to develop and the players weren’t to blame; the big banks lobbied to change the rules, specifically Glass-Speagal, knowing full well the risks because it had happened previously. Without GS investment banks were able to gamble with hundreds of thousands of pensions and lifesavings, and they lost. They knew it could happen, but they didn’t and don’t care about the fallout more than they care about their profit.
Eseman
The players pushed to have those rules changed to their benefit, knowing it could put others at unfair disadvantage or put the system at risk. The Glass-Steagal Act was 70 years old when it was repealed, and not a decade later the exact thing it was designed to prevent from reoccurring, occurred.