What caused the financial crisis of 2008?

[opebo]

Actually it was caused by inadequate redistribution, but it is true that the removal of regulation made it happen sooner and worse.

[opebo]

Actually it was caused by inadequate redistribution, but it is true that the removal of regulation made it happen sooner and worse.

The GINI coefficient overall barely moved in the 2000s.

I was speaking of the underlying cause, not superficially.  The overall collapse and descent into worse and worse economic performance has been baked into the pie since the Reagan years.  This particular crisis is just a part of that - a bad bump as we slide downhill over generations.

[opebo]

Actually it was caused by inadequate redistribution, but it is true that the removal of regulation made it happen sooner and worse.

The GINI coefficient overall barely moved in the 2000s.

i wonder what it has looked like for the past few decades though?

From wiki:

1947: 37.6 (estimated)
1967: 39.7 (first year reported)
1968: 38.6 (lowest index reported)
1970: 39.4
1980: 40.3
1990: 42.8
2000: 46.2
2005: 46.9
2006: 47.0 (highest index reported)
2007: 46.3
2008: 46.6

All we need to do is use government policy to make the GINI 38ish.

[opebo]

You vote 'no'?  As in you don't want any government policy to be utilized to effect the Gini coefficient?  Well that is hardly surprising given the colour of your avatar, is it?  Your party wishes to maximize the Gini (that's really its entire purpose).

But I'm not talking about any sort of personal preference or spite-drive formulation - I'm talking about that which would greatly reduce financial crises in the future, and create enormously greater economic growth.

[opebo]

by the way my knowledge on the financial crisis comes from an investment banker i met on a train

Very nice!  SO much better than phnkrocket masturbating his math all over us.

[opebo]

by the way my knowledge on the financial crisis comes from an investment banker i met on a train

Very nice!  SO much better than phnkrocket masturbating his math all over us.

nobody has time to do all that math.

Oh its not the time issue, its the seemliness issue - spouting things at people just to try to impress them, knowing you are not communicating anything to them is really just poor manners.

[opebo]

...The state gave billions over billions to the very rich, and the money was used to blow up the bubble that burst in 2008.

The state didn't give anyone anything. People earned their money themselves.

No, the money of the very rich is taken from the enslavement of workers, Derek.  They don't 'earn' it, it is given to them by the State, which exacts it by force from their serfs.

[opebo]

...the money of the very rich is taken from the enslavement of workers, Derek.  They don't 'earn' it, it is given to them by the State, which exacts it by force from their serfs.

1936 called and the democrats want their talking points back.

Precisely Derek.  (though 1933 is a slightly better historical model, and it is worthwhile to note that the current situation is worse).

[opebo]

Interest rates are only 'too low' because of inadequate redistribution, Derek.

[opebo]

Loans were far, far easier to get back in the heyday - 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

My own father used to get what they called '110% loans', where the bank would value your project in such a way that you would get the full cost of building it, plus salary, etc., PLUS a 10% extra profit.  So you could simply live like a king of the borrowed money while the thing was being built, and then realize a fat profit when it was finished and sold.  The idea was to eliminate both the need for a down payment and for any resources to pay for your own living expenses while the project was underway.

I think young people really have no idea nowadays just how easy it was to make money in the post-war boom, and just how much worse everything has been since about 1980.