Toronto Star: Why next economic crisis will be worse

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Why next economic crisis will be worse
David Olive


Barack Obama had some strong words yesterday for the Wall Street miscreants who very nearly brought about a second Great Depression.

"We will not go back to the days of reckless behaviour and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses."

The U.S. president gets full marks for his post-event diagnosis and blunt language.

He's also right in observing that "instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them."

The first anniversary of the historic failure of Wall Street securities giant Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is today, as the calendar goes. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/695644

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1. this one sums it up:

What all this means – and it's tough to disagree here with the informed doomsayers – is that the next crisis will be worse than the one just passed. By bailing out all but Lehman, world authorities have created the worst "moral hazard" problem in the history of finance. Knowing that Uncle Sam or Whitehall or the Diet will bail them out, financiers will continue to have every greed-driven incentive to grab for the effortless upfront fees from their reckless behaviour, knowing any cataclysmic losses will be "socialized."