It’s all expected

I’ve been re-reading my older posts from 2007-2008 and came across this excerpt which bears repeating. (I could probably even re-use the entry title!) There really is nothing new under the sun.

In its infinite generosity, Washington came to the rescue. Of course it had no choice; no modern government would dare let a financial crisis turn into a general collapse. Yet the situation is rich with irony. In the early 1990s, Greenspan would craft the Federal Reserve’s bailout of the 1980s mania. And the braindead caretaker administration of George Bush crafted the greatest socialization of private loss in history, the S&L bailout. And, remarkably, almost nobody has suffered serious criminal penalties or political disgrace for this rampant abuse of trust. Huge quantities of public money — some $200 billion, though definitive accountings are hard to come by — were spent with little discussion or analysis, and the affair is now largely forgotten. The chance to use the industry’s partial liquidation as an opportunity to develop new public and cooperative financial institutions was blown. Within a couple of years of the crisis’ passing, no one paid it any mind any longer. It’s as if it never happened.