10 years is about the length of a business cycle, which is about the smallest accurately-measurable period in economics. The most frustrating thing about politics today is that before 1980, all we hear about history is vague references to things like the Holocaust and the Great Depression.
The thing about our current situation is that it's not something that caught anyone who was paying any sort of attention by surprise. The Federal Government has been making/encouraging bad loans from the moment they had the power to do so. What started out as federal housing assistance during the Great Depression has become Fannie and Freddie and our current crisis. The ideas of easy money and credit extend as far back into human history as we can go; at the very least they played a hand in the economic collapse of the USSR, Germany, Russia. We even suspect they played a large role in destroying one of the only ancient empires we know much about, Rome.
All of that to say, I know the politicians are running for office and thus have to frame things within the lifetimes of their constituents, but can't we, as intelligent people, construct a slightly wider historical lens for this discussion?
The thing about our current situation is that it's not something that caught anyone who was paying any sort of attention by surprise. The Federal Government has been making/encouraging bad loans from the moment they had the power to do so. What started out as federal housing assistance during the Great Depression has become Fannie and Freddie and our current crisis. The ideas of easy money and credit extend as far back into human history as we can go; at the very least they played a hand in the economic collapse of the USSR, Germany, Russia. We even suspect they played a large role in destroying one of the only ancient empires we know much about, Rome.
All of that to say, I know the politicians are running for office and thus have to frame things within the lifetimes of their constituents, but can't we, as intelligent people, construct a slightly wider historical lens for this discussion?