The current situation came about because a few simple and very fundamental rules were broken.
1. Investors did not understand what they were investing in.
2. The regulatory system failed on an monumental level... but then you only need to know a little bit about how appallingly weak they and the legislation the operate under is to understand why that happened.
The whole thing was supercharged by the basic human instinct of greed.
Capitalism will run away with itself if there's a fault in the system... as in the case we've just had. It will always self correct however and that will be a very painful recoil. But socialism is just as carcenogic - its only 25-30 years since it destroyed the backbone of British industry... and we've got Russian communism as a perfect test case of it taken to an extreme.
You're right, capitalism needs modulation in order to avoid boom and bust. But there's a difference between modulation and suppression.
I've lived through an extremely severe end of the 1980s recession [that forced me to emigrate] as well as the early 1990s one. However none of us [not even you Ian] have lived through the kind of slump [yes slump ! not recession or depression] we're about to encounter so its new territory for us all.
We will likely need to go through a period of socialism [which will set us back decades] before we realize that capitalism is the only way to move forward.
Its also possible that the state could go bust in which case there won't be money for dole, the NHS or defence... and we'll be move to a more austere form of capitalism faster - a la Russia in the 1990s.
Frightening times ahead for sure.
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