This song always makes me feel good - and brings back some great memories
Have to respond to 'Dazed and confused' piece...
The backstory to the GFC as I understand it is:
• The fundamental cause of the 'Great Depression' in the late 20's / 30's was the end of millions of agricultural jobs + huge drop in agricultural prices due to the onset of mechanisation (combine harvesters etc etc) that had started at the turn of the century - this caused numerous distortions including a massive stock market rally as folks sought to make money from stocks as it was getting harder and harder to make money from other activities - the end of the depression only arrived when factories finally ramped up to take on the slack in the 40' and 50's
• The fundamental cause of the GFC was similar - this time the end of industrial jobs (as these were exported to China or replaced by tech) - the tech sector is not large enough to take on the slack - hence widespread unemployment - this led to similar distortions, this time a rush into property as a means of making money as other activities were not delivering the goods - this was massively compounded by 2 accompanying factors:
1) a long unwinding of regulation - culminating in the end of Glass Steagall - that allowed investment banks to behave like they were covered by the Fed as retail banks are - this led directly to an increase in risk-taking by the T00-Big-T0-Fail
2) a wholesale bipartisan policy to expand home ownership to poorer folks - as home ownership was deemed to be the ultimate achievement of society / and has the added benefit of making people more manageable as they would have a more concrete stake in the community - this led directly to sub-prime
• We will only get truly past the GFC when tech can pick up the slack in global employment
