In the years leading up to the crisis, there were a number of warning signs that signalled a breakdown of basic fiduciary soundness. The following article addresses the problem of inattention to those warning signs and calls into question the commonly proposed causes of the crisis. This paper...

In 1937, in the midst of the US recovery from the Great Depression, President Roosevelt implemented spending cuts in pursuit of a balanced budget. Subsequently, the unemployment rate jumped nearly 6 percentage points over the next year and the US economy re-entered a major recession. In the...