The Financial Crisis in Perspective (Collection)

22. Financial Gravity

In 2007, everyone discovered what Joseph Conrad knew: “[a civilized life is] a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths.”¹ The end arrived unexpectedly, reflecting author Alexander Pope’s description of the collapse of the 1720 South Sea Bubble: “Most people thought it wou’d come but no man prepar’d for it; no man consider’d it would come like a thief in the night, exactly as it happens in the case of death.”²

Air Pockets

As interest rates increased from 1 percent to 5.25 percent per annum, reflecting higher oil and food prices, U.S. house prices stalled and then fell. Subprime mortgages predicated on low rates, rising house prices and ...