The lesson of history, then, is that even as institutions and policy makers improve, there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits. Just as an individual can go bankrupt no matter how rich she starts out, a financial system can collapse under the pressure of greed, politics and profits no matter how well regulated it seems to be.

Technology has changed, the height  of humans has changed, and fashions have changed. Yet the ability of governments and investors to delude themselves , giving rise to periodic bouts of euphoria that usually ends in tears, seems to have remained a constant. No careful reader of Friedman and Schwartz will be surprised by this lesson about the ability of government to mismanage financial markets.

From This Time is Different – Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff

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