Former US Senator Says 2008 Crisis Possible

Setting ourselves up for another financial crisis

By Ted Kaufman

How much do you think we should invest as a nation in order to greatly reduce or even eliminate the possibility of another financial meltdown?

I think most of us would agree we ought to spend whatever it takes. After all, the Great Recession of 2008-09 resulted in the loss of 8 million jobs and trillions of dollars in economic losses.

Who wants to risk that happening again?

If you look at the federal budget it passed, you might think Congress does. Because the two agencies most responsible for averting another meltdown have not been given the funding they need to do the job.

Effective regulation of our financial markets can't be dismissed, as it once was by some, as a big-government liberal agenda. Too many conservatives who once believed that to be true changed their minds after 2008. Even Alan Greenspan, who for years was acknowledged as "Wall Street De-Regulator in Chief," admitted after the crash that his belief that financial markets could regulate themselves was ill-conceived. In a February 2009 speech before the Economic Club of New York, the former Federal Reserve Chairman conceded the "enlightened self-interest" he had once assumed would ensure Wall Street firms maintain a "buffer against insolvency" had failed.

(Read More)