It was like watching a Lamborghini fall apart. Over just a few weeks this year, the supposedly precision-engineered global financial system failed spectacularly – and the influential “rocket scientists” employed by banks to forecast risk didn’t see it coming.
Colossal losses on dodgy home loans drove giant financial firms to the brink of disaster, and sometimes beyond. Governments had little choice but to intervene, at huge cost: bailing out banks, guaranteeing loans and slashing taxes and interest rates. Their desperate efforts may yet fail to fend off a downturn to rival the Great Depression.
How could it all have gone so…
