A cura di @IntoBrightness e @Gima.

Un saggio dell’Economist su 5 grandi crisi economiche, con stati che salvano le banche, facendo sì che rischiare non costi loro nulla, creando le fondamenta per la crisi successiva:

As well as being global, the crash of 1857 marked another first: the recognition that financial safety nets can create excessive risk-taking. […] That step made the 1857 crisis an all-too-rare example of the state attempting to dial back its support. It also shows how unpopular cutting subsidies can be. […] In 1866 Overend & Gurney, by then a huge lender, needed emergency cash. The Bank of England refused to rescue it, wiping out its shareholders. Britain then enjoyed 50 years of financial calm, a fact that some historians reckon was due to the prudence of a banking sector stripped of moral hazard.

Ma anche fare il contrario:

Worse was to come. Bank failures came in waves.

Naturally the city bankers turned to their new backstop, the Federal Reserve. But the unthinkable happened. On March 4th the central bank did exactly what it had been set up to prevent. It refused to lend and shut its doors. In its mission to act as a source of funds in all emergencies, the Federal Reserve had failed. A week-long bank holiday was called across the nation.
It was the blackest week in the darkest period of American finance. Regulators examined banks’ books, and more than 2,000 banks that closed that week never opened again.

Discorsi applicabili alla dotcom bubble degli anni ’90, o alla dotcom bubble che ci aspetta:

But few of these new outfits had any record of dividend payments, and investors piled into their shares in the hope that they would continue to increase in value. At the same time established businesses were looking weaker as consumer prices fell. For a time the puzzle—whether to raise rates to slow markets, or cut them to help the economy—paralysed the Fed. In the end the market-watchers won and the central bank raised rates in 1928.
It was a catastrophic error.

La spartizione delle responsabilità investitori poco attenti vs banche dal credito facile:

The most remarkable thing about the crisis of 1825 was the sharp divergence in views on what should be done about it. Some blamed investors’ sloppiness: they had invested in unknown countries’ debt, or in mining outfits set up to explore countries that contained no ores. A natural reaction to this emerging-markets crisis might have been to demand that investors conduct proper checks before putting money at risk.
But Britain’s financial chiefs, including the Bank of England, blamed the banks instead. Small private partnerships akin to modern private-equity houses, they were accused of stoking up the speculative bubble with lax lending.

Oppure truffatori finanziari:

The starkest example were the “Poyais” bonds sold by Gregor MacGregor on behalf of a new country that did not, in fact, exist. This shocking fraud was symptomatic of a deeper rot. Investors were not carrying out proper checks. Much of the information about new countries came from journalists paid to promote them.

 

Immagine By Thomas Nast – Harper’s Weekly, May 23, 1874, p. 432., Public Domain, da Wikimedia Commons