(The Housing Bubble . . bore a strange resemblance to the first minutes after the Titanic hit the iceberg - what problem?)

Not far enough distant to be considered "historic", and certainly not what one would consider the end of the story, but here is an interesting documentary produced by the BBC World Service in Sept of 2007 about the Credit Crunch and the Sub-prime lending crisis and the assessments given by the financial gurus at the time. Among others is this exchange with Lyle Gramley:

Lyle Gramley: “We’ve had dozens of mortgage companies go down the tubes. They’re not ever going to be revived again. We’ve had billions of dollars lost both here and abroad from investments in sub-prime mortgages. That money is not going to be recovered again. Eventually we’ll get over the panic, but we’re never going to go back to the sloppy underwriting standards, the sloppy investment practices we had during my lifetime, or perhaps yours either.”

BBC Interviewer: “Sure of that . . never again??

Gramley: “Not in my lifetime, or yours either. Twenty-five years from now, perhaps. But that’s a long ways down the road.”

I suppose hindsight really is 20/20, but it's pretty amazing how much this took everyone by surprise and how much denial was being heaped on an unsuspecting public.

Certainly gives pause when you hear breathless proclamations the recession is over.

Oh. . .yeah, speaking of which . .