The Most Important Direct Causes of the Economic Crisis of 2008

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* Housing Bubble Warning Indicator Report for Public
* The Big Housing Bubble Resulted in Many Smaller Bubbles
* Inadequate Thinking Has Allowed the Recent Economic Crisis
* Evidence of Inadequate Thinking & Problem Solving from my Book End the Biggest Educational & Intellectual Blunder in History (2005)
* Other Evidence of Inadequate Thinking
* The Most Important Direct Causes of the Economic Crisis of 2008
* The Big Housing Bubble

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Main Indirect Cause

Previously I pointed out that the failure of our education leaders to teach the scientific method of problem solving over the years is the main indirect cause.

Main Direct Causes

Lack of honesty or excessive greed, or bad ethics, or not enough attention paid to quality control

If Wall Street financiers had been more honest or less greedy, or had better ethics or paid more attention to quality control, the huge amount of poor quality mortgage derivatives would never have been foisted onto unsuspecting investors, causing the economic crisis of 2007-2008.
If the mortgage brokers, issuers, and accumulators had been more honest or less greedy, or had better ethics or paid more attention to quality control, the supply of subprime and subpar mortgages would not have been available to meet the demands of Wall Street financiers.
If the security rating agencies had been more honest or less greedy, or had better ethics or paid more attention to quality control, the Wall Street financiers would not have been able to sell such huge amounts of subpar mortgage derivatives.

More Detailed Information on the Above

The May/June 2009 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review contains an article by Dean Starkman entitled "Blindness: The Media and the Meltdown." This article gives a lot of information about the above as well as an analysis of the media failure to better report on the developments over the years that caused the meltdown.

New Regulations

Congress and government officials are currently discussing new regulations for the financial community. Unless they include a code of honesty or ethics, they may not be as effective as planned.