Quote:
Fri 24 Oct ∞ Permalink

We did, all of us. Since the 1980s, Americans have consumed more than they produced, and they have made up the difference by borrowing. Not only on the personal consumer level but in how our government runs. Every city, every county and every state has wanted to preserve its many and proliferating operations and yet not raise taxes. How to do that? By borrowing, using ever more elaborate financial instruments. Easy money plus leverage equals financial crisis.End quote.

—Fareed Zakaria, on what caused the US financial crisis.