The pace and severity of financial crises have taken an ominous turn for the worse. Over the past 30 years a crisis has occurred, on average, every three years. Yet now, only 18 months after the meltdown of late 2008, Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has hit with full force. With one crisis seemingly begetting another, and the fuse between crises now getting shorter and shorter, the world economy is on a very treacherous course.
Each crisis has its poster child – from Thailand, to dotcom, to subprime. But they all have one thing in common – easy money. The “Greenspan put” – the notion that central banks would be quick and aggressive in backstopping financial market disruptions – was the short-term anaesthetic that repeatedly set the stage for the next crisis.
In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, über monetary accommodation fed the equity bubble. Once that bubble burst in 2000, another dose of extraordinary monetary ease set the stage for massive property and credit bubbles. The aftershocks of that post-bubble carnage have now brought Europe to the brink.