{"id":21943,"date":"2020-03-30T09:45:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T13:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opexsociety.org\/?p=21943"},"modified":"2022-10-18T09:18:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T13:18:46","slug":"never-let-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opexsociety.org\/body-of-knowledge\/never-let-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Never let a serious crisis go to waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal<\/a> on November 19,2008, Rahm Emanuel<\/a> was quoted as saying; \u201cYou never want a serious crisis to go to waste.  And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was referring to the crisis that was to become known as the \u201cGreat Recession<\/a>\u201d that gripped much of the world, hitting hardest from 2007-2008.  It was a period when millions of people lost their homes<\/a> to foreclosure, nearly countless businesses declared bankruptcy<\/a>; many being household names such as General Motors<\/a> and Chrysler<\/a> \u2013 along with a great number of financial institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mortgage backed securities<\/a> began to cascade into failure, the sense of urgency began to build with the Federal Reserve<\/a> steadily reducing rates starting in September of 2007 to stave-off a recession.  But the trigger event for the Great Recession was the bankruptcy<\/a> of Lehman Brothers<\/a> in September of 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sent a shockwave through the world\u2019s financial system of such magnitude that its depth, breadth, and speed found the world\u2019s financiers and governments on their back-foot, scrambling to catch-up and hoping to get ahead of it.  The response was sometimes coordinated, but too often disjointed.<\/p>\n\n\n