-From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1892 short-story Silver Blaze
You may think of the above dialogue, when you consider what has happened to the 662-page report on the causes of the Great Recession released in late January by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Some people were hoping the report would make a big splash, and focus national attention on the need to curb the excessive speculation in derivatives, for example, that helped bring about the Great Recession of 2008.
Some extreme optimists may thought the report might have helped build a case for the US to start working to return to the days when it was known better for exporting manufactured goods than exotic financial instruments and other paper assets of fleeting value.
If you are one of those people – I should say, if you are one of us – then things have not worked out exactly as you expected.
While I doubt they thought Americans would march on Wall Street with pitchforks and torches after reading the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report , the commissioners must have hoped it would by now have ignited a wider debate and discussion.
However, it hasn’t caught on just yet. The dog hasn’t barked, you might say. (It should be noted that there was not unanimity among commission members regarding the report’s final findings, so the dissenting members may be pleased by this course of events.)
To ensure that the commission’s work does not fade totally from public view, Phil Angelides, the commission’s head, has taken to writing opeds urging Americans to “take a look at our report and the evidence we gathered by visiting www.fcic.gov, and make your own assessments about how we got into this mess.”
Says Angelides: “As our elected representatives and regulators weigh the implementation of the financial reforms already enacted, it is up to all of us to let them know we are vigilant and wiser. Knowing the facts of this crisis is a place to begin. None of what happened was an act of God. The greatest tragedy would be to accept the notion that no one could have seen this crisis coming, and thus nothing could have been done. If we accept this notion, it will happen again.”
With an online version that is 662 pages in total, the commission’s report serves up far more in the way of facts and background on the financial crisis than many people will ever want to absorb.
I cannot say I have read the entire report, but the parts I have read show that the financial crisis was indeed not an act of God. It was the outcome of many factors, some obvious and some not so obvious, and of conscious actions (or lack of action) on the part of many people and institutions – again, some of them visible, and some not so visible.
Phil Angelides is right – to avoid the next financial crisis, the first step is for everyone to know the facts that led to the most recent one. May his opeds succeed in drawing more attention to the commission’s findings.
