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The Unexamined Crisis

Three years have now passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the start of the most acute phase of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. But the financial world is no safer today, because the data needed to identify what caused the crisis have been withheld.

CHICAGO – Three years have now passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the start of the most acute phase of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Is the financial world a safer place today?

Within days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the US had erected new and enormous security measures at airports throughout the country. Within a month, the US military was on the ground in Afghanistan. Within three years the US had an official report on the causes of the events of 9/11; the well-resourced expert commission that produced it identified the weaknesses of America’s national-security agencies and provided recommendations for addressing them.

But what do we have three years after the financial crisis began? To be sure, America has the 2,000-page Dodd Frank Act to show for its efforts. Unfortunately, few of those pages address any problem suspected to have caused the financial crisis.

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