http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/apr/19/our-giant-banking-crisis/?pagination=false
I know I have sent this before.

"What we’re in the middle of right now is what Reinhart and Rogoff call the “second great contraction”—a giant banking crisis afflicting both sides of the Atlantic, with effects that have spilled over to the entire world. The first great contraction was, of course, the Great Depression. In the past, banking crises have often led to sovereign debt crises as well, since banking collapses depress the economy, reducing government revenue, at the same time that they often require large outlays to rescue the financial system. Greece may be only the first of many stories of troubled governments; most obviously, Spain, Portugal, and Italy are all in some danger."

"What changed after World War II, and what changed it back? The obvious answer is regulation. By the late 1940s, most important economies had tightly regulated banking systems, preventing a recurrence of old-fashioned banking crises. At the same time, widespread limitations on the international movement of capital made it difficult for nations to run up the kinds of large international debts that had previously led to frequent defaults. (These restrictions took various forms, including limits on purchases of foreign securities and limits on the purchase of foreign currency for investment purposes; even advanced nations like France and Italy retained these restrictions into the 1980s.) Basically, it was a constrained world that may have limited initiative, but also left little room for large-scale irresponsibility."