The last financial crisis started in September 2008, and while market conditions have changed in the following decade, self-destructive behavior remains in the national consciousness.
Irrationality and self-delusion were part of the last financial crisis, and will be part of the next crisis as well, according to senior editor at large for Fortune Geoff Colvin. Citing recent survey data showing that 48 percent of respondents do not think the stock market has grown in the past decade, Colvin suggests that many Americans are still fearful of the world of finance. Additionally, experts are subject to self-delusion, "former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, a hyperrational libertarian for 40-plus years, confessed before a congressional committee he was 'shocked' that his model of “the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works” didn’t work."
Ten years after the weekend that upended the financial world, its most important lessons lie not in what has changed, vast and profound though that is, but in what hasn’t changed. The main causes of the last crisis—human self-delusion and irrationality—will be the main causes of the next one. If that seems unbearably depressing, cheer up: It tells us what to watch out for.
