"The crisis is over”. Ben Bernanke, 2010.
The Greatest Lie Ever Told
2008 wasn’t a crisis. It was a reveal.
It pulled back the curtain on a global financial system that was already hollowed out, zombified, and rigged from top to bottom. Derivatives, liar loans, mark-to-myth accounting, and risk sliced into tranches so complex even the engineers couldn’t explain them.
And when it all imploded?
They didn't fix anything.
They bailed out the arsonists, threw money at the flames, and declared victory while the foundations smouldered beneath their feet.
Fifteen years later, that fire still burns.
QE Infinity: The New Normal
In 2008, we were told quantitative easing (QE) was a temporary emergency measure. Like TARP. Like ZIRP. Like "transitory" inflation.
Fast-forward to today:
Global debt is over $300 trillion.
Central banks own record amounts of government debt and toxic paper.
Interest rates were held near zero for a decade, and then jacked up, almost overnight, to contain the monster they created.
The banking system still runs on leverage, opacity, and narrative.
The 2008 crisis wasn’t “resolved”, it was delayed, inflated, and globalised.
The Real Legacy of 2008: Financial Repression and Permanent Bailouts
The biggest banks didn’t die, they got bigger.
The worst actors didn’t get jailed, they got jobs in government.
The middle class didn’t recover, they got cheap credit and a house of cards mortgage market that made 2007 look conservative.
The Fed, ECB, BOE, BOJ, they became addicted to intervention. There is no free market. There is no price discovery. There is only central planning in drag.
And every time a shock hits the system?
Repo panic (2019)? Inject liquidity.
Pandemic lockdown (2020)? $9 trillion in fiscal and monetary heroin.
Inflation breakout (2022)? Panic hikes, and even more inflation.
We’re not in a recovery. We’re in perpetual triage.
The Everything Bubble Is Just the GFC in 4K Resolution
You know what’s worse than a housing bubble?
An everything bubble.
Stocks inflated by buybacks funded with debt.
Bonds yielding less than inflation for a decade.
Real estate driven by speculative FOMO and cheap money.
Private equity zombified with leverage.
Cryptos and NFTs turned into pump-and-dump casinos by VC liquidity.
Every asset class is now a hostage to central bank policy. One wrong move, and the illusion shatters.
2008 was the tremor.
We’re still waiting on the quake.
2008 Was the Fork in the Road, We Took the Coward’s Path
In 2008, the world had a choice:
Reset the system, punish fraud, let bad debt clear, and rebuild from solid ground.
Or:
Paper over the losses, socialise the risk, inflate the bubbles again, and pretend it's all fine.
We chose cowardice.
And now we’re trapped.
Trapped in a debt spiral that requires exponential growth to avoid collapse.
Trapped in a trust crisis where no institution believes the others.
Trapped in a centralised system that punishes savers, subsidises fraud, and rewards political obedience.
They didn’t solve the 2008 crisis. They institutionalised it.
Final Thought: You Are the Collateral
The banks were saved. The corporations were saved. The asset prices were saved.
You weren’t.
The 2008 crisis never ended. It simply changed form.
Now you live in its aftermath:
Your money loses value every year.
Your savings are taxed invisibly through inflation.
Your choices are limited by compliance, capital controls, and coercion.
Your future is mortgaged to service a system that should have been left to die in 2008.
The West is in a permanent bailout loop, and there is no endgame that doesn’t involve monetary debasement, social unrest, or authoritarian control.
2008 was not the end. It was the beginning. Welcome to the long unwind.
Well done!