ugh to allow the argument that the financial system does suffer from a certain degree of fragility. In the post-war period, after an almost complete absence of crises until the mid 60's, the financial system has been at strain on many occasions including the 1966 credit crunch, the 1969-70 and 1974-75 crises, the 3rd world debt problem of the early 80's and the stock market crash of 1987.
             Again a casual observation of financial crises will find a wide variety of different causes and forms as each crisis seems to have occurred in response to a unique set of accidents and unfortunate coincidences. But quoting Kindleberger "for historians each event is unique. Economics, however, maintains that certain forces in society and nature behave in repetitive ways". Indeed, it is not difficult to distinguish a rough pattern which has been graphically presented by Minsky : crises tend to occur at the peak of the business cycle following a period of "euphoria". This has probably been initiated by some exogenous shock to the macroeconomic system ("displacement") which results in new profit opportunities. The boom is fuelled by an expansion of bank credit as new banks are formed, new financial instruments are introduced and personal credit outside the banks increases. During that period there is extensive "overtrading", a not very clear concept which generally refers to speculation for a price rise, or an overestimation of prospective returns due to euphoria. This stage is also often referred to as a "mania" emphasising its irrationality and "bubble" predicting the collapse.
             Eventually, some insiders decide to take their profits and sell out and the increase in prices begins to moderate. A period of "distress" may then occur until speculators realise that the market can only go downwards. The crisis may be precipitated by some specific signal such as a bank or firm failure or a revelation of a swindle; the later are quite frequent in such circumst...