Ok, this diary is a question, and considering the brain-trust here at DKos, I have no doubt I'll get a smart yet well explained answer.
My sense of where the American crisis is coming from is 1) housing bubble based on sub-prime lending, 2) deregulation of investment/commercial banking split due to repeal of Glass-Steagel (sp?), 3) creation of crazy derivatives markets that allowed crazy levels of speculation which way overleveraged things on a fixed sum of collateral.
But this doesn't explain Europe to me. Did they drink our derivatives Koolaid? Did we push our policies enough on the rest of the world to make then pursue policies way too similar to ours? Or is it just that the spreading of 'risk' via hedge funds has simply made the world economy so interdependent, that we started the collapse but that started a regular old chain reaction?
I'm curious what y'all think, specially some of our resident experts . . .
thanks!