Should we blame the geeks?
Buried away in the Guardian technology section is a fascinating story that suggests that automatic trading by computers has been a contributory factor in the financial crisis.
It might be better to see this as a symptom, rather than a cause. Computer trading in products that few can understand is a result of a particular model of how banking and finance should work – one that now ought to go.
Roger Darlington’s Nighthawk blog also discusses this.