Financial elites sincerely believed innovation had abolished capitalism’s boom-bust cycle.

Evidence

The Bush administration consequently promoted the model of “the ownership society,” of which the cornerstones were personal responsibility, economic liberty, and asset holding. At the other end of the financial chain, the seemingly endless rise of asset value and the huge profit opportunities for creditors diffused the idea that capitalism, owing to financial innovation, had finally solved the problem of its cyclical crises. “No bust, only boom” was the new motto: a promise of uninterrupted growth and self-actualization through consumption and private ownership. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 104

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the famous ‘this time is different’ literature (Reinhart-Rogoff) and to the hubris preceding 2008. — connects to: Elite wealth recovered too fast for the crash to reorient culture downward — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 211

Broader Connections

• Elite wealth recovered too fast for the crash to reorient culture downward #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 211