We keep having debt crises because we, as a species, keep making the same mistakes. Yes, we learn from those mistakes. We always vow not to make them again. But later generations take no such vows, so flawed human nature soon reasserts itself. This may be why the Big Debt Cycle, as Ray describes it, typically lasts around 80 years, the length of a human lifetime. (Funny how that also follows The Fourth Turning and George Friedman's "institutional crisis†cycle.) Followers of libertarian/Austrian economic i ...