In a presentation on the sub-prime crisis to The Economic Club of New York on April 8 2008, Paul Volcker, previously Chairman of the Federal Reserve, emphasised systemic issues, highlighting five breakdowns in the past 25 years. He emphasised "warning enough that something rather basic is amiss." Here is the warning:
"Until the New York crisis [in the seventies], the [US] had been free from any sense of financial crisis for more than 40 years. In contrast, today's financial crisis is the culmination, as I count them, of at least five serious breakdowns of systemic significance in the past 25 years – on average one every five years. Warning enough that something rather basic is amiss. The sheer complexity, opaqueness and the systemic risks embedded in the new markets – complexities and risks little-understood even by most of those with management responsibilities – has enormously complicated both official and private...