Originally Posted by Relentless

The bubbles are cyclical, the growth is not. When the tech boom happened a bubble ran up the stock market and that bubble burst. Up and down for sure. However the sustained growth of our economy from that tech boom is still felt in a massive way through every part of our economy. Cisco, Google, Apple, Microsoft, a massive increase in productivity from every other sector benefiting from their innovations. When Railroads were built there was a massive bubble that was cyclical, but there is also residual growth of our economy that is still felt to this day every time you get a product that was shipped via rail. Steel still has a profound impact on our society... so does electricity.

So tell me, what benefit long term did AIG and the Banks bring to our society with the mortgage bubble? How exactly did mortgage derivatives spur innovation or real economic growth? They were a short term wealth re-distributor in which taxpayers and defaulting mortgagees had their money shifted to banks too big to fail and the guys who made the door handles. That's great if you made the door handles, but not economic growth.