It's quite amazing that with all the "we can't let this happen again" talk, we keep walking down the same road. Government responded to the 2000/2001 recession by dropping interest rates too low and keeping them there for too long, fueling a new wave of speculation. Now we're doing the same thing. The problem is that Government focuses on regulation aimed at the last crisis, which does nothing to avert the next, and ignores the need for incentive management on the macro level. Trying to use regulations to suppress risk-taking in a cheap money environment is a waste of time, you can't regulate against an overwhelming incentive. It's like keeping gas cheap and then trying to force people not to use it. Cheap gas gets burned, cheap (or free) money gets risked.

Again, over-intervention during down cycles, under-intervention during up cycles...