What if the Global Financial Crisis was far worse

Scarily enough, it could well have been. If Paulson's plan hadn't grudgingly been passed by Congress, if Brown hadn't been so vocal on what to do (I hate to think what that idiot Osbourne would have done from Number 11) then things could have become very nasty indeed. I don't think that capitalism would have collapsed completely but we would have gone into a full-blown depression.
 
Yes, Osbourne might have done something really ridiculous, like guarantee the deposits in Northern Rock, and stop it collapsing so badly it needed nationalising. Thank Christ we had Brown to sort that mess out
 
Yes, Osbourne might have done something really ridiculous, like guarantee the deposits in Northern Rock, and stop it collapsing so badly it needed nationalising. Thank Christ we had Brown to sort that mess out
Yes, well, they did screw the pooch over the whole Northern Rock mess. That said, imagine what things would have been like if Darling had allowed Carclays Capital to buy the almighty mess that was Lehman Bros?
 
well if you didn't bail out AIG, and the credit default swap market was immolated, you would have seen the world wide collapse, not only of the financial markets/banks but also of the bond markets... you could have seen the dow go down to 2500... unemployment could easily have hit 20 percent 35percent unemplooyment/underemployment
 
What if that had been reality? Would capitalism or free enterprise still exist?

Of course....unless somebody abolishes it and turns an economy towards Communism. Even widespread nationalisations (i.e. in most nations just turning back time a few decades) wouldn't stop a country being essentially capitalist.

Failure of markets is a different things. If for reasons of the financial crisis, certain financial instruments are not traded any more, or credits not given, then this means that a market is (for the time being) not working - but the decisions of market participants to act that way are still basically capitalistic.
 
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