Current Crisis Resembles '08 -- With Key Differences
NEW YORK -- History repeats. You just don't expect it to repeat this quickly.</br></br>There are eerie parallels between this week's chaos in global financial markets and the dislocations of the 2008 financial crisis. Yet there are also significant differences, which investors, still smarting from past crisis, should bear in mind.</br></br>But first, the spooky stuff:</br></br>1. As a crisis trigger, Greece is analogous to the subprime mortgages market in 2007, since it also represents a relatively small, low-profile sector of its broader asset class.</br></br>When the Greek government first revised up its budget deficit estimates late last year, few predicted it would eventually put the entire euro zone at risk--much as few foresaw the initial subprime mortgage defaults threatening the entire U.S. financial system.