On this topic, I always like to point to this illustration from The New York Times:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphics8.nytimes.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;2005&#x2F;06&#x2F;15&#x2F;business&#x2F;arm3.gif" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphics8.nytimes.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;2005&#x2F;06&#x2F;15&#x2F;business&#x2F;arm3...</a><p>Notice the date: 2005. That was around the time I started asking around, &quot;How can I short the housing market?&quot;<p>I felt relieved reading The Big Short because it revealed that there wasn&#x27;t any way to do so at the time, especially for a little schmuck like me. And even the guy who eventually figured out how to do it, Michael Burry, ended up fantastically wealthy and, according to Michael Lewis, deeply embittered.<p>On this article, I agree that trying to treat the Housing Bubble and Financial Crisis as independent events seems disingenuous. (Are there really serious people trying to do this?)<p>Nevertheless, I question this claim:<p><i>We are supposed to feel good about this because it saved us from a Second Great Depression. But there was nothing about the collapse of these banks which would have condemned us to a decade of double-digit unemployment.</i><p>I abhor Wall St. and the industrial-finance complex it has created almost as much as any Teapartier or Wall-Street-Occupier. But I don&#x27;t understand the scenario where those firms collapse and civilization as I know isn&#x27;t put in, if not serious peril, then unnecessary peril.