Part 7/11:
As the U.S. financial sector continued its trajectory of deregulation, parallels became evident: both Iceland and the U.S. faced crises driven by excessive risk-taking and inadequate oversight. The rise of the U.S. financial sector since the 1980s, against a backdrop of ever-weakening regulations, led to recurrent severe economic crises, each increasingly damaging yet profitable for Wall Street.
Historic economic growth was achieved without significant crisis for four decades following the Great Depression, primarily due to stringent regulations. Yet by the late 1990s, increasing consolidation in the financial industry eroded these protections, leading to the rise of investment banks that became 'too big to fail.'