question, which is -- why, by the fall of 2008, and did the cooling-off of the housing i am nothich to betterng, leads ? nancial apocalypse september 2008, the u.s. financial system, let me be clear, it imploded. it ceased to function. so why? here again, we need to change scale and go from the big picture of political economy, including the global political economy, and get nitty-gritty into how finance worked, until it stopped working. right? ok, you can see it on the handout, but in the postwar era there was 3-6-3 banking. which bankers took deposits, paying depositors 3% interest. they lend out money to customers at 6% interest. and they hit the golf course by 3:00 p.m. very simple. during the 1970's, this model was disrupted. inflation that came about in the 1970's ate into the value of those loans. and with manufacturing profits falling and the international competition, many corporations, including banks, started to do more creative things financially. banks began to create new products. instead of taking deposits, waiting for repayment for loans, they began to originate and distribute.