Make no mistake, what we've got today is a mess. And it is hard to put your finger on any one thing and say "this is the proximate cause" of the dislocation, except to maybe say "easy money." How that easy money manifested itself, however, is what makes the story so interesting. If, for a moment, we buy the argument that the US Fed kept rates too low for too long after injecting massive amounts of liquidity into the market in the wake of the tech bubble bursting in 2001, and that it neglected to sop up all those extra dollars sloshing around the system after the crisis passed, its impact has had a ripple effect that provided a window of opportunity for businesses and consumers alike through:

• Cheap consumer mortgage loans with heavily back-ended costs;

• Cheap private equity/LBO loans with weak covenants;

• Cheap hedge fund loans with easier collateral requirements; and

• An abundance of opportunity through the "carry trade" across markets and asset classes.

And when I think about this from a historical perspective, it seems to me like a synthesis of the Savings & Loan (S&L) crisis of the 1980s and the junk bond implosion of the late 1980s/early 1990s. The S&L crisis was fueled by a classic blowing-up of the carry trade, as shorter-dated liabilities repriced at much higher levels much faster than longer-dated assets, causing balance sheets to bleed until capital was wiped out. Yes, the regulatory environment was a principal driver of this dislocation (as rates paid for deposits were de-regulated, causing a competitive environment for attracting financing for all those low-earning, long-dated asset portfolios), but this was a brilliant example of the carry trade gone awry.