When you suffer from a financial crisis that precipitates the worst recession since the Great Depression, the hole is quite deep.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

But I suppose we can always hope that in another 60 years, when a banking crisis next precipitates a great global recession, we'll do a slightly better job as citizens at holding the technocrats to account.

BBC: Why have we left bank reform to technocrats?

Still, it would be foolish to ignore the possibility that the repercussions of the present crisis will be made much more far-reaching if it precipitates the sort of panic that took hold after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in 1979 or the oil leak off Santa Barbara a decade earlier.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: The oil leak's silver lining?