Actually, there were a decent number of doom sayers out there some years before the crash actually happened predicting pretty much what happened, though possibly this crash was somewhat larger than those doomsayers were imagining, but they were saying a big "correction" was coming in the not too distant future. And they were targetting the sub-prime lending boondoggle as a major risk. And these doom sayers were not tinhat crackpots, they were and are economists of a high calibre.

Also, since the great depression there virtually hasn't been a decade where a crash of some magnitude hasn't happened. And there were considerable market crashes before the great depression. Despite the hopes, dreams and political salesmanship of all the cheerleaders, the boom times are never permanent and a bust will always come around. At least until we have some fundamental economic and political reform. Smart people would have predicted a crash of some sort some time before or just after 2010, and they would have structured their business investments accordingly.

Certainly Sony was no less willfully blind that virtually every other company to the realities of our economic cycles. But it doesn't mean we should say no one saw this coming.

Fukushima is a different story. Though those ageing nuclear plants with way less than state of the art safety features and protocols, in a country known to have earthquakes, were also an accident waiting to happen. And short-sighted under investment on upgrading to new and safe nuclear power plants is another failure of the system which people should have seen as a serious problem that should be dealt with. Not Sony's fault, but Japan was living on borrowed time with those plants, and it seems people don't learn from past disasters with first and 2nd generation nuclear generation plants.

None of it was Sony's fault, but it does appear they carried on like the party was never going to end, which is their fault.

Actually, there were a decent number of doom sayers out there some years before the crash actually happened predicting pretty much what happened, though possibly this crash was somewhat larger than those doomsayers were imagining, but they were saying a big "correction" was coming in the not too distant future. And they were targetting the sub-prime lending boondoggle as a major risk. And these doom sayers were not tinhat crackpots, they were and are economists of a high calibre.

Also, since the great depression there virtually hasn't been a decade where a crash of some magnitude hasn't happened. And there were considerable market crashes before the great depression. Despite the hopes, dreams and political salesmanship of all the cheerleaders, the boom times are never permanent and a bust will always come around. At least until we have some fundamental economic and political reform. Smart people would have predicted a crash of some sort some time before or just after 2010, and they would have structured their business investments accordingly.

Certainly Sony was no less willfully blind that virtually every other company to the realities of our economic cycles. But it doesn't mean we should say no one saw this coming.

Fukushima is a different story. Though those ageing nuclear plants with way less than state of the art safety features and protocols, in a country known to have earthquakes, were also an accident waiting to happen. And short-sighted under investment on upgrading to new and safe nuclear power plants is another failure of the system which people should have seen as a serious problem that should be dealt with. Not Sony's fault, but Japan was living on borrowed time with those plants, and it seems people don't learn from past disasters with first and 2nd generation nuclear generation plants.

None of it was Sony's fault, but it does appear they carried on like the party was never going to end, which is their fault.

Yes, well self delusion is a characteristic of true believers who have drunk the current politico-economic kool aid. We probably won't get a crash this decade because we're still recovering from the '08 crash. But in the 20's we're certain to have another fall. And the boom-bust cycle will continue, because collectively we refuse to learn from history, and we all know those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.