“My take is that the ‘08 crisis was the huge result of a number of huge disasters —oil, housing, stocks, and a massive loony leftwing war on businesses. We could have handled any one or two of those, but all at the same time was just too much.”
You are spot on. There were a multitude of weaknesses and excess. I’m one of the ones that think the huge spike in oil was what sent the house of cards tumbling but it was like “the perfect storm”.
--which would never have happened if the cards had all been properly glued together like we thought they were. It's human nature to look at gigantic historical torrents and search for some miniscule 'cause' to blame everything on. We hear it all the time --'the Fed caused the Depression', the Archduke's assassination caused World War I, slavery caused the Civil War. and on and on.