ABSTRACT
The quote from Shiller condenses what has been the overall credo of the financial service sector and for all those who believed in it. Easy access to cheap money for everybody – this was the promise the financial sector conveyed to all consumers worldwide, in line with the promises Bill Clinton made in his election campaign that every US citizen has a ‘right’ to his or her privately owned home. Social and financial inclusion – to bring in the language of the EU3 – is the automatic result of the release of market powers. The 2007/2008 global financial crisis tells a different story, and it is far from being over. Much has been written on the reasons behind the crisis, at the global as well as at the European level, on the
1 This chapter is part of the ERC research project on European Regulatory Private Law; see <https://blogs.eui.eu/erc-erpl/>;. I would like to thank Guido Comparato, Norbert Reich, Antonio Marcacci, Thomas Roethe, Klaus Tuori, Annika Wolf for their critical and most helpful comments. Responsibility is mine.
