Explanations run from some explosion of greed in the banking classes through massive deregulation of finance to increasing inequality and even, in some of the more bizarre diagnoses, an insistence that this is just late stage capitalism and the communist nirvana is soon to be at hand.

FORBES: What Caused The Great Financial Crash: Gary Gorton Is Right

This conservatism is perhaps a hallmark of late-stage capitalism the revolution has already happened.

FORBES: Volkwagen's People's Car Project Taps into the Wacky Energy of Post-Communist China

Spooked by the flood of foreign-built cars, President Dilma Rousseff, a onetime Marxist and late convert to capitalism, grabbed for a comfortable crutch earlier this year: tariffs.

FORBES: Why The World's Automakers Love Brazil