The key driver of the Financial Crisis of 2007–2008 is the interplay of the following six forces, each of which can be linked to the misperception, misunderstanding, and the active hiding of the risks of consequential but low probability events (“Black Swans”) by those that stood to benefit from the obscuring of consequential risk. Other diagnoses, for example those of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, focus more on epiphenomenal aspects of the crisis such as excessive borrowing, risky investments, opacity of markets, or failures of corporate governance. The immediate precursor to the Crisis was the collapse of the se- curitized residential.
