In all of the examples you mention it was understood by people paying attention the level of risk. I knew there would be a housing bubble and crisis in 2001 because I read an article on mises.org that pointed out the two factors: (Clinton era CRA "reforms" forcing people to lend money to those who couldn't repay, because doing otherwise was "racist", an issue brought up by Barack Obama's class action lawsuit... which, by the way, turned out to be false- when corrected for income there was no racial bias in lending during the period) and Bush's policy of lending money lower then the real cost of it (a result of the dotcom bubble, and by the way, a police that is currently in action inflating the new bubble.)
I knew citibank was in trouble. I looked into Worldcom, Enron and Tyco back then as investments and didn't like their books.
While the average person may not read a companies annual reports, and the average person may not think about the consequences of forcing banks to lend money and then giving them money at a rate below the market rate, but happily buying the resulting loans (via fannie mae) at market rates... those who are paying attention can.
Well, I did slowly get back into the market after 2008. I am in my 60s so my investments are very diversified. I am going for safety, in a chaotic world, rather than trying for maximum growth.
This gives you %6 per year. That's great compared to CDs and Bonds but it's not a great return compared to stocks historically. (I think since WWII it was %10 for broader indexes?)
I knew citibank was in trouble. I looked into Worldcom, Enron and Tyco back then as investments and didn't like their books.
While the average person may not read a companies annual reports, and the average person may not think about the consequences of forcing banks to lend money and then giving them money at a rate below the market rate, but happily buying the resulting loans (via fannie mae) at market rates... those who are paying attention can.
In those cases the info is publicly available.