The recession in the early 90s in Finland was partially the result of the collapse of the USSR (Finland had exclusive access to this market, despite being a Wes

The recession in the early 90s in Finland was partially the result of the collapse of the USSR (Finland had exclusive access to this market, despite being a Western democracy, since WW2) but also due to a banking sector that was liberalized too quickly in the 1980s without proper legal oversight and was giving out loans and mortgages like free cocaine to a citizenry who had no real experience of managing serious debt. People took out huge loans using their homes as collateral - either to support unviable businesses or buy that new summer cottage or boat - and were dangerously overexposed, a bit like the subprime crisis in the US in 2008. The banks of course went into panic mode and clawed back what they could. I personally know quite a few people who lost their homes in this recession, and the country took years to recover. I'm not an economist and so this is just a second-hand account of this period but it seems similar to what happened in Iceland in the early 2000s - too little oversight from government and too much greed and naivite from the people.