What does make me sad was that I thought (being extremely naive) that the Crash of 2008 might have a positive effect on technology, by reversing the "talent gra

What does make me sad was that I thought (being extremely naive) that the Crash of 2008 might have a positive effect on technology, by reversing the "talent graveyard" effect of finance. The crash, and the policy response to it, are basically the reason why The Startup Scene looks like it does. We have banks full of cheap capital from QE but nowhere to lend it because aggregate demand is weak, large corporations with lots of cash on hand from cheap labor and asset appreciation, but nowhere to spend it because aggregate demand is weak. Banks can't just sit on the money because they're not allowed to, and large corporations can only use so much as dividends or cash reserve before people start to wonder if they have any business plan at all. The current startup scene is mostly an arbitrage trade on this scenario. You acquire liquid capital on the cheap, convert it into a little unit of fixed capital (i.e. startup firm) and sell it at a markup to a motivated buyer (i.e. cash-rich BigCorp who desperately needs the appearance of a forward looking business plan). And really, this is the kind of inefficient market where something like credentials would become more important.