What lessons have you learned from the financial crisis?   Did you catch the most important lesson?   It wasn’t about the dangers of leverage nor the malfeasance by banksters and fraudsters.  It wasn’t about the dangers of diversification or lack thereof in the stock market.

The main lesson I learned from the financial crisis is that at the end of the day, every single person is out there only for himself or herself.   Did you prudently save a large amount of money and only see it nearly disappear in the puff of smoke known as mortgage fraud?   Did your bank almost go down and leave you with nothing?   Is it possible that your bank  may still go down and leave you with nothing?

The financial shocks of 87, 98, 2001, 2007 seem to be getting closer and closer and greater in magnitude as time moves on and at this rate, we can expect to see another major blow up 2012 if not sooner.   Perhaps we’ve never really recovered from the 70′s crashes or perhaps the 60′s crashes or perhaps this is just the way it is but the serious demographic changes in the boomer population don’t bode well for the future of the stock market.

Based on my calculations, I expect boomers to start cashing out in droves around 2012 but perhaps this whole death tax thing may accelerate that as heirs cash out of the market.   No matter what happens, don’t expect anyone to come to your rescue as the most important lesson is that you’re on your own.