I put forward for discussion these causes for the financial crisis which was triggered by peak oil (2005-2008) as already described here by Gail:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5047#more

(1) re-cycled petro dollars accumulated as debt in the US

(2) failure of governments to pass on Colin Campbell's peak oil warnings (1996-1999 ...etc.) to banks, the corporate sector and to the electorate
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/Campbell/commons.htm

(3) embellished oil production projections of the international energy agencies (the IEA's WEO 1998 was the last report in which peak oil was explicitly mentioned)

(4) an assumption of perpetual growth (i.e. the naive belief that the physical economy can grow at compound interest rates as required by financial instruments)

(5) over-confidence that market forces will solve energy supply constraints

(6) expectation of miracle technologies while ignoring the laws of thermodynamics which control the transformation of energy

(7) build-up of over capacities in oil-dependent infrastructure as a result of (2) - (6)

(8) fill in here ......... but don't just blame the greedy bankers