The Big Money makes an argument that Karl Marx had uncanny predictions of bank failure in his day, but also lessons for today:

When money is coming in, banks are blind to their problems. An inquiry into the 1857 crisis found that the Bank of England had extended far too much credit to too many speculators-sound familiar? Had the bank been more prudent in 1855 and 1856, it probably would not have had to resort to the desperate measures that accelerated the crisis. But trying to get banks to honestly analyze their situation before a crisis hits … well, that has not gotten much easier in the ensuing 150 years.

I like it when history comes into the news and tries to give lessons AFTER a crisis. The better part of the article is where Marx predicts the bank failure before it happened.