Hyman Minsky wrote during the late twentieth century, explaining why political rhetoric has masked the financial forces that have caused significant amplification of economic cycles since the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system. The primary target of his attack was the (still) dominant neoclassical school of economic thought, which has continued to deny many of the economic dimensions of the financial crisis that started during 2008 as “myths.” In criticizing this neoclassical school's adoption of “real business cycle” models that abstract from cycles driven by financial markets, Minsky wrote:

In writing this book, we have at times focused on Minsky's favorite link between economic activity and financial market structure and regulation. However, we have also suggested, perhaps in the same spirit, that understanding the overall cycle, and the potential for severe crises if the cycle was not regulated properly, would require understanding the links to resource economics, especially energy markets, and geopolitical developments in the part of the world where most of those resources are located.