Im as layman as you like but bear with me: from what i understand isnt marxs central predicition of crisis all to do with "overproduction in the midst of underconsumption" - capitalists get better and better at producing stuff, so you get loads of it, then they squeeze workers wages so they can afford less and less.
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article289 i suppose the push to get everyone spending on credit cards/dodgey mortgages could be applied to that, though im not sure this is what marx had in mind.
writing in industrial revolution conditions its all a lot more to with the mechanics of physical production - i dont know as i havent read the originals, but is there much about stock market speculation? even if there is, a lot of the tricks of the bankers trade these days ('instruments'etc.) are modern inventions, that have left lots of people who studied economics in the past in the dark. i doubt kapital is much use in unpicking modern banking pracitices
i read an interesting critique of marx's predictions of crisis by paul petard in The Whinger - he sites all the cases Marx predicted the crisis would really bite and capitalism would eat itself - seemingly every year marx was sure this time it was the one, each time he was spectacularly wrong. it did make the point that marx's analysis of the structural weaknesses of capitalism appeared to be very wrong - capitalism is a lot tougher and more durable a beast than marx understood it to be.
i think in Capital theres stuff about how under capitalism morals get stripped out<that applies to this crisis - even right wingers feel that bankers got greedy and acted immorally, and that this way of act is embedded in the system
its way beyond me too - though ive had a go at a summary once or twice. TBH i struggle to read anything from before 1950 in the original - they dont talk propper!
