The study - by the investigative arm of Congress - is intended to help understand the pattern of financial loss in New York so as to try to focus economic reconstruction efforts.

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Until the financial crisis, the traditional pattern of bull markets began with the banks.

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If you doubt it, look at the pattern of past financial crises, going back to Richard Whitney, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, who was sent to Sing Sing in the 1930s for embezzlement.

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They think that financial markets follow natural distributions, and, I won't go into this forever, but one remark I will leave with you is the financial world follows a normal distribution pattern.

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The pattern was interrupted when the financial crisis hit and 2007 and 2008, the last two years of the Bush administration, experienced a serious bear market but the circumstances were unusual, and the few times over the last hundred years that the cycle did not hold true to form did not affect the long-term percentage of the cycle.

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The United States has clearly not escaped the historical pattern of long and slow recoveries after financial crises.

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At our second meeting, in Pittsburgh, with our recovery beginning to take hold, we agreed to work to pursue a balanced pattern of global growth, and repair our financial systems.

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Mr Dijsselbloem said the pattern for bank rescues should see shareholders take the first hit, then bondholders, who lend money through financial markets, and only then should depositors with large bank balances be tapped.

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