Thomas Donlan warns in his latest Barron’s editorial commentary that policymakers appear to have learned little from the last financial crisis.

Eight years after the walls of finance cracked, nothing much has changed. The banks are too big to fail. So far. The GSEs are too big to fail. So far. The U.S. government is also too big to fail. So far.

But we’re going to try again.

The U.S. learned nothing from the financial crisis. The biggest problem perceived today in the Obama administration is that the rate of home ownership is at the lowest level since 1989. Like those of the Clinton and Bush administrations, current officials talk continually about the social benefits of homeownership.

“Responsible homeownership remains a pillar of the economy and society,” said the secretary of Housing and Urban Development at a conference last week. The secretary, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, built up the benefits of equity: “For a great many people, buying a home is the best way to build wealth. For some, it may be their only vehicle for building wealth.”

Here we go again, confusing cause and effect: People who purchased homes in ancient times by working and saving to make 20% down payments made themselves strong, and many of them chose to buy homes in communities that were already healthy. The government and banking policies of the past 25 years tried to reverse the flow of logic.

With government cheering and writing new rules, the financial system loosened the standards for borrowing so more people could afford homes. This was supposed to help them join what the Bush administration called the “ownership society.” It would make them better people, and their depressed neighborhoods would become healthy.

This is how 35% of U.S. homeowners made down payments of 5% or less. This is how the price of houses boiled over in just a few years of bubbling. This is how 31% of home mortgages went underwater by early 2012, according to Zillow Real Estate Research. The frightened market cut off the fuel of cheap mortgages and easy credit, removing support for house prices.