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The mortgage lending debacle and global warming are two crises that are grabbing the headlines, and on the surface, they appear to have nothing in common. Take a closer look and it's the same story -- two peas in a pod. For one thing, there's no end in sight to either crisis. And for another, the following moral explains them both:

Let society at large foot the bill for the crisis as long as

• the culprits can keep doing business as usual
• those that protect them can stay in power.

Here are the five fundamental attributes that the two crises share.