Not all the causes of the 2008-09 financial crisis were economic ones: the Iraq war played a role too, says Jeremy Warner, assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph.

"Iraq couldn't be described as the start of it. That more correctly came from the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and then a year later from the shock to confidence of Sept. 11," he writes.

"But it very much fitted the pattern by which all economic setbacks and shocks, rather than being allowed to run their course, are answered with another heavy dose of supposedly counteractive monetary activism."

The war triggered use of the "Greenspan put," Warner says, referring to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. And what is that put? "The reassuring knowledge that whenever disaster threatened, the cavalry of the Fed could always be relied on to come riding over the hill," Warner explains.

The Fed was relied upon to protect the economy from the 1987 stock market crash onward, he says.

"As each bubble burst, the monetary authorities would respond by sowing the seeds for the next one. What Iraq did was set the stage for the final, disastrous, blow-off in already grossly inflated financial markets," Warner notes.

"The financial crisis should have been a cathartic, cure all event. It has not proved so. The folly of men, and the debt markets they create, continues largely unchecked."

Speaking of the financial crisis, now that it has been over for six years, the unethical behavior at financial institutions that helped launch the catastrophe must have been cleaned up, right?

Not so fast. A survey of financial service professionals in the United States and United Kingdom, conducted by Labaton Sucharow law firm and the University of Notre Dame, shows that plenty of problems remain.

"With findings pointing to a continued disregard for ethical engagement and alarming new tactics to silence potential whistleblowers, the industry appears to be faltering in its reform efforts," the survey states.

Of the 1,223 U.S. and U.K. financial services account executives surveyed, almost 20 percent think they must engage in illegal or unethical activity to succeed. In addition, 32 percent believe compensation structures pressure employees to compromise ethical standards or violate the law.

A total of 27 percent of the respondents don't think the industry puts clients' interests first, and "an astonishing" 22 percent of respondents say they have observed or have first-hand knowledge of actual wrongdoing in the workplace.

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