In the late 1980s, senior officials of the Bank of Japan often used the expression "we are sitting on dry fire wood" to explain the precarious situation. The Bank of Japan, to send out a not-too-subtle warning, also published a research paper in 1990 on the UK’s Secondary Banking Crisis and its lessons for the Japanese financial community.
Here in the UK, for example, before the current crisis, the Bank of England repeatedly pointed out its concerns in its Financial Stability Report regarding the unusually low risk premia prevalent in the markets and the possibility of sudden drop in asset prices due to a sharp change in the assessment of risks.