cause and effect? information age partially causing the global financial crisis?

It's not just the information age -- virtually all technology has had some negative effects. The invention of cars was terrible for people who made horse-drawn carriages. Before that, the rise of industrialization put many skilled craftsmen out of a job and ruined the health of many factory workers. I still believe in technology, though, and I'm willing to take the bad with the good because I think the good offsets the bad. The most controversial technology is actually still developing, I think: robotics! What will people do when robots can perform most jobs that people can do? Will we all be able to live comfortably and peaceably in leisure or will people with no work to do feel disenchanted and directionless?

I'd say the information age definitely was a major factor but I see it in a different way: the trading of unregistered, unregulated, and misunderstood financial instruments across borders, made possible with the information age and communications technology, is what made a crisis whose root is in the USA morph into a global phenomenon, which in turn magnifies the fallout in the USA. Rules of regulation vary widely throughout the world and are difficult if not impossible to enforce. Safe-haven offshore accounts and shifty accounting procedures that can't be regulated effectively at the international level allow high-end criminals like Madoff to lure people to financial ruin and probably also impacted the type and level of risk fund managers were willing, or even obliged to take (to remain competitive) over the past decade. On top of that are the issues you put forward. Thanks for the topic!