CIAO DATE: 02/2010
September 2009
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
One year ago, on September 14, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. The next day the Dow fell five hundred points. Soon thereafter, the government essentially nationalized AIG, made Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley into bank-holding companies, and petitioned Congress for aid. In early September, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been placed in government conservatorship. These events followed the bursting of the housing bubble. We present here three essays written by AEI scholars in the spring and summer of 2009 on the origins of the financial crisis whose reverberations we continue to feel today. Vincent R. Reinhart sets the stage by reminding us of the importance of getting the story of what happened right, as policy recommendations flow from our understanding of what occurred. He also tells us that "the narrative first written about the Great Depression was wrong in many important respects." John H. Makin and Peter J. Wallison focus on the misguided policies that contributed to the crisis. In a new Economic Outlook, Makin discusses three important lessons of the financial crisis that should be understood in order to enable a faster, more effective policy response to future crises.
Resource link: Getting the Story Right: The True Origin of the Financial Crisis [PDF] - 87K