Nov 06, 2008
(GMT-5)
In early September 2008, U.S. financial leaders were saying "everything is fine." Weeks later, we were being told that unless Congress voted for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, the economic system was going to collapse. What really happened? It is important to realize that this was not some sort of unavoidable "natural disaster", but a human-created failure of public policy. Chuck Collins, director of IPS' program on Inequality and the Common Good, and Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, explained the basics and background of the financial crisis and gave a break down of the economic meltdown and its causes -- and what lies ahead in 2009.
