Category Archives: Week 15: Great Recession

When the Great Recession began to embed itself in the fabric of our economy, conservative values that had guided economic policymaking were turned on their head. Deregulation, or the lack of government involvement in the market, was no longer possible without what Jonathan Levy refers to as a economic Armageddon in his book Ages ofContinue reading “The Shock of the Great Recession”

The Obama administration response was conservative consensus. Though it launched the largest fiscal stimulus in U.S. history and advocated for financial reform, those measures were designed to stabilize and fix the existing system of capitalism, not to reorganize it. The fundamental economic model—asset price inflation, financialization, and hopes about markets—remained intact. The government protected largeContinue reading “Finance”

After the 2007–2008 financial crisis, it felt like something had to change. Not just in terms of fixing the economy, but in how we thought about the economy itself. The crash made clear that relying on the market to fix itself had failed—and not in a small way, but in a way that affected millionsContinue reading “At This Point, Are You Really Surprised There Was An Underlying Face Behind The Economic Recovery?”

I believe that the Obama administration’s response to the economic recession represented a departure from the conservative consensus. Obama’s administration allowed the federal government to play a more active role in the economy in order to try and lessen the crisis. President Obama highlighted this during his campaign, stating that the “government must play anContinue reading “The Great Recession”

The Great Recession of 2007–2008 was a massive economic crisis that revealed how flawed some of the concepts behind U.S. economic policies were, particularly the idea that free markets and less government intervention would always succeed. When Barack Obama took office as president in 2009, his reaction to the crisis was inconsistent. At times heContinue reading “The Great Recession”

In Ages of American Capitalism, Jonathan Levy provides a sweeping explanation of the Great Recession, arguing that it was not a rare or unexpected event, but rather a result of how today’s financial capitalism works. Levy situated the 2007-08 crisis not as a random “credit tsunami” or unforeseeable disaster, but as a logical outcome ofContinue reading “Illusion of Stability”

Before the Great Recession of 2007-08, both the United States and the global economy were tied to an economic system that eventually, in 2007, broke down. In their chapter on the Great Recession, Jonathan Levy talks about how the economic system used broadly in economic circles had a major flaw of liquefied assets that manyContinue reading “Liquid and Illiquid Assets: The Bane of Banks”

Once Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the facade that the banking industry showed the world cracked and subsequently shattered. The housing bubble popped, the stock market crashed, and the hope for complete deregulation was quickly dashed. Levy opens Chapter 22 with the quote, “We are fighting for liquidity,” a sentiment shared amidst the tension beforeContinue reading “The Fall of Lehman Bros. and the 2008 Recession”

The Great Recession of 2007–2008 marked one of the most significant economic downturns in modern history, shaking the foundations of global markets and challenging long-held beliefs about free-market capitalism. At the heart of this crisis was a deep reckoning with the principles of the conservative economic consensus—particularly the faith in unregulated markets and minimal governmentContinue reading “Obama’s Response to the Great Recession”

The Great Recession of 2007-2008 did indeed shake many of the central tenants of the conservative consensus as this consensus was essentially built on what many believed to be the free-market system which was assumed to be the most efficient type of market system out all of the market systems. The Great Recession of 2007-2008,Continue reading “Barack Obama’s Administration: Continuation of Conservative Consensus?”