Now that we’ve had eight years to digest the most recent financial crisis, the accepted narrative puts the blame squarely on the private banking sector. The conventional wisdom goes that the greedy banksters on Wall Street – not regulated thoroughly enough – took some risky bets on sub-prime mortgages and collapsed the housing market.
It’s got all the clichés of a classic Hollywood story. The powerful Wall Street bankers play the evil villain, hell-bent on making an extra buck. The middle-class American plays the victim, just struggling to get by but now being kicked out of their homes. And in steps the hero – the federal government – to save the day by propping up the faltering economy and punishing those responsible for the collapse.
It sounds like a great story, except for one thing. It’s not the truth. The mortgage meltdown wasn’t the result of a banking system gone wild – it was just the latest example in a recurring pattern of government regulation that leads to financial crises and panics.
Through Learn Liberty’s new On Demand program, Financial Crises and Government, you’ll learn all the ways government intervention led to this environment of financial mayhem. Professors Stephen Davies, Tyler Cowen and others will take you on a journey through the wild and crazy world of financial regulations. You’ll get a history lesson about the boom and bust cycle and learn how the most recent financial meltdown is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s not that different today than it was during the Great Depression.
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