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The Great Recession: Causes, Consequences, and Responses

The Great Recession officially began in the US in December 2007 during the George W. Bush administration, and quickly spread throughout the world. Officially, it ended in the US in June 2009 when economic growth resumed. This provided scant reassurance in the face of continuing high unemployment, an ongoing foreclosure crisis, depressed consumer spending, and widespread material insecurity. At the time of this writing, the recession’s subsequent economic malaise, which continues to weigh heavily on the daily lives of average Americans, has lasted three and a half years and counting. Current economic indicators suggest ominously the possibility of slipping back into official recession. The recession was triggered by increasing defaults and foreclosures in the subprime mortgage markets that eventually spread to other mortgage markets, corporate bonds, and commercial real estate. The crisis threatened the viability of financial institutions with deep exposure to defaults and foreclosures. First to go, in March 2008, was Bear Stearns, sold off to JPMorgan Chase at a bargain price, followed in September 2008 by a Treasury Department takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two quasi-public giants in the mortgage industry. Lehman Brothers failed soon after that when government officials refused to rescue it. Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America to rescue itself. The Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) came up with eighty-five billion dollars to shore up American International Group (AIG), dubbed “too big to fail,” also in September 2008. Surviving banks, overleveraged in a context of financial deregulation, reduced their lending, making it more difficult and expensive for both businesses and consumers to borrow. This in turn depressed consumption and investment, leading to decreased production, layoffs, and economic slowdown. The stock market plummeted, wiping out over