So says the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee — a group of economists charged with officially determining whether the economy is in a state of expansion or contraction:
In a new paper released today, entitled “How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End,” prominent economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi say that the stimulus, stress tests, emergency Federal Reserve maneuvers and Troubled Asset Relief Program saved the economy from collapse.
Mint has an amazing graphic of bank failures during the recession. The big early failures include IndyMac and Lehman Brothers. Then dozens of smaller banks fall apart in 2009 and 2010, unable to weather the credit crunch, rise of consumer defaults and foreclosure crisis.
Via Kevin Drum, Nathaniel Popper at the Los Angeles Times reports that the number and earnings of millionaires have bounced back strongly, though real wages, on aggregate, continue to decline as the hangover from the Great Recession lingers on.
No group was immune to the downturn. In 2008,
Via Wonkbook, this morning, the Foundation for Child Development released its annual report on the well-being of America’s children, and it should send shivers down the spine of every legislator and economic policy analyst in Washington. The report shows that on a number of metrics, particularly relating More…
Speaking to the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress last night, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke went back to his academic roots. The longtime Princeton economic historian, who specializes in the study of the Great Depression, cited the “passivity” of policymakers during the 1930s as central More…
The Obama administration’s budget blueprint for fiscal year 2011, unveiled yesterday, includes $49 billion to expand federal unemployment benefits, which otherwise expire at the end of the month. That’s more than the $41 billion the House passed in December to extend the benefits for six months, but wouldn’t More…
Here are two coinciding stories that indicate just how far removed public opinion is from economic reality. (1) The Democrats’ $787 billion economic stimulus bill has saved or created 1.2 million jobs, USA Today reported today, a median figure based on a survey of 50 leading economists. And More…
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