We Know How to Fight a Financial Crisis. We Should Be Doing It.

Here's an interesting chart from Josh Lerner (via Tim Duy). Instead of comparing the Great Recession to other postwar recessions in the U.S. (which have mostly been ordinary business cycle recessions), it compares the Great Recession to other financial crises. This is a better comparison since the 2007-08 crash wasn't an ordinary business cycle recession. It was a financial crisis — and by that standard we haven't done too badly. As Lerner says, this is almost certainly because "the strong...