Introduction

The monetary and financial disaster that got here to a head within the late summer season of 2008 has introduced forth an enormous authorities response, many components of that are with out precedent. The disaster, nonetheless, didn’t come from nowhere. In vital regards, its roots lie, first, in authorities insurance policies to advertise extra widespread homeownership than would happen in a free market and, second, within the Federal Reserve System’s mismanagement of rates of interest and the cash inventory. The disaster is much from over, but it already seems that the surge of extraordinary authorities actions and the brand new insurance policies that the disaster has provoked will give rise to vital, everlasting will increase within the authorities’s measurement, scope, and energy. On this manner, it mimics the nationwide emergencies of the previous century.