Clark Center Forum

Like a monster from an old horror movie, the Treasury plan keeps coming back from the dead. Yes, we are in a financial crisis that needs urgent, determined, and clear-eyed help from the Government. But this plan is fundamentally flawed. It won’t even work, leaving aside its horrendous cost and long-lasting damage to the financial […] 

Some faculty perspectives from the Chicago GSB “lunchroom” Four faculty members from the Chicago GSB’s Initiative on Global Markets chat informally about the latest events in the housing and credit crisis — and about the government’s efforts to deal with it. Watch video > 

The Wall Street Journal – Sept. 26th, 2008 The American financial system is in deep trouble. Regulatory moves to guarantee money market funds, the conversion of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs into bank holding companies, and the Treasury’s asset purchase proposal have staved off a crisis for now. These hurried actions have also bought us […] 

We have a full blown panic in financial markets. Any but the safest assets are being heavily discounted.  Policy makers have to be thinking in more radical terms than they have done so far to fight the contagion.  But that is no reason to do the wrong thing. View PDF > 

As opposition mounts to the Treasury Department’s $700 billion behemoth of a banking bailout package the ideas for alternatives are starting to fly fast and furiously around the halls of Congress and beyond. Sen. Chuck Schumer asked why so much money needed to be injected into the mortgage and credit markets in one fall swoop—why […] 

Op-ed The Wall Street Journal – Sept. 24th, 2008 The financial system is the heart of our economy and it is in trouble. If we do not fix it soon, we risk a serious recession. Read more > 

Op-ed Daily News – Sept. 24th, 2008 Read more > 

Anil K Kashyap and Jeremy Stein Op-ed The New York Times – Sept. 23rd, 2008 Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, has opened the government checkbook and is poised to spend $700 billion to end the financial crisis. What comes next depends on the precise mission and operating powers he and Congress assign the new Treasury […] 

There are alternatives to a massive government bailout of the U.S. financial industry, according to Luigi Zingales–they just would be more costly for financiers and cheaper for taxpayers. Read more >