How Bad Was It? (II)
First, there is the matter of “what might have been†had the Federal Reserve not stepped in aggressively to end the financial panic of 2008. Many economists agree that if the Fed had not acted, the consequences could have rivaled those experienced in 1929–1933, when output fell 30 percent and the unemployment rate hit 25 percent. Second, the housing market was utterly devastated in the recession of 2007–2009, to a degree not seen since the 1930s. Read more
