America Thrives on Free Markets, Crises and All
Alex J. Pollock | Centennial Review
March 01, 2012

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The latest "never before" is the financial panic of 2007-09, with its massive losses America Thrives on Free Markets, Crises and All

Download PDF  still reverberating through the economy. Yet that crisis, on closer examination, displays the classic patterns of recurring credit cycles.  In the bubble that preceded the panic, housing prices and mortgage borrowing rose to unsustainable heights and then crashed back to earth.


Millions of mortgage borrowers ended up owing more on their homes than the properties were worth. The housing wealth that people thought they had fell by about $7 trillion. Defaults on mortgages soared. 

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About the Author

 

Alex J.
Pollock
  • Alex Pollock joined AEI in 2004 after thirty-five years in banking. He was president and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. He is the author of numerous articles on financial systems and the organizer of the “Deflating Bubble” series of AEI conferences. In 2007, he developed a one-page mortgage form to help borrowers understand their mortgage obligations. At AEI, he focuses on financial policy issues, including housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, retirement finance, corporate governance, accounting standards, and the banking system. He is the lead director of CME Group, a director of Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and the International Union for Housing Finance, and chairman of the board of the Great Books Foundation.

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  • Phone: 2028627190
    Email: apollock@aei.org

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    Name: Emily Rapp
    Phone: (202) 419-5212
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