AUDIO

No one seems to know where the current turmoil in the financial markets is going. The continued unfolding of losses in subprime mortgages; the huge writeoffs by Citibank, Merrill Lynch, and other major financial players around the world; and the absence of a market for asset-backed securities are either temporary problems limited to the financial markets or harbingers of a serious recession. In a recent AEI paper, “Not (Yet) A Minsky Moment,” AEI visiting scholar Charles Calomiris concludes that the current problems in the financial markets need not cause a collapse of credit resulting in a severe economic decline. Four other AEI economists with widely divergent views will review Calomiris’s paper, provide their own assessments of the present and future of the financial markets, and identify what actions—if any—they believe policymakers should take. AEI’s Peter J. Wallison will moderate.

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